McCarron's Piece O' Mind

I think I found the first iBlackjack review, beyond some forum comments here and there.

I randomly came across this blog posting while searching to see how far iBlackjack has spread across the Internet landscape. In this "review" by Josh Jones the CEO of a web hosting provider, who is also my host, Dreamhost talks about my iPhone/iPod Touch game iBlackjack.

Here is what he first had to say:

After jailbreaking it, I tried out a bunch of the underground 3rd-party applications, and my absolute favorite was iBlackJack.

Favorite for it being the worst blackjack game I’d ever played!

This iBlackJack was so awful it would always be the first thing I’d show to people who wanted to checkout my iPhone, just so I could sit back and watch the transition from excitement to confusion to utter disgust as it swept across the face of my victim.

This game served as a textbook example for Steve Jobs’ argument about why he claimed they wanted to lock out third parties from developing iPhone apps: playing it made me really hate Steve Jobs, personally.

I've seen some early critical responses to the game before, but this one took the cake. It really made me think, as I love to read what people think about the game so I can work on improving it in areas I haven't considered. So, I was anxious to see what else he had to say, so I kept reading. It became quickly clear that he was talking about the old version of the game, when I came across this drastic turnaround:

Sadly, this could not last forever. Updates of iBlackJack kept coming out, and within just a few weeks, all the glaring usability and logic errors were squashed. Now it’s a decent little app, and serves as a strong counter-example against a locked iPhone.

Yes, the game was a boiling pot of dog turd at first, but now my iPhone (oh yes, it’s MINE now) has a full-featured blackjack game in it; one with such features as how many decks in the shoe, when to re-shuffle, when the dealer hits, and even if it should bother asking if you want insurance.

It ended up being the best review I've heard anyone give about iBlackjack. Josh Jones first had me go from partially upset to almost blushing as I continued to read the words on the page.

In the article, iBlackjack offering insurance was just a segway for him to talk about finance and the need for insurance in life. It's a really good read, and I suggest everyone to read it as well. I just wont cover it here, well because I'm no expert in the manner.

And for those looking to see where iBlackjack is heading next, I'll leave you with this image of the next build which is hopefully coming later this week.

Labels: development, iblackjack, iphone

Last night on G4's Attack of the Show showed my iPhone game iBlackjack was featured, along with other iPhone third party apps.

Here is a shot of iBlackjack's home screen on the TV along with my name
(click to enlarge)


Here is a clip of the segment from Attack of the Show!



A big thanks to Kevin Pereira of G4 and host of Attack of the Show for showing my game off. It was really cool to see it on TV.

Labels: development, iblackjack, iphone