Is Steve Jobs ignoring history, or trying to rewrite it? Closer to the first. Ironically, on the heels of the first mobile revolution, we have a scenario very close to that of the American Revolution.

In taking hegemonic control of his platform, Jobs has made the developer community uneasy and sparked some confrontation. The abuse of the developers has been justified on the premise of consumer demand. But I need not remind you of any more relevant historical development than the following to show you just why this is bad for all of us.

The Navigation Acts

The nation of Apple stakes its claim in the mobile market by establishing one great iTunes App market on America’s shores — or at least those parts serviced by AT&T. Jobs declares that all Apps on this great market must pass muster by the Apple parliament, and further, that all developers are subject to a tariff of at least 100 dollars to place their App on the market. Those Apps which derive from unapproved sources shall be quarantined to at most 100 iPhones and not be purchased on said App market.

Schiller Royal Proclamation of 2008

No App on this great market may enter into the unknown territories of functionality present on existing Apple software, or those territories into which Apple may venture in the future.

Taxation without Representation

Parties which participate in this great App market shall have no representation in the decision of policy made by the nation of Apple. The right to declare or modify said policy is expressly bestowed upon the Corporation and its Board of Directors.

Stamp Act of 2008

The consumer shall henceforth purchase only those Apps which are produced by the Corporation whenever presented the choice ‘tween two Apps.

The Google Massacre

Coders at the Googleplex talk up a storm about Google Voice. Words are exchanged on the border of CA-Highway 85, and an insult is reported to be shouted at an Apple officer. The nation of Apple opens fire and kills the native Google Voice App. News of the high profile slaughter circulates around the world. The territories mourned.

… ok, so Google eventually found a loophole. But continue…

The Pwnagetool Tea Party

Colonists disguised as Indie developers overflow the buffers of three Apple vessels. Refusing the tax on Apps, the developers assert their freedom to traffick Apps to and fro the Cydia distribution network. The nation of Apple responds by embargoing all 65,536 ports of these iPhones.

3.3.1

Act 3.3.1, known by the colonists as the Intolerable Acts, declares that all verbal transmissions, records, and transactions of the Developers must occur entirely in English and only in business with British partners. Town meetings in the states of Adobe and .NET are expressly prohibited.

On the Precipice

We stand at a very pivotal point in the future development of computing devices, whatever they may become. Open standards only recently gained popular use, such as in the 2004 release of Firefox. Nevertheless, in the past few years we have observed an explosion in the power of companies to develop on this open platform called the Internet. We simply can do more than we could in 2004, and this is in no small part due to the expanding freedom associated with cross-platform, open source, and plain-old better practices.

Apple offers a compelling product, but clamping down the platform has bad economic precedents. Developers are not going to perform as well when they are under constant threat that Apple will ban and steal their idea. In fact, success on the App Store frequently comes with harsh retaliatory consequences from the company. Furthermore, technologies which can (in cases) made App development more expedient are now completely verboten on the platform. It is disingenuous to justify these policies under the guise that these choices are good for the consumer. Consumers are being forced to swallow Apps which are overly rigid and restrictive, or which could be enhanced via a policy which is more friendly to cross-platform and/or open-source development.

That is to say: what is good for Apple is not necessarily good for the consumer, or the developer. And while the above comparison is apt, don’t count on any sort of Revolution. We would have to unify the colonial armies of Google, Adobe, Amazon, and rag-tag coders first — and that’s a task I’m not signing up for.

Long ago was the time when gamers congregated around the console to get their fix. The video game console, a dedicated piece of hardware for playing video games, used to be a mainstay of the teenage bedroom, or the twenty-something’s home. However, increasingly consumers spend their gaming time on the run, resorting to the mobile or free Internet sites.

The new mode of game participation is in part due to advances in consumer hardware. While in years past previous gaming experiences required specialized devices to adequately wow their audiences, devices are becoming more computer-like and thus more game-friendly. For example, Apple’s iPhone uses a PowerVR graphics technology which can generate 3D scenes of quality rivaling a late 1990’s or early 2000’s console.

Fueling this trend is the ease of embedding a powerful System-on-Chip (SoC for short) chip in a variety of different devices. Manufacturers frequently license designs from ARM Technology which allow the designer to confine all of the functions of a smartphone or tablet device to a single chip.

The new SoCs have several functional characteristics which promote their use in smaller, cheaper, and more capable consumer devices. By reducing the number of chips, the peak power usage is typically reduced to wattage in the single digits. This makes new form factors — and using lighter batteries — possible. Furthermore, new technology such as nVidia’s Tegra 2 (another ARM derivative) enables seamless HD video playback. Not surprisingly, HD video is considered a “killer application” for Apple’s upcoming tablet computer.

Games are Changing

The revolution in hardware is promoting a different style of gaming than what the traditional parties — Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft — have marketed in the past. 30% of all iPhone App Store downloads are games. Furthermore, testers of Apple’s new tablet downloaded game applications more than any other type of app, according to Flurry. Clearly, the game as application — where users can pick up, play, and put down the device at a moment’s notice — is really taking off.

Analysts are predicting that the mobile game space should enjoy an explosion of power and creativity this year. With the announcement of Apple’s tablet today, one might expect expansion in the use of multitouch as a control scheme. Jeff Scott predicted on Techcrunch that this will help produce a new wave of traditional board games, first-person shooters, and immersive world games like EA’s Mirror’s Edge. While Scott might have it right that multitouch will rule the roost of tablet gaming, the success of a hardcore title like a first-person shooter is not yet proven on the mobile platform. Tablets are likely to continue the wave of casual gaming, board and puzzle gaming, and playful adventure gaming that has defined the non-hardcore market.

Interestingly, as the games become more accessible on inexpensive devices, the price of games themselves has decreased. Whereas a console game might fetch 60 dollars at Gamestop, today’s mobile game might come at no cost to the player. Thanks to the advertising dollar — and wireless connectivity between the devices and said advertisers — penny-pinching users are very much in on the new social games. In fact, publishers are vying to push the games to as wide a market as possible.

The Zeebo console is one example in which the consumer hardware revolution has had a reverse effect on the traditional video games market. The console, which is launching in developing nations such as Brazil and Mexico, features a rather spartan ARM chip similar to that in the latest mobile devices. Zeebo’s strategy is to sell the console at a low cost and distribute the games wirelessly over 3G networks. They’ve signed on with popular game franchises like EA’s FIFA and also offer free titles which were popular 1990’s computer games.

Zeebo reflects the industry’s urge to proliferate gaming at a low cost — and furthermore, to push out more content using a streamlined service. As in the tablet and mobile market, network-enabled play is developing as a must-have feature. At present, with the Zeebo priced at some 189 dollars, this company is yet to push the envelope for the frugal consumer. However, it is not difficult to imagine that a panoply of ARM-powered devices could fill this niche in the near term.

Conclusion: New business targets in gaming

As Flurry predicts, these new devices — Apple’s tablet included — will probably not replace the TV or console. They serve primarily to feed the consumer’s apparently endless appetite for gaming and video content, and thus play a critical role that accompanies traditional media. It still isn’t proven that multitouch devices are good solutions for every application.

Nevertheless, it opens a whole new field in the market. VCs are excited about vertically-integrated smartphone platforms which integrate social networking, advertising, sales, and games into one package. They are pumping money to develop the “gamification” of everything. Traditional gaming need not worry however; Tetris has sold over 100 million downloads since 2005 and is still going strong. Gamers seem to enjoy how better devices enable better games — of any form.

[Research hosted on openmediate.com]

Inspiring prose for the malcognitive.

Surely you remember the old “Think different” ad series. While quite ineffective at pushing sales, the campaign did present a good statement– a manifesto — of the creative process. And it did reinvigorate a company.

But as the latest OSNews podcast discussed, you know that Apple doesn’t nearly claim to be this zany anymore. Run amok with success, the current slogan is “There’s an app for that.” Claiming insanity succeeded in buying Apple time while they were immobile and unpopular. Since their great success, they’ve shifted a more corporate and less crazy aesthetic. Now it’s “Think Apple”, not “Think different.”

The lesson to take away from this is if you can’t do, declare craziness. Or at least let people know that you aren’t playing along.

I’m watching (as we speak — or I write) A View to a Kill. I don’t know why. It’s a terrible Bond by Roger Moore masterpiece-of-. It seems quite plain that the director’s knew they were making a terrible mistake, and therefore went crazy by casting Christopher Walken as a French douche and Silicon Valley magnate. Then they chose to have a horse race chase rather than the typical Aston Martin or BMW.

Clearly, the movie didn’t have the best of Bond at heart. But it did push the series further into the 80s, had some gadgets, and made money. All to keep the magic alive until Bond could be restarted in the 90s with Goldeneye.

We’re all a little crazy here. So cheers. Fortunately, the web makes it easy to spout off when it isn’t really necessary. Take this guy, who renounces Twitter and even goes on to belittle it’s (proven) effectiveness. Yeah, I don’t have an account there either — and I prefer my long printed word here too. But nobody’s really going to listen to his complaint. Why?

So if things aren’t going well and you need to incubate, go wacko. Then come back afresh and show off your true creativity (your Picasso, Einstein, or Carmack) later. » Continue reading “Here’s to the crazy ones: Us”

One certain way to foul yourself up is to demand purity in everything. Because some day, while you aren’t watching, your pure jewel turns to dust.

Here we go: eight years of Linux kernels from 2.4 to 2.6 are vulnerable. That means, if you stumble along the wrong exploit code your safety is hosed. But thinking outside the security of your own computer, consider the millions of nodes out there that are running dangerously — and aren’t to be upgraded any time soon. And all this on our stone-stable Linux kernel?

Other developments have focused more attention on consumer and developer rights recently. Did you know that Microsoft’s sale of Word is illegal, AND, copying any DVD is too?

And then there are the computer rebels who hold so strongly to religiosity and doctrine that their loud grievances make no difference to the real world. “Yes, Apple is evil — Apple is anti-developer — and we will boycott the App Store!” Sure, Apple IS anti-developer. But they’ve also earned their proper place in the ecosystem by marketing the heck out of the mobile app better than anyone else. I think Mike Arrington is missing out that great apps are going to come out on the App Store, they are going to be made by great developers, and probably you need not be proud of skipping them.

I’ve been critical of Apple, but the following are hard to dispute:

1. Developers are motivated as much by making something great as by money and fame.
2. Developers are attracted by things such as audience and technical details like SDK.
3. Apple’s xCode/iPhone SDK is still a great API, and probably the best suited for launching phone apps. Android comes close, but it doesn’t offer any leaps to a developer who’s already got a stake (and hopefully, profit) in the iPhone.

Ideology fails our specific blogger in question because his hard line doesn’t make sense to anybody. Running away doesn’t mean that policies will improve, or that developer and customer mindsets will vary.  Demand purity: you won’t find it.

I really rather like summer jazz festivals. They are warm, exciting, and recharge your mind’s batteries on a good weekend afternoon. Or they give you a good destination on an otherwise free night. Oh, and a jazz band plays too. At that point, I’m pretty tuned in — please don’t bother me for the solo!

(Ok, not this one in particular.) A good public domain exemplar to muse on.

Tonight I happened upon a nighttime jazz combo that was pretty spectacular… sans the chaotic scene around them! People socializing, having dinner, running along, or disinterested passers-by muffled the music. It was pretty obvious that the jazz gathering was popular, the music not so much. The festival itself came first, save for when the bandleader interjected some joke or comment — or alerted that this was the first, last, middle song of the night.

As a one time jazz musician myself it can be hard to understand why an official, stage performance devolved so fast, or how the band saved face and kept going. As a musician in general, I also know how hard it is to promote your music. Usually it involves enticing semi-acquaintances to discover some tiny little cafe in an alleyway, and so when I hear any group on stage I already have respect they made it so far. Experience also shows that when you do the gig, everything seems entirely different than jamming with your buds — for this reason, you script and tweak the performance to make it a digestible, recognizable nugget.

The above follows directly from the 80-20 rule — 20% of your audience tunes in to your jazz 80% of the time. Remarkably, there’s also the inverse 80-20 rule which predicts that the other 80% are listening only 20% of the time. So in practicality it’s not worth being avant garde or experimental for anywhere near 100% of your band’s practice time. You aim to do the same old shtick — professionally and characteristically well — for 80% of your work. And you get it right.

For this reason, plunking down a jazz record at home and venturing to the park for a performance are always very different experiences. The jazz big band that does gigs converges more or less to a standard — in fact, playing the jazz standards with a Basie-esque/Kenton-ish sheen. The band neither gives the bassist the long, maverick solo he or she wants nor skips on the bass solo (which the audience actually wants). Instead, the festival band passes around the solo in kind, and then gets on with it. If you want a crazy big band, you stay home and listen to Goodwin’s Big Phat Band.

Jazz still lives on as a caricature of itself. Fortunately, it’s found its approprite niche in the world and will exist forever, even if most younger than 30 wouldn’t touch it. At least it is not popular music, which is another matter: when most people only hear 20% of what’s going on, you excel by adding a lot more flash than substance. So if you are performing a gig in the park, always throw in a riff from Twinkle Twinkle before one you heard from Bird — it works.

I will confess to being engaged by meta-discussion about video games from time to time. A lot of it ruthlessly defending the style of games I grew up and despairing on that new stuff. What gets them? But anyways, I think my generation just grew up that way, so I suppose it’s fine.

Have you ever stood and thought about how ludicrous these things are, eh? To be any more than a casual gamer these days demands a faith in worlds which are far too whacked out. I can hardly summarize them in prose sometimes. How have we – the Otaku, I guess – succeeded in complicating things past the scope of confusion in our everyday lives?

All of this banter has been at a high level, so please let me indulge you in an example, Mythri — a failed Game Boy Color game whose developer fell off the face of the earth (or so it seems) when his company never found a publisher. Mythri was to be the independent title which returned the RPG genre to the classic Japanese ideal: a dungeon crawler true to D&D but with the advances of storytelling that came from stylized and brutally quixotic Eastern characters. And it was going to be awesome: the story would revolve around the forces of Love and Magic and balancing the power of their respective glorious gems. Daring to best the characteristic NPC, Mythri’s characters were going to benefit from the experience of other ambitious titles like Lunar, Metal Gear Solid, and anime (Neon Genesis Evangelion).

Mythri was going to be it, and no less on a portable console (Game Boy Color). Until bad fate crossed the game, of course, and it was never released — the content never escaping the developer in any form. Talk about cracked-out universes: this one didn’t ever exist, even in fiction. The ingame and out-of-game drama was tremendous. And yet it gets me and a lot of Internet fans worked-up, I guess.

These video games are mighty powerful, and the best part is that even the most analytical of people partake. Even if that means building universes too big to contain.

There’s absolutely novery little money in it, but games journalism has very recently caught up with the fandom. I admit that I loved 1up circa a year ago, and will miss it — what it was — forever. It might not be the same, but there’s more innovative and active coverage on the net these days thanks to sites like gamespite and gamasutra. Good work!

Back to the normal operation of the blog. Today I saw two striking events occur: (1) an Apple executive lower himself to justifying middling company policy and (2) Twitter and Livejournal get pwn3d by the botnets.

Fundamentally, these were both denial attacks. Bear with me — both of these entities set out to silence the opposition. Both were meant to inflict some intimidating power. But strangely, the big company Apple was ineffective while the botnet worked far too well.

Let’s look first at Apple’s Phil Schiller email to justify degrading Ninjaword’s dictionary on the App Store. Obviously, Apple understands how important this is, sending out their own VP to face it. But the email is still so confusing and amounts to very little for explaining the review process. Apple’s intentions seem to derive from no particular concerns in particular, but rather random urges to enforce the purity of its content. They made this dictionary 17+ (shouldn’t you be 17 if you use the iPhone? an aside…) without any precedence for parental watch over dictionary content. After all, it’s a reference, and even if a 10 year old wants to look up a four-letter word in this content, I doubt anybody would mind.

What this comes down to is: Apple, can you maintain a cultured ecosystem? Will you support software? Given that it’s decisions have frequently been to shallowly cover its marketing fears, it doesn’t look like it. This is censorship, and it doesn’t work, at least on the Internet. Ultimately, this will make the best App developers leave the platform — and the consequence of losing the very best will be to degrade the kernel of your business.

What does work for making a big jab on the web? Roving bands of thugs. It’s quite alarming that (probably) meager individuals can punk us all around, just by phoning in the orders to a botnet. Nobody can stop a DDOS once its going. And the DDOS can promote unexpectedly bad effects on the system as a whole, as evidenced by 4chan’s tit-for-tat Monday past. Websites can start reflecting traffic and then there’s a big storm of junk.

Thuggery is a lot more effective than censorship on the Internet, and we are screwed for it. What’s more scary is that the thugs are anonymous, so they could be anybody. Heck, Apple could even get a botnet and nobody would really know. And then they would inflict some real harm — none of this corporate condescension any more.

So as the Internet gets more viral, we have more to fear from the thugs. The only way to defend ourselves is to create intelligent machines for the purposes of “good.” But these intelligent machines are liable to get it wrong and block out legit traffic! It seems that even as we edge closer to the full promise of the Internet, it becomes ever more perilous. The next wars of the web will be fought by thugs, not big corporations.

Edit: I keep on getting only more right here. I said it first.

Recently, I have been trying to perceive why I feel so out of touch with everyone else. I’ve always struggled with difficulty in social circles and teasing by my peers. Perhaps this blog itself has been a rash reaction to my alienation, by casting off other people’s thought as malcognition.

I have not turned myself in for a professional evaluation yet, and so I know you probably feel I’m overreacting to something. However, Asperger’s has seen more publicity in the public domain these days and so I’ve come across more information and similar stories. My entire life, I’ve failed to communicate emotion; even when I’ve pleased my peers tell me they hear no enthusiasm in my voice. And I’ve stumbled upon relationships and communication with nothing but awkwardness, no matter how hard I try. This seems to make sense.

The timing for this self-discovery couldn’t be odder either. For while I’ve felt this awful social and emotional confusion forever, I’ve fallen through the cracks. Because while I’ve floundered in oral communication, I come across as an above-average writer and student. If anything, I started this blog to capture your attention with this skill and to fuel my Internet life (note Internet) with productivity.

Certainly I never considered myself with a condition before. But now I have no other conclusion — and I know today that Asperger syndrome doesn’t necessarily make one poorly functional. There are many others like me: skilled in math, science, music, but not the wide world. Being in scientific research currently, it might even “help” my legit responsibilities.

I solicit you, readers, for any guidance here. I’m not despairing over it, and there’s still a world of learning that I love. But my social problems are heavy and I’ve gotta cope better than I have recently.

Please comment. Don’t comment if you intend any ill will towards me or other cases of Autism/Aspergers (esp. those worse off). I know all of you will tell me first to seek professional medical treatment, so try something else once those posts arrive. Marc Segar’s guide online has already been a tremendous help.Thanks.

Since everybody is dumping on Apple this week I guess I’ll throw a tiny piece into the works.

This would be a lot better if I could draw.

Updated with more stuff. Flip thru to the end.

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