When the Wii U launches later this year, I’ll be one of many people getting into line to get my hands on the latest console. Although I’m not so sure I’ll enjoy it over a long period and I still believe that the Wii U is coming out too soon and with lesser components than it should, I’m a gaming fanatic. And as a gaming fanatic, I can’t help but get my hands on the latest console.
Over the past week, I’ve spent most of my entertainment time watching movies and television shows either on demand, through Netflix and Hulu Plus, or streaming over my home network. And along the way, it got me thinking: why do I really need discs?
There is an alternate universe somewhere in which I am a lexicographer. I write dictionaries for a living. This is not the pipe dream of a grammar-obsessed former English teacher. Right out of grad school (Master’s in English), I turned down an opportunity to work for the Oxford English Dictionary. The job was for a specialist in Caribbean dialects of English. It sounded fantastic. The OED recruiters made clear this was not a stepping stone job for editors and writers. Being a lexicographer leads only to being a better, more experienced lexicographer. Instead, I took a job that involved writing and technology and pop culture, and my life was set on its course. But in an alternate world, I made a different choice and took the dictionary job, and now I sit in a dark apartment in Manhattan mumbling to myself about the horror of language on the Internet.
Apple isn’t due to show us the new iPhone 5 for another few months, but a purported leak of the next-gen smartphone could well indicate the extent of the headache Android has fast approaching. Taller and thinner, with a more engineered, structured design than the delicate glass and metal sandwich of the current model, if the leaked shots are to be believed then this could be the most significant outward evolution of the iPhone to-date. Nonetheless, there’ll undoubtedly be those that look at the slightly larger display and aesthetic tweaks, and dismiss the iPhone 5 as “more of the same.” In some ways, the spec-sheet arms race of Android devices has left us spoiled overall. If it hasn’t got twice as many cores as before, a vast display, and more megapixels than the latest Canon DSLR, then it’s hardly worth us paying attention to, right?
When Microsoft announced the Kinect, the motion-gaming peripheral that requires no controller to work, it was celebrated by the mainstream and hardcore alike for its unique functionality.
Since then, Microsoft has delivered enhanced features, but for the vast majority of gamers, it has become a bit of a novelty. Sure, it’s a neat way to command the Xbox or shout some orders in games, but beyond that, it delivers little value to the average person trying to sit down, relax, and enjoy a title.
26m iPhones in a three month period. Apple’s Q3 2012 results are out, and while the huge year-on-year growth for iPad is an eye-catcher, it’s the shifting sales of the company’s flagship smartphone that have split opinion. For many – Nokia, for instance, or HTC – 26m sales would be the very definition of “a good problem to have”, but for Apple it’s not so straightforward. While the company has seen 28-percent year-on-year growth for the iPhone, its also seen a 26-percent drop quarter-on-quarter. So, is the iPhone stumbling, or is this all entirely understandable?
Apple is reportedly working on a television. From analysts to reports out of China, all signs point to the company developing a set that would include the latest HD technology, a nice design, and iCloud integration. And as more rumors pile in, the chances of that device launching sooner rather than later seem awfully high.
Well, that is, if you disregard the fact that Apple hasn’t said that it’s actually planning to launch the television.
In many ways, Apple is an odd goose. The company has a habit of overlong clinging to some ideas while rivals might have jumped ship long before, but then being desperate to shed others ahead of the curve. Ditching floppy drives in favor of CDs, that was driven by Apple; more recently, switching to digital distribution and dumping optical drives in the process on machines like the MacBook Air and new MacBook Pro with Retina Display. And then there’s the Dock Connector.
When you’re trying to kick-start your tablet platform, apps are everything, so why has Microsoft decided to opt out of the most common price point in recent years: the $0.99 app? Confirmation this weekend that Windows 8 and Windows RT users would be offered paid apps as well as free (unsurprising) and that developers would be able to price their wares from $1.49 to $999.99 (surprising) is a distinct departure from Apple and Google’s strategy. According to the stereotypes, iOS users love paying for apps while Android users only download free ones (or steal them until the apps are made free out of exasperation), but what do Windows tablet owners do?
Stop taking pictures of your food. You’re a lousy photographer, and I’m tired of looking at your photos. They are disgusting. While you may be excited about the delicious / unique / unfathomably fattening food you are about to consume, that does not mean you need to mark the occasion with an Instagram or Twitter post. Just don’t. Eat your 17 pound burger, or your pizza with a fried shrimp crust, or your bacon ice cream sundae, and keep it to yourself.
You could hardly make it up: Apple, its patent arguments not only rejected by UK courts, but instructed to do some advertising on Samsung’s behalf to dismiss its rival’s “arch copyist” reputation. That’s a reputation Apple was instrumental in creating, of course, and while Samsung is throwing no small amount of money at its own defense, this latest spanking to its Cupertino rival/customer’s pride is only likely to bolster its unofficial stance that the ongoing phone and tablet war is nothing but good for brand awareness. Question is, will being forced to make a very public apology temper Apple’s appetite for litigation?
I’m always interested in scenarios in which we examine the “what-ifs.” In some cases, that means discussing what might have happened to RIM if it saw the touchscreen craze coming. In others, it’s a look at what Apple might have been without Steve Jobs. But this time around, I want to take it away from the real world and put it in the digital realm: what might the game industry look like today without Mario?
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