Articles by Rene Ritchie
Sure, Microsoft’s online Live/Mesh/Azure strategy is just a tad less complicated than n-dimensional string theory, but it looks like when the next version of Office (14) ships with it’s GoogleDocs/Zoho competing Office Web, it will include support for not only Mac OS X… but for the iPhone’s MobileSafari browser as well!
According to Macworld, neither release date nor price point are known, but it should be a companion to Office 14 which is slated for 2009(-ish?)
Citrix, the folks behind Go To Meeting and Go To My PC — and if you believe the urban myth, a good portion of the Windows kernel — have just significantly harshened Steve Jobs’ mellow and sent yet another shudder down Tim Cook’s spine.
While VNC/Remote Desktop Apps have been available for the iPhone for a while (see Chad’s Jaadu vs. Mocha Showdown), a helpful Fortune Blog reader points us the differences in the Citrix solution:
“The Citrix client gives access to hosted applications on XenApp servers — allowing dozens to hundreds of users to access their applications remotely from a single system, with the very efficient Ctrix ICA display protocol.
One approach is for individual users — the other is for a cost-effective shared application delivery infrastructure.”
(Thanks to The Reptile for sending this in!)
iPhone developer extraordinaire Erica Sadun over at Ars reveals that Apple has expanded on the iPhone SDK samples, and with some pretty nifty new stuff.
While I can’t claim to understand it, included in the update is aurioTouch and oalTouch for scilloscope and positional audio, Accessory and TouchCells which (apparently!) give greater options in tables and cells, and URLCache and Reflection which focus on Web-based data and image reflections respectively.
Says Sadun:
The iPhone Reference Library is an amazing resource for developers. It offers access to sample code, guides, and release notes. The new items I listed here augment Apple’s already rich iPhone sample code suite. Make a habit of stopping by the library page; Apple will often add new items there without announcement.
Check it out!
Chief TWiT Leo Laporte just streamed live from his iPhone via the official (non-Jailbreak) version of the Qik App, which he says should be available in the App Store soon.
All the rage last year in the blogsphere, many iPhone users were stuck carrying around a Nokia 95 just for Qik live streaming. Perhaps, no longer!
Check out the recording to get an idea of the quality. Looks like it doesn’t handle motion very well, but is otherwise fairly decent. Still, we have to wonder, what will this do to AT&T’s “rabbit ear” 3G network?
Either way, we can’t wait for this App to drop!
Daring Fireball has been digging into the saga of Tony Fadell, the “Father of the iPod” who’s left Apple, potentially to be replaced by Mark Papermaster (if they can get around IBM’s lawyers, that is).
What’s been turned up?
The iPhone’s software is overseen by Scott Forstall (Senior Vice President, iPhone Software), and, at a technical level, Bertrand Serlet (Senior Vice President, Software Engineering). There is no such division between hardware and software with the traditional (pre-Touch) iPods. The story I’ve heard is that at the outset of Apple’s iPhone initiative, there was a heated debate within Apple as to what OS should be used. Forstall and Serlet pushed for using OS X. Fadell (and, according to one source, former Apple executive Steve Sakoman) pushed for using something else.1 Obviously, Forstall and Serlet won this debate, and, hyperbolic though it may sound, it may prove to be the single best early design decision in the entire history of the company. It seems hard to imagine the iPhone any other way now, but at the outset it was not a foregone conclusion that a stripped down and revamped version of OS X would work for a mobile phone.
And the OS Fadell is rumored to have wanted to use instead?
Linux.
Needless to say, harnessing the already tremendous effort and technology behind OS X for their mobile wireless platform seems wicked-obvious in hindsight, as is avoiding the fragmentation of resources and focus that introducing a third OS (counting the already embedded iPod OS) would entail. However, the choice to go with OS X seems to have marginalized Fadell, taking him from the man behind Apple’s music success, to the man behind the times on Apple’s next great success, the iPhone.
And, hey, Linux eventually found a home on Android anyway!
The New York Times (via Giz) is reporting that Google’s love for the iPhone is about to hit epic, Shakespearian proportions with the release of their ground-breaking “advanced voice search” App:
Users of the free application, which Apple is expected to make available as soon as Friday through its iTunes store, can place the phone to their ear and ask virtually any question, like “Where’s the nearest Starbucks?” or “How tall is Mount Everest?” The sound is converted to a digital file and sent to Google’s servers, which try to determine the words spoken and pass them along to the Google search engine.
Will it be perfect? Nope. It will sometimes return nonsense, and indeed the researchers behind it claim it will never reach 100% — but they’re aiming to make it as good as it can possibly be.
This caps off several weeks of Google announcements for the iPhone, of course, including OS 2.2 updates for Street-View, Transit and Walking Directions, and Location Sharing for the Maps App, the release of Google Earth, and an optimized version of the Google Search page for the iPhone.
So, when’s this hitting the App Store, and aside from candy, flowers, and a lobster dinner, what could possibly be next?!
Developer Gonzalo Oxenford wrote in to let us know the story behind Truco, a South American card game for the iPhone. These are the types of developers that make us so excited about the future of the platform!
Since we decided to start making iPhone Apps, we realized that we had to take a lot of care in the interface design, and graphic arts. We think this new platform is an amazing approach to virtual reality, and that’s what we’ve been doing while designing Truco.
If you take a look at the card games now at the App store, you will see that not even the one made by Apple takes care of that. The wood textures, the card size, the beauty of the cards. All other card games have so small cards, that makes you think you are playing an 8 bit game. And you are not supposed to, since these games are running inside of one of the most advanced mobile OS on Earth.
It’s very important for the user to feel the cards, to move them. Cards must be big enough so you can appreciate the beautiful illustrations on them. And this is what the real Truco player loves.
Other interesting aspect of the game is the AI (artificial intelligence) it has. The game of Truco is actually played by tricking your opponent. The AI we developed can make things like raising the stakes and bluffing which can put pressure on you, and might cause you to fold. So we let the user to choose the computer skill level, making it easier or harder to play…
Truco can also be played in multiplayer mode via Wi-Fi. It takes advantage of Bonjour, Apple’s technology that lets two devices communicate in a local network with zero configuration. Truco just sees other Truco installed in your friend’s iPhone and they arrange a multiplayer game automatically, it’s so beautiful how it works.
Odasoft is a 3 people company. Tons of years playing video games have help us a lot. We work at our homes during our free time. We are Mac users and nerds. And we just invested our small tiny savings on this project. We love what we do, and that’s the key that let us wake up sunday mornings at 7 AM to start working on this, while most people keep sleeping…
Thanks Gonzalo!
App Store, iPhone gaming, Apple in the enterprise, power saving pointers, ultimate accessories, and more. With Dieter, Chad, Brian, Rene, and special guest Box.net’s Sean Lindo. Listen in!
Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, is quoted in the WSJ as being bullish on iPhone and iPod Touch gaming:
“I think the iPhone and iPod touch may emerge as really viable devices in the mobile games market this holiday season.”
His VP of iPhone and iPod marketing, Greg “Joz” Joswiak, meanwhile, spoke with T3 recently about his views on the iPhone and iPod Touch in the gaming space, wrapping up strongly with:
“if you squint your eyes you can see a future where you say it’s amazing the things you’ll see as far as gameplay, and we know from working with these developers and the things they tell us they’re working on, especially original content ideas, I think they’re going to blow everyone away. Because again the computer power and the 3D graphic power here [iPod Touch] is significantly greater than what you have here [picks up Nintendo DS]. So this allows people to do significantly higher quality games. And the Touch is always in your pocket, whereas you can’t always carry some other games consoles.”
So while cut and paste and turn-by-turn may still be complicated, Apple may actually be putting some muscle behind gaming this time — something they’ve never historically done well on the Mac.
Still at issue, however, is whether low price points and an unwillingness among some consumers to pay for premium apps will drive the bigger developers away (thanks Julien for the tip!). Dieter and I would happily pay $20 for Jobs of War or Grand Theft Auto: Cupertino Vice, but with people complaining about $1.99 puzzlers, we may never see the Mario or Halo of the iPhone. (You get what you pay for is a cliche for a reason?)
What do you think? Does iPhone gaming have a bright future? Would you pay for premium play? And are you ready to ditch your Nintendo DS or Sony PSP yet?
Just a reminder, folks, we kick off the next iPhone Live! tonight (Wednesday, Nov. 12) at 8pm EST/5pm PST.
Join in via http://www.tipb.com/live
(For those unable to attend, remember we’ll be recording the audio and adding it to the Phone Different Podcast feed, so never fear — we’ve got you covered!)
Chat with you soon!
