Filed under: Gaming, Multimedia, Rumors

Now that Valve has committed to offering full support for the Mac for both its in-house games and Steam, its digital game delivery system, other developers are expressing interest in the Mac as a gaming platform, too.

Gas Powered Games, creator of Supreme Commander 2, Kings and Castles, and Dungeon Siege, has said of the Mac: "We, as a developer, will include a Mac platform option in all of our proposals moving forward. We're in 100 percent support of it, absolutely." Chris Taylor, founder of Gas Powered Games, says that porting games over to the Mac is relatively easy since Macs and PCs now have largely identical internal architectures. Intel processors and ATI or NVIDIA graphics cards are common to both platforms, making game porting far easier than it was back in the PowerPC days. Taylor also says that recent rises in Mac sales are another contributing factor making the Mac a more attractive target for game developers.

Swedish gamemaker DICE, best known for the Battlefield series of games, may also be throwing more support behind the Mac -- one of the company's lead developers has said that "We're currently investigating the possibility of making [Battlefield: Bad Company 2] available on Mac." That's not as big or flashy a commitment as Valve or Gas Powered Games, but considering the popularity of the Battlefield series, it still goes a long way toward improving the state of gaming on the Mac.

Over the next year or so, many other developers are likely to be watching Valve's success (or lack thereof) on the Mac with a very keen eye. If Valve manages to make a healthy amount of money by selling games to Mac users, it may only be a matter of time before many more gaming outfits follow suit.

TUAWValve on Mac piques interest from other game developers originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Les derniers chiffres de ComScore le montrent : Apple maintient sa place de dauphin du marché des smartphones aux Etats-Unis, en tenant 25,1 % du marché, derrière RIM, dont les ...

Sur The Street, Scott Moritz, connu pour ses positions aussi délicates que pertinentes au sujet d'Apple (c'est évidemment de l'ironie…), le clame haut et fort : alors même que l'action Apple bat de jour en jour ses records, il est urgent de vendre. Il explique que si Apple ne cesse de c...

Hace sólo unas semanas mi compañero Pedro Santamaría os mostraba un genial vídeo donde podíamos ver toda la potencia y buen hacer de Capcon a la hora de portar una de sus entregas más conocidas a la plataforma del iPhone e iPod touch, hablo lógicamente de Street Fighter.

El juego ha salido hoy a la venta y ya podemos acceder a él por un precio de 7,99 euros, un precio algo elevado aunque por los vídeos y capturas que podemos ver del juego parece que vale cada uno de sus céntimos.

Esta versión incluye incluye 8 personajes en 7 escenarios distintos, todos los ataques conocidos, juego en red, 4 niveles de dificultad y capacidad para definir nuestros propios controles en pantalla.

Su mayor problema a priori es la falta de botones físicos, aunque detalles como la personalización de los botones e incluso la organización de los mismos parece que será toda una ayuda en este sentido.

Descarga | App Store
En Applesfera | Primer vídeo de Street Fighter IV para el iPhone y iPod Touch

Filed under: Multimedia, Software, iPhone, App Store, Music

Recently I've been preparing to move home and finally did last weekend. Naturally I had to pack up all my musical gear, equipment and of course, my Mac. In the week leading up to the move, I've had my iPhone and nothing else. With no creative outlet and the pressure of looming project deadlines, I found myself scouting the app store for a fix to help me start fleshing out a few creative ideas.

This is what I found that worked well for me.

1. TonePad and TonePad Pro

The iTunes Store describes TonePad Pro as "...the easiest way to make music. Discover the inner musician in you. Create songs by simply touching." And this is exactly what I found. With a 16 x 16 matrix, and an easy-to-use user interface (literally start tapping your fingers and music is made), I found myself coming up with little melodies and tunes immediately. Although you only have the 16 x 16 matrix, to me, what initially seemed quite limiting soon became a boundary for creative focus.

You can save an unlimited number of tunes to listen back to, and upload them to a shared server where your buddies can check out what you've been musing. With the paid version, you can save your melodies into a ringtone that will sync back to your iPhone, too.

2. Flourish

Flourish is something a bit more immersive. While having a steeper learning curve, there's loads more to explore here. The user interface is really fresh and unique (especially for the iPhone), and presents a creative challenge in focusing your composition whilst giving you the space to try different approaches to what you are creating.

Basically Flourish represents musical phrases as physical loops:

-Record loops with expressive multi-touch keyboards.
-Generate percussive and melodic sequences.
-Build arrangements by ear or by eye.
-Select from a consonant collection of instruments.
-Sequence loops by connecting them in chain.

Check out the Flourish website for a few demo clips.

Let us know in the comments below what other apps for the iPhone / iPod Touch, or the Mac, that are inspiring you to make music.

TUAWCount The Beats: Inspiration... two apps for the musician on the move originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Selon ZDNet, Apple pourrait mettre à jour ses Mac Pro dès la semaine prochaine avec des Core i7 "hexacore", a priori les modèles Core i7-980x. Ces processeurs, les premiers 6 cœurs de chez Intel, sont cadencés à 3,33 GHz (3,6 en mode TurboBoost) et gravés en 32 nm. Ils pourraient équ...

Eltima Software a annoncé la disponibilité de son gestionnaire de téléchargement Folx [1.0 - 9,2 Mo - Mac OS X 10.4+ - Gratuit]. Ce logiciel qui permet d'arrêter et reprendre des téléchargements "directs" est aussi un client torrent. Folx peut télécharger un élément via plusieurs threads...

Filed under: Gaming, Retail, Software, Developer, iPhone, App Store

Russell Clarke of Ideaworks Game Studio hosted a post-mortem report near the end of the first day of GDC 2010 about Call of Duty: World at War Zombies for the iPhone. The game was one of the first big brand hits on the App Store -- it successfully brought a game mode from one of Activision's Call of Duty console games (originally developed by Treyarch) to Apple's handheld device. After a quick joke about how a "post-mortem" was an appropriate exercise for a game about zombies, Clarke got into the nuts and bolts of how Ideaworks went about adapting the game for the iPhone.

The most major feature of the game's development, he said, was the decision last year around this time to sit down and work on prototyping for about six weeks. Nowadays, there are a few successful first person shooters around the App Store, but last year, FPSes were still a new genre for the iPhone, so the team decided to really brainstorm how one would work on a touchscreen.

They started by looking at the original game developed by Activision and Treyarch. Zombies is a extra mode of Call of Duty: World at War that was developed as a "lunchtime project" -- a few developers threw it together on a whim, and enjoyed it so much that they released it as DLC, outside of the original game. So Ideaworks wanted to run with that vibe -- create a game that you could play on your lunch break, or squeeze into a few minutes. They did find that the App Store tended towards more casual and family games, but they didn't feel that the mature game could be successfully translated to a family-friendly format. Instead, they decided to stick with the blood and gore: "Activision," Clarke joked, "said we would have to learn to love our 17+ rating, and live with not releasing in every country in the world."

And they also wanted to create a game with "relaunchability," a term that a developer at Treyarch coined. "What keeps you relaunching the game," said Clarke, "is that, like most zombie games, you don't really win. You're just postponing your inevitable death." He also said that learning became a big function of the gameplay -- the game allows you to defend the same environment against zombies every time, so eventually you learn the best spots to make a stand, and so on.

Before development even started, they created a set of benchmarks in terms of performance and gameplay that they wanted to hit: Twenty zombies felt right for gameplay (you'd only be fighting 10 at any given time, but 10 more would be hanging around in the background), 20 FPS seemed like a good target for speed, 2000 triangles for graphics, and of course two thumbs ("the amount that most people have") for control.

The controls were probably the most interesting part of prototyping -- Clarke says his team really tried to brainstorm an interesting way to control an FPS on the iPhone. The problem, however, was that in an FPS game, you're doing three things (running, looking, and shooting), but you only have two thumbs to do them with. One prototype they created had you tilting the accelerometer around to move (while looking and shooting with two onscreen controls), but for some reason, that made everyone who tested it rather dizzy. In the end, they went with a compromise, including a few different choices: a dual stick standard, an aiming assist system, and even a mode that only slightly uses the accelerometer to look around.

Authenticity was another question -- obviously the iPhone doesn't have the processing power of the latest and greatest consoles, so Ideaworks had to work hard to walk the line between keeping the game running smoothly and keeping it detailed enough to compare to the bigger title. They did a lot of pruning on the original model work, turning geometry into straight textures, and cutting off 3D modeling that couldn't actually be seen by the player (the original team had even modeled tree roots underground, rendered on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, but never actually seen). They did things like not animating enemies when they weren't in the player's line of sight, and just using a sphere for the grenade hit model rather than actually modeling the shape, since it worked just as well. In the end, the iPhone had only about 1/7th of the geometry of the original game, but Ideaworks tried to make it at least look as similar as they could.

Multiplayer was a challenge, but fortunately, Activision had already created an online backend, so when Ideaworks hooked into that system, they were able to put together all of the multiplayer ideas they had (2-player, 4-player, and even a full online system) and then some (host migration was a project one of their engineers threw together in his spare time, and Bluetooth multiplayer was also added in on a whim).

Finally, Clarke shared a few lessons from the game's development. In terms of the controls, they learned that offering a choice to the player is sometimes the right move, and when there is a choice, you usually need to force it at some point (if you hide a different control scheme in the options, most players will never find it). Piracy was something else they learned -- while Clarke was hesitant to speak much about his opinions on piracy, he did say that it was easier to pirate the game than anyone on his team believed, and that in the first days of the release, they saw a significant number of extra users playing than had actually bought the game.

Still, Clarke said that the game had done very well -- they've been high on the App Store's Top Paid list ever since release, and while he didn't mention sales for the main game, he said that the lite version has seen over three million downloads. Clarke's panel offered up an interesting look behind one of the App Store's big name hits.

TUAWGDC 2010: Call of Duty: World at War Zombies postmortem originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Apple

Unit testing refers to a software validation methodology that allows programmers to test individual program units for correctness. It's been an ongoing question in the iPhone developer community as to whether the iPhone's view controller class is testable or not.

In response to these discussions, iPhone developer Jonah Williams has written up a view controller unit testing how-to over at the Carbon Five web blog. His write-up offers examples that show how to incorporate some best practices into your code.

Williams points out how broken NIB bindings are a common problem for iPhone OS applications. To address these issues, he regularly adds simple assertions that test that each IB outlet and action are set properly from inside his view controller class implementations. These assertions check that IBOutlet instance variables are not set to nil and that IBAction targets have been assigned, adding a layer of protection against broken bindings.

Another typical view controller issue involves responding to application memory warnings. To respond, he adds tests that ensure that each view-dependent property gets correctly released and re-created as views unload and then later reload. By building these into test methods, he can execute this behavior on demand, and ensure that the sequence will execute flawlessly in real world conditions.

Finally, Williams discusses view controller interdependencies. Often instances are tightly intertwined, with objects acting as clients for each other. For example, a simple table view controller, living within a navigation controller, might present a detail view via yet another view controller when a row is selected. That's three separate controllers to account for, when you really only want to test one at a time. Williams suggests isolating these view controllers away from their interdependencies to test each component separately and provides examples of how you can do so.

What made Williams' approach pop for me is how he carefully exposes and isolates dependencies for testing. These are features that can otherwise be hard to inspect and validate in the normal course of programming. His write-up is well worth reading through, and provides an excellent jumping off point for investigating view controller unit testing.

TUAWiPhone devsugar: Unit testing for iPhone view controllers originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ZDNet reports that they've heard rumors that there will be a new Mac Pro next week:

I’m getting tips in from sources who claim that Apple is set to revamp its high-end Mac Pro line, adding a ‘hexacore’ Core i7-980x model to the line up.

All information points to this happening next Tuesday, March 16th.

The Core i7-980x is Intel’s first six-core part. Here’s the spec:

3.33GHz (TurboBoost to 3.6GHz), 6 cores / 12 threads, 32nm architecture, Socket LGA1366 130W TDP

Separately, we've heard there could be a release as early as Friday.  I'd rather see a Core i7 Mac Mini though.

In somewhat related news, Maya 2011 64-bit was released today.

El iPhone pasará a BlackBerry en 2011: esta es la afirmación de un nuevo análisis financiero de la compañía Trefis. Según el informe, Apple, con tan sólo un dispositivo en el mercado móvil, el iPhone, que en la mayoría de países se vende sólo junto a un único operador, ganaría a BlackBerry de RIM, que dispone de una docena de terminales.

Apple siempre ha innovado, y lo ha sabido hacer muy bien. Así ha sido también con su iPhone que, sin ser una empresa relacionada con el mercado de móviles, ha sabido incorporarse rápidamente y muy eficientemente. Además, el iPhone cada vez crece más entre las compañías, hecho que podría hacer que las ventas de BlackBerry disminuyeran, ya que RIM siempre ha tenido un buen negocio en este sector.

Aún así, todavía falta mucho para 2011 y podría ser que BlackBerry nos sorprendiera con buenas mejoras que hicieran que Apple se lo tuviera que trabajar más para seguir adelante en el mundo de la telefonía móvil. Veremos como va avanzando el sector, donde seguro que la compañía de la manzana seguirá innovando.

Vía theAppleBlog

Le SDK de l'iPhone OS 3.2, sorti hier soir, révèle son lot de petites nouveautés, comme ces prédécesseurs. Apple aurait notamment prévu, dans cette version de nouveaux gestes ...

Filed under: Gaming, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPad

We stopped by the Capcom Fight Club party here at GDC 2010 last night, and in addition to playing the new game, we also got to talk to producer Takeshi Tazuka. Actually, we got to talk to his translator -- Tazuka only speaks Japanese, and I only speak English, so the interview was done with a middleman in between.

But even with the language barrier, we did get some good chat in about the new game, Capcom's future plans for the iPhone, and what Tazuka thinks about making a game like this for the iPad. Read on for more.

Thank you for speaking with us, I appreciate it. So, a fighting game on the iPhone -- how did you approach that?

I used to create arcade games, and the equipment is kind of similar to the iPhone.

It's similar? But there's no buttons on it.

It is different. The device is completely different. But the behavior for game users is very similar. When you go to game centers, you want to jump in and play a game spontaneously. And the iPhone is the same thing -- it's like an arcade experience.

What did you think of developing games on the iPhone as a platform? Was it easy, hard?

It's really interesting as a platform because people that play games on the iPhone usually don't have a game console at home. I am interested to see how people react to playing video games on their handheld, not on a full console. It's very interesting. Music fans, and other application fans, they play video games on the iPhone. It's very interesting to see those people playing the games on the iPhone.

Are there other iPhone games that you like?

[Laughs] Except Capcom games?

Right, besides Capcom games of course.

I really like Homerun Battle 3D, it's by this company called Com2us. [Pulls out his iPhone and shows us the Japanese version.]

Have you looked at the iPad at all? Are you interested in developing a game like Street Fighter for the iPad?

I'm very interested.

What would be different than the iPhone game?

The iPad is obviously heavier, so the user experience would be very different. [Motions with thumbs, has trouble holding a bigger device the same way.] Different than using iPhone.

On this game, how did you work on developing the interface to make it easier to use?

There's actually a mode called dojo mode, it's a tutorial or training mode, where you can learn how to improve your technique, brush up your technique, and learn to fight against really hardcore players as well. It doesn't only teach you how to play, it teaches you how to do super combos, hadoken, and how Ryu fights against Ryu, how Guile fights against Ryu. It's learning, dojo style. With this game, the major segment that we're targeting is late 30s. Those people who used to play Street Fighter II big time. So that's why it's a little easier for those people to pick up and play.

Was there anything that you wanted to do that you couldn't do because of the smaller platform?

Because of the memory capacity, we couldn't implement any more than eight characters total. We would have liked to put more characters in there, but the memory is limited.

A lot of people wouldn't have expected Street Fighter to become an iPhone game. Are there any other Capcom games that you'd like to put on the iPhone that people might not expect?

We have a lot of plans. But we can't tell you anything right now. We will try our best to do more than you expect.

Great, we're excited. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

TUAWGDC 2010: Interview with Street Fighter IV producer Takeshi Tazuka originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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El iPhone ha marcado un antes y después en la historia de la industria de los teléfonos móviles, Apple se metió al juego inesperadamente al introducir un concepto totalmente diferente, al cual ahora le llamamos iPhone y que se destaca por ser un teléfono inteligente de uso simple pero a la vez robusto y lleno de posibilidades.

Hace tan solo unos años era impensable que Apple podría hacerle frente a la gente de RIM, sin embargo unos cuantos analistas han afirmado que el reinado de RIM en cuanto a cuota de mercado global acabará muy pronto cuando el teléfono de Apple consiga un mayor número de ventas en el 2011.

Para que nos podamos dar una idea de la gran popularidad del iPhone, hay que destacar que el iPhone está disponible con un solo operador telefónico en varios países, mientras que la línea Blackberry se muestra indiferente con esta estrategia.

Es una excelente noticia para la compañía de Cupertino, pero tampoco pueden hacer sonar las campanas, pues Android está teniendo un crecimiento a pasos agigantados, que ponen en entredicho quien va ser el número uno en esta década ¿Nokia, RIM, HTC, Motorola, Apple, Palm? esta difícil, pero sin duda veo a teléfonos con Android y iPhone OS entre los primeros lugares.

Vía | theAppleBlog

apple, blackberry, iphone, rim, ventas record_view_ids(array ( 0 => '10335', 1 => '10338', 2 => '10336', 3 => '10333', 4 => '10331', 5 => '10329', 6 => '10321', 7 => '10327', 8 => '10324', 9 => '10322', ), array ( 'admin_page' => false, 'feed' => true, 'archive' => false, 'category' => false, 'single' => false, )) -->

Radioshift 1.5.4Radioshift... Listen to and record internet radio.

Like a personal video recorder (PVR) for radio, Radioshift enables internet and AM/FM radio to be recorded automatically and listened to at any time.

Radioshift can be used to explore and listen to over 100,000 radio listings from around the world. Audio can be subscribed to and automatically recorded. As well, users can listen live to thousands of RealAudio, Windows Media, QuickTime, and MP3 streams, all in one player.
WHAT'S NEWVersion 1.5.4:

• Radioshift\'s background web player now supports cookies, reducing advertising in some streams.
• A bug where sending recordings to iTunes could sometimes get stuck and never finish has been corrected.
• Program listings with no recording schedules are now properly filtered out.

REQUIREMENTSMac OS X 10.5 or higher
PRICE$32.00
DEVELOPERRogue Amoeba
DOWNLOADS13680
DOWNLOAD NOW (11 MB)
More information

Walk of Fame 1.3Walk of Fame... This is your chance to become a famous Hollywood movie maker! With this highly realistic comic-style simulation game you are able to produce the movies you always wanted to watch.

Find a story, choose your favorite actors and a capable director, underlay great music, impress with costumes and a spectacular coulisse and blow away your audience with stunning special effects. But be careful to match the taste of the critics and to pick the right advertising strategy.

Features:

• complex Movie market simulation
• create your own Actors with the powerful Portrait Generator
• unlock great Extras
• cool comic graphics

WHAT'S NEWVersion 1.3:

• new music, costumes etc.
• new bonuses and unpredictable events
• minor bug fixes

REQUIREMENTSMac OS X 10.5 or later.
PRICE$7.00
DEVELOPERMr. Fridge Software
DOWNLOADS709
DOWNLOAD NOW (9.2 MB)
More information

Filed under: Deals

The ever-popular MacHeist bundle, offering eight Mac apps for $20 total, closes out at midnight Pacific Time tonight. If you've been on the fence so far about whether or not to buy in this year, two bits of news may push you over the brink.

First, all the initial applications have been unlocked; both Tales of Monkey Island and RapidWeaver are fully present and accounted for. Second, there's been a last-minute addition to the roster; Tweetie for Mac (normally $20 on its own) is now part of the bundle.

If you're Macheisting this year, let us know what you think of the app selection; if not, share your reasons why. (We will accept "I'm saving up for tickets to Tron Legacy" as a valid reason.)

TUAWMacHeist nano bundle adds Tweetie for final day originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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(door: redactie) - De International Federation of Periodical Press (FIPP) overweegt een formele klacht in te dienen bij Apple over het...

(door: redactie) - De International Federation of Periodical Press (FIPP) overweegt een formele klacht in te dienen bij Apple over het...

Devawriter 1.0.8.5Devawriter is a Full Classical Sanskrit (Devanagari) input for Macintosh with RTF, HTML amd JPG export.
WHAT'S NEWVersion 1.0.8.5:

• Floating palette with Transcription information is now complete! Details of composition of Conjunct Consonants now being implemented in the Floating Palette.
• Help with transcription convention now via button on floating palette.

Sorted out an anomaly with the "K + T" series of conjunct consonants.
REQUIREMENTS

• Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later.
• Sanskrit2003 font (bundled in application)

PRICEFree
DEVELOPERRichmond Mathewson
DOWNLOADS1839
DOWNLOAD NOW (13.8 MB)
More information