Projects: mobiPad

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Play any game on your mobile phone using the Nintendo Wii (TM) Remote!

Gaming on mobile phones is a rapidly growing market; its revenues are already being on a very high level. Many mobile gamers would like to have phones, which are well-suited to gaming. The original N-Gage™ is a good example, but didn’t succeed – probably because players don’t their phone to be in “gaming-mode” all the time. Nevertheless, new accessories appear all the time, which promise to offer better controls for mobile games. However, these suffer from several disadvantages: some require extra SDKs that the games have to implement (hen-egg-problem). The build quality compared to the price cannot be too good due to the low volumes compared to e.g. console game controllers. Also, only very few people will consider themselves hardcore mobile phone gamers enough to buy some extra hardware just to play their games on the device.

mobi-pad

mobi-pad offers a new solution: it enables connecting the well-established, good quality and very versatile controller of the Nintendo Wii™ to the mobile phone. The software allows controlling the whole mobile device with the external controller – this includes all the games or even your media player. This solution doesn’t suffer from the problems listed above: No need for specially adapted mobile games, like a Bluetooth keyboard, the WiiMote can be used for the whole phone and therefore game. Nintendo has got a lot of experience in producing game controllers, the Wii Remote being no exception – and it shows in the button placement, longevity as well as its weight distribution. Lastly, you do not have to buy a controller that can only be used for games – just take the controller with you from your home console when you’re travelling.

Tests have shown that it’s not the best way to simulate digital keys (pressed or not pressed) using analogous motions of the WiiMote. As a consequence, you will usually control the games using a traditional d-pad. In contrast to the predecessor WiiConnect / WiiRider (which allowed controlling a motorcycle game by using the Wiimote as a virtual handle of a motorbike), the new mobiPad dropped support of motion control in favour of utilizing all keys as well as the d-Pad of the Wii Remote for optimal control of every game.

Another very interesting aspect is the recent ascent of touch screen dominated phones. A touch screen makes it impossible to play mobile games that have not been specifically designed for it. This situation is true for most of the currently available Java ME games, and already applies to most of the SonyEricsson UIQ-based phones – the keypad does not feature a joystick and the buttons are difficult for gaming due to their two-letter-input method. While this is a great feature, it just isn’t optimal for mobile games. Through mobiPad, you can play any standard game on those phones as well, no matter if they have QWERTY-keys or no keyboard at all!

Download Information

Alexander and Mario have released mobiPad as Freeware (donations are welcome), you can download it from their dedicated web site http://www.mobi-pad.com/. If you're searching for a new game to play using the Wii Remote, try Grizzle Dizzle, which was created by the same developers!

mobiPad is available for S60 3rd Edition and UIQ 3.x. The application is Symbian Signed and has been tested very thoroughly, but due to the nature as a non-commercial research project, it might not be 100% bug-free. Please inform the developers of any issues you might encounter. Future versions might also include the possibility to define a custom key mapping. This mostly depends on your feedback!

Quick Facts

The mobiPad application simulates key events based on your input on the Wii Remote.

Compatibility

S60 3.x
UIQ 3.x

Developed by

Alexander Erifiu
Grammer Mario
Semester-project at:
Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences
Campus Hagenberg, Department "Mobile Computing"
Supervised by: Andreas Jakl

Published

March 2008

Price

Freeware

More Information

Please contact the developers for more information.

Additional trademarks: Nintendo, Nintendo Wii, Wii Remote and Wiimote are trademarks of Nintendo.
This project is in no way endorsed by Nintendo.

Download

S60 3.x / UIQ 3.x: English - available from the dedicated project site

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Courses created for the University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg, Austria - "Mobile Computing"	The University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg is affiliated with Symbian Academy	Content maintained by Andreas Jakl (Forum Nokia Champion)	This web site project is hosted by Mopius. © 2005-2008 Andreas Jakl. All Rights Reserved.