Guest Post - page 3

As a professional game developer, the big news coming out of Apple’s WWDC keynote wasn’t Swift or iCloud Drive — it was Metal.

In an onstage demo, Epic showed off the power of its Unreal engine after it had been modified to make use of this new Apple framework. Hundreds of fish reacted dynamically to a finger drawn on the screen. Leaves were shaken from a tree, and butterflies flew through the screen.

It was a very pretty demo. But what does it mean for the games you’ll be playing on your iOS device?

Last week, I published an opinion piece proposing that Apple open a corporate museum. It was also published on Forbes.com. The story started trending by Sunday evening. Then somewhat amusingly, it got buried first thing Monday morning by the wall-to-wall coverage of Ashton Kutcher, who’s to play Steve Jobs in an upcoming indie film. To be honest, I really wasn’t all that amused.

I live on the east coast, but I have been to Silicon Valley twice; visiting Apple’s mothership was a must-do for me.

Perhaps you feel the same way. It’s exciting for us fans, though all you can really do is park, take pictures out in front of the main 1 Infinite Loop building, and the Apple sign near the street, then visit The Company Store. It’s a special treat as they don’t sell Apple devices, they sell logoed items not found anywhere else. I don’t know if I would go so far as to call my visit a pilgrimage, but it was a top priority for me, if I was going to be anywhere near Silicon Valley.

This is a guest post by Mike Daisey, who’s latest monologue, The Agony and Ecstacy of Steve Jobs, is at New York’s Public Theater through March 4. We highly recommend you go see it. It made Steve Wozniak cry. The post originally appeared here.

Stephen Fry, brilliant comedian, wonderful actor, and bon vivant just posted this in his Twitter feed:

As a fellow raconteur it’s painful to have to confront Mr. Fry with this fact, but he’s being a total idiot.

He’s in good company—most of the Mac universe is in the midst of a massive propaganda campaign, trying to convince itself and the universe that the cognitive dissonance they are feeling at this moment isn’t real.

So you’re going to see some good people, like Mr. Fry, who happen to love their Apple products very much, say some horrible things because they don’t actually understand how to reconcile the beauty and grace of their wonderful Apple products with the unvarnished, verified truth of how they are produced.

Stuck for a last minute gift? Here’s a quick tutorial on how to gift an App (via printing or emailing) using iTunes or an iPad.

It seems as if I’m the only person having issues with Lion–it’s like I am trapped in Brain Candy and I’m the only one not taking the happy pill. I’ve been a Mac user for a long time, and every new upgrade brought butterflies to my stomach. This time around I was so excited I thought I was going to have a heart attack, but the excitement wore off quite quickly. Since then I have turned into a ranting bitch.

Review by Jordan Trimas

The Arctic P311 Bluetooth headset ($40) is an excellent option for those desiring a pair of über-comfortable Bluetooth stereo headphones without having to hock a family heirloom to afford them. My first impression, naturally, was that I probably wouldn’t get a top-performer for $40, so expectations weren’t high. But it was love at first listen when the P311s emerged from their packaging.

Review by Jordan Trimas

The iFunner iTur is a hard-shell iPhone 4 case that incorporates a wallet compartment, in which you can store a few credit cards and your ID, accessed through a hinged door.  But is it really funner than other cases? Nope.

Review by Kelly Keltner

Before encountering Altec Lansing’s women-specific Bliss Platinum earphones ($70), I had never considered the idea that my ears might be too feminine and precious to handle having a larger earpiece forcibly shoved into their delicate canals. Now I know that, like many things, most earpieces are made for men and we poor, sweet ladies must go about life making do with too-big things. Altec Lansing hopes to solve that issue by giving ultra-precious lady ears a much-needed rest from all the bigness with the Bliss Platinum.

When Steve Jobs unveiled Apple’s first retail stores in 2001, pundits said they were a costly mistake and he’d be closing them within a year. A decade later, Apple has reinvented retailing with a chain of 300 shops that make more money per square foot than Tiffany & Co.

Here are some of the best quotes from Jobs and the chief architect of the stores, Ron Johnson, about their retail philosophy, strategy, and execution.

This is a guest post by Adel Zakout, CEO and co-founder of OpenBuildings.com, a crowd-sourced architecture portal for building geeks.

The video of Steve Jobs presenting Apple’s plans to build a new “mothership” in Cupertino to the local council was absolutely hilarious! Not just because of the absurd questions the councillors asked but their obvious lack of professionalism, understanding of architecture and ridiculous fanboy-ism.

We love Apple too – but think that the planning process is really broken. The fact that Steve can clearly threaten to move his tax dollars elsewhere if the new campus doesn’t get approved shows that.

This is a guest post by Paul Lamere, an executive at The Echo Nest, a music intelligence company located in Somerville, Mass. It was originally published here.

For the last year we’ve heard rumors of how both Apple and Google were getting close to releasing music locker services that allow music listeners to upload their music collection to the cloud giving them the ability to listen to their music everywhere.

So it was a big surprise when the first major Internet player to launch a music locker service wasn’t Google or Apple, but instead was Amazon.  Last week, with little fanfare, Amazon released its Amazon Cloud Drive, a cloud-based music locker that includes the Amazon Cloud Player allowing people to listen to their music anywhere.

Amazon’s entry into the music locker is a big deal and should be particularly worrisome for Google and Apple.  Amazon brings some special sauce to the music locker world that will make them a formidable competitor:

This is a guest post by Mark Hosbein, a potential iPad 2 customer. Mark has been unable to get an iPad 2 after several days waiting in line. He expresses the frustration felt by many. As we’ve reported, Apple continues to see long lines for the iPad 2 a week after launch day. Mark’s piece was originally published here.

I just returned from the Apple Store at the Short Hills Mall in New Jersey. I arrived at the mall at 5.20 AM to wait in line for my chance to buy an iPad 2. I was number 27 in line. I did not get one. The line went to 81. My wife had been there for the past two days, and both days she was shut out. She was number 39 yesterday, with no luck.

For a revered brand, Apple is risking customer will in the way they are managing the iPad launch.

In 1997, Apple was in deep financial trouble. Wired published a now-famous cover story: “101 Ways to Save Apple.”

Some of the advice was prescient, some was silly, but it was a fascinating list of suggestions. And what actually happened between now and then is even more interesting.

Here, for the first time, is a really detailed followup to each and every one of Wired‘s 101 suggestions.

NOTE: This is a guest post by ex-PC user Mike Wilson. It was originally published at Gears of Biz.

I have a MacBook at home and a Mac Mini at work. I absolutely love my Macs. I can’t live with out them. However, there are still things I hate about my Macs that I wished weren’t a part of my life. So don’t hate me for taking a couple shots at my machines… It’s all in good fun.

Below are those Top 5 things I hate about the Mac.

This a is a guest post by Jerry Halstead of Frontier Design Group, a small, independent app development company.

Not everyone’s app is going to be featured in a viral video. Maybe yours will be mentioned by a celebrity, used in an Apple commercial, featured in a blog or news story. Whatever the event, be prepared to act quickly and don’t be reluctant to try to capitalize on it.

Here’s how we capitalized on a viral video featuring our app, iShred.

Neil Ferguson, developer of Virus Strike, explains how to become a successful iPhone game developer in 10 steps.

I believe that anyone can develop an iPhone game. I recently developed a physics-based puzzler for the iPhone, Virus Strike, on a zero budget despite having zero experience developing iPhone games. It wasn’t easy, but there are very few set-up costs if you have the right skills and approach.

Admittedly, I’m an experienced programmer – I started developing on a BBC Micro at the age of 8 and now work full-time for a software start-up in London. Obviously, my experience helped me when I was developing Virus Strike, but I don’t think you necessarily need to have any programming experience to develop a successful game. Just follow these 10 steps: