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- Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles Stealthily Invades the iPhone
Gameloft continues to release big titles for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and their most recent release is no exception. The title in question is Ubisoft’s runaway success, Assassin’s Creed, which was wildly successful when released for both the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms in 2007. Prequel Altair’s Chronicles came out for the Nintendo DS last year, but was met with less than stellar reviews. This year, Gameloft has ported Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles ($9.99) to the iPhone platform. Would it fare well on Apple’s handheld? Let’s find out.Graphics
The game looks good on the iPhone, about as good as it does on the DS, judging from the screenshots I’ve seen online. Going from dual to single screen means that some game elements change, but it never felt like I was missing out on anything by not having the second display. Gameloft throws in a video introduction which is gorgeous, with gameplay footage taken from the PS3/Xbox 360 installment of the series. It might mislead people not familiar with the graphics limitations of the platform, but it’s not a big deal.In-game CG video segments are just plain bizarre, though. Often I had trouble figuring out what was going on, and they’re shown in little frames in the center of the screen, making them very, very small. Also, during non-playable interactions using the actual sprites, character movement was often improperly synced with voice-over audio, which just seems unprofessional in a title of this caliber from this particular developer. I also think that some video segments just plain didn’t play, because there were times when I had no idea how I got to be where I was.
Still, minor issues aside, it’s a good-looking game, and gameplay only slowed a couple of times — pretty much on par with Hero of Sparta, or Gun for the PSP.
Audio
Despite sync issues, and problems with the game’s writing and storyline, voice-over work was actually pretty impressive in Altair’s Chronicles. The audio quality of the voice tracks is great, and the acting isn’t terrible. There seem to be a lot of arbitrary differences between what characters actually say and what the subtitles think they’re saying, but it’s more amusing than anything else.Soundtrack and sound effects are both done well. I especially appreciate the sound that indicates a special action button is available, because I’d miss it without the auditory cue most of the time. My largish thumb generally obscures that part of the screen.
Gameplay
I actually haven’t played Assassin’s Creed for either the PS3 or the Xbox, so my impression of the gameplay here won’t be comparative with that title, which I don’t think is fair anyways, considering the disparity between the platforms. The most important factor for gameplay on the iPhone/iPod Touch, for me, are controls. In this case, Gameloft stuck with the formula that worked for them in Hero of Sparta and Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes. That means you control movement via an on-screen D-pad, and jump/attack/perform actions with buttons on the right side of the screen. The difference is that where those games were primarily action-oriented, Altair’s Chronicles is very much a platformer.
It works well enough, although there were a few very frustrating moments when it seemed like bad camera angles and awkward controls combined to make simple tasks infuriatingly difficult. In fact, that probably helps explain why Gameloft peppered in Checkpoints with such frequency. It almost makes frustrating control experiences seem like challenging gameplay. Almost, but not quite.Even so, I did finish the game the same day I started playing it (albeit on “Easy”), so the control issues weren’t enough to make me give up altogether (although I did have to take a couple extended, frustration-based breaks). The game is thoroughly playable, and some of the mini-games, like picking people’s pockets or interrogating people, are perfectly suited to the iPhone platform.
Verdict
If you liked Hero of Sparta, and/or Brothers in Arms for the iPhone and iPod Touch, you’ll probably also enjoy Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles. Don’t go looking for a great and illuminating story line, however, since it seems like a broken and hastily cobbled together prequel at best. Also, be ready to wish you had a physical D-pad, which for me is just part of the iPhone gaming territory at this point, and a trade-off I’m willing to make for some more traditional platform gaming from time-to-time.
Переслать - Apple Gets Legal Push-back Over Takedown Reques
As a company, Apple has a tendency to bully small fish. While it seems harsh at times, it might also be one of the reasons Apple has been so successful in the highly competitive computer and media player field, since they maintain firm control of their corporate and product images by maintaining strict control of how their products are used and portrayed. So we’re used to stories about them threatening a blog or web site if they don’t remove some content. What we’re not so used to are stories about those same sites offering some sort of resistance instead of just rolling over and removing the offending content.The site in question is BluWiki, which originally complied with Apple’s takedown request by removing the offending string, which talked about using iPhone/iPod hardware with non-Apple software alternatives to iTunes. BluWiki has now teamed up with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (see their official story) and law firm Keker & Van Nest to fight the Cupertino giant over the November takedown notice. They’re suing Apple, claiming that it’s violating the first amendment by blocking people from “discussing Apple’s code obfuscations techniques,” as EFF lawyer Fred von Lohmann put it.
Considering BluWiki originally complied with Apple’s request, and are bringing suit some six months later with the backing of heavyweights like the EFF, this is probably more about taking a political stand against Apple’s aggressive muzzle tactics in general than about BluWiki’s specific instance. Regardless of the reason behind the suit, it could have significant ramifications for Apple product owners, since it will ultimately decide exactly what it is you’re buying when you purchase a piece of Apple hardware.
I’m a little torn here, since I appreciate that part of the reason Apple products work so well and so consistently is that Apple fights to maintain its vice-like grip. On the other hand, I’d love to see great apps like Songbird get some hardware support love, and it’s hard not to side with the little guy. Maybe some kind of middle ground can be reached? Here’s hoping.
Переслать - Photo Editing Options When iPhoto Isn't Enough
A relative of mine recently got a fairly sophisticated digital camera and sought my counsel on what sort of photo correction and image editing software to use. He’s been getting along with the version of iPhoto that OS 10.4 installed on his G5 iMac, but he’s not finding it to be quite adequate for the sorts of image manipulation he wants to do. Unfortunately, since he’s not running Leopard, he doesn’t have access to the enhanced image editing features in the OS 10.5 version of Preview.
My short answer to this sort of query is always that if you can afford the reasonable cost of Photoshop Elements 6, it’s your best bet, as it offers most of the capabilities that most amateurs, or even many professionals, would ever use from Photoshop CS at a fraction of the price. PSE is, in my opinion, one of the great commercial software bargains of all time.
Adobe has unfortunately let Mac users fall behind again, with version 7 of Photoshop Elements now out for Windows but not for the Mac. However, Photoshop Elements 6 is so good and so powerful that we really have little to complain about. But if Elements isn’t something you’re interested in, here are a few other options.
Pixelmator
If you’re on a constrained budget, or just prefer to keep your software overhead costs down, a very decent alternative to PSE is Pixelmator, which I reviewed here in February. Pixelmator packs an awful lot of power and versatility into a leaner, swifter, more nimble package than ponderous Elements, although with a more modest and limited feature set, for $30 less. Recently I’ve found myself using Pixelmator more often than PSE, largely because it starts up so much quicker and I can usually do what I need to with it.
ToyViewer
ToyViewer is a core tool in my production applications suite. On a typical workday, I probably use ToyViewer dozens of times, mostly for small and short-duration chores like resizing pictures and changing file types, but ToyViewer can do 90+ percent of the image correction stuff I routinely need to do with graphics, and I don’t know what I would do without it. Well, actually I do. After I upgraded to OS 10.4 back in 2005, there were a couple of months before ToyViewer’s developer, Takeshi Ogihara, got a Tiger-compatible version of ToyViewer released. I tried several lightweight graphics programs as substitutes, but found nothing as slick, quick and suited to my needs as ToyViewer was. I’m addicted to this cool little jack-of-all-trades graphics utility.
Color It!
Color it! is quite a bit more powerful than its interface lets on, with basic to semi-advanced image correction tools and filters. For quick and convenient editing or image creation it’s tough to beat. On the other hand, it doesn’t support layers. I don’t find this much of a handicap for most of the stuff I do, but if you need layers support, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Color It! also does not support PDF files, which can be seriously frustrating these days now that the PDF format has become more of a standard. The workaround is to use Preview or ToyViewer to convert images from/to PDF.
Seashore
I pondered including GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), a powerful, professional-grade, open-source image editing program that is the image-editing standard for the Unix world, but it seemed like overkill for this roundup, so let’s go with Seashore. It’s an open-source bitmap graphics program built in Cocoa for OS X by Mark Pazolli based on GIMP technology with a nice selection of basic tools and layers support. There are no automated photo image clean-up and optimization/enhancement tools, but Seashore features gradients, textures, clone and smudge tools, and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes, supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing, and uses the same native file format.
Funtastic Photos
Funtastic Photos, which I reviewed here last fall, is a powerful, easy-to-use little photo editor app with a vast array of photo correction and enhancement tools. These tools tap into OS X graphics technologies like the Quartz graphics engine, Spotlight, and ImageIO Kit, and offer advanced photo enhancement technologies. Funtastic Photos sells for $34.95.
So what is the best upgrade from iPhoto from a photo editing standpoint? Photoshop Elements is the most powerful and comprehensive alternative. There are others that have their devotees as well, such as Flying Meat’s Acorn, and the Java-based Open Source ImageJ, which runs in 64-bit mode on Intel Macs running Leopard.
They’re all good tools with respective strengths and limitations. Several of them are freeware, and most of the others downloadable as demos, so it’s worth trying more than one to see which appeals to you most. My own inclination is to use several different graphics apps, depending on what the task is.
Переслать - Verizon Buzz Sparks Rumors of Two New Apple Products
The Internet tubes have been awash with rumors of Apple and Verizon talks targeting a working relationship in 2010. While Verizon CEO Lowell McAdams has confirmed that they have talked to people at Apple, he’s otherwise not giving up any details about the discussions. BusinessWeek, however, who conducted the interview with McAdams, have found other sources that say Apple is working on two new products that might see distribution through Verizon Wireless.
News of the new devices comes via the oft-cited source of “people familiar with the matter” (as if people unfamiliar with the matter would be able to offer any information at all), one of whom reports actually having seen one of the devices. That one is supposed to be an “iPhone Lite,” details beyond which are not revealed. A “Lite” version of the iPhone has been a pet rumor of Apple followers since almost the advent of the iPhone itself, so it’s unsurprising to see them cropping up again. Presumably such a device would have less storage, maybe no camera, and perhaps lack Wi-Fi and other features.
The other device is another perennial favorite that basically sounds like an iPod Touch XL. Described by BusinessWeek as “a media pad that would let users listen to music, view photos, and watch high-definition videos” that also allows for VoIP calls via Wi-Fi, under which premise Verizon would most likely be involved. Maybe they’ll offer the thing as a piece of subsidized hardware in exchange for signing up for a wireless mobile broadband package, in a deal comparable to many European (and now U.S., too) netbook packages.
According to BusinessWeek’s sources, the new devices could come out as early as this year, with one possibly introduced as early as this summer. That makes sense if AT&T does indeed have iPhone exclusivity once again, since presumably nothing would prevent Verizon from working with Apple on other devices. Maybe Apple is taking a cue from BlackBerry maker RIM and other smartphone manufacturers that release different “exclusive” phone models with different carriers.
For now, the evidence just isn’t there to file this under anything other than wishful thinking, but it does make more sense than a netbook, given Apple’s very public stance against the devices. Apple’s iPhone/iPod touch brand is strong, and the App Store is a cash cow that would only benefit from having more devices funneling revenue its way. For the foreseeable future, iPhone OS represents far more growth potential than does OS X. Let’s just hope Apple recognizes that, too.
Переслать - Leading iPhone eBook Reader Stanza Acquired by Amazon
People who like to read books on their iPhones (including myself) will be pleased to hear that Amazon has grown tired of playing catch-up with Stanza on the platform and instead bought out the much smaller company behind the app, Lexcycle. The Stanza makers are reportedly “very excited” by the development, which is understandable considering the gobs of cash Amazon no doubt threw their way. I’d be jazzed, too.
While it looks like the Stanza devs will continue to work on the app under the Amazon banner, and they claim that no major changes to the app will result from the purchase, Amazon no doubt has big plans for the platform, which it will likely integrate with its existing iPhone app for Kindle titles. Hopefully they don’t just shut it down in favor of their own app, or rebrand it, because I think the Stanza name at this point has become a force to be reckoned with in the world of iPhone apps.
This is definitely a smart play for Amazon, no matter what route they choose to take. They’ve seen how successful the iPhone has been as an eBook reader, and they, like us, have no doubt seen the growing rumors that point towards a larger, tablet-type device coming out of Cupertino in the near future. Even though it’s unlikely that such a device will be marketed primarily as an eBook reader, if it runs iPhone OS and therefore supports app store programs, users will want to use it as one, regardless of whether or not it has e-ink capabilities. In other words, they’ve seen the writing on the wall, and they’ve obviously decided that if you can’t beat ‘em, it’s best to acquire a company already in that space and join ‘em. Good choice, Amazon.
Переслать - Jailbreak: The Lock Screen is a Barren Land (Part One)
Apple blessed the iPhone 3G with a gorgeous, large screen. There is plenty of screen real estate, so why waste it with just a wallpaper, album cover artwork, or the date and time?
Having been a Windows Mobile user for six years, the Today Screen in Windows Mobile was the one feature I sorely missed in the iPhone OS. With the Today Screen, I could, at a quick glance, see upcoming appointments and know I have new mail, new messages, or missed calls.
It is possible to replicate that experience on a jailbroken iPhone. Today, in the first of two articles, I’ll talk about two third-party apps that’ll turn the barren land that is the Lock screen into a golden field of usefulness.
IntelliScreen
The undisputed king of the hill app for enhancing the Lock screen, IntelliScreen (Intelliborn, $9.99), boasts a long list of features. To simply say it enhances the Lock screen is an understatement. It’s really a productivity suite. To understand what IntelliScreen does, think of it as being comprised of two distinct parts.
The first part puts information such as appointments, mail, messages, weather forecast and RSS feeds on the Lock screen.
This part of IntelliScreen is highly configurable. You choose what goes onto the Lock screen of your iPhone, and you can arrange the order in which each information type is displayed.
What’s more, you can launch the native app associated with each kind of item. For example, sliding across an appointment brings up a button to launch Calendar.
For items such as mail and text messages, you can invoke a QuickView pop-up and read them without having to leave the Lock screen.
The second part completely overhauls the way iPhone OS presents you with system alerts such as missed calls and scheduled reminders. This part of IntelliScreen, called IntelliAlert, is not visible unless your iPhone needs to notify you of a system event, which it does by curling up its usual view and revealing the alert beneath it. Alerts can be by sound, vibration, or a screen flash, and can be set to repeat in intervals.
In addition, IntelliAlert displays in the Status bar notification icons for each type of alert. There are icons for new mail, new messages, new voicemail, missed calls, call forwarding, and due appointments. Small as this may seem, having notification icons in the Status bar goes a long way toward enhancing user experience. More on this in Part Two.
A Rogue App
There is something that should be said about IntelliScreen. Newcomers to IntelliScreen should know that it’s an app with a somewhat bad rep. Many users have reported IntelliScreen to be the culprit in software conflicts with other apps, or that IntelliScreen was the cause of fatal crashes.
These problems are almost always attributable to the fact that IntelliScreen does not hook into Mobile Substrate, the framework that provides third-party apps and mods to inject their code into iPhone OS. Mobile Substrate is designed to boot into a safe mode in the event of a crash, so that your iPhone does not become completely unbootable. Since IntelliScreen does its thing its own way — “rogue,” if you will — the chances of incompatibility with other apps are real and potentially high.
To date I’ve had to restart my iPhone only occasionally, after IntelliScreen becomes unresponsive, but nothing as serious as having my iPhone stuck at the Apple logo has taken place.
Lock Calendar
For those of you looking for a free solution, Lock Calendar (Thomas Moore, free) is a worthy alternative.
Lock Calendar does one thing and does it very well, which is to display upcoming Calendar appointments in the Lock screen. While functionality in its first release was very basic, Lock Calendar 0.3 is a huge improvement, with some features that even IntelliScreen lacks. These include the ability to display some or all of your calendars, and to change font type, size and color. What I personally like about Lock Calendar is that it doesn’t require WinterBoard to run.
Lock Calendar has a lot of potential for becoming a replacement for IntelliScreen on my iPhone. Its developer, Thomas Moore1, is looking into adding new features such as themes, customizable view layout, weather information, and notification alerts for text messages and mail. This is an app I am definitely keeping a close eye on.
Which is the App for You?
IntelliScreen is a must-have app for my iPhone. It’s the kind of app you only need to spend a day using to appreciate how well-rounded it is. Telephony-specific enhancements, such as QuickView and IntelliAlert, are the kind of bells and whistles that power users crave but cannot get with the stock iPhone OS.
On the other hand, Lock Calendar is an app that should be sufficient for many users. Its simplicity will appeal to those who simply want to put the Lock screen to better use. Lock Calendar should appeal to iPod touch users, too. In fact, I chose to install Lock Calendar for my iPod touch rather than IntelliScreen; without messaging, telephony or vibrating abilities, there is little else in the iPod touch for IntelliScreen to do.IntelliScreen and Lock Calendar are by no means the only Lock screen apps available in the jailbreak world. In Part Two, we’ll look at a handful of other apps ranging from clever to plain weird. Stay tuned.
1 Disclaimer: While I do not personally know Mr. Moore, I was involved in the internationalization work for Lock Calendar 0.3.
Переслать - TAB Contest: Paint a Picture and Win a 1-Year Subscription to Backblaze
Yesterday we posted about a snazzy OS X-based painting app that could be considered the equivalent of MS Paint for Mac. Well, we decided it’d be a lot of fun to have a little contest to bring out the inner-artist in all of our readers!
Send in a drawing created ONLY with Paintbrush (a completely free download), and we’ll pick the two best ones. Those winners will each receive a 1-year subscription to Backblaze!
The contest goes now through this Friday, May 1, at 1pm MST.
How to Submit Your Drawing
To submit your drawing, simply post a comment here with a link to your full-resolution image (it can be hosted anywhere: Flickr, Photobucket, ImageShack, etc). Including a story with your photo will earn you brownie points. Also, you can enter as many times as you’d like.
NOTE: Keep this family friendly. Anything you wouldn’t show your 4-year-old niece will be removed and you’ll be disqualified.
Переслать - Parallels Gets $11M Cash Influx
A Russian business newspaper is reporting today that venture capital firm Almaz Capital Partners acquired a 5 percent stake in popular virtualization software vendor Parallels. The stake was purchased from its previous owners, Insight Venture Partners, for $11 million.
The fund used to finance Almaz’s purchase was seeded in July of last year with $30 million from networking infrastructure vendor Cisco. While there’s no word on what led Almaz to invest specifically in Parallels, reports indicate “plans to invest $100 million in growth stage Russian software and IT companies over the next year.”
Consumer- and enterprise-level virtualization is a hot topic in the tech community these days, with Parallels, VMware Fusion, and Apple’s Boot Camp all vying for the top spot in the hearts of users wanting multiplatform capabilities on their Macs. Though Fusion edged out Parallels in our comparison, Parallels gained ground in a recent major update that includes experimental support for Windows 7 and supports Snow Leopard as primary and guest operating system.
Переслать - Wanna Write for TheAppleBlog?
If you didn’t cringe at the “wanna” in the headline, then you clearly ain’t grammatically in tune with your self to write for this here bloggin’ publication.
Okay, I’m done. I just needed an excuse to publish “ain’t” in an article.
At any rate, we’re looking to bring on a few new writers for TheAppleBlog. We’re really looking for folks with prior Tech/Apple related writing, so please include links to examples of your writing in that genre.
These are paid, freelance positions. If you’re interested, please apply.
Переслать - Monitor Your Mac Remotely With iStat for iPhone
If you’ve ever been interested in what goes on behind the scenes of a shiny new MacBook, you may be familiar with iStat Pro and iStat Menus. These two widgets for OS X allow you to monitor system performance and resources — either through Dashboard, or your menu bar.
A fairly new counterpart to these apps is iStat for iPhone, a tool that can remotely monitor your Mac’s performance in real time, or display information about your iPhone itself. Using your phone as a small display for reporting hardware performance of your Mac is not only useful — it looks incredibly cool.
Monitoring iPhone Stats
iStat for iPhone costs $1.99, and doesn’t require any setting up. After downloading and installing, you can immediately open the application to see statistics for iPhone memory, disk space, IP addresses, uptime and load averages:
The information displayed can be customized through the application settings, accessed via the cog icon towards the lower right of the screen. It’s also possible to email your iPhone identifier and MAC address automatically — useful if you need to authorize your phone when testing a new application.
Freeing Memory
iStat claims to be able to free up iPhone memory and speed up your device. I had mixed results with this process, and you need to be prepared to wait for quite a while as the memory clears. It didn’t seem to make any major change to the perceived speed of operation (the iPhone is already very snappy!), but it may be more useful if you regularly run memory-intensive apps.
Monitor Your Mac Remotely
Monitoring your iPhone is great, but if you’d like to use the iPhone to report on your Mac’s performance, you’ll need to install the iStat Server. This is a free download, and only takes a few seconds to set up.
After opening the server for the first time, you’ll be presented with an authorization code that can be used to set up an iPhone:
iStat can use either Bonjour or TCP/IP to connect to iStat Server. Bonjour works great when both devices are on the same wireless network. TCP/IP (either via hostname or IP address) may work in other cases. Providing a connection can be established, the iPhone should now display your Mac as an available iStat server.
Select your Mac, and enter the authorization code to establish a connection. Immediately after doing so, the display should update to show a real-time feed of your Mac’s inner workings.
This screen is showing a number of different things:
- CPU - A graph of CPU usage is displayed, updated every second to illustrate which type of processes are using the most processing power.
- Network - A graph displaying the current up/down activity of your network is updated regularly, and a peak value is held.
- Memory - Full memory stats, including wired, active, inactive, free, page ins/outs and swap size.
- Hard Disks - Free and used space on all internal and connected drives is displayed.
- Temps & Fans - Statistics for all the internal temperature sensors and fan speeds are available.
- Uptime - I’m always fascinated by how long my Mac has been running.
It’s possible to alter how these details are displayed through the app settings, and you can select to see only those that interest you if desired.
Network Tools
The fun doesn’t stop with monitoring, as iStat for iPhone also has a range of built-in network tools for performing ping and traceroute operations. These worked well when tested, and retain the look and feel you’d expect from an iPhone application.
The most recently used hostnames and IP addresses are stored in the app, so you can easily re-perform the same operation again if needed. Here is an example of a traceroute operation in action:
Conclusion
There are a number of things I really like about iStat for iPhone. Firstly is the fantastic design of the app — both on the iPhone, and also in the iStat Server application. It looks like something plucked straight from an episode of “24″. Second is the way in which statistics are updated in real time, allowing you to quickly see if a process is using too much memory.
There are a few areas where it would be great to see features added. I’d welcome the ability to drill down further into the information to, for example, view details of individual applications and processes. If I notice that something is using a great deal of processing power, it would be useful to know what, exactly, is causing the problem.
iStat for iPhone is a great little tool, comes in at a very affordable price ($1.99 at present, normally $2.99), and does actually have a few useful features. Whether you need the ability to perform ping and traceroute operations on the go, or just want to feel like James Bond, it’s worth giving the application a try.
Переслать - NVIDIA GPUs to Take On More in Snow Leopard, Improve Efficiency
Generally speaking, if your not using your Apple computer for graphics-intensive purposes, that NVIDIA GPU that you have if you bought your computer recently isn’t doing much. Definitely not earning its keep, you might say. In fact, you could think of it like your unemployed cousin who crashes on your couch and expects to be showered with praise when he does the dishes once every three or four weeks. All that is about to change, thanks to the next generation of Mac OS, according to NVIDIA product manager Sumit Gupta.In an interview with CNET News on Sunday, Gupta discussed general purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU for short), and how Snow Leopard, and Windows 7, would take special advantage of this growing trend to more efficiently share the overall computing workload between CPU and GPU. Apple’s upcoming Snow Leopard OS X installment will use OpenCL to take advantage of the combined power of CPU and GPU using “heterogeneous” computing, meaning, the computer can use all processors at its disposal to get the job done.
Gupta points out that the technology is truly revolutionary, because for the first time, your computer will see your computer as having two processors as it will recognize the GPU as one as well. For an example of what this will mean in practice, he cites Google imaging software, Picasa. In Snow Leopard, the CPU will handle the running of Picasa in general, because it makes the most sense for it to do so, but as soon as you apply a filter to an image, the filter will be picked up and run by the GPU, because that’s a task which it can handle far more efficiently.
Apple products in particular will benefit from the new technology, since OS X and native applications for the Mac present such a visually rich environment. Of course, don’t expect all of your favorite programs to support GPGPU as soon as you boot up Snow Leopard for the first time. Applications need to be specially programmed to take advantage of the new tech, and not everyone is on board yet. In the past, the graphics language developers needed to use to program for the GPU has been a barrier because of its increased difficulty.
NVIDIA has revised the programming architecture to try to make it more familiar for devs used to coding in C-based languages, and they think they’ve succeeded. We won’t have to wait long to see how that pans out, with many predicting a summer launch of Snow Leopard’s final retail release.
Переслать - Apple Introduces New Features in iPhone OS 3.0 Beta 3
Running a new beta on the iPhone is a little like being a kid with very loving but forgetful parents during Easter. You can bet that there are lots of eggs hidden around, but you’ll probably still be finding some long after the actual hunt is over. Since Apple doesn’t come right out and tell you what it is specifically that’s new about a new beta, features and improvements leak out slowly as developers actually use and poke around in the software.
The latest beta, dubbed 7a280f, is no exception. Lately, all kinds of neat new tricks have come to light, some of which are just nice conveniences, while others indicate a maturation of the platform ahead of the upcoming full release in June. I’ve been playing with it myself for a while, and a lot of these features escaped my notice.
One that I did run into is audio scrubbing in iTunes, which we noticed when it was introduced for podcasts. Now any iPod track can be scrubbed in the same way, by moving the track duration slider back and forth. Just like with podcast scrubbing, moving your finger up or down on the screen will adjust the scrub rate, making it faster or slower accordingly.This is the extent of what I noticed myself, but AppleInsider has unearthed a few more new additions. First is the ability to close out all open windows in mobile Safari, something which I’ve always wanted to be able to do. Previously, you could close out all but one, but the last would remain open until you opened a new window. Now, closing the last window will automatically create a new blank one for you to start out in.
They also show a new settings screen for push notifications, which Apple is now actively encouraging developers to test out. This might just be my issue, but I have no such screen, and no such option in the settings page. The settings, if you do have them, allow you to turn on or off Badge, Sound, and Notification alerts, or turn them off altogether.Data detectors have also been extended to other apps, like Notes. You can now enter info like emails and phone numbers, and your phone will recognize it as active data and automatically create an active link so you can use it to send a message, call someone, etc.
Finally, if you wish your battery indicator was more like the one on your MacBook, you might be in luck, because AppleInsider also seems to have uncovered graphic elements that suggest an option to view percentage or time remaining in addition to the existing battery indicator. The feature isn’t yet live, though, so we’ll see if it goes anywhere.
Can’t wait for the next build to see what else Apple has in store. If they stay true to form, I won’t have to wait long, either, since tomorrow will be two weeks since the last release, which has been the schedule to date for new updates.
Переслать - MS Paint for OS X: Your Life Is Now Complete
I was grabbing a beer last week with a friend and we somehow stumbled onto the topic of Photoshop and how a lot of the people we know only use it for the simplest tasks: cropping, re-saving images in different formats, etc. We then joked that those people could use MS Paint, but there’s no MS Paint for OS X. Why Apple failed to include an MS Paint equivalent in OS X I will never know…I’ve looked on the Internet several times for an MS Paint for OS X and always came up empty-handed. I’ve seen programs like Seashore, but they weren’t slimmed down enough; I wanted something ridiculously simple. Well friends, I’ve finally found the holy grail of simple image editing/painting for OS X: Paintbrush.
Paintbrush is available as a free download and is everything you’d expect from an MS Paint clone. It loads incredibly fast, can open almost any type of image, and lets you edit and paint images quickly and easily. Paintbrush fills the void Apple created when they removed MacPaint from the OS.
Переслать - Weekly App Store Pick: April 25, 2009
What’s that on the horizon? Why it’s none other than the latest picks fresh from the App Store, coming to brighten up your weekend!
Though before I run you through my latest selection of newly released apps, it’s time to indulge in a quick refresher of some of this week’s Apple news.
We started the week not with a bang, but with a tweet. In the early hours of Monday morning, Loren Brichter (otherwise known as iPhone developer Atebits), launched Tweetie for Mac, a desktop version of the immensely popular iPhone Twitter client. Those of you who have taken to summarizing your life as a series of hastily written 140 character messages, should check out my in-depth look at Tweetie.
The iPod touch is apparently growing in popularity with the U.S. Army. It was revealed this week that deployed soldiers are able to use the touch for ballistics calculation and translations, among other things. It’s not clear if voice recognition, a rumored feature of the new iPhone 3.0 update, will also be making it to the iPod touch.
On Thursday, Apple held their second-quarter conference call. In terms of finances, total revenue for the period came to $8.33 billion, up almost $1 billion over the same quarter last year. Aside from the colossal amount of revenue generated, Tim Cook — Apple’s acting CEO while Jobs takes a leave of absence — attempted to quash any rumors of an Apple netbook.
But before the celebratory balloons could be inflated and party poppers popped, Apple was duly taken down a notch with a controversial addition to the App Store. The app in question, imaginatively titled “Baby Shaker,” encouraged the user to shake the iPhone, as if it were a crying baby, until said baby died.
This week I’ve been looking at Knee Cap, Silent Scope, and Assassin’s Creed - Altair’s Chronicles.
Knee Cap (99 cents)
Released back in January, so not strictly the freshest of the picks this week, however, it’s certainly the most useful. Knee Cap is a loan tracker, allowing you to stay on top of cash you owe and — perhaps more importantly — cash owed to you. The app also has the sort of prim ‘n’ proper polished look that you’d expect from a financial tool you’ll be using regularly. Notably, Knee Cap integrates fully with the iPhone’s onboard Address Book, making it a cinch to track loans with your contacts.
Silent Scope ($5.99)
A few years back, six bucks would only get you a few minutes of sniper action on Konami’s Silent Scope arcade game. Now for that same six bucks you can dive straight into this intense sniper time-trial whenever you like. The controls have been seriously refined for iPhone, but the game still retains the tension and focus on accuracy of the arcade original. This version also features a tutorial mode, alongside Story, Shooting Range and Time Attack mode. For fans of the original, Silent Scope on iPhone is unmissable.
Assassin’s Creed - Altair’s Chronicles ($3.99)
From one successful video game adaptation to an utter atrocity by comparison. Mobile gaming giant Gameloft’s latest release is an adaptation of the Nintendo DS version of Assassin’s Creed, which in itself was an ineffective re-telling of the original and successful console version released back in 2007. To Gameloft’s credit, they have indeed enhanced the DS-version of Assassin’s Creed, however the game still doesn’t capture the spirit of what was an excellent sandbox stealth adventure.That’s all the picks we’ve got time for this week. As ever, I’ll return next week with more news from the week and picks from the App Store.
In the meantime, what apps have you been using this week?
Переслать - Tapbots Devs Quit Their Day Jobs Thanks to Apple's iPhone
We know that the App Store is successful (Apple insists that we know, thanks to things like the billionth app downloaded competition that just concluded yesterday), but it’s not too often that we get to put a human face on that success and see what it really means for developers. Apple themselves gave us a look at Trism developer Steve Demeter in a video segment shown during their iPhone OS 3.o event, but how are others doing?The two developers behind Tapbots are doing very well, apparently. Mark Jardine and Paul Haddad together make up Tapbots, the studio that’s responsible for two very successful apps, Weightbot and Convertbot, both of which I own and love, coincidentally. It’s not so much the function that draws me to Tapbots apps (though they work flawlessly), but the beautiful, unique, robot-themed design.
Jardine and Haddad have, until now, been working on their Tapbots projects on evenings, weekends and basically whenever they have a spare moment. They still both had day jobs to go to, and it would’ve been foolish to throw away a steady income for something as novel as App Store development. We estimate revenue for their apps Weightbot, and the even more popular Convertbot, at between $500,000 and $600,000 to date. Even once you remove Apple’s 30 percent, that still adds up to between $350,000 and $420,000 on $0 initial investment. Not a bad haul for only a 6-month period.
In a post on their blog yesterday, Haddad revealed that in light of their success, both developers are now giving themselves over full-time to iPhone development. The good news is that this means they can devote more time to creating the precious little diamonds in the rough that have made them so successful to date. Not sure if they’re taking suggestions, but I’d really love to see a Calcbot to replace the iPhone’s ho-hum built-in one (yes, I would pay at least a dollar for a purely superficial upgrade).
No word on what the forthcoming apps will be, but they plan on releasing four a year, and will be starting on a new one in May. Meanwhile, 1.3 updates for both Convertbot and Weightbot are almost ready to be submitted to Apple.
While Trism is a terrific example of what a great, innovative idea from an independent developer can achieve on the iPhone platform, the Tapbots story is a little different. It shows that you don’t have to come up with something completely original to be successful. The apps Tapbots creates are performing very basic functions, and ones that other applications often already offer. The difference is Tapbots takes the time to really polish the design and performance of their product, and the quality that results appeals to consumers. It just goes to show that despite the sometimes depressing quality of App Store chart toppers, the good guys do sometimes still win.
Переслать - Thanks to TheAppleBlog Sponsors!
We’d like to say thanks to this month’s sponsor of TheAppleBlog:
- WunderRadio: Wunder Radio provides access to thousands of streaming Internet radio stations and on your iPhone or Windows Mobile Phone.
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Переслать - App Review: Fist of Fury — As Much Fun As a Punch in the Face
App Quick Stats
Don’t let life get you down, put your punchin’ gloves on and show the world you’re a champion in this retro boxing game.
In these economically egregious times, we all need a little release from the fiscal pressures dumped upon on our already strained shoulders. Even I need some respite from the current monetary melee, having just conducted a thoroughly British argument with my thoroughly British bank manager, both of us politely snarling, in a disturbingly reserved manner, down the phone line.
Allowing you to take your troubles to the ring, Fist of Fury is a retro-style boxing game for the iPhone. The game features five muscle-bound walking clichés for you to attempt to beat the pulp out of.
Round One
Before you’ve even set fist to face, or foot in ring, however, you’ll be struck down by the inordinately long load time. For a game that has the technical depth of a caveman dressed as a robot, it’s surprising that Fist of Fury takes so long to load.
Once past the loading screen comes the disappointment of seeing what took so long to load. The graphics on the title screen, like those in the rest of the game, look unfinished, more akin to placeholder graphics in a beta version. Only moments into the game, it’s apparent that very little effort has been spent on its visual design.
In the ring and on level one, my opponent was a beefy, retro-styled juggernaut. And yet this juggernaut, the boxing ring, and even my own character reminded me of something. A quick Google search later and it’s clear that Fist of Fury bares a striking resemblance to Nintendo’s NES classic Punch Out.
The audio in Fist of Fury, however, doesn’t bare any resemblance to Punch Out’s glorious blippy bloppy sound effects, nor is it reminiscent of the NES classic’s oddly jaunty music. Fist of Fury features no musical accompaniment and the sound effects, while satisfyingly 8-bit and tinny, are few and far between.
A Hollow Victory
Fists of Fury pits your character, the imaginatively titled John Doe, against five gargantuan opponents. John stands square in the center of the screen, riveted to the spot, perhaps through sheer fear. The only option open to the player is to keeping throwing punches while attempting to dodge your opponents’ onslaught of fists.
Tapping the left and right punch buttons cause John to flail the appropriate fist in the general direction of his enemy. It feels ineffective and devoid of any strategy. For your defense, by leaning the iPhone left or right, you’re able to dodge your opponents advances.
As there’s no tell, or indication of any sort, for when your opponent may punch, nor is there any strategically effective method to dodging and attacking beyond that of randomly leaning left and right, while bashing each punch button alternately. With the gameplay being so lacking in depth, each win in Fist of Fury feels frustratingly futile.
Note that I’ve not mentioned options or settings because there are none. There’s no way to change the game’s difficulty, no tutorial or control overview (understandable, given Fist of Fury’s strategic simplicity), nor is there the opportunity to change your character’s name or add a profile picture.
Summing Up
While the sound and graphics aren’t necessarily awful, they don’t bring anything new to retro-style gaming and are more of a rushed rip than an outright homage. The control mechanism and general game mechanic — no efficient strategy beyond whacking the punch buttons — is a disgustingly poor attempt at mimicking the depth and effectiveness of 8-bit boxing games.
At this point, my only hope is that this review shames the developers of Fist of Fury into either taking app development and their customers seriously, or throwing the towel in and leaving the industry. To summarize, I’ll be blunt as a punch square in the face: Avoid this awful game.
Переслать - Mac Botnet: How To Ensure You're Not Part of the Problem
As reported recently all over the blogosphere, the world’s first Mac-based botnet is active after infiltrating people’s systems in January by way of a trojan hidden inside pirated iWork’09 installers. If you downloaded and installed iWork’09 from a torrent, binary newsgroup, or any other source not from Apple’s trial download links or official DVDs, you have a high likelihood of infection and need to do something about it.
We’re not here to judge — we are here to help. So if you know you’re possibly at risk, you should immediately determine if you are infected or not, and if you are rid yourself of infection.
Manually Determining Infection
To manually determine if you are infected or not, fire up a terminal (run Terminal.app). There are three ways to detect infection and all three should be used for thoroughness. The Trojan masquerades by the name iWorkServices and this is the key to determine infection.
1. Check for the process running
sudo ps aux |grep -i iworkserv |grep -v "grep"
This checks that no process is running containing the name iworkserv on your system. If this returns anything at all, you are most likely infected.2. Checking for opened file
sudo lsof -i -P|grep -i iworkserv
This checks that no process with the name containing iworkserv has any open files on your system, and no files containing iworkserv are opened by anything else. If this returns anything at all, you are most likely infected.3. Checking for the files on your hard drive
sudo find / -iname "iworkserv*" -print
This searches your hard drive from top to bottom, inside and out, looking for a file starting with iworkserv. If this returns anything at all, you are most likely infected.Quick Detection and Removal
The people over at SecureMac have posted a simple (and free) tool that will detect and rid you of infection. If you even think there’s a slight chance of infection, you should run this. This will scan your system and inform you if you need to clean the infection. If so, it will offer to clean it for you. For peace of mind, you can test manually with the steps above before and after cleaning, to ensure removal is complete.
Prevention
There is a strong debate relating to how necessary virus checking is for Macs. The situation is clearly becoming more risky, so I take the middle ground by running the full MacScan software as a scheduled process once a week. This gives me peace of mind that I will identify anything within a week, without slowing down my system with a constantly running process checking every file I open.
But crucially (and I cannot stress this enough), the most effective prevention is to be careful what you download and install — and especially be careful what you enter your admin password for. I’ve never had an infection on Windows or Mac in my life and they’re not hard to avoid if you keep your systems updated with security patches and don’t download and install without prejudice. Just as you look left and right before you cross the road, look before you install.
Переслать - Apple Passes Billion Milestone, Prize Wasted on Kid
[UPDATE: Seems we need to start adding a graphic of a cheek with a tongue planted firmly in it for articles like this. Lighten up folks.]My opinion might be slightly skewed, thanks to jealous rage, but I can’t help but think that Apple’s big billion-app prize could’ve gone to someone more deserving than the 13-year-old who finally took it home. Like me, for instance.
Connor Mulcahey of Connecticut is the official grand prize winner, though, like it or not, confirmed by Apple this Friday. He’ll be taking home a $10,000 iTunes gift certificate. The app he downloaded to win was Bump, which allows you to share contact information wirelessly between iPhones or iPod touches.
First of all, why does a 13-year-old even need a contact sharing application? Is he networking? Does he have that many friends with iPhones? Actually, why does he even have an iPhone or an iPod touch in the first place? One thing’s for sure, the kind of 13-year-old kid who has an iPhone probably isn’t so hard up for cash that he needs Apple to give him a bunch a free stuff. And what’s he going to do with a MacBook Pro and a Time Capsule? Edit and back-up skateboarding vids? OK, I’m done venting.
In all seriousness, Apple probably couldn’t have asked for a better winner. The teen market is one area where they still have lots of room to grow, as a recent survey indicates. Which is partially why I’m so baffled that one could actually win, since the odds seem stacked against it, percentage-wise. Also, it shows that kids like using Apple products, too, even if Microsoft stuff does appeal more to the highly lucrative 4-year-old girl demographic.
Besides the prize-giving, Apple also introduced a new online video advertisement trumpeting their own achievement. The ad, which appears on the New York Times web site, among others, is basically an extended, animated version of the “Thanks a billion” graphic that they’re using on the Apple homepage. It dominates the header and sidebar of the Times’ site, and Apple probably wishes the news would also blot out the nasty black mark their reputation has suffered at the hands of the now notorious Baby Shaker app.
I wonder what effect the promotion and giveaway had on download numbers. Only Apple will probably ever know for sure, but if we see more sweepstakes and similar sales tactics in the future, that’s a pretty good indication that the campaign was successful. Here’s hoping it was, because Daddy still needs a new Macbook Pro. Maybe I can catch a late flight to Connecticut and intercept a delivery from Apple en route to a certain 13-year old’s house…
Переслать - ExpanDrive 2.0 Enhances GUI, Speed, and Connectivity Options
Building on the success of their initial offering, ExpanDrive has released version 2.0 of their Mac client for accessing a wide array of online storage systems.
ExpanDrive is built on MacFUSE, an open-source project that provides the base functionality and SDK for connecting to remote and alternative filesystems. The ExpanDrive developer-alchemists have mixed in a bit of their own Python and Objective-C components to significantly enhance the potency of these MacFUSE-managed filesystems and definitely improved the formula for this major update. Read on to see what’s new in 2.0.
SFTP Overhaul
Not fully satisfied with the status quo, the developers brought the SFTP engine back to the lab and have completely re-engineered it. My tests confirmed that large file copies now transfer in approximately half the time. Traipsing through my cluttered web directories in the Finder is also a less painful experience due to a fully re-worked caching system.
An even more pleasant surprise is how quickly remote edits are detected. The video below shows a text file being edited in both
vion my very remote Linux box and also open locally in TextWrangler. Edits made on the server side show up almost instantaneously now.
FTP/FTPS Support
ExpanDrive has had experimental support for FTP/FTPS filesystems for quite a while and has now made it a first class filesystem in version 2.0. As a daily user of the product, I regularly peruse both their Twitter activity and Get Satisfaction support forums and can attest that they really do listen to users. It’s very obvious that they wanted to make sure that FTP/FTPS support worked under as many conditions as possible before bringing it to their entire user base. If you must use FTP, you should definitely take advantage of the enhanced security in the FTPS protocol if at all possible. Standard FTP transmits both your credentials and all data completely in the clear, making it very easy for malicious users to eavesdrop on your sessions.
GUI Enhancements
Continuing the theme of listening to their users, ExpanDrive has tweaked their GUI to provide more information about the types of drives available and provides the ability to eject volumes from their Drive Manager as well as open volumes in the Finder.
You can now also change the drive icon and use your own icons for ExpanDrive volumes by clicking on the drive icon in the edit dialog:
Live! New! Filesystem! (S3 Support)
Perhaps the most significant enhancement is the inclusion of support for Amazon S3. While inherently not as robust as SFTP volumes, S3-mounted volumes let you use the Finder to manage your buckets (i.e. copy/move/delete files), including setting object permissions via contextual menu. I created a test bucket via S3Fox, used ExpanDrive to move files into it and verified the results back in S3Fox.
Should You Buy/Upgrade?
If you’ve never used ExpanDrive and regularly have to FTP/SFTP files or work with content in S3 buckets, then you really should consider giving ExpanDrive a try (list price is $39.95 for new users). Existing users should also consider upgrading just for the speed and integrity enhancements alone. Couple that with good S3 support and it’s well worth the $19.95 upgrade price (free if you’ve purchased the previous version within 60 days of release).
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