Macgasm

Epic Games has just unveiled a teaser trailer for its upcoming game Infinity Blade: Dungeons. The company had gotten some stage time during today’s Apple keynote, showcasing the graphics capabilities of the 3rd generation iPad.

The game will serve as a prequel to the two existing Infinity Blade games, but with a different gaming style. Instead of a round-based fighting system, this will be more of a dungeons crawler, like the critically acclaimed Torchlight by Runic Games.

There’s no word yet on the story of the game, the depth of the story-telling, the control scheme, or the price, but you can be sure to read about anything related to this game here on Macgasm once we hear more.

Today, with the introduction of the 3rd generation iPad, Apple has increased the file size that can be downloaded over 3G or 4G networks from 20 MB to 50 MB.

Before if you wanted to download an app that was larger than 20 MB, you had to do so while connected to a Wi-Fi network.

It is logical that Apple did this so its customers can download apps optimised for the new iPad, as these apps are larger in file size because of the increased resolution of the picture resources. This change benefits all users of iOS devices as the screenshot from MacRumors above demonstrates.

Source: AppAdvice via MacRumors

A few hours ago Apple introduced the new iPad. Among all the improvements the device offers (check out our coverage here), the Retina display and the A5X processor have the biggest implications for gamers, game publishers and gaming hardware producers.

The iPad now sports a display with 2048 X 1536px resolution, which is higher than what people commonly call “full HD”, meaning 1920 X 1080px resolution. Combine that with the size of the display itself (9.7”-inch diagonally), and you get a device with a 264 ppi (pixels per inch) — which is almost sharper than a Hattori Hanzo sword. For comparison’s sake: Microsoft’s XBOX 360 and Sony’s Playstation 3 deliver 1080p signals to the attached screens and televisions.

Apple also equipped the 3rd generation iPad with a quad-core graphics chip, which, as demonstrated at the event, is more than capable of producing high-end graphics at the iPad’s native resolution.

So what does it mean for gamers?

Well, once developers have adjusted their games to the new specs, consumers will get console quality graphics and an incredible gaming experience on their tablets. Sharper looking, better and even more immersive games will be possible.

Game publishers will have to adjust to this, as creating a great game for the new iPad will take more work and more time, because of the increased requirements for the graphics. On the other hand, it’ll start to make sense to “just” port PC and console quality games directly to the iPad and think of means to reduce cross-platform development costs, because iOS and the new iPad are here to stay.

Gaming hardware producers should start to think of new and innovative products sooner rather than later. This might seem like hyperbole, but as of today Apple isn’t just competing with the Sony PSP Vita, the PSP Go and the Nintendo 3DS anymore; instead, they’re competing with the competition’s top of the line living room consoles — the Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft XBOX 360, and Nintendo Wii.

Yes, the iPad is no console that you can put into your living room, or is it? The Apple TV allows streaming your iPad’s content (music, video and game picture) to the TV for a while now, serving basically as a wireless hub for your big honking TV. You can also bet that game publishers will find ways to make not just the personal gaming experience better, but also ways to make the 3rd generation iPad an actual console for you to use with your friends all together in front of the TV.

iOS devices have changed the way most people think about games, whether you’re talking about pricing, downloadable content or overall quality. The new iPad will change what people expect of tablets, portable consoles and living room consoles from here on out.

Photo Credit: Ian D

The day is upon us. Today we will most likely witness the introduction of the third generation of the iPad. Many rumors have been flying around the Internet; some of them make sense, and some are just batshit crazy. When reporting on these rumors, we usually try to reality check them at once, but having them in one place before the event is nice, too. So to give you, our dear readers, an overview of the rumors that are out there and — in case of the more sane predictions — a glimpse of what actually might happen, here’s our iPad event rumor round-up and sanity check:

• High resolution display: It’s widely expected that the next iPad will sport a 9.7-inch display with a resolution of 2048 px by 1536 px. This seems pretty likely, especially because scaling-up UI elements by a factor of 4x is less of a pain than having to deal with factors of 3x or 1.5x that would be necessary at resolutions other than the aforementioned. Grain of Salt Meter™ 1/5
• Quad-core CPU: Whether it’ll be called A5X or A6, the rumor sites are certain that we’re going to see a new processor in the next iPad, with four cores and better graphics performance to power the Retina display. We’d be surprised if Apple didn’t equip the next iPad with a new processor. The iPad got the A4 (after that the iPhone 4 also got the A4). The iPad 2 got the A5 (a few months after that the iPhone 4S was treated with this processor, too). The continuation of this pattern seems logical, Captain. Grain of Salt Meter™ 1/5
• iOS 5.1 release today: This next version has been in beta for quite some time and seems ripe for the picking, laden with smaller improvements and rich text editing in more of Apple’s own apps. A release during an iPad event is likely, and Apple has done things like this in the past.Grain of Salt Meter™ 1/5
• iPad 2 to stick around: Some sites suggested that the iPad 2 might be here to stay after the new iPad is released. This wouldn’t be surprising. Apple has does this every time a new iPhone hits the market and even though they didn’t do it with the first iPad after the second one was released, discounting the iPad 2 to give people a cheaper option (call it gateway drug if you will) isn’t unreasonable or new. The education market surely wouldn’t mind cheaper iPad 2s. Grain of Salt Meter™ 1/5
• Better camera: The next iPad might receive a better camera, if the rumors of purported bigger camera and lens elements are to be believed. Does the iPad need a better camera? Do people really use it for things other than video calls? All in all a small improvement of the camera or cameras doesn’t seem like too much of a hassle and the iPad 2’s camera really isn’t something to write home about. Maybe Apple will do something about this. Grain of Salt Meter™ 2/5
  
• New Apple TV: Stocks of the current model have been constantly falling, leading to speculation about a refresh. Apple doesn’t like to steal the thunder of a newly announced device by introducing many other things at the same time, but Apple understands the Apple TV not only as a standalone device, but also as an accessory to its iOS and OS X devices, the “wireless gateway to the living room” so to speak. A short heads-up on improved hardware, new software and 1080p capabilities wouldn’t surprise us. Grain of Salt Meter™ 2/5
  
• Form factor: Some sites reported the new case to be thicker, others that it’ll be just as thick as the iPad 2’s. What all seem to agree upon is that it’ll look almost like the iPad 2, making it harder for hipsters to brag with their new gadget. Would a new form factor make sense? If everything fits well into the current casing, it’d make almost no sense for Apple to rebuild it. On the other hand, a higher-resolution display would need more energy, warranting a case change to accommodate a bigger battery. Grain of Salt Meter™ 3/5
  
• Name: ‘iPad 3’ or ‘iPad HD’, that is the question (one very great podcast even suggested the name ‘iPad Be Careful’, but that probably won’t happen). Another possibility would be ‘iPad 2S’ especially if the new iPad will only receive “minor” improvements. While ‘iPad 3′ would make perfect sense mathematically, iPad HD might resonate more with regular consumers, communicating the higher resolution better, even though the purported Retina display would have a resolution greater than 1080p. Grain of Salt Meter™ 3/5
• 4G LTE chipsets: This one has been repeated over and over again then retracted. No one seems to be sure if Apple will add the new wireless standard to the iPad just now. Apple could do this. It’s unlikely they will, as the company has stated multiple times that the technology is still too bulky and too power hungry. Add to that the fact that it isn’t nearly as widespread as carriers and Android device makers would have us think. Grain of Salt Meter™ 4/5
• Pricing: “The new iPad will be more expensive!” — “No it won’t be!” A price hike of $ 80 for all new models? On the one hand this would be understandable if most of the rumors come true and the next iPad will feature heavily upgraded innards, but Apple’s modus operandi has always been to keep the price steady, improving the hardware and discounting past models. Grain of Salt Meter™ 4/5
• OMG! iOS 6: There are reports of devices at Apple already running iOS 6, which leads some to believe that we’ll see some news about the next major OS today? Of course Apple is already testing iOS 6 internally. Does this mean we’ll get an early preview today? Difficult to say. OSs are usually presented at WWDC in summer, but with Apple taking OS X to a yearly release cycle (which iOS is already at), a preliminary glimpse might not be out of the question. Then again, Apple’s events are usually very focused and too many smaller announcements could divert attention from the star of today’s event. Grain of Salt Meter™ 4/5
• Storage: Apple will add an 8 GB iPad and will drop the 64 GB iPad. The 8 GB model will supposedly be aimed at the education market and according to sources in the supply chain (how we love those, not), Apple doesn’t deem the 64 GB version necessary. Oh boy. 8 GB of storage is too small to accommodate many apps, especially good, interactive educational apps and a maximum of 32 GB is just great if you want to take a few 1080p movies with you. Oh wait, no it isn’t. Grain of Salt Meter™ 5/5
• 7-inch iPad: Everybody’s doing 7-inch tablets so Apple simply has to, right? RIGHT? No. A smaller iPad has surely been built by Apple and tried extensively, but the 10-inch form factor seems to work just fine. A smaller iPad with the same resolution of 1024px by 768 px would require significant changes to the UI of applications to account for the smaller tappable area on the device, which would only promote fragmentation and confusion (Hi there, Android!). Grain of Salt Meter™ 5/5

A feature that hasn’t been talked about in rumours or when showcasing supposedly leaked components of the upcoming iPad that will almost certainly be introduced tomorrow is a feature of the iPhone 4’s display: Optical lamination.

This refers to the process of binding the cover glass to the display itself by lamination, leaving no room between the panel and the glass. This technique has never been used before on a computer or mobile phone; Apple pioneered it.

[...]

Macrumors is reporting that with the exception of a few Apple Stores, the stock of Apple TVs in U.S. Apple Retail Stores seems to be depleted, lending credence to the rumours of a new Apple TV to be presented alongside the new iPad tomorrow morning. Speculation regarding the features of an updated Apple TV model is very vague, but updated innards, capable of handling 1080p video content, seem to be a given.

It is to be expected that Apple has a few tricks up its metaphorical sleeve in terms of features and iCloud integration.

If this writer may dream for a minute, 1080p content on the iTunes Store, “channels as apps” and better ways of content distribution would be included in the update.

Just a quick heads-up for fans of Fishlabs’s space RPG “Galaxy on Fire 2”. The Valkyrie expansion pack, which has been available for the standard definition version on iOS for a while, will be released for the HD version of the game on Thursday, March 8th.

Valkyrie adds a new storyline, building on the events of the original game, giving the player new systems to explore, new ships and new equipment to use. Valkyrie HD represents an almost complete rewrite of the game; all models (ships, stations, planets, surroundings, etc.) were recreated to take advantage of the graphics capabilities of the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2.

The add-on will be available as an in-app-purchase come Thursday. Those who bought the expansion in one of the SD versions of the game will get the universal HD version for free, which is incredible given how much work went into the re-engineering.

If you want to know just how much work the developers of Fishlabs put into Valkyrie HD, head over to their blog and read the developer diaries.

Are you fed-up with Google? Do you hate it that for most search terms the first two pages of results are nothing but useless ads that have almost nothing to do with your original search term? Do you have enough of Google’s “Don’t be evil” bullshit? Do you think that Google already knows too much about you? Or do you simply find Eric Schmidt creepy?

If the answer to all (or some) of the above questions is “Yes!” than we have an alternative for you. Actually this alternative has been around for a while and it is called DuckDuckGo. DuckDuckGo has been an insiders’ tip for quite some time now, especially on the Mac, with Google being the standard search engine in Safari. The advantages of DuckDuckGo are better (e.g. less ad-ridden) results, a strict and user friendly privacy policy, and the ability to do more than a run-off-the-mill search.

For example: By typing “!dcc” into the search field before the actual search term, DuckDuckGo will redirect the search to dict.cc (a great curated English–German online dictionary). Typing “!imdb” before the search term will search directly on imdb.com.

A recent article on 512pixels pointed out a few possibilities to add DuckDuckGo as a Safari extension or by using tools like TextExpander to add a global shortcut for the search engine.

The tip we want to share with you today is this: Simply set a shortcut like “ddg” to be substituted with “https://duckduckgo.com/?q=”, using OS X’s built-in text substitution, which can be found in the language and text preferences. Now you can quickly make use of DuckDuckGo in any browser on your Mac, by typing “ddg+SPACE+search term” in the address bar.

Do you have any other tips regarding Internet searches and DuckDuckGo? Share with us in the comments and on Twitter.