Apple has been making last-minute changes to its App Store and iBookstore leading up to the April 3 launch of the iPad, according to a new report.

Filed under: Rumors, Mac Pro

ZDNet is reporting that the next iteration of the Mac Pro will be unveiled next Tuesday, March 16th. Their sources indicate that Intel’s new ‘hexacore’ Core i7-980x chip, which is also expected to be launched next Tuesday, will be in that machine.

Code-named “Gulftown” the 32nm, six-core i7-980X will be labeled as the i7x (”Extreme Edition”). It will be the first dual-socket, six-core processor from Intel. With 6 cores and 12 threads, a dual-configured, i7-980X Mac Pro will sport 12 physical cores and 24 logical cores with a top frequency of 3.33GHz.

Excluding the minor speed bump in December, the Mac Pro has not been updated for over a year. In December we reported on the leaked Core i7-980X specs. Two months later, HardMac reported that the new i7x Mac Pros could be delivered in February. With the launch of the i7-980X on Tuesday combined with HardMac’s sources indicating a Mac Pro refresh that day as well, the i7x seems like a lock for the updated Mac Pro. However, as MacRumors points out, Apple has typically used server-branded Xeon chips in its Mac Pro line, and Intel is expected to debut a number of new Xeon 5600-series chips on Tuesday as well, notably Intel’s 2010 flagship chip - the Xeon X5680.

TUAWMac Pro ‘hexacore’ Xeon Core i7 debutes Tuesday? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon signed a four-year exclusive contract with the NFL which effectively locks out iPad/iPhone customers, at least those on AT&T anyway.

Worldwide smartphone shipments stormed back last quarter with 37.2 percent in growth, and Apple’s iPhone led the way with a 97.9 percent year-over-year surge in shipments. But the real coming battle in the mobile market, according to one analyst, lies between Microsoft and Google.

AppleInsider reports that it has received information from sources claiming that iPhone OS 4.0, likely scheduled for release later this year alongside new handset models, will support multitasking by allo…

Small Dog offers data transfer services from any previous computer, including machines running older versions of Mac OS (even the classic Mac OS) and most any flavor of Windows. Last week I completed a tricky transfer from an iBook G3 that resulted in a MacBook Pro that booted to the Setup Assistant no matter how many times the assistant was completed. I was shocked by this, having never seen anything like it before.

The first step I took was to create a throw-away user account with the Setup Assistant. After completing the assistant, I went into the Accounts preference pane and selected Automatic login to this new account. A restart revealed this trick didn’t work—it seemed too easy to be a fix, anyway.

I restarted into single user mode by holding down Command-S immediately after the startup chime and removed the .AppleSetupDone file from /var/db. I knew that I’d have to create yet another throw-away account, but after a restart, the problem persisted.

At this point I chose to bomb the problem by reinstalling the operating system from the system disks that came with the new machine. I chose the Archive and Install option, which is nondestructive in that user files and applications are unaffected; only the core system files are replaced with this option. The bombs weren’t big enough.

At a loss, I resigned to wipe the machine clean and re-migrate the user’s data from the iBook. The faithful old hard drive did complain a bit when I put it into Target Disk mode and began the migration, but it held out through the entire transfer. I chose to migrate everything from the iBook user data, preferences and applications. I rebooted afterwards only to see the same behavior. Defeated and worried that the iBook hard drive wouldn’t survive another migration, I backed up the new MacBook Pro and did an Erase and Install.

This time I opted only to transfer the user account from the backup, not any system files, preferences or settings. Thankfully, the computer booted properly into the user account, but our customer had to reinstall some of his applications from the original disks.

After all that, I honestly can’t say what was causing the issue. Both the customer and I are happy with the results, though it bugs me that I couldn’t figure out why this was happening. Tech Tails readers will certainly be the first to hear the solution if I find one down the road!

Filed under: Freeware, iPhone, iPod touch, App Review

Poynt has come to the iPhone, after having been a very popular free app on BlackBerry phones. Poynt provides local searches of individuals and businesses. It also shares a database with Open Table, so you can use it to make reservations at restaurants. Unlike the BlackBerry app, it has augmented reality, but is missing some features beloved by the Blackberry crowd.

Like some of the other iPhone search apps, you can enter the name of a business, and get a phone number, links to a website (if there is one), a mapped location, or directions. If you use the theater search, you’ll find nearby movie houses. You can also search by movie genres, or get a list of the top 10 box office films. You can’t buy tickets, but you can stream trailers.

When you search for restaurants, you get similar results to those of the business search. Results include phone numbers, restaurant websites, maps, and directions. You can also narrow your search by cuisine, or by distance.For any business, you can save the information to your contact list, which is a nice feature.

If you turn your phone to landscape mode, you get either a map, or you can select the augmented reality view. I don’t think that view adds much to the program. You can see a business name floating on the screen, and click for information. You won’t get a distance to the destination in AR mode, just a little floating label. Basically, it’s a yawner.

What’s most frustrating about this app is the inconsistency of the way information is presented. When you search for restaurants, you are presented with a nice list that lets you choose the type of cuisine, but when you are searching for businesses there is no list. You have to type a name of the place you are looking for, or manually type something like supermarket. It’s not exactly a time-saver, and that’s just what you want from an app like this. It needs to be quick and easy.

Now for the omissions. The BlackBerry version gives you an up to date gas price directory based on your location. The iPhone version? Zip. The developers say it will be in a future update.

At the end of the day, Poynt has promise, the price is right, and it is somewhat useful. It doesn’t break any ground over other similar apps like Around Me or Where To?, which are better organized and easier to use. We’ll keep an eye on Poynt and see how it evolves, but at this ‘Poynt’, even for free, it’s not going to become your favorite app.

Poynt runs on the iPhone or iPod touch, and requires Phone OS 3.1.2 or greater.

TUAWPoynt for iPhone is a mixed bag originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple this summer will go a long way towards silencing critics and catering to one of the most prevalent demands of its iPhone user base, when it introduces a multitasking solution through the handset’s 4.0 software update that will finally allow several third party apps to run concurrently and in the background.

Filed under: Gaming, Developer, iPhone, App Store

For the first panel of day two here at the 2010 Game Developers Conference’s iPhone gaming track, Oliver Miao of Centerscore Studios took the stage to talk about working on Surviving High School for the iPhone as a part of Electronic Arts’ Mobile division. As Miao made clear early on, he’s an “insider outsider” at EA: his company was started with a few friends, purchased by Vivendi in 2006, created a hit mobile game called Surviving High School in 2007, and was bought by EA in 2008. Last year, they were commissioned to recreate their game for the iPhone. In one of the most interesting iPhone panels at the conference yet, he talked about the ins and outs of working with EA on an iPhone title, and explained both, what it was like to work with the company, and his own philosophies on game design, especially concerning in-app purchases and microtransactions.

Most users seem to believe that microtransactions and episodic content are, at the very least, a pain to deal with (and are, at worst, a scam), but Miao is convinced that they’re actually necessary to having a successful game — he said that every developer, going forward, “will need to have them.” Read on to find out why.

Miao told the story of creating the game for the iPhone — early last year, EA Mobile came to Centerscore and asked for an iPhone version of their game, and asked that it be done quickly and cheaply. Quickly because, as Miao explained, EA is very intent on seizing new technologies fast. iPhone OS 3 had just been announced, and EA wanted a game with microtransactions to go up on the App Store quickly. And cheaply because Miao says both EA and Centerscore were worried that if production costs ran high, the game would need a higher price than just 99 cents, and wouldn’t sell at all. So they had just a few months to put a successful microtransaction model together on a platform that they weren’t sure their audience (teenagers using mobile phones) was even using.

The first model they came up with was a kind of virtual currency for the game, in which you’d spend real money on ingame coins that you could then spend on more content. But virtual currency isn’t technically allowed in the App Store (even though some developers do it anyway), and EA didn’t want to shake the boat with Apple. Miao says he was surprised by that — he thought that EA, as a big company, could get away with whatever they want, but instead he found that the opposite was true: they had to follow the rules even more closely, since one game could upset the entire relationship with Apple.

So the next plan was to follow the Pocket God model, says Miao. His team noticed that the reviews on Pocket God loved the free weekly content, so his studio thought they’d develop weekly content for free, and then create exclusive content to sell separately as microtransactions. EA rejected that idea in a greenlight meeting, however — they said that no, the studio couldn’t give away free content that it could be charging money for.

The next idea they came up with was timed content — they would give away that week’s content, and if the player wanted any old content, they’d have to pay to catch up. But this model was rejected as well, and at the same time, development on the game wasn’t coming along correctly — EA executives visited to play the game, said the quality wasn’t up to snuff, and threatened to end the project. Miao says this was surprising: it showed that not only is EA very interested in the quality of their games (despite doubts of some), but that they are very agile when it comes to dropping projects and distributing the resources elsewhere. Even if a game is almost done, if EA doesn’t like it, they’ll cancel and move on without a second thought.

So the studio went back to the drawing board for a ten day push last summer, and when they were done, they re-pitched the “timed content” idea, this time stating that the weekly content was actually “promotional,” and offering up microtransactions both for past weeks’ content and next week’s content as well. Additionally, they emphasized hitting the top 50 paid apps as a goal, and this time EA approved them.

Miao says that he found EA’s approach to microtransactions very interesting — the executives he worked with, he says, firmly held the belief that microtransactions should be for extra content, not content that you originally planned with the game. In other words, you don’t sell levels that should be released with the game via in-app purchases — you make a solid game experience, and then make more levels after release to sell via microtransaction. If customers pay you more money, you give them extra content, not content that was in the original game plan. Interesting take.

Surviving High School for the iPhone released last November, and while the game floundered at first (causing anxiety at the studio), a listing in the “What’s New” section of iTunes catapulted them out from obscurity and into the charts. Miao shared a few lessons from their sales. He says that the “TV model” they came up with worked: you can sell a game based on episodic content and charge money for the old episodes. He also says that ratings matter a lot — the game had one bug that caused their iTunes ratings to drop (even though people liked the game), and that directly affected sales. Once the bug was fixed, the ratings rose back up, and sales followed.

And Miao had some interesting thoughts on microtransactions, too. He said that microtransactions actually drove sales peaks — when new content is added to the game every week, the team sees a spike in both sales and in the chart listings on the App Store. He says that microtransaction revenue definitely translates to where a game is listed on the Top Grossing chart, and that directly moves games into the Top Paid chart, both of which drive sales directly. In other words, Miao believes that a successful paid game on the App Store must have microtransactions to stay successful. “With no microtransactions,” he said, “your app will be at a disadvantage.”

It was a pretty fascinating conclusion for those of us who have been watching the App Store from day one, and Miao’s experience with EA Mobile showed a few good insights about how that big game developer thinks and works. Even he said he didn’t agree with everything they did — as “a startup guy,” he says “it was often a pain” to deal with some of their rules and procedures. But big companies are trying to figure out the iPhone platform just like everyone else, in their own way.

TUAWGDC 2010: How to develop an app with EA Mobile originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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