Gaming has never been Apple’s strong suit, so it was easy to see why so many core handheld gamers chose to dismiss the iPhone and iPod Touch out of hand in the midst of Apple’s droning on about its future in the gaming industry. Well, that attitude may be on the verge of changing as the iPhone 3G gains a foothold and the list of holiday titles developed for its OS creeps nearer.

The handheld gaming market has been locked up by the Nintendo DS and to a lesser extent, the PSP for years. Gamers are extremely loyal to their platforms of choice, but the thing about them is that for all their dedication they tend to take two things very seriously regardless: the quality of games and price. There has been a fair amount of chatter regarding how the cheap games that have flooded the iTunes App Store could hurt the continued development of quality games on the platform. Again, understandable. After all, historically most video games only have a few weeks on the market following their release to make the lion’s share of their take before they are lost in the jumble of new titles that follow. If a game being developed is forecasted to cost $9.99 and it is competing against a passel of $.99 games that’s going to weigh on the mind of a quality-concerned developer. But here is where forward thinking on the part of Apple regarding the future of the iPhone gaming marketplace will be important. The millions who hit the App store today may be focused on bargains measured in cents, but the core gamers who may make the leap over to the iPhone platform see bargains in tens of dollars. Right now quality DS and PSP games go for $30-40. Assuming the iPhone install base sucks in the core gaming crowd, If Apple can manage to fill their digital shelves with quality $15-20 titles they will be sitting pretty indeed. Nintendo and Sony on the other hand won’t know what hit them. Of course there will also be hardware issues. The iPhone, DS/DSi and PSP are very different devices, with different user demographics and price tags. $300+ for a 16GB iPhone 3G, plus an $80 monthly AT&T wireless plan isn’t going to fly with someone who paid $200 for the latest PSP 3000, or much less than that for a DS and eventually a DSi. But as the traditional carefree gamer gets a few more dollars in his/her pocket they could very well see the worth of merging all their portable devices into one.   

Until then Apple should make sure the affordable quality games keep rolling to the iPhone platform. There are many already out that are and well worth the price, but even more coming out, published/developed by the likes of EA, Gameloft/Ubisoft, Sega, THQ, Namco and PopCap, that seem designed to pique the interest of long-time gamers. Here are a few of them to look out for:

Aurora Feint: The Arena, releasing soon, $7.99
This RPG-tinged puzzler followup to Aurora Feint: The Beginning, the popular free puzzle game already available for iPhone, Arena will feature online multiplayer functionality. 

SimCity, December release, $9.99
One of the best-loved gaming series of all time on PC, consoles and handhelds, SimCity for iPhone looks to have the look and feel of SimCity 3000, and will have players using touch controls to build cities and attempt to keep the peeps from revolting.

Need For Speed: Undercover, December release, $9.99
The latest version in EA long-lived street racing franchise, Undercover won’t have the cinematic flash of the console versions but its mission play, street racing and car customization should play nicely with the iPhone’s touch and tilt controls.

Ferrari GT Evolution, December release, $9.99
Yet another car-based game that should utilize the unique tilt and touch controls of the iPhone. 

Rolando, December release $9.99
Heralded as one of the best games yet developed for iPhone, Rolando is similar to Loco Roco, and perhaps a little like Patapon, in that you control ball-like creatures in a Pachinko-like and guide them in timed mission play.

Dr. Awesome, releasing soon, $???
Looking something like a Trauma Center clone, Dr. Awesome has players taking care of patients, chatting with nurses and well, being awesome in-between using the touch screen to perform operations and treatments.   

Dropship, releasing soon, $???
Vector graphics and heavy space combat equals two fingered fun here as you use one to steer and the other to shoot.

Zombie Driver, releasing soon, $???
Core gamers love them a zombie fest. As always you are man alone, in this one with only yourself and your car against a passel of the walking dead. You’ll know what to do.

–Tom Milnes

• Web Worker Daily places the two recently upgraded Windows virtualization software titles for the Mac OS–Parallels Desktop 4 and VMware Fusion 2–into its comparative thunder dome and finds that Fusion comes out on top (with better dependability and multi-monitor support).

  AppleInsider takes a look at the new features in Parallels 4 (faster processing, better resource consumption, and inclusion of anit-virus software), while the TidBITS/Take Control ebook publishing house has just released its update to Joe Kissell’s tome, which is quite handy for Mac-centric users who need to deal with Windows drivers as well as figure out the best methods for sharing files between Windows and Mac OS X.

• Ars Technica reports that a Greek web site is predicting that we’ll see the 2.2 version of the iPhone OS hit the inter-tubes on November 21, and it recaps some of the features that have been viewed in the developer beta versions:
  

  (E)verything from line-in audio access for developers, Google Street View, mass transit information, walking directions, a toggle switch for spelling auto-correction, a shuffling of Safari’s search box next to the address bar, support for Japanese emoji icons, new categories and sorting options in the iPhone’s App Store, a prompt to rate applications when removing them, and the Podcaster-stomping ability to download podcasts over WiFi.

• If you’re considering one of the new MacBooks, check out this extensive write up by Dan Moren at Macworld with loads of detail on the design.
• Want to share the sounds of your iPod, but don’t have a portable speaker system with you? Designer Dmitry Zagga has a simply MacGyver solution for you: the iPod Ghetto Accessory (via Yanko Design):

  

• Adding to Aric’s post from earlier this week about adding Boxee to the Apple TV (which I hope to have time to do this weekend), here’s a pretty simplified set of installation instructions from Christopher Breen at Macworld.
• If you’re a Windows convert to the Mac, you can get an Apple Store Genius to help switch your files and preferences over from your old machine to the new, shiny Mac, or you can purchase this new Belkin Switch-to-Mac Cable with bundled Migration Assistant software (via Boing Boing Gadgets).
• Sounds like GM is in dire straits, but New York Times columnist Tom Friedman has a solution (via MacUser):
  

  (S)omebody ought to call Steve Jobs, who doesn’t need to be bribed to do innovation, and ask him if he’d like to do national service and run a car company for a year. I’d bet it wouldn’t take him much longer than that to come up with the G.M. iCar.

• David Strom over at TidBITS takes a look at several file transfer applications for the iPhone, which doesn’t offer native drag-and-drop functionality for moving files from your desktop. Strom hits the highlights of Air Sharing (his favorite), FileMagnet, Briefcase, Evernote and SugarSync.
• New iPhone apps this week include the Weather Channel (via IntoMobile) and Griffin’s iTalk Recorder Premium voice recorder (an ad-free version of the basic app, via Podcasting News). Macworld proffers six free must-download iPhone apps (including SportsTap–finally, a way for me to follow English Premier League scores… as well as standard North American fare like the NBA and NFL)
• If you’re not ready to pledge fealty to the GTD task management philosophy, there are a couple of less complex alternatives for the iPhone: Macworld’s Jason Snell likes the uncomplicated nature of Things, while Jason Clarke at TUAW is a big fan of Remember the Milk.
• If you didn’t know… here’s how the iPod got its name.
• And finally, it feels good to have a Mac-head (and a Pac-head) in the Oval Office (via 9to5Mac).

  

–Agen G.N. Schmitz

After being away from the gadgetosphere the past couple of weeks (traveling the vast expanse of this country to visit family and then deal with unexpected family health emergencies), I’m just starting to dip my toes back into the waters of Apple-y goodness. So let’s get down to it…

• First, some sad news: no new hardware releases from Apple this year. That means iMacs won’t be refreshed with new processors until at least January 6, when the Macworld conference keynote takes place.
• And, fingers crossed, that’s where and when we’ll get an update to the Mac mini, which has been rumored to be on death’s door recently but seems to be making a recovery. According to AppleInsider, a distraught mini fan sent an email to Mac hardware engineering chief Bob Mansfield to express his displeasure. Surprisingly, he got a phone call from another Apple executive telling him that the mini wasn’t dead and that he should have patience. I must say, my Core Solo-powered mini is starting to feel vastly underpowered these days, and I’ll patiently hold the line as well.
• Steve Jobs also returned to the customer service arena this week, emailing a new MacBook owner who seems to be one of many having trouble with the buttonless trackpad with one of his characteristic one-line responses: “Software fix coming soon.” Also, check out these multi-touch tips for the new MacBooks from TUAW.
• The very first Apple Computer sign with the company’s initial rainbow logo is up on the auction block, with final bids expected between $15,000 and $20,000 (via AppleInsider).

  

• After much kvetching, it looks like AT&T will make an official iPhone tethering solution available sooner than later. If you’re not hip to the lingo, “tethering” refers to the ability to connect your laptop to the Inter-tubes using your phone’s 3G connection. Previously, it’s only been available to those who have jailbroken their iPhones. Jason O’ Grady over at The Apple Core writes of his recent experience with the PDAnet application for JB’d phones, which has its pluses and minuses (easy set-up, quick iPhone battery drain).
• Does your new MacBook or MacBook Pro not feel quick and nimble enough? Even if you’ve maxed out the official 4 GB RAM capacity, it looks like both models can handle up to 6 GB (via MacRumors and TidBITS).
• If you’re about to build your own iPhone-formatted web site, check out these lessons learned by the Flickr team when developing its iPhone portal.
• The iPhone Atlas blog reports that the next version of the iPhone software (2.2) looks to include over-the-air downloads of podcasts, which may explain why Apple previously rejected the Podcaster iPhone app, which enabled you to download podcasts directly an iPhone/iPod touch.
• Lifehacker has a rundown of some of the more popular task management iPhone apps, including Remember the Milk (which requires a $25 annual Pro account subscription) and the barebones To Do’s. Unfortunately, the article doesn’t cover OmniFocus, the task manager that I finally settled on. It’s certainly not for everyone, as it’s tailored to folks who are very serious about managing to-dos using the Getting Things Done (GTD) philosophy. It’s also rather cost-prohibitive, as the iPhone app and the desktop software will set you back about 100 clams. But, cost aside, I’ve been very happy with my investment. Getting used to the GTD way of task management was a bit of a learning curve, but I’ve now gotten to the point where I’ve added some of my own methodologies to the template and am a better task hound for it.
• The iPhone doesn’t do voice dialing natively, but Wired’s Gadget Lab reports the new Say Who app “recognizes voice commands and dials a number accordingly. It’s as simple as holding down the “Press while speaking” button and dictating a name or phone number. Once you release the button, the app dials away.”
• Jason O’Grady at The Apple Core points us to the Briefcase iPhone app, which “allows you to quickly download any type of file to your iPhone and it requires no cables, client software, network set up, and no typing IP addresses. The iPhone’s built-in file viewer allows it to view (but not edit) Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Word, Excel, MP3, M4V, and PDF files.” It comes in two versions–a free Briefcase Lite version and a $4.99 full version that looks to add SSH connection support.
• And finally, check out this demonstration of Ocarina, the first and only app that transforms the iPhone into an expressive musical wind instrument (via Cult of Mac).
  

  The app synthesizes sound in real-time, just like a regular instrument, based on actual gestures including wind input, tilt, and finger placement over the four holes overlaid on the multi-touch pad. Unlike other iPhone audio apps, the sound is not pre-compiled but is generated by the notes, gestures and nuance of the individual performer. As a result, it allows an iPhone user to explore and master the musical sounds of an entirely iPhone-native version of an ancient flute-like instrument.

• One more thing… don’t stop believin’… in Journey, that is. According to Hypebot, it seems that the timeless power ballad “has become the top-selling catalog track in iTunes history and the sole catalog track to go double platinum” (that’d be 2 million digital downloads).

–Agen G.N. Schmitz


Steve Jobs’ comments during the MacBook event earlier this month during which he called Blu-Ray technology “A bag of hurt“–referring to claimed difficulties in licensing–as part of the explanation for leaving this functionality out of the new MacBook line, sounded off base today as Mac clone manufacturer Psystar confirmed that it has OS X-compatible PCs available right now at $554 and $1,154 that feature upgrades including Blu-ray optical drives and the GeForce 9800GT GPU for $310 and $400 respectively.




What has really got to burn Apple in this announcement is that it has been locked in anti-trust litigation with the Florida-based manufacturer over its Open Computer product line, since July, citing eight counts of copyright infringement, breach of contract, trademark and trade infringement, and unfair competition. Since this initial action Psystar has filed its own counter suit claiming monopolistic actions in the market on the part of Apple. Currently both parties are engaged in a mediation agreement set to expire next February. In the meanwhile it looks as if anyone looking for Blu-Ray functionality with OS X have an option if you really want it. Personally, I can’t say that I know too much about Psystar’s Open Computer line aside from, as its name suggests, it is able to run on consumer’s choice of Linux, Mac OS X or Vista. The hardware obviously is not made for any of these and frankly looks somehow very unmac like, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It is said to be plenty noisy though, which blows in pretty much anyone’s book. Regardless, it is interesting to see this challenge to Apple continue and I’m sure that that Psystar hopes to sell as many units as it can before February when the legal action continues and its luck may run out in the form of a recall.




If interested in Psystar’s Open Computers, take a look at Psystar’s site and this engadget page for specs and a video review from a few months ago.




–Tom Milnes

Hall of Famer, three-time Super Bowl Champion, three-time All Pro Selection, six-time Pro Bowl Selection and member of the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor Troy Aikman turns 42 today.  The legendary quarterback is one of easily one of my top 2 favorite football players of all-time (along with Emmitt Smith) and I love nothing more than reflecting back on the Cowboys’ glory days of the 1990s.  Now a top annoucer for FOX, Aikman is perhaps the most unheralded quarterbacks of all-time.  Although he is not in the same company as Unitas, Montana or Favre, Aikman’s name is never even mentioned when discussing the greatest QB’s ever.  He should at least get some recogntion as one of the best.  After all, how many quarterbacks have been inducted to the Hall of Fame, won three Super Bowls, selected for three All-Pro teams, selected to six Pro Bowl teams and  been inducted into the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor?

Also Happy Birthday to Sid Luckman, Stan “The Man” Musial, Earl Monroe, Harold Ramis, Goldie Hawn, Cedric Maxwell, Nicolette Sheriden, Olden Polynice, Bjork, Reggie Lewis, Ken Griffey Jr., Jonas Jennings, Stromile Swift, and Hank Blalock

Posted in Writer - Bill Slattery      

After a couple weeks of little exciting news, this week brought about a number of discussion-worthy items that range from new software updates for the iPhone/iPod touch and Apple TV and a kerfuffle over the discovery that High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) has been added to the new crop of MacBooks. Ars Technica reported that the HDCP copy protection prevents many movies downloaded from Apple’s iTunes site from playing back on “non-compliant” TV monitors and projectors via a Mini DisplayPort-to-VGA adapter, throwing up an error dialog to let you know that your purchase will not work. Ars also notes that it’s not a consistent spanner in the playback:

Strangely, only some iTunes Store movies appear to be HDCP-aware, as other purchased media like Stargate: Continuum and Heroes season 2 play through the projector just fine. Attempts to play Hellboy 2 or other HDCPed films through the projector via QuickTime also get denied.

Also noted in the Ars article, this has been an issue for Apple TV users who don’t use a pure HDMI digital connection (component video output isn’t covered by HDCP), as was discovered by Jeff Carlson as he was writing the second edition of his Apple TV Pocket Guide (which I helped out with). Michael Rose comments at TUAW:

In this case, ‘compliant’ means HDMI or recent-vintage DVI, but even monitors or TVs that support HDCP may not properly negotiate with the DisplayPort connector to give iTunes and QuickTime the all-clear signal (if so, quitting and relaunching iTunes once the display is hooked up may clear the playback hold). Equally annoying: HDCP is only supposed to apply to ‘high-value’ digital streams, meaning standard-def purchases and rentals on the iTunes store should be out of scope… but some reports indicate that both the HD and SD instances are flagged, blocking playback on anything but the laptop’s internal display or a straight-thru HDMI connection.

Cory Doctrow over at Boing Boing chimes in:

But copyright law isn’t violated when you watch a movie on an “unapproved” monitor. This isn’t about enforcing copyright law, it’s about giving a small handful of movie companies a veto over hardware designs.

Very early Friday morning, Apple released the long-awaited iPhone 2.2 OS update (also compatible for iPod touch models) with goodies including Maps enhancements (with Google Street View), over-the-air podcast downloads, and some functional additions such as the ability to turn on/off auto-correction in Keyboard settings. TidBITS has an excellent rundown of the new features, which was quite handy since I couldn’t figure out how to get Street View working:

To use Street View, you must drop a pin, and then examine whether a tiny Street View icon - an orange person - is tinted fainter or at full intensity. If at full intensity, you tap the tiny icon, and the Maps application rotates into landscape view to display a navigable image.

A small circle shows the current cone of sight and street location. You can drag, pinch, and expand, while tapping an arrow moves the view to the next street slice. There’s no warning when data runs out; an empty “holodeck” image appears instead.

As you can see from the screenshot that I captured, the street view image can be a bit fuzzy. I recently became a convert to Street View (after pooh-poohing it as just being an excessive wow feature) when I used it to determine a playground I was heading to (with toddler) did indeed have climbing equipment. (Unfortunately, if you’re an iPod touch user, you don’t get the Maps update, which also includes transit information and walking directions.) I also tried the OTA podcast download, and got a 6 MB file downloaded over my old-and-slow EDGE connection in just about 5 minutes. Note, however, that OTA downloading only pertains to podcasts (no music yet).

• As is customary with these updates, if you’re an iPhone jailbreaker, you’re cautioned to hold off on updating until the iPhone Dev team can come up with a workaround.
• Another big update release came for the Apple TV this week, which enables you to stream music stored on the Apple TV wirelessly via AirTunes Streaming to an Airport Express Wi-Fi plug-in (or to another Apple TV, just in case you have more than one), the addition of playlists (for movies, TV shows, music, and podcasts) and music volume control, and support for third-party remotes (in case the spartan Apple Remote isn’t doing it for you). Over at iLounge, they’ve quickly put together one of their very detailed Instant Expert overviews of the new update, and included this tidbit about streaming:
  

  As an additional caveat, the Apple TV’s performance when streaming to remote AirTunes speakers can be extremely sluggish, even on a fast 802.11n or wired Ethernet connection between the devices. Playback performance is acceptable, but the remote control input seems to become unresponsive, making browsing the Apple TV while listening to content a frustrating experience at best.

• However… installing the 2.3 update will break the Boxee hack that Aric wrote about earlier this month. Check out the second half of this post at The Apple Blog for more info on what to do to keep Boxee running if you’ve installed it on your Apple TV (hint… don’t install 2.3). I was hoping to install it last weekend, but toddler duty prevented my hacking, so I guess I’m glad that my time wasn’t wasted. Hopefully the Boxee team will get a workaround available soon.
• Rumor Watch: The Macworld Expo is less than a month-and-a-half away, and rumors of new hardware releases are flitting about, with TUAW reporting that the iMac might get a quad-core processor boost. Also, based on a slide shown at the Large Installation System Administration (LISA) conference in San Diego last week, it looks like we might be seeing the release of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in the first quarter of 2009 (via Macworld).
• Bad news on the Flash front from MacNN:
  

  The iPhone is unlikely to carry Flash even if its hardware technically supports it, a report claims. Although Flash is in widespread use on the Internet, running everything from animation to full applications, Wired notes that section 3.3.2 of the iPhone SDK specifically prohibits the downloading and use of interpreted code in apps, unless the APIs and interpreters are already preloaded. This by definition bars third-party plug-ins, whether from Adobe or any other developer.

• According to iPodNN, Electronic Arts will release an iPhone version of SimCity.
• Cult of Mac is into DIY clip binder stands for the iPhone, and a reader submitted an even sturdier model than their inital stab (check Instructables for the step-by-step)

  

• And finally, how many apps do you have on your iPhone? At last count, I had 43, and was thinking I needed to pare that down a bit. But that’s nothing compared to Flickr user Sigalokos, who has 8 screens (with a 9-screen limit) full of apps (via Textually).

  

–Agen G.N. Schmitz