Earlier today we pointed to a post made by X-Plane author Austin Meyer on the X-Plane forums that spoke of a rather bright future for X-Plane on the iPhone [App Store]. We’ve since learned that the future is rather close at hand. The X-Plane 9.01 update was recently submitted to Apple and should be appearing in the App Store any time now.
According to Austin, v9.01 will bring the following improvements:
- 25% frame-rate improvement! I REALLY like the increased fluidity of the sim in 9.01 thanks to this increase.
- Calibration screen for phone tilt! One guy writing a review at the AppStore said he likes to fly on the couch, and wants VERTICAL to represent neutral-elevator: Fly on, couch-dude! Just go to the SETTINGS tab in the interface and set any phone angle as neutral! Now you can relax in bed or on the couch, with vertical being the reference-point for neutral-elevator, or sit up holding the phone in your lap with HORIZONTAL being the reference-point for neutral elevator, or anything in between! Set the center-point as you see fit!
- Higher-contrast interface! One person said his eyes are a little weaker these days, so we contrasted the interface a bit more to make it easier for all to see! I managed to do this without making the interface look too harsh, I think.
- Power and flaps set for you on the final approach selections. One guy writing a review at the AppStore was rather paniced that he had to move his thumbs 1/4" to set the power and flaps on final.. the horror! So, X-Plane now sets 25% power and flaps automatically when you set yourself up in flight, to be more closely configured for your landing! Kind of convenient.
- The interface screens are organized a hair differently… much better I think. This lets volume-control and neutral-elevator control be in their own system-config screen, with a different screen dedicated to setting your location! Kind of nicer organization.
Austin has recently placed a dedicated X-Plane for iPhone page on the X-Plane website where he addresses various problems and wants he’s seen users express in reviews posted to the App Store. We were particularly pleased to see an indication that two more aircraft will be added to the app in a free update coming soon.
The X-Plane for iPhone page also details “The story of X-Plane for iPhone," an account of the 14-day development frenzy that lead to the v9.00 App Store release, all of which took place at the Apple Campus at 1 Infinite Loop “right in the middle of the ‘hive-mind’, right alongside all the engineers at Apple."
Around September 1 or so, I was sitting on a park bench in Central Park, New York, enjoying a WONDERFUL fall Saturday afternoon, typing away on my Mac laptop, when my tech support guy, Randy Witt, called me and suggested that we do X-Plane for iPhone. Of course, I thought this idea was IMPOSSIBLE, because how could a PHONE have enough POWER to run X-PLANE? And how would you CONTROL the planes? Nevertheless, I called Apple to ask them whether it would be possible to get X-Plane running on the iPhone, and whether Apple would have any interest in seeing it done. The answer was a bit surprising: Not only is the iPhone just powerful enough to RUN a specialized version of X-Plane, but Apple would LOVE to see it done NOW. Apple had a Keynote presentation coming up, and would love to have a couple of exciting new games ready to consider showing off at the presentation. My response: “Well, I live in South Carolina, I am currently in New York, it’s Saturday afternoon… I could be in Cupertino (Apple’s headquarters) maybe some time late Monday, and we could start work on, say, Tuesday or so? My contact at Apple gave me my absolute favorite reply ever: “Umm.. How about we see you Monday morning at 9 AM sharp instead?"
See the full story at the X-Plane for iPhone page at X-Plane.com.
Touch Arcade recently reviewed X-Plane 9 for the iPhone.
This game is kinda boring, I mean, it's nice for the first 2 minutes. :|
I really like this game, it's relaxing just to fly around. But I think the main thing it needs is some cities and rivers/bridges to fly around/under.
I'm concerned Austin is more interested in making this a full on sim with all the bells and whistles instead of keeping it accessible enough for us casual fliers. Some more places to fly and new planes to fly would suit me just fine instead of all these dashboard dials I know nothing about.
i think its a GREAT sim. i'm an airline-pilot and really enjoy xplane.
two notes:
-the version 9.03 seems to crash quite often (i did not have that problem before)
-how to set the ILS and LOC is not clear to me
looking forward to the next versions of the product :-)
Luckily I don't have to be worried about Austin turning this into a "game", based on his writings and history that'll never happen... whew! This is basically a lite version of X-Plane that is limited by hardware and I would expect that it's overall goal and feel would be the same.
I welcome this update and have been waiting for ILS, VOR, etc. Makes it feel more like a real sim which I like, yet the new options do not prevent casual flying. When trying to pack all of these features into the iPhone there will definitely have to be tradeoffs and adding scenery would seem to be the most challenging. I would welcome another plane or two of course.
Cheers, this app feels like it's on it's way.
ruedi, try restarting your phone. The app uses just about every drop of RAM in there and restarting should prevent crashes.
The new 9.03 version is spectacular! I've been shooting instrument approaches and trying to make some basic arrival procedures for myself (like fly outbound on the 120 radial from EUR and intercept the localizer/glide slope for 26 at LOWI.)
Of course there are more features I'd like so see, but I'll bet they're on their way. A basic altitude/heading hold autopilot would be nice while doing all the buttons for the new radios, etc.
Really, though, a full-blown simulator like this on the iPhone? Amazing!
Also, I had a couple crashes like some people were describing right after installation. I restarted my phone and have run it for hours without any problem.
I really like X-Plane, but 9.03 crashes the majority of times that I launch it. I don't really want to reboot every time I want to use it. I think the developer should either remove some features, or tweak his memory management.
"I really like X-Plane, but 9.03 crashes the majority of times that I launch it. I don’t really want to reboot every time I want to use it."
You shouldn't have to. I had this problem on version 1 of the app- crashed every time I played. ONE reboot fixed the problem permanently for me.
I agree an autopilot button needs to be added so that we can fiddle around with the menus while its flying .. great sim
I was thinking about this exact possibility yesterday as I took off and climbed out off runway 06 on version 9.02, and after a few minutes on runway heading did a “teardrop” procedure turn (45 degrees to the right for a minute or so, then left turn at rate 1 all the way round to heading 240) - I thought I needed more accuracy on intercepting the correct runway radial, because when I broke cloud on descent, I was off the runway heading in spite of my best efforts to stay on the right “radial” and had to “jink” around to get the landing right - I didn’t :-(
Halfway through my grocery shopping, I noticed an application update “pushed” to my iPhone and lo and behold, it was version 9.03!! Yay, localiser and glide slope thrown in!! Haven’t tried it yet, but this is turning into an amazing phenomenon I would never have dreamed would arrive this early given the available technology.
Hook this up to a Cinema display, add a few Approach Charts and Standard Instrument Departures and who knows, we may be talking an FAA/CAA certified learning tool here…
Great suggestion earlier for an autopilot - if not feasible, how about ELEVATOR and AILERON TRIM CONTROLS to lock the aircraft attitude once our desired altitude or rate of climb/descent have been attained? That way we can focus on tweaking other controls to fine-tune the experience.
Also, I don't recall (in my excitement) if there's a rate of climb / descent indicator dial - that would be very useful for those of us that have one eye in the cockpit while flaring out for landing (I got that from an FAA video of the first Auto-land device on a Lockheed Tri-Star, which flares by carrying out a descending stall at 300ft/minute).
Oh, Mr. Meyer you've started quite a monster here, don't you ever stop!!
Any bets, any takers, Microsoft Flight Sim X Lite for Windows Mobile 6 appearing on HTC, Nokia and SonyEricsson smartphones in 2009?
What a waste of money, the game is hard to play you need to be a full fledge pilot to even get the plane off the ground and there are no manual or tutorial either.
Almost EVERY decent fight sim are complex and hectic.
For a seasoned flightsim user, this game is really enjoyable but for novice users this game truly can be frustrating. It is not a arcade game, in fact the "mission" are not more that to take off, give a tour, then landing on.
The only think i miss about this game is a way to setpoint and to auto-pilot. Also (if was possible) a way to multiplayer, ATF and such.