Macgasm

“… And just like that Brin stepped up and proved to the world that he has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.” It was the first thought that entered into my brain after reading a Guardian article that outlined Sergey Brin’s thoughts about web freedom, in which he singles out Apple and Facebook as being the single biggest threat to the Internet.

From The Guardian:

It didn’t take long before my brain was spouting out evidence to the contrary. Evidence that, much to Brin’s chagrin I’m sure, would put Google front and center in the war against an open web. Let’s start with some simple examples of just how terrible Google is at a fair and open web. Five minutes of fact checking online turned up five examples of Google abusing its power and doing things in direct contrast to a free and open web. [...]

If you’re a gamer, or just somebody who likes to play the occasional game on your iPhone, you’ve seen them; game splash screens. They tell you that, yes, your are indeed playing the game that you selected a few seconds ago on your iPhone home screen, and they tell you who made the game, and if you’re unlucky, they’ll also tell you who the person was who fetched coffee for the developers, who paid them and who walked their doggies.

I’m exaggerating of course, but in my opinion game splash screens need to die!

The reason why they exist is a pretty simple one: brand awareness. Companies want you to remember who made that great game you love playing in every spare minute you have. They want you to remember the fun you have with it and associate it with their name; so when you see another game by the same company on the App Store, you’ll be more inclined to buy it.

One of the ways to produce brand awareness is by repetition, which every person who has seen one feature film on TV will know: During every commercial break you see ads for the same products. While commercials are generally annoying when you just want to sit down and watch a movie, it makes sense for the advertisers, because you have to sit through them — well, you really don’t, since you can always get up and grab a new drink in order to miss the ads. People basically accept that they are there, because on some level they realise that these commercials pay for the shows and movies they watch.

But with games it’s a different matter. Showing splash screens when a game starts keeps a person from the thing she or he wants to do: playing the goddamn game. When the ad becomes a hindrance and one you cannot ignore, one you have to wait through, it’ll make you angry over time. This is even worse when you’ve already given the company money for the game (I’m deliberately ignoring “free”, ad-supported and freemium games in this article and focusing on paid games).

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The new iPad has been out for a couple of days now, and while most early adopters have had their minds made up since the announcement a couple of weeks ago, there are still a lot of people on the fence about whether or not the new iPad is worth the upgrade. Instead of giving you just one opinion throughout the review, Grant Brunner and myself teamed up to provide you with a collborative review of the new iPad. Who says what isn’t that important, but we’re hoping that it provides a more even keel to our review. We also provide three very distinct conclusions in our footer so you can see what a few of our writers think about the new iPad.

We hope you enjoy what we have to say. Let’s get started.
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Tomorrow is a big day for Ravenous Games. Just over a year ago, they brought one of the best retro style platformers to iOS: the critically acclaimed League of Evil. With big shoes to fill and high expectations to meet, the much anticipated sequel, League of Evil 2, is launching tomorrow. I was lucky enough to be able to chat with Derek Doucette, the owner of Ravenous Games, about the League of Evil franchise, the development process, and some other really interesting stuff.

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Every couple of months articles crop up on the Internet calling Apple’s ecosystem a “walled garden” or a “golden cage” (1, 2, 3). These articles usually try to convince the reader that Apple has lured users into a trap using design/popularity/marketing, shut the door behind them and thrown away the key. The company’s recent foray into the education market, coupled with the controversy surrounding the badly worded and thus promptly misinterpreted licence agreement of its iBooks Author application, made the topic of Apple’s “draconian control” crop-up on the radar of the tech press again.

This article is supposed to serve as a dispassionate evaluation of the current situation.

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In a recent well-thought out article about the iOS-ification of OS X, Frederico Viticci states, “This transition obviously started years ago, and in retrospect it’s hard to dig up the very first example of iOS-ification on the Mac.”

The fingerprints of iOS encroaching on OS X may be more tangible than realized. As I’ve watched Apple — in particular its video offerings — over the years, it occured to me sometime last year that if you want to know where Apple is taking OS X with regard to iOS, here’s a sure bet: Watch iLife.

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Let’s face it — if you walked out of your house naked with much fanfare, then later, after many complaints by your neighbors, stepped out of your house wearing a really nice suit, you’d never be commended for your “marvelous fashion sense after all”. You’re always gonna be “that naked lunatic”.

This is unfortunately where Final Cut Pro X finds itself today. Here’s another great simile from cinematographer Chris Marino: ”…with CS6 on the horizon and MC6 making strides, fcpx is like the ex girlfriend trying to get back together with a new haircut.”

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I’m a nit-picky little punk. Ask any of the truly wonderful creative people with whom I’ve had the pleasure to work (who will no longer work with me). Also, I love taking photos, and I love punching them up to make them look interesting. So it stands to reason that I’d be persnickety about how I go about that as well.

The popularity of filter-rich digital photos has shaped our cultural aesthetics. For people that view photography as more than just a break in the work day, I’ve decided to put together a sort of iPhone Photo Theory 101, detailing the processes I use nearly every day and the apps that make it possible. This page contains just shy of a bazillion photos, so… warnings for those of you on dial-up.

And I promise to go into more details than Marco Arment’s famous how-to.

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