Modern mobile devices are now amazingly powerful when it comes to graphics and sound, but perhaps the biggest differentiator between them and other dedicated hand-held videogame systems is that most of them are able to connect to the Internet.
While other gaming systems may be able to go online via WiFi, many modern devices can also use a 3G or other such data connections to connect to the Internet wherever the user happens to be. For this reason many games now feature the ability to connect to social media sites such as Facebook, or to share scores using services such as Apple's Game Center.
In this chapter, we will be looking at how it is possible to use Marmalade to add the following online capabilities to our games:
Launching a web browser to display a web page
Integrating with Facebook on iOS and Android
Familiarizing ourselves with the possibilities for other online functionality, including advertising and in-app purchasing