Moonlight Mahjong Lite Passes 1,000,000 Downloads

Sometime last week, Moonlight Mahjong Lite, the free version of Moonlight Mahjong, passed one million downloads. We're currently seeing an increase in the daily number of downloads, perhaps due to the number of people buying new iPhone 3GS's and shopping for apps. That's speculation, but it seems a good guess.

iPhone 3G S and iPhone OS 3.0

I got my new iPhone 3GS yesterday and tested Moonlight Mahjong on the device. The 3GS has a new graphics chip, so there was some question in my mind whether everything would work right without an update. Fortunately, it works great. I can report that OpenGL graphics rendering is much faster on the 3GS, even without taking advantage of the new OpenGL 2.0 capabilities. On the new app I'm working on, I'm seeing frame rates double of what my first-generation iPhone can manage, without doing any work. Instead of 30 frames per second, on the new hardware I'm seeing 60 frames per second and above. That means very smooth animation. 

Gloom and Doom

The Guardian is full of it. (via Daring Fireball)

Seriously, is it just me, or is the media more than usually full of bull-pucky these days? Here's an article about the iPhone's massive success, and the headline is, "Apple Doomed." I'm really hard-pressed to find any bad news in this article, except for one paragraph seemingly tagged on at the end, which reflects an opinion, not fact.

I guess we can take comfort from the fact that opinion pieces like this tend to be wrong, more often than not. It would just be nice if all news agencies labelled opinion as "opinion."

Truer Words...

I don't generally comment on reviews, but let me quote this one from Feb. 24:

I've learned that you cannot trust the ratings on the App Store. This game is FAB in the lite version. And the paid version is even better. I don't think people know what LITE means or they don't read. 

- "Xultar," Feb. 24, 2009

I know it's human nature to believe the App Store star rating system (I catch myself doing it), but I'm afraid what reviewer Xultar says is really true: the star ratings don't reflect the quality of the apps, and you shouldn't trust them. 

What seems to happen consistently is that an app will start out with high ratings, and then, almost always, the star rating will trend toward three stars - regardless of the actual quality of the app.

This is especially the case since Apple started essentially soliciting negative reviews, by requesting that users rate an app but only when deleting it. Especially in the case of free apps, it seems a pretty plausible scenario that many people will download a free game/product (what the heck? It's free, right?), play with it for ten seconds, discover that this kind of game/product is not for them, and discard it, with a low or indifferent rating. But unfortunately, the system is biased to solicit their opinion; so once an app is "discovered" and many people start trying it, the rating tends to lower significantly.

The point of this entry is not to complain (especially since Moonlight Mahjong has in general been well treated), but simply to point out that you should take the star ratings system with an extremely large grain of salt. Try reading some of the actual written reviews for a product, before you decide whether it's worth your purchase or download. (It's worth pointing out, though, that even written reviews can be unreliable, especially for newer products. Early reviews of a product may come from friends of the author, or employees of the company; it is even known that some unscrupulous developers have paid to obtain a large number of positive reviews. These scenarios were never the case with Moonlight Mahjong or perhaps many products, but it does happen. Frequently.)

As unreliable as the system is today, App Store reviews are still pretty much the pulse of the whole product ecosystem; so all reviews are appreciated. Well, to be honest... I would have to say that the vast majority of them are appreciated. There are always a few that are, rather obviously, not thought out very well. But you can probably tell those when you see them, if you're paying close enough attention.

Full-Screen Antialiasing in Moonlight Mahjong 1.3

The Moonlight Mahjong version 1.3 release notes mention a new feature I call "full-screen antialiasing." Some may wonder what the feature is, and it's technically interesting, so let's explain.

One general problem with 3D graphics is called "aliasing"; it's when the borders of drawn objects appear to have jagged edges. This happens because objects are rendered as pixels, and the borders are broken up into individual ones, creating a "stairstep" effect. The technical term for this visual flaw is "the jaggies." You can see examples of "the jaggies" in Moonlight Mahjong, or indeed, if you look closely enough, in almost any true 3D program on the iPhone.

Tricks to eliminate the stairstep effect are called "antialiasing techniques," and Moonlight Mahjong version 1.3 adds a slick one called "using an accumulation buffer." Unfortunately there's one problem. Although the iPhone and iPod Touch pack in a truly amazing amount of 3D graphics processing power, there is, eventually, only so much one can expect of a device that's so small. The iPhone and iPod touch don't provide a built-in accumulation buffer, and without it, this trick can't be done in realtime. If you tried it, the framerate would slow down to a couple frames per second, which is not nearly fast enough to provide smooth animation.

So, we work around that. What happens is, when animation is being performed or the player is moving the board, graphics rendering takes place at full speed, without antialiasing. Then, once all animation stops: a fraction of a second later, the antaliasing kicks in, and the graphics are smoothed out. The jagged edges go away. Until something on the board moves again. 

See the screenshot above for an example of what the screen looks like before and after antialiasing.

The idea is that, while the board is moving, you generally won't notice the lack of antialiasing. However, since there is a slight, unavoidable delay before the antialiasing kicks in, some people may notice the transition. But it's all about making the graphics look nice and smooth when the board is just staying still and you're paying close attention to it, as can happen for long periods of time when you're playing Moonlight Mahjong.

Moonlight Mahjong Lite Approaching 1,000,000 Downloads

Apple just announced that one billion apps have been downloaded. In our corner of the world, it's worth noting that Moonlight Mahjong Lite (the free version of Moonlight Mahjong) is approaching its one-millionth (1,000,000) download. 

(Or actually, we're already well over one million, if you count upgrades. I'm not at all clear if Apple's one billion number includes upgrades or what - probably not. But either way - it's a big number.)

One hopes that the new 1.3 update of the Moonlight Mahjong Lite, with its nice improvements, will quickly put us over that 1,000,000 mark. And hey, if some of you downloaders would like to purchase the full version, that would be okay with us, too. Anyway, thanks to all you people out there!

Moonlight Mahjong Lite 1.3 is Now Available

The 1.3 update of Moonlight Mahjong Lite sees the same improvements as the full version 1.3, plus the introduction of the new standard tileset with OpenGL lighting (which already existed in the full version, but didn't make it into the Lite version for some reason). 

There are still more features I'd like to add to Moonlight Mahjong, but for the moment, it's back to work on a different app for me. My general idea is to multitask and perhaps come out with a new Moonlight Mahjong version every month or two, but honestly, you never know what's going to happen in this crazy business. So we'll see.