Macintosh
The cake is a lie: Steam comes to the Mac
May 14th
If you consider yourself a gamer and a Mac user, your world became instantaneously better on Wednesday. Valve officially released the Steam client for Mac. Through today, you can actually get Portal for free. Portal is Valve’s unique and challenging first-person puzzel shooter: it’s a great way to introduce yourself to the Steam platform. We spent a couple hours and hammered our way through Portal so we could get back to our achievements. Most of the more modern games have been updated with Cloud syncing (game progress is saved no matter what computer you’re on) but it had been so long since we’ve played Portal that there was no record of our saved games. Our achievements were thankfully still there.
Portal, Peggle Deluxe, World of Goo — those are just some of the titles that we purchased a while back on one of the PCs in the house. They are guaranteed to work with a new feature called “Steam Play.” If you purchase it on one platform it will be free for you on any other platform as long as the game is compatible. We picked up the Indie pack of games, a great buy for $20… we also picked up Braid (a completely unique platformer).
Things haven’t been completely smooth with the software: we have noticed a few weird glitches with overlays, some strange browser-like errors, a few crashes and a game install error that had us restarting our machine and trying again. Not too shabby for Valve’s very first release on the Mac. Most of it, we’re guessing, is the fact that Valve’s moved everything over to a webkit-based system… one that probably hasn’t been tested rigorously. Either way, it’s not stopping us from playing our games — the games have been completely flawless. We’ve spent several hours playing Braid, Portal, World of Goo, and Galcon Fusion… none of the games have glitched at all.
Each Wednesday, Valve will be releasing new games into the Mac-compatible section. If you don’t see something you want right away, give it a few days… it just might show up. We can’t wait to get some of the other Valve software ported over: the Half-Life series, Team Fortress… gaming on the Mac just took a u-turn on the road to perdition.
If you do end up playing Portal, just remember that the cake is a lie.
No more screen protectors from Apple
Mar 17th
It’s surprising, but we see several possible explanations to the banning of screen protectors for the iPhone, iPod and Mac. You’ll still be able to buy them from the manufacturer, other chains or local companies, but it looks like the ban from Apple retail and online stores will happen by May.
In communications with vendors that have been ongoing for “some time now,” according to one company, Apple has said that it will remove both film-only solutions from its stores, as well as any case or other accessory that includes film protection as part of its package, such as cases that include film screen protectors. According to sources, the ban will impact all forms of screen film, including completely clear film, anti-glare film, and mirrored film, regardless of whether the purpose of the film is protective, decorative, or both.
So, what’s getting the axe? It looks like every screen protector for the iPhone, iPod, and potentially the iPad. This appears to include laptop protectors like Marware’s Protection Pack but we’re still left to wonder how far this ban will go?
Several sites have guessed that it’s related to the high return rate of the screen protectors mostly due to user error. When I worked at the Genius bar, all of the Genii refused to install the protectors because of the rare occurrence that we’d mess one up. It’s impossible to take it off and do it again. So, if you suck at it, the store eats that product. I’ll back this explanation: the return rates on the screen protectors were off the chart compared to every other product in the store… maybe Apple doesn’t want to deal with it any more. It could have been costing them more money than they made off of the products.
Others speculate that is has something to do with Apple’s superiority complex. They don’t want customers to think they have to buy a screen protector in order to keep their devices scratch-free. I don’t really buy into this explanation because that means every Apple product doesn’t need any protection and will last forever right out of the box. Yeah… right. I repair several iPhone screens a day because my customers rarely realize how fragile it truly is. Buy a case for your iPhone, your iPod touch, your future iPad, and even your laptop. The extra protection provided by a Speck product will definitely help your laptop stay nicer, longer. However, it won’t make it drop proof — so don’t go overboard.
Over-confidence is our last possible scenario. Cases make people feel secure… people who use cases or screen protectors are far more likely to haphazardly care for their devices. While we realize it’s unlikely, we think Apple may be pulling these products to avoid the “I had a screen protector” argument. Most of us know that this argument is completely moronic, but you’d be surprised at the number of people who blame Apple for faulty products when they “took the necessary precautions.” Yes, it does seem stupid… but you’d be surprised how unintelligent people can be when it comes to caring for their devices.
Our condolences to the manufacturing companies; this will probably be a huge hit on the sales of their products.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, hope you like our festive coloring.
