The porTable Turns The iPad And iPhone Into Your Own Personal Tabletop Gaming System
by Brent Dirks
August 6, 2012
Don’t have a table to play card games or dominoes with your friends? Don’t worry, all you need is an iPad, iPhone, and the new app porTable.
Promising to be a physical simulation of tabletop games, the setup uses the iPad as a main game table and any other iOS device as the handheld game item. The connection between devices is made by either Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.
Here’s a quick video of how the system works. Click here if you can't see the video.
With its large amount of customization options, porTable really stands out. The app comes with a 36-card deck, and features smart gestures like the ability to ribbon spread and fan spread the deck of cards. There is also an included notepad to save scores.
There are no pre-defined rules, so users can play whatever they’d like to with the deck of cards.
The porTable app is universal for both the iPhone/iPod touch and iPad. It can be downloaded free from the App Store.
A full deck of customizable cards and a set of dominoes can be purchased for $0.99 each. And once again, I think this is the right way to do in-app purchases by offering a taste of the technology for free. If users like what is offered, there are more options to purchase.
The developer is promising that future updates will feature poker chips and letter squares, which definitely opens up the gaming possibilities. I would definitely love to host a poker game at my house using iOS devices instead of an actual poker table.
