I just noticed the new update of Field Runners came out with micro transactions and supports OS 2.0, so I downloaded it and gave it a try. Works fine on my 2.2.1 iPod touch. Interestingly, I can see the 'buy' buttons to get the new levels, but when I press there's an elegant pop-up dialog that reminds me that, "You must upgrade to iPhone OS 3.0 to purchase content." It's also added new OpenFeint support. I've seen devs say they can't support OS 2.2.1 because they want in-app purchases, or because they want to use OpenFeint, but if Fieldrunners can do it it makes me confused why others can't.
With regards to Openfeint you can use it with 2.2.1 but in the case of Jet Car Stunts the main gameloop on 2.2.1 with Openfeint breaks something in Openfeint. Our mainloop is very unorthodox but we gain lots of fps when we use it - this is why JCS runs on the older hardware very smoothly. We had no choice to drop 2.2.1 for 3.0 - it was either that or the game ran very badly on older hardware. For some reason our mainloop under 3.0 is fine with Openfeint. To be honest people should really upgrade to 3.x because games run faster, as Apple upgraded the GL driver.
I don't think what people "should" do has any bearing. People "should" do a lot of things they don't do. And while this is a very active forum it only reaches a tiny sliver of ipod/iphone owners, so the arguments about why they should upgrade are mostly falling on deaf ears. Fact is there's millions and millions of ipod touches out there still running 2.21, and that probably won't ever be upgraded. Maybe they don't care, maybe they don't know, maybe they're just going to buy a newer model sometime and don't want to pay to upgrade. Doesn't really matter why, really, but if you want to have the next Doodle Jump or Flight Control breakthrough casual game you need to make sure it's available to these customers. (Of course if your game is meant for the latest and greatest 3G/GS hardware, that's a whole different issue.)
Ever since I got the 3.x OS, my ipod touch has been extremely laggy. Every button, from inputting the passcode to playing games/apps, takes an extra second. I don't know what is causing this but its extremely annoying!
