da Blog

Most of my readers are aware of my love for the website HomeStarRunner.com, which is an animated internet cartoon.  Over eight years ago, two brothers started posting their animations online, and now they work full-time creating new content based on their own world of characters.  These cartoons are not always safe for the kids, in my opinion, but then again, they’re probably better than most of what’s on TV for kids these days.  Feel free to head over to their website to get an idea of the days of fun that await you, and one of my favorites is the “First Time Here?” link in the top right of the main menu.  But this post isn’t really about that, it’s about games.

Strong Bad, one of the main characters on the site, is an avid fan of games.  Like, old school.  The cartoons are filled with old game references, from the floppy disk labels on Strong Bad’s desk to this whole e-mail episode about how he’d make a game.  Of course, it’s even more apparent that the creators of the site are fans of old games, from silly arcade games like Trogdor to adventure games such as Thy Dungeonman and Peasant’s Quest.  But it isn’t about these old games that run via Flash and look like you could run them on your 386, this is about the new hotness coming later this summer!

I’ll be honest.  I’ve played very few computer games in the last couple years, partly because I haven’t had time to do so, and partly because not many games have stood out to me as worth my time.  I have kept up a bit with franchises I’ve frequented over the years, looking at if Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 or 3 was worth buying and continuing to get games in the Myst series.  I got SimCity 3000 a while back, but why get SimCity 4 if I can’t even get anywhere in SimCity 3000?  A friend got me a couple Grand Theft Auto games a year or two ago. I’ve only played them for a couple hours because I really don’t have the time, but just driving around and exploring can keep me entertained for hours in those games, which is why I like them.  Also, because I play games very little (mostly when I’m not connected to the Internet), there’s little incentive to pay for a game that costs more than $10, or at least that’s the price I hold myself to.  (The other benefit is that $10 games usually work on your not-so-new computer.)

The other reason I’ve not played games is that they rarely make games of of the kind they used to these days.  (Or, at least, I don’t hear about them.)  Another set of games I loved to play back in the day were kinda like Myst games, except generally more silly and more interaction with other characters.  I enjoyed playing through King’s Quest 7, the demo of Space Quest 6 numerous times, as well as even an old text adventure game called Humbug.  Joe Bowar also got me into some LucasArts games like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and from there I got Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, another point-and-click game where Indy asks the right questions and pick up random items to get him out of scrapes and solve the ancient mysteries.  During college, I got into the Monkey Island series, where wannabe-pirate Guybrush Threepwood goes on cartoonish, blundering voyages through the Carribean.  Somewhat sadly, these games are no longer made anymore, or I might be playing them.

This brings me to this summer’s excitement.  The folks at independent game developer Telltale Games, which is founded by a number of ex-LucasArts employees, have teamed with Strong Bad and all the folks at HomeStarRunner.com to release a game based on the online cartoon.  It’s called Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People and it’s fully 3-D, but it retains a simple point-and-click system.  Throughout the gameplay previews that I’ve seen, Strong Bad and characters, all voiced by the characters in the cartoon, continue to make hilarious little quips.  In most cases, it seems you control Strong Bad, who gets “missions” to do via e-mails, just like the cartoon.  The game looks amazing and brings the 2-D animation to life in beautiful 3-D.  I’m sure it’s tons of silly shenanigans - for proof, just look at this infomercial-style teaser:

Another great deal is the price. I don’t know exactly how long these games really are, but the game is distributed in “episodes” that take at least a couple hours to play through each. Each episode goes for about $9, and the entire 5-episode series will most likely go for only $30 or $35, if not less. In this day and age where game content is a bit slim and prices are high, I think these prices are aggressive and benefit from being a small, independent company who distributes primarily via the Internet, while still keeping the gaming experience exciting.

And, finally, I have to hand it to The Brothers Chaps, who created the Homestar Runner cartoons, for keeping true to their roots and staying independent. I’ve heard they’ve been offered the ability to be on Cartoon Network or get sweet placement elsewhere, but they did not want to change their style and compromise their product just to make a buck. In the same way, I’m glad they chose the able hands at Telltale Games to make their game instead of going for the big money by licensing an arcade game for EA. Also, it’s great to have them so involved that they’re doing all the voices and most likely contributing ideas for the game.

In conclusion, mostly because I’ve been a fan of Strong Bad, Homestar, and even Homsar for years, I’ll probably get into SBCG4AP. I’m also going to have to check out more Telltale Games products, too, because I see they just announced some episodic games starring Wallace & Gromit, another set of hilarious characters I love (although it looks rendered instead of claymation, which is understandable due to cost but a bit disappointing). Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People’s first episode will debut sometime in August, unless they push the date back even further.

Yesterday was the launch of Apple’s updated iPhone 3G, and since I work just across the street from the Mal of America, one of the largest malls in the country, I had a pretty prime spot for the retail madness that was the updated iPhone.  So here’s what yesterday looked like for me.

First, I had a meeting before work at Starbucks, so we passed by the Mall of America Apple Store, where there was about 70 people in line at 7am.  The store opened at 8am, a couple hours earlier than usual, in order to take care of the demand, so the folks in line didn’t have too much longer to wait.  About 5 minutes before 8am, we went by again and the amount of persons in line had actually doubled.  Then I went to work.

During the morning, a couple co-workers were trying to get an iPhone.  Pete took the morning off and got to a local AT&T Store at 7am, but was told that the store only had 20 iPhones and the line was already there to get those.  I think he went to another AT&T store and was there for a couple more hours working to get an iPhone, but in the end, only the 8GB iPhones were still left.  He was working to see if he could trade up later as he was told that some AT&T stores were getting more stock that afternoon.  Josh only started looking at about 7:30am, and after seeing the line at the MOA Apple Store, he thought he’d check the AT&T store.  He still had to be at work around 8am, so he decided not to wait in that shorter line either.

Sometime around 7:30am (CDT) nationwide the iPhone activation servers started to get flaky from the overwhelming traffic.  Like I said, Pete got an iPhone, but the activation process was not working, so neither his old phone nor his iPhone now worked until he could get it activated.  Also, because of the cheaper price being subsidized by AT&T, they were doing all the signing up and getting it activated in the stores, which made the lines long because it took 15-20 minutes or more per person to get signed up.

Over the lunch hour, Josh and I walked around the mall seeing if we could get an iPhone.  We walked into an empty AT&T store and were quickly told that the had completely sold out of the 140 iPhones they had.  At the Apple Store around 12:15pm, we found about 60 people in line, and we knew that it’d take an hour or two that we didn’t have to get through the line, so we went back to work again.

Mid-afternoon, David came by and showed us a brand-new, working iPhone 3G that he got after over three hours at an Edina Apple Store.  It was fun to play around with it a bit, but of course the best part of the new iPhone is the downloadable applications, and I was not about to fill David’s phone with applications he didn’t want.  (I hope one of the co-workers will buy Super Monkey Ball because I really want to play it.)

After work at 5:15pm, I walked past the MOA Apple Store again and found about 50 people in the line outside the store.  I asked one of the guys at the front how long he’d been in line, and he told me about an hour.  I also tried to check up at a downtown Minneapolis AT&T store on my way home, but that part of downtown is a ghost town by 6pm, so I couldn’t even get into the building, and the skyway store was probably closed anyways.

As far as the iPhone goes, I’m glad that the iPhone App Store is finally here so that other developers can fill in the functionality gaps for me and entertain me with innovative games.  However, AT&T’s updated monthly rates are, as my friends say, “hella expensive,” such that whenever I get an iPhone I’d be paying $25-$30 more per month - and that’s a hefty price to pay.  Therefore, I’m still in no hurry to upgrade to an iPhone over the Palm Treo I currently have, but once I get an iPhone, I will enjoy the enhanced experienced delivered from my mobile phone.  And, who knows, by then, they’ll probably have the newer and better one out.

I love watches.  I’ve had a watch for most of my life, and I just like the fact that the watch makes it so easy to check what time it is.  (In my case, it’s nice because I can get it up close and look at it really easy too.)  I didn’t have a watch for my senior year of college, and I guess I got by just fine, but I really do like a good watch.  My most recent watch buttons are not working, so I’m going to ramble on a bit about what I want and how I cannot seem to find it.

For at least the last decade, I’ve been using Timex digital watches.  I think I started out with a large digital Ironman watch, and I just loved the functionality.  Of course, the alarm is great, but some of my favorite features are the stopwatch and the countdown time.  I actually use the countdown timer every week to remind me that my load of laundry needs to be changed every week.  Also, you can keep track of the time in another time zone, so if you’re traveling around a bit, you can remember what time it is at home.  These are the features that make the digital functionality a must-have.  Plus, the Timex watches are all laid out the same, so once you know how to change settings and o things on one, you know them all, and they’re very intuitive, such that I’ve almost never referred to a manual.

For the last seven or eight years I’ve had Timex’s analog-digital hybrid watches, which I’ve also loved.  These feature a great analog display on a metal armband and case that has a digital display inside the bottom of the face.  It looks really stylish, but also is very functional.  I got the metal armband because the cloth armbands would, after time, start to get damp and smelly from sweat, but the metal, I’ve found, just starts getting deposits of dead skin cells and gunk in the cracks of the band, so I guess it’s a little better.  I also love the Indiglo nightlight technology that lights up the entire watch face for great viewing at night, which is another thing that Timex seems to have perfected in the watch space.

So what’s the problem?  Well, I think I take pretty good care of my watches.  They say they’re “water resistant”, but I’ve found that’s not the case as much as I’d like.  All the analog watches have the dial on the side that you use to adjust the time on the watch and that dial has rusted out on every single watch I’ve had.  It’s not like I’m wearing them while swimming or showering, but I do wear it while doing dishes or in places where my arm might get a bit wet, and taking off the watch and stowing it away from water would be a big nuisance.  Somehow, on the watch I had 4 or 5 years ago, clouds of water formed underneath the watch’s clear covering and then the watched stopped completely shortly after.  On this current watch, it’s been working like a champ for almost four years, although the buttons have been getting a bit rusty and it’s been reacting a bit to my skin.  But, just last night, one of the buttons has completely stopped working such that I cannot use any of the digital features of the watch besides the current time.  (I can’t even turn off the alarm that most likely goes off every morning at 5:27 am.)  I did have the battery on this watch replaced once within the last year, and it has worked really well.

What I would like to find is a watch that lasts for much longer.  I’d rather not have the buttons and face get tarnished or rusty.  Also, I want something simple and stylish, not complicated-looking.  I want to know if there are better digital watches out there.  I’d even be willing to forsake the stylish analog part in the place of a professional-looking digital watch.  Anyone have a watch you use and like that has these features?  What’s your experience like?

While looking around, I was intrigued by the Casio Wave Ceptor digital watch.  It’s got a square design and a big time display, plus all the usual options.  But, at the hefty price of $160, there’s a bunch of extra cool features.  The watch gets its time updated from the atomic clock in Colorado automatically and it also includes a battery that recharges via light from the sun.  These are both interesting developments, especially the second, because I expect that’s where the price increase is.

My problem is that these features leave a lot of questions, and I tried to look around on the ‘Net a bit, but I couldn’t find any good answers or places to get these questions answered.  First, if at some point I had to replace the battery, how much does a rechargeable battery cost?  Second, if the battery will last for a long time, is the construction of the watch good enough that the buttons and case won’t wear out before the really nice functions?  I’ve only paid $50 or $60 for my earlier watches, so if I’m going to pay much more, it’s going to have to last for most of a decade.  There are other similar models without the recharging capability that I might look into, but I’d love to hear input that anyone has.

On Monday, Steve Jobs and his regular stable of Apple executives made a nice event around the iPhone - the newest in their three main product lines at Apple. As expected, the iPhone has 3G wireless in it, which means it should be faster and sound better for talking, but it still remains to be seen whether it’ll be much better than the first one. The main takeaway, however, is that the iPhone Software 2.0 and the App Store will be making iPhone experience better and more powerful for both new and old iPhone users. Last year Steve Jobs announced that developers would be able to make web apps to reach iPhone customers, but this year a majority of the developers at Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference were there to develop programs to run exclusively on iPhone and iPod touch.

The first event of the morning keynote was to talk about the exciting new enterprise features of iPhone 2.0, and included high praise from large corporate IT managers about how great it was to be using iPhone. Steve Jobs announced that 35% of Fortune 500 companies participated in their corporate beta program, which is pretty crazy. Apple is really going to be quickly beating RIM’s BlackBerry in no time if they continue to take an aggressive stance such as they are right now. (In other corporate-related news, it was announced in another presentation that day that the next version of Mac OS X will include full Microsoft Exchange support, so Apple’s even making it easier to use Macs at the corporate desktop.)

Scott Forstall came up and gave much of the same iPhone developer information that he gave three months ago, and there was not a ton of new information there. He demoed creating, testing, and debugging an application and then invited a whole host of iPhone developers onstage to demo and talk about their applications. Sega’s Super Monkey Ball again made an appearance, as did games from Pangea Software that were ported from Mac OS X, Cro-Mag Rally and Enigmo. The first two games used the built-in accelerometer to control the game by tilting and turning the iPhone around. Enigmo just used intuitive touch controls but had very complex gameplay that reminded me of Sierra’s old Dr. Brain games. A Spanish game developer called Digital Legends Entertainment has also started a “fantasy action-adventure game”.

Forstall also brought up developers from companies such as eBay, Associated Press, and MLB.com up to showcase their applications as well. eBay and TypePad basically had slightly more streamlined versions of what you could find on the web. Associated Press also featured an improved news browser and also gave a way for users to submit pictures and stories right within their application. Major League Baseball showcased a really nice version of their GameDay stats board designed for the iPhone as well as the ability to watch video clips taken just moments before right on the iPhone. A couple medical apps were shown for both teaching and diagnosing purposes and a social network showed off a program where they used many of the phone’s location and mapping functions to find nearby friends in real time. The most fun, though, was probably Moo Cow Music’s neat little program called Band that allows users to play a simulated instrument right on the iPhone’s screen. The neatest was the “12-Bar Blues” area, which has all the instruments necessary to be a full blues band on your iPhone screen. The application demos were a bit long in parts, but most were really interesting to see innovative ways to use the iPhone. A later poll of developers at WWDC found that most people are going to give apps away for free, but it seems most will be under $10, which means I might buy a couple games or other useful programs when I get an iPhone.

The last geeky, developer-focused announcement was that Apple is putting together a notification service for iPhone developers to use. All real-time notifications while the program isn’t running will have to go through Apple, which can be a downside for a developer, but the upside for the iPhone user is that all the cell phone’s resources are given to the application that are running. It seems that developers will have to run a server-side service to push the notifications themselves and Apple may not deliver them as real-time as some developers may like, but this seems to be a creative, diplomatic way to allow programs to notify users of new information without slowing down and crashing the phone.

Steve Jobs returned to the stage to talk about a couple new features of iPhone 2.0 software, such as better language support, better reading of MS Office documents, the ability to delete and move multiple items at a time, search for contacts and a scientific calculator. All of the features so far are going to be available with iPhone 2.0 software, which will be released sometime in the next month and will be a free upgrade for iPhone users and a $10 upgrade for iPod touch users.

Of course, the most exciting announcement (but the least geeky for a developer conference) was an updated iPhone with 3G wireless support. The phone looks a bit sleeker with the tapered edges and black plastic back, but is just a tiny bit thicker. The recessed headphone jack is gone, so you can listen to your music with any headphones you like without an adapter. Plus, the best news is that the 8GB iPhone is $199 and the 16GB is only $299, although we’ll talk a bit more about that later. The back of the iPhone is a black plastic and the 16GB ones are alwo available with a white back.

Loading web pages, at least in their tests, was at least 50% faster on the next-generation AT&T network that is available in most U.S. cities. The battery life has also been improved, although turning off the 3G features and GPS will greatly improve the battery life overall. If you turned off all the phone features, the iPhone can play music for up to 24 hours. They did not show turn-by-turn directions with the GPS, just that it gives a blinking dot where your phone is on the Google Maps application. However, things such as GPS, Wi-Fi and 3G network use will drain the battery in a couple hours if they are on and used heavily throughout, so there are options to turn these off.

At the end, they fed the overhype by showing a cheesy, Ocean’s Eleven-style that touts the 3G iPhone as finally here. The only problem is: Who cares? Must cell phone customers don’t even know what 3G wireless is and what it means, so why name the phone after the 3G features? Only major cities in the U.S. have 3G wireless coverage, so if you’re not in one of those places, the major benefit will be of no help until they build out their 3G network. And, although the iPhone 3G looks cheaper with that $199 price tag, you’ll be paying more than the difference with the more expensive 3G plans that are as cheap as $70 per month. Of course, this only really applies to the U.S. - in the rest of the world, Apple needs this to compete because 3G phones and service are everywhere. The $199 price is subsidized by AT&T by at least a couple hundred dollars, so it looks like it will be much harder to get an iPhone here in the states without immediately signing an AT&T contract.

In the end, I think that the iPhone 2.0 software is an amazing and much-needed update to the iPhone’s functionality. The iPhone 3G is slightly better, but for most Americans, there’s not much extra built into the iPhone hardware that requires you to upgrade.

What am I going to do about all this iPhone business? Like last year, I’m waiting for a couple things. First, last year I decided to go with a different phone, so I’m waiting for my two-year contract on it to play through. Second, I want to see what kind of apps come out of the iPhone App Store and if they fill the holes the iPhone software currently has for me. And, well, I’m still a bit apprehensive about switching to AT&T. I’ve had very little real problems with Sprint in the last 4 years or so and I’ve been a good customer of theirs for 7 years, and it doesn’t sound like AT&T is better. Fourth, I’m not sure if I’m going to like having the annoying GSM network side-effects (that annoying buzzing from time to time in nearby speakers). The major reason to have an iPhone is because I’ll no longer have to carry a phone and an iPod on a regular basis though. Most likely, I will be getting an iPhone in 2009 because there’s very little enticing competition on the horizon, at least from what I’ve heard.

Many of my loyal readers know that I’m into Drupal in a pretty big way. Lots of things are going well for Drupal these days, including a better-than-ever release of Drupal 6 and a community’s who only major problem is handling the exponentially rapid growth. Last week, tech celebrity Chris Pirillo announced a project called Gnomepal where he encouraged developers and users to use Drupal as a core for a community platform. It’s just another reason why I think Drupal is the web framework of the future and that I hope I’ll be able to develop with Drupal more in the future.

First, Chris talked of Drupal as a “community platform”, but what does that mean? A community platform is a website where all aspects of an online community can be attached or created. Drupal’s web site calls its software a “content management platform” and “community plumbing”. This is very accurate because Drupal is made up of many modules that work on top of the main core of the site. At the core of the site is the basics of managing news items and basic pages of a website, but with only a couple clicks you can add a blog for each user (or subset of your users) or a discussion forum or an RSS aggregator of a number of specified feeds. I have literally implemented all of these in a matter of minutes on basic sites to facilitate community. In this way, a website for an online community can be started in minutes and features can be easily added to accommodate growing needs.

What’s so great about a community platform? On many of the sites that I build at work, we often use three or four open-source applications - sometimes a CMS that manages pages, a blog, and a discussion forum, and then there may be some custom work to tie them together or bring in custom functionality. The problem is that each application has its own administration and logins. Not only do the owners of the site have to keep track of four different accounts, but the users of the site have a disjointed experience and have to sign up multiple times as well. This type of community platform allows you to make one site with all these different parts that integrate better and all use the same login account. The only downside is that, because it does everything, it does not do everything well. For example, WordPress is perfect for a blog and exactly what I use here because the features are more specialized for a blog. But if I wanted a blog and a forum, I’d install Drupal because users only need one account and the site is better integrated by design.

Second, what is a “web framework”? A web framework is a collection of functions and libraries that speeds up the web development process. The web framework is built on top of an existing language and speeds up the web application development process. Examples of web frameworks include Ruby on Rails, Django (for Python) and Zend Framework (for PHP). We use Zend Framework at work and it really helps in making custom applications because there’s a system for database abstraction as well as systems for managing URLs, templating, and much more. It takes a bit of work to understand and get used to the framework, but once you get the hang of it, it speeds up the development process a bunch and still gives you the ability to override or extend the functionality gracefully.

Although Drupal does not use an MVC pattern like most of the other frameworks, it is a powerful web framework. All extensions are written as modules, and functions for themeing, rendering and organizing forms, etc. are all available from the Drupal core. Many of the contributed modules even provide their own functions for adding your own modules on top. Although Drupal’s web framework API is a bit different than the major web framework players, it is still a great development system. And, again, one of my favorite things is that this web framework comes with a extensible Content Management System from the first moment you install it, giving you a shortcut to building most applications.

In the end, though, there is a problem. I’ve adopted Drupal as the platform of choice for a community platform, for example, on my music website, inReview.net, as well as the basic content management system for most sites I manage. The problem I’ve had is figuring out how to figure out problems and learn more. Through the Drupal book and asking a question or two in IRC and on drupal.org, I have gotten a long way and been able to develop a number of custom modules. However, in the development of inReview.net, I have gotten to the point where I’m spinning my wheels a lot. I’m trying to make as much of an automated site as possible but I cannot figure out how to organize and tie in the artist data throughout the site. I know Drupal can do it, but I cannot figure out a way how. I’ve tried posting a question about it on drupal.org, but I’ve never received an answer. I need some outside help, but I’m not sure where to get it.

The free options are to just read up a lot about stuff on drupal.org, but that takes a long time of reading and does not directly answer my problem. I could try networking and learning a bit at a local Drupal group, but their meetings already overlap with a People of Praise meeting I already have. There are a couple other local groups of Drupal developers, and maybe next time a Drupal Day is organized, I will go, but there seems to be no real low-cost solutions to my problem that don’t require a bunch of time I do not have. I already do other free things such as a free Drupal podcast which has given me lots of ideas.

So, I think that means I need to spend some money to figure out more about Drupal. I could hire consultants from Lullabot or Bryght or somewhere to figure out and develop a solution, but that is just investing in my site and not my own learning. Plus, hiring consultants such as these could be very expensive. The solution, I think, is the Lullabot Training series. These world-class Drupal consultants have helped Warner Bros. Records, Sony Records, MTV.co.uk, Participant Productions and many others to create great-looking sites that leverage all the benefits of Drupal. Plus, they’ve done week-long training sessions in most major cities and even are bringing it this week to Australia. It is almost $2,000 to get a week of training, but it seems like it may be the answer to digging into Drupal a bit more. They are spending a week next month in Minneapolis, and I’m thinking about attending. I think I’d learn a lot from the classes, and just getting a week to play around with Drupal and have some guidance will probably be exactly what I’m looking for.

What do you think? I’m leaning towards thinking $2,000 of investment in my Drupal skills is probably worth it. Should I go? Is there something else I could do? Have you been to a Lullabot training and did it help you? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Last Thursday, Apple held an announcement on their campus that detailed some of their plans for the future of the iPhone. Although not much was surprising, many Apple fans and developers alike will be very happy with the amount of concerns that were answered by Apple. The only major concern for some people that was not answered was when the 3G-enabled iPhone will be coming for those faster speeds over cell networks, but with all the new capabilities with today’s data speeds, developers should have plenty of projects to work on. Most of what Apple revealed will not be available to the public until June when iPhone software version 2.0 comes out, but both developers and corporations worldwide are looking forward to the future.

After a brief introduction by Steve Jobs, Senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller talked about the solutions for the corporate customers. Apple decided to license Microsoft’s ActiveSync technology to enable corporate customers to get e-mail delivered to their iPhones directly. In a jab at RIM’s BlackBerry services, Schiller explained that Apple’s service does not rely on an intermediate service such as the one RIM has, but instead the iPhone communicates directly with the corporate server, and optionally via the Cisco VPN tool that will be built into the iPhone. Some commentators have said it less reliable than the system that RIM currently uses, but it seems more secure to me and less prone to system-wide outages because there’s no intermediate service to go down like happens all too often for BlackBerry users. They performed an impressive demo where Schiller created a new contact on his Exchange-enabled phone and then some Exchange administrator in the audience added it immediately. Apple is even giving Exchange administrators the ability to reset the iPhone to factory settings whenever they want. For most corporations who already have an Exchange server, it seems like the iPhone will fit into the corporate environment with very little work.

The main portion of the presentation was done by Scott Forestall, Vice President of Platform Experience. Forestall announced the immediate availability of the iPhone SDK to developers and proceeded to show off the iPhone’s ability in a number of ways. The SDK they released is the exact same as the one they used internally to develop all the apps standard on the iPhone, so it should be some incredible access to the phone’s innards. Forestall reminded us that the iPhone is a stripped-down version of Mac OS X through and through, and therefore development will be much the same. For the Mac OS X, Apple has previously released their Cocoa API for developing applications, and now they’re releasing an API called Cocoa Touch with functions for interacting via a multi-touch enabled screen. Tools include graphics layers, access to location-based awareness, accessing contact information and the photo picker, as well as data storage via the SQLite database.

Some of the funnest parts of the presentation for me was Forestall showing off the API. It seems like it might even be fun to develop for the iPhone (or maybe my Mac, as well). It seems that iPhone development will only be able to be done a Mac, which is not surprising. But, never having used the included Mac developer tools before, I was amazed at all the helpers they give. First, there’s helpful apps such as an Interface Designer that allows the user to graphically layout and an amazing debugging application called Instruments. Forestall created a “Hello World” application and loaded it onto the iPhone connected to the computer and Instruments collected live information on how fast the program was running. He just clicked on an underperforming part of the graph and was able to see what parts of the code were running just then. And finally, the iPhone Simulator allows developers to run an iPhone on their desktop even if they do not own one. I had a bit of fun playing around with my virtual iPhone for a bit, although the Mobile Safari didn’t want to bring up iPhone-specific versions of web pages - just the standard ones.

Forestall quickly showed off a couple demo apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch. First, they put together a simple photo editing program that uses the touch controls. Scott put his finger over the photo and the part under his finger bulged out. He then took two fingers and pinched another part of the photo together much like fun little photo editing programs do. The most exciting part, though, was the idea of just shaking the iPhone like an Etch-A-Sketch to reset the phone. They also made a little Starfox-like game called Touch Fighter. Just tap on the screen to shoot, and to move around, actually move the iPhone from side to side. You might look a bit like a dork jerking your iPhone around to dodge bullets, but it’s probably pretty fun.

For the next section, Forestall introduced several application developers, mostly game companies, who got to spend only two weeks playing with the iPhone API. In most cases, they came up with some amazing stuff. First, a couple EA developers showed a basic port of this year’s most anticipated game, Spore, which will be releasing for iPhone this fall. They were able to demo basic gameplay and species modification using the touch controls of the iPhone. Sega also showed a version of Super Monkey Ball that is only controlled by banking your iPhone from side to side and the developer claimed it was a very fluid, intuitive motion. It looks like a blast and it certainly looks like the games will abound on the iPhone.

Non-gaming apps were represented as well, with AOL Instant Messenger, Salesforce.com and Epocrates making appearances. The AIM client looked great and easy to use, and is great confirmation that Apple and AT&T aren’t going to be sticklers about using lots of data services. Salesforce had an interesting application that would certainly help salespersons manage their bottom line and follow up on sales from anywhere. Epocrates, a healthcare information provider, had an extensive database of drugs loaded into the iPhone’s database and made it really easy for doctors to search for drugs and find all kinds of information about conflicting drugs and even see hi-res photos of what the drug looks like. All these applications look just as nice as the ones Apple provide with the phone and provide plenty of features. Rumors over the last couple days have been saying that programs are not given the ability to run in the background or as a scheduled event, so that may be a hurdle to overcome with some developers. Also, at least on the phone, your application has to be ready to stop at a moment’s notice in order to answer a phone call, so that may be a bit hard to account for.

Steve Jobs return to the stage of Apple Town Hall to tell us that developing your own applications for the iPhone is entirely free as long as you’re just testing on the iPhone simulator. However, to load it onto an iPhone, you need to purchase a $99 certificate from Apple to verify you’re a trackable, reputable devloper. You can test it on your own iPhone and then upload it to the iTunes App Store, where iPhone and iPod Touch users will be able to download applications. Developers will be able to sell their apps for any price they like, including free, but Apple will take 30% of the sale price for the hosting and listing of the program, which is comparable to similar centralized stores for Palm or Windows Mobile. Apple will test your program and verify that it’s not malicious and then will post it online. The App Store will also be available directly on the device, so users don’t have to get to a computer to download and install new applications, which is crucial, although you could if you like. This seems to be a good balance between security and usability of applications and doesn’t seem overly expensive for developers.

In a somewhat odd announcement for the fabled “One more thing…”, Steve Jobs and Kleiner Perkins, a large Venture Capital firm, announced the “iFund”, which is $100 million that is set aside for startups who want to develop for the iPhone. I guess this is supposed to spur development for the iPhone and give the little guy a chance for iPhone development. This move doesn’t sound bad, but it’s just a bit odd.

Overall, it seems like the iPhone is headed firmly in the right direction, even if some of us wanted it about a year earlier. Still, it’s not surprising, as Apple doesn’t like to lay all its cards on the table - they’d rather stagger them over time as the market for the original product slows down. If the development for the iPhone is anywhere close to what Apple and most people are expecting, I’ll be itching to get an iPhone for my next phone when my contract expires in 18 months.

For the last couple years, most of my circle of friends have all signed up for Gmail accounts and hang out on Google Talk. It’s much slicker and nicer than Yahoo!, MSN, or AIM, mostly because it’s done in a Google smart way. It makes it really easy to contact all my friends because, more often than not, my friends are online, but it does still have its downsides, just like all the other services.

Among my friends, the “status message” has become the mode of communication. A month doesn’t go by where some of my friends talk about how much they love that their Google Talk contact list is like a virtual “living room” of their circle of friends across the country, and I agree. It is fun to read everyone’s status message, and great to be able to hear what’s going on in people’s lives or to find out what they’re seeing/watching on the Internet.

However, the main problem is that I only really have time to hang out in this “living room” for about 12 hours per week, on average. I have a couple hours on the weeknights of Monday and Tuesday and then some blocks of time on Saturday and Sunday. Almost daily I hear, “Did you hear what was on so-and-so’s status message?” Of course I didn’t! I was at work! (And no, the management at work wouldn’t look kindly upon me chit-chatting it up all day.)

The best way to overcome this problem, in my opinion, is to use a service such as Twitter or Pownce as well as or instead of Google Talk. These services are basically another place to input your current thoughts or goings-on that also includes an archive of statuses. Persons can post comments on your message. Your friends could also get your latest status message sent to their cell phones, if they like. You can download some sort of application that will keep the latest statuses of your friends on the side of your screen, just like Google Talk, if you want. Sure, there’s some status messages that are of the moment and not worth having a big archive of, but when someone posts a cool video or interesting article, I’d rather not hear about it three weeks later in a conversation where I’m the only one of 40 people who didn’t hear about it. I like this because then I can subscribe to the RSS feed and read about it later that evening or the next day when I have time, and then I can take part in the conversation. If I do come up with a quick thought that I post on my Google Talk status, I always also post it on my Pownce page, whether via the website or the handy little Adobe Air app, because I want you to hear about it even if you’re not online at that millisecond.

Over Christmas, I was looking for a good game or toy for a young relative of mine. I had to take a picture of this hilarious-looking game box:

NOTE: Those friends of mine who know little of computers or know nothing about Linux may not find the humor in this.

To be honest, most times, I hate the “teaser trailers” that show nothing more than a new logo. But hey, this one shows the Enterprise under construction, so it almost doesn’t count as a teaser. Yes, this is the only big movie that I know about for this Christmas: a Star Trek movie that predates the original series and contains a cast never before seen on TV or film. Plus, it’s written and produced by the guys behind MI:III and Lost. It might be pretty exciting, but we’ll only know in 11 months.

Watch the Star Trek teaser trailer at the official site.

Yesterday, Apple made some big announcements, as usual, to kick off the MacWorld Expo, the largest convention and trade show of all things Mac, iPod, and Apple. There weren’t any really big suprises, but Apple definitely delivered some really interesting products.

First up was talk about some updated products. Steve Jobs demoed free updates to the iPhone and Apple TV. The iPhone (and iPod Touch) got some nice new features, such as being able too put a bookmarked webpage (and probably other third-party apps, which are coming next month) on the home screen as an icon. Also, the icons can be easily moved around and multiple home pages can be created. Even the icons on the bottom of every screen can be changed so your favorite apps have easy access. The Google Maps app has been cleaned up and you can now get your approximate location from the cell towers and a database of geolocated wi-fi access points. The iPod Touch until now shipped without applications like e-mail, but now they’re available to all Touch owners for $20 and free with the phone. And, finally, Apple TV has a brand-new interface that packs more functionality in each screen as well as makes it so you can purchase movies and music, and thus you don’t need a computer to use an Apple TV (although it does sync with iTunes if you have it). This is interesting because people who don’t really care about computers and iPods could even purchase music and movies directly from the Apple TV.

The first major announcement is that Apple is now allowing users to rent movies from the iTunes Store. Apple has signed all major and some minor studios to their rental agreements, and have set pricing for movies at $2.99 and $3.99 for new releases. Users can also download HD (720p) movies for a dollar extra, and it seems that purchasing movies directly to your iPhone or iPod Touch is currently not available, although I think it would be a cool feature if they had that someday so you could rent some movies at the airport before you get on a flight. The standard DVD-quality videos are only about 1GB and download pretty quickly over a standard broadband connection. Apple claims that most broadband users will have enough of the movie downloaded in under 30 seconds that the movie can be started. If this is the case and it looks as good as DVD, I may start considering it as my preferred method of rental, because it’s cheaper than going down the street and getting a scratched-up disc from Hollywood Video and even more instantaneous.

The biggest part of the announcement was the MacBook Air, the thinnest and lightest laptop computer ever. The aluminum case holds a 5-hour battery and an 80 GB hard drive, which is powered by a 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2 GB of RAM. At its thickest area, it’s only 0.76 inches thick, and on the edges it measures only 0.16 inches thin! Steve Jobs brought it out in the standard inter-office envelope to an amazed audience. They claim it’s the thinnest laptop computer ever, and at that size, I’m pretty sure no one can dispute that.

Although the size is small, Apple really doesn’t skimp on features. This ultra-portable has a 13.3 inch screen and a built-in iSight camera. The keyboard is full-size and has the ultra-hip LED backlight. The touch pad looks even bigger than my MacBook Pro touch pad, plus it can do new gestures such as pinching and rotating in various programs. It includes Bluetooth and 802.11n Wi-Fi, the fastest wireless internet available. Also, for the person who wants the latest and fastest, the hard drive can be replaced with a 64 GB flash memory hard drive, although it remains seen as to how well these function in the long term. These are $1,000, but apparently they are faster than hard drives and use less battery power.

So what does it lose? Well, if you want to use tons of accessories, you’ll need a USB hub and lots of dongles. For $99, Apple sells a companion DVD-burner drive that plugs in via USB because there is no internal CD or DVD drive. It comes with dongles to connect their Micro-DVI to VGA or DVI to use an external monitor. Also, USB dongles are available to connect to Ethernet or a phone line. I guess the mobile office would require a nice USB hub to connect more than one of these at a time.

Why is it called the MacBook Air? Well, I guess because the computer is all about a wireless experience. If you think about it, most everything is done wirelessly these days. Most people use the Internet and e-mail almost exclusively (and some Twitter and Facebook exclusively), plus, if you have your music and movies in the way iTunes likes them, you have them either on your laptop or an other connected Mac. The only major issue is the occasional install of software or burning of CD, and Apple has come up with a solution for that too. Included with the MacBook Air is Remote Disc software, which allows you to wirelessly use a CD or DVD drive from any computer on the local wireless network once you install it on that Mac or PC. It certainly solves that problem as long as you have access to another computer, which almost every user of this computer will undoubtedly have. Still, the “MacBook Air” is a bit of a hokey name, much like the “iPod inviso” because it isn’t aerodynamic enough to fly or anything. It’s just really small, not made of air, right?

The MacBook Air serves a fairly small market of people who want to take their computer everywhere and not lug around a large backpack. This “ultra-portable” market is commonly a computer under 3 lbs. that has all the basic features of a laptop in a compact package. Most of these have a 11 or 12 inch screen and a smaller keyboard, while the MacBook Air has a 13.3 inch screen and full-size backlit keyboard. The MacBook Air is also thinner than all the currently available competition from the likes of Sony, Dell and Gateway. At $1799, it may seem a bit pricey, but it is only marginally more expensive than similarly-styled laptops, if it is at all.

Some of us were hoping for more from MacWorld, but it did not happen. Still, you can expect a bigger-capacity iPhone and an iPhone with 3G functionality along with some nice software updates across the line throughout 2008 if predictions prove correct.