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The Apple Blog
The Apple Blog, published by and for the day-to-day Apple user, is a prominent source for news, reviews, walkthroughs, and real life application of all Apple products.
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Forum Activity: September 8, 2008
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Spore for Mac and Spore Origins for iPhone/iPod touch Released

Yesterday, the long awaited Spore was finally released here in the US.

Spore, a product of Sims mastermind Will Wright, has been in development for some 8 years with the public knowing about the game for about the last 3-4 years. The lengthy development time along with multiple release-date delays built up a huge amount of anticipation for the game.

Spore is a multi-genre “massively single-player online game” developed by Maxis and designed by Will Wright. It allows a player to control the evolution of a species from its beginnings as a unicellular organism, through development as an intelligent and social creature, to interstellar exploration as a spacefaring culture. It has drawn wide attention for its massive scope, and its use of open-ended gameplay and procedural generation. (Wikipedia)

In addition to the game itself, there is also an extensive online database of all the creatures users have created called Sporepedia. It currently has over 8.4 million user-created creatures. (If you have a Spore account and are logged in, feel free to check out my Spore profile.)

My initial impression of the game is that it is incredibly addictive and fun. There are a slew of complexities that make the game a different experience for every player and helps keep the game fresh. I’ve been playing the game on my MacBook Pro (2.33GHz Core 2 Duo, 3GB RAM). Initially the framerate on the game felt really slow so after reducing some of the graphic settings in the game everything felt incredibly smooth. It was a bit of a letdown that the game wouldn’t run at full graphic capacity on my MBP. I’ll be doing a full, in-depth review in the coming weeks on game play and performance.

Spore Origins

Last week, Spore Origins for regular iPods was released. And now, 5 days later, Spore Origins for the iPhone/iPod touch has been released and is available for purchase in the iTunes App Store for $9.99.

Spore Origins is essentially just the Cell Phase of the regular Spore game that consists of you, as a microbe, swimming around eating other creatures. You then upgrade/evolve your creature as you gain more DNA.

Overall gameplay is really smooth and the tilt control works better than I thought it would. It’s not an incredibly complex game but it’s still a lot of fun.

Have you played Spore or Spore Origins? What has been your initial impression as far as performance and game play goes?

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iPhone 3G now available at 980+ Best Buy locations

Since the launch of the original iPhone back in June 2007, the only place you could (legally) get an iPhone in the US was either at one of Apple’s 197 retail stores or one of AT&T’s 1,800+ retail stores.

As of Sunday, that number of locations has increased by almost 50% as close to 1,000 Best Buy locations are now selling the iPhone 3G. This makes them the first third-party retailer to be allowed to carry the iPhone.

The main benefit (at least to Apple) is that this obviously expands their retail saturation giving them the ability to snag the casual shopper who might not normally be shopping in an Apple store. There is, however, no economic benefit to the buyer by purchasing from Best Buy as prices for the iPhone 3G will be exactly the same as they are at all Apple and AT&T locations.

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Microsoft Gurus a Genius Bar rip-off?

Since news came out that Microsoft would be deploying a “Microsoft Gurus” program as part of their $300 million effort to improve their image, they have been consistently compared to ripping off Apple’s “Genius Bar” program.

Microsoft Gurus is program Microsoft is starting up where they will deploy customer-service reps to various electronics retailers such as Best Buy and Circuit City. The purpose of these representatives will be to help potential customers learn how Microsoft’s products “work together” by giving demos and answering questions.

While Microsoft Gurus have indeed drawn comparisons to Apple’s Genius Bar, they aren’t really the same thing.

Microsoft Gurus are pre-sales customer-service reps. They offer no help with your existing products or any sort of real technical support. Their main purpose is to show potential customers “the interconnectedness of Microsoft’s Windows products,” according to Microsoft’s general manager of corporate communications, Tom Pilla.

My first thought on this was that there would be a real conflict of interest having a Microsoft employee floating around an electronics store but Pillas says that Gurus are not paid on commission. Instead, performance is measured by the Guru’s “ability to translate the technology to a language consumers feel comfortable with.” Whatever that means.

I don’t feel comfortable with Microsoft translating anything for me…especially if their standard for good communication is anything remotely close to how they translate their technology with their most recent commercial.

Microsoft has been piloting about 25 of these Gurus for the past 10 months with apparently enough success to expand to 155 Gurus by the end of the year.

What do you think? Is this just Microsoft blatantly copying Apple again? Is there a conflict of interest having a Microsoft employee in an electronics store? Let me know your thoughts.

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