Fresh Apple: TheAppleBlog (4 сообщения)

На что подписаться? | Управление подпиской

TheAppleBlog
TheAppleBlog, 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.
http://theappleblog.com
рекомендовать друзьям >>

Weekly App Store Picks: May 16, 2009

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, even better, it’s a super selection of fresh picks, plucked from the App Store, especially for you.

But that’s not all I’ve got in store for you this weekend: After perusing the week’s happenings right here at TheAppleBlog, I’ve prepared a swift run-down of Apple news from the past seven days.

The folks over at Amazon kicked off the week by dropping an update to the Kindle for iPhone app. A few weeks back, Amazon acquired the company behind Stanza, the free e-Book reader. It seems as if Amazon is still pushing forward with the Kindle for iPhone app, rather than, as I would have expected, focusing its efforts, and considerable resources, on rolling Stanza and Kindle into one.

TheAppleBlog’s Henry Balanon helped melt away those Monday blues with a new iPhone Dev Sessions tutorial. For coders and tech-minded musicians alike, this should be a particularly interesting one, as Henry’s latest article is all about creating a drum machine app for iPhone.

On Tuesday, Microsoft launched a shot across the bow of Apple’s iPod, with its latest Zune advertisement. The ad features Apprentice-losing certified financial adviser Wes Moss, explaining why a Zune is much more of an economically savvy purchase than the iPod.

Perhaps signaling the end of the line for the iPhone 3G, Apple has now made it possible to purchase the device online. It’s the latest in a long line of what seems to be inventory-clearing tactics from Apple, making way for the rumored iPhone refresh this summer. Potential buyers should consider holding out for a possible iPhone announcement in the coming weeks.

Also this week, David Klein posted an excellent tutorial on setting up Google Sync for Mac and iPhone. This is essential reading, both for Gmail users looking to integrate their iPhone more closely with their Google account and for MobileMe users looking for a free alternative to Apple’s service.

Moving on to the picks, this week I’ve been looking at When Sysadmins Ruled The Earth, Guru Meditation, Resident Evil: Degeneration and Peggle.

When Sysadmins Ruled The Earth (free)
Blogger, journalist, author and super-smart guy, Cory Doctorow, has had one of his excellent short stories brought to the iPhone, courtesy of Robot Comics. The story centers around a bunch of sysadmins as chance survivors of a global apocalypse. Although the comic book reader software is incredibly bare-bones, it doesn’t matter, as the story makes for incredibly compelling reading. For fans of short science-fiction stories, this is a must-have app for the iPhone and well worth checking out over the weekend.

Guru Meditation (free)
Whether you use your iPhone for work or play, it’s just as important to get away from the incessant flow of e-mails and PDFs, zombie apocalypses and pachinko-esque puzzles. If you want to relax but just can’t seem to break away from your iPhone, Guru Meditation could be just the app you need. Created as an homage to an old mythical Amiga game, Guru Meditation could be considered a game in the loosest sense; it’s more a tool for encouraging relaxation and calm, albeit with a retro Atari-style look. To play, you simply find a quiet place, sit in a comfortable meditative position and then hold the iPhone still for as long as possible.

Resident Evil: Degeneration ($6.99)
If meditating isn’t your bag, though, and you’re just on the lookout for another zombie head to pop, this may be just the app for you. Capcom’s Resident Evil: Degeneration is an incredibly faithful addition to the long-running series, featuring excellent 3D graphics, shake and tilt to fend off zombies or reload, and, of course, a panoply of disgruntled undead folk to unleash your sweet gunnishment upon. It’s a deep, action-packed experience, certainly ideal for fans of the series, and, at the moment, this is as close to console gaming as the iPhone can get.

Peggle ($4.99)
We’re finishing up this week with Peggle — a pachinko-style puzzler, which is a genre that seems to be all the rage on the iPhone at the moment. Arguably one of the titles at the forefront of this genre, at least in the online casual gaming space, is PopCap’s Peggle. The iPhone version is astonishingly good value for money and an example of just how much of a better experience a little polish and attention to detail can bring. The game packs in 55 levels, various game modes, loads of score-modifiers, replays, and even an array of weird characters, all of whom give it an Adult Swim-lite vibe. Just like Rockchinko, which I reviewed earlier this week, it’s a brilliant game, but it could still do with downloadable levels and online connectivity.

That’s all the picks for this week. I’ll be back in seven days with more news from the week and picks from the App Store.

In the meantime, what apps have you been using this week?

Are you looking for opportunities in Cloud Computing? Then check out GigaOM’s Structure 09 conference.

Переслать
Belated Tech Rhymes For Limerick Day

Sure, Limerick Day was actually yesterday. Think of these as either a day late or 364 days early.

There once was a major OS
Whose code was so clearly a mess.
But we just have to cope,
And hope against hope
It's fixed in the next version, I guess.

There's a hot social network called Twitter.
On my desktop, "tweets" it does litter.
Truth is most are a bore;
I'm not sure I want more,
But I sort through the mud for the glitter.

We once kept our files on PCs
So working with them was a breeze.
But now they're in the Cloud,
And we all scream out loud
When an outage brings us to our knees.

I have personal info to sync,
And used all the right settings, I think.
Alas, to my despair
It never gets there;
It's enough to drive someone to drink.

There's a hot rumor from overseas.
Geeks just can't get enough of these.
It wasn't fact-checked,
But it must be correct
Since it came to us from the Chinese.

In this online age it gets tough,
And some firms' Terms of Service are rough.
But we're in such a hurry
We don't stop to worry
Until Facebook owns all of our stuff.

Are you looking for opportunities in Cloud Computing? Then check out GigaOM’s Structure 09 conference.

Переслать
Need for Speed Undercover Infiltrates the iPhone

As a general rule, racing games tend to leave me cold. My brother is the car buff and racing fan. I’ve enjoyed a few, like Gran Turismo, but I tend to give them a pass. Need for Speed Underground for the PS2 was another exception to the rule, mostly because of the RPG-type elements of customizing and upgrading your car, rather than the racing elements themselves. Oh, and I loved Mario Kart, but that doesn’t really apply here (Nintendo will probably never allow that dream to come true).

Need for Speed: Undercover, one of EA’s big iPhone releases for 2009, recently went live in the App Store, and I spent this past weekend being a hot shot street-racer. Well, a pretend hot shot, anyway. Those familiar with 2001’s The Fast and The Furious will recognize the plot basics in Need for Speed: Undercover. You’re an undercover (surprise!) cop, who’s trying to infiltrate the street racing world to recover some important stolen cars and/or arrest people. The story wasn’t exactly gripping enough for me to pay close attention to.

Graphics

Developer EA took a cue from the Command & Conquer series in NFS: Undercover and decided to go with live-action cuts cenes instead of CG. That means cheesy acting seems even more cheesy, but it also means they hired a bunch of hot female actresses to trot around looking sexy for no good reason. Actually maybe that’s the reason I couldn’t follow the plot.

In-game graphics are pretty good, although I found that your car looks a lot better in the garage than it does on most of the tracks, depending on the lighting conditions. Maybe it has something to do with the custom paint job I applied to my ride, but it looked off in most of the races, though perfect in the shop. Other than that, the in-game tracks and other vehicles actually look very good on the iPhone’s small screen, and there is no noticeable lag or slowdown, even when you’re going at top speed or using your nitrous boost.

I’m a huge fan of collision damage on car models in racing games, and unfortunately, NFS: Undercover is missing those. Maybe it’s too much to ask for in an iPhone racing game, though. Other graphic effects, like when you enter slow-down precision steering mode, or when you trash an opponent car or encounter police cruisers, work well but can become annoying if you have to replay a level a number of times. An option to turn off at least the cruiser-spotting effects would be a nice addition.

Audio

Sound was a bit hit or miss for me, but my experience may not be representative. First, I thought it was odd that there was no music during the intro/opening. But then things were working fine for cinematics, so I assumed it was just a choice the devs made. When there was nothing playing in-game, I started to worry (before you ask, I installed from iTunes and reset prior to playing, so it shouldn’t have been install issues). Eventually, the audio did start working.

When it did, I sort of regretted that it had. The soundtrack is OK, but very limited, and hearing the same songs over and over quickly gets tiring. You can always opt to listen to your own iPhone music, though, making this sort of a non-issue. Although I think developers taking shortcuts on game soundtracks for the iPhone just because it has a music player built-in is a pretty lame cop-out.

Gameplay

NFS: Undercover is very reminiscent of Underground when it comes to gameplay, and that’s a good thing. You start off with $25,000 and three cars to choose from. Once you’ve made your purchase, you get down to racing. There are a variety of types of races, including Battle, Sprint, Hot Car and Takeout, so even players who don’t like the repetition of most racing games shouldn’t find this one too redundant.

Winning races wins you money, which you can then use to purchase new cars, or to outfit your current ride with performance and aesthetic upgrades. A new paint job, lowered suspension, huge shiny rims, and a lot more are available, with different custom equipment for each car. There’s also tons of cars to unlock, so you won’t lack for motivation, even when some of the races are a lot more challenging than most and have to be replayed over and over. If you ever get stuck, you can go back and re-run old races to build your bank and buy upgrades and/or better cars.

Car control during races is kept simple, which is ideal for the platform. Your engine is going full speed by default, and tapping the screen anywhere will apply your break. Swiping down enters the slowed-down improved control mode, and swiping up activates your nitrous. You turn by tilting your phone in either direction, and doing so with a quick jerk will let you drift around corners. I find that I never use the slow-mo mode, though other might find it handy. In general, handling is good, and doesn’t feel either too sensitive or too loose.

Verdict

Despite not really being interested in the import car racing scene, or racing games in general, I really like Need for Speed: Undercover. It has good replay value, lots of unlockables, and customization that amounts to a leveling system. If you’ve passed on every other racing game for the iPhone and iPod Touch to date, this may be the one to get.

Are you looking for opportunities in Cloud Computing? Then check out GigaOM’s Structure 09 conference.

Переслать
App Store Roundtable: After Sales Support

In this installment of the App Store Roundtable, I talked to a few developers about issues with supporting their apps after a sale has been made. Many developers are concerned at the difficulty of providing any form of after sales support to customers. Minor problems with an app often lead to a bad review and a dissatisfied customer, when a better support system could have quickly resolved the issue.

The App Store is a wonderful platform, but I would love to have better customer service tools. The App Store asks the shopper to place their trust in the developer with Apple serving as an intermediary. Apple’s reputation goes a long way in building trust, but by providing better customer service tools Apple would turn their developers into a dedicated customer service team. By adding features like an app FAQ section, the ability to send a refund, and a standard “contact” button, Apple could strengthen customer relationships.

– Carrie Segal, developer of Colorific

I see real difficulty in supporting end-users. Apple’s sole concession is a “support” link in the App Store, which most people seem to ignore, preferring to add a review. Of course, we can’t respond to those reviews. We see a number of problems: Users typically see iPhone OS updates at the same time as developers, and there’s that delay in pushing out fixes; the difficulty of remotely diagnosing problems; the obstacles in getting access to logs and databases…The list goes on. Apple is certainly moving in the right direction with the recent availability of crash reports and version numbers on reviews, but things are possibly improving too slowly to help developers building more complex applications. As it stands, the App Store is still geared towards “disposable,” low-cost apps. People aren’t going to pay more for complex apps until developers can adequately support them.

– Stephen Darlington, developer of Yummy

Other developers reported some success by building their own support links and mechanisms into their Apps.

In Flower Garden, I did go out of my way to make sure users can contact me and give me feedback. There’s even a button in the app itself for people to give feedback.

– Noel Llopis of Snappy Touch, developer of Flower Garden

As Darlington mentioned, Apple has just recently started providing developers with access to crash reports via iTunes Connect. Trent Shumay, of Finger Food Studios, is one of many developers welcoming the new addition:

As soon as I heard of the crash reporting, a sense of warmth and happiness entered my soul after years of battling it out on platforms where it simply wasn’t an option. For the average independent iPhone developer, access to crash reports is a major equalizer in the delicate balance between limited resources for Beta Testing and product quality.

Our apps will receive thousands (or hopefully hundreds of thousands) of executions by a group of users not conditioned to its quirks and intended usage. No QA process can possibly reproduce this, so it’s incredibly valuable to have a safety net in case something goes wrong.

Apple’s crash reports deliver key information directly back to the developer, and have the potential to reduce the timeframe for correcting crash bugs by an order of magnitude. This is only a good thing, and a very welcome tool in the development process.

Join us next time?

If you are an iPhone developer with experience of the App Store and would like to participate by sharing some opinions in future App Store Roundtables, please get in touch via our contact form.

Are you looking for opportunities in Cloud Computing? Then check out GigaOM’s Structure 09 conference.

Переслать