As I write this, there are slightly fewer than 22.5 hours left to go before 2008 is history. I promise I’ll stop looking back at the year momentarily–I already summed up its twelve biggest stories–but I’m in the mood to document a few more noteworthy items that made the year what it was. I’m calling this Technologizer’s Most of 2008, and it begins after the jump…
Tag Archives | iPhone
The Perfect 99-Cent iPhone Game
Now and then, a young and idealistic programmer will provide the Internet with an “art game” — that is, a computer game that eschews pure entertainment value in favor of a deep, philosophical statement. It’s the stuff that convinces some game journalists of gaming’s worth, beyond just guns, cars and magic mushrooms.
The trouble with these games, though, is the lack of a distribution and revenue model. Most are only interesting for a few minutes, so you can count them out of retail stores. Downloading is an alternative, but art games are often available for free, with the programmer simply soliciting donations. Moreover, the average joe never hears of art games to begin with. To better succeed, these games need to confront potential players more directly, with a price point that makes them worth trying.
Apple’s support of Passage for the iPhone nails this concept perfectly. For 99 cents, players can experience an abstract take on the human life cycle, broken down into a few poetic gestures. Basically, you navigate a young male avatar along a narrow strip of oversized pixels, collecting treasure. You can obtain a wife along the way, but her position by your side makes it harder to move and pursue material matters. Either way, your character inevitably ages and dies.
If my description didn’t do the game justice, it’s worth spending a buck to see it for yourself. And if you’re so taken by the game, you can easily evangelize it to your friends when they insist on playing with your iPhone. And that, I gather, is the point.
Also, check out Esquire’s excellent profile of Jason Rohrer, who created Passage, to learn more about the decidedly non-stereotypical game designer.
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The 12 Biggest Tech Stories of 2008
Techwise, I’m still not sure whether I’m grateful 2008 is almost over or sorry to see it shuffle off into the past. I do know that it was a strange, eventful year–and that much of the biggest news involved Apple, Google, Microsoft, and various combinations thereof. Here’s a recap of the year’s biggest stories, as judged by a blue-ribbon panel consisting of…well, me. Feel free to counter my choices in comments if you disagree with ’em–actually, I’d be grateful if you would.
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Apple Patentmania: 31 Years of Big Ideas
Apple may be famously secretive, but there’s one guy the company has been confiding in for more than three decades now. That would be its Uncle Sam, in the form of the U.S. Patent Office. The company’s patent filings are a remarkable record of Apple’s brainstorms, from its biggest blockbusters to its most humbling flops to concepts that never got off the drawing board. The thirty-eight images that follow include multiple examples of all of the above. Click on the filing dates, and you’ll go to the patents where the drawings originated, mostly at the indispensable and addictive Google Patents.
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Pastebud: It Seemed Like a Good Idea!
(NOTE: Jed Schmidt of Pastebud fixed the problem I discuss in this post yesterday night after I notified him about it. It affected only users–such as me–who misconfigured the service. Scroll down for details…)
Yesterday, I waxed enthusiastic about Pastebud, a new copy-and-paste service for the iPhone that gets around Apple’s lack of support for such a feature via a clever end-run that involves transferring text back and forth between Safari and Mail via an online clipboard. I waxed prematurely: I’m using Pastebud, which became available today…and it’s apparently giving me access to strangers’ clipboards.
It’s happening when I try to copy-and-paste from e-mail on my iPhone, which involved forwarding the e-mail you want to copy from to an e-mail address Pastebud gives you. You get an e-mail in return with a link to a Web page. Your e-mail is supposed to await there, ready for you to select part of it for pasting into another e-mail or into a Web form.
But I’m getting text I didn’t send–the complete text of e-mails–such as this (personally identifiable info censored):
And this (an e-mail header in French):
Pastebud’s site addresses security, and says it’s “safe enough” for general use. Based on my experience so far, I think not! But I don’t know if I’m running into some bizarre quirk or doing something wrong, or if this is happening to everyone who’s trying Pastebud as I speak. I just know that I’ve come to the conclusion that using a Web service as a substitute for a feature that should be in a device’s OS may not be such a great idea after all.
By definition, Pastebud’s e-mail-copying feature isn’t anonymous: It copies complete e-mails complete with headers and other personally-identifiable info that’s in those messages, then sends them to a Web page that’s at an arcane URL and gets nuked quickly, but isn’t password-protected. That shouldn’t be a huge problem, assuming you’re the only person who has access to the page. If random other Pastebud users are sent to it when they try to get to their own clipboards, though…problem!
I’m going to attempt to contact the company and see what’s up–and will let you know what I hear.
(Update: Pastebud’s Get Satisfaction forum has reports from other folks who are experiencing this, and a note that the company is working on the problem. Which is good news, but Pastebud is still operational, and is still giving me strangers’ e-mail. Like this one:
And, I would tend to assume, Pastebud is probably giving other people my e-mails I’ve tried to copy…not that they’re all that scandalous.)
(Further update: Pastebud–someone from the company, I mean–got my query and says it’ll follow up.)
(Further further update: I’m talking to Jed Schmidt, the guy behind Pastebud: He’s diagnosing what’s going on. More details to come.)
(Furthest update so far: Jed Schmidt says that he thinks they’ve found the problem. For what it’s worth, I just tried copying an e-mail again. And for the first time, I got my own e-mail rather than somebody else’s.)
(Final update: In the comments, Jed Schmidt says that he’s identified and fixed the problem. It was apparently a security flaw revealed by user error–I and other users were forwarding the e-mails we wanted to copy from to the wrong e-mail address–due, in my case at least, to the fact that Pastebud’s instructions are pretty terse–and ended up with a bizarre collective clipboard. I’ll try to take another look at Pastebud and let you know what I think now that this glitch has been addressed…)
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The Price is Right for iPhone: Almost as Good as the Real Thing!
I’m in absolute heaven, and I don’t know how I missed this. Video game developer Ludia has released The Price is Right for the iPhone, which in my biased TPIR fanboy opinion is one of the best gaming titles I’ve seen on the App Store yet. And at $2.99 for a “limited time,” $2 less than its $4.99 typical price, you can’t go wrong with this one.
The 35 year old game show franchise has made a significant push into interactive media, releasing games for the Nintendo Wii and DS consoles, as well as PC. I guess with the iPhone being one of the preeminent mobile gaming platforms, it was only a matter of time before developers brought the game to the device.
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AT&T’s Web Site Starts Selling iPhones Again
Good news, and just in time for those of you who were planning to dole out one or more iPhones for the holidays, or gift one to yourself: The AT&T Wireless site is now letting you buy iPhone 3Gs online. It’s the first time you’ve been able to do the whole transaction without leaving the house since the original iPhone, which both AT&T and Apple sold online, made way for the 3G.
The 3G’s move to a more traditional carrier subsidy model meant that you needed to get the phone activated in person; AT&T did offer a two-step transaction that involved starting the sale online and then sealing the deal at a store. But now it’s apparently figured out how to do the activation for purely online sales. Which is not surprising considering that it does that for plenty of other phone models.
This isn’t the same unique, exceptionally consumer-friendly situation that existed with the first iPhone, in which you could buy a shrinkwrapped iPhone and then handle the service signup at your leisure (or give the phone to someone else). The phone’s associated with your account as part of the sale process. But hey, it’s a step in the right direction.
As I write, Apple’s Web site is still directing customers to Apple anf AT&T retail outlets to buy an iPhone, but you gotta figure that online sales via the Apple Store are also on their way.
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Wal-Mart iPhones Apparently On Their Way. Either For $99, or Not For $99.
Bloomberg and the San Jose Mercury News seem to have confirmed a rumor that’s been around for a long while now: Wal-Mart is about to start selling the iPhone, joining the Apple Store, AT&T retail locations, and Best Buy. And the Mercury-News found a source willing to say on the record that there were plans for a $99 model. But having read both stories, and I’m still confused:
* The first sentence of Bloomberg’ story, by Connie Guglielmo, says that “two store representatives [say] the world’s largest retailer will carry two models of the Web-surfing handset this month.” The second sentence says “Employees in the cell-phone departments at five California stores, contacted by phone today, said Wal-Mart will offer iPhones by the end of December.” I don’t understand the distinction between the two Wal-Marters mentioned in sentence #1 and the five mentioned in sentence #2. (Not surprisingly, Wal-Mart declined official comment.)
* Guglielmo’s Wal-Mart sources provided at least three different statements about when it would launch in their stores: “around Dec. 15,” “between Christmas and the New Year,” and “Dec. 28.” Presumably it’ll launch everywhere at the same time. And launching the hottest cell phone on the planet shortly after Christmas would be peculiar timing.
* The Mercury-News story, by Troy Wolverton, quotes another Wal-Mart staffer as saying “Originally they were going to release it before Christmas, but they can’t get them that fast to us,” which might explain the timing decision. Except that Wolverton found another store employee who said that her location was supposed to be getting phones two days before Christmas: “They’re trying to push it before Christmas because they know how people will want it for Christmas.”
* The Wal-Mart staffer who told Wolverton that her location would be getting phones two days before Christmas also told him that she’d been told it would be getting a 4GB model–presumably the fabled $99 iPhone. But other Wal-Marters told Wolverton there’d be no $99 model, and a leaked image of a Wal-Mart ad mentions no sub-$100 phone. (It does mention a low everyday price of $197. Two bucks less than Apple and AT&T’s price.)
Ultimately, I’d say that:
* iPhones at Wal-Mart in December appear highly likely;
* We don’t know if they’ll show up a bit before Christmas, or a bit after;
* Apple may be struggling to crank out enough iPhones to stock all those Wal-Marts. (There are 4,100 of them in the U.S., versus around 200 Apple Stores and 900 Best Buys. I’m checking on how many AT&T Stores there are. AT&T has 2200 company-owned stores.)
* The prospect of a $99 iPhone still seems unlikely. At least a $99 iPhone available imminently and sold only through Wal-Mart.
More updates as breaking news warants…
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Survey Says: AT&T Mulls Time-Shifted TV for iPhone 3G
Technologizer has learned that AT&T is considering marketing a device that would connect to the iPhone 3G which would offer the capability to watch time-shifted television programming. It is not immediately clear whether this may be some type of port of the Mobile TV offering based on Qualcomm’s MediaFLO technology that AT&T already provides in select areas, or something completely new.
According to what we’re hearing, the device would be about 1.5 inches long and about 1/4″ thick. It is not clear how the mobile TV add-on would connect to the iPhone 3G, although it seems it would connect to the port at the bottom of the device (although it might possibly connect via some type of wireless connection).
I think this latter possibility seems less likely–most add-on accessories connect directly to the device so that just makes more sense to me, and I’d venture to guess that’s how it would work.
So, what’s giving this scoop a little more credibility? It’s because AT&T itself is sending out a survey on customer satisfaction to select iPhone 3G purchasers. Along with the standard “how do you like your iPhone” questions, there is a section that asks about mobile TV. (See image below.)
The carrier is specifically interested in hearing what a user would pay for the mobile TV device itself, as well as the monthly service. According to the survey, the feature would offer about 12-15 channels. That’s about what the current Mobile TV feature offers.
We’ll update this as we hear more.
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IPhone Game Gets a More G-Rated Name
For reasons unexplained, an upcoming iPhone game once known as Drug Lords will have its name changed to the more innocuous Underworld, according to the British Web site Pocket Gamer.
Honestly, the original name seems like more of an eye-catcher, reminding me of “Drug Wars” for the TI-83 calculator, my premiere method of slacking off in high school. You started as a small-time hustler, selling ludes, trading up for weed and slowly working your way to glory as a smack dealer. This was way better than calculus.
But I digress. The meat of the issue arose on Wednesday, when Edge Magazine pinged Apple on the news and got a typical nonresponse. The company said it “does not discuss its internal strategies as we prefer to focus on our products and services.”
Oh, Apple. The internal strategies are the interesting part. We want to know what’s acceptable when it comes to easily accessible digital storefronts like the App Store. At this point, it’s pretty confusing. First, you allowed us drop $1,000 on a vanity application. Then, you denied us the God-given ability to pass gas. Now, we can sell drugs, but you’re reluctant to tell us up front.
I’m all for games that tackle mature themes, so I love the fact that Apple gave this game the go-ahead, but why the name change?