Mobile – Page 5 – ɔimoɈɒ

simply, how (most) computing should be

Alex Payne writes about his moderate stance on the iPad: Human-computer interaction has found a sweet spot on the iPad. It’s all the power of desktop computing, plus the valuable constraints of mobile devices, minus the limitations of both. It just makes sense. Use one for a couple hours and your desktop or laptop will … Continue reading “simply, how (most) computing should be”

Alex Payne writes about his moderate stance on the iPad:

Human-computer interaction has found a sweet spot on the iPad. It’s all the power of desktop computing, plus the valuable constraints of mobile devices, minus the limitations of both. It just makes sense. Use one for a couple hours and your desktop or laptop will seem clumsy, arbitrary, and bewildering. It is, simply, how (most) computing should be.
…
All in all, I stand by what I had to say back in January: that the iPad is a beautiful, important, transformative device released under a confusing regime of questionable ethics. That said, I think three simple changes would make a world of difference towards assuaging people’s concerns about the iPad and Apple’s direction.
…

Apple should not charge to put applications you’ve written onto your personal iPad (or iPhone, for that matter).

Apple should lift restrictions on running interpreted code on its mobile devices. Let people run Basic, Python, and Ruby interpreters on iPad and iPhone.

Apple should remove the concept of private APIs from its developer offerings.

In essence, I agree on all three points.

With respect to 1.: I agree that Apple should not charge for putting a build on your own iPad but I can understand why they do. They’re for the certificate and management of same. It’s a casual barrier to entry which most people serious about it can leap over.

But if they permitted interpreted code on the device, which is the essence of 2., then they’re halfway there. Allowing a PHP interpreter, a BASIC compiler or even an environment like MIT’s Scratch would go somewhere to assuraging some of the deep felt geek hurt. A lot of folk I know got their start programming either in BASIC or HyperCard.

Point 3 tells me that Alex doesn’t know how the Apple development environment works. Private APIs are not necessarily secret ways of doing things which cannot be accessed by other mortals due to their secrecy though it does seem to be that way. Private APIs are APIs which are eventually to be made public once they have stabilised or been sufficiently modified. They are commonly APIs which are new or in development. I say ‘commonly’ because Mail and iCal on Mac OS X use them. Even now.

Google attempting to stem Android fragmentation

John Gruber writes: Google has been iterating quickly, but the problem is that carriers aren’t interested in any updates at all for phones they’ve already sold. The carriers have learned nothing from the iPhone, or, maybe they just don’t care about Android as a platform. They don’t care because they didn’t have to pay for … Continue reading “Google attempting to stem Android fragmentation”

John Gruber writes:

Google has been iterating quickly, but the problem is that carriers aren’t interested in any updates at all for phones they’ve already sold. The carriers have learned nothing from the iPhone, or, maybe they just don’t care about Android as a platform.

They don’t care because they didn’t have to pay for it. They’ve got low commitment to the platform, low loyalty to the OS vendor and now reckon they can switch between Symbian, Windows Mobile/Phone and Android at will (not to forget whatever hell Nokia is about to consign maemo to).

He continues:

So, in the end, OS version fragmentation may be less of a problem for Android users — two years from now. Current Android users, except for Nexus One owners, are shit out of luck. Hope you like Android 1.6 if that’s what your phone shipped with.

To be honest, this isn’t a tremendously big problem. Android has bigger fish to fry than satisfying a few early adopters, a large percentage of which either got the phone for free or went Android because it didn’t have an Apple on it.

Square is for tomorrow’s mobile workers

Square is a neat solution from one of the Twitter founders, Jack Dorsey. It’s a little dongle that plugs into the audio port and allows you to scan in credit cards and take payments. Anywhere. The launch site was some bohemian coffee shop somewhere in the Valley but the real value is the ability for … Continue reading “Square is for tomorrow’s mobile workers”

Square is a neat solution from one of the Twitter founders, Jack Dorsey. It’s a little dongle that plugs into the audio port and allows you to scan in credit cards and take payments. Anywhere.

The launch site was some bohemian coffee shop somewhere in the Valley but the real value is the ability for anyone providing a service or product to sell wherever they are.

Put it another way. There’s less need for this:

When you can take this:

It’s a very important distinction. The number of exhibitions and conferences I’ve been to where we come away with pockets full of business cards that we absolutely will follow up. Bollocks to that. Make the sale. They give you money, you give them money and get down to business. After all, it’s all about the business.

Local Brand, Global Vision

I would describe myself as probably more curmudgeonly than most especially when it comes to things on the Internets. Arlene is often able to discern if “someone is wrong on the Internet” due to the posture I assume, the faces I pull and the fury of my key tapping. It’s one of those things, there’s … Continue reading “Local Brand, Global Vision”

I would describe myself as probably more curmudgeonly than most especially when it comes to things on the Internets. Arlene is often able to discern if “someone is wrong on the Internet” due to the posture I assume, the faces I pull and the fury of my key tapping. It’s one of those things, there’s an immediacy to making sure there are wrongs righted. Sometimes it is better to withdraw and do something else. And I promise I’ll try to do that next time.

So, How do you brand something locally without it appearing provincial?

I hate URLs from local companies and organisations that have ‘ni’ in the title (it’s not restricted to the Internet either, I hate it when they put (NI) in the name of the limited company too. And no, hate is not a strong word.

But sadly while we seem to be surviving without the need for IPv6 so far (years after my mentor predicted the end of the IPv4 internet), we are fumbling towards a more final end – the end of the dictionary. Internet companies have been using nonsense names for a decade or more now but I loathe the ‘ni’ thing more than I dislike the ‘r’ thing in Flickr, Tumblr and others or the ‘n+1’ thing, like in Rummble or Dribble. It points to a cataclysm of Babelian (should that be Babylonian?) proportions. And don’t get me started on the www.xxxapp.com style names. Entire domains for ‘apps’ seems wrong and it can be abused. For example:

http://apps.ie was registered last year as a domain for all Irish iPhone developers and designers to represent their work. Sadly one company has gone ahead and branded themselves as ‘appsie’ after the fact and registered a whole slew of …..apps.ie URLs. When I brought this up, I was pretty much told to sling my hook. Suffice to say that’s one company off my Christmas card list.

So how do you brand something that’s new? And doesn’t actively step on the toes of wider initiatives to improve things for everyone?

In many cases is means choosing a URL that is almost entirely unlike your company name. In other cases it means adding a prefix such as “visit” or “weare” or “designby” to your company name or being extremely creative with your domain name extensions – witness the growth in popularity of ‘.io’, ‘.us’ and ‘.tv’. And there’s hundreds more options.

But right now I’m left with attempting to brand a local collaboration network which has local remit but global vision. And hoping to reduce the chance that someone will waltz in and hijack the name for their own purposes and undermine the network.

The iApp Pricing Dilemma

Around a hundred years ago in 1984, I owned a ZX Spectrum 16K (which my Dad had bought for Christmas in 1982). This tiny little computer cost £100 or so, hooked up to your TV and the games had to be loaded over a audio cable from a tape recorder. I remember my Christmas Day … Continue reading “The iApp Pricing Dilemma”

The games I bought were sold in two shops. Tandy on the Antrim Road in Lisburn and a video rental store. At the time the full price of a game was around £7.99. The rental store also rented the game for 99p for two nights. This was achievable to my 11 year old mind and I rented the game which caught my eye.

You see.

TRON had been released in 1982 and I was obsessed. (In hindsight I really should have stayed with the computers thing.) And a company called Personal Software Services in Coventry (England) has produced a game called Light Cycle.

Evidently Disney wasn’t paying attention to computer games in 1983. But anyway – this game which entranced me (before I knew what the gameplay looked like), was £7.99. (I know it says it was £5.95 retail on the web site but I tell you, it sold for £7.99 in pre-globalised, pre-internet Lisburn).

So, iApp prices.

I think everyone knows that 59p (99c) is too cheap for anything of value.

That said, the iPhone has proved quite the opposite (and it seems to be everlastingly sustainable) as we fill our home screens with games and utility apps that are, quite frankly, too cheap to be good, but so good you’d be stupid not to try them. I’ve got pages of apps and games which cost very little and yet I get hours and hours of use out of them.

We knew that iPad apps would cost more. Sure, you can run your existing iPhone apps on the iPad by stretching them up to fill the screen, but there’s a heap of new apps coming. Some of them are refreshes of existing iPhone apps with new content but some of them are new and exciting.

So iPad apps and games will cost more.

They’re not going to cost like PC games or console games – between thirty quid and fifty quid for a single game – but they’re also not going to trend towards 59p! As you can see below!

These images are from MacRumors:

Expect bigger prices from big names. We’re going to see some amazing content on this device. Just be prepared to pay for it.

What would Myth look like on a touch device?

I did a little cut and paste to see what UI elements would look like with a direct port should Bungie/Take2 decide to do something about Myth (and therefore render my efforts almost obsolete): So, have a look at the size of those targets – finger sized if you ask me? It’s unlikely to happen … Continue reading “What would Myth look like on a touch device?”

I did a little cut and paste to see what UI elements would look like with a direct port should Bungie/Take2 decide to do something about Myth (and therefore render my efforts almost obsolete):

So, have a look at the size of those targets – finger sized if you ask me?

It’s unlikely to happen so I’m going to keep working on this. Still seeking developers, artists and sound engineers who want to help build something?

MobileMe Saved The Day

Lost my iPhone earlier today. Could have been in one of three places. MobileMe to the rescue, saved the day. Related posts: Compromise: pull and background Mobile Me ‘me.com’ addresses working for some… Mememememememe iPhone. 4.

Lost my iPhone earlier today. Could have been in one of three places.

MobileMe to the rescue, saved the day.

Apple is not competing fairly…

For the last three years, the tech world has been agog with mobile, mobile, mobile. Apple with the release of the iPhone kicked a hole in the market and then occupied that hole. While many pundits point to Nokia shipping more smartphones and the upstart Android gaining market share, these pundits ignore the rampant fragmentation in both the Nokia- and pre-Nokia Symbian operating system market and the growing fragmentation in the Android market. Nokia needs to kill off the notion they are doing well in this market – there’s no great success in being the master of a dying market of consumers who don’t buy anything. Symbian was economically inactive in apps beforehand and it’s just floundering now. They need to set better standards – look to their N900 handheld as the future. And Google needs to focus on Android fragmentation as a priority – we’ve seen this on Linux before but the differences in hardware, software versions and carrier ‘additions’ is creating a mess of a single unified idea.

Sadly though for both of these companies, Apple is not competing fairly. While Nokia and Google among others scramble to regain mindshare in the smartphone market, Apple has surreptitiously started to hack out a niche for themselves in the portable gaming market. The console gaming market is wholly owned by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo but until recently the portable market was solely occupied by Nintendo and Sony. While Microsoft will be releasing a compelling product linked to their Windows Phone products, Apple has already carved a niche in the portable gaming market – see this report from Flurry.

You can see that Apple now commands more portable gaming market share than Sony (and anecdotal evidence suggests that games with other handhelds are just carrying their iPhones for the quick portable gaming fix).

And in two weeks, iPad will cause another bloodbath.

So, about that game company…

It’s been an exciting week. On Tuesday morning I met with Leo Galway, John Girvin, Conor McCluskey, Darin Smyth and Christian McGilloway regarding the formation of a local ‘games development cluster’. Everyone seemed to think it was a good idea and so now we’re looking for a good brand to help identify the cluster. This … Continue reading “So, about that game company…”

It’s been an exciting week.

On Tuesday morning I met with Leo Galway, John Girvin, Conor McCluskey, Darin Smyth and Christian McGilloway regarding the formation of a local ‘games development cluster’. Everyone seemed to think it was a good idea and so now we’re looking for a good brand to help identify the cluster.

This coming week (Thursday 25th March) I’ve organised an event with Belfast Metropolitan College called “INGAGE” which stands for “Innovation in Gaming in Education”. We’ve got an engaging calendar planned out for the day.

During the academic year 2009-2010, Belfast Metropolitan College, supported by Digital Circle and the Department of Employment and Learning, introduced a new extracurricular games development ‘club’ for students taking the games design courses at the college.

This event will serve to highlight the work undertaken by the students in the ‘l33t Creations’ club as well as highlight some work being done by other creatives in the games industry in Northern Ireland.

AGENDA

10.00 am	Arrival / Registration
10.30 am	BMC Welcome Trevor Smyth
10.40 am	Welcome & Overview of Project
	Darin Smyth / Christian McGilloway
11.00 am	Guest Speaker Greg Maguire
	Q & A
12.00 pm	Demos
	Lunch
1.00 pm	Guest Speakers
	Straandlooper
	Mark Cullen
	Brendan McGoran
2.00 pm	Closing remarks – Reid Lynas

Attendance is free and refreshments will be provided. Local companies wishing to network are welcome. But you have to RSVP!

And lastly, but not least, I’ve been working on the UI for the game I mentioned the other day.

I’ve spent this evening documenting the Touch Events which will need to be plugged into Unity3D. It’s my job to document the UI, then to write the story and do the research.

I’m still trying to think of a name for the games company (though I have some ideas) and I’m putting together a team of people who can actually manage to pull this together. I provide the ideas – it’s others who will provide the implementation in many ways.

Anyone want to help?

So, I want to start a games company…

While my iPhone is filled with three pages of games for my kids (and me, obviously), my Mac has only two games installed. Halo Myth II Both of these games were created by Bungie which was acquired by Microsoft and recently went independent again. But while Halo remains the darling of the media, Myth languishes … Continue reading “So, I want to start a games company…”

While my iPhone is filled with three pages of games for my kids (and me, obviously), my Mac has only two games installed.

Halo
Myth II

Both of these games were created by Bungie which was acquired by Microsoft and recently went independent again. But while Halo remains the darling of the media, Myth languishes in relative obscurity.

The Myth games are categorized as real time tactics, representing a departure from established real time strategy titles such as Warcraft and Command & Conquer; resource retrieval and unit construction were entirely removed to focus on squad- and soldier-level tactics. Some have argued that this has given the game a far greater sense of realism than its contemporaries. Reviewers have cited the series’ (at the time) revolutionary use of 3D environments, its use of weather effects, and its realistic physics engines as reasons for this. To many, Myth set the standard for the type of strategy that the Total War series of games made popular.

Myth provided exactly the level of game that I was seeking. I was dissatisfied with typical Real Time Strategy games which necessitated the collection and hoarding of resources and the building of strategically important buildings and units. This meant that playing WarCraft or StarCraft involved an hour of clicking around a window and then a combat that usually lasted about five minutes. It meant exercising the mantra that if you thought you had enough units to attack, then you likely needed to double your forces and then attack. It meant gambling by taking hidden ground, navigating the environment and sending workers off into the darkness to harvest with the hope that they wouldn’t get slaughtered.

In contrast, Myth offered the possibility of quick games. The playing field could be small or large, the story just as complex but there was no interminable resource collection, just the need to complete missions, fight battles. The multiplayer games could often be finished in ten minutes or less. The sides were evenly matched, it was up to the player to take advantage of the unit strengths and the advantages of terrain to win the game. You developed a keen eye for ‘flammable’ terrain for your archers to send their single flaming arrow into the midst of an enemy. You could hide undead units unseen in the depths of rivers and lakes. Floating units were not blocked by most terrain and could flee across terrain impassable to other ground-based units. You would use fast units to snipe, heavy units to hide behind. It was a tactical dream. The single player game, in addition, was intensely story focussed with excellent narrative, evocative images and a fabulous musical score. This was typical of most of Bungie’s productions. They had some of the best talent in the industry and that talent went on to create groundbreaking games in terms of gameplay and story. I still have the Halo theme on my laptop because it’s so evocative (You can read about it here. You can download it here.)

So, I am decided. The type of game I want to create will bring back my memories of Myth II. It will have an intensely inviting touch-based interface. It will be evocative of Google Maps on iPhone mixed with Google Earth on Mac (pan, zoom, rotate). It will have rich graphics (it will look amazing on a 9.7″ iPad screen), richer sound (audio experiences on devices with small screens are much more important). It will have a great story, great voice actors, great art. It will be the game I want to play on the devices I want to use. It will have a compelling single-player story and it will have local- and internet-based multiplayer games.

So I know what it will be. I need to figure out how to work back from that and find the path forward to it.