| rss2email.ru |
 ВирусВидео - лучшее из популярного  |  Новости поисковой оптимизации  |  Все о праздниках ежедневно  |  Мужской журнал ManDay.RU  |
 |  TheAppleBlogTheAppleBlog, 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 >> |
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert Brings the Red Menace to Your iPhone
It’s a game series that’s gotten much love over the years, despite, or perhaps because of, the cheesy live action cut scenes featuring actors like Tim Curry. Now, Command & Conquer comes to the iPhone with Command & Conquer: Red Alert ($9.99, iTunes link), named after its PC and console counterpart released in 1996.How well does the beloved RTS translate to the iPhone platform? That depends on what you’re looking to get out of the game. EA Mobile has clearly tried to faithfully translate the experience, but as with any translation, no perfect one-to-one relationship can exist. What does come through, however, is definitely worth looking at.
Graphics & Audio
Perhaps just to make me sad, EA chose not to go with live action mission briefings for this installment of the series, opting instead to brief you with static cartoon images and scrollable text. It’s not nearly as pleasant as hammy acting, but it does get the job done and prepare you adequately for the in-game action.
In-game graphics look great, and are probably a bit of an improvement over their original counterparts in the PC version. Units are clearly distinguishable from one another, animations are smooth, and the visual special effects look good. My sole complaint for the in-game look of things is that units can tend to stack, which renders some of them invisible. It’s confusing and can hamper effective unit management.
Sound is good, with music from Red Alert 3, which is the latest game in the series for the PC and consoles. In-game voices are well-recorded and clear, as are most sound effects. Again, the lack of audio in briefings and other between-action components is a little disappointing, but not terribly so.Gameplay
As with any real-time strategy port for the iPhone, the key to enjoyable gameplay lies in making sure the controls are well-designed and intuitive. This can be particularly challenging even when porting RTS games to consoles from the PC, so EA has its work cut out for it with Command & Conquer on the iPhone.
Selecting and commanding individual units on the iPhone is simple enough. You touch a unit to select it, and touch somewhere else to tell it where to go or what to attack. To select multiple units, you have to activate a selection tool by clicking an icon in the lower left-hand corner. At first it wasn’t clear (I hadn’t reached that part in the tutorial yet) and I tried tapping and dragging and two-finger pinch and zoom type gestures.
Once you have selected a group of units, though, you can assign them to a command group using another icon at the lower left of the screen. This assigns them to one of three slots on the left, and allows you to re-select that group at any time with a simple tap. It’s the saving grace of the game, control-wise, and I wish there were more than three spots available to assign unit groups to.
The campaigns are fun, and not too challenging. There is both a Soviet and an Allied campaign, each of which contains five chapters, and there’s a skirmish mode with customizable starting resources and different maps, which really adds to the replay value of the game.
All told, EA Mobile does a great job skirting the limitations of the iPhone’s controls, and provides ample gameplay while still retaining a fairly casual feel, so that you can pick it up and put it down as necessary between meetings or while commuting.Verdict
For an iPhone game, Command & Conquer: Red Alert feels polished and professional, but it leaves me wanting something more. I can’t help but yearn for the easier controls and richer storyline and gameplay of the PC version, which may in fact be what EA was intending. Perhaps the iPhone game is meant as a sort of teaser demo to attract new customers to the PC/console line. Either way, despite solid gameplay, Red Alert left me underwhelmed. I’d wait for the inevitable price drop to $6.99 or less before picking this one up.
Переслать - App Store Hits 100K in 481 Days
481 days. That’s how long it took the App Store to go from opening its virtual doors with 500 applications on July 11, 2008 to a catalog of more than 100,000 applications downloaded more than 2 billion times.
Not surprisingly, the folks at Apple are pleased.
"The App Store, now with over 100,000 applications available, is clearly a major differentiator for millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers around the world," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "The iPhone SDK created the first great platform for mobile applications and our customers are loving all of the amazing apps our developers are creating."
The amazing thing is that it’s likely not even Apple knew just how successful the App Store and SDK would be or how it would spawn so many competitors (GigaOM Pro, subscription required).
In June 2007, it was Apple CEO Steve Jobs talking up a different method application development for the iPhone:
"Our innovative approach, using Web 2.0-based standards, lets developers create amazing new applications while keeping the iPhone secure and reliable."
Imagine for a moment if Apple had stuck to that ideal of a web-based platform. I believe it would be called the Palm Pre.
Of course, it’s possible that Apple knew all along that there would be a real SDK for the iPhone OS, almost assuredly so for major partners like game developers. Apple again pushed that gaming concept for iPhone OS with today’s announcement, too. EA Mobile VP Travis Boatman chimed in on the press release, saying that the App Store has “forever changed the mobile gaming industry and continues to improve.” You can bet Nintendo and Sony believe at least the first part of that statement, much to their chagrin.
What you didn’t find in the press release was what, exactly, is being done to improve the flawed approval process. While Apple talks about addressing issues, there is no evidence of real, systemic change. As the App Store moves inevitably towards 500,000, and then its millionth application, you have to wonder if the App Store can withstand the stress of its own incredible success.
Переслать - The iPhone's Other Killer App
Looking at the latest data on smartphone market share from research firm Canalys, it would appear that while Apple is doing well, RIM is doing better.
According to Canalys, over 41 million smartphones shipped last quarter, and of those Apple sold 7.3 million, up from 6.9 million a year ago, a 6.7 percent increase. That's the good news. The bad news is for HTC, the only major smartphone maker to lose market share, down 5.6 percent, but the best news is for RIM. RIM sold 8.5 million phones, up from 6 million last year, a super-sized 40 percent increase. Based upon these numbers, it would seem logical to conclude RIM is the big winner among smartphone makers, but these numbers only touch the surface of the situation, or rather they don't.
While conventional wisdom says the killer application for the iPhone has been the App Store, a new survey from comScore suggests that touch is quickly becoming the must have feature for smartphones. For the U.S., sales of touchscreen phones were up 159 percent from a year ago, an even larger increase than touchscreen smartphone sales, which were up 63 percent. Of the latter, the iPhone is the undisputed leader.
The iPhone accounts for a third of the touchscreen smartphone market in the U.S., with no other competitor in double digits. The Blackberry Storm is at 7 percent, the T-Mobile G1 and HTC Touch are at 3.6 and 3.1 percent, respectively. Mark Donovan of comScore believes the iPhone "set the trend in the industry for touchscreen devices, so it's no surprise that it has the largest share of the market." However, he also believes "competitors have entered the touchscreen market with compelling devices, competition is clearly heating up."
That latter comment sounds eerily familiar, not at all unlike predictions about iPod competitors in 2004. Back then, the iPod's success was attributed to everything from the iTunes ecosystem to Apple marketing, but what really set the iPod apart was the interface, especially the patented click wheel. What we are seeing now is that in every review from the Palm Pre to the Motorola Droid there is a comparison to the multi-touch interface of the iPhone. Without exception, the iPhone wins every time.
Even better, from Apple's point of view, the smartphone with the worst touch interface — besides beleaguered Windows Mobile on HTC phones — has been RIM's BlackBerry Storm and Storm2. Further, what is arguably the closest competitor, the Motorola Droid will lack multi-touch, at least in the U.S. Motorola obfuscated something about "differentiated consumer experiences on our mobile devices" based on "region, carrier preferences and consumer needs," but another theory is wariness concerning Apple's patents on multi-touch.
Let’s hope so. A vigorous defense of that mutli-touch experience is one half of what could be a plan for world domination by Apple in the phone market. The other half is the end of carrier exclusivity and the launch of a carrier-subsidized “free” iPhone nano, a media player and phone with the best interface on the planet, Apple’s golden touch.
Переслать
| rss2email.ru | отписаться: http://www.rss2email.ru/unsubscribe.asp?c=6893&u=24004&r=311667163 управление подпиской: http://www.rss2email.ru/manage.asp |
