Macgasm

Foxconn’s a huge PR problem for western tech companies. No matter how you slice it, or where you place the blame for the suicides, the finger’s getting pointed directly at the huge multinational corporations who encourage factories to pay as little as possible to their employees in an attempt to keep device costs down.

It doesn’t sit right with some, despite the economics of the situation (comparative advantage, yadda yadda). The pressure’s been mounting on companies like Apple, who’ve had a long standing philanthropic twinge to their company. It turns out Apple might be working on something to help Foxconn employees. A CBS subsidiary is reporting that Apple may be giving Foxconn employees between 1-2% of the device profits that they create in their factories. There aren’t many details at this time, but it could certainly help employees pay their bills, as well increase the standard of living.

We’re going to reserve judgement on the program until we see if the news is true, and how Apple plans to ensure that the money actually makes its way to employees and not fat cats at the top of the food chain. We’re also not completely sure how we feel about the monetary payout, when the problem is a lot deeper than employee wages.

Sure, the payout could be the start of something new, but it could also be the start of a tiered system in the factories where employees start fighting for time working on Apple projects over others in the factories. What happens to those people who never get a chance to work on Apple products? Wouldn’t it be smarter to work on really solving the problem instead of placing a patch on it? What happens if the Apple projects become a reward for employees who tote the company line the best?  It could be a huge problem, and hopefully people advocating for Apple’s involvement in solving the situation take a long hard look at what’s actually going on in these factories before they let Apple off the hook.

Article Via 9 to 5 Mac

It’s pretty much a foregone conclusion at this point, but Apple’s expected to announce the next iPhone at WWDC. What we weren’t sure of was whether or not the device would be shipping immediately, or at some time in the “near” future.

We may have gotten a little bit of a hint on This Week in Tech, episode 250.
It went something like this:

At about 35:31 of episode 250 the discussion went as follows (the episode is live in the feed, but not yet on the site).

Leo: “I got the EVO. I’m very excited about that. This is the new Sprint Phone… and I have to say, I haven’t seen the new iPhone yet. I know, of course, Kevin, you probably have one.”
Kevin: “The new one?”
Leo: “The new one, yah.”
Kevin: “Yup.”
Leo: “Yah, of couse you do.”

So, Mr. Rose has apparently confirmed that there’s not only a new phone, but that production quality models are floating around San Francisco currently. There’s not a mention of when or how he got his hands on it, but it’s apparently being used by Kevin Rose. This could mean that the iPhone 4G is ready to ship once Apple makes the announcement.

For those keeping score, Kevin Rose, the founder of Rev3 and Digg.com, has had a pretty successful track record when it comes to announcing Apple devices before they’re announced by Apple Inc, but he’s also had a fair number of misses. So, take this one with a grain of salt.

Via This Week in Tech

If I would have guessed at just how successful the iPad would have been in the first couple of months after its release, I never would have guessed that the device would have hit the 2 million units sold mark in just under two months.

Sure, Apple got a huge boost from international iPad purchasers last week, but no matter how you look at it, 2 million units being sold is a pretty decent number. Everyone worried that the iPad wouldn’t sell well because it didn’t act like a true tablet with a full-fledged operating system, with Apple opting instead to use the iPhone OS. It’s starting to look like it was a smart move by Apple Inc.

BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow won't be getting an iPad. CC-licensed photo by Roo Reynolds

It’s happening; technology is no longer a geek medium

Have you noticed that over the last year that tech blogs seem to be getting it wrong?  Device after device, they throw their claims down about the success of a product, and they end up being wrong? We certainly have (and we’ve also made our fair share of predictions that have been wrong) but these missteps have allowed us to notice a trend that’s been popping up quite a bit.

We’re certainly not alone—the Beatweek team seems to have noticed it as well— the technological divide is closing rapidly, and tinkering geeks are starting to be left out in the cold. Your typical user isn’t spending their free time trying to figure out how to tinker with their device, instead they’re just trying to use their device. That’s a huge paradigm shift from the past, and it’s worth noting that the change is very real. The iPad is the literal embodiment of this movement, and it’s a pretty exciting time for technophobes. I’ve always believed that technology shouldn’t be viewed as a hurdle by society; instead, the technology should be used as a straightforward tool. People shouldn’t have to spend hours of their free time trying to figure out how something works; it should just work intuitively. It’s this philosophy that’s been pushing Apple down their newly charted course, and some geeks are having a hard time coping.  I’m in the same boat; I know exactly where the geeks are coming from, but I also see how excited non-geeks are getting about technology again.  It’s a complex scale to balance, but something tells me there’s more purchasing power in the non-geek sphere than there is in the geek sphere, and the group with the most money is probably going to win this war.

It becomes quite obvious why the hardcore geeks are really concerned about where Apple’s headed: their reality is changing, and embracing change is hard. The real question here is whether or not we’re headed down the appropriate path, and whether or not the iPad is the first major step in a new direction.

Do you think that we’re headed the wrong way down a one-way street?

Article Via MacNN, BeatWeek, and CultofMac

It opens like an old ninja film, with the intro story we have come to love as a part of Grand Theft Auto.If you know Grand Theft Auto, then you know what to expect from this game – and you will not be disappointed. It is the same setup of challenges as the video games, only on a more portable device.

What I love about this app

It stays true to the GTA I have come to love as a video game…the same thieving, running people over, driving, etc. You use your left thumb on the screen like a touch-joystick, and your right thumb for all the keys/options you would have on a console controller. The graphics are amazing; you can tell it took a lot of people to make this happen – it’s definitely a high quality gaming app. One of my favourite things is that it’s FREE! I still get an awesome Grand Theft Auto experience, and don’t even have to pay for it – you can’t lose!

What I don’t like about the app

The only thing I dislike about this app is that for an app, the story line is too long. I like my iPhone games to be quick, to fill gaps of time when I’m on the go – but because this app is a Grand Theft Auto game, a lot of time is consumed by the story of it all. Great for the console games, not my favourite for the app.

I would file this app in the “Must Have” category, especially for gamers—there’s no reason not to have it!  You can buy it on the AppStore

It’s finally happened. US iPhone owners can now make Skype-to-Skype calls over the 3G network. I’d completely forgotten that we were waiting for this functionality. That’s how long it’s been. Turns out we couldn’t until yesterday. Skype’s decided to allow access through an update to their application, but only until sometime in August. At that point we’re going to be charged a small fee to use their service. Anyone else see a problem with this? I currently have a Skype out account. I pay for a dataplan through my telecommunications company (Rogers), and somehow, somewhere down the line, they’re wanting to charge me again for the same service?

Yeah, like I’m going to signup for that service. What a joke. If you’re looking to be extorted yet again, you can pick up the updated Skype application in the AppStore. It’s free — for now.

Can someone please explain to me how paying for a dataplan and paying for a voice plan doesn’t somehow cover a skype call? Seems to me like data would, you know, be taken care of by my dataplan.  Considering I pay for a 6GB plan, and rarely break 150mb per month, it would seem like I have quite a bit of data to spare.

Article via 9 to 5 Mac

In less than a month after the iPad debuted in the U.S. on April 3, Apple sold more than 1 million iPads.  The strong demand in the U.S. pushed back international sales of the popular device.

After this initial delay, Apple is finally rolling out international iPad sales in Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, U.K., and Switzerland.  Soon, the iPad is also scheduled to be sold in countries such as Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand and Mexico.

It has been reported that across Europe alone, around 900,000 iPads have been pre-ordered.  In Japan, the first country in Asia to receive the iPad, around 1,200 customers have camped out and lined up at Apple’s flagship store in Tokyo.

Needless to say, such high demand for the iPad is great news for Apple.  The iPad continues to be in limited supply in the U.S., and considering the popularity of the device in international countries, iPad sales do not show any signs of slowing down.

Officials numbers for international and total iPad units sold are probably days away, but perhaps Steve Jobs will enlighten us during his keynote at WWDC on June 7.

It started out as an idea, released on YouTube as a proof of concept of what a digital magazine “could” look like. We eventually found out that Adobe was working closely with Wired to create a magazine that could be ported to any mobile device with ease. For those of you not in the know, Adobe AIR is pretty much flash driven. What’s that mean? It means Apple wouldn’t let the applications run on their device and therefore the proof of concept was temporarily squashed.

Wired then found themselves scrambling to recreate their application so that they could submit it to the AppStore. Finally, the application has been approved by Apple Inc. and users can now download it for $4.99. Is it worth the $4.99? Our early opinion is yes. It might not be worth it down the road, but currently $4.99 to play with a magazine that may very well be setting the stage for digital magazines down the road is worth the price point, even if you’re not a fan of the magazine.

The obvious question is — does the application live up to the proof-of-concept that was released earlier, and does the application suffer from the quick transition from AIR to Objective-C?

Where the Wired iPad application shines

The Wired team really understood what was at stake when they put together the application, and they’ve succeeded in making the magazine a rich experience. Included in the whopping 500mb download is video footage from Toy Story 3, audio from a Trent Reznor project as well as other audio and video footage. Being able to get rich media along side an article is something not unfamiliar for web-users, but seeing it along side excellent articles in an established magazine really helps set the medium apart from the traditional print model.

While the inclusion of rich media is a great next step for print media, it certainly needs to be a little bit more polished. I was really digging the Ratatat track that Wired included in an article, but once you change to a new article (swiping left or right), the music ends. It seems a little counterintuitive to me, considering the page it was on had about a minute’s worth of content to read. Also, letting users continue the track from where they left off when they do return to that page would have been a huge plus. As it sits currently, you can play or pause the track, but if you leave the page, you’ll be starting from scratch on the audio track. Outside of this one little gripe, the inclusion of audio is phenomenal, and Wired has really done a great job of merging visual and audio mediums into their app. The audio is used in a supplementary way, and really adds a new element to the text that surrounds the audio they’ve included.

It needs some extra polish

The magazine is laid out on a double axis—scrolling up and down will drill you down into one particular article, scrolling left and right will take you to the previous or next article. It works, in theory, but the implementation seems a little sloppy. In some cases Wired has put up visual indicators to let you know if you should be scrolling down for more content, but it’s not always obvious. The worst offender of this is multiple page advertisements. There’s absolutely no way to know that another page is present for an advertisement. If I was an advertiser, I’d be keeping this in mind when deciding to pay for ad space. I never once scrolled down on an ad, and I didn’t even notice that there was another page on any ad until I started to play with the quick navigation options to scroll through the content quickly. That’s a major problem if Conde Nast is hoping to offer up the iPad edition of their magazine as another medium for advertisers.

Quick Gripe

Why the heck are the terms and conditions for the app on the second-last page of their digital magazine? The very last thing they say in the terms and conditions is, “If you do not agree to the above terms and conditions, you are forbidden from downloading, registering for, or using the app.” A little late there, isn’t it Conde Nast? I just used your application, in it’s entirety, and now I don’t agree with your conditions. Shouldn’t this be front and centre?

Watch our video of the App in Action

Final Thoughts

The application could have used a little bit more time in the oven, but all in all the Wired team put together the best example of a digital magazine to date.  Despite the minute annoyances listed above, this application is the first time we’ve ever felt like a digital magazine wasn’t a cheap PDF port to the iPad.  Wired has really set the bar high in it’s first application, and we’re sure they’ll continue to push the envelope just a little bit further with every single subsequent application. Evidently we’re not alone in our opinion of the application — during the last week the application has risen to the number one spot on iTunes Top Grossing and Top Paid iPad Apps listings.  Early reports are indicating that Wired has sold over 24,000 copies of their first magazine after just 24 hours of being available in the AppStore.  That’s pretty damn impressive when you consider that this whole concept is still new.

If there was ever a $4.99 application that was worth the price, this would be it.  It feels like you’re staring right into the future every single time you turn the page.

You can download the application on the AppStore

Holy crap! Holy crap! One of the greatest cult hits on the Nintendo DS is now available for the iPhone! I know! GLEE!

YEAH! OBJECTION!

If you’ve never played Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney before, the premise is simple. You’re a young, hotshot defence lawyer just getting into the biz, and you have to work your mojo in a series of increasingly-difficult cases to prove your worth to your highly inappropriately-dressed, way-too-young-to-be-a-successful-lawyer boss.

HELLLOOOOOO CHIEF!

Essentially a point-and-click puzzle adventure, you are dropped into a courtroom, presented with testimonies, arguments, and evidence. Then you are expected to spot discrepancies in stories in order to prove who’s really to blame. The top half of your screen is where you can see the character in focus, and the bottom half is where you interact with Q&As, court documents, evidence, etc. You can scroll through dossiers of key characters, lists of evidence entered into court, and are then given opportunities to either press a witness during cross-examination if you suspect anything, or present evidence to catch them in the middle of a bald-faced lie. In typical Japanimation fashion, character facial expressions are grossly over-exaggerated to the point of hilarity, such as when the case appears to be not going so well in your favor.

Also, apparently, dealing with a severe case of constipation. Or a nasty hangover. Not sure which.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney consists of 5 separate “stories” to play through, but only one is initially available to you at the start. Successfully defending your friend “Butz” (no, not making that up) from a murder charge unlocks the next story in Phoenix’s adventure, and so on and so forth. In later stories, you also get the chance to play investigator, visiting crime scenes and so forth – you know, the kind of leg work that lawyers on TV do all the time and that real-life attorneys NEVER do. Do not expect a single ounce of realism here, but definitely expect to give pause and more than the occasional giggle at the storytelling and interaction between characters. It gets downright silly (in a good way) at points.

Priced at $4.99, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is an absolute steal. When it was available on the DS, it was often priced at $40 or more, and it was ridiculously hard to get your hands on a copy. Is the game itself difficult? Not particularly. Are the graphics and sound effects fitting for such a next-gen device like the iPhone 3GS? Since it’s been pretty much lifted straight from the DS version which was itself released in 2005, not so much, no. Does this make it in any way any less fun? Not on your life. You’ll quickly find yourself relishing your next chance to stand up, point your finger at an oath-breaking witness, and shout out Phoenix’s catch-phrase: “OBJECTION!”

You bet your sweet ass I've got a point, Santa Claus.

And, well, if you still need a bit more convincing, turn up your speakers and click here. Maybe check that your volume isn’t obscenely loud first, though. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.