Looking back at 2009, the most popular Art of Geek blog post was “Lock your Mac’s screen like in Windows, Snow Leopard edition”, which received a lot of comments from people who just didn’t seem to understand why we didn’t just use Mac OS X’s screen saver locking feature. Regardless, it’s nice to see so many early adopters of Snow Leopard visiting!

Sorry for the short post, but it’s late, and I want to squeeze in a viewing of 2010 before I hit the sack.

The story really starts to pick up as you get closer to the end, really giving you a sense of urgency. I won’t go into any detail so as not to spoil it for any of you, but I have to say, the ending of this game rocks on such a high level. It makes the epic-ness of the settings and bosses seem utterly trivial. When the curtain falls on the final cutscene at the very end, which I can only hope is setting things up for a Resistance 3, I almost felt like getting up and applauding, it was that awesome. I don’t remember the last time a video game ended on such an awesomely epic note, and this is leading me to believe that this might very well be one of the most epically awesome game endings ever, maybe even THE most epically awesome game endings of all time.

Now let me be clear, by ending, I’m not talking about the last boss battle, or the final level of the gameplay. I’m talking about how the story closes. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has an awesome ending, but not epic, and Fallout 3 has an epic ending, but not awesome. Metal Gear Solid 4 has an epic story, but the ending was somewhat drawn out and melancholy.

You think THIS is epic? Click to enlarge.

So am I completely out to lunch or did you feel the same way when finishing it? What games that you’ve finished would you rank amongst the most epically awesome game finale’s of all time? Let me know in the comments, because I’m having a hard time remembering much past a year ago.

Before the PS3, I gamed on my Mac, so I’m no stranger to game dry spells. Typically, when I found a game I really liked on the Mac, I’d play it to death, mainly because there wasn’t much else to grab my attention. This was the case for games like F/A-18 Hornet, Quake III, Unreal Tournament, Ghost Recon and the Rainbow Six series. So it didn’t bother me that much, and there were already far more titles I wanted to play on the PS3 in it’s first year than I was used to on the Mac platform.

It’s somewhat ironic that having played games on the Mac for 16 years, it’s only after I finally make the switch to a console that Mac gaming starts to make a strong comeback thanks to strong Mac sales and the switch to Intel processors, which have made technology like Cider possible. But even though the Mac games industry is making a strong comeback, I don’t see myself leaving my PS3 to switch back…ever. Mainly because I don’t miss the time, hassle and expense of trying to keep my gaming rig current enough to maintain decent frame-rates. Not to mention having to hunt down and install the latest patches manually. I can play games just as graphically rich and complex as what I’m used to on a computer with next to zero hassle. I spend much more time just playing the games I like rather than messing around just to get the game to work well (or at all).

I remember complaining last October about how hard the 2007 holiday season was going to be on my wallet. The PS3′s third year started off with a bang and continued with a steady flow of blockbuster titles. With Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, The Orange Box, GTA IV and Metal Gear Solid 4, among a slew of other titles, the PS3 was finally coming into it’s own. Those four games alone were practically enough to sustain me through most of 2007. So much so that I found myself passing on plenty of games that I probably would have picked up had I had the time to play them.

This holiday season is making last year seem practically bare in comparison however. The list of new games I want to play is becoming overwhelming. Not just for the time I would need to devote to playing them, but cost as well. I can probably only justify picking up about 4-5 games this holiday season, and I’ve already hit that limit. To give you an idea of how discouraging that is, take a look at my holiday 2008 short list, of which I’ve already bought the first five:

SOCOM: Confrontation
Dead Space
BioShock
Fallout 3
LittleBigPlanet
Far Cry 2
Resistance 2
Mirror’s Edge
Call of Duty 5: World At War
Need For Speed: Undercover

All of those games were either just released in the last three weeks, or are being released within the next three weeks. On top of that, there are 5 or so other promising games being released within the same six week window that I’d also be considering if there weren’t so many competing for my time and money. I gotta draw the line somewhere, after all.

While most games take nearly the same toll on my wallet ($60 plus tax), not all games are created equal with respect to the amount of time they will demand. Now don’t get me wrong, the longer a game captures my attention and interest the better. But the downside of long games, or games with a high replay value is they hold you up from being able to try other games, much to the satisfaction of my budget.

Thankfully, three of the five games I’ve already purchased will likely be an excellent value in respect to keeping me occupied for a lengthy amount of time, each for slightly different reasons. SOCOM: Confrontation is an online tactical squad-based shooter, so while it doesn’t have a lot of depth and variety, the nature of this type of game is that the variety and challenge comes from the online experience of playing against other human beings. There’s no end to this type of game, it’s really just a question of if you want to play it enough to make time for it.

Fallout 3 is just an enormous game with so much to explore and so many quests to do. If it’s anything like Oblivion, the previous game released by Bethesda, I can probably expect anywhere from 75 to 125 hours of game time. This is the type of game that I can get lost in and lose hours at a time exploring the rich world that has been created for me, and that I won’t want to put down until I’ve completed it, or at least the main quest, since you could play through a game like this 3 times and never experience everything the game has to offer.

LittleBigPlanet, with it’s user-generated levels and built-in level creator has the potential to keep me occupied forever. By the time I’ve completed the single-player story levels, I’m sure there will be an already enormous amount of user-generated levels to try out. So many that it will be pretty much impossible to play them all because new levels will be added faster than I could play them. On top of that, I can play with up to three friends (or strangers) in a sort of coopetitive manner that will provide no end of fun. The fact that it’s a game my wife actually wants to play means we’ll likely have to cut back on our TV time, which isn’t a bad thing at all in my books.

So somewhere in between those three games, I’ll be finishing Dead Space, a very good sci-fi thriller/horror and BioShock, one of the most highly acclaimed games of 2007 for XBox 360 and PC. Both of which offer a solid amount of game time for single-player story games. My plan is to try and get through both of them before all my time gets sucked up by the other three. Then I can trade them both in to help finance the acquisition of one more game on my list this holiday season. Deciding on which one is going to be tough though. Which one would you pick?

Unfortunately my PS3′s age falls on the wrong side of that expiry date. Unfortunate because last night, my PS3 died. I was sitting on my couch racing a virtual VW Golf GTI around a virtual track in Gran Tourismo 5: Prologue (a fantastic racing simulator, by the way) when suddenly my PS3 beeped 3 times, shut itself off and just sat there with a flashing red LED. My first thought was that the game had just crashed really bad, so I tried turning the unit back on using the DualShock 3 controller. Nothing. I then tried pressing the power button on the front of the unit, the red light turned solid indicating the system was in standby mode. Another press and the system turned on, beeped 3 times, flashed a single amber LED and promptly shut itself down again with the flashing red LED as before.

I tried everything I could think of, including letting it cool off for over a half-hour and trying again, turning off the physical power switch in the back of the unit and even resetting the unit by holding the front power button for 10 seconds while turning on the physical power in the back. I also tried swapping out my upgraded 120GB hard drive with the original 60GB hard drive that came with the unit and even tried powering it on with no hard drive installed. Same thing every time.

So I called Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), and they’ll be shipping me a pre-paid shipping casket box for me to pack my beloved console’s remains in and send it off to be replaced. Since it’s out of warranty, it’s going to cost me $160 CDN plus tax. Not too bad considering repairing any electronics these days usually costs an arm and a leg and a new PS3 would cost me $400-500. Still, it hurts. But what hurts more is knowing that I’ll likely be without it for 7-10 days, by the time I get the shipping box, send it back and receive the replacement.

The replacement will most likely be a factory re-certified unit, which basically means refurbished. Sony assured me that the replacement is shipped out 3-4 business days after receiving the defective unit. This is a relief as I expected it to be more like 1-2 weeks. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I get a working PS3 unit in time for Grand Theft Auto IV’s release on April 29. It’s already bad enough that I can’t play Gran Tourismo 5: Prologue, which I just got 2 days ago.

I hope Sony’s standards for cosmetic beauty are strict, I’d hate to get a replacement PS3 that was in worse physical condition than mine is. The customer service operator told me they would ship my GT5P game disc back with the replacement unit, since it’s stuck in the drive with no reasonable way for me to get it out myself.

So I’m trying to look on the bright side. I still have the hard drive with all my game saves on it, which should work fine once installed in the replacement PS3 I get back. This is a good thing since I haven’t backed up my data in months. Also, not having the PS3 at home to keep me occupied will mean I have some free time to do other things, like work on my website, get out and enjoy the fresh air, and spend more time with neglected loved ones. I’m just bummed I won’t be able to taunt XBox 360 fanboys about the RROD anymore. Ah, of course I can, my PS3 will have to die at least twice before I have to worry about losing that privilege.

My confidence level in the rep I was speaking too wasn’t the highest at this point, since she had to put me on hold for several minutes to research the answer to every single one of my questions, all of which were pretty straightforward, like “how do I pay for my repair”? I wasn’t impressed and even asked for a supervisor to whom I expressed my disappointment with the poorly documented process, and the lack of training provided to the call center staff. He did apologize and understood my frustration, but said I was the first to raise an issue about the process with him. He did say he would pass my feedback on to the appropriate channels, and provided me the phone number of the repair depot in Ontario where my PS3 was being shipped so I could provide them with the credit card info by phone.

I called the toll free number for the repair depot, and the phone was promptly answered by a guy who shall remain anonymous to protect his job. After bringing him up to speed with my situation, he told me that he couldn’t take my cc info until they had received my PS3. He did confirm that there was definitely two different sets of paperwork/instructions for in and out of warranty repairs, and agreed that I had been provided the wrong ones. He instructed me to simply attach a copy of my receipt to the form as it instructed. When they receive it, they assume the in-warranty status has already been confirmed by the call centre and don’t bother checking the purchase date, so my repair would be covered under warranty.

So I did as I was instructed and am keeping my fingers crossed. I’ll be sure to update this article with the outcome of this ordeal.

As an aside, the shipping and repairs are all handled through Purolator. Like many consumer electronics manufacturers these days, Sony has contracted out the shipping and repairs of their Playstation products, at least here in Canada. I don’t blame them, Purolator probably does it all cheaper and far more efficiently than Sony could do it themselves. This also explains why Sony’s support staff are somewhat clueless as to the actual behind the scenes process.

I dug out the old USB hard drive that I had last used to back up my PS3, and restored the last backup dated October 30, 2007. So I’ve lost about 5 months worth of game saves. Not the end of the world as I had finished a few games recently and already traded them in. The saves I will miss most are from Oblivion, which I had recently finished the main quest in, but still planned to go back and try to finish all the side missions. Probably about 10-20 hours of gameplay lost. The second worst loss is my progress in Assassin’s Creed, which I have been already been having a hard time motivating myself to play with all the other great games vying for my attention *cough* Call of Duty 4 *cough*. With the new COD4 maps coming out today and Grand Theft Auto IV hitting stores next week, I’m afraid my chances of picking up Assassin’s Creed again are getting pretty slim…

So a quick stop at home to collect my unused games and I was off to EBGames to pick up a couple of DualShock 3′s. After coming home from my little shopping excursion, and struggling with the hulk-proof plastic packaging, I was finally able to plug the two new controllers in to charge them. This is the bittersweet thing about most geek kit. The euphoria experienced by getting a new toy home and unboxed is invariably doused by the unfortunate necessity to charge it’s batteries for 8 hours. Not wanting to use the controller while it’s charging for fear of upsetting the battery Gods (hey, the first charge is the most important one in a young battery’s life!), at least I could hold and visually inspect it.

My first impressions:

• It’s a tad heavier, but not in a bad way, more in a good way.
• It feels much more solid. My old Sixaxis controllers seemed to creak and flex a bit if I applied twisting pressure with both my hands. When I do the same on the DualShock 3, it doesn’t budge. It’s solid as a rock.
• It’s plastic shell is completely opaque, unlike the Sixaxis which was slightly transluscent.
• Besides the above and the DualShock 3 badge on the front, it looks and feels identical to my old Sixaxis controller, which is good because the Sixaxis is the most comfortable controller I have ever used for long periods of time.

So overall, I’d say the DualShock 3 is a nice improvement over the Sixaxis, and there’s absolutely nothing to complain about as far as I’m concerned. Sure, it still doesn’t come with a USB cable, but I think in this day and age of conservation, we have to support such decisions, even if their reasons for doing so were purely economic. Given that the controller is essentially disposable, at least we won’t start building up a collection of redundant USB cables. It’s bad enough we’re throwing out the entire controller when the battery dies. OK, so maybe there’s one thing to complain about: a removable battery would have been nicer to the environment, although most likely at the cost of aesthetics and rigidity.

Before I got to bed, and after the dual DualShock 3′s had had a good 7-1/2 hours of charging, I decided I didn’t want to wait until the next day to feel the force feedback love. So I fired up Super Stardust HD for a quick asteroid smashing session and was pleasantly greeted by the soothing pulses of Immersion’s patented force feedback technology. While SSHD might not be the best game to showcase the new controller’s capabilities, it was enough just to get a feel for it and also to confirm that you can easily turn force feedback on/off via the menu that appears when the PS button is pushed. It felt good to have force feedback back, as though for a brief moment all was right with the world. Now if Infinity Ward just adds force feedback support to Call of Duty 4 for PS3, all would be right with the world.

The world of emulators on the Mac is very diverse. I had a lot of choices available to me of which version of Lode Runner I wanted to run, on which computing platform and using which emulator. I ended up choosing the original Lode Runner game running on the Apple II, and rather than using a traditional emulator, I decided to go with one that came packaged as a Dashboard widget, that way I could quickly jump into a game of Lode Runner no matter what I was in the middle of doing, and just as quickly put it away when I’ve had my fill. Following these step by step instructions, you’ll be able to get your Lode Runner on too.

1. Download the AppleIIGo Dashboard widget from the developer’s website and then click “Install” and “Keep” when Mac OS X prompts you asking if you want to download and install the widget.
2. Download the Apple IIe ROM image from here. Extract the zip file if Mac OS X doesn’t do this for you automatically.
3. Download Lode Runner for the Apple II from here and unzip it.
4. Call up Dashboard, and click the bottom right hand corner of the AppleIIGo widget where the little “i” is.
5. On the backside of the AppleIIGo widget, click the “Disks” button, followed by the “ROMs” button. Two Finder windows will open. Click the “Done” button to flip the widget over.
6. Drag the file APPLE2E.ROM file that you unstuffed in step 2 to the Finder window named “ROMs”.
7. Drag the file named loderunner.dsk that you downloaded and unzipped in step 3 to the Finder window named “Disks”.
8. Call up Dashboard again and click on the little “i” to bring up the AppleIIGo settings again.
9. Select “loderunner.dsk” from the “Disk Drive 1:” popup menu, and then click the “Restart” button.
10. Play Lode Runner.

Here are the controls:

A more complete list of controls and commands are available here, including editing commands for creating/modifying your own levels.

Hit any key to start a game. Collect all the barrels until the exit ladder appears, then climb up the ladder to move onto the next level, all while avoiding the bad guys chasing you. Remember that bad guys will pick up barrels they walk over, which they will drop sometimes on their own or when they fall into one of the holes you’ve dug.

The only two caveats with playing Lode Runner like this is that there is no sound (the AppleIIGo emulator doesn’t support sound), and the screen can be a bit small. Those shouldn’t really get in the way of some good old school fun though, since the sound isn’t important to gameplay, and the graphics are simple enough that you shouldn’t have a problem seeing all the detail you need. Of course, you can theoretically play any Apple II game using the AppleIIGo Dashboard widget. If you successfully get any other classics running, tell our readers about it in the comments!

Have fun, and let me know what level you manage to reach. So far, I’m up to level 5.

To play or download an Apple II game at Virtual Apple, click on a letter at the top to browse their archive, then click the title of a game you want to play/download. The download links are in the right hand column.

If you get any other games working in the Apple IIGo Dashboard widget, let us know in the comments!

There seems to be a big misconception about the AAC format. Many people seem to think it’s an Apple owned format, but that is incorrect. AAC is an open standard, and was developed by Dolby, Fraunhofer, AT&T, Sony and Nokia to replace MP3; it was declared a standard by the MPEG group back in 1997. Apple chose AAC for it’s iTunes Store because it was the logical industry standard format for their needs. It offers better quality audio at smaller file sizes and supports features like 5.1 surround sound and DRM. Apple’s DRM solution is called FairPlay, and is used to encrypt the AAC file so it’s playback can be limited to authorized devices. Remove FairPlay and you’re left with an open, industry-standard music file which will never, and can never, be controlled by Apple or any other single company. AAC has already gaining widespread support in the consumer electronics industry – even Microsoft’s Zune can play DRM-free AAC audio files.

Microsoft’s Windows Media Audio (WMA) format, in contrast, is a proprietary format. Only companies and devices that license it from Microsoft can use it. It was created so people would require Microsoft’s products in order to play back their music and by extension, make Microsoft lots of money. But in order to convince third party music sellers and device makers to support WMA, they needed to offer value. That value came in the form of a digital rights management system that could be licensed, saving everyone from having to make their own DRM system, the way Apple did. The record labels wouldn’t allow their music catalog to be sold digitally without some form of copy protection, fearing it would contribute to online piracy. So company after company came knocking on Microsoft’s door seeking to license their WMA/DRM solution, later branded “PlaysForSure”, in order to get a slice of the music download action. The record labels were set to hand Microsoft it’s music monopoly.

Apple no doubt saw the risk of letting Microsoft take over the digital music market. They were already seeing what Microsoft’s domination in the web browser and office suite markets was doing to lock people into the Windows OS. To combat the WMA threat, Apple at first decided to try promoting the MP3 format by releasing iTunes in early 2001 and the iPod, later that year for the Macintosh – both of which were promoted as “MP3 players”. But it was Apple’s decision to take iTunes and the iPod to the Windows platform a year later that was the trojan horse that would eventually lead to the death of WMA. In 2003, Apple launched the iTunes Music Store, later renamed the iTunes Store, and cemented their position as the leader in digital media, bringing AAC along for the ride. The rest is, as they say, history.

Once iTunes goes completely DRM free, competing stores will be forced to go DRM free as well, in order to compete. They’ll also jump at the chance to finally be able to sell music to iPod owners, something they’ve been begging for ever since the iTunes/iPod duo took over the market. But there’s one little thing–the iPod doesn’t play WMA formatted music. So one by one, Microsoft’s former media partners, no doubt still smarting from being locked out of Microsoft’s Zune party, will start selling DRM-free music in AAC format. Why? Because WMA, and even MP3, require royalty payments to use. AAC does not. There’s no point whatsoever in continuing to sell WMA formatted music, if you aren’t using Microsoft’s DRM copy protection.

So as the whole world adopts industry standard audio formats over the coming years, where does that leave Microsoft and their closed, proprietary WMA audio format? Dead in the water. Microsoft will be forced to adopt AAC for their Zune Marketplace, otherwise they’ll lock themselves out of all the consumer devices that are developed to support AAC, but won’t support WMA. Not to mention, even Zune owners won’t want to buy WMA formatted music for fear of not being compatible with future device purchases. WMA has lost it’s value proposition and will die a slow death along with Microsoft’s aspirations of obtaining a music format monopoly. It’s a great day for music lovers as well as the consumer electronics and music industries, and no doubt will be seen as the day Microsoft lost the music format war.

So yesterday’s release of flOw was a welcome addition to the console’s catalog. This seemingly simple casual game is unlikely to keep me away from other retail Blu-Ray titles that are waiting to be finished, but I was excited to get home from work and give it a try. I had heard little about the game ahead of time, in fact I think my first real exposure to came from the online Flash version I heard about on Digg or Slashdot. The game intrigued me, as it really was nothing I had seem/played before. I purchased and downloaded the game last night from the Playstation Store, priced at $8.99 here in Canada ($7.99 in the US). I’m not sure why we continue to pay some of the cheapest prices in the world for digital online media, but I’m not complaining. Sure it’s no “at par” pricing like iTunes 99¢ downloads, but we are still getting better than market exchange rate!

So I played the game for about a half hour, maybe 45 minutes. It’s kind of hard to say because you really can lose track of time in this game. The basic premise is you are a water-born organism that has to eat other organisms in order to grow and evolve. It’s basic gameplay seems to be somewhat of a cross between the classic video games Snake and Joust, in that you have to eat to grow and evolve, but the other creatures you are trying to eat, are trying to eat you too, so you have to try to approach them from angles that will allow you to eat them without exposing your body to their mouth. Everything you eat, changes your body so you are constantly evolving based on what you eat.

The game takes place in a body of liquid, which I’m going to assume is water. Each level takes you deeper in the body of water, and you can vaguely make out what organisms exist in the next deeper level ‘behind’ you on the screen, which adds to the feeling of immersion. The ‘levels’ are relatively short, but there is no waiting between them, and you can easily move deeper and shallower through levels at will by eating the appropriate shaped and coloured floating cells. Red with inward pointing arrows to descend deeper, and blue with outward pointing arrows to ascend to the previous level.

I almost have no clue about how many levels I passed in the 30-45 minutes I played because there is no indicator about what level you’re on. Not only are the levels not indicated in any way shape or fashion, but there’s no score and no menu either! The game’s interface is completely devoid of any information whatsoever. When you launch the game from the PS3′s XMB interface, after viewing the customary bevy of brand logos that adorn the startup of every game, and a screen that describes the controls, you just start playing. No need to press the start button, or navigate any options. In fact, there are NO options. There’s nothing to configure whatsoever. The same screen that describes the controls also mentions that a second player can join in at any time, but I didn’t have a chance to try the multiplayer option out, so I’ll have to revisit this aspect of the game in a followup posting.

The refreshing surprise about the game when I first started playing is it’s controls. It uses the Sixaxis motion control completely for movement. You simply tilt the controller in the direction you want to travel, and your organism responds instantly. This game really showcases just how accurate and sensitive the motion sensor is in the Sixaxis controller. It took a bit of practice to realize that I had to use very subtle movements in order to have accurate control in the game, and after a bit of practice, I quickly got the hang of it. I have to say this method of control seems so utterly intuitive for this type of game, and I applaud Sony for releasing a game that truly takes advantage of this feature, rather than most PS3 games that add motion control as an afterthought. In fact the only other inputs you will use on the controller in playing the game is to press any button to speed your creature up in some fashion (this will vary based on what state of evolution your creature is in) and the Start button to pause/unpause the game. That’s it. This game’s control is as simple as it gets.

One other indicator that is missing from the screen, is how many lives you have left. Because you don’t die in this game! When predators eat parts of your body, you simply de-evolve into a simpler organism, which makes you a smaller target and insures you can still defeat the bigger stronger creatures you are up against–creatures that you will no doubt eventually become, once you’ve evolved far enough. The bigger and more evolved you become, the more ‘hits’ you can take before being devolved to something much smaller. So the trick to survival is to keep eating and learn the movement and tactics of each new enemy organism so you can get better at defeating them. Not having to worry about dying in this game really adds to the relaxed and enjoyable game-play. The words “game over” do not exist in this game whatsoever.

When you’re tired of playing, you simply exit the game as any other, and your progress up till a certain point is saved, to continue at a later time. There appear to be specific save points, which aren’t identified in the game, so there is the potential that you will lose some of your progress when you quit and come back. From what I can tell from my limited time playing, the save point appears to be when you pass a major milestone your evolution. When I finally quit the game, and quickly went back in to see where it continued from, I had lost a good few minutes worth of gaming, but nothing that I can’t get back the next time I play. I’m wondering if maybe had I paused the game before quitting, whether it would have saved my progress a little further. I’ll experiment on this next time I play.

flOw’s graphics are simple yet beautiful at the same time. The game supports both 720p and 1080i/p, so everything is very crisp and clear on modern TVs. The graphics are an interesting mix of 2D objects interacting in 3D space, much like looking at micro-organisms through a microscope. The game is very conservative with it’s use of colour, focusing more on shape and physics. Everything moves in a very natural and life-like manner, and everything seems to affect the movement of everything else in the way one would expect objects to affect the flow of the water around them. It’s probably a very complex physics engine, but it’s not apparent to the player. Everything just seems to move naturally, which I think is one heck of an achievement, from a developers perspective.

So is the game any fun to play? Yes, but not in ways that one might be used to. There’s no bright colours, annoying sound effects and fast-paced action that are usually associated with most addictive, repetitive, casual games such as Tetris. Playing this game doesn’t feel like work the way that playing Tetris does. It seems designed for longer average play time, with difficulty increasing at a slower pace and the subtle background music and natural freeflowing movement intended to relax, rather than stress. It’s really an anti-video game, in almost every way I can think of. From the relaxed atmosphere, slow difficulty progression and simple and intuitive controls to the utter lack of progress indicators, lives, menus and options, it really feels like the developers set out to create a game that has as little in common with traditional video games as possible, and succeeded.

flOw is a uniquely addictive game that one will play just for the sake of playing, as opposed to trying to beat the high score or attain a certain level. I can’t even imagine how people will discuss their progress in flOw with friends, given the lack of any clear progress indicators such as score or level names/numbers or any language at all. If flOw is the anti-video game, then maybe it isn’t meant to be discussed at all. Maybe it’s enjoyment should just be experienced and then forgotten about, which makes it the perfect game for people who don’t want to think about their games.

After Apple dropped the Intel bomb at WWDC 2005, Terra Soft has stayed commited to the Power CPU architecture. They seem to have done well for themselves by switching focus away from Apple hardware towards IBMs Power and PowerPC based servers. No doubt putting Terra Soft on the short list of favored linux developers for the IBM/Sony/Toshiba developed Cell platform. Yes, this is no unauthorized hack boys and girls, according to the Terra Soft press release, they’ve got Sony’s blessing (and even their support) to release their Linux distro for the upcoming PS3 game console:

Under basic agreement with SCEI, Terra Soft was granted a unique opportunity to develop and bring to market a complete Linux OS for the Sony PLAYSTATION 3.

The video game console market is like the cell phone and razor blade business. Sell your expensive console at a loss to gain market share, and make back the money on the sale of video games, services and accessories. This is the reason why Microsoft and Sony have been so protective of their consoles and tried to thwart attempts to install unauthorized home brew software on their consoles. If you are losing say $100 per console sold, and 10,000 people buy your console just to use them as an inexpensive Linux web server, then you’re going to lose $1 million on those sales, that you’re never going to recoup from those customers. Likewise, video game piracy is a big threat to profitability as well.

So what does Sony have up their sleeves? Reading the Terra Soft press release further provides some insight into just that very question.

In development of Yellow Dog Linux v5.0, Terra Soft integrated and enhanced code from Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Sony Group, and Fedora in order to offer the following:
- kernel 2.6.16
- gcc 3.4.4 and glibc 2.4
- Cell SDK 1.1
- OpenOffice.org 2.0.2
- FireFox 1.5.0 and Thunderbird 1.5.0
- Nautilus 2.1.4
… and a suite of Personal Accessories, Development Tools; Sound & Video, Internet, and Networking applications.

There’s no doubt that the idea is to turn the PS3 into a full fledged personal computer with all the basic apps most users would need/expect. Whether you’re an institutional or corporate client who wants to set up an inexpensive supercomputer cluster, or just your average home user who wants to surf the web, send/receive email and work on some Office documents, Yellow Dog Linux has everything you need right out of the box to get started.

But Linux isn’t ready for the home user, right? Will your average PS3 gamer have any clue of how to install and setup Linux on their PS3? Well Linux has come a long way over the last couple of years. Distributions like Ubuntu are making inroads into the desktop Linux market, and Linux adoption continues to grow as every new release gets more and more refined. Usability is near on-par with Windows and installation is as simple as anyone could expect. But when a company develops a Linux distro for a very specific set of hardware, it makes it easier to focus on improving ease of use. According to Terra Soft:

A single-click installer enables absolutely anyone to install without instruction. Post-install, the default suite of applications presents an intuitive, self-guided means of exploring Linux without the confusion of multiple applications in the same family. An Advanced installer mode enables selection from greater than fifteen hundred packages, as is expected from a complete Linux distribution.

Sounds like they’re catering to everyone from your average Linux novice to advanced users as well. This is a very good thing. While Microsoft is busy patching loopholes to prevent people from hacking the XBox 360 to run Linux, Sony seems to be embracing this open source OS completely. This has the potential to greatly shift the value proposition in the PS3′s favor. Now, not only are you getting an HD capable next gen game console AND BluRay movie disc player, but a personal computer with no limits on what you can run on it. It’s now obvious why Sony made sure every PS3 configuration includes a hard disk drive.

If you think Linux on the PS3 is all about attracting users though, you’re sadly mistaken. It’s probably more about developers than it is about end users. Linux has an absolutely huge following in the developer community. After all, Linux is all about developers working together to create great software. By fully supporting Linux on their upcoming console, and being the only console that does so, Sony will instantly gain the interest and support of a huge developer community, and a huge library of software which will be a recompile away from running on their hardware. Trust me, every Linux developer who has even considered buying a video game console will be counting their pennies to get a Playstation 3.

So the big question still stands. How is Sony going to make money off of the PS3? My guess is they figure they can afford to lose some money from the odd purchasers who buy a PS3 to only run Linux, because they can recoup more money from consumer PS3 sales than Microsoft can from the XBox 360 since they will also make money from BluRay movie sales, and licensing of BluRay and Cell technology to other companies. To Sony, the PS3 is an important part of winning market share in several different markets that they can’t afford to lose in. With this latest announcement from Terra Soft, Sony is finally starting to show all their cards. If Sony sees demand for Linux on PS3, can dedicated Cell based PCs and workstations be far behind?

I was sitting on the fence about which next generation game console I planned to buy (if at all). This announcement has just made my decision a lot easier for me. I currently have an XBox with a mod chip installed so I can run XBox Media Center on it for playing downloaded video content in my home theatre. But the XBox can’t handle HD video playback at 720p or higher, and my 50″ LCD projection TV is crying for HD content. Given that Microsoft is making the XBox 360 even harder to hack than it’s predecessor, I started to consider using a Mac mini to do the job of playing back video, with it’s great Front Row remote and on-screen interface. But if I can just install Linux on a PS3 then for around the same money as a Mac mini I’ll have the media playback capability, plus a sweet ass gaming console and a BluRay movie disc player. Sure, it won’t be able to run Mac software, but if I really want to do that in my living room, I’ll just use my Mac notebook. That’s what notebooks and WiFi are for after all.

So how big is it? While Microsoft hasn’t released any physical dimensions for the Zune, it’s easy enough to extrapolate the length and width using the screen size as a reference. The Zune’s screen is 3″ (7.6 cm) measured diagonally. Based on the hi-resolution photos Microsoft has released, that would make it 4.3″ (10.9 cm) long by 2.3″ (5.8 cm) wide. Discerning the device’s thickness is much more difficult due to the lack of any photo of the device’s profile, and the fact that it has a bevelled edge.The only photo we have to go by is a three-quarter view lifestyle shot. Our best guess, based on extrapolation of scale, is the unit will be about 0.5″ (13 mm) thick. So it’s slightly longer, narrower and thicker than the 30GB 5G iPod. Overall, the Zune is about 16% larger in volume than the same capacity 30GB iPod but 8.5% smaller than the 80GB iPod.

The Zune doesn’t have a scroll wheel like the iPod. That round scroll-wheel looking control is really only a 4-way navigation button. Once again Microsoft demonstrates it isn’t above making their technologically inferior user interface look like the technology leader’s. I’m sure it will fool a few unsuspecting customers though. I can only imagine how fun it will be scrolling through a library of thousands of songs with a fixed speed button. The Zune also appears to have some sort of proprietary dock connector on it’s bottom edge, no doubt in an attempt to encourage third party development of connectible accessories as the iPod’s dock connector has.

From a file format perspective, the Zune supports pretty much all the same formats the iPod does, but adds WMA and WMV formats (of course). At least Microsoft is being somewhat realistic about acknowledging that they have lost the format war in the portable space. There’s a reason they’re called PodCasts after all, and iTunes rips CDs to industry standard AAC format, so Microsoft is obviously going after current iPod/iTunes users by supporting the formats they already have. Strangely however, Microsoft has decided to not support Mac users, so for now, Mac owning iPod/iTunes users will remain out of Microsoft’s reach. Maybe Microsoft felt it would be futile to try to convert users who are already familiar with more than one of Apple’s superior products. So Microsoft is going to concentrate on the rest of users who don’t know any better (yet), only there’s one problem: people who already own an iPod, have already made a conscious decision to not use a Microsoft infested product. What’s the likelihood that they are going to switch BACK? Is the Zune that much better?

The answer to that question is NO. The Zune amounts to a cheap knockoff of the iPod, with a gimmicky feature (Wi-Fi), a cheap plastic case and a bigger screen. No scroll wheel. No iTunes. No 80GB model. On top of that, Wi-Fi and a bigger screen are going to put additional load on the battery, so expect to see lower battery life on the Zune, but I assume Microsoft will play with the numbers to make it look like the battery life is as good or better. This is easily done by measuring battery life while playing files encoded with unrealistically low bitrates to reduce the CPU workload. At least that’s what many PlaysForSure device vendors do. Price-wise, I fully expect Microsoft to bite the bullet and offer the Zune for the same price as the 30GB iPod ($249 US), although rumors had pegged the price at $299 US, which coincidentally was what the 30GB iPod used to sell for. Microsoft will be happy to lose money on this product for years to come, just as they do in many other markets.

So with the bigger screen and no doubt lower battery life being a wash, the only thing going for the Zune is the FM tuner and Wi-Fi social networking experiment. The total dominance of the iPod has pretty much proved that the majority of customers aren’t interested in listening to static-filled FM signals. I’m sure some über-geeks and teenagers are going to thing Wi-Fi is a neat idea, but in practice, how much are people really interested in listening to other people’s music? When people listen to an iPod, they want to switch off from the world or entertain themselves while they do something else by themself. It’s an anti-social activity, and try as they might, Microsoft is not going to be successful in turning it into a social one. Not to mention this music sharing feature only works with other Zunes. How often are people going to run into someone else with one?

The most likely scenario for Zune’s Wi-Fi sharing is teenage friends who hang out together at school or wherever, but they have already shared their music libraries a long time ago via their computers. From the looks of it, the sharing will only work for music purchased from the Zune Marketplace, as it will require DRM to limit sampling to 3 listens over 3 days. Microsoft would come under the wrath of the RIAA if they allowed unprotected music to be transferred at will. So kids and teenagers will have no use for it, since they don’t buy a lot of music and Adults won’t have any use for it because they have better things to do with their time and it will more than likely just confuse them like the advanced features on their cell phones.

Let’s face it, Zune is no iPod killer. It isn’t even an iPod annoyer. In fact, the only chance Microsoft has of making a market for the Zune is to integrate it closely with their XBox 360 console and add Zune Marketplace to the XBox Live online service. At least then it will offer something tangible to a select market: people who own an XBox 360 but don’t own a computer. They won’t take over the digital music market with that strategy, but they could move a few thousand units to die hard XBox 360 fans. Zune is just another product from Microsoft that proves they have no creativity or scruples. There are dozens of media players out there that are better than the Zune, and that’s before we consider the iPod. Microsoft has stabbed every one of their PlaysForSure partners in the back with the Zune, and this will come back to haunt them one day.

Microsoft has also sent mixed signals with their Zune strategy. First, they were all about giving consumers choice, and now it’s about no choice, since Zune won’t play nice with PlaysForSure or Macs. In a recent interview with Engadget, MS Corporate VP J Allard had some interesting things to say about PlaysForSure:

Engadget: So up until this point Microsoft’s digital music strategy has been largely to create an ecosystem and be a supplier of a DRM platform to manufacturers and online music stores. PlaysForSure was the thrust of Microsoft’s strategy until the announcement of the Zune. How does PlaysForSure fit into Microsoft’s strategy going forward? It doesn’t appear that the Zune will be compatible with any PlaysForSure retailers. How does that affect Microsoft’s current partners who rely on PlaysForSure?

I think there’s two answers to the question. First answer is, this whole digital music revolution is really just starting. There’s still a lot to be figured. We certainly don’t think we have it all figured out, and we think there will be change. The second thing is that specifically when it comes to PlaysForSure, think about you might buy a Windows PC versus how my mother might buy a Windows PC. My mom calls up Dell and says, “I have seven hundred bucks, get me a computer. What’s the best thing I can get?” She doesn’t specify the keyboard, the monitor, the memory configuration. The conversation might get as specific as, “Do you think you want to burn DVDs?” Then she gets a product that shows up and it’s all pre-installed.

There are other people that go to Fry’s Electronics and hand pick the graphics card, the case for their computer, they build a Windows-based PC from the ground up. We have a solution for both of those things. We at Microsoft have a platform that is Windows, we have a solution for the crowd of consumers that are very deliberate about how they build their PC solution, and we also have a solution for people who just want turnkey. And I think that’s how these two strategies complement each other. The PlaysForSure is still a program we’re going to invest in, we still have a lot of partners there, and for a class of consumers who that want to have a hand-crafted media media experience and maximize their choice, we have an answer. There’s another class of consumers that just want to get digital media, and they just want to be able to go to one store and have it all just plain, dead simple, and don’t want to know what a codec is.

Engadget: Wasn’t that the point of PlaysForSure?

Well, it’s like asking a question about Windows — and the point of Windows was to bring personal computing to the world — some people are going to pick their PCs, they’re going to pick their monitor, they’re going to pick their printer, they’re going to pick their graphics card, and combine the things that they’ve chosen. Other people just a want a system that’s end-to-end — all compatible out of the gate — and that’s what Zune does. Zune says there is no choice; you get a Zune device, you hook it up to the Zune service, and it just works.

Engadget: When PlaysForSure was introduced, the premise was, we make it simple so that you don’t have to worry about whether your player works with the music you’re purchasing…

That continues to be the premise for devices that are branded in that category, and we think that we’ve clearly done a lot in that program, where there’s a lot of devices out there, there are a lot of services out there, there are a lot of partners, and there are a lot of satisfied customers. We like that program. We’ve also found that there’s a category of customers that say, “Give me a brand experience, advertise it to me on television; I want to be part of the digital music revolution, and that solution [PlaysForSure] doesn’t work for me.” So they’re two complementary solutions — not everyones gonna want Zune and not everyone’s gonna want PlaysForSure. They’re different paths there, and we’re okay with both of them.

Spoken like a Politician. I’m sure your PlaysForSure hardware and online store partners are okay with both strategies too Mr. Allard. What I’d like to know is who are all these people who are asking for a brand experience? People buy the iPod because it just works and works damn well. They don’t buy them because they are craving a brand experience and want it to be advertised to them on TV. Sure, the advertising may be part of the reason they decide to buy an iPod, but that’s not the same as people asking to be advertised to, and in a way that’s insulting to the people who Microsoft is targeting with the Zune.

Allard and Microsoft can dance around it all they want, but the truth is they are getting their asses handed to them on a plate by a company that they are used to beating. Their strategy for the last 5 years, including PlaysForSure, has failed to stop the Apple juggernaut. So what does Microsoft do? They fall back on what HAS worked for them in the past: copying Apple as closely as they can. Only Apple has already won, and people don’t want what Microsoft is offering anymore. Zune will contribute to Microsoft’s failure, as consumers get even more confused by the alternatives to the iPod and Microsoft’s partners start to turn against them in a desperate attempt to hold onto what little market share they still have–Apple really should be thanking Microsoft for making it so damn easy to kick their ass.

Apple has been growing in leaps and bounds over the last 2 years, and I think they are finally starting to embrace the fact that they are a consumer and corporate powerhouse. They’ve got everyone’s attention, so it isn’t necessary to make a big deal out of every product revision. People know what an iMac is, and sure, a 24″ model is an impressive addition to the line-up, along with faster processors, but they don’t need to waste time and effort telling people about it, because people will find out about it just the same. One of the side benefits is that product sales should take less of a hit leading up to major annual events such as MacWorld and WWDC as people come to realize that those events are no longer synonymous with new Macs or iPods. With the fierce pace of new product development going on at Apple, it had to happen sooner or later. More PR time is needed to show off new products, so established product lines can afford to take a back seat from the PR machine.

As for Steve Job’s change in wardrobe, I suspect being on Disney’s board may be influencing him to try new things. Either that or his supplier of mock turtlenecks has discontinued the style. Regardless, my only questions are what took him so long, and would it kill you to try a different colour? Baby steps I suppose. At this rate, we’ll see him in a blue dress shirt in about 4 or 5 years.

Say hello to the new iPods

Yesterday’s announcement was all about Apple’s consumer electronics and media business. Apple took the wraps off upgrades to all three iPod lines, beginning with the top end hard disk based iPod. The new 5.5G iPod, which is available immediately, offers higher capacity on the high end (80GB, up from 60GB) and better battery life for both models. When watching video, Apple claims the 30GB model will provide 3.5 hours of viewing, up from 2, and the 80GB model provides 6.5 hours of viewing time, up from 3 hours–a very welcome improvement for those who felt the previous model’s battery life was anemic for watching videos. A brighter screen, new software features and some useful tweaks to the UI such as a navigation aid that displays the location in the alphabet in translucent letters as you scroll through your music round out this update. The latter feature was seemingly borrowed from the recently leaked details on Microsoft’s yet to launch Zune device. This illustrates one problem Microsoft will have competing with Apple: if they are going to always be behind in getting new features to market, and are unable to keep their details secret, Apple is always going to be able to beat them to the punch.

The biggest news regarding the new 5G iPod has got to be the addition of games that can be purchased and downloaded off of the iTunes music store. Nine titles are available, including classics like Bejeweled, Pac-Man, Tetris, Mahjong and Texas Hold-Em were announced, although more will likely follow. These new games look nothing like the simple games which have shipped on the iPods previously. They are graphically rich and colourful, looking as good or better than the latest mobile phone games. Like the addition of video, the game implementation continues to demonstrate Apple’s ability to add value and functionality to the iPod product line without detracting from the product’s core appeal as a music player. Improvements such as gapless playback, music search and redesigned earbuds are testament to the fact that Apple hasn’t forgotten what people primarily buy iPods for.

While the current generation iPod isn’t going to be a challenger to the Sony PSP or Nintendo DS, it’s clear that Apple is waking up to the commercial potential of mobile gaming. Sony and Nintendo would be wise to keep an eye on Apple’s movements in this space. Sales of games for mobile phones are earmarked to be $2.4 billion USD this year and are expected to reach $7.2 billion a year by 2011. The new iPod game offerings seem intended get a piece of that pie. As the iPod gets more and more power and storage, we may see it become a more serious game platform in the future, and the iTunes Store is a killer distribution model for a video games, given how much of a problem the video game industry has with keeping up with demand of hot titles.

This also marks the first time Apple has allowed third parties, like EA, to write software for the iPod, although they still maintain control over what software makes it onto the iPod via the iTunes Store, for now. The choice to allow the games to play on all 5G iPods indicates that Apple is viewing it more as a new revenue stream and not just a means to sell new iPods, otherwise they could have easily excluded the previous models in order to force owners to upgrade. In fact, with new lower prices of $299 and $399 CDN ($249 and $349 US), it’s not hard to imagine that Apple may be starting to look to the iPod as the razor that will help them sell more media (the razor blades) via the iTunes Store.

The redesigned iPod nano has gone back to the aluminum case design from the old iPod mini, a very welcome change, given how much negative PR Apple got regarding the first generation nano’s tendency to be easily scratching. Unbelievably, the new nano is even thinner than the previous one, while doubling the storage capacity (2,4 and 8GB) and nearly doubling the battery life (from 14 to 24 hours) at the same price points. The new nano also has a brighter screen, text search and letter index display from the 5.5G iPod. In another tribute to the iPod mini, the 2G nano is available in 5 different colours: the 2GB model in silver only, the 4GB model in blue, green, pink or silver, and the 8GB model in black only. All models are available immediately priced at $169, $229 and $299 CDN ($149, $199 and $249 US). There is no doubt in my mind that the 2G iPod nano will be even more successful than it’s predecessors, the 1G nano and iPod mini. Both of which were hugely successful in their time. Apple is doing it’s part by promoting the 2G iPod nano with a new TV, transit, billboard and magazine advertising blitz.

Of all the iPods, the shuffle has gone through the greatest redesign. Like it’s bigger brother, the nano, the shuffle is now clad in aluminum, but has been shrunk to a fraction of the size of the old pack of gum sized model. It’s truly an amazingly small device, which Apple has dubbed the world’s smallest mp3 player. The unit also features a built-in clip for affixing it to clothing. Gone are the built-in USB connector (a step back, from the convenience standpoint, IMHO), which has been replaced by a charging/syncing USB dock which appears to use the headphone jack for connectivity and power. The new shuffle will be available in October in a 1GB model only for $89 CDN ($79 US) and is otherwise feature-identical to the models it replaces. The new shuffle is a major improvement overall from the previous model, but I think it will lose a bit of it’s appeal for those who saw the shuffle as a combination flash thumb drive and mp3 player. Having to carry around the sync/charge cable and dock on long trips makes the new shuffle a little less road warrior friendly, but the smaller size will make up for that somewhat.

iTunes the software, iTunes the store

The second part of yesterday’s announcement focused on an updated version of iTunes software and updates to the iTunes Store. iTunes 7, available as a free download now for Windows and Mac, is a major update with some nice UI tweaks and much wanted features such as gapless playback, support for multiple libraries on multiple hard disks and a “backup to disc” feature. iTunes 7 will also automatically download–for free–any missing artwork for songs in your library, provided you have an iTunes Store account, and the song exists in the iTunes store. This feature alone will be worth the upgrade for a lot of people.

The sources list is now broken up into categories with separate library items for Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, Audiobooks, etc. There is a Store category which contains iTunes Store, Purchased Music and a new downloads manager. A devices category will display any connected iPods or iTunes compatible phones, and you can now manage all device settings from here instead of having to go into the iTunes preferences. They have even integrated the iPod updater into iTunes, so you no longer have to run a separate utility to update or initialize your iPod, as seen in the picture on the right (click to enlarge).

Two new views have been added, both designed to let you explore your music visually using album art. Album view (top image on the left, click to enlarge) displays each album’s songs next to the album cover, if available, and is pretty much like sorting your list by album, only with the addition of the artwork being displayed to the left side of each album.

The second new view is by far the most impressive feature of iTunes 7, cover flow view (bottom picture on the left, click to enlarge). Cover flow view shows you all your album cover art and allows you to flip through your albums quickly in a fluid 3D animated view that has to be seen to be believed. You can use your mouse scroll wheel, two finger trackpad scrolling or the scroll bar to quickly flip through your entire collection visually. I can see why they added the free artwork download feature. This view mode would be useless if you didn’t have any artwork. Of course those of you who haven’t been bothered to enter artist and album ID3 tags for most of your music are going to have a new reason to want to clean up their music library.

Another new feature that will be much heralded by iPod users is the ability to sync the purchased media on your iPod with more than one authorized computer. Great for keeping the music on your work and home computers up to date, although it appears that Apple hasn’t changed it’s stance on not making music piracy easy since this feature only works with purchased content. All in all, I’m impressed with this new version of iTunes, and I think it’s safe to say it’s one of the biggest updates iTunes has ever seen, helping to ensure iTunes maintains it’s supremacy.

The iTunes Music Store has been re-christened as simply The iTunes Store, finally dropping the term “music” from it’s name, a logical move given they have sold TV shows for nearly a year and the addition of games. Even more logical since yesterday’s announcement of the addition of feature length motion pictures to the iTunes store. No big surprise given Apple’s choice of theme for the event. I think everyone saw this coming, especially after the launch of Amazon’s Unbox movie download service, which I covered in a previous article. As predicted, Apple’s initial offering is limited to Disney owned properties, including Disney, Pixar, Touchstone Pictures and Miramax films.

Steve Jobs was quick to point out that when iTunes launched TV program downloads, they started with only 1 network and 5 shows, but less than a year later they have grown that library to 220 shows on 40 networks. No doubt they will gain support from the other major studios over time. Movies, like TV programs are only available in the US for now, but Apple plans to go international in 2007.

Pricing is pretty much what was predicted, and similar to Amazon’s offering, with the exception of a lower price of $12.99 US for new releases when pre-ordered and during opening week, going up to $14.99 after the first week. Older titles will sell for $9.99 US every day. New releases will go on sale at the same time as the DVD release, which is important if Apple and Disney hope to offer an alternative to DVD. So far Apple has stuck with it’s strategy of only selling content, staying away from the rental model that Amazon Unbox offers. This is a positive for Unbox, as it will likely allow Amazon to stay relevant by differentiating itself in the face of competition from iTunes’ 800lb gorilla.

Apple has also upped the resolution of all video downloads to 640×480 from 320×240, for a 4x increase in resolution. I haven’t been able to nail down exactly what Amazon’s Unbox video resolution is, they say it’s DVD quality, which should mean 720×480, but no one has any exact numbers yet, so the jury is out on whether they have a slight advantage or not. Regardless, the bump in resolution is a welcome improvement. Video now also features “Dolby Surround”, I can only assume that means Dolby Digital, but can’t say for sure. I just feel sorry for anyone who has purchased a lot of video content from the iTunes Store at the lower resolution. No mention was made if those customers will be allowed to download the higher-res version. I wouldn’t hold my breath though. Usage rights is the same as for TV shows and music, 5 computers and an unlimited number of iPods. Like Amazon’s offering, movie purchases cannot be burned to standard DVD video disks, although they can be streamed over a home network and played on a TV connected to any Mac via Mac OS X’s FrontRow interface and Apple remote. But…

…there’s just one last thing.

In usual Apple style, Jobs saved the most interesting announcement for last, although it came in the form of a sneak peak rather than a product announcement. Apple’s final link to the video playback puzzle, the box that will allow you to play your iTunes Store TV and movie purchases on your big screan TV, is a box code named “iTV” which is expected to launch in the first quarter of 2007. Resembling a half-height Mac mini, this box will connect to a TV via HDMI or component video, and has analog and digital optical audio outputs. A built-in power supply means no external transformer to clutter the space behind your home entertainment center. Connectivity comes in the form of ethernet, 802.11 wifi (they didn’t specify which flavor, I suspect this means it may be the upcoming N variety) and a USB 2 port, presumably for hooking up an iPod or maybe an optional optical drive.

The whole thing will operate using the now standard Apple 6-button remote using an on-screen interface similar to FrontRow, although slightly reworked. Steve Jobs demoed it, and it just worked and worked well. The only thing I think that is missing is an optical drive for playing back your content that you’ve backed up to DVD or CD media. The way the device was presented, it required everything to be on your computer. Unless Apple releases some kind of ‘XRaid Home’ media server, this is going to be a pain as it will require you to load the media you want to watch onto one of your Macs or PCs, unless they release a stackable DVD drive option for it that plugs into the USB 2 port. More advanced users will be better off with a Mac mini in their home theatre setup because of the wider support for formats and the ability to play DVDs and media stored on CD and DVD-R. But a lot can happen in 4-6 months, and it’s possible Apple might make changes based on feedback they get. They sort of tied their hands by pre-announcing the price, $299 US, making the iTV a more consumer friendly, lower priced alternative to a Mac mini.

Impressions, MIA

My overall impression of yesterday’s “It’s Showtime” event was that it was a strong update of it’s extremely successful iPod/iTunes business lines, which extends Apple into new territory: feature film and mobile games. The announcement was an even bigger deal from the standpoint of drawing a clearer picture of Apple’s strategy for the next year. If Apple’s midas touch can indeed be applied to these new markets, it’s not hard to imagine them becoming considerable revenue streams going forward, helping to cement Apple’s dominance in digital media even further. It appears the rumors of the decline of the iPod and iTunes store were greatly exaggerated. Apple now has an 88% market share of the legal US download market, up from 82% in May. Apple is the number 5 seller of ALL music in the US, moving up behind the likes of Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target and Amazon. No small feat, given that Apple only sells digital media online whereas the other 4 resellers on the list still pawn physical CDs.

So what of the widescreen, touch screen iPod and Apple iPhone? Most reputable sources didn’t expect Apple to announce either at yesterday’s event, and the word on the street is we shouldn’t expect to see either until some time next year, if at all. I still have my doubts of whether a touch screen iPod will actually see the light of day, given the tendency of touch screens to attract scratches and fingerprints, but I’m not willing to rule it out completely. I think the iPhone would be a sure-fire hit. There are so many people who are dissatisfied with their cell phone experience, that would gladly ditch it for a mobile phone with the iPod’s industrial design and simplicity. Pressure in the mp3 player market from newer mobile phones with competing capacities to the lower-end iPods will most likely eventually force Apple to enter that space, but not before they are good and ready. The mobile phone market is a fiercely competitive and complex market. If Apple enters it, it will have to be from an aggressive position, not a defensive one, which means they have to make sure they’ve done their homework.

While nothing would make me happier than to know this is all in fact true, part of me wonders how they could manage to stretch a book that is less than half the length of just one of the LOTR trilogy books into two movies. Whereas in LOTR they had to cut a lot out to get the story to fit into three 3-1/2 hour movies, they’d almost have to make up a few new scenes to pack into a The Hobbit double feature, just to act as filler. I think trying to make the Hobbit into two movies will make the pacing seem completely inconsistent with LOTR at the very least, and at most, it will make for two movies that have lots of slow moments. The only way I could see them pull it off is if they made each movie no more than 2 hours long, but some fans of the LOTR might be a bit disappointed, being accustomed to the extra-long movies of the LOTR Trilogy.

I think MGM has a guaranteed winner on their hands with this, regardless of whether they get Peter Jackson on board or not, but without Jackson, I worry that it’ll get butchered. The last thing I want to see is a crappy Hollywood-ized version of the Hobbit, and after the cinematic masterpiece that was the LOTR, viewers expectations are going to be pretty high. In any case, if this news is true, here’s one Tolkien fan that will be going to see it opening night.

Most movies can be rented for $3.99 or purchased for $9.99 to $14.99. TV shows sell for $1.99, the same price as they go for on the iTunes online store. But there is one major difference: Amazon’s offering includes both a DVD quality version as well as a lower bit-rate version for playback on handheld devices. This is the key differentiator, since Apple only sells iPod-quality videos, which are much lower than DVD-quality.

Amazon has garnered the support of a fair number of big television and movie studios, as can be seen from the list of well known names:

Participating Television Networks
A&E, Adult Swim, Animal Planet, BBC, The Biography Channel, Cartoon Network, CBS, Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, Discovery Health Channel, Discovery Kids, E! Entertainment Television, FINE LIVING TV Network, FOX, Fuel TV, FX, HGTV, The History Channel, KBS (Korean Broadcast System), Logo, MTV, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, The N, PBS, Speed, Spike, Travel Channel, TV Land and VH1.

Participating Movie Studios
20th Century Fox, Paramount, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Lionsgate and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc.

So did Amazon beat Apple to the punch? Could this be the end of Apple’s dominance of online media? Don’t start selling your Apple shares just yet. There are a few weak links in Amazon Unbox’s chain that might prevent it from being the success they are hoping for. Given that Apple is all but assured to be launching their own Movie download service next Tuesday, Amazon’s thunder could be all but extinguished in just 5 days time if Apple has found ways around just one or two of those weak links.

So let’s get the obvious things out of the way. The Amazon service requires you to install the Amazon Unbox client software on the PC you wish to download and watch movies from. Because they are using Microsoft Windows Media VC1 format, this service requires Windows XP (Home, Pro, Tablet or Media Center Edition). Of course like every other service that is a slave to Microsoft, this will not work on computers running Mac OS X or Linux. No big surprise here. It has been pointed out by some how ironic that Amazon’s video download service doesn’t work with the top selling brand of computers Amazon sells.

The Fine Print

So what about portable video players? We know the iPod is out, due to reliance on Windows Media format. But this is where the huge Windows PlaysForSure ecosystem is really going to shine, right? Well, according to Amazon’s Unbox website:

Supported Devices
The devices in the list below have been tested with the Unbox Video Player. If your device is Plays for Sure compliant it may work, but we cannot guarantee performance on untested devices.
Creative Zen Vision: M
Creative Zen Vision
Toshiba Gigabeat S
Archos AV 500
Archos AV 700
iRiver PMC (Portable Media Center)

Oh the irony! So if you have a PlaysForSure device, Amazon can’t be sure it will play. There’s strike one, right there. Not only does the service not work with 75% of the mp3 players in the US market (iPods), but it doesn’t work with the majority of the rest, either. So right out of the gate, Amazon’s offering works with at best 5% of the devices on the market.

So lets forget that the majority of people won’t be watching their Amazon Unbox purchase on their portable media player. That’s not such a big deal, since most people watch movies and TV programs in their living room on their big screen and surround sound system. So we’ll just burn a copy to DVD and pop it in our trusty DVD player, right? Wrong. Video purchased using the service cannot be burned to standard DVD video discs and so can’t be played on standard DVD players. So if you want to watch your downloads, you’re going to have to find a way to hook your TV up to your computer.

Given that most people’s computers either don’t have outputs to connect to their TV, or are installed in a completely different room from their home theatre, not to mention most consumers don’t know the first thing about how to hook their computer up to their TV, this scratches the majority of consumers off the list right there. So now we’re left with computer savvy consumers who either have a Windows Media Center PC (like there are a lot of those), or a notebook PC with compatible video out.

One thing that a lot of tech savvy users are known for is having multiple PCs in the house. They’ll primarily be using their Media Center PC to watch movie downloads, and then maybe transfer the file to their notebook to watch on a long flight or train ride, or to another family member’s PC. It’s important to note then that Amazon Unbox videos can only be authorized to be played on 2 different computers at any one time. Each one of those PCs can transfer the video to one compatible portable media player. These tight restrictions on usage, and the inability to burn and playback on standard DVD players are probably going to be the biggest hindrance to widespread consumer adoption.

So what about the software? Surely Amazon Unbox’s client software must have take a cue or two from the design and functionality of iTunes, the gold standard in media players, right? Nope. Amazon Unbox’s player can only play content purchased from the Amazon Unbox store. No other media will work with it, period. So consumers will have to use one program to manage and watch Amazon content, and another to manage and watch non-Amazon content. How’s that for user experience? I’m not sure if it was Amazon wanting to control their user experience, or whether it was for technical reasons that they had to design their own client, but they haven’t learned anything from Apple’s success. Where Apple offers a single, unified experience for doing EVERYTHING with ALL your media, Amazon and Microsoft require users to use two different programs. That’s one more program than necessary if you ask me.

So is it going to flop? Probably. With you typical 2 hour movie being 2.4GB in size, requiring hours to download, and all the other points I raised, it’s hard to imagine too many people getting excited about paying DVD prices to watch movies on their computers. If you could burn standard DVDs and weren’t limited two only 2 computers, then Amazon would probably have a winner on their hands. The success or failure of this service is probably going to rest on what Apple announces on September 12.

It’s Showtime

As it stands, the rumors that are floating around are that Apple will announce movie sales from $9.99 to $14.99. Not much else is known, but the scuttlebut on the ‘net is that Apple will be launching with only Disney studios’ catalogue of content, which is going to seem like not much at first, but you have to remember that Disney owns the Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group made up of Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures and Miramax films. Disney also own Pixar Animation Studios in addition to their own animation studios. So if the rumors are true, Apple may not be starting out of the gate with as big a list of movies, but they already have a large selection of TV shows for sale, and they will no doubt sign more studios on board over time as was the case when they launched TV downloads with only a small catalogue of ABC programs.

An Apple iMovie download service would most likely have the same liberal usage rights as they have become known for: authorization of up to 5 computers, and an unlimited number of iPods. But as mentioned before, iTunes video purchases are optimized for playback on an iPod, which has a very small screen. If Apple launches their movie download service without bumping up the resolution of the files, this could be the one chance Amazon has for some limited success. Essentially, they would be offering higher quality video content for about the same price. DRM restrictions and poor user experience aside, that does give them a competitive edge.

Anyone who thinks Apple hasn’t anticipated (or known) about Amazon’s offering isn’t giving them much credit though. Rumors are also swirling about an upgraded AirPort Express base station with the ability to stream video from your computer to your home theatre over a wired or wireless network. Such a device could be the key to cracking the digital movie download market wide open.

Regardless of whether Apple matches Amazon’s video resolution or releases an AirPort Express Video device though, Apple already has a leg up in several areas which nearly guarantee it’s success: it’s service will work with the most devices in consumer’s hands. The iPod has the lion’s share of the market, and Apple’s solution works with both Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X, the latter which is seeing a strong comeback and is expected to have a bumper holiday season this year and tends to sell to more media-savvy consumers.

The bottom line is Amazon is doing some things right, but a lot of the same things wrong that have proven to not be popular with consumers. They are selling content to a very limited market, and have yet to make a name for themselves in the digital download market. Apple, assuming the most conservative estimates are true, has a guaranteed winner on their hand with a large installed base of existing and potential customers, the dominant brand, more liberal usage rights, the better end-user experience and maybe a trick or two up it’s sleeve to seal the deal. If I was Amazon, I’d be hoping Steve Jobs doesn’t have ‘just one more thing’ to talk about at the end of his presentation this coming Tuesday.