Rumors
Game Center isn’t coming in iPhone OS 4.0
May 19th
We’re pretty sure that this hasn’t been addressed by the mass media just yet, so we thought we’d fill you in. OpenFeint and Plus+ have some hope for prolonged existence: Apple’s latest release notes explain that Game Center is not coming to iPhone OS 4 when it’s released. The software is merely there for developers to try it, test it and critique it. It specifically says in the release notes to play with it, but don’t submit any apps that support it on iPhone OS 4.0. There’s even a little blip about it in the publicly available support notes.
We’ll start the rumors here: It’s entirely possible that Apple will scratch the Game Center idea completely before they even release it. The initial idea was met with opposition, questions and anything but user support. Sure, some developers like the idea of social integration within their games, but that exists already with OpenFeint and Plus+… so it begs the question: why would Apple even care to step in as a player? We can’t think of a single good reason to put time and effort into Game Center… maybe some sort of combination with iAds? OpenFeint and Plus+ have been around for a while, they know what works and what doesn’t. Apple has no clue about social gaming. If anything, Apple should do what they do best: buy someone out. Better yet, get out of the social gaming industry. It’s definitely not their area of expertise.
Either way, we shouldn’t expect to see anything until “later this year.” We’re guessing a back-to-school release with new iPods.
If you haven’t heard by now, iPhone OS 4.0 Beta 4 came out late in the day on Tuesday. We still have spots available for our Beta test program. We’ll let you know about our experience with Beta 4 in the next couple days.
iGroups: social networking the Apple way
Mar 20th
A newly revealed patent suggests that Apple is working on social networking for the iPhone platform that will integrate with the operating system and make sharing your information with other iPhone OS users as simple as being in the same location. Gizmodo is quick to point out that the number of patents we see actually make it to production are very small, but the potential here is still very impressive.
The patent suggests that iPhone users will share bluetooth tokens to connect to nearby iPhones which will allow you to share photos, text, contact information — potentially limitless options. Even if you’re out of range of the initiating group member, you can daisy chain the information to a relatively infinite distance as long as you’re close enough to someone in the group. Apple uses a rock concert illustration in which the band initiates a group and can connect to the farthest listener as long as there are group members in between them.
We seem to have a recurring theme here with many of Apple’s inventions… education. The iPad could redefine how we do text books, and this iGroups patent could redefine how lectures are shared in the classroom. Think about it: with iGroups, a teacher could potentially simulcast his presentation, notes, even the week’s assignments to every student in the room. That would be pretty impressive.
We tend to think practically, but the social networking potential is still huge. There are many apps out there that connect people in certain locations — think Foursquare or Yelp — but those applications lack one crucial argument: not everyone has them. The user base is strictly limited to people who have installed the application and opened it at their current location. If Apple built a feature like this into an OS, we’d see the death of Foursquare and the beginning of a social networking monopoly, at least for iPhone OS devices. If Apple did with iGroups as they did with iTunes (platform independence) they could take over the world… no?
Not everyone wants to open an app every time they go to the bar, not everyone even wants to toy with an iPhone all night, but we could very easily see this become a trendy thing to do and destroy all chance of normalcy in social interactions. Want to talk to a girl tonight? Don’t man-up and walk over to her, casually say “hello” via a bluetooth message.
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.
iPhone: so good, Microsoft employees can’t resist
Mar 17th
Yeah, you read that right: approximately 10,000 Microsoft employees are using iPhones. We’re not too surprised by this information. People know what good phone software truly is… and that’s not Windows Phone. Even with the upcoming Windows Phone 7, we may see a lot of people scrambling for their hidden iPhones after its release.
Nothing is final yet, but it looks like Microsoft has decided to kill multitasking from the Windows Phone 7 release… they’ve also taken copy and paste. Maybe we’re missing something here, but wasn’t Microsoft very vocal about the lack of these two features? Windows Phone 6 has both multitasking and copy and paste. So what’s up with the disappearing act?
If the new Microsoft mobile OS does ship without those features, it’ll make a pretty big argument for an iPhone. Considering the rumor that iPhone OS 4.0 will have multitasking (the 3GS hardware is more than capable of it), it seems like a very strange move for Microsoft to chop such crucial features from their new OS. The 10% of Microsoft employees hiding their iPhones will surely increase; maybe Steve Ballmer would swallow his pride and go to an Apple Store?
We’ll never say that the iPhone is the perfect mobile device, but it’s pretty close. We can’t wait for iPhone OS 4.0 to come out… and we really hope that it lives up to our expectations. However, here we are close to the end of March, and there’s still no talk of a 4.0 beta. Is Apple closing the door on developers for the time being? Could we still see an official release this summer? With the amount of people in the developer program, information leaks out very easily; we’ve even obtained access to betas just to see what’s new. Would Apple limit the beta to a select few developers? We hope not, but still wouldn’t put it past them. Let’s forget about OS 3.2 and just move straight to 4… sound good, Apple?
Let the Steamy speculation begin
Mar 3rd
Great news for the Mac gaming world today… Valve has scattered images around the mac blogosphere teasing us with Mac-like artwork with a caption that says “In anticipation of an upcoming announcement from Valve.”
This. Is. Huge.
We talked about the possibility of a Mac version of Steam (Valve’s distribution platform) last week. We didn’t have much go on, just a few Mac user interface pictures within the latest beta version of Steam. Today, Valve threw caution to the wind and gave us all images to drool over. It appears as though the feud between Apple and Steam is over. Sweet.
Valve is coming to the Mac. There is not doubt about it. That means Steam is coming to the Mac. That’s the only way Valve distributes its software. No more World of Warcraft for us, we might actually see real gaming titles come to our platform of choice. We’re not say that WoW isn’t a real game, but we can only spend a certain amount of time playing the same game over and over again.
There is no estimated release date, but considering the effort poured into these images, we’d expect it to be soon. Very soon.
- Steam for Mac
- Half Life for Mac
- Portal for Mac
- Team Fortress for Mac
- Left 4 Dead 4 Mac
- Half Life 2 for Mac
Apple’s A4 SoC: awesome, but barely
Mar 2nd
It was a slow Monday, but the one thing worth noting is the supposedly new information about Apple’s custom iPad chip. It appears as though all of the high hopes we had for the iPad’s processor have been shot out of the sky by recent rumors about the System-on-a-Chip (SoC). Information has slowly leaked out about the processor since the annoucement on the 27th of January. First there was the definition of custom silicon versus a custom chip, then there were rumors that it wasn’t designed by the team from P.A. Semi, and finally we have a somewhat less blurry picture of the chip from Ars Technica and a few of their sources. Brace yourself–they claim that it’s not as awesome as it used to be.
Ars explains in the article something that we’ve been saying since our initial analysis of the iPad: it’s not the hardware that will make it popular, it’s the software. We obviously agree: the software expandability of the App Store on a device as large as the iPad will make it tremendously popular. We still wish that Apple would loosen up their approval process a bit, but there’s a lot of great software in the App Store nonetheless.
So what’s not awesome about the SoC? Well, it may not be the chip we thought it was. Ars says it’s definitely not cutting-edge: far from it, actually. The only impressive feature is the lack of features this chip has built-in. If Ars’ sources are correct, it actually runs on the ARM Cortex A8 instead of the A9 as originally assumed. The author also claims it to be single core — no extra oomph for the iPad. It’s also running the PowerVR SGX GPU instead of the newer Mali GPU some analysts predicted. While that’s still a pretty decent SoC, it’s nothing amazing… and that’s probably why Apple’s been fairly secretive with the specifications.
The iPad is limited in hardware: that actually helps the SoC perform better and consume less energy. At this point, there’s no camera that we know of (that could still change between now and the launch). The multitouch display uses one Input/Output channel, the device connects to your computer and charges via one I/O channel, and the video out is sent along an analog channel. That’s not much for I/O and requires very little from the SoC itself. Modern SoC’s ship with many more capabilities than the iPad needs at this point… that could be the driving reason for Apple to develop custom silicon. They wanted to offer us the best battery life possible by building a chip that had just enough hardware to make the device run. That’s a pretty good strategy, but we’re not sure it’s worth the billion dollar price tag that some analysts claim.
Limiting hardware limits future potential. We think the handicapped A4 is possible but we don’t think it’s in Apple’s best interest. If they really did strip out everything non-essential to the functionality of the device, we’re looking at another re-design if they decide to add more features in the future. Again, that’s a huge issue if a SoC really costs a billion bucks to produce. Everyone wants a camera in the iPad… everyone. Why would Apple invest so much money into a first generation device and do it again for the next model. Take a look at the iPod and the iPhone: each gained considerable amounts of traction and features with time. Actually, the more we think about it, the more intelligence Ars’ theory loses over time.
It’s great to have sources that want to share this kind of information with you, but we need to seriously re-examine how we share that information as truth, rumor or possibility. Not once did Ars mention the reliability of their sources. Not once did they mention the fact that they’re still guessing because no one will truly know until we can take it apart. In fact, they really started two more rumors: it’s running an ARM Cortex A8 and a PowerVR SGX GPU. We already knew the potential makeup of the iPad SoC, we won’t know what it really is until we see it, so why not add more speculation to the news-hungry internet? Why not?
The ultimate truth: yes, it’s possible that Ars’ sources and speculation is correct, but don’t hold it as fact just yet. Until the iPad comes out, we can only hope for the great hardware we initially thought was in the device. Once we have ours torn apart, we’ll let you know what we find. Until then, drink a beer, relax… and maybe stop turning nothing into nothing that makes money.
Steam: coming to a Mac near you… eventually.
Feb 25th
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Steam, it’s a game distribution platform that has revolutionized the way PC users purchase, play and share games. Each user has an account that can be accessed from any machine, and thus you can play any of your games on any machine. By machine, we mean PC. The titles are always current, and the Steam platform streamlines the shopping process for you. I’ve actually purchased games I had never seen at the store because they were featured on Steam and they looked great.
My gaming days are nearly behind me, but I still get caught up in a great game every now and then… and when I was a PC, Steam was my platform of choice. I grew up building, repairing and gaming on the PC… I eventually switched to Mac for my music endeavors about 6 years ago now. True gamers have always been disappointed with the gaming abilities of the Mac: unless you want to play older titles, World of Warcraft or niche games similar to PopCap’s offerings, there’s really nothing here for us. I’m the owner of a Mac repair shop (check it out in the sidebar) and I run a blog devoted to Apple products… but I still game on the PC, using Steam’s distribution platform.
Gizmodo reported this morning that a few members of the Steam forums found several references to OS X in the latest beta release of the software. They specifically found Mac icons related to the close, minimize, and maximize icons of OS X windows. There has also been discussion about the replacement of Valve’s web engine Trident with the very mac friendly WebKit. These two facts don’t mean that Steam is definitely coming to the Mac — WebKit can be used on any platform, and pictures are just pictures — but it’s still encouraging to deem it a possibility. Not too long ago, Steam and Apple discussed bringing their games to the Mac and it really wasn’t the result we were looking for… both parties went their different ways.
Even if we do see Steam come to the light, we probably won’t see the popular gaming titles follow suit right away. It is up to the developer to make their games OS-independent and not many of them have been so keen on that up to this point. Realistically, the Mac market share is still rather small compared to the PC counterpart… and the people who want to play these games know that the PC is the only way. We’re hoping that Steam’s inclusion of the Mac will give developers a better option for Mac distribution. In the end, gaming has never been a priority for the Mac. I’m sitting here with a brand new, awesome 27-inch iMac and it only has a 256MB video card. That’s pretty sad, and it definitely wouldn’t play Crysis at a decent FPS.
You’ll probably have to pay for mobile Hulu
Feb 23rd
We reported earlier last week that Hulu will be making it’s way to the iPad (iPhone and iPod touch will likely follow suit). Since that possibility was leaked, more information has come through the grapevine… and it’s not going to make you happy.
It appears that the three owning studios — ABC, NBC, and FOX — have been trying to figure out a way to make more money from Hulu besides the already annoying ads. This will probably result in a premium model that will give us access to more content. Currently, shows available on Hulu contain the latest three episodes (on average). That’s always been our biggest issue with Hulu: we can’t watch anything older than a few weeks. Even the networks’ online players tend to limit shows to the current season. Anyone else want to watch old seasons of Big Bang Theory?
So what does this premium model look like? It’s been suggested that paid users will have access to content on three devices: a computer, a TV and a mobile device. That seems like a pretty big step backwards to us. Just this last year, Apple gave us a great music sharing tool with iTunes Home Sharing. It lets us copy all of our content between computers on our home network. Granted this is still limited to Apple’s 5-computer model and requires you to sign into an iTunes Store account BUT there’s no limit for mobile devices. So, what makes Hulu think we should be limited to three devices?
Step back from the question for a sec… we don’t actually own any content with Hulu. We would be paying them for streamed content we can get from countless other sources — sources that would allow us to own it. Buy a season DVD, buy individual shows on iTunes, get a season pass on iTunes, there’s also the nefarious world of illegal acquisitions (we’re not recommending that one) — all of those options give us content that we own. Most of us already pay for cable or satellite and most of those companies won’t offer us internet packages without a TV option. So, what’s driving us to subscribe to another paid TV application that still restricts our access?
Sounds like a bad deal to us.
iPhone hackers banned from the App Store
Feb 18th
We’re not really sure of the reasoning behind this, but two hackers are claiming that their Apple accounts have been banned recently. This seems to be relatively contained in the sense that only two people are reporting these issues. iH8sn0w and sherif_hashim have seen the image to the right after releasing hack information for Apple’s iPhone software.
Both of these hackers used their call signs in their Apple IDs, making it incredibly easy for Apple to ban their accounts. We definitely wouldn’t say that this will become a widespread issue, but it’s worth noting nonetheless. Average Jailbreak users need not worry about banned accounts because you’re probably not releasing code exploits. For the most part, you’re probably not stealing applications like some of the jerks out there. So don’t freak out.
If you’re stealing applications, then you deserve to have your accounts banned… but Jailbreaking a device definitely does not warrant such a response. There’s no way for Apple to realistically differentiate between pirates, hackers and users, so we’re placing our money on the stupidity of the Apple IDs here. If Apple started banning random Jailbroken devices then there would surely be hell to pay.
Food for thought: If you’re hacking Apple’s code to pieces, don’t announce it to the world with the same moniker as your Apple account.
Hulu making videos available to Cocoa Touch
Feb 17th
We already have a YouTube app that makes our lack of Flash a little less painful, but many of us are getting a lot of video content from Hulu lately. We don’t rely on it to serve up all of our videos — we find ourselves navigating the TV networks’ websites on a semi-frequent basis — but having the option to play shows directly from Hulu would definitely be nice.
The fine folks over at TechCrunch have supposedly spoken with people deep in the business who claim that Hulu is already working on a non-Flash version of their website for the iPad… but it should easily work with the iPhone and iPod touch too. We see no reason to believe that this compatibility upgrade would be limited to a large screen. In fact, we’re seriously doubting the fact that this is an iPad-inspired move at all.
Hulu’s CEO specifically said that they’re “big believers” in the mobile industry and they’re not pushing out updates for a single device. It’s a smart move, especially since all of their video is already encoded in H.264. The only Flash on the site is the actual player and ads… but we’re not really worried about converting the ads. 
If they can wrap the player in something besides Flash, their site would be compatible with nearly every mobile device with a full browser. This would be a great move for Flash independence as other sites would be forced to do the same with their content in order to compete. We’re not saying that this is the end of Flash-based video; it’s the beginning of the mobile video revolution.
In the end, we’d really love to see a dedicated app with a great user interface, but website access would make us extremely happy. Not everything needs an app in the App Store.
