The wisdom of crowds is a well known web phenomenon in terms of unlocking the combined potential of a large number of independent, interested people.
There doesn't yet seem to be a phrase for unlocking the potential of a large number of interesting indie developers but the folks at middleware provider Ideaworks Labs might have to come up with one soon.
It's just released its industry-standard Airplay SDK 4.0 under a new set of licences, which will see small indie studios gain free access to the tools that were used to create mobile and iPhone games such as Metal Gear Solid Mobile and Backbreaker Football.
All you have to do is sign up to the official website and fill in your details to gain access to a version of the SDK that will let you develop in C++ and export for iPhone.
If you want the full version of Airplay, which also spits versions of your game or application for iPhone, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile and BREW devices, supported from a single binary, you'll have to open your wallet and pay $99 per seat per year.
Of course, as is the way these deals work, larger outfits will have to pay more, but it's still fairly reasonable.
Companies with a turnover of between $50,000 and $1 million pay $999 per seat per year, but also get a support manager to help out with any problems they come across.
Companies with a turnover of more than $1 million are taken into a small room and further negotiations ensue, based around a per-application fee
In addition to changing the licensing fee for Airplay, Ideaworks Labs has also added new features to the 4.0 version, including a new user interface framework, and support for GPS and HTTP. Support for Android is another recent addition.
In this way, the company says that using Airplay enables developers to target over 500 million smartphones at the click of a button: an option those struggling to stand out in the highly competitive iPhone App Store should be keen on investigating further.
"We've licensed the Airplay SDK to some of the largest mobile games publishers worldwide, but it's been a bit of an industry secret", says Alex Caccia, Ideaworks Labs' CEO.
"Now we're hugely excited to be able to offer Airplay SDK 4.0 at an affordable price to all developers, and look forward to seeing great applications from the iPhone and other app stores making more money for their creators by migrating to Android, Symbian, BREW and other platforms."
Developers can register and download a full free evaluation of Airplay SDK 4.0 by visiting airplaysdk.com.
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Contributing Editor
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.
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