The fact that the Unreal 3 engine now runs seamlessly on iOS devices is a huge deal. This is the same game engine that's responsible for many high-quality titles on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, so having it run games on a device that fits in the palm of your hand is pretty mind-blowing. You can get a taste of Epic Games' Unreal 3 in iOS efforts with Epic Citadel, available on the App Store -- but because of the demanding graphical requirements, it's only compatible with the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, and 3rd and 4th generation iPod touches. If you don't have one of those devices, the demo likely won't run at all.
A demo is really all Epic Citadel is; it's not a game as such, since there's really nothing for you to do except wander around and gape at the environment. And gape you will, because this is console-quality graphics on a 3.5 inch screen. While wandering through the castle grounds, I exclaimed several times, "I can't believe this is running on a freaking cell phone." The graphics in Epic Citadel easily surpass anything I've seen on the iPhone before, and they put the Nintendo DS to shame. Even the Wii doesn't put out graphics with this level of detail. To my eyes, only the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC games are competitive with the graphical richness I'm seeing in Epic Citadel on the iPhone.
Don't just take my word for it, though. Either download the demo yourself ,or if you can't run it on your device, check out our coverage in the video above. The game engine is truly amazing on the iPhone 4, especially with the Retina Display. And if this is the future of gaming in iOS, ... Nintendo and Sony had better step up their game.
TUAWEpic Citadel shows the bright promise of iOS gaming's future originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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This past week, Apple had a host of new patents officially approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office. From streamlining the way images are rendered to preventing the accidental opening of applications, a large chunk of the patents seem to relate to the ways that a user interacts with a device. Macsimum News has a synopsis of all the patents awarded.A few of the patents that stick out are for operations that we take for granted on a daily basis.
One of them relates to scrolling through a list on a touch input device (say your iPhone contacts list), with the acceleration of the scrolling of that list being determined by the input of your finger. That's pretty nifty!
Another is for immediate search feedback on a Web browser application, like the Safari search bar. So, for instance, when you start typing in the first few letters of a search query and a list pops up of the potential items that you're searching for - that's immediate search feedback.
I think I would be lost without this feature. Often times, I can't remember the title of a song, but if I can remember the first couple lyrics, I can type them in, and a link to the song title will appear in the list. Or when I can't quite remember how to spell a word (embarrassing, I know), I go to the Safari search bar instead of going to the dictionary. Somehow, it's always the easier place to turn to.
These are some pretty simple features, but they make such a profound difference in the ways that we use and interact with the computer devices around us on a daily basis. There's some solid innovation going on over there in Cupertino.
TUAWApple awarded new patents originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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This past week, Apple had a host of new patents officially approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office. From streamlining the way images are rendered to preventing the accidental opening of applications, a large chunk of the patents seem to relate to the ways that a user interacts with a device. Macsimum News has a synopsis of all the patents awarded.A few of the patents that stick out are for operations that we take for granted on a daily basis.
One of them relates to scrolling through a list on a touch input device (say your iPhone contacts list), with the acceleration of the scrolling of that list being determined by the input of your finger. That's pretty nifty!
Another is for immediate search feedback on a Web browser application, like the Safari search bar. So, for instance, when you start typing in the first few letters of a search query and a list pops up of the potential items that you're searching for - that's immediate search feedback.
I think I would be lost without this feature. Often times, I can't remember the title of a song, but if I can remember the first couple lyrics, I can type them in, and a link to the song title will appear in the list. Or when I can't quite remember how to spell a word (embarrassing, I know), I go to the Safari search bar instead of going to the dictionary. Somehow, it's always the easier place to turn to.
These are some pretty simple features, but they make such a profound difference in the ways that we use and interact with the computer devices around us on a daily basis. There's some solid innovation going on over there in Cupertino.
TUAWApple awarded new patents originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Here's a cool new feature in iTunes 10 that we haven't mentioned yet: when listening to any song in your library, you can double click on the album art window in the lower left hand corner to detach it from the main window and see it full size. That's not new -- you could get a closer look at the art in previous versions of iTunes. But what is new is that when you mouse over that detached art, you now get full QuickTime-style controls for your tracks. You can then minimize the main window (using those weirdly-aligned buttons, of course), and then just control the music directly from that square widget (which can also be resized any way you want).Pretty neat, and somewhat hard to find if you don't usually zoom in to see your album art full size. This replicates some (not all) of the functionality provided by CoverSutra and a number of other "iTunes controllers," so it looks like Apple has (yet again) decided to make a popular function in third-party apps part of the official thing.
TUAWiTunes 101: Using the Album Art widget originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Here's a cool new feature in iTunes 10 that we haven't mentioned yet: when listening to any song in your library, you can double click on the album art window in the lower left hand corner to detach it from the main window and see it full size. That's not new -- you could get a closer look at the art in previous versions of iTunes. But what is new is that when you mouse over that detached art, you now get full QuickTime-style controls for your tracks. You can then minimize the main window (using those weirdly-aligned buttons, of course), and then just control the music directly from that square widget (which can also be resized any way you want).Pretty neat, and somewhat hard to find if you don't usually zoom in to see your album art full size. This replicates some (not all) of the functionality provided by CoverSutra and a number of other "iTunes controllers," so it looks like Apple has (yet again) decided to make a popular function in third-party apps part of the official thing.
TUAWiTunes 101: Using the Album Art widget originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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As soon as the official Twitter app for iPad (free) hit the App Store, you could tell that it was going to be a controversial app. Immediately, the twitterverse was filled with people either commenting on how much they loved the innovative and unique user interface, and others ranting about how much they despised the UI. One of our bloggers said that she enjoyed the new features of Twitter for iPad so much that she "wanted to have a cigarette after I was done, and I don't even smoke." On the other hand, TJ Luoma reported in his first look at the Twitter app that "... judging by most of the comments of people that I follow on Twitter, the initial reaction is definitely one of 'too busy' and 'over designed.' "Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone. I have been a fan of Twittelator for iPad ($4.99) since it appeared in the App Store, so I wasn't expecting that Twitter would make an impact on my tweeting. Wrong. After a few hours of using the free Twitter app on my iPad, I'm pretty well smitten with it. The rest of this post describes how the Twitter app works to let you do more tweeting and less fumbling around trying to figure out how to do something. Be sure to take a look at the gallery below for screenshots of Twitter for iPad in action.
TUAWTUAW Review: Twitter for iPad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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As soon as the official Twitter app for iPad (free) hit the App Store, you could tell that it was going to be a controversial app. Immediately, the twitterverse was filled with people either commenting on how much they loved the innovative and unique user interface, and others ranting about how much they despised the UI. One of our bloggers said that she enjoyed the new features of Twitter for iPad so much that she "wanted to have a cigarette after I was done, and I don't even smoke." On the other hand, TJ Luoma reported in his first look at the Twitter app that "... judging by most of the comments of people that I follow on Twitter, the initial reaction is definitely one of 'too busy' and 'over designed.' "Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone. I have been a fan of Twittelator for iPad ($4.99) since it appeared in the App Store, so I wasn't expecting that Twitter would make an impact on my tweeting. Wrong. After a few hours of using the free Twitter app on my iPad, I'm pretty well smitten with it. The rest of this post describes how the Twitter app works to let you do more tweeting and less fumbling around trying to figure out how to do something. Be sure to take a look at the gallery below for screenshots of Twitter for iPad in action.
TUAWTUAW Review: Twitter for iPad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Out of all of the "major" game publishers, EA has shown Apple quite a bit of love in the past, and this is probably the company's best original (in mechanics, if not actually name or premise) title for the iOS platform. It's a real shame that it took so long for this one to make it around to the handheld, but now that it's here, it is worth the $4.99 purchase price for those looking for a premium iPhone experience.
And heck, if that's too much, just be patient another eight months or so and you'll probably see the game on sale. If you're interested in this gameplay at all -- basically a complicated Canabalt, with heroine Faith running, sliding and shooting her way across rooftops -- definitely give it a look.
TUAWTUAW's Daily App: Mirror's Edge originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Out of all of the "major" game publishers, EA has shown Apple quite a bit of love in the past, and this is probably the company's best original (in mechanics, if not actually name or premise) title for the iOS platform. It's a real shame that it took so long for this one to make it around to the handheld, but now that it's here, it is worth the $4.99 purchase price for those looking for a premium iPhone experience.
And heck, if that's too much, just be patient another eight months or so and you'll probably see the game on sale. If you're interested in this gameplay at all -- basically a complicated Canabalt, with heroine Faith running, sliding and shooting her way across rooftops -- definitely give it a look.
TUAWTUAW's Daily App: Mirror's Edge originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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He didn't elaborate, obviously, but you can see in Facebook's public documentation that Apple probably wouldn't have appreciated handing any more of its network over to Facebook than it did. All Ping seems to be at this point is a system of "liking" certain content (specifically on the iTunes Store, to the frustration of many of us who want to do it directly from our personal library of music), and if Facebook required that all of the "like" buttons went their way, you can see why Jobs wouldn't agree.
Turns out that even after Ping's launch, things got even more fractious between the two companies -- Apple did kick off Ping with the option to add friends with Facebook Connect, but Facebook blocked access when it was discovered that Apple wasn't playing by the rules. It's actually an open service, unless Facebook decides that it isn't, and apparently Apple's Ping network was an unwelcome guest with a lot of traffic since Apple didn't come to terms with FB ahead of time. Apple removed the service from Ping, but you'll still see some notes around suggesting you can bring in friends from Facebook.
So. Looks like Ping is already making a splash with much larger social networks. If Apple can build up its network without using Facebook's services, it seems much less likely that they'll find a way to share users in the future. As you can see above, Facebook is still implemented on iTunes, in the form of sharing albums and songs that you like, but it's completely separate from what's been built for Ping.
Despite the sour start to the social mixup between Ping and FB, Engadget suggests that conversations between the two companies are still ongoing. It may not be long before all this is a hearty laugh between friends.
TUAWSteve Jobs: Facebook had "onerous terms" for Ping originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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