Alot of big game companies have been whining and complaining about the rise in game rentals and used game sales over the past few years. They've been worried about piracy for much longer. All of these problems are directly related to the overinflated pricing of the average videogame.
Now I've been making this argument for over 10 years now, but apparently it's time to go over it again. All these problems are never going to go away as long as the industry keeps trying to treat the symptoms rather than eliminate the causes.
There are many reasons why people don't buy brand new games, whether it be way of buying used, borrowing from a friend, renting or piracy. In this post I'm going to focus on pricing, but some other reasons are poor quality, or perceived questionable quality. By that last bit, I mean how many gamers don't really know whether a game is good or not and don't want to risk their hard earned cash on it unless they know it's good beforehand. Besides the obvious solution of focusing more on quality (aka fun), offering free demos would easily alleviate the fear of buying a game that sucks. That being said, most demos I've played in the last couple years barely even give you a whole level to explore, so the gamer still isn't sure if they like your game or not even after playing your pathetic excuse for a demo.
So onto the easiest, quickest way to work on a solution: pricing. To put it frankly, videogames cost too much. Sure, there are a hundred and one excuses as to why they cost so much, but just like your business gamers only care about the bottom line. $50 is too much for a game, and $60 is absolutely too much for a game. The game industry loves to brag and boast at how much gross revenue they are bringing in in comparison to the music and movie industries; however, if you look at the actual number of products sold it still pales in comparison.
This summer the movie industry was disappointed in the new X-Files movie's opening box office sales of only $10.2 million in its opening weekend (just as a note, I'm not picking on the X-Files for any reason other than it was the first result for 'poor box office'). So, to do some quick anecdotal math...if each ticket was sold for $10 (which in my town they're more close to $7) then that means over a million tickets were sold. And that's just the opening weekend, I would say it's safe to assume that they continued to sell more after the opening weekend, and when it comes out on video a few more million will be sold. Now, in the movie industry this is considered to be so-so, or maybe even a failure; however, if a game was to sell a million copies or more it would be considered a blockbuster!
Whether we like to admit it or not, gaming has still yet to become mainstream, and I'd wager the number one reason is price. The rising budgets of $5-10 million for a AAA game's production are given as the primary reason the average Xbox360 and PS3 game cost $60. According to Wikipedia the X-Files movie mentioned before had a budget of $30,000,000. That would be an outrageous budget for a game, but the industry still wants to play the numbers like they're more successful than the film industry. Now also, the Wikipedia article claims the movie has grossed over $65 million so far simply from box office. So how come this supposed flop has been seen by over 6.5 million people before it has even been released to video...while one of the industry's most popular games of recent, Halo 3, has just only sold a little over 8 million copies? Seriously, there are over 6.7 billion people on this planet, yet only 1 in a 1000 people have played one of the most popular games ever (now of course to be fair over half of that figure comes from areas that couldn't ever afford to be gamers).
Now I'm not an expert in economics, but the basic principals of supply and demand are not hard to grasp. If you want to expand your user base, lower your price. Keep lowering it gradually over time until the market is saturated. With the enormous popularity of DVDs in the past decade, the movie industry seemed to have found a sweet spot of $20. At that price point many people felt comfortable enough to buy movies they had only seen trailers of or their friends had told them were good. People are much more willing to take a gamble of potentially buying a bad movie when there's only $20 at risk. However, with the average next-gen game costing three times that people are going to be 3 times more choosy. It has been suggested that the average gamer will spend $1000 per year on gaming (including consoles and peripherals), however keep in mind that is most likely for hard-core gamers which are still at the end of the day a niche market. I'd bet that for ever 1 gamer you can walk into the living room of and find a big rack of games, there are 10 if not 100 people where you will find a similar rack of DVD movies. Once again, I blame this on cost of entry. Blu-ray players have still yet to take off at prices of $200+ and it will probably not be until you can buy one for $100 that the average American will finally buy one. Now in game consoles, during the 8-bit through 32-bit generations all the consoles eventually dropped to $100 price point or less, but the original Xbox and PS2 have still yet to hit that price and probably never will. Not only do individual game prices need to drop, but so do the consoles that play them. The market has also shown that people do not want to have to choose between competing formats. HD-DVD and Beta both held back the home video industry until a clear winner was picked. Now I may be personally biased...but I see the only solution to the problem be an open standard for game consoles, but my experience in recent years has show that the industry is far from ready to accept this.
So, which would a game developer prefer? Sell 3 million copies at $60 ($180M gross) or 30 million at $20 ($600M). I think the benefits are obvious right there..but now, lets get back to the original topic: used game sales. If a gamer can buy a used copy of a game for $30-45 rather than $60 for a new copy, of course they're going to at the very least consider it. However, if your brand new game is sold at $20, why would anyone in their right mind want to buy a used copy for $15? If the game industry is tired of Game Stop and the like selling their games at these reduced prices, then they are going to have to reduce their own prices to compete.
Not only would this thwart the proliferation of used game resellers, this would also deter rentals and piracy. Once again, you ask a pirate why they don't buy games very often and I can guarantee you one of their reasons will be the cost is too high. Things like DRM and one time use DLC only attempt to block these people's attempts, but does nothing to stop their motives. In fact it actually drives many gamers who might normally buy your game to download a pirated copy instead. Just look at the backlash to many recent EA PC releases.
Now the flip side of the coin is how to accomplish such a massive price drop. Sadly, if you drop your AAA titles to launch at a $20-30 price point quite a few people will see it as a sign your game is not very good. At first the only safe way to do this would be with big name franchises which are guaranteed to sell, like a Madden or a Halo or GTA. New franchises could easily be hurt during this transition. Also, if one company decided to go this route while their competitors stuck with the old pricing, once again human psychology would put you at an unfavorable place, with people almost always assuming the worst. You can't come to an agreement with your competitors to all drop your prices at the same time, or else you might get in trouble for some sort of price-fixing or something. So the only way for this to really happen is slowly, and with big name titles. Of course, this has been tried before to some extent, a few years back many PC games were sold at almost half the price of their console counterparts, but it couldn't stop the fact that hardcore gaming was dying in that market regardless..or perhaps it was just too little too late. Sega tried selling it's NFL 2K5 at $20 to better compete with Madden, but then EA bought exclusive rights to all NFL games so that killed that little experiment as well.
Honestly the best place to try out a new pricing level is in the online sales arena (ala Xbox Marketplace, Steam or even the iPhone App Store). However, this still has the problem that to make money at this lower price point we need many many more consoles in potential buyers hands first. So, this is a complicated and potentially dangerous concept at this point really...however, it's going to have to happen at some point if the game industry ever wants to become a truly mass market medium. The same goes for stopping used game sales from out numbering new game sales, which is going to eventually happen if it hasn't already with the current pricing schemes.
$20-30 games will hopefully eventually be the norm, but the entire industry will have to work together. The nice part is it's a win-win situation for both developers and gamers alike...it's just a matter of time.
2008-10-23
Upcoming Browser JavaScript Engine Benchmarks
I've seen lots of people recently saying that Firefox's TraceMonkey JavaScript engine blows Google's V8 out of the water...but was a little skeptical so I decided to do some benchmarks of my own. Now with any benchmark, everything here needs to be taken with a grain of salt as performance will certainly vary upon which sites you are viewing. For this test I have used WebKit's SunSpider. Also, since Chrome and Safari do not have native ports available on Linux right now, I had to do the test under Windows XP. The test machine is dual-core so multi-process/threaded apps should show a benefit, but I feel it's totally fair as single-core machines are quickly going the way of the dinosaur and do not accurately represent the future, which is what we're talking about here. Also as Chrome does not have a stable/final release yet, I've compared with many other browsers' development builds.
So let's get to some numbers. On my test machine Chrome completes the SunSpider test with a total time of 2423ms; pretty nice! Ok, now what about Firefox? The current release, 3.0.3 takes 4244ms. Well, what about the new beta for 3.1 that just came out? It scores at 3823ms. So, wait...that's not too terribly much faster than 3.0. Do we have TraceMonkey enabled? Nope. I don't know why, but the default build of FF3.1.beta1 comes with TraceMonkey disabled by default, so after enabling it the results jump down to 1654ms. Wow! That really is faster than Chrome. Ok, so how about "minefield" AKA the nightly trunk build of Firefox (FF-3.1.b2pre-20081023): 1567ms! So yes, yes indeed Firefox 3.1 and the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine are indeed faster than Chrome and it's V8 engine.
So what about the other guys? Well, first off let's try Safari which shares it's webkit rendering engine with Chrome. The current release, 3.1.2 scores at 4894ms. So how about the development build? With webkit-r37604 (and Safari/WebKit's new SquirrelFish JavaScript engine): it goes to 1664ms. That's faster than Chrome/V8 too, but not quite as fast as FF/TM.
Opera's latest release is 9.6, and I didn't manage to find a development build available for it's next version...probably because it's still proprietary unlike the open source competitors we've discussed so far. Opera scores 5979ms which is slower than both Safari and Firefox's current stable releases, but it's still much better off than Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer 7 scores an abysmal 90522ms. That makes it almost 58 times slower than Minefield. Microsoft, that's absolutely pathetic.I didn't get a chance to try out IE8, but from what I understand it's not much better off in the JavaScript department. See update below...
Here's a chart I threw together in OpenOffice of the results. I omitted IE7 because it was such a huge difference that it made it hard to tell the difference between all the others.
Lastly, just for fun I tested my iPhone and Mobile Safari (running firmware 2.0.2), it took 136081ms. But hey, for a device running an ARM @ 412Mhz with 128MB of RAM vs. a full fledged computer with a dual core processor, and a gig of ram...that's still got to be better than Internet Explorer 7 did. I wish I had a Windows Mobile device to test, and a Android/G1 too, but oh well.
So, yes, with TraceMonkey enabled...Firefox reclaims its place as the fastest browser, but Safari and Chrome certainly aren't too far behind either. With this extreme increase in JavaScript performance on it's way...maybe it's time to finally retire the old "web 2.0" buzzphrase and move onto Web 2.1
UPDATE:
Seems I owe Microsoft an apology for not benchmarking IE8 before. They really have made some progress. The following numbers can not be fairly compared with the above because it was ran inside a virtual machine with only access to a single core and half the RAM, but here they are. IE8-beta2 scored at 9542ms. But, for reference, in the same virtual environment Firefox "Minefield" was still able to pull off 1873ms. So, as while still no where near as fast as the other guys, IE8 is lightyears ahead of IE7 in its javascript performance.
So let's get to some numbers. On my test machine Chrome completes the SunSpider test with a total time of 2423ms; pretty nice! Ok, now what about Firefox? The current release, 3.0.3 takes 4244ms. Well, what about the new beta for 3.1 that just came out? It scores at 3823ms. So, wait...that's not too terribly much faster than 3.0. Do we have TraceMonkey enabled? Nope. I don't know why, but the default build of FF3.1.beta1 comes with TraceMonkey disabled by default, so after enabling it the results jump down to 1654ms. Wow! That really is faster than Chrome. Ok, so how about "minefield" AKA the nightly trunk build of Firefox (FF-3.1.b2pre-20081023): 1567ms! So yes, yes indeed Firefox 3.1 and the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine are indeed faster than Chrome and it's V8 engine.
So what about the other guys? Well, first off let's try Safari which shares it's webkit rendering engine with Chrome. The current release, 3.1.2 scores at 4894ms. So how about the development build? With webkit-r37604 (and Safari/WebKit's new SquirrelFish JavaScript engine): it goes to 1664ms. That's faster than Chrome/V8 too, but not quite as fast as FF/TM.
Opera's latest release is 9.6, and I didn't manage to find a development build available for it's next version...probably because it's still proprietary unlike the open source competitors we've discussed so far. Opera scores 5979ms which is slower than both Safari and Firefox's current stable releases, but it's still much better off than Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer 7 scores an abysmal 90522ms. That makes it almost 58 times slower than Minefield. Microsoft, that's absolutely pathetic.
Here's a chart I threw together in OpenOffice of the results. I omitted IE7 because it was such a huge difference that it made it hard to tell the difference between all the others.
Lastly, just for fun I tested my iPhone and Mobile Safari (running firmware 2.0.2), it took 136081ms. But hey, for a device running an ARM @ 412Mhz with 128MB of RAM vs. a full fledged computer with a dual core processor, and a gig of ram...that's still got to be better than Internet Explorer 7 did. I wish I had a Windows Mobile device to test, and a Android/G1 too, but oh well.
So, yes, with TraceMonkey enabled...Firefox reclaims its place as the fastest browser, but Safari and Chrome certainly aren't too far behind either. With this extreme increase in JavaScript performance on it's way...maybe it's time to finally retire the old "web 2.0" buzzphrase and move onto Web 2.1
UPDATE:
Seems I owe Microsoft an apology for not benchmarking IE8 before. They really have made some progress. The following numbers can not be fairly compared with the above because it was ran inside a virtual machine with only access to a single core and half the RAM, but here they are. IE8-beta2 scored at 9542ms. But, for reference, in the same virtual environment Firefox "Minefield" was still able to pull off 1873ms. So, as while still no where near as fast as the other guys, IE8 is lightyears ahead of IE7 in its javascript performance.
2008-08-12
Guide: How to install Quickbooks Enterprise 8.0 on Ubuntu 8.04.1
I recently had the "fun" of forcing Quickbooks Enterprise Server 8 onto an Ubuntu 8.04 server. Intuit only officially supports Fedora and OpenSUSE with thier RPM installer, so I had to work a little Alien magic and do quite a bit of hand editting, below you will find a guide of how to do this yourself. Do note, that a large portion of this guide is derived from an older one located at http://brousch.orthicomp.com/howto/qbent7-linux-server-ubuntu-dapper.html ...the rest comes from reading through the non-functional post install script inside the RPM.
1. Login as root (or you can use sudo on each command if you just really want to)
2. apt-get install alien rpm lsb lsb-rpm gamin
3. mkdir /var/lock/subsys
4. ls to directory containing RPM
5. alien qbdbm-VERSION.rpm (do not use the "--script" option, Will Fail)
6. dpkg -i qbdm-VERSION.deb (for some reason Alien will bump the last number)
7. add "daemon.* -/var/log/qbdbfilemon.log" to /etc/syslog.conf
8. touch /var/log/qbdbfilemon.log
9. /usr/lib/lsb/install_initd /etc/init.d/qbdbfilemon
10. /usr/lib/lsb/install_initd /etc/init.d/qbdbmgrn_18
11. addgroup quickbooks
12. Add users who will be accessing the samba share to the quickbooks group
- usermod -G quickbooks USERNAME
13. Create a directory that your quickbooks data will go in (referred to as PATH from here out)
14. chown:quickbooks PATH
15. chmod -R 770 PATH
16. If the path you just created is not already within a Samba shared directory, set it up as one.
17. Use your favorite text editor to edit /opt/qb/util/qbmonitord.conf
- Remove the default path and type in the new one you just created
- qbEnterprise does not scan for subdirectories, so if you have more than one directory each one will need to be added on seperate lines in qbmonitord.conf
18. /etc/init.d/qbmonitord start
19. /etc/init.d/sysklogd restart
Now the original guide I went by had a list of commands to create links for putting it into the startup of your system, but I believe the last two commands (taken from the install script) should take care of that for you. However, when I was setting this up, the first time I attempted using the script which failed out, but may have done this for me before failed. So, if it's still not working right after you finish my guide, try going back and doing this too.
- ln -s /etc/init.d/qbmonitord /etc/rc2.d/S85qbmonitord
- ln -s /etc/init.d/qbmonitord /etc/rc3.d/S85qbmonitord
- ln -s /etc/init.d/qbmonitord /etc/rc4.d/S85qbmonitord
- ln -s /etc/init.d/qbmonitord /etc/rc1.d/K15qbmonitord
- ln -s /etc/init.d/qbmonitord /etc/rc6.d/K15qbmonitord
For more info see the Linux Install Guide PDF that was included on the CD
If converting an old company file to Enterprise'08, you'll need to make the user you login to the samba share with during the upgrade, the owner of the .QBW, .QBW.ND and QBW.TLG files.
Hope this helps...and good luck!
UPDATE:
Make sure to also create "/var/lock/subsys/" and touch /var/lock/subsys/qbdbfilemon and /var/lock/subsys/qbdbmgrn_18 or you will get some weird errors with the file saying it's in use when it's really not!
1. Login as root (or you can use sudo on each command if you just really want to)
2. apt-get install alien rpm lsb lsb-rpm gamin
3. mkdir /var/lock/subsys
4. ls to directory containing RPM
5. alien qbdbm-VERSION.rpm (do not use the "--script" option, Will Fail)
6. dpkg -i qbdm-VERSION.deb (for some reason Alien will bump the last number)
7. add "daemon.* -/var/log/qbdbfilemon.log" to /etc/syslog.conf
8. touch /var/log/qbdbfilemon.log
9. /usr/lib/lsb/install_initd /etc/init.d/qbdbfilemon
10. /usr/lib/lsb/install_initd /etc/init.d/qbdbmgrn_18
11. addgroup quickbooks
12. Add users who will be accessing the samba share to the quickbooks group
- usermod -G quickbooks USERNAME
13. Create a directory that your quickbooks data will go in (referred to as PATH from here out)
14. chown
15. chmod -R 770 PATH
16. If the path you just created is not already within a Samba shared directory, set it up as one.
17. Use your favorite text editor to edit /opt/qb/util/qbmonitord.conf
- Remove the default path and type in the new one you just created
- qbEnterprise does not scan for subdirectories, so if you have more than one directory each one will need to be added on seperate lines in qbmonitord.conf
18. /etc/init.d/qbmonitord start
19. /etc/init.d/sysklogd restart
Now the original guide I went by had a list of commands to create links for putting it into the startup of your system, but I believe the last two commands (taken from the install script) should take care of that for you. However, when I was setting this up, the first time I attempted using the script which failed out, but may have done this for me before failed. So, if it's still not working right after you finish my guide, try going back and doing this too.
- ln -s /etc/init.d/qbmonitord /etc/rc2.d/S85qbmonitord
- ln -s /etc/init.d/qbmonitord /etc/rc3.d/S85qbmonitord
- ln -s /etc/init.d/qbmonitord /etc/rc4.d/S85qbmonitord
- ln -s /etc/init.d/qbmonitord /etc/rc1.d/K15qbmonitord
- ln -s /etc/init.d/qbmonitord /etc/rc6.d/K15qbmonitord
For more info see the Linux Install Guide PDF that was included on the CD
If converting an old company file to Enterprise'08, you'll need to make the user you login to the samba share with during the upgrade, the owner of the .QBW, .QBW.ND and QBW.TLG files.
Hope this helps...and good luck!
UPDATE:
Make sure to also create "/var/lock/subsys/" and touch /var/lock/subsys/qbdbfilemon and /var/lock/subsys/qbdbmgrn_18 or you will get some weird errors with the file saying it's in use when it's really not!
2008-08-08
My Next Smart Phone
So a lot of my recent posts have dealt with the iPhone...but that's probably because I've spent so much time with it this past month. As while I'm very glad I finally upgraded from my usual cheap/free basic phone (with no interwebs); things are still far from perfect...and I love redesigning/dreaming about all my gadgets and such.
So, it's late...and I should probably be in bed right now, so for both our sakes I'll try to not be as wordy as usual...well, at least from here on.
1. I want an open source OS, and I want to hack around on it without having to “jailbreak” it. I completely understand Apple's thinking and methodology with it's App Store...however, I should have the option of installing unapproved 3rd party apps (at my own risk of course). This also entails that I want access to a command line terminal and the ability to mount my phone's hard drive just like it were any other external usb drive. My next phone will quite definitely be running OpenMoko/Android/LiMo/OpenSymbian or something like that. To sum it up, I want to be able to do whatever the hell I want to with MY phone.
2. I want a true 16:9 screen....not 16:10, not 3:2... standard 16:9, with preferably 480p resolution and OLED rather than LCD.
3. This is obvious, but of course I want a more powerful CPU (dual-core would be awesome). I want a much more powerful GPU that can handle playing up to 720p video (Nvidia's new Tegra line claims it can already). More RAM, more hard drive space....you know, the usual ;)
4. A much much better camera. I've honestly never had a phone with a camera in it before. However, now that I have one....I want it to be at least as capable as my shitty 8+ year old digital camera (3.1MP). I'm talking at the bare minimum 5 megapixel, if not 10. I want all the settings, like apature and shutter speed. I need a manual focus option, white balance...the works. I need some sort of flash mechanism too. The iPhone's current camera has really shitty capability for taking low light shots. Furthermore, this camera needs to be capable of recording video, not just stills. My wife's 3 or 4 year old Razor can take video (albeit really shitty quality, but still video) why can't my frickin' iPhone? I'm hoping at least 480p resolution too. Zoom would be nice too, but I'll understand if it gets left out... Oh also, have some sort of lens cover built in for when I'm not taking photos (Nokia knows what's up).
5. A hand editable equalizer. Every set of headphones is different, I really need at least a 5 if not 7 level EQ that I can tweak to perfection rather than just a handful of presets. Side note: I haven't been able to figure out if the “iPod” app's EQ settings are system wide or are just for the iPod app. This is partially due to the fact that thru various setbacks I have still yet to getting around to jailbreaking my phone so I can transfer my music collection over (maybe it'll finally happen this weekend with Pwnage 2.0.2).
6. A more repairable design. Handling my iPhone is like handling a hand grenade everyday. I spent hundreds of dollars on this thing...and it could all be over with just one little accidental drop. I really wish I had the capability to replace my own battery or screen in the unfortunate case they were to break. Somehow I just know it that before my 2 year contract is up I'm gonna have to pay apple a hundred or two more to fix/replace mine when it breaks.
7. Here's a weird one... slightly bigger. Yes...I wish my iPhone was bigger. I've already discussed how and why I'd like it to be a little longer, but also a little bit thicker too I think. This would give room for a bigger battery most importantly, and as while I don't think it's current battery is nearly as bad as most make it out to be, it could always be bigger. I think because of it's size (and sheen) it just feels way to delicate for a klutz like me to be handling on a regular basis.
8. Stereo Bluetooth. I love my Smokin' Buds and all, but it'd be really cool to be totally wireless one day...too bad the current iPhones only support mono via Bluetooth :/
9. Front side web cam. Not only do I want the main camera on the back to be much better...I want a second one (like was rumored) on the front for video chat. I don't know about you, but I just think that would be awesome.
10. Use a standard USB port or something. It just irritates me that Apple has to have proprietary ports on their iPods and the iPhone. Why not just put a mini USB or Firewire port on there? Maybe it's just me, but I think it would awesome to be able to whip out a roll-up keyboard and start typing away (thus completely eliminating my need for a laptop altogether)...or even think about being able to plug your smart phone right up to a printer, ok perhaps that's just silly but maybe not, I should at least be able to print to a network printer that uses either Post Script or PCL. I don't know... perhaps Apple has good reason for using it's own port, maybe it can handle more bandwidth and or voltage that USB 2.0 or something. I mean, a simple converter dongle could get the job done right now...I'm just thinking what's the point.
11. Use more of a matte finish. Honestly, the shiny look of the iPhone is great for press pictures and whatnot, but it just ends up in smudge city at the end of the day. I really wish companies would go for some sort of rugged rubber or something rather than the shiny, brittle plastic. Obviously the glass on the front would have to be glossy...but why the rest of the phone? I've already noticed the cheap chrome plating around the edge chipping and getting rough in not even a month of usage so far.
That's about it. An hour later now, it looks like I failed on the whole keeping it simple concept. Honestly, number 1 and 4 are the only ones I really really need...but they'd all be nice ;)
So, it's late...and I should probably be in bed right now, so for both our sakes I'll try to not be as wordy as usual...well, at least from here on.
1. I want an open source OS, and I want to hack around on it without having to “jailbreak” it. I completely understand Apple's thinking and methodology with it's App Store...however, I should have the option of installing unapproved 3rd party apps (at my own risk of course). This also entails that I want access to a command line terminal and the ability to mount my phone's hard drive just like it were any other external usb drive. My next phone will quite definitely be running OpenMoko/Android/LiMo/OpenSymbian or something like that. To sum it up, I want to be able to do whatever the hell I want to with MY phone.
2. I want a true 16:9 screen....not 16:10, not 3:2... standard 16:9, with preferably 480p resolution and OLED rather than LCD.
3. This is obvious, but of course I want a more powerful CPU (dual-core would be awesome). I want a much more powerful GPU that can handle playing up to 720p video (Nvidia's new Tegra line claims it can already). More RAM, more hard drive space....you know, the usual ;)
4. A much much better camera. I've honestly never had a phone with a camera in it before. However, now that I have one....I want it to be at least as capable as my shitty 8+ year old digital camera (3.1MP). I'm talking at the bare minimum 5 megapixel, if not 10. I want all the settings, like apature and shutter speed. I need a manual focus option, white balance...the works. I need some sort of flash mechanism too. The iPhone's current camera has really shitty capability for taking low light shots. Furthermore, this camera needs to be capable of recording video, not just stills. My wife's 3 or 4 year old Razor can take video (albeit really shitty quality, but still video) why can't my frickin' iPhone? I'm hoping at least 480p resolution too. Zoom would be nice too, but I'll understand if it gets left out... Oh also, have some sort of lens cover built in for when I'm not taking photos (Nokia knows what's up).
5. A hand editable equalizer. Every set of headphones is different, I really need at least a 5 if not 7 level EQ that I can tweak to perfection rather than just a handful of presets. Side note: I haven't been able to figure out if the “iPod” app's EQ settings are system wide or are just for the iPod app. This is partially due to the fact that thru various setbacks I have still yet to getting around to jailbreaking my phone so I can transfer my music collection over (maybe it'll finally happen this weekend with Pwnage 2.0.2).
6. A more repairable design. Handling my iPhone is like handling a hand grenade everyday. I spent hundreds of dollars on this thing...and it could all be over with just one little accidental drop. I really wish I had the capability to replace my own battery or screen in the unfortunate case they were to break. Somehow I just know it that before my 2 year contract is up I'm gonna have to pay apple a hundred or two more to fix/replace mine when it breaks.
7. Here's a weird one... slightly bigger. Yes...I wish my iPhone was bigger. I've already discussed how and why I'd like it to be a little longer, but also a little bit thicker too I think. This would give room for a bigger battery most importantly, and as while I don't think it's current battery is nearly as bad as most make it out to be, it could always be bigger. I think because of it's size (and sheen) it just feels way to delicate for a klutz like me to be handling on a regular basis.
8. Stereo Bluetooth. I love my Smokin' Buds and all, but it'd be really cool to be totally wireless one day...too bad the current iPhones only support mono via Bluetooth :/
9. Front side web cam. Not only do I want the main camera on the back to be much better...I want a second one (like was rumored) on the front for video chat. I don't know about you, but I just think that would be awesome.
10. Use a standard USB port or something. It just irritates me that Apple has to have proprietary ports on their iPods and the iPhone. Why not just put a mini USB or Firewire port on there? Maybe it's just me, but I think it would awesome to be able to whip out a roll-up keyboard and start typing away (thus completely eliminating my need for a laptop altogether)...or even think about being able to plug your smart phone right up to a printer, ok perhaps that's just silly but maybe not, I should at least be able to print to a network printer that uses either Post Script or PCL. I don't know... perhaps Apple has good reason for using it's own port, maybe it can handle more bandwidth and or voltage that USB 2.0 or something. I mean, a simple converter dongle could get the job done right now...I'm just thinking what's the point.
11. Use more of a matte finish. Honestly, the shiny look of the iPhone is great for press pictures and whatnot, but it just ends up in smudge city at the end of the day. I really wish companies would go for some sort of rugged rubber or something rather than the shiny, brittle plastic. Obviously the glass on the front would have to be glossy...but why the rest of the phone? I've already noticed the cheap chrome plating around the edge chipping and getting rough in not even a month of usage so far.
That's about it. An hour later now, it looks like I failed on the whole keeping it simple concept. Honestly, number 1 and 4 are the only ones I really really need...but they'd all be nice ;)
2008-07-20
Why isn't the iPhone's screen 16:9?
So, like many of you... I've been obsessed with my new iPhone this past week. I have grown curious as to why its designers decided to use the screen it did. The more I think about it, the more it would have made sense to go with a 16:9 ratio screen. I don't know what possessed them to go with a 3:2. This device is supposed to become my premier place for viewing mobile video...wouldn't it make sense to use the standard aspect ratio for all things video today?
I've done the math (hopefully it's right) and if we keep the same width, the length only grows by about half an inch (approx. 1.3 cm), which I'd be more than fine with myself, and probably everyone else too I'd imagine. I've made a quick little graphic to give you a better idea of what I'm talking about here.
Now this makes the screen 4.1 inches rather than the 3.5 it currently is, or just about the same size as the PSP's screen. Assuming they were to keep a similar resolution, it would go from 480 x 320 to 569 x 320 I guess. The 569 sounds a little awkward to me, so I bet they'd probably shift it up or down by 1 pixel. Then again, if a higher resolution puts a strain on their hardware this might make them want to drop the resolution to what the PSP uses (480 x 270). What I'd really love to see is for them to bump it up to EDTV resolution (aka 480p-wide, or 854 x 480). Honestly, I can't see any self-respecting portable media player that has a resolution less than this. Maybe Apple will go this route with their next generation...but by then, I'll probably have moved onto something powered by OpenMoko/Android/LiMo/MobLin/OpenSymbian/etc ;)
PS: Haven't gotten around to jailbreaking my iPhone3G just yet, hopefully all will go well tonight...
I've done the math (hopefully it's right) and if we keep the same width, the length only grows by about half an inch (approx. 1.3 cm), which I'd be more than fine with myself, and probably everyone else too I'd imagine. I've made a quick little graphic to give you a better idea of what I'm talking about here.
Now this makes the screen 4.1 inches rather than the 3.5 it currently is, or just about the same size as the PSP's screen. Assuming they were to keep a similar resolution, it would go from 480 x 320 to 569 x 320 I guess. The 569 sounds a little awkward to me, so I bet they'd probably shift it up or down by 1 pixel. Then again, if a higher resolution puts a strain on their hardware this might make them want to drop the resolution to what the PSP uses (480 x 270). What I'd really love to see is for them to bump it up to EDTV resolution (aka 480p-wide, or 854 x 480). Honestly, I can't see any self-respecting portable media player that has a resolution less than this. Maybe Apple will go this route with their next generation...but by then, I'll probably have moved onto something powered by OpenMoko/Android/LiMo/MobLin/OpenSymbian/etc ;)
PS: Haven't gotten around to jailbreaking my iPhone3G just yet, hopefully all will go well tonight...
2008-07-18
Pandora iPhone Update
Well, after reading this article and a few others tonight...it's become clear that some of my wish list points are not possible under the terms of Apple's SDK agreement, no 3rd party apps are allowed to run in the background. This means that my #1 feature is impossible, and it kinda puts a damper on some of the others (like for example, opening Safari to look at artist info and things like that isn't nearly so enticing if it means my music has to be put on hold till I come back). Sadly, it looks like I'll have to rely on my own music collection if I want to listen to music while web browsing... This really sucks since I'm still waiting on them to release PwnageTool 2.0 so I can transfer my songs over (Linux user...no iTunes).
As another note, although I still wish they could work out a deal to pool their data ;) ...Last.fm now has an app too. I really like those guys, they seem much more open source friendly and focused on community/user generated content...but I never seem to enjoy the stations Last.fm creates as much as I do my Pandora ones. Still, the Last.fm app seems to be a bit more featureful, including a few of the ones on my list...however their caching/lag problem is even worse than Pandora's!
So anyway, as it stands...my custom radio stations will have to be saved for music only times as far as my iPhone is concerned :/
[Listening to my Pandora station: "Igneous Radio" as I type this...isn't multitasking wonderful]
As another note, although I still wish they could work out a deal to pool their data ;) ...Last.fm now has an app too. I really like those guys, they seem much more open source friendly and focused on community/user generated content...but I never seem to enjoy the stations Last.fm creates as much as I do my Pandora ones. Still, the Last.fm app seems to be a bit more featureful, including a few of the ones on my list...however their caching/lag problem is even worse than Pandora's!
So anyway, as it stands...my custom radio stations will have to be saved for music only times as far as my iPhone is concerned :/
[Listening to my Pandora station: "Igneous Radio" as I type this...isn't multitasking wonderful]
2008-07-14
10 Features Pandora on the iPhone is Missing
So I did it... I broke down and jumped aboard the iPhone train this past weekend. One of the number one reasons I decided to take the plunge? Internet radio anywhere I go...particularly Pandora. I'm so addicted to Pandora, I almost never listen to my personal music collection anymore.
So, when I saw that they released a Pandora app for my new iPhone 3G, I was ecstatic. The app's great...but there are a few things I'd love to see in a future update. The web based version of Pandora has alot more controls for you than the simple iPhone app...which is to be expected (for now). Still...there are a few features I'd love to see added in a future release.
1. Add the ability to continue listening to Pandora while using other apps. I'd really like to keep listening to Pandora while I'm browsing the web or wasting time on Facebook. This is probably the number one flaw with the current version of the app.
2. I really miss what I call the "snooze button". On the regular flash/web version of Pandora you have to click the "Guide Us" button at the bottom and then click on "(Zzz) I'm tired of this song, don't play it for a month". Sadly, I end up using that button alot more often than I'd like.
3. We need the ability to add more songs/artists to our stations via the app. All of my stations are multilayered with fairly long lists of songs I like in a particular genre, however if I create a new station via the iPhone app I only get the ability to use a single song or artist seed. It'd also be handy to be able to do all the same things you can edit on the regular version...if nothing else, maybe allow us to click a button to open up Safari and go to the edit page (assuming feature #1 on my list is fulfilled first).
4. It'd be really nice to be able to pull up artist, album and song info from within the app...just as you can access the "why are you playing this" feature.
5. Song history, like in the regular version would be nice too...although not absolutely necessary. It sure would be neat to flick my finger to the right and go back and see what I just listened to ;)
6. Resume where you left off. It'd be pretty cool if when I closed/paused the Pandora app, I could come back to it later and finish out the last song I had going and go from there. This would be especially handy for when you receive a call while listening...
7. The volume control needs to be reworked. Right now it's kinda funky to change the volume. It may just because I have fat fingers or something, but I have to try shifting the volume slider 3 or 4 times before it responds...I've almost convinced myself I have to double click it first to unlock it :P Also...I've discovered I can use the physical volume buttons on the side of the iPhone, but I'm not sure if I'm actually changing Pandora's volume, or just my headphones/speaker volume since the slider does not change/update along with it.
8. Do a better job of caching. Yes, I'm sure the iPhone has limited RAM available, however I've got plenty of hard drive space you could go ahead and cache the next song to. On my computer, Pandora instantly starts playing the next track when the current one finishes...but there's quite a noticeable lag between tracks on my iPhone. Now do note, this only occurs when I'm on the EDGE network (3G's not gonna be available in my area till at least October), and there's no problem when connected thru wifi, but once again that's one of the whole reasons I wanted an iPhone, so I could listen to Pandora in my car...and most of America won't have 3G for quite some time.
9. Offer EQ options. The iPhone's "iPod" feature has the ability to choose different EQ settings, but I'm not so sure that affects Pandora. If I'm right, and it doesn't...this is another much appreciated feature (of course the web based version could use this too).
10. Stream in Stereo. This is another one I'm not sure of currently...but I'm fairly sure the iPhone version of Pandora is streaming in mono, which I assume is to save bandwidth (which certainly makes sense when on EDGE). However, when I'm on wifi, or 3G it'd be really nice to have stereo like we get on the regular version. Also, on the flash based version I'm pretty sure Pandora uses 128kbit mp3 audio, but that's I assume a limitation of Adobe's Flash player, so why not use Ogg Vorbis or AAC in the iPhone App edition where you have more control? That would certainly help lower the bandwidth costs.
11(Bonus): Ok, I'm just dreaming with this one...but it'd be awesome if Pandora would look at my Last.fm profile while generating my stations to get even more insight into my tastes ;)
Also, of note....I haven't seen/heard a single advertisement since I've been using the iPhone Pandora app. I don't know how they're affording to do this, so if this changes in the future...Pandora, please give us the choice between free with ads and paid without ;)
Pandora I love you! Keep up the good work...
[Check out my stations]
Update: 2008-07-15@00:09CDT
A couple more I forgot...
12. Add the ability to switch accounts. My wife has her own account, and will surely want to switch over to listen to some of her stations during trips and such...
13. Progress bar. Much like the regular web version, there needs to be a progress bar to give you an idea of how much song is left...maybe even better if you can some how click on it and see an exact seconds....ie: (2:38 of 4:53) or something like that ;)
So, when I saw that they released a Pandora app for my new iPhone 3G, I was ecstatic. The app's great...but there are a few things I'd love to see in a future update. The web based version of Pandora has alot more controls for you than the simple iPhone app...which is to be expected (for now). Still...there are a few features I'd love to see added in a future release.
1. Add the ability to continue listening to Pandora while using other apps. I'd really like to keep listening to Pandora while I'm browsing the web or wasting time on Facebook. This is probably the number one flaw with the current version of the app.
2. I really miss what I call the "snooze button". On the regular flash/web version of Pandora you have to click the "Guide Us" button at the bottom and then click on "(Zzz) I'm tired of this song, don't play it for a month". Sadly, I end up using that button alot more often than I'd like.
3. We need the ability to add more songs/artists to our stations via the app. All of my stations are multilayered with fairly long lists of songs I like in a particular genre, however if I create a new station via the iPhone app I only get the ability to use a single song or artist seed. It'd also be handy to be able to do all the same things you can edit on the regular version...if nothing else, maybe allow us to click a button to open up Safari and go to the edit page (assuming feature #1 on my list is fulfilled first).
4. It'd be really nice to be able to pull up artist, album and song info from within the app...just as you can access the "why are you playing this" feature.
5. Song history, like in the regular version would be nice too...although not absolutely necessary. It sure would be neat to flick my finger to the right and go back and see what I just listened to ;)
6. Resume where you left off. It'd be pretty cool if when I closed/paused the Pandora app, I could come back to it later and finish out the last song I had going and go from there. This would be especially handy for when you receive a call while listening...
7. The volume control needs to be reworked. Right now it's kinda funky to change the volume. It may just because I have fat fingers or something, but I have to try shifting the volume slider 3 or 4 times before it responds...I've almost convinced myself I have to double click it first to unlock it :P Also...I've discovered I can use the physical volume buttons on the side of the iPhone, but I'm not sure if I'm actually changing Pandora's volume, or just my headphones/speaker volume since the slider does not change/update along with it.
8. Do a better job of caching. Yes, I'm sure the iPhone has limited RAM available, however I've got plenty of hard drive space you could go ahead and cache the next song to. On my computer, Pandora instantly starts playing the next track when the current one finishes...but there's quite a noticeable lag between tracks on my iPhone. Now do note, this only occurs when I'm on the EDGE network (3G's not gonna be available in my area till at least October), and there's no problem when connected thru wifi, but once again that's one of the whole reasons I wanted an iPhone, so I could listen to Pandora in my car...and most of America won't have 3G for quite some time.
9. Offer EQ options. The iPhone's "iPod" feature has the ability to choose different EQ settings, but I'm not so sure that affects Pandora. If I'm right, and it doesn't...this is another much appreciated feature (of course the web based version could use this too).
10. Stream in Stereo. This is another one I'm not sure of currently...but I'm fairly sure the iPhone version of Pandora is streaming in mono, which I assume is to save bandwidth (which certainly makes sense when on EDGE). However, when I'm on wifi, or 3G it'd be really nice to have stereo like we get on the regular version. Also, on the flash based version I'm pretty sure Pandora uses 128kbit mp3 audio, but that's I assume a limitation of Adobe's Flash player, so why not use Ogg Vorbis or AAC in the iPhone App edition where you have more control? That would certainly help lower the bandwidth costs.
11(Bonus): Ok, I'm just dreaming with this one...but it'd be awesome if Pandora would look at my Last.fm profile while generating my stations to get even more insight into my tastes ;)
Also, of note....I haven't seen/heard a single advertisement since I've been using the iPhone Pandora app. I don't know how they're affording to do this, so if this changes in the future...Pandora, please give us the choice between free with ads and paid without ;)
Pandora I love you! Keep up the good work...
[Check out my stations]
Update: 2008-07-15@00:09CDT
A couple more I forgot...
12. Add the ability to switch accounts. My wife has her own account, and will surely want to switch over to listen to some of her stations during trips and such...
13. Progress bar. Much like the regular web version, there needs to be a progress bar to give you an idea of how much song is left...maybe even better if you can some how click on it and see an exact seconds....ie: (2:38 of 4:53) or something like that ;)
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