This week the folks at Studio Wildcard and Epic Games have teamed up with Alienware to encourage creative folks to go wild in dinosaur-land. In the world of ARK, that is, a video game where the ancient world and the modern world mix in an absolutely wild open world environment. To begin, users need to sign up for a free Unreal account and download the ARK Dev Kit - which is no small task due to its size.
This morning Google launched (officially, this time) Android Experiments, a collection of apps for Android smartphones and tablets. Google suggests that these "experiments" celebrate creativity and code on Android - and they've got the hand-picked collection credentials to prove it. Every app in the Android Experiments gallery has been chosen by Google specifically because they embody the aim of this project. Google wants developers to "push the limits of what's possible on phones, tablets, watches, and beyond."
An open source piece of software by the name of Windows Bridge for iOS has Microsoft aiming to bring in developers galore. After releasing Windows 10 as a "free upgrade" for "over 190 markets" this past week, Microsoft is aiming for iOS developers with software previously known as Project Islandwood. While the final version may not be open source - we'll have to wait and see - between now and this fall, Microsoft is staying open for the masses.
In the creative industry, especially in the 3D and game development realms, Autodesk is already a very popular name. Responsible for 3D modeling and animation software like Maya and 3D Studio Max, the company has had one foot already in the gaming world. Today, however, Autodesk ventures even further to plant both feet solidly in the game development market. With its new multi-platform Stingray game engine, paired with its plethora of creative tools, Autodesk gets into a position to offer the industry with an unprecedented integrated workflow that embraces not just programmers but also designers from start to finish.
Unless you're a Final Fantasy fan or at least an avid gamer, the company's name might mean little to you. That might be well and good since Shinra Technologies barely has anything to do with the game franchise, other than being spun off from Square Enix. And unlike its in-game counterpart, Shinra isn't obsessed with sucking the world dry of resources. Instead, it is actually interested in building worlds. Virtual worlds, that is. And its first plan of action to make available the Community Cloud Development Kit to indie game developers for free.
Apple just implemented a small, but important change to its App Store policies that is likely to have app developers crying out with joy. Simply put, users with devices running pre-release versions of the iOS software, such as the recent versions of the iOS 9 beta, can no longer leave reviews for apps. This may seem harsh, or anti-consumer, but it's actually to protect developers' apps from having their reputation trashed by negative reviews based on bugs and crashes — things to expect from a beta anyway.
Given Twitter's enormity, stability (sort of), and legacy, you'd think it'd have its mission and vision down to a 'T' by now. But if co-founder and board member Evan Williams is to be believed, the social networking giant is undergoing a phase of introspection and self-discovery. Heck, it isn't even a social networking site anymore. According to Williams, has figured out that it is, more than anything else, a real-time news platform. It's a change in definition that opens the doors to possibilities, including a better relationship with app developers.
Apple's third beta software has been delivered to developers for the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac computers with iOS 9, Watch OS 2, and OS X 10.11 El Capitan. This is the third wave of software updates to developers working with the software suite for all Apple developers before full release later this year. This update brings the iOS 9 to software build 13A4293f, El Capitan to software build 15A216g, and WatchOS 2 to software build 13S5293e. Developers will get these updates as early as this afternoon - ie immediately over the air.
Microsoft's HoloLens has its first app studio, with an engineer formerly working on the augmented reality headset placing his bets on holographic computing. Object Theory was co-founded by Michael Hoffman, who left Microsoft this year after having been responsible for HoloLens' showcase experiences such as the NASA "OnSight" partnership, and Raven Zachary, who originally set up iPhoneDevCamp back in 2007. The vote of AR support comes on the heels of Microsoft itself offering universities a share of a $500,000 bounty if they begin developing for HoloLens.
Google announces that Eclipse Android Developer Tools kit will no longer be officially supported by the company for Android app creation. This afternoon Jamal Eason, Product Manager for Android, made clear that Google would be "ending development and official support for the Android Developer Tools (ADT) in Eclipse at the end of the year." Both the Eclipse ADT plugin and Android Ant build system will still exist, of course, but Google won't be lending their help to anyone still using them at the end of December.
Amazon's Echo may have seemed like a gimmick, but the retail behemoth has kicked the digital assistant into overdrive by throwing it open to developers. Third-party apps will be able to integrate themselves with Echo courtesy of the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK), while hardware manufacturers that want to bake Amazon's speech-controlled helper into their devices can do so with the new Alexa Voice Service (AVS). To sweeten the deal and encourage voice-tech adoption, Amazon is also launching a $100m Alexa Fund.
Amazon devices such as the Fire phone and Fire HD tablets may finally be getting Android Lollipop in the near future, or rather, the Fire OS-skinned version of Lollipop. While most flagship Android devices have had the option to install Lollipop for many months now, Amazon's Fire OS is currently still based on Android version 4.4. This may be hardly noticeable to users, as Fire OS is actually much more than a simple re-skin of Android.
