Sim City Comes to the iPhone: Is This The Killer App We’ve Been Waiting For?

Electronic Arts must have a corporate mantra: "When in doubt, port Sim City."  The cityscape/inhabitants-management program has been a smash hit on every hardware platform it's landed on.  And very soon, it'll be the iPhone's turn.

"iSim" takes full advanage of the iPhone/iPod Touch screen interface.  Sliding your fingers together, inward, zooms out, while sliding them
apart zooms in. Touching and dragging moves your view around the map,
while continuous taps cycles through the zoom levels. Placing singular
objects is simple, but placing large zones or roads can be tricky to
maneuver. Once you've selected the zone you want, you touch and drag to
the appropriate length and width.

You may still find streets and buildings being mislaid on the small (by previous Sim platform standards) touch screen and/or your own fat digits, but you can reposition or delete unwanted blocks by the touch of a finger.  At the same time (as seen above), the sheer number and size of onscreen controls may get in the way, especially when you're juggling several urban disasters simultaneously. 

The (screen) real estate vs. (virtual) real estate conflict — plus Sim City's traditional steeper-than-usual learning curve — may put off some novice city planners.  However, early reports insist this port isn't "Sim City Lite," but a fully-realized handheld version that could make the already prestigious-to-own iPhone even more desireable.

[Via Kotaku]