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The Death of the TV
This is purely anecdotal, which means it is irrefutable truth:
The days of passively watching TV are over. We don’t watch it anymore; it gets used for the occasional movie or video game, but it spends far more time off and silent than it does on. Yet, we still see plenty of shows and keep abreast of news as well as anyone else.
Everyone in the house can watch whatever they want to, whenever they want to, and it doesn’t interrupt what anyone else is watching or doing. We use our tablets, our phones, and our computers with services like Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, ABC and YouTube.
In ten years, this will be the norm and the big monolithic black rectangle on your wall will quietly hang there as a monument of a bygone era.
The headstone above the TV’s grave is brought to you by Sony and Google, and it looks like this:
You've got to be kidding me.
A TV’s remote needs to be simple. Distance is already a massive abstraction, which gives a psychological perception of sluggishness, regardless of how responsive the UI is. Thus, information and menus on the TV need to be large enough to be seen from a distance (something video game UI developers seem incapable of understanding), and manipulating them needs to be quick and concise. This is anything but. With the GoogleTV, Google expects you to view webpages – designed to be seen on a screen about 3′ away from you – with it, and, using this “remote,” use it as a “computer” from 10′-12′ away. You’re either going to become frustrated at being unable to immediately see what’s on the screen, or you’re going to be standing up and in the way of anyone else in the room who might want to see what’s on the screen. Even Microsoft learned years ago what a bad idea this is. Engadget, who has a massive unwarranted collective boner for anything pumped out by Google, calls it unwieldy and confusing. They’re trying to turn the TV into a monitor, when the world around them is turning their monitors into TVs.
The Google Cult is extremely excited about it, and thinks it will “revolutionize TV.” However, the Google Cult – if the caliber of Android owners are any indicator – are a bunch of broke, basement-dwelling neckbeards who think everything is owed them and should be priced at an affordable Zero dollars, so until these things start getting handed out for free don’t expect them to sell.
“Epic” Win.
God, I hate that phrase.
Anyway, grab this for your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, RIGHT EFFIN’ NOW:
It’s nothing more than a tech demo for an upcoming game by Epic (makers of Unreal) that uses the Unreal 3 engine for iOS devices. Holy crap. This blows Unity away.
The best part is they’re offering the SDK for free (though I’m sure you’ll have to license the engine if you use it). Very cool.
I have an iPad and you don’t (unless you do)
I finally picked up a 16GB WiFi+3G iPad a week ago. I can honestly say that I don’t know how I got along before this thing. I haven’t turned my MacBook Pro on once since buying it, and I’m spending a LOT less time at my desk. It’s really the perfect device; it’s larger and more accessible than the iPhone, but far more portable than a laptop or, I’d argue, a netbook. It’s immediately on when I want to do something, and the battery life is astounding.
So you’re thinking, “But it’s just a big iPhone, you moron!”
You’re the moron. After about 2-3 hours of using it, this line of thinking does a total inversion. The iPhone feels like a tiny, slightly pared-down, less robust iPad. Safari on the iPad is, for all intents and purposes, identical to Safari on the Mac or Windows. I’ve yet run into anything of importance that doesn’t work as well or better than a desktop browser.
“B-b-b-but it doesn’t have Flash!”
Browsing the web without Flash installed (or at least with it blocked) is actually a breath of fresh air. Try it. It’ll blow your mind how much smoother and less gaudy the web is without it.
“B-b-b-but it doesn’t have any USB ports! How do I used computer without hooking up all kinds of shit to it?”
You’re a moron.
“B-b-b-but I need my super pro razorback gaming mouse and 35 terabytes of pirated movies with me at all times!”
You’re an asshole, too.
There’s nothing I can really add that hasn’t already been gone over pretty extensively by much better professional reviewers, and I suggest reading what they have to say if you want an exhaustive, point-by-point review. What I do see in the iPad, however, is the future of personal computing. It’s a powerful platform in a very compact package that lends itself to being virtually anything you want it to be. Above all, though, I see the iPad – and the devices it will no doubt inspire for years to come – as the classroom of the future. It’s your textbook, it’s your link to your teachers, it’s where you take notes, it’s where you communicate with your classmates, it’s where you do your homework, it’s where you do your research.. and it’s completely untethered. You can be ‘in class’ while sitting in the back of a car going 70 down the freeway. It doesn’t replace the traditional computer in all things, but it does free you from it for most things. It is, without question, the birth of a whole new paradigm of personal computing, and it’s very exciting to watch.
Oh hey what up
I’m posting his shiz from my iPad suckaaaaaas!
App of the Week
Each week I may or may not bring you my picks for the best new iPhone app I’ve discovered in the past week. This week, it’s THQ’s Sushi Chop.
Chop Sushi - THQ Wireless Inc.
Price: 99¢
My Rating: 4/5
This game is getting a really bad rap on the iTunes store (2.5 stars, really?!), and I can’t figure out why. Or, rather, I can – there are no less than exactly 1,323 morons who downloaded it.
If you’ve ever played Puzzle Quest, then you’ll know what to expect. Chop Sushi is a very simple, match-3+ game at its core, but the difficulty ramps up gradually as you discover new skills and abilities.
The gameplay is simple – you and your computer opponent have a set number of hit points, and by matching 3 or more pieces of Wasabi in a row, you deal damage. You can move one piece at a time, by tapping the piece you want to move, and sliding it in the direction you want to move it in. This moves the piece to the end of the row or column, and slides the other pieces in to fill the void. As you progress, you can unlock “recipes,” which count how many matches of different sushi pieces you’ve matched and unleashes a variety of powers – such as dealing extra damage, healing your character, healing your opponent, or removing an entire row or column.
The visuals leave a bit to be desired. The actual gameboard has a very mid-90s pixel art feel – which, I confess, as a kid of the Commodore 64 – Sega Genesis eras I find somewhat endearing. The colors are very garish and loud; normally I’d have a problem with this, but the stark contrast between pieces makes it easier to spot matches and keeps the game flowing better than other matching games (such as Bejeweled). It has as certain classic-Japanese arcade feel to it, which lends itself well to the theme.
The music can be a bit grating, but you have the option when you load the game to turn it off (and allow the iPod app to run in the background).
Being almost a year old, Chop Sushi does not utilize the new iOS4 backgrounding APIs; when you leave the game it stops running, and reopening requires you to start anew with the menu system. It’s good about saving your progress, but if you jump out of it in the middle of a match, don’t expect to come back to that match. Given that so many games use this API call now, this is my one (albeit small) disappointment. It’s possible this may never happen, as the game hasn’t been updated since January 2010.
If you want something fun that you can jump into any time that doesn’t require net access (ideal when sitting in a plane, on the subway or on the toilet), it’s worth the buck. I managed to get it free during a promo this week, so if you’re a cheapskate, keep an eye out.
If you have a suggestion for an App of the Week, email me at tremorx@me.com.Day at the Beach
First video I’ve taken with the iPhone 4. Still amazed at the quality of it.
iPhone 4.
So, so sexy.
My iPhone 4 arrived at 11:45am on the 23rd. I’ve been playing with it so much that I fear I may be going blind and developing hairy palms.
SO… how is it? AMAZING. Seriously, the screen alone is worth the price of the upgrade. The marketing hype behind the Retina Display actually doesn’t do the Retina Display justice. It’s just that damned clear.
If that’s not enough, throw in the new camera. The pictures this thing takes are clearer and bigger than digital cameras that cost $50 more than the subsidized price of a 32GB iPhone. The video looks great when still, but it doesn’t handle panning or tilting very well – yet still better than the Flip HD. iMovie for the iPhone is absolutely worth $5, but it suffers from 1.0 versionhood; there are only 5 themes and applying a theme’s title to a clip lasts for the entire duration of the clip, which seems odd.
The A4 chip really screams, and actually blows the 3GS away at most everything. The new multitasking features of iOS4 really shine on the new hardware.
There are, of course, a lot of stories going around about the antenna and reception issues. These problems are NOT unique to the iPhone 4. Placing your hand over the cellular antenna causes signal to degrade on not only all generations of iPhones, but other phones such as the Nexus One as well. I’m reasonably certain that if Gizmodo hadn’t jumped on this bogus story, hardly anyone would have ever noticed it.
If anything, I’ve noticed significantly better reception with the iPhone 4 in low-signal areas (like where I live) than with the 3GS.
WiFi now uses 802.11n, which means I can stream movies from AirVideo even faster. The iPhone 4 also has nearly twice the speed of the 3GS during a USB sync; I moved 28GB of music, apps, and photos to my iPhone 4 in under 45 minutes. On the 3GS, it’s closer to an hour and a half.
All in all, I’m definitely pleased with my purchase.
I HAVE BEEN CHOSEN
Yeah, that’s right. One day early.
Yep, I’ve got wood.
8:30am
I stayed up until 8:30am yesterday for this.
Good thing I did, too, because around 10PM they sold out of pre-orders. That means 650,000 iPhone 4s will be delivered on the 24th. It’s worth noting that that’s more than the HTC EVO – the purported iPhone Killer – has sold to date.
WWDC ’10 Scorecard
It’s about 20 minutes away, so here are my last-minute “predictions.”
Confirmed:
iPhone HD iPhone 4
AppleTV using iPhone OS
“New Features” in OS4 not present in beta
Safari 5 with extension support
OS X 10.6.4
Rumored:
MobileMe Free/Premium
OS X 10.7 Announcement
iTunes Streaming
Wild Speculation, all with equal likelihood of being true:
Cures cancer
Beatles on iTunes Store
iPhone on Verizon
I could probably go into more detail, but I don’t want to.
Update: The rumor mill really sucked this year.