By Graham K. Rogers

Reports on the Facebook pages of the game, inform users that the long-awaited Transport Tycoon for both the iPad and the Android platform, was to be released tomorrow (Thursday). A look at the page, however, shows a link to an iTunes page for Transport Tycoon that shows the app as already available at a cost of $9.99. In the iTunes App Store, the cost is displayed at $6.99.

The developers of the app are 31X with Origin 89 Technologies. The app was created in collaboration Chris Sawyer who created the original game that took up so much of my leisure time on my last PC (before switching to Macs).

The download takes a long time, with the download screen on iTunes showing that the app comes in at 129.5 MB. Doubtless there will be data as the games are played, adding to the disk space that Transport Tycoon will potentially eat up.

Installing the app also takes a few minutes on the selected device. Even when iTunes had finished its synchronisation process, there was still an indication on the app icon itself that other installation processes were taking place.

The app requires iOS 5.1 (or greater) and can be installed on the iPhone and iPod touch as well as the iPad. The information on the iTunes page tells us that it is "optimized for the iPhone 5".

Needless to say, once installed I will be taking a close look at Transport Tycoon (and will perhaps try to make up for some lost time).

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After two opening screens (31X and Transport Tycoon), the app begins to show a start screen, then if nothing is done by the user switches to a demo screen. The user is offered the option to link to Game Center. Tapping the demo brings back the Start Screen. Pressing New Game, gives a number of difficulty options (Beginner to Expert) and shows that several tutorials are available. All the time some (persistent) trumpet music is played.

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I will run the game on the iPhone initially (then the iPad) and examine the settings, including how to turn off that music.

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Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.