Breaking News!

Posted on July 10th, 2007 by phiber811, under Publicity, main.

This is fresh off the presses. A good friend of mine, who’s in the loop gave me the scoop. One of our favourite shareware developers, Freeverse, has ported the Marathon Trilogy to the Xbox 360!!!

Yes, you read it right. The original super awesome alien based first person shooter that came out first, on the Mac.

Marathon will be available for download through the Xbox Live marketplace, and has been redesigned with a new networking layer thats built for Xbox Live. Likewise, the controls have been redone, to support the 360′s controller. Even further, those wacky guys at Freeverse have also redrawn all the images in the game for HD.

Right now the release date is marked as “to be announced” so we’re waiting to find out when it’ll hit. We’re also without a price, but if I know Freeverse, it’ll be nicely affordable.

Other details, according to the Xbox website are that the game supports 1-4 players, co-op mode, multiplayer versus, System Link, Dolby 5.1 surround sound, custom soundtracks, 720P HD, teams, leaderboards, player stats, voice messaging, voice support, and is Live aware.

With all that in mind, this is not a cheap port. This is a fully featured rebuild with all the modern features that a console gamer could want. And considering its on the 360, it supports all the 360 features, leaving Xbox gamers with one hell of an awesome build of a truly classic game.

MYM will update with more details as they’re available, and will absolutely be purchasing as soon as possible.

Thank you to Freeverse for such an awesome treat!

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iphone.

Posted on July 1st, 2007 by phiber811, under main.

So the iphone came out on friday night. People were lined up all over the place. They’re still in stock at apple stores, despite many cingular locations being sold out. Given that you can still get one, they’re fetching rather large prices on ebay. Some people have had problems getting the iphone set up and connected to cingular. From what I’ve read, that was account setup issues with AT&T, not problems with the iphone. related yes, but an account related problem rather than a phone related problem.

I’ve also been reading reviews and comments. I’m finding it highly entertaining. Whyso? Simple. I remember 2001. The October of the iPod. I remember thinking, I dont really need an MP3 player. I have CD’s, I have music on my computer, my car has a cassette deck, and a portable CD player. And its expensive. I dont have $400. All things I used to justify it to myself that I didnt need one. Then, I got one for christmas. And everything changed. I copied every single song I owned, to the ipod. I copied a bootable copy of OS9 to it, along with my diagnostic software. I could boot any firewire mac with it, listen to music and so on. I could plug it into my car stereo, and leave the wallets of cd’s behind. Once I had one, I got it. It made sense.

Now going on 6 years later, I’m sitting here thinking, I’m not a smartphone customer. I dont use all those services. But I have to tell myself that, like the ipod, if I did have them, I might use them. It might be world changing, like my music player was. And in reading all the reviews, many people love the iphone. Much like they did the ipod. However, there’s also the people yelling at the top of their lungs, why they wont get one, why it’ll fail, and what if all sorts of things happen. Like I said, it sounds exactly like october of 2001, when apple released that little music player.

several years later, there’s quite a few mp3 players out there. But the only one you ever really see is the ipod. Apple, despite the nay saying, and the apparent horror of battery issues, sells tens of millions of ipods. The have 80% of the mp3 player market, and they’re the third largest retailer of music in the US. All because of a little device called ipod.

Like I said, the stuff I’m reading reminds me directly of the ipod waxing from ’01. 6 years from now, its entirely possible that the iphone will dominate in many respects. Once the AT&T contract is up, maybe they’ll open it up to other carriers. Vodafone will carry it in europe. we’ll see other carriers who laughed at the iphone, lining up to carry it (hey verizon, want a CDMA version? Lemme hear you beg.) We’ll see cell phone contracts change to be more like they are in places like japan. Data and calling will be very much intertwined. We may even see this device help to bring GPS mainstream to everyone, not just us navigation nerds.

This release of the iphone could change the game even more than that. Its software, its interface, its way of interaction. That could spread like wildfire. The Steve has already said the phone runs OSX. Well yeah, of course. Where does OSX come from? And what do you think they developed the OS for the phone on? Thats right homestar, on a computer. Just wait till we see touch interactive computing go mainstream, and all those neat things the ipod can do, are on your computer. For years, we’ve looked back on the technological advancements of our time and thought, yeah, that was cool. Now, we’re watching it happen. We’re on the cusp. Its happening now. We’re at the forefront, and the first drops of water are spilling over the dam.

I get it Steve. I dont know where its all going yet, but I get it. I see the direction, and it makes sense. I like it. You’ve been planning this for probably almost ten years. Positioning your pieces, putting out products, and playing that amazing game of chess with hardware, software, marketing and mindshare. Some people call it a halo effect. Its more like just one piece of the puzzle.

Someday, Steve Wozniak will be remembered as the man who took hobbyist computing, and elevated it to personal and business computing with the Apple 1 and 2. Apple will be remembered for the Macintosh after that and the Graphical User Interface that they pioneered from XEROX PARC. Microsoft will be remembered for selling overpriced, under developed software to millions, for billions, and getting them to like it, for a while. And then Steve Jobs. Steve, along with his engineers, designers, developers, marketing people, and the other countless souls who make his miracles see the shelves of retails stores, will be remembered for not only giving us computing that was elegant and simple, while having the complexity necessary, they’ll be remembered for changing the game. Not the computer game, the technology game. Music, Movies, Computing, Communication, Interaction. Apple and The Steve will change the game by giving these things to people in elegant packages that are easy to use, to the point where we look at them ten years later and wonder what we did without them.

The game is changing as we speak. Sit back, watch, and enjoy. I think Steve and Apple have a pretty interesting vision. I’m hoping to hell that they pull it off.

As I said, back when I bought a Performa 630-CD, and people laughed at me because Apple was supposed to be out of business in 6 months (and this was 1995), I said, “Give it time. Wait 10-15 years. Nothing great happens overnight. A decade from now, Apple will be a household name again. They’ll have the cool, and everyone will want it. I have faith.”

I said it then, and I was graduating from high school. More than a decade on, I make my living off of Apple products. And of course, I say it again.

“Wait 10-15 years. Give it time. Nothing great happens overnight. A decade from now, Apple will still have the cool. they’ll be synonymous with good design, solid features, and style. What they have, everyone will want. I have faith.”

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