More App Store Notes

There is literally a storm pulling out of the Chicagoland area - which fits my general mood perfectly. Yesterday was a blitz of information regarding all things iPhone as everyone at work ramped up to full speed on support Expense2GO. It was crazy - we had thought nothing would really happen until morning broke over in Pacific Time ... but soon enough blogs were full of information about how to not only find the App Store in general, but download the 2.0 firmware update as well.

Apple has now apparently released the official version of the firmware and so we're off to the races. My morning will be poking at a few known bugs and small enhancements.

For the record, my hotlist of iPhone apps are currently:

AIM
No brainer

Pandora
The Girl was quite envious when she saw the Music Genome powered radio stations playing off our stereo system.

Advent
OK, honestly a really clumsy way to play the classic text game Adventure - but I give it points for geek cred. Course if you really want geek cred, I guess the lightsaber emulator is a good way to go...

This is my "free" hotlist. Haven't had time to poke at the non-free apps. It is weird to see how the pricing jumps from app to app, however. I swear there are a few out there which are little more than rebranded Apple samples selling for a couple bucks a pop. I've also downloaded the Facebook app, haven't tried it yet - but nobody really needs me to pimp that.

We're going to be heading to Door County for the weekend. I would love to spend time working on my own iPhone project - but we'll see if the brain is functioning to that capacity. If you're going to be in the greater Chicagoland area, I recommend our original plans: The Windy City Rollers, our original plan for Saturday until lured by the concept of a fine country outing.

App Store Open: Meet Expense2GO

Apple's App Store for iTunes is open, although if you haven't had access to the beta OS I don't think you'll be able to do much with it just yet. The app we at work have been pounding is called Expense2GO. It's a receipt manager for Salesforce.com users which allows you to organize receipts by report, take pictures and upload them to your org.

We're looking for people interested in continuing to test the app if you should actually be reading this and fall into the above category.

There is an extremely healthy number of apps launching with a decent amount of diversity. I'm not sure if a platform launch has been quite as successful at mobilizing a developer base before. Just the list of free apps is fairly impressive ( thanks Kottke ).

In a few hours I would expect the 2.0 OS to be available and after that you should be able to download apps and give them a whirl. For those of us already on the latest beta of the iPhone OS, it seems to work OK.

Veidt Enterprises Advertising Contest

My spy network must be on a smoke break, because I had to read about this in The Onion of all things, but apparently there was a contest for the upcoming Watchmen flick to create Veidt Enterprises commercials - some of which will appear in the film.

Channel Flip Helps Get Your Mac Game On

Katharine is either a Mac geek or plays one on TV, and does a wonderful job of covering major issues with gaming on that "other" platform. She covers the basics, gaming on a Windows partition and even gaming gaming with Crossover. And all this with an English accent.

On a side note, I'm quite excited that Blizzard in continuing a tradition of Mac dedication by having an OS X version of Diablo III ship with the Windows version. It is a lot more than I've come to expect than some other companies I might mention...

Sony's Bad Week, More on PC gaming, etc.

Apparently the firmware fix for that firmware update will be arriving sometime this week. This is of course the flipside to modern console gaming - that in an attempt to upgrade the experience the company accidentally causes you to reformat your box. I haven't heard anyone personally running 2.4 with the problem - but it's clearly not a simple issue.

I can't tell if I'm crazy for the trophies or not. Achievement systems in the games I've played (Metroid, Team Fortress 2, PAIN, Half-Life 2) vary slightly in implementation but all reside in that somewhat neat category without being mind-blowingly addictive or whatnot. I'd rather see Sony kick up the internal framework for matchmaking about five notches. Currently they're only nudging Nintendo out there - which isn't saying much.

I will admit that we're spending a lot more time on the PS3 than the Wii these days. This will definitely change as we've finished GTA IV for the time being and eventually PAIN will release it's kung fu grip on our adrenal gland. I'm a little concerned that the lovely white box will start to feel like the DS does to me right now - a brilliant piece of hardware with a truckload of users and only a handful of Nintendo developed titles worth playing.

Just got an email last night from an old friend that he's gone and purchased a new gaming PC. He was actually part of my anecdotal evidence of the decline of PC gaming - a fellow PC diehard from the wayback days that had picked up a 360 for his gaming jones. I'll have to ping him more to see why he's swung his way back - but I'm guessing because out of his real genre faves - FPS, RTS, and MMO ... only the first is fully realized on consoles and he was never crazy about the controls.

Still winding down from a crazy work week. More on the HDTV purchase impending.

Game Play: GTA IV, At Story's End

We're not technically at the end, end, but rather still trying to make our way through the very last mission (or, by it's length and difficulty - what we assume is the very last mission).

The story of GTA IV marks high water point for at least the franchise, if not the genre and even the industry in general. That's not to say that this is wonderful Pulitzer material or anything, and the game could learn a few lessons from previous story heavyweights like Knights Of The Old Republic. Name the decisions Nikko makes don't feel like they hold a profound effect on the narrative as a whole.

This might be a premature assumption as we still haven't played terribly much the branches, I admit, but to bring it back to KOTOR terms I get the impression that Nikko's choice is, in reality, between the Dark Side and the Dark Side (this analogy, by the way, fits even better when you get to some of the end dialogue with Roman).

That said, Nikko's story of hate, anger and revenge has some serious depth. It's brought out not merely in the overall story but in Nikko's bellowing cries at his victims. Rockstar embraced the fact that Nikko excels at walking into a crowded room and walking back the only one alive. Nikko isn't some faceless action hero - he is punishment in motion.

This, however, swings wonderfully into emotional breadth when Nikko is occasionally quieted. Or at times when he's trying to come to terms with himself while talking to Kate. I won't spoil it here (although I feel like we're the last people to finish the game) - but one of the best moments in the game doesn't arrive with an assassination ... but after.

In other news, the HDTV purchase has been ordered, which might be an excuse to play the game all over again.

Chicago's 3rd of July

Chicago regularly holds their Independence Day fireworks on the third, although this year is a weird one because Navy Pier will also be holding theirs tonight.

It's hard to describe the urban density of the event, especially from Grant Park. There was a over a million people packed into a few city blocks to the east of Michigan. As you push and angle your way through it's obvious that humankind just wasn't designed for this kind of navigation. Nobody quite knows how or where to move.

Thankfully some friends of a friend had scoped out a place early. And by early, I mean they got there at two o' clock for a show that starts at half past nine. A show, I might add, which lasts about half an hour.

It is, however, quite a show. And the spot was so sweet that you could occasionally feel the aftershock of the explosion in your chest.

And in some ways the show doesn't end after the fireworks stop blasting. There's nothing quite like walking down the middle of Michigan Avenue with a few thousand of your fellow Chicagoans.

Yet with all this mass crowding came a grim reality. We actually heard about the shooting first by overhearing some high school kids talking about running from gunfire. Apparently if you put that many people from Greater Chicagoland into the same zone, someone is going to have a problem with someone else.

Definitely not your suburb's celebration.

Game Play: Bad Company Multiplayer

Breaking radio silence. As aside, I haven't done that kind of concentrated coding in some time. It felt kinda good in that tiring don't want to do it again for some time kinda way.

I've managed to spend a little more time with the full version of Bad Company's online mode. I stated earlier that the single player stacks up well, not exactly a AAA shooter but certainly worth some attention. The online mode, however, feels like the kind of evolution I would have wanted from the Battlefield series when I first tried it and put it down so many years ago. This iteration feels less spawn point obsessed, less vehicle obsessed and far more balanced.

Bad Company's multiplayer is a slight twist on domination point style play where attackers are trying to destroy a pair of crates (full of tasty gold bars) in succession until they clear the map. The defenders are trying to stop them. It's simple enough for people to learn the basics in a few rounds and the sandbox mechanics from the single player allow for plenty of variation.

This is a solid recipe for online games these days. While I appreciate more complicated dynamics - they require more time for players to master and increase the amount of frustrated noobs crashing tanks into walls. While everyone would like to see tighter squad mechanics - it's often hard enough to get two people to work together than four.

Instead, Bad Company keeps players working in tandem by allowing spawns to occur wherever your squad happens to be. Provided that the whole squad doesn't get wiped out right away, this means that you press the line consistently without a lot of guesswork. In addition to this, as you spot enemy soldiers and vehicles - they'll show up on your mates' HUDs as well.

Add in the tight weapon mechanics, unlockable ranks and weapons, and some great vehicle physics and you have a game which is fun even when you're team is falling behind. Unlike previous incarnations of the subgenre, there's little risk of a handful of players camping vehicle spawns and dominating the game (or simply crashing repeatedly).

It's not all wonderful, though. The invite method (at least for the PlayStation 3) leaves much to be desired. There doesn't seem to be a very friendly way to leave the game in between rounds. The PlayStation 3's support for VOIP seems to result in a series of ghostly burbles coming through your speakers.

And while the current squad mechanics work fairly well, there's still a feeling that it could be more. Whether it lacks a commander role that could paint onto the squad's HUD or bark commands, I'm not sure - but I'm willing to wait for the next version to see how it evolves.

Easily recommend.

Going Dark

Brief communications breakdown will occur through this holiday week. Nothing crisis like - but a phone call at work has kinda put us in heads down mode and while I'd love to have some time chat about My Boys, Doctor Who or Diablo III ... it'll be a little time before that happens.

Netflix Backs Down, Keeps Profiles

Just arrived in the inbox:

You spoke, and we listened. We are keeping Profiles. Thank you for all the calls and emails telling us how important Profiles are.

We are sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused. We hope the next time you hear from us we will delight, and not disappoint, you.

-Your friends at Netflix


Netflix

Perhaps we aren't the only ones twisting this feature into a handy organization tool.

My Biggest iPhone Annoyance

How the hell did Apple, whose love for all things design is near holy, allow what might be the worst possible interface for download MMS messages?

The Girl sends me one. I get a text saying that I've gotten an multimedia message, a link to viewmymessage.com and randomly generated id and password. The link works on the phone - but of course doesn't link to anything *useful* since it can't send the id & password. The iPhone also lacks any cut and paste, mind you, so you end up staring at your iPhone with one hand and entering the codes with another.

And then, because AT&T's website is just so fine, sometimes you still just get a big blank white screen.

Sadly, I have no hopes that the 2.0 OS will fix it.

Hot Coffee Ends With A Dull Thud

In what might the best example of moral panic in history, the Hot Coffee fiasco culminated into a class action lawsuit which has now fizzled into a whopping 2,676 respondents. This is a number so small that if we crammed them all into two square miles, you could barely call that block urban. It will cost Take Two about the same as it would to buy a small luxury car to pay off the claims.

Or in other words ... wait ... one, two, three, four...

OK. Sales of Grand Theft Auto IV just paid off the claims while you were reading this post. That's how insignificant this response measures compared to the hype and craze the media, the lawyers, the politicians and let's face it - even the game industry - made out of the deal.

This speaks volumes to the fact that games, by the way, are not the domain of children alone. The most outstanding reason why this was never a big deal is that the vast majority of GTA owners are thirtysomethings who could care less about a crappy sex rhythm game when, let's face it, they have the Internet to download porn in massive volumes for free. And most of the other demographics were too busy downloading porn to care.

In the spirit of not simply dismissing things as "just a game" we can at the very least agree that San Andreas was a pretty poor method of getting your jollies.

I still say the biggest impact that Hot Coffee had was unfortunate and unintentional. The game industry, in all it's own moral outrage, left modding out to dry a bit. If Take Two does skip on a PC version of GTA IV - there will be another punctuation mark in the obit which has been the recent history of user mods.

Update This will not stop, of course, some politicians from acting like complete and utter idiots about the subject.

TV Watch: 30 Days, Same Sex Parenting

There are those, I assume, who would watch this episode and perhaps walk away thinking they just watched a woman who held true to her beliefs in the face of adversity.

If I'm to believe polls that say that a majority of people in this country still oppose equal rights for gay people, then apparently it would be a lot of people. As Kati, a Christian mom (and also an adopted child herself) goes off to live with two gay men and their four adopted kids - we get to see that adversity over and over again.

The problem that turns the episode into such a clunker is that it becomes pretty clear early on that Kati's goal for the exercise isn't to learn anything in particular but to hold firm to conviction that homosexuality is just wrong, wrong, wrong and that kids shouldn't be allowed around them.

Does the fact that the four kids raised by the two gay men seem healthy and well behaved dent her conviction? Not at all. Does the fact that one of the kids didn't even speak before living with the two gay men sway her belief? Not an iota. Does visiting the broken down foster homes where these kids could have ended up if her fight to make same sex parenting illegal move her? Well, briefly to tears it does ... but then she is quick to remind us that being gay is just wrong, wrong, wrong.

When confronted by nearly the whole set of one of the adopted kid's biological family, several of whom admitted they were worried about the Gay Agenda (TM) when they found out where the kid was going - and they confessed that the child had a much better life with the two gay men ... she screams that she is being prosecuted and storms off to the house.

At one point during the show, Kati says that she just wanted to see some facts. And yet, when presented with anything factual - she simply falls on her bible. We continually hear the same cognitive dissonance that this circle of intolerance spouts. About how they are the victims here, because clearly two gay men raising four healthy young kids half way across the country is "stepping on her toes" (her exact words). About she doesn't disrespect these people - she just believes that the happiest things in their life should be illegal, banned and swept under the bed.

Spurlock does try to flesh out some of the other side's viewpoint, including a brief (but potentially not brief enough) interview with a woman who feels she was wronged by her gay adoptive father for his sexual ways. And it sounds like she was wronged by her gay adoptive father for his sexual ways - but not because he was gay but because he was a creepy jerk.

Which is, in the end, where Kati's supposed search for facts falls finally with a resounding thud. At one point she is being forced (and complains about doing so) to hand out posters for a local gay rights group and in the process is asked why she would ban good gay parents and keep bad straight parents legal?

Religion isn't supposed to drive our legal system and there are few good reason why. For one thing, anytime a religion requires a law in order to justify itself - it ceases being a religion and becomes instead a system of governance. Secondly, religion often makes for poor logical arguments even when it makes for decent exercises in faith.

And finally, it ignores completely the basic concept of liberty to which we should hold dear. As much as Kati might feel like a victim, nobody in Michigan is trying to tell her what to do in her own home, place of work, or church. On the flipside - she is trying to remove these two men's entire life at home.

My Grandmother was one of the great God fearing women of her time. And she would tell you that simply isn't terribly Christian.

What's interesting about 30 Days I think is that often the story is as much a reflection of the specific people involved as opposed to mixing experiences. Take "30 Days In A Wheelchair", which shows as much revelation about being disabled and the hardships and struggles involved as it shows that Ray Crockett is really one hell of a guy.

While I'm sure there are some that watched "Same Sex Parenting" and walked with the thinking that Kati simply held to her beliefs - I got a lot more joy out of watching Ray empathize with his fellow people.

Game Play: Bad Company Single Player

I'm actually not entirely sure the demo did the single player of Battlefied: Bad Company justice. It takes place towards the middle of the first block of scenarios and places the player into moderately difficult place without much introduction.

In the full version, the player is quickly but thoughtfully brought into the action with occasional tutorial style moments, many of which are still clever and fun (in fact the first is brilliant, but I won't spoil it here).

I've spent scant little time in the Battlefield series, so I can't compare it directly with any real accuracy - but compared to modern shooters like Half-Life 2 or Doom 3, it stacks up quite well. The game manages a realistic feel, a great "inner loop" - the feedback between the player and his immediate functionality (shooting, running, etc), and yet manages to throw in the occasional unrealistic game mechanic (like a timed health boost instead of limited quantities) which just makes sense in context of play.

The framing of military orders fits into this well - it keeps a quasi-sandbox feel to the game while laying out well designed objectives.

My biggest complaint might be partly to blame on my SDTV, but I kinda doubt even a fancy new HD set would make those enemies pop out in any greater detail. There's a little bit of fun in trying to watch for movement and react quickly - but there's less fun in getting pelted by someone with little to go on but gunfire flare to determine the position. There are times when playing the game when it feels less strategic and more like running for cover while spraying areas with fire.

A couple graphical glitches hit as well, like disappearing vehicles and the occasional shearing (which, again, might have something to do with mashing the screen down to SDTV). In general, though, the game looks simply wonderful.

I've generally been bored with military based shooters since abandoning Counter-Strike so many years ago - but Bad Company's single player might be one I actually mean to finish.

Game Play: Send Mario Kart Wii Friend Requests

We finally got a chance to play The Brother and wife online for a little Kart action. It was completely wonderful but most people really don't need a blog post about that.

What you might need a blog post about is the fact that you can send a friend invite to play Kart online to anyone in your address book without pulling a pen and paper out and copying some annoying unique ID.

It's true. This oddly hidden feature is on the Friends screen where you can normally register them, but you have to wait for the little scrolling bar at the bottom to say something like "Send Invite To A Friend". Only then will clicking on it allow you to pull up your address book and send someone a nice little wiimail that they can easily use to accept said invitation.

Why this feature is so obscurely hidden when it is just sooooo damn handy I have no idea. Even after Big Bro had sent it once, it took him a while to find the way to do it again.

Horrible interface design, Nintendo, just simply dreadful.

But now you know, and knowing is half the battle.