Steve Jobs is back to work, so am I!
So, I’m not dead afterall. Just went on a bit of a hiatus as I’ve been refining my photography and retouching skills. Expect lots of good new news from me coming very soon.
Sphere: Related ContentHappy New Year 2009!
To all of you, I wish you the best for the upcoming year. May you all have a healthy and happy 2009, and may all of your tech hopes and gadget dreams come true!
Sphere: Related ContentFirst gen Zunes commit mass suicide
Well this is certainly one of the stranger stories of the year. I woke up this morning to sync my first gen Zune with my daily regiment of Podcasts and music, only to find that it was frozen at the boot screen. Odd enough, but not unheard of. I attempted the usual methods of resetting the device, only to find that I would end up back at the same boot screen again.
As I made a trip over to the official Zune forums to find a tip on how to fix this little issue, I found out that every single last original 30 gigabyte Zune had bricked themselves over the course of the night. Not 10% of them, not 50% of them, EVERY SINGLE LAST ONE THAT STILL FUNCTIONS.
This goes far beyond random failures, and into the land of class action lawsuit. Not sure what the issue is with these devices, but considering it’s firmware agnostic, and device specific, it must be something engrained in the hardware of these Zune 30s.
As of now, the Zune support lines are flooded with calls, and Microsoft has yet to release a statement on the matter. I’ll keep this post updated over the course of the day as the story develops. In the mean time check out the official Zune forums for more information.
Sphere: Related ContentTags: Microsoft, Zune
Why Apple pulling out of MacWorld is the best thing they could have done.
I know it’s sad and shocking to the throngs of people who paid thousands of dollars in hotel and airfare to make sure they we’re all set for this January’s SteveNote at MacWorld, to find out that he’s not even going to be there. It was also shocking to a community accustomed to meeting up every year at MacWorld, to find out that the company the trade show was MADE for, has decided to no longer participate in it.
But to be honest, it’s the best thing Apple could have done.
First of all, we’re in what is likely to become an economic crisis only slightly smaller in scope than the great depression. Apple has a lot of cash in the bank, and I have a feeling they want to keep it that way. Spending millions of dollars on a booth, and a keynote at a tradeshow every January, when you have reporters at your beck and call to come to your headquarters any day of the week is simply economically irresponsible. Over the years Apple has proven that product reveal press conferences on their own terms work just as well as the ones at MacWorld. Sure you won’t be able to get into one anymore if you aren’t in the inner circle of Apple Favored Press, but who cares? There are so many live blogs of the event, and an HD quality stream of it available afterward. Does it really matter?
Secondly, HAVING to deliver an important keynote every January has likely driven the development teams at Apple insane. Every year I imagine December at Apple headquarters being quite an un-happy place to work. Instead of being able to enjoy the holiday season, everyone is likely in crunch mode working on finishing whatever is to be debuted at MacWorld in the beginning of January. And as we know from the recent iPhone and MacBook releases, Apple is no good when it comes to it’s quality control on it’s first gen products.
Not being required to give a keynote every January will likely give Apple dev teams the ability to get a product more polished before its release, and Steve and Co. will be able to schedule a keynote for whenever the cool new product is actually DONE.
So what’s up with Steve not being in the keynote this year? Simple. He wants a clean break from MacWorld. I wouldn’t expect any groundbreaking announcements, that’s for sure. If Steve is trusting the show entirely to Shiller, they haven’t got anything cool up their sleeve for January. So what will they show? Maybe a couple of speedbumps on existing products, perhaps a 32 gig iPhone? Maybe a $99 iPhone nano. Show off the improvements of Snow Leopard. But nothing that the world is gonna “ooh” and “ahh” over. Apple’s goal here is to make MacWorld irrelevant to their business. So they will damned well make sure that this keynote is as irrelevant as possible. Heck I wouldn’t put it past them to have an event with Steve at the helm a couple weeks after MacWorld just to screw them.
If there is one thing I really respect Apple for, it’s the uncanny ability they have of being able to throw the baby out with the bathwater, without any regard for what might happen. If something doesn’t work for them, they change it, whether you like it or not. OS X is a perfect example of this. They tossed out the old OS entirely and started from scratch. They knew it would be painful in the short term, but it put them on the stellar track they are on today. Same goes for MacWorld. They used it to their advantage when they were a smaller company, and this was the best place for them to get publicity. Now that it’s more money than it’s worth, and they can simply call the bloggers in on any old day of the week, why spend the money? It’s not worth it. Out with the bathwater Macworld!
So all in all, I don’t think for a second that Apple leaving MacWorld is a bad thing for Apple. They’ll still be able to bring us all the cool stuff we expect, and now it’ll be on their own terms, instead of the yearly CES style keynote that they have had to do in the past. Seems more like their style anyway.
Is it bad for MacWorld? Of course it is! Without support from Apple, or at least Adobe, the show is doomed. But with these days of Twitter, and blogs, is a trade show really necissary anymore? Not as much as you’d think I’d imagine.
Sphere: Related ContentTags: Apple, MacWorld
Topple on Sale for FREE at the App Store today!
NgMoco, one of my new favorite developers on the iPhone, has put all of it’s apps on sale to celebrate the release of it’s newest game Rolando. This means one of my all time favorite iPhone games, Topple, has gone from 99 cents, to FREE.
(Above: “Topple” for the iPhone. I love the personalities of the blocks, a really nice touch.)
For those of you who haven’t seen Topple before, imagine Tetris with physics. Much like Tetris, the blocks come down in different shapes from the top of the screen. In this game, your goal is to build a stack of blocks as high as you can get it without the blocks toppling over. Also, you have to make sure to keep yourself steady, as swaying the phone from side to side can disturb the blocks as well. It requires a lot of skill and concentration. And it’s a hell of a lot of fun!
If there’s one App you download today. Give Topple a try, it’s pretty awesome. Especially for free!
Click here to download Topple for the iPhone and iPod Touch
Sphere: Related ContentTags: iPhone 3g, iPod Touch, ngMoco, Topple
My dreams come true as Beautiful Katamari rolls onto the iPhone
We’ll after the release of the app store, I posted an article requesting an accelerometer-controlled iPhone port of the incredibly silly ball rolling game Katamari Damacy. For those unfortunate enough to not have played the original, let me give you a quick rundown of this incredibly bizarre game.
Katamari Damacy places you into the character of “The Prince of All Cosmos”, a tiny little green dude. Your dad, the Hunter S. Thompson-esque “King of All Cosmos”, has gone on a bit of a bender, and managed to screw up the whole universe by destroying all the stars. So being a lazy king, he sends you off to do his dirty work and put all the stars back together.
Now how would you go about putting a star together? By going down to earth and rolling up all the junk you can find. You are given a ball called a Katamari, that anything sticks to. And you’re tasked with rolling around this ball all across earth, picking up all sorts of items, starting small with tacks and rubber bands, and moving up to plants, animals, cars, islands, etc. As your katamari gets bigger and bigger, it can pick up bigger items. It’s a simple concept, but beautifully executed. There’s nothing like playing it, and seeing a cow that you really want to roll into your katamari, so you task yourself with making it big enough to roll up said cow.
It all sounds absurd, and of course it is. It has a sense of humor somewhere between odd japanese game shows and monty python. The music is also similarly absurd and you’re likely to be whistling it to yourself for weeks after playing.
So when I read this morning that Katamari for the iPhone had been released. I was a bit more excited about it than even I was expecting to be. The price is a bit steep at $7.99 but certainly not out of the average person’s price range, and the frame rate is a little stuttery, but all in all it’s a fantastic port, and stays very true to the Katamari look and feel.
If you want some absurd fun that will keep you occupied for hours on end, I can’t think of a better game to buy.
Click Here to Download Beautiful Katamari for the iPhone or iPod Touch
Sphere: Related ContentTags: App Store, iPhone, iPod Touch, Katamari Damacy
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