Stephen Fry published a story Monday. Ostensibly about Appleâs upper executives and the new campus, the real story was buried in the middle: Jony Ive got a new job.
When I catch up with Ive alone, I ask him why he has seemingly relinquished the two departments that had been so successfully under his control. âWell, Iâm still in charge of both,â he says, âI am called Chief Design Officer. Having Alan and Richard in place frees me up from some of the administrative and management work which isnât ⦠which isnât â¦â
âWhich isnât what you were put on this planet to do?â
âExactly.
Those two are as good as it gets. Richard was lead on the iPhone from the start. He saw it all the way through from prototypes to the first model we released. Alan has a genius for human interface design. So much of the Apple Watchâs operating system came from him. With those two in place I can â¦â
I could feel him avoiding the phrase âblue sky thinkingâ⦠think more freely?â
âYes!â
Jony will travel more, he told me. Among other things, he will bring his energies to bear â as he has already since their inception â on the Apple Stores that are proliferating around the world. The companyâs retail spaces have been one of their most extraordinary successes.
Jony was promoted from Senior Vice President of Design to the newly-created position of Chief Design Officer. In fact, one might say Jony was promoted right out of the building – as of July 1st, he wonât personally be in charge of hardware or software design, instead managing other executives in these roles. Itâs hard to say whether this is good news or bad news, but it is news nonetheless. It could mean Jony is stepping away and returning to his British homeland. It could also mean exactly what it says – that he wants more of an overhead role, and would rather leave execution details to SVPs.
Great news for space combat fans: the excellent Strike Wing just recieved a major update.
A full second episode of the game is included in this update, and is available free for everyone. Also of note: improved performance, better graphics, full MFi controller support (even in the menus!), and a wealth of new content and unlockables.
Multiple AAA titles with MFi controller support have hit the App Store over the past few weeks. Strike Wing, even though it was released a year and a half ago, more than holds its own with the latest contenders.
Strike Wing is on sale for $0.99 to celebrate the update. The price goes up to $2.99 tomorrow – if youâve been looking for a good sci-fi space combat simulator, there has never been a better time to give Strike Wing a download.
Apple added a few new products to their store shelves yesterday. While most of the focus was on new iMacs and new MacBooks, the Horipad MFi controller was snuck onto store shelves at the same time.
The Horipad isn’t a new controller; it was originally released December of last year. But this marks the first time you’ve been able to get one in the United States outside of Amazon Store distribution.
In fact, for the past several months, Apple Stores have only carried the SteelSeries Stratus and SteelSeries Stratus XL controllers. While there is nothing particularly horrible about those controllers, they are inferior to the Horipad1.
In the time since writing my (very positive) review of the Horipad, my opinion of this controller has continued to grow. Its my personal favorite of the Bluetooth MFi controllers, and my second favorite overall controller, behind only the Gamevice.
If the Horipad included an iPhone grip, it would be my definitive recommendation. As it stands, this is still an incredible controller. The traditional-style analog layout and killer d-pad make it the best option for retro gamers.
If the reason you’ve been holding off on the Horipad is because you wanted to buy one in person, rather than ordering through Amazon, now’s your chance. If you don’t need an iPhone grip and love the PlayStation button layout, I give the Horipad my strongest recommendation.
Great news, MFi controller fans: the C.T.R.L.i is back on sale, this time with the black and white options both available for 25% off, at $45; a full $5 less than the smaller (but also excellent) Micro C.T.R.L.i retails for.
I reviewed the C.T.R.L.i and found it to be a solid, capable bluetooth MFi controller option. Also of note: itâs by far the best choice for iPhone 6 Plus owners, since itâs the only controller with a weight distribution that doesnât cause the larger iPhone to fall over off-balance.
The C.T.R.L.i has been on sale several times before, but weâve never had such a steep discount for anything other than the black controller before. If youâre tired of black gamepads (or want a backup for Player 2), this is a great time to strike.
For those worried that the Gamevice might turn out to be vaporware, this should go a long way towards quelling your fears: Gameviceâs companion app, Gamevice Live, is now available on the App Store!
I worked with the folks at Gamevice to get them access to my game database to create theirs, so their app should be reasonably up-to-date with the releases cataloged here at AfterPad.
For more information on the Gamevice, check out my in-depth hands-on preview; Iâve been using the controller more and more since writing it, and my opinion of it keeps getting better.
New information about the Gamevice controller will be coming very soon; the controller itself wonât be too far behind!
I’ve always been a fan of pixel art. At least, when it’s done right, and done for the right reasons. This piece explores some of the reasons people use it, good and bad, and makes a solid case for exploring other art styles.
The piece is well worth a read, but I think it muddies it’s own points a bit by getting lost in the realms of fan-fiction.
The title of the piece makes the statement: “The console needs to die and Nintendo should be the one to pull the trigger”.
I’d find it more interesting to ask the question: “Is the console going to die, and is there any way Nintendo can capitalize on it’s death to regain relevance?”
Will the console metaphore die?
Ultimately, I’d define the “console gaming market” as the idea of gaming in front of a big screen TV.
As strange as it is for someone who writes about mobile games to have that opinion, I think gaming in front of a big screen TV on a couch is a fundamentally different experience than gaming on a mobile phone screen, and I think this experience is going to continue to be sought after by consumers.
As long as consumers demand to play games in front of a big TV, something will exist fulfill that purpose and capitalize on the demand.
This does not mean consumers will continue buying $400 boxes to fulfill this demand.
Disruption theory suggests that microconsoles will eventually proliferate at a rapid rate due to low costs, and will improve in capability to the point that traditional-style consoles will be pushed further up-market, further reducing their platform viability, creating a vicious cycle.
The steady progress of technology dictates that this will start very soon. The demands of HD and 4K video streaming in TVs and TV service boxes require increasingly powerful hardware under the hood, and this hardware is more than capable of playing games.
I’m not entirely sure how this new market will play out in respect to the existing console market, but I’m absolutely convinced its coming sooner rather than later. It’s partly why I launched this website.
This does not spell the death of console gaming. It heralds the evolution of console gaming as something with the potential to be as prevalent as watching movies or television.
Nintendo
As for what role Nintendo could have in this world, I’m less optimistic.
Nintendo has shown an understanding of the concept of low-end disruption, but at their core, they’re fundamentally tied up in the idea of doing everything themselves. Unless this changes, I think they’re in trouble.
The number of companies selling “game consoles” for well under $100 will expand drastically as component prices fall. The game companies who succeed will be the ones who are able to put their games on as many platforms as possible. The hardware companies who succeed will be the ones able to get the most content on their devices.
Nintendo would need to offer a device so compelling that people buy Nintendo’s $100 microconsole instead of Apple’s, Google’s Amazon’s, Sony’s… anyone elses.
Such a device would need a massive catalog of non-game content, excellent digital distribution, a modern storefront, a platform others are willing to develop for, and likely deep integration with a smartphone ecosystem.
Nintendo has none of these things. Any one of them would be a significant undertaking. Doing all of them, and doing them better than every other player in the industry, is likely beyond Nintendo’s abilities.
As a fan of Nintendo’s games, I hope they find a path to success in the new world of gaming. As an analyst of the industry, I don’t know what this path would be.
As first noticed by MFi4Gamerz, the website for developer Bad Fly’s long-awaited follow up went live recently, and tentatively promises a release date of sometime in the third quarter of this year.
The official teaser video
While there is litle information to go on here, the first game in the series is an ambitious shooter that holds up surprisingly well years after launch. More information about this sequel will be available closer to launch, and when it is, you can expect to read about it here and on the forum.
Great news for fans of classic side-scrolling action-platformers: 2-bit Cowboy, a love letter to those games of old, is currently available for the always-inviting price of free!
It’s a cowboy, it’s 2 bit, and it’s a lot of fun
I reviewed this game myself back when it was released (and assisted in the beta with testing controller support), and I really liked it. It was well worth the dollar or two asking price, and is certainly well worth clicking the “get” button right now.
After almost a month of work, I’m happy to take the wraps off my latest project: the AfterPad Forums!
These forums, currently in beta, are designed from the ground up to be fast, stable, and fully mobile-first. The entire design has been custom built by hand, and works perfectly on iPhone and iPad, with generous touch targets and responsive buttons.
Things are very much a work in progress right now, but the basics are all in place, with full profile customization, posting with bbcode, avatars, signatures, ranks – all the fun stuff you’d want to see on a discussion board.
If these forums end up being something people like, expect to see them expanded and integrated into the site even further – game discussion threads can be linked to directly from the MFi game list, particularly high-quality posts can be posted directly to the AfterPad homepage – the sky’s the limit.
I wanted to build a place for people to ask questions, recommend games, share thoughts about the latest Apple gaming developments. Currently, the only way to do this type of thing on AfterPad was through the Disqus comment system, and for many reasons, that is just not a great solution.
Ideally, I’d like to see the AfterPad forums turn into a nice, tight-knit community of iOS gamers who share an interest in premium gaming experiences. If that sounds like something you want to be a part of, head on over to the forums and start contributing today – it can’t happen without you!
