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  The Week In iPhone Apps: Spore Origins Hands-On Edition [IPhone Apps]

  http://techgadgetupdate.com/2008/09/08/the-week-in-iphone-ap...
  84 days ago in techgadgetupdate.co · Authority: 23

  The Week In iPhone Apps: Spore Origins Hands-On Edition [IPhone Apps] Posted by: admin in General Gadgets News I’ve been running around at CEDIA this week, so for today’s installment, on top of a rundown of our app news from the week, we had a chance to give Spore Origins for the iPhone a spin before it drops (hopefully) this Sunday. As we saw at E3 and WWDC, the iPhone version of Spore is Spore Origins, which is limited to the “primordial ooze” stage you see here, with a limited version of the Creature Creator thrown in for tweaking your bug cosmetically. On the plus side, it’s simple and a quick diversion, and it’s fun combo-ing your way through 35 increasingly difficult levels of munching tiny floaties. You can also import pics from your iPhone camera to texture-map on your creatures (Benny’s Michigan Fab 5 tee). But on the downside, the game suffers from the same control awkwardness that all of the accelerometer-only games do—as you can see in our video, the camera had a tough time keeping focus because you’re always dramatically moving the phone to try to reign in your creature. A training stage featured a level-like bubble for each axis that showed you when you were at the zero-point, which was incredibly helpful—too bad it disappeared after training. And most disappointingly, Spore for iPhone does not connect with the greater Spore hive in any way, meaning you won’t see any procedurally generated creatures made by real other players of the game via Spore’s central server. Kind of a weird choice for such a connected phone, and most confusingly, EA says the simpler Java based game for most other cellphones does in fact have connectivity to the greater spore world. There’s still some vagueness with release date (EA’s site still only says “sometime in September”) but all other Spore platforms launch in the US this Sunday. Look for it then or soon thereafter in the App Store for a price that’ll probably be in the $10 and below range. This week’s app coverage on Giz: Remember what it was like to buy a CD? Apple’s plans to include lyrics and additional album art via an app download for certain albums will help you remember. Continunig to carry the torch for political apps is Election ‘08 - a $1 app that collects poll data, electoral vote projections, and tons of other election data. And at CEDIA, all of the home automation systems are racing each other to release remote control applications, turning your iPhone into a capable touchscreen control surface for opening the blinds from across the street or jacking up the AC if your cat gets hot. For even more apps: see what you missed last week and check our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody. Via [Gizmodo] Share This Share This
• 

  DiscCloud Releases Virtual Desktop Infrastructure for Mac OS X

  http://www.mactech.com/news/?p=1010797
  87 days ago in MacTech Magazine · Authority: 89

  MacTechDiscCloud Releases Virtual Desktop Infrastructure for Mac OS X DiscCloud transforms any PC, workstation, or x86 based machine into a powerful virtual desktop server for Mac OS X Leopard clients. The DiscCloud virtual appliance runs on VMware and therefore provides Mac users with all of the benefits of VMware virtualization. Ottawa, ON (PRWEB) September 6, 2008 — DiscCloud today announced [...]10:10 On iTunes 8 and hunches; also… Ars Technica We have received word that iTunes 8 is finally confirmed for Tuesday's special event, and that it's also expected that iPhone 2.1 will land as well with some hidden features we don't know about. Read More...08:43 More leaked iPod nano pics: f… Ars Technica Orange and lime: not just fruits anymore. Allegedly-leaked photos of the fourth-gen iPod nano made the rounds overnight and they're pretty much what you would expect, except in some rare colors for the nano. Read More...07:30 Journals week in review: Coun… Ars Technica This week in the world of Apple, iPod fans got geared up after Apple sent out invites to its special event next week. Further iPod leaks, rumors about an iPhone gamepad, and an AT&T data service outage also got people fired up, among other interesting tidbits. Come check it out in case you managed to miss it all. Read More...07:00 Food Network's Alton Brown … Gizmodo Apple Tomorrow night at 10PM, Food Network kicks off Alton Brown's latest TV show, Feasting on Waves, where the Mensa-smart kitchen geek and his crew hop into two 50-foot catamarans and sail around 15 different Caribbean islands in search of quality cuisine, shooting and editing the hi-def episodes right there on the boats. It turns out, despite his disdain for specialized kitchen gadgets, Brown is a certifiable gizmophile. He has owned maybe 20 Macs, most recently a MacBook Air and an iMac that has "never crashed." He also has a Panasonic ToughBook running XP, and an Eee PC which he totally loves. He carries an iPhone and at least one Garmin GPS units wherever he goes. I got him on the phone to ask what, exactly, he used to document his Feasting on Waves experiences, and how he managed to keep it all juiced up, net-connected and dry while meandering through the islands. Here's our fun exclusive interview, with photos of Brown (and his gear) in action: How do you produce a TV show from a sailboat? One of the things about the Feasting shows in general is that they have a very small crew, and we are moving with very little space. We are extremely packed and technology dense. We had two 50-foot catamarans—it sounds fun but it wasn’t that fun. So you shoot and edit as you go? This year we decided to go completely tapeless: Panasonic P2 cards on 200s. We’re downloading them into our portable Avid edit system. We take as much audio equipment as we take video equipment. The funny thing is, professional audio hasn’t gotten a whole lot smaller. Although hi-def cameras have gotten smaller, lenses have gotten better and battery time has gotten better, audio is still the tricky part of the process for field reporting. I see you were also using a little Panasonic? I was lucky enough to be one of the first people in the US to get Panasonic’s HDC-HS100 AVCHD camcorder. It’s got a nice little Leica lens on it. We take everything through a DaVinci color correction system. Once we do that, you really can’t tell the difference between my little camera and the big cameras—it’s all 1080i. We have some scenes that were 100% shot with just my camera. How did you connect to the internet? It’s kinda funny, the entire time that I was in the islands, I had perfect e-mail with my iPhone. The entire time. I think there was once, during a midnight crossing, the Anegada Passage, where I lost internet for about half an hour. The rest of the time, I was getting e-mail through either EDGE or something else [probably GPRS]. I did not even take a computer with me on that trip. I decided I just didn’t want to see a computer for a while. And at the time, I figured you know, computers, boats, water, scuba diving. I thought about taking the ToughBook along, and then I thought about taking the Asus because that’s a great little box. Then I thought, the hell with it. I took a few pads of paper, some pens and my iPhone. You also carry GPS everywhere, right? As a motorcyclist, as a hiker and as a pilot, I’m pretty sold on Garmin. In the first Feasting on Asphalt, I had a touchscreen weatherproof version of the StreetPilot for my motorcycle that even worked with gloves on. I just really love how their interfaces work. You don’t even need manuals for most of their stuff, the stuff is so intuitive. In New York, I use Google Maps with my iPhone, because I know where I am—I don’t need GPS. If I was going some place where I needed GPS, I’d use my Garmin Colorado [shown in top pic], which I really really like. It’s a really great marine box. It’s splashproof, but it comes loaded with all the marine functions, so it’s really easy to do marine chart info if you get the right cards for it. You can sail the world with one. So it was your navi on land and sea? Everywhere. We basically documented the entire Feasting on Waves journey in the Colorado. Every place we went, we popped a waypoint. It’s got so many easy functions for calculating distance it made navigating around the island easier. Even islands that didn’t have roads at all, we could get good topographic information. Do you adhere to the old sailor’s adage that you should never have just one form of navigation? Abso-stinking-lutely. When I fly, I may have full GPS on the plane, but I got a full set of charts too, and I keep the charts out while I’m flying to make sure I know where I am. In this day and age, if I have a major power outage, I just whip out my handheld, the 496, a spectacular handheld aviation GPS. But there could be a catastrophic satellite failure, different things could happen that could make GPS unusable—I guess. I think your unit would fail before the satellite did. Something could happen to satellites, you never know. So I always want to know where I am on paper, too. And on the island, what was your backup? There were a lot of times where I didn’t have a backup. On islands, I sometimes didn’t have anything else, because there aren't reliable paper maps for those places. The only time I wasn’t using Garmin to navigate was when we were underwater—I don’t think they have an underwater unit yet. We did a fair amount of scuba diving, and you’re still on your own under water. You still gotta use a compass. I think you just invented something. Underwater GPS would be spectacular. I don’t know how deep you can go with that technology without having serious problems. Even 50 to 70 feet would be useful. I wonder why they haven’t done that yet. I’ll ask Garmin when I can get that. For rec diving, having that kind of application would be fantastic. Note: I asked Garmin why there wasn't a scuba GPS, and I got a quick reply: "The reason for no scuba GPS is simple... the signal is deflected by water." So how do you keep everything charged up? That’s a problem. Especially on the boats, it was really difficult. We got down there and realized that the power systems on the boats which were all 220V—the power wasn’t clean enough for our editing computers. On St. Martin, we had to go buy a Honda generator to run on the back of the boat to give us good steady clean 120V. The Colorado runs on AAs, so I took a batch of rechargeable AAs. I ran the recharger for that in the cabin where I also charged my iPhone and my little camera batteries. I had to have three chargers. My other camera only runs on regular batteries, not rechargeables. What kind of camera is it? It’s an old metal Canon EF—about 30 years old. I also carry a 35mm Leica point-and-shoot with a fixed 40mm lens. I was shooting slide film in the Canon and print film in the Leica. So you’re not shooting digital? Not on this. I wanted Ektochrome—nothing looks like Ektochrome. I’m old school that way. I have a pretty decent Canon digital, and a Leica digital as well, but I didn’t want to have to deal with the chargers, and I wanted super robust technology, so I went film. I like film. You can’t beat it. I spent most of my career as a cinematographer before I went to culinary school, so I just got a thing about film emulsions. It’s still the way I think. I just don’t appreciate digital photography as much as I should. I know, I know—we managed to get through an entire discussion about a food show without talking about the freakin' food. Good thing there are already clips of the show (alas, non-embeddable) up at Food Network's website, so take a look. The awesome photographs of Alton were shot—digitally—by Marion Laney, ForgottenGulf.com. 05:12 App Stores: Microsoft, Google… MacNewsWorldWhen Apple opened its iTunes App Store in July, the idea of a mass-market Web site that sells downloadable games, tools, and other applications for cell phones was a rarity. Handset owners could buy apps from their carriers or the occasional niche site. But these days, the app store concept is becoming commonplace.04:12 Freeway Pro 5.2: Slick Site D… MacNewsWorldDesigning a professional looking Web site requires good coding and good design skills -- a combination that isn't overly prominent in the Web-design world. Freeway Pro 5.2 helps overcome that problem by giving designers the tools they need to build great sites without requiring them to develop strong coding skills -- and it does it all without compromising on visual and behind-the-scenes code quality.Friday 5th September 200822:00 An Actual Picture of the Ne… Gizmodo Apple Engadget's got what looks like a legit, actual spy shot of the new iPod nano in its new packaging—thankfully, it's much, much prettier and Apple-y than what Kevin Rose provided us with, which looks like it was crapped out of a plastic robot Ewok or something before it had its picture taken. Orange? My dream of lime green nano on Tuesday now has wings. [Engadget] 22:00 Unconfirmed: An Actual Pict… Gizmodo Apple Looks like we've got a supposedly legit, actual spy shot of the new iPod nano in its packaging (apparently originally posted by MacNN in an obscured form, it looks like it first got clear in this AppleInsider thread). Thankfully, while it confirms everything we've been hearing about it, it's much, much prettier and Apple-y than what Kevin Rose provided us with, which looked like it was crapped out of a plastic robot Ewok or something before it had its picture taken. This, all assuming that it's actually a legit picture. Orange? My dream of a lime green nano on Tuesday now has wings. Update: We have changed the photo and the source of this article because it's originally from MacNN. Zooming in Photoshop, it looks like the one posted in AppleInsider had the macnn.com watermark removed. [MacNN] 20:36 Leaked Photo of 4th Generation i… MacRumors Engadget posts what is claimed to be an actual photo of one of the new "tall" iPod Nanos. Rumors have been persistent that the iPod Nano would see a return to the "tall" form factor next week. The larger screen will reportedly allow for b...16:48 Purchase Classical Works of… Gizmodo Apple Regulars might remember Adam's similar Photoshop contest a few weeks ago, but these amazing oil-on-canvas paintings were lovingly adorned with Macintosh SEs for a Sweden-only ad campaign all they way back in 1987. Erik Saxen produced these original works (inspired by a number of famous artists) for Apple's marketing, but is now seeking a (weird) collector to take them off his hands. Sure, they're masterfully painted, but more interestingly come from a time when Apple, a more innocent underdog, could portray their products as fine art without coming off as arrogant. I'm not saying that this campaign wasn't at least partially born of hubris, but the effect - especially this many years later - is more strange and hilarious than anything else. Details and a full gallery are available here. [MyOldMac via Cult of Mac] 16:34 Apple clamps down on Google AdWor… MacworldThe disappearance of Apple-related advertisements from Google's AdWords service in Australia has resellers fearing online sales leads will evaporate as Apple strengthens its own local retail presence and clamps down on other companies using its trademarks. 15:57 The Week In iPhone Apps: Sp… Gizmodo Apple I've been running around at CEDIA this week, so for today's installment, on top of a rundown of our app news from the week, we had a chance to give Spore Origins for the iPhone a spin before it drops (hopefully) this Sunday. As we saw at E3 and WWDC, the iPhone version of Spore is Spore Origins, which is limited to the "primordial ooze" stage you see here, with a limited version of the Creature Creator thrown in for tweaking your bug cosmetically. On the plus side, it's simple and a quick diversion, and it's fun combo-ing your way through 35 increasingly difficult levels of munching little floaties. You can also import photos from your iPhone camera to texture-map on your creatures (Benny's Michigan Fab 5 tee). But on the downside, the game suffers from the same control awkwardness that all of the accelerometer-only games do—as you can see in our video, the camera had a tough time keeping focus because you're always dramatically moving the phone to try to reign in your creature. A training stage featured a level-like bubble for each axis that showed you when you were at the zero-point, which was incredibly helpful—too bad it disappeared after training. And most disappointingly, Spore for iPhone does not connect with the greater Spore hive in any way, meaning you won't see any procedurally generated creatures made by real other players of the game via Spore's central server. Kind of a weird choice for such a connected phone, and most confusingly, EA says the simpler Java based game for most other cellphones does in fact have connectivity to the greater spore world. There's still some vagueness with release date (EA's site still only says "sometime in September") but all other Spore platforms launch in the US this Sunday. Look for it then or soon thereafter in the App Store for a price that'll probably be in the $10 and below range. This week's app coverage on Giz: Remember what it was like to buy a CD? Apple's plans to include lyrics and additional album art via an app download for certain albums will help you remember. Continunig to carry the torch for political apps is Election '08 - a $1 app that collects poll data, electoral vote projections, and tons of other election data. And at CEDIA, all of the home automation systems are racing each other to release remote control applications, turning your iPhone into a capable touchscreen control surface for opening the blinds from across the street or jacking up the AC if your cat gets hot. For even more apps: see what you missed last week and check our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody. 14:57 Adobe sets Genesis mashup pilot MacworldAdobe Systems in October plans to launch a private pilot program for its "Genesis" mashup technology. 14:45 Friday afternoon Apple links:… Ars Technica This Friday's Apple links preps us for the September 9 Apple Event by not touching on it whatsoever. Instead, we look at the iPhone's sales, Adobe CS4, a Cthulhu game for the iPhone, some tips for screen sharing in Leopard, lightsabers, and the military using iPods. Read More...14:30 StrangeCharm - Particle Debri… Mac ObserverMicrosoft gets no soup, no respect, and an ad about nothing in their new advertising campaign which launched during Thursday Night Football. I formed a theory a while back that the ad would mirror Microsoft?s corporate culture, and I think my prediction was fulfilled 14:20 User Friendly Blog by Ted Lan… Mac ObserverIf you?re like me (or more correctly, like I used to be), you may be saying: ?Huh? Best Buy? Who would want to go there to buy Apple products?? Indeed, over the years, my opinion of Best Buy had sunk so low that you?d have to open a storm drain to even hope to find it. But times change 14:05 iPO The Back Page - Why Chrom… Mac Observer John C. Dvorak and some others have been asking why in the hell Google would bother releasing a new browser in this day and age. When it comes to Google, the super short answer is, "Why not?" For a longer answer, we have only to look at the lessons that Apple... 13:38 Microsoft to Deploy Their O… Gizmodo Apple As part of their $300 Million ad campaign Microsoft has announced that they will begin to deploy in-store representatives to large chains like Best Buy and Circuit City to help consumers with their PC issues. Like their Apple counterparts, The "Microsoft Gurus" will not be paid on commission and they will be available to handle general questions and give demos of products—but they will not be available for any real tech support or repairs. So they are kind of like Apple Geniuses, only a lot less useful. Nonetheless, Microsoft plans to roll out around 155 of these trained experts during an initial trial run sometime before the end of the year. [Electronista] 13:28 Down and out at the September… Ars Technica Consensus from rumormongers and analysts coalesce around modest iPod updates and no Macs on September 9th, but something is coming. Read More...13:20 Spore springs to life MacworldElectronic Arts plans to unleash Spore, a virtual life game from Sims creator Will Wright, across multiple platforms including the Mac next week. But Chris Holt got a sneak peek at the game during a launch event in San Francisco on Thursday. 13:12 Report: iPod, iPhone failures due …
• 

  The Week In iPhone Apps: Spore Origins Hands-On Edition [IPhone Apps]

  http://archive.dailypicture.net/the_week_in_iphone_apps_spor...
  87 days ago in archive.dailypicture.net · Authority: 31

  I've been running around at CEDIA this week, so for today's installment, on top of a rundown of our app news from the week, we had a chance to give Spore Origins for the iPhone a spin before it drops (hopefully) this Sunday. As we saw at E3 and WWDC, the iPhone version of Spore is Spore Origins, which is limited to the "primordial ooze" stage you see here, with a limited version of the Creature Creator thrown in for tweaking your bug cosmetically. On the plus side, it's simple and a quick diversion, and it's fun combo-ing your way through 35 increasingly difficult levels of munching little floaties. You can also import photos from your iPhone camera to texture-map on your creatures (Benny's Michigan Fab 5 tee). But on the downside, the game suffers from the same control awkwardness that all of the accelerometer-only games do—as you can see in our video, the camera had a tough time keeping focus because you're always dramatically moving the phone to try to reign in your creature. A training stage featured a level-like bubble for each axis that showed you when you were at the zero-point, which was incredibly helpful—too bad it disappeared after training. And most disappointingly, Spore for iPhone does not connect with the greater Spore hive in any way, meaning you won't see any procedurally generated creatures made by real other players of the game via Spore's central server. Kind of a weird choice for such a connected phone, and most confusingly, EA says the simpler Java based game for most other cellphones does in fact have connectivity to the greater spore world. There's still some vagueness with release date (EA's site still only says "sometime in September") but all other Spore platforms launch in the US this Sunday. Look for it then or soon thereafter in the App Store for a price that'll probably be in the $10 and below range. This week's app coverage on Giz: Remember what it was like to buy a CD? Apple's plans to include lyrics and additional album art via an app download for certain albums will help you remember. Continunig to carry the torch for political apps is Election '08 - a $1 app that collects poll data, electoral vote projections, and tons of other election data. And at CEDIA, all of the home automation systems are racing each other to release remote control applications, turning your iPhone into a capable touchscreen control surface for opening the blinds from across the street or jacking up the AC if your cat gets hot. For even more apps: see what you missed last week and check our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody. Original Entry Leave Comment
• 

  The Week In iPhone Apps: Spore Origins Hands-On Edition [IPhone Apps]

  http://www.thegreatiphoneblog.com/2008/09/05/the-week-in-iph...
  87 days ago in iPhone related Views, Reviews, Analysis, Accessories, Software, and info including how-to unlock iPhone and more.. » The Great iPhone Blog · Authority: 3

  I've been running around at CEDIA this week, so for today's installment, on top of a rundown of our app news from the week, we had a chance to give Spore Origins for the iPhone a spin before it drops (hopefully) this Sunday. As we saw at E3 and WWDC, the iPhone version of Spore is Spore Origins, which is limited to the "primordial ooze" stage you see here, with a limited version of the Creature Creator thrown in for tweaking your bug cosmetically. On the plus side, it's simple and a quick diversion, and it's fun combo-ing your way through 35 increasingly difficult levels of munching little floaties. You can also import photos from your iPhone camera to texture-map on your creatures (Benny's Michigan Fab 5 tee). But on the downside, the game suffers from the same control awkwardness that all of the accelerometer-only games do—as you can see in our video, the camera had a tough time keeping focus because you're always dramatically moving the phone to try to reign in your creature. A training stage featured a level-like bubble for each axis that showed you when you were at the zero-point, which was incredibly helpful—too bad it disappeared after training. And most disappointingly, Spore for iPhone does not connect with the greater Spore hive in any way, meaning you won't see any procedurally generated creatures made by real other players of the game via Spore's central server. Kind of a weird choice for such a connected phone, and most confusingly, EA says the simpler Java based game for most other cellphones does in fact have connectivity to the greater spore world. There's still some vagueness with release date (EA's site still only says "sometime in September") but all other Spore platforms launch in the US this Sunday. Look for it then or soon thereafter in the App Store for a price that'll probably be in the $10 and below range. This week's app coverage on Giz: Remember what it was like to buy a CD? Apple's plans to include lyrics and additional album art via an app download for certain albums will help you remember. Continunig to carry the torch for political apps is Election '08 - a $1 app that collects poll data, electoral vote projections, and tons of other election data. And at CEDIA, all of the home automation systems are racing each other to release remote control applications, turning your iPhone into a capable touchscreen control surface for opening the blinds from across the street or jacking up the AC if your cat gets hot. For even more apps: see what you missed last week and check our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.
• 

  The Week In iPhone Apps: Spore Origins Hands-On Edition [IPhone Apps]

  http://gizmodo.com/5046199/the-week-in-iphone-apps-spore-ori...
  87 days ago in Nikon D90 Official: First DSLR Ever With HD Video Recording · Authority: 39

  I've been running around at CEDIA this week, so for today's installment, on top of a rundown of our app news from the week, we had a chance to give Spore Origins for the iPhone a spin before it drops (hopefully) this Sunday. As we saw at E3 and WWDC, the iPhone version of Spore is Spore Origins, which is limited to the "primordial ooze" stage you see here, with a limited version of the Creature Creator thrown in for tweaking your bug cosmetically. On the plus side, it's simple and a quick diversion, and it's fun combo-ing your way through 35 increasingly difficult levels of munching little floaties. You can also import photos from your iPhone camera to texture-map on your creatures (Benny's Michigan Fab 5 tee). But on the downside, the game suffers from the same control awkwardness that all of the accelerometer-only games do—as you can see in our video, the camera had a tough time keeping focus because you're always dramatically moving the phone to try to reign in your creature. A training stage featured a level-like bubble for each axis that showed you when you were at the zero-point, which was incredibly helpful—too bad it disappeared after training. And most disappointingly, Spore for iPhone does not connect with the greater Spore hive in any way, meaning you won't see any procedurally generated creatures made by real other players of the game via Spore's central server. Kind of a weird choice for such a connected phone, and most confusingly, EA says the simpler Java based game for most other cellphones does in fact have connectivity to the greater spore world. There's still some vagueness with release date (EA's site still only says "sometime in September") but all other Spore platforms launch in the US this Sunday. Look for it then or soon thereafter in the App Store for a price that'll probably be in the $10 and below range. This week's app coverage on Giz: Remember what it was like to buy a CD? Apple's plans to include lyrics and additional album art via an app download for certain albums will help you remember. Continunig to carry the torch for political apps is Election '08 - a $1 app that collects poll data, electoral vote projections, and tons of other election data. And at CEDIA, all of the home automation systems are racing each other to release remote control applications, turning your iPhone into a capable touchscreen control surface for opening the blinds from across the street or jacking up the AC if your cat gets hot. For even more apps: see what you missed last week and check our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.
• 

  The Week In iPhone Apps: Spore Origins Hands-On Edition

  http://www.accordingtodick.com/2008/09/05/the-week-in-iphone...
  87 days ago in According to Dick · Authority: 1

  The Week In iPhone Apps: Spore Origins Hands-On Edition Posted by John Mahoney Published in Cell Phones I've been running around at CEDIA this week, so for today's installment, on top of a rundown of our app news from the week, we had a chance to give Spore Origins for the iPhone a spin before it drops (hopefully) this Sunday. As we saw at E3 and WWDC, the iPhone version of Spore is Spore Origins, which is limited to the "primordial ooze" stage you see here, with a limited version of the Creature Creator thrown in for tweaking your bug cosmetically. On the plus side, it's simple and a quick diversion, and it's fun combo-ing your way through 35 increasingly difficult levels of munching little floaties. You can also import photos from your iPhone camera to texture-map on your creatures (Benny's Michigan Fab 5 tee). But on the downside, the game suffers from the same control awkwardness that all of the accelerometer-only games do—as you can see in our video, the camera had a tough time keeping focus because you're always dramatically moving the phone to try to reign in your creature. A training stage featured a level-like bubble for each axis that showed you when you were at the zero-point, which was incredibly helpful—too bad it disappeared after training. And most disappointingly, Spore for iPhone does not connect with the greater Spore hive in any way, meaning you won't see any procedurally generated creatures made by real other players of the game via Spore's central server. Kind of a weird choice for such a connected phone, and most confusingly, EA says the simpler Java based game for most other cellphones does in fact have connectivity to the greater spore world. There's still some vagueness with release date (EA's site still only says "sometime in September") but all other Spore platforms launch in the US this Sunday. Look for it then or soon thereafter in the App Store for a price that'll probably be in the $10 and below range. This week's app coverage on Giz: Remember what it was like to buy a CD? Apple's plans to include lyrics and additional album art via an app download for certain albums will help you remember. Continunig to carry the torch for political apps is Election '08 - a $1 app that collects poll data, electoral vote projections, and tons of other election data. And at CEDIA, all of the home automation systems are racing each other to release remote control applications, turning your iPhone into a capable touchscreen control surface for opening the blinds from across the street or jacking up the AC if your cat gets hot. For even more apps: see what you missed last week and check our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.
• 

  The Week In iPhone Apps: Spore Origins Hands-On Edition

  http://www.perpetualinsomniac.net/?p=2086
  87 days ago in Perpetual Insomnia · Authority: 7

  newVideoPlayer("/iphonespore_giz.flv", 506, 423,""); I've been running around at CEDIA this week, so for today's installment, on top of a rundown of our app news from the week, we had a chance to give Spore Origins for the iPhone a spin before it drops (hopefully) this Sunday. As we saw at E3 and WWDC, the iPhone version of Spore is Spore Origins, which is limited to the "primordial ooze" stage you see here, with a limited version of the Creature Creator thrown in for tweaking your bug cosmetically. On the plus side, it's simple and a quick diversion, and it's fun combo-ing your way through 35 increasingly difficult levels of munching little floaties. You can also import photos from your iPhone camera to texture-map on your creatures (Benny's Michigan Fab 5 tee). But on the downside, the game suffers from the same control awkwardness that all of the accelerometer-only games do—as you can see in our video, the camera had a tough time keeping focus because you're always dramatically moving the phone to try to reign in your creature. A training stage featured a level-like bubble for each axis that showed you when you were at the zero-point, which was incredibly helpful—too bad it disappeared after training. And most disappointingly, Spore for iPhone does not connect with the greater Spore hive in any way, meaning you won't see any procedurally generated creatures made by real other players of the game via Spore's central server. Kind of a weird choice for such a connected phone, and most confusingly, EA says the simpler Java based game for most other cellphones does in fact have connectivity to the greater spore world. There's still some vagueness with release date (EA's site still only says "sometime in September") but all other Spore platforms launch in the US this Sunday. Look for it then or soon thereafter in the App Store for a price that'll probably be in the $10 and below range. This week's app coverage on Giz: Remember what it was like to buy a CD? Apple's plans to include lyrics and additional album art via an app download for certain albums will help you remember. Continunig to carry the torch for political apps is Election '08 - a $1 app that collects poll data, electoral vote projections, and tons of other election data. And at CEDIA, all of the home automation systems are racing each other to release remote control applications, turning your iPhone into a capable touchscreen control surface for opening the blinds from across the street or jacking up the AC if your cat gets hot. For even more apps: see what you missed last week and check our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.

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