Rock out at the Apple Store with Guitar Hero III
Filed under: Gaming, RetailMacworld is reporting that Aspyr is planning to hold Guitar Hero III tournaments at various Apple retail stores around the country. It looks like they'll be awarding iTunes gift cards to the winners, but surely that pales in comparison to the chance to become not just a Guitar Hero, but a Mac Guitar Hero in front of throngs of cheering Apple Store patrons!Some of the stores participating "include locations in Bloomington, Minn., San Francisco, Stockton, Pasadena and...
-
First Look: Guitar Rock Tour for iPhone
Filed under: iPhone, App StoreDo you like to rock out with Guitar Hero or Rock Band? If you do, then you'll no doubt like Guitar Rock Tour [iTunes link] for the iPhone. The Guitar Rock Tour experience is similar to that of Guitar Hero, but portable. Unlike Tap Tap Revenge, Guitar Rock Tour gives you 17 licensed songs, including Rock You Like a Hurricane, Beat It, Smoke on the Water, and more. The nice thing about this game is that you can play either the lead guitar or the drums. There are three difficulty levels for Guitar Rock Tour: Easy, Medium, and Hard. In addition, there is a quick play mode and tour mode. In quick play, you can play any song that you want, using any difficultly level -- assuming you've unlocked the songs. In tour mode, you go around to different cities playing songs, earning points, and unlocking more songs. When you start the tour mode, you actually sign a contract for the band -- I thought this part was cool. The game play is identical to that of Guitar Hero or RockBand. You simply tap the notes that appear on the screen to make the music play. If you miss a note, then you lose points; if you get a note right, you gain points. Overall, Guitar Rock Tour is a lot of fun and has great graphics -- I was surprised at how good and fluid the animations were. I experienced a lot of crashes, though this seemed to have been fixed with a reboot of the iPhone. I also found that sometimes the notes were not timed exactly right. This can be distracting, especially when you just want to play the song. If you are interested in Guitar Rock Tour, it is available from the App Store for $7.99 (US). Gallery: First Look: Guitar Rock TourTUAWFirst Look: Guitar Rock Tour for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
-
Aspyr delays Guitar Hero III, they are now dead to me
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, AppleMan, remember how excited we were that Guitar Hero III was coming to the Mac at a reasonable time? Yeah, well, guess what. Aspyr has no love for Mac owners. Our friends at Joystiq say that while the PC version is sitting happily on shelves, we're still waiting on the Mac version. "Later this year," Aspyr says. I'll believe it when I see it.I don't want to get off on a rant here, but who the hell put Aspyr in charge of Mac gaming anyway? Their incompetence has reared its ugly head time and time again. They deliver late, buggy ports all the time, and yet game companies still seem to flock to them for development and publishing jobs.There is something rotten in the state of Mac gaming, and it is Aspyr Media. Have they ever kept a promise for release? Have they ever delivered a worthy, on-time port? Or have they continually and constantly profited off of placing junk on Apple Store shelves, forever confining Macs to the bottom of the list for gaming platforms? I won't tell you what to buy, but I'm done seeing Aspyr's name on Mac games. Until they show that they actually have the capacity to release a game that even slightly compares to the PC release version (or even shows up on time -- I'd settle for punctuality at this point), the Aspyr name is a complete dealbreaker for me in terms of both interest and purchases. As far as I'm concerned, they're out.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
-
Guitar Hero III previewed, will release Oct. 28
Filed under: Gaming, Hardware, Retail, Software Gametap's got a quick look at the new Guitar Hero sequel, coming out for the Mac later this year, and the biggest news is that they've got a date: the PC and Mac versions are shipping simultaneously with the consoles on October 28. Rock on! Apparently you'll also be able to use the mouse and keyboard to play (although, come on, Guitar Hero is all about that guitar controller that ships with the game), and this part is pretty slick, too: PC and Mac users will be able to play against (or with) each other online. Very, very nice.No system requirements yet, but I'm guessing that, like Tiger Woods and Madden, this is going to be for the non-integrated video cards only. Still, if you've got the kit to run it, it'll definitely be a good time. Our sister games blog Joystiq has rounded up the entire setlist for the game, with YouTube links to every song in it. In fact, if you've already got Frets on Fire working, you can start practicing now -- you'll need it if you want to shred against me.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
-
TUAW Best of the Week
Filed under: Features, TUAW Business, Weekend ReviewWelcome to this week's installment of TUAW best of the week, where we gather up our favorite posts of the week for your easy clicking enjoyment. TV out locked in new iPod classic and nanoSerious, why is Apple making this so hard? 1 millionth iPhone has been soldLessee. How long did it take to sell a million Zunes, again? Vienna 2.2 is availableNice update for a favorite utility. iPhone versus iPod Touch: What to buyThe iPhone is looking more and more like the better deal, even if you don't want phone service. iPhone Coding: Using the AccelerometerPractical access to your iPhone's sensors. Six Apart launches iPhone/iPod Touch specific Movable Type 4/TypepadBlog on-the-go. Making the impossible possible: iPod Touch VOIPStill working on getting SIP and Asterix and all. Rogue Amoeba releases free Ringtone MakerSimple. Easy-to-use. Free. Fox: We'll keep our content in iTunesFox avoids an NBC-style hissyfit. Cyberduck hits 2.8 with file transfer queueingAnother great upgrade to a another favorite utility. Gearlog interview clears up iPhone and Touch detailsDon't believe the buzz. Apple is NOT pro-hacking. Guitar Hero III coming to the Mac this yearAnd my kids start begging in 3...2... iPhone hackers create open source unlockThe iPhone has been unlocked in dozens of countries now. iTunes: Free WednesdayStill Free. Ask TUAW: Anti-Virus in Parallels, inventory management, sharing iCal without .Mac and moreThis week's installment of Mat's always-wonderful series. The real story behind the iPhone unlock GUI dramaIt's like a daytime soap opera, I tell you. Rig of the Week: Mac mini at seaGlub blub blub click blub. iPod Touch unboxingOur new toy. What's an iPhone again? More rumors about iTunes movie rentalsIt will be nice when you're stuck at an airport to whip out your iPhone or iTouch and just rent a movie while you wait. iPhone Early adopters: Claim your store credit!$100. Remember, if you took your iPhone in for service at any time to use your new serial number not your original one.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
-
Guitar Hero tracks on iTunes
Filed under: Gaming, Multimedia, iTunes Looking to get caught up on your favorite Guitar Hero music before the game finally comes to the Mac in a week? You're in luck, our sister site Xbox 360 Fanboy reports that Activision, who now owns the GH franchise, has released the master tracks of Guitar Hero 1, 2 and 3 as "Guitar Hero Essentials," available right now on iTunes.Very awesome. Of course, listening to "More Than a Feeling," "Killing in the Name," or "Heart Shaped Box" isn't nearly as fun as actually playing it with the guitar, but until they release Guitar Hero for the iPhone you'll have to settle for listening to the downloaded tracks. Each game has its own playlist, and there's even extra playlists from Slash and Steve Jones to get you in the mood.Rock on! Of course, we'll probably be a little too busy with Leopard at release to really get the thrash on right away, but after we get our Stacks and Spaces set up, it's time to shred!Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
-
Tap Tap Revenge: NIN Edition Released
Get ready iPhone-bearing fans of Trent Reznor, a special edition of Tap Tap Revenge has just been released featuring the music of Nine Inch Nails. The game features 16 NIN tracks, from albums Slip and Ghosts I-IV, hand-selected by Reznor himself. Tap Tap Revenge was one of the first and most popular games on the iPhone platform, and according to some claims boasts more than 2 million users. Tapulous, Tap Tap Revenge's developer, purchased the game from Nate True, who'd released the original version as Tap Tap Revolution for jailbroken iPhones and iPod touches. The track list for the original release version of Tap Tap Revenge is made up of independent artists, and the NIN edition marks the first time a major label release has been used. This is also the latest in a recent string of attempts on Reznor's part to experiment with alternative methods of music distribution, like the decision to release “The Slip” for free in downloadable, non-DRM format. For those unfamiliar with the game, Tap Tap Revenge resembles rhythm-based games like Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero. Players tap glowing dots as they come down one of three neon-colored lines, trying to hit the dots in time with the music as they hit the bottom of the iPhone's screen. The original version has been featured in Apple commercials, and it is highly likely that their endorsement will see more major artists following NIN's lead, depending on the success of this most recent release. Tap Tap Revenge: NIN not only features the band's music, but also sports a custom red-and-black theme with all new graphics, and unlockable difficulty levels and tracks. You can get it in the App Store now for $4.99, or try the original version first for free.
-
Kingdom Lores, 3D fantasy on the iPhone
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, Apple, Developer, iPhoneThis one's been poking around since last week, but we haven't touched on it yet here on TUAW: Kingdom Lores is what looks to be a fully 3D, fantasy adventure game for the iPhone, and it looks hot. The game is being developed by Marco Giorgini, and uses a custom OpenGL rendering engine to let players do all the normal dungeon crawler stuff: kill monsters, run around, collect the loots, and generally be the fantasy hero. The game is available for download right now, though you do have to jailbreak the iPhone/iPod touch, and right now you've got to manually install the thing.If you're not courageous enough to try and install it yourself (raises hand), there are a few videos available to show off how it plays, and while it is very clearly an early alpha, it does look like fun. Unfortunately, the chances that we'll see it in the App Store are about nil -- Giorgini doesn't even have a Mac, and he's doing it all using the Win toolchain.Surely someone can get this guy a MacBook and a developer kit, right? Or at least get a port rolling? A year from now, we'll probably all be playing iPhone Spore and laughing at how primitive this looks, but right now, when it comes to running 3D on the iPhone, this is a dungeon we'd love to crawl.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
-
Apple, Starbucks sued over iTunes promotion cards
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple Corporate, iTS, iTunesAppleInsider is reporting that Apple and Starbucks are being sued because of their recent iTunes promotion cards. James and Marguerite Driessen claim to hold a patent on, what they call "RPOS" (or retail point of sale for online merchandising). The patent in question allows customers to buy a gift card from brick-and-mortar stores and then go home and redeem the card online. However, Apple has an excuse, because while the Driessen's patent was under review, Apple developed their own similar concept for redeeming the iTunes gift cards. Apple's gift cards allow a person to enter a code on the iTunes Store and receive a whole artist's album, along with the artwork. However, due to legal pressure from the Driessen's, Apple apparently pulled the iTunes gift cards from the stores, but left them in UK Stores. Now, here's where this may get a little sticky. I've been wondering why this is only affecting the Apple iTunes cards. Why aren't other gift card manufacturing companies getting hit with this suit? This patent application seems to describe pretty much every gift card that I have seen; such as those credit-card-gift-cards that you can buy at most malls -- you can also use those online as a credit card. And not to mention those Zune music cards! What do you think? Should Apple be forced to remove their cards that provide convenience to customers, or should they fight back? Be sure to sound off in the comments below![via AppleInsider]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
-
Beatles Collector's Box includes limited edition 120GB iPod classic, leaves the ripping to you
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video Listen up, Ringo Beatles fans -- your holiday gift has just been located, and it's on aisle 17 in Bloomingdale's. The somewhat janky limited edition collector's box is a dream come true for fanatics of the Fab Four, packing 13 original Beatles' CDs, an engraved guitar pick, two masters and the "Love" CD -- none of which are available via the iTunes Music Store, mind you. Just 2,500 of the $795 sets are available, but -- humorously enough -- you'll be stuck ripping and transferring every last disc onto your individually numbered, etched-with-a-Beatles-logo 120GB iPod classic. Ah well, at least this scenario lets you choose your own bitrate, right?Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
-
★ The Fear
The NDA is dead, yes, and good riddance, but there remain serious problems with the way Apple is managing the App Store. It boggles my mind that there remain so many people who don’t see this. This piece by Dan Kimerling at TechCrunch is one example; various of the reader comments on Jason Snell’s piece for Macworld last week are another.1 One factor, perhaps, is the tendency to see everything in terms of extremes. Black or white, good or bad. But this debate is not about wanting Apple to make radical changes, such as, say, changing the iPhone from a closed platform to a more open platform a la Android. There are reasonable arguments to be made that a more open iPhone platform would be good not just for iPhone developers, but for Apple and its shareholders. But those arguments aren’t what this debate is about. This debate is about wanting Apple to make minor changes — a slight but very significant course correction. Put another way, this is not about the big picture scope of what kind of hypothetical App Store (or Stores, plural) Apple should have created. That train left the station long ago. This is about the specific details of the App Store that actually exists, and the rules that govern it. I believe that a closed, controlled App Store can work, but by definition that requires developers to place trust in Apple. The problem is that Apple is managing the App Store in certain untrustworthy ways. And I mean trust more in the sense of stability than honesty — like in the way you need to trust a ladder before you’ll climb it. Here is a complete list of what Apple must do to increase developers’ trust in the App Store system: State the rules. Follow the rules. That’s it. This is so clear that even those who are arguing the other side — that Apple’s App Store stewardship is just fine as it stands today — have jumped through hoops in an attempt to argue that Apple’s exclusion of Podcaster was in fact in accordance with the iPhone SDK Guidelines. Kimerling, in his “Stop Complaining About Apple and the App Store” piece, writes: When you create the platform, you set the rules. If Apple wants to restrict iPhone applications to those that do not compete with features built into the iPhone, well, they can go right ahead and do so. It is right in the SDK’s user agreement. That’s just not true. The iPhone SDK Agreement, at least by the standards of legal contracts, is written in clear, straightforward English. (Apple’s lawyers, in the opinion of yours truly at least, are good writers.) The rules it lays down are clear. And Podcaster doesn’t break any of them. Given any set of rules, there will always be edge cases. Judgment must be rendered, and, inevitably, some will feel edge cases were judged the wrong way. But the reason iPhone developers (and prospective iPhone developers) are appalled by Apple’s rejection of Podcaster and MailWrangler is that neither app was near any edge defined in the SDK guidelines. Podcaster was rejected for duplicating the podcast features in iTunes and the iPhone “iPod” app. MailWrangler was rejected on the following grounds: Your application duplicates the functionality of the built-in iPhone application Mail without providing sufficient differentiation or added functionality, which will lead to user confusion. The word “duplicate”, in any conjugation, does not appear in the iPhone SDK Agreement. Not a word about it. And there is clearly no general rule about third-party apps duplicating the functionality of the iPhone’s built-in apps. PCalc, along with a handful of other calculator apps, duplicates every single feature of the built-in Calculator app. There are dozens of note-taking apps that compete with Notes; MagicPad goes so far as to use the same icon as Apple’s Notes app, just with different colors. There is an entirely category in the App Store — an entire category — for weather apps, several of which “duplicate” the entire functionality of the built-in Weather app. So, not only judging by the rules set forth in the iPhone SDK Agreement, but also by the existence proof of hundreds of apps currently published in the App Store that duplicate (which is really to say compete with) built-in iPhone apps, no reasonable person would have expected Podcaster or MailWrangler to be rejected. So their rejection is problematic on three fronts. First, the submission process is such that an app rejected at the conceptual level — one that cannot be tweaked or fixed to gain entry upon resubmission, but whose fundamental premise is rejected by Apple — such an app is only rejected after it has been written. The developer does all of the work to produce the app and only then finds out it was all for naught. Second, there are clearly rules which are not listed in the SDK guidelines. Third, in its explanations for the rejections, Apple is not stating what these actual unpublished rules are, and is instead offering as the reason this “it duplicates a built-in app” rule which, given all the aforementioned counterexamples that have been accepted into the App Store, isn’t actually a rule at all. The explanation is clearly false. Taken together, these three factors lead to The Fear, which is that developers cannot trust the App Store process. You can spend all of the time and effort it takes to build an app, follow every known rule, and still get rejected. From Apple’s perspective, especially, say, in upper management, it may be all too easy to look at what’s going on with the store — thousands of published apps, a ton of money changing hands — and not see the problem. In the big picture, from both a technical and marketing perspective, the App Store is a grand success. The problem is that the apps that are the most interesting, the most important, are the ones that take the most work to create. And the apps that take the most work to create are the ones that are most likely not even to be made in this environment, because the risk is greater. The more work it takes to create an app, the more you lose if Apple rejects it. Going back to the ladder analogy, the higher you’re trying to climb, the more you need to trust the ladder before you start. It’s not about a handful of developers who’ve had their apps rejected. It’s about all the other developers who are now spooked, and that the ones who are the most spooked are the ones who harbor the grandest, boldest, most innovative ideas. Interpolation Regarding a Theory on Which Apps Apple Won’t Allow Developers to Compete With In the absence of revised iPhone SDK Agreement from Apple, we can attempt to guess what the unpublished rules are. With Podcaster, for example, the “follow the money” rule of thumb leads to the conclusion that Apple will not allow any competition with iTunes, because iTunes is a profit source. This is why MailWrangler’s rejection is the one that puts The Fear in my heart. As unjust as the Podcaster rejection appears, if Apple really wants to prohibit competition with iTunes, even anti-competitively, you can at least see the thinking behind the decision. It’s foolish and unnecessary — the fact that iTunes is wide open to total competition on both Mac OS X and Windows hasn’t hurt it at all — and it also quite possibly invites some sort of legal challenge, but at least there is a logical idea behind it. But Mail? Why on earth should Apple care if some third-party email client for the iPhone becomes wildly popular? It makes no sense. iPhone users who use the built-in Mail app don’t pay extra to do so. Mail doesn’t tie users to Apple’s own MobileMe service. In fact, Mail offers specific setup help to work with Gmail, the service MailWrangler is optimized for. If you can make a replacement for Notes and Weather and Calendar, why not Mail? I have a theory. It is more, well, emotional than logical. But it’s the only theory I can think of that makes any sense at all and fits the available evidence. The theory is that there is an unpublished rule that Apple — and in this case, where by “Apple” I really mean “Steven P. Jobs” — will not publish third-party apps that compete with or replace any of the four apps in the iPhone’s default “dock”: Phone, Mail, Safari, and iPod. Go back to Jobs’s original iPhone introduction at Macworld Expo 2007. It was a masterful presentation. Carmine Gallo, writing for BusinessWeek, calls it Jobs’s greatest presentation; I agree. Gallo describes the moment it was unveiled: After laying the groundwork, Jobs builds up to the new device by teasing the audience: “Today, we are introducing three revolutionary products. The first is a wide-screen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary new mobile phone. And the third is a breakthrough Internet communications device.” Jobs continues to build tension. He repeats the three devices several times then says, “Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices. This is one device … today Apple is going to reinvent the phone!” The crowd goes wild. This “three revolutionary products” pitch was inordinately effective. For one thing, live, in the hall, Jobs completely fooled the crowd, yours truly included. But then as he repeated the three product ideas over and over, while icons representing the three products rotated behind him on screen, faster and faster, it started dawning on us how we’d been tricked. By the time Jobs came out and said that it was just one device that encompassed all three products, everyone in Moscone West had come to that conclusion on their own — a nifty little way of making the crowd feel clever, as though we’d figured out a riddle. But this pitch also worked because it was true. All three of those products sound good on their own. All three in one device sounds insanely great. Jobs was introducing the iPhone simply by describing precisely what it was. A phone, a widescreen video iPod, and a breakthrough Internet communicator. The icons in the iPhone’s default dock represent the core functionality of the device. Phone, Email, Web, iPod. With nothing other than those four apps, the iPhone still would have been a hit. Not as great, but, still, great. Everything else the iPhone’s built-in apps do could be done, to some extent, through Safari: notes, calendars, weather, maps, stocks. There are a few minor exceptions. SMS is one example, but that’s really just an adjunct to the Phone app. Anything that relates to the phone network — voice or SMS — is unavailable through the third-party iPhone SDK anyway. You couldn’t write your own SMS app even if you wanted to. (Apple clearly has no problem with competing chat apps — there are several IM clients available in the App Store. That’s the same basic concept as SMS, but using IP networking.) And so my guess is that while there may not be any logic, there’s at least a notion, if only in Jobs’s mind, that these four apps are sacrosanct because they define the iPhone. Everything else, both from Apple and from App Store developers, is piffle, secondary to those four apps. Harry McCracken’s recent iPhone user survey indicates that iPhone users agree that those four apps comprise the most-used features of the iPhone. But the least essential of the four is Mail. You cannot place phone calls or play music and video from your personal iTunes library using a web browser, but can read and send email through it.2 Millions of people do just that every day, including, I’m sure, many of you reading this essay. And Google’s iPhone-optimized version of Gmail shows just how well it can be done. It’s not just good for web-based mail, it’s just good, period. And so this idea that Apple seems to have that Mail is particularly special is misguided. The Phone and iPod apps are special, because at a fundamental level they perform tasks that cannot be duplicated in a web app. But there’s nothing any more special about Mail than there is about, say, Calendar. Calendar, if anything, is more closely tied to Apple’s proprietary and commercial MobileMe service — Mail works great with any IMAP server, including Gmail, but Calendar only works for online syncing with MobileMe or Exchange. But Apple doesn’t seem to have any problem allowing Calendar competitors into the App Store. Notes Calendar is a $3 Lotus Notes calendaring client. Exchange Remote Calendar is a $10 is a $10 calendaring client for Exchange. If these are OK, why not a dedicated Gmail email client? The only explanation is that Mail is deemed untouchable and Calendar is not. The real test would be for someone to write a dedicated Google Calendar iPhone app — but given what happened to MailWrangler, it might be hard to find someone willing to try it. In short, my theory is that Mail is on the do-not-compete list not because there’s any strategic reason for Apple to do so, but simply because of a vague notion that Mail is one of the iPhone’s defining apps. This notion is wrong. Mail is important, but there’s nothing about it that needs to be protected from competition. End of Interpolation, Back to the Three Problems, Which, Due to the Grotesque Length of the Above Interpolation, I Will Remind You Are: (1) App Ideas Are Rejected Only After the Apps Are Actually Built; (2) There Exist Secret Unpublished Rules Regarding What Is Allowed; and (3) When Apps Are Rejected for Violating the Unpublished Rules, Apple Refuses to State Just What These Rules Are One thing that would make a difference would be a submission process whereby developers could submit their application ideas to Apple in advance, to find out if they’re OK. That’s how it works on game platforms from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft — developers submit a detailed proposal and wait until they get the green light before actually building the game. That sounds good, but there are problems with the idea. For developers, it would require an additional level of trust in Apple. Ideas are less valuable than actual implementations, but the more original an idea is, the less comfortable you are to share it. And for Apple, it would require significantly more work. They’d still need to examine and approve the actual shipping applications, but now they’d also have to examine and consider application proposals. The world’s hard drives are littered with abandoned unfinished software projects — there would surely be far more proposals submitted for consideration than there are actual iPhone applications. As it stands today, Apple is already struggling mightily to keep up with the work of approving new and updated application submissions — the typical turnaround time is between one to two weeks. Perhaps Apple could offer this as a service limited to ADC Select ($499) or even Premier ($3,499) members. The service is needed most by the developers who are considering the biggest apps, most of whom either are already paid ADC members or wouldn’t bat an eyelash at the cost of joining. It wouldn’t be democratic, but it might make it feasible. Platforms like Wii and Xbox ship maybe a few dozen titles a month, tops. The App Store has published 3,500 titles in just three months. (And it costs far more to join the developer programs for gaming consoles than the $100 iPhone SDK fee.) More important, though, is for Apple to address problems 2 and 3, by publishing in the iPhone SDK Agreement all of the rules they’re using to evaluate applications. If we’re not allowed to write email or podcast clients, say so. If something unforeseen comes up, Apple should make a decision, and then publish the new rule. Rules you disagree with are frustrating. Rules you don’t know about are scary. I will also note that, to my knowledge, not a single published iPhone developer has spoken out in favor of the App Store’s current rejection policies. Those developers who have spoken are against it. Those who see no problem are not themselves iPhone developers. ↩ Even if Apple were to come to its senses and allow third-party developers to write competing email clients, the built-in Mail app would hold one significant technical advantage, which is that it runs in the background. In fact, background processing is the one factor that unites the four dock apps. Phone, Mail, Safari, and iPod all continue running the background; no other apps, including those from Apple, do. ↩