Awesome and frustrating

The iPhone has changed how I do many things. It’s changed:

• how, when and where I check email
• what I read and where I read
• how I play games
• what I expect from other small displays
• how I surf the web
• how I judge the quality of other gadgets
• how I view my stocks
• how I listen to music
• how I watch video
• how I get my weather
• how I access things like Facebook and Twitter
• what I do when I’m lost or need to find a coffee shop
• how I find what movies are playing today and at what theater

Is that your iPhone ringing?

The above list are just some of the many things the iPhone has changed for me, but it’s not all awesomeness! I love my iPhone I really do, but it’s also changed how I answer a Phone. Gone are the days of pressing a button and hearing a voice at the other end although you can press a multitude of buttons to silence a call. The iPhone has reinvented the way we use gadgets in every possible way, including how we answer a phone. Now you swipe a pretty little graphic to answer your phone. Got winter gloves on? Don’t worry, answer it later. Fumbling around with your phone while getting it out of your pocket? Don’t worry, that phone call probably wasn’t important anyway. Someone trying to buzz you to get into your building and your iPhone has let you know about it two minutes later with a missed call message? Don’t worry, someone else probably let them in.

Yes, the iPhone excels at everything except being a phone. The final blow comes when your iPhone is sitting on the desk in front of you; none of the challenges mentioned above are an issue now. Your phone is ringing, all you have to do is slide that beautiful slider to the right, slide once, slide twice, slide three times, maybe one more slide, please please answer the call! I know I am not alone in this, a simple Google search finds thousands of people with the same issue. The slider randomly locks up and does not answer phone calls sometimes.

The iPhone is sold in countries with winter (AKA Snowy and Cold)

Not only that, the whole slider concept is a stupid idea anyway. Yes it’s cool the first few times you try it, but then practicality comes into play. Try answering an iPhone in Toronto on a cold January day with gloves on, no traditional button means no answering your phone. I think my iPhone would be perfect if I could just press the big button at the bottom to answer the phone.

Still no regrets

That said, I still have no regrets, Apple has trained us all to say iPhone, not phone, so that speaks volumes about the customer loyalty, or possibly their marketing, but I think it’s a combination of both. The fact that my iPhone sometimes won’t answer calls and I still put up with it also speaks volumes. I could also just be a sucker for punishment, but in all fairness this only happens every month or so, but it’s still infuriating.

The iPhone has become a way of life for me. When I was recently stranded in Guadeloupe because of a volcano eruption, a local wi-fi connection, Skype and email made communicating with friends and family a lot more affordable. Every morning I also manage to check all my personal email while walking to work (when the weather is warm). When I’m lost I load up Google maps. The amount of hours I’ve put into iPhone games is probably best kept a secret. The quality and feel of the iPhone is also unmatched in my opinion. It has raised the bar for hand-held devices making many other devices feel cheap and flimsy in comparison.

I want to touch every screen

Like expecting every public faucet to magically turn on when I place my hands under it, I also expect many hand held devices to have touch screens and feel silly when I realize they do not.

The iPhone has made the decision to get an iPad easier

A great experience builds trust, and like most Apple products that trust translates into more sales. My decision to get an iPhone involved a lot of research and humming and hawing, my iMac purchase required less scrutiny, and I doubt I will need much arm twisting when the iPad finally arrives in Canada.

Just give me one button!

My only request would be for my iPhone to always answer calls, even when I have gloves on. That big round button at the bottom would be perfect! Are you listening Apple?

An RTS game redefined for the iPhone

For those of you who have not tried the original Galcon, what are you waiting for? If you don’t have the right gear, find yourself one of the many iphone deals out there, pick one up, and then download and start playing Galcon. It’s basically a simplified real time strategy game for the iPhone. As I have mentioned before, simplified yes, but rich with strategy and technique, and that will most definitely be even more true with the newest incarnation.

A tutorial for newbies

Galcon Labs has a Tutorial in the original game play mode against the AI. This is a great way to learn how to play Galcon in under 45 seconds.

Four new game modes

Billiards – not much different than regular Galcon except the planets move! I don’t know how many of you have accidentally hit the wrong planet during an otherwise perfect attack on your enemy, but that scenario just became a lot more likely to happen more often. This should really shake things up.

Stealth – so far I think this is my favourite mode. In stealth your ships disappear almost instantly as you leave your planet. For the hardcore Galcon players out there, you know that you can change the course of a moving fleet. This will allow you to keep a whole fleet moving around without anyone else seeing it. Just as you think you have won you realize that you forgot the other player had a massive stealthed fleet around you.

Crash – this mode has potential, but I personally think it needs tweaking. In crash you can engage in battle with other ships while en route to your destination. At first I thought this would mean other fleets of ships would be touchable / attackable objects like planets. This is not the case though, instead you will end up taking out your enemies ships if they cross paths, but you cannot plot a path directly towards your enemies ships, only near by planets. With time maybe I’ll get used to it and use the planets near by to my advantage.

Assassin – another great mode where each player has a target. The goal is to destroy your target first. This changes the whole dynamic as being the most powerful or accumulating the most planets is no longer as relevant.

What else is new?

Of course Galcon wouldn’t be the awesomeness that it is without multi-player, and this is all real-time. If you liked the first one, then no doubt you will like the second, and best of all it’s only 99¢.

I don’t think Galcon will ever be known for it’s sound effects or music, but it does have new music in this version and I think it’s better than the last. I usually play this game in public places, so the music is off, but every now and then it’s nice to hear the arcade type sound effects.

There are also all new back drops and the game just looks great. Check out the sceenshots below for yourself and Phil’s YouTube video.

Get it in the iTunes store now, or visit the Galcon Labs website for more information.

Need more screenshots? Visit the Galcon Labs asset library.

Perfectly adapted to the touch screen

In Flight Control you are an air traffic controller. You are charged with one task; land everything on the screen without crashing. The game is probably one of the most simplistic yet challenging games I’ve played on my iPhone.

There are different types of aircraft that you must land by drawing paths on the screen with your finger to the appropriate landing spots. Small planes land on the small runway. Medium and large sized planes land on the large runway. Helicopters land on the helipad. Sounds easy doesn’t it? Well, it is, for the first 60 seconds. Remember that helicopters fly insanely slow while larger craft fly faster depending on their size. This makes for total chaos once you have more than 10 craft on the screen at once.

The game comes with a stats screen which is nice since this game is really always about beating your previous highest stats. It also keeps a tally of your total aircraft landed. I’ve put in a few hours of my work commute into this title including a bit of time on my couch. We need to see more games like this for the iPhone and iPod touch platform. Games that are designed with the touch screen in mind.

• Touch Arcade review and video
• Flight control App Store Download

About a month ago the iPhone version started reformatting all of my linked web pages to a mobile Google format. This was frustrating since the iPhone is fully capable of displaying rich web content and in some cases I wanted to see iPhone specific HTML and Javascript content in action. Unfortunately all of this is stripped out in the mobile version. I put up with this for a few days before I decided to look for the settings.

Easy fix

To get your linked web pages back to the way they were meant to be, scroll to the bottom of your iPhone reader and click settings. At the time of writing this you will find 3 settings. Uncheck “Reformat linked web pages for mobile browsers.” and you will now be linking to the real web pages. I’m not sure if I inadvertently turned this on, but if this is the default setting it seems kind of odd for the iPhone version. Luckily with Google there is always lots of ways to customize your experience and they have a great number of other mobile solutions online.

Galcon is probably one of the most simple games you can play on the iPhone. It’s basically a real time strategy, or better known to the gaming world as an RTS. Unlike traditional RTS games, this one is extremely simple, but rich with strategy and technique. This game has so much going for it. The games are super short, something that’s good for a phone based game. You can easily get off a few rounds while waiting for your streetcar or bus, especially if you live in Toronto. The best part is this game is multi-player even over 3G, and I think that’s what really makes it shine. You will probably tire of the AI quickly, it’s not very bright and every round feels the same, but even the AI in some of the greatest RTS games like StarCraft can be pretty flaky at times. Nothing beats real people, at least not yet, maybe someday.

So how do you play?

Basically the game has 2 to 4 game slots, but I really recommend having 3 or more players. The game does not always start off perfectly balanced for each player, which is actually pretty cool when there is more than 2 players, but when there are only two in the game, the victory will usually go to whoever has the most favourable starting position.

Galcon is a space RTS and the only goal is to claim as many planets as possible and annihilate your opponents, every last stinking one of them. When you start each player will have one large planet with 100 military units. Every unit is the same. You will be surrounded by different sized planets that are neutral each with a number on them. This number is the amount of neutral units you will have to conquer before you can lay claim to that planet. Obviously the first planets people go for are the ones with the lowest numbers and closest to them, but wait, there’s one caveat and that’s the planets size.

Size matters

The larger your planet, the faster your units will replenish. Tiny planets replenish very slowly, while large ones replenish very fast. The player needs to weight the size vs the amount of units they must conquer. A tiny planet with 1 to 5 units is worth taking over, while a tiny planet with 45 or more units might not as it would take several minutes to replenish those forces. Yes, minutes matter in this game. It’s all about tactics and speed of execution.

Describing the games crack like addiction is hard, but every game is unique. Just when you think you have the upper hand another player will begin to attack you while you attack your initial foe. It can be infuriating at times when another play does something that seems to not be in either of your best interests. Usually if one player becomes very powerful the other players sit tight and see what happens next. Attacking each other when one player is dominating is suicide, but you must also know when you take that big guy down these temporary unspoken alliances with weaker players will quickly break down once the main threat is gone.

This is the main player screen. You can start a round with two or more players, but I really recommend at least 3.

This is a typical starting match. My player is red. Although you can’t see the other players military units, they have a 102 just like me at this point. Once they start attacking other planets it can be hard to keep track of how powerful they are. The 50% at the bottom right corner is your attack percentage. It can be changed from 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. This is the percentage of units that will be deployed from a planet.

In this early stage of battle above white is already attacking blue. While you are playing you can double tap your planets to select all of them, and then single tap planets to deselect some.

The online play is what makes this a killer iPhone game, but there are also several other variations of game play against the AI. Oh did I mention there is also an online ranking system? I really hope the developer keeps updating this great app, and right now it’s only five dollars. If you are a gamer and looking for that killer iPhone game then look no further, I can’t recommend Galcon enough. If you don’t have an iPhone, there are also PC, Mac, and Linux version of this game. If I haven’t convinced you, try the demo.

iTunes App Store links

Full version
Demo version

The plans have also changed and they seem to be less confusing than they used to be. The new base Fido iPhone plan is still 60 dollars, but it includes 500MB of data and unlimited texting. Right now my plan is 400MB of data and 75 text messages a month for the same price. Of course when Fido contacted me to tell me my 3 months of unlimited local calling was over they also said I could upgrade to the new plan for a 25 dollar setup fee. Why do they call it a setup fee? I’m already setup, why don’t they just call it an upgrade fee? I didn’t do it right then, I looked into it first and thought hey the connection fee savings alone will pay for the 25 dollar setup fee in four months. Anyway, here’s the good part, the Fido representative said that they could give me the connection fee credit with no upgrade and I could keep my plan. Since I don’t text much and the data increase is minimal I went for the free credit. I’m sure sometime next year their will be a data boost again, maybe then I’ll bite.

So call up Fido and upgrade your plan for 25 dollars or have them remove the 7 dollar system access fee for nothing. I think you need to call them though, otherwise they will probably just keep charging you the 7 dollar fee.

I’m wondering if these new changes are in response to the new National carrier Globalive which should be on the scene here in Canada sometime next year. There are also a lot of Virgin Mobile advertisements around Toronto attacking system access fees. Whatever it is, I’ll take the savings and increased features anyway I can get them.

I of course jumped on the iPhone bandwagon, but before I did I spent a lot of time researching many of the smartphones out there. At the time just before the second iPhone was launched there were a lot of great smartphones on the way, but none were out yet. Now that the iPhone has been out for a few months a lot of new devices have emerged. One of the reasons I bought the iPhone was because Apple was ahead of the curve, now a lot of the other manufacturers have similar offerings, but are any of them really iPhone killers? I decided to do a quick smartphone round up to see what’s currently out there.

Android is the newest cool kid in town

Of course you can’t talk about smartphones without talking about Android and their new G1 offered by T-Mobile in the US. This phone by HTC came out a couple of weeks ago, but even before a phone was announced, the Android platform had huge buzz in the blogsphere and tech news sites. I wrote about it several times and was pretty hyped about it myself when I wrote Android Android Android! everyone’s talking about Android and I still am pretty buzzed about it.

Android promises a lot of innovation and is really shaking up the industry. First it’s open source, which means anyone can play with the innards of the code. Up until now this was practically unheard of, and this could be the end of locked down phones, which I think is great. I can do what I want with my computer, I should be able to do the same with my smartphone, which is basically a portable mini computer. This is one flaw with Apple’s phone, without special applications I can’t even treat this phone as a storage device or copy my music on to different computers. The Open Handset Alliance is another great by product of Google Android.

Everything I have read about the G1 says that it is no iPhone killer, but there is massive potential and that this is just the start. Google is on to something here, and one of these days there may be a Google phone that is an iPhone killer. Remember this is Googles first phone.

See Engadget’s review on the G1

Blackberry Bold and Storm

Research In Motion is one of the big players and has been around for a long time. The big toys from RIM this year are the Bold and the Storm. If any phone could have swayed me from my iPhone purchase it would have been one of these. In the end I’m glad I went for the iPhone because the Bold does lean towards business users, and the Storm is taking forever to come out.

The Bold is the newest and greatest Blackberry in town, with a higher resolution than the iPhone but smaller screen this thing is crystal sharp. I have played with it once and it is pretty clear, but you have to wonder what the point of such high resolution is with such a small screen? It’s a nice phone, but it still feels a bit flimsy, I’m not a fan of how easily the Blackberries tend to scratch, but with that said if I had to pick a second best phone, I would probably go with a Blackberry.

The Blackberry Storm may be a different story, this is RIM’s attempt at the consumer market and is a direct competitor to the iPhone. It has what RIM calls “tactile-touch” which is basically a spring loaded screen. You basically have to push all the way down to hit a key, which sounds pretty cool. I’m used to not having to push down, so it might be hard to get used too. So far I have read that the new touch screen is awesome, to not so great, so only time will tell. I think what you are used to will have a lot to do with how much you like the screen. Blackberry is late to the game and a lot of people who use touch screens have gotten used to how they work now, but this may appeal to the users who have not switched to a touchscreen yet.

You can find first impression reviews at Gizmodo and Engadget along with a gallery of PowerPoint slides on The Boy Genius Report.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1

Sony’s EXPERIA X1 has been rumoured and talked about so long that I almost forgot about it. Its already available in some places, but still pretty hard to find.

This is a pretty sweet looking phone, but I’ve read a lot of good and bad about it. First it’s Windows Mobile, so depending on how you feel about Windows Mobile, your decision may be already made. There have also been claims of slow response on the touch screen and that the keyboard keys do not provide enough tactile feedback. Either way, I don’t think this phone will be viable until it’s on major carriers. Rumours are that it will be available on AT&T at some point.

Unboxing of XPERIA X1 and some nice high resolution shots and a very early review at The Boy Genuis Report.

HTC and a world of cool smartphones

HTC has so many cool phones it’s hard to mention them all. They build the G1 Android phone and had a hand in the XPERIA X1. They also released the Touch Diamond this year, and the Touch Pro will be out soon. There is also the really cool HTC Touch HD which unfortunately will not be showing up in North America, but it has been called an iPhone killer.

HTC definitely makes a whole lot of cool phones, and I’m sure we will be seeing Google’s Android on a lot more HTC phones.

Nokia

Nokia is huge in a lot of the world, but not so much here in North America. That may all change if they start bringing out slick phones like the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. It comes with a stylus so you can write out your messages, so if a stylus is your thing, then the XpressMusic might be for you.

Engadget has a hands on review.

Samsung instinct

Samsung has also jumped onto the touch screen smart phone bandwagon, the big one this year was the Samsung Instinct. I’m a huge fan of Samsung products, especially their LCD displays, but for some reason their phones just don’t do it for me. The instinct did perk my interest, but then the reviews came out and laid my anticipation to rest. The Omnia on the other hand seems to score a bit higher, but it’s a windows mobile device and it doesn’t have the prettiest interface. Samsung is also a member of the Open Handset Alliance, so we may see a Google Android phone from them in the future; fingers crossed.

Openmoko, truly open

Although a much smaller player in the smartphone field we cannot forget Openmoko, the truly open source smartphone platform and the device it runs on, Neo FreeRunner. I have been keeping an eye on Openmoko for many of the same reasons I watch Google’s Android platform. I believe in the concept behind these platforms, but Openmoko steps it up a notch, this is a truly open source project, everything from the OS to the phone itself; even the CAD files can be downloaded so you can modify the actual phone itself. Openmoko is definitely a hardcore computer geeks dream.

More information can be found on the wiki entry for Openmoko. The phone can be purchased at the official Openmoko website, and you can also visit the Openmoko wiki website which has much more information.

Apple iPhone, the darling of touch smartphones

And of course this roundup wouldn’t be complete without the iPhone. Apple has lead the way here the same way they lead the way for mp3 players. Whether you love or hate Apple there is no denying that they are market leaders in innovation and have consistently upped the bar delivering a compelling product that’s hard to beat. Almost every review I have read on smartphones uses the iPhone as a measure of quality. You always hear references to Apple’s iPhone or “the iPhone Killer” catch phrase.

That doesn’t mean the iPhone has no flaws, one of the most mentioned features that is missing is “copy and paste” functionality. I don’t know if Apple will ever add this, but it’s a much needed and requested feature, especially for sending web addresses to people in applications such as Twitterific. There is an option to email someone a link from Safari, but copy and paste would be a lot more useful. Another thing that needs fixing is the browser, although it’s a fantastic mini browser, possibly even the best, it does tend to crash an awful lot, at least for me. That said, I am more than happy with my iPhone and it really is the best device I have bought in years. Many of the games are simple but very addictive, just what you want on a small device like this and there is a constant stream of new applications every day. When I was showing my phone to someone once they asked “is there anything it can’t do?”, well yes, it won’t do your laundry yet.

An amazing year for gadgets

It really has been a great year for great gadgets and smartphones in particular. I can’t help but get excited about 2009′s lineup. Where will Apple be this time next year, and the one I’m really keeping an eye on is Google’s Android. It will also be interesting to see how the Blackberry vs Apple battle turns out, I personally think Android is more of a threat than the Blackberry. The Blackberry has a strong loyal consumer base and owns the business sector. They are also making their phones pretty, because lets face it, even business men and women want to have a cool cell phone.

For the third iPhone next year I’m predicting a higher resolution, better GPS and a better camera as obvious places to work on. I hope all the other smartphones have surprises up their sleeves also. 2008 was an amazing year, lets hope 2009 is even more ground breaking.

Tonight I played Space Monkey for the first time for about 30 minutes and I must say this is a really fun iPhone game. It’s a unique take on the puzzle genre and the graphics are good, the sound is great, and right now the price can’t be beat, it’s free for a limited time. Get Space Monkey right now while you can and check out the screenshots below (Spoiler, I show one of the bosses).

Hot on the heals of the Google Android phone will be the new Blackberry Storm which is a direct competitor to the iPhone. It has a soft touchscreen with built-in tactile feedback. I can’t help but wonder how scratch resistant this will be; I have a Nintendo DS which is a soft touch screen and it is very scratched up. I really wouldn’t want this to be the case for a phone that goes in your pocket for most of the day. The iPhone screen is extremely scratch resistance, so this could be a show stopper for some people but we’ll have to wait and see. The release dates around the Storm are a bit cloudy as Verizon seems to be playing games with everyone. Today many blogs linked to Verizon’s Storm announcement page which was then removed.

Exciting times in deed, although the Android OS has my attention more than any of the phones themselves. Another interesting tidbit was in London today when one of the Android guys was asked if it could run on other devices he replied “why not?”.

Today I caved and bought Spore for my iPhone. I almost didn’t want to, given the outrage over the PC version of Spore and it’s draconian DRM protection, it’s just unacceptable and that’s no way to treat your paying customers. Again the legitimate users lose and the pirates get a DRM free version. Anyway, back to Spore for the iPhone.

So far I probably haven’t clocked over an hour of gameplay, but I did manage to take some screenshots. So far I really like it and it really is nice eye candy for your phone or touch. The game uses the iPhone/iTouch accelerometer for gameplay, and touch for editing your creature. To move, you basically tilt the device in four directions and try to eat anything smaller than you and avoid life forms larger than you. In the creation mode you squish and mold your creature along with sticking on appendages as you evolve.

This is the creation screen, you can squish and squeeze your little creature or you can just click the dice for a random one. When you touch your creature he/she will make funny little noises. 

This was hard to get a screenshot of since you have to be touching your creature and taking the shot at the same time. When you touch it you can see the vertebrae inside, a nice touch. 

As you progress new appendages will be unlocked. Here I have added two big spikes, you can add these anywhere on your creature. 

These guys will expode when you spike them, the explosion can hurt you, but if you swim away sometimes edible baby creatures smaller than you will be released when the bigger creature explodes. 

Above you can see a purple creature with it’s one big eye closed. This is an enemy. 

Quick run away, these are the guys you don’t want eating you.

This is zigging when you should have zagged. It happened quite a lot after passing the first couple of levels. 

The graphics throughout the game are pretty incredible, especially when seen them on the iPhone/iTouch screen. The animation is fantastic and the still shots really do lose some of the beauty that is Spore. The colours are also very vivid.

Even the loading screens look great. 

Final verdict

Having only played the iPhone version of Spore for an hour I may not be the best judge, but for ten dollars you can’t really can’t go wrong. It’s a bright colourful game, and it’s bound to give you at least a few hours of fun at the very least. I think it’s worth it on art direction alone, it’s very cool to see these little creatures swimming around on your iPhone.