Final Fantasy

Less than three years after the launch of Apple’s handset, Final Fantasy, the role-playing classic that practically defined its genre, has arrived for the iPhone. And with the exception of a few tweaks that could be made, has arrived in fine style.

A port of the original game, Final Fantasy places you in the role of the Light Warriors, four youths prophesied to vanquish evil throughout the land by lighting the four elemental orbs they carry in order to restore peace to the land. Like the original, you’ll fight monsters in random encounters, work on leveling up, buy or find new weapons and armor, learn new spells and complete quests to advance the storyline.

Even if the idea of playing Final Fantasy on the iPhone is a bit strange, Square-Enix ported it well. The touchscreen controls are responsive, the graphics are crisp and inviting and top-notch music makes the most out of the iPhone’s speaker as well as a nearby pair of headphones. Start the game, name your characters and it’s easy to dive into the initial quests, gain experience points and begin enjoying the title for what it’s worth.

Still, there are some rough edges to work out. The game’s frame rate, though fairly consistent, can become jerky at times. Occasional crashes to the iPhone’s home screen make you glad the save function works as well as it does. And while previous ports of this game featured an option to bring up an ever-present map of the overworld to let you know where you’re going, the iPhone version presently lacks such an option. So you’ll spend some time getting your bearings when trying to find the next town or dungeon for your current quest…

Source:[therawfeed]

Mystery Pic 114: What Is It?

What is it? Post your guess in the comments section below. Make sure you give your whole name and the city you live in! If you’re first with the right answer, you’ll earn the dubious honor of getting your name in the next issue of the awe-inspiring Mike’s List newsletter. The answer will be revealed in the next issue of Mike’s List. Go here to subscribe. (It’s free!)

Source:[therawfeed]

Is Apple Delving into Social Networking Territory?

MacNN today reported that the U.S. Patent Office has published a patent application from Apple, describing a proximity-based social networking tool. The plan appears to be the ability for people in the same general area (as defined by the span of a WiFi network or Bluetooth connection) to spontaneously form groups and exchange information.

The actual text of the patent describes a "trusted service" that tracks time and location info from wireless-enabled devices and invites users in close proximity to virtually connect. The images included were based on the iPhone or iPod touch. It also looks as if sharing your calendar, address book, email, and text messages with other members of a group is as easy as a touch of a button.

Part of the description reads, "During private or public events (e.g., concert, tradeshows, business meetings, weddings, rallies), a typical individual may have many brief contacts with individuals for which they would like to have further correspondence post event." In other words, you can easily (and hopefully, only voluntarily) swap contact info and more with others in your general vicinity.

So, who is this trusted service that keeps track of where you were, when you were there, and who you were with? Apple hasn’t announced any plans regarding iGroups development.

Source:[therawfeed]

Is Google Trying to Out-Microsoft Microsoft?

In the early 1990s, WordPerfect dominated the word processor scene, and Microsoft Word was a scrappy underdog. It's hard to believe now, but it's true.

As Word rose in popularity, many WordPerfect users resisted. They had spent so much time learning the WordPerfect-specific keystrokes, called function keys. So what did Microsoft do? They enabled a mode whereby WordPerfect keystrokes would execute the same commands in Word that they did in WordPerfect.

In addition, Microsoft gave discounts on Windows to OEMs who included Word on new PCs. The result was (and maybe still is) that most new PCs came with Word pre-installed, and the additional cost was pretty low.

Besides, WordPerfect was really just a relic of the DOS era, and Word was a creature of the new world of graphical computing. And the rest, including WordPerfect as a dominant application, is history.

Microsoft's tactics proved fatal to WordPerfect's preeminence. This was largely lost to history, but its lesson was not lost on Google. It appears that history is repeating itself. This time, Microsoft is the target. 

Source:[therawfeed]

iPad Will Have “Absolutely No” Impact in 2010, Says Online Publishers

While traditional print publishers are practically falling over themselves to get their product on Apple’s new iPad, the new media has taken the attitude of “Talk to the hand.”

Cult of Mac is reporting on an Association of Online Publishers poll which hit up 1,500 members and asked their opinion about where the business is heading this year. The good news is, most of them were optimistic — just not about iPads or even e-readers in general.

Half of the poll’s respondents predicted “strong growth” as high as 10 percent, “mainly from display ads and an uptick in video, with a number of smaller revenue streams adding to the bottom line.” But for whatever reason, when asked about tablets and e-readers this year, “that sunny outlook was a bit scarce.”

Here’s a sampling of what the Association of Online Publishers had to say in video interviews, courtesy of Cult of Mac:

“These are still really really embryonic devices that are great and fantastic, and I want to be at the top of the queue to buy one and play with it,” remarks Mail Online MD James Bromley. “But we’re talking about a very, very narrow subsection of society that will have these in 2010. This is the time that we learn about these devices — ‘11, ‘12, ‘13 is when these might become slightly more mainstream.”

Conde Nast Digital UK manager Emanuela Pignataro was even more direct: “E-readers will be the novelty of 2010. I don’t think it is a short-term adoption — it will take years.”

“I don’t think we’re quite there yet,” says Thomson Reuters consumer GM Tim Faircliff.

Finally, Incisive Media digital manager John Barnes: “The issue with tablets is, they’re not really servicing the needs of color, with graphics and diagrams — it’s a bit like version one of the iPod.”

Somebody should tell all of this to the rumored 150,000 people who preordered their iPad last Friday…

Source:[therawfeed]

Instapaper Enhancements Just in Time for the Release of the iPad

Instapaper Pro has long been a great way to load your iPhone with content that you can browse at leisure–even if you don’t have a wireless connection. Now they’ve enhanced it in version 2.2 with pagination, dictionary (Wiktionary) lookup, an in-app browser, and email support.

Instapaper lets you download web pages into your iPhone so they can be viewed offline later. A simple add-on to Safari and Firefox adds a "Read Later" bookmark to select sites for Instapaper. It does a good job of extracting the text so you don’t have to worry about trying to pinch-zoom or accidentally side scrolling. You can easily change the font size for easy reading. In the past, you had to either set the pages to scroll continuously or use the "tilt-scroll" feature. Tilt scroll is admittedly sexy, scrolling the page slowly as you tilt the phone. But like most eye-candy the fascination wears off quickly. The new pagination feature works like most e-readers; just touch the bottom or top of the screen to turn pages.

Reading the latest article from Wired and stumped by one of the new buzzwords? Now you can just tap a word to highlight it and click to look it up; the word’s entry in Wiktionary pops up. For those without iPhones, Instapaper also added the ability to send the page to your email rather than your phone.

The real value of Instapaper is for those getting iPads with WiFi support only. Now, you can load your article in the iPad and read it on the large screen without needing 3G support.
Source:[therawfeed]

Diamond-studded iPad says "I’m an idiot, but a rich one!"

The Apple iPad is reasonably priced. If that bothers you, feel free to spend $19,999 on a diamond-studded iPad ("hand-set in a micro-pave styling," whatever that means). You'll feel like an idiot when the newer, faster iPad inevitably comes out within a year. (Props to Engadget)

Posted via email from Mike Elgan’s Lifestream

Source:[therawfeed]

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