Adventuring via iPhone

[Technologic]

Just curious if any other iPhone users have tried playing KoL via their phones and interested in how it worked out for them.

I don't have any problems really (besides playing on a 2-inch screen and chat scrolling on forever being somewhat of a bother), except I've noticed when I cast buffs or have buffs cast on me they don't appear on my sidebar to let me know what my remaining count is or to even let me know that I have them without constantly refreshing the page. I haven't experimented with it much yet, but has anyone else experienced this problem and/or have a possible solution to make game play run smoother? Would be great if someone would design a mobile app for the game. Until then though I'd appreciate any input. Thanks.

[scizzix]

I use my iPhone sometimes for KoL, and haven't had many problems beyond the screen size.  I just checked now and my buffs show up fine in the left side pane, with turns remaining present.  Everything looks just like how a web browser with no Mafia running would display it, albeit smaller.

I have to be motivated/bored to play KoL for long on the phone, though, due to all of the scrolling and zooming in and out that's required.  One solution I've found is to have the phone in portrait mode (upright) and just have the center pane on the screen.  There's no good way to do it if you want to see everything and keep up with chat--you can only effectively focus on one area at a time.  So, that's my solution--adventure *or* chat, but don't try to do both at once, and portrait might be better compared to landscape.

There's been at least one thread on the KoL forum about a mobile app, but the general response was that it's not a large enough population of to bother.  That may change over time, though. 

[Shiverwarp]

They were actually quite warm to the idea last radio show, so I'm hopeful

[Kime]

My husband has been thinking about writing an application that lets you play KoL on a mobile device.  He's curious about the possible interest in it.  He's seen how much I enjoy playing KoL and wondered if there would be a legitimate number of people who would be willing to purchase a program like that for their phone.

He'd probably start out working on an app for the Andriod (G1) since he had the unlocked, super-spanky developer's version of that.  He's talked about maybe something similar to KoLMafia, but Mafia requires Java and iPhones, last he checked, didn't support Java.

Any opinions?

[Shiverwarp]

For some reason I thought iPhones were mostly Java, guess I was mistaken

[Rethgif]

I would love to have an app for KoL on my G1

[scizzix]

The iPhone does not support Java.  I have seen mention of a program that tries to convert Java code into C++ code which can then be used to make an iPhone app, but I have no idea how well that works.

I'd like some sort of iPhone app, sure.  I'm not sure how many people would be willing to pay for one, though, considering that KoL is (essentially) free, as is Mafia.  Since I don't use my phone for adventuring too often, and I have some free games that help pass idle time, I probably wouldn't be willing to pay much for such an app.  If not free, it would probably have to be in the 99-cent category to get a lot of people on board.

[Mandoline]

Just out of curiosity, I typed two words into Google's textbox: "java iphone".
...
lots of things to read
...
conclusion: Apple does not offer support for Java on iPhone. That's a fact.

Nobody said anything about iPhone being able to run java apps.
Yes, that's possible:
http://www.javalobby.org/java/forums/t98506.html
My opinion on this matter should be taken with a large lump of salt, since I don't have one to try it out, but unlocking Java seems to be an ALMOST easy process: http://java4iphone.com/all-news/tutorial-install-java-on-the-iphone/, albeit it can ruin your warranty.