...sunny, sunny, Basrah...

Wednesday 20 January 2010

Being detached from your iPhone




I am a little worried.  I'm off to a hot, hostile and sandy place soon.  Its not the place that's worrying me though, Its stemming my boredom that is worrying me.  If I'm bored at the moment I will whip out the iPhone and have a read of a few passages of Sherlock Holmes, throw a few long ones in Madden 10, destroy a few structures in Crush The Castle, or just simply catch up with the latest news, stocks and reports with the fantastic Financial Times app.  But when I reach this hot, hostile and sandy place I will be iPhone-less as all mobile communications are banned. An option would be to buy an iPod touch, but then when would I ever use that back in the UK?  The big question is, what did I do before iPhones?


Now I can take my MacBook, but there is only a certain amount of Civilization 4 you can play before you go mad.  There are only a certain amount of 'diaries' you can write before you go mad.  There are only a certain amount of scathing email/forum posts/books you can write before someone in the chain of command looks at it and says 'Stop that'.  So I need some creativity ideas to keep me going for around 10 weeks.  The gym will be used fully during that time but I would like to do something to help pass the slow moments, the moments away form the aircraft when it's all nice and calm.


All else fails, smuggle the phone out and leave it on airplane mode.

Tuesday 19 January 2010

Excitement building, but who will buy?



As the excitement builds for the big 27th Jan announcement, most if not all are expecting to see the first real images/video/Jobs holding of the (Name hasn't grown on me yet) iSlate.  The (unknown) spec of the (potential) iSlate means you will be able to watch videos, play music, iPhone/Touch games/apps, play mac games...the list seems endless.  But the big question is, who will use it over a laptop? Or as well as a laptop?

I don't want to piss on the big Apple fire (as if they are bothered anyway), but I'm just not convinced this will change the way we use our laptops or computers.  I cannot imagine what type of person will use the iSlate in the current rumour form, unless we're looking at rich business chaps who just find that an iPhone just isn't big enough.  I expect to see an abundance of people using them on trains in the next few months but I also expect to see the police issuing statements saying 'Take care of your iSlates'.  I expect to see people making all sorts of apps that utilise its amazing features,  but I expect to initially be fairly 'Meh' about it all.

Then again I was exactly the same about the iPhone, I couldn't see how Apple could change something that had been working so well for so long and revolutionise something.  Well, they did it and my god they did it well.  Maybe I will change my views on the potential iSlate, but for the time being, I'm not convinced.

Mac Gaming



A long time ago I used to be a big fan of gaming.  So big it used to take up most of my evenings, into mornings then most of the afternoon.  The days of sitting in front of an Amiga 500+ with SI Games - Champ Manager loading for hours on end are long gone.  Playing Legend Of Mir for so long my hands and wrists began to ache.  No longer do I spend 4 hours asleep and 20 hours gaming.

We now jump to the present day.  After various PCs, laptops, Xbox and Xbox 360's being played constantly I find myself owning a Macbook.  It was purchased 12 months ago and sees me rather restricted on my games.  But should that be the case?  Gone are the days of Macs being purely for image, video and music editing, the machines have become much more than that.  A user friendly, crash free (99% of the time), beautiful looking and fast loading beasts.  Beasts that game developers and publishers don't seem to be harnessing.

Blizzard have shown that Mac gamers are also part of their ever expanding empire.  The fact you can download a Mac client of World Of Warcraft and receive second to none support when its required.  Diablo 2 and its expansions were all Mac compatible, long before the days of the Macbook and the trendy image Apple now portray.  CCP have also joined the party and developed a Mac client for Eve Online (A current game of mine).  EA releasing The Sims phenomenon onto the Mac has only boosted their sales.

Now I'm no game developer or designer, however I know how to make money.  You have to hit the market hard and open it to all avenues.  So with games developers spending huge amounts on games that are full of graphical pleasure and no gameplay (FarCry 2 with its annoying 'You're in my radius' drone enemies coming in a straight line for you), how about they look at getting some people in to develop these games for the Mac?  I'm not saying they will solve the gameplay issues, but they will take some of the budget away from stupidly good looking scenery and add more heads to the storyline/gameplay.  You already have Virtual Programming Ltd and Feral Interactive doing their best to port games over, why not get these guys in during the development stage and make the games cross platform?

I'm not saying Macs will take over the world, I'm not saying that the Mac should be a gaming platform, but what I am saying is that I would love publishers to take the leap and get these top titles out on the Mac as well as PCs.

Now, time to try and get Star Trek Online working via Bootcamp...