Freeform
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iPadOS 16.2 includes Freeform collaboration app and Stage Manager on an external display
iPadOS 16 launched a little later this year than its predecessors, and a few key features weren’t quite ready. With iPadOS 16.2, which just arrived this afternoon, I think Apple has caught up with what it planned. There are two major new features on board here. First, Stage Manager multitasking now works across an external display, provided you’re using an iPad with an M1 or M2 chip inside. Second, the collaborative brainstorming and productivity app Freeform is now available on the iPad.
Apple's Freeform whiteboard app is now available for developers
The software arrived alongside the latest iOS, iPadOS and macOS betas.
iPadOS 16 preview: Apple's software is catching up with its hardware
A look at Apple's upcoming iPadOS 16 software.
Samsung's smart TVs are getting ESPN and Freeform
If you have a 2017 Samsung Smart TV, you can now install ESPN and Freeform, thanks to the deal the Korean company struck with their overlord Disney. While both apps have been around on phones, tablets and streaming devices for a long time, this makes things much easier if you'd rather stream directly on your TV. The ESPN app gives you access to all things sports, obviously, including the upcoming Alabama-Georgia College Football Playoff National Championship. Freeform, on the other hand, is for binging on movies and TV shows, including Gilmore Girls and Shadowhunters.
Leap Motion releases Free Form, an app that lets human hands sculpt digital clay (video)
When we reviewed the Leap Motion controller earlier this year, we found the application selection to be a bit lacking. Since then, the number of apps has doubled from 75 to around 150, and the Airspace store's newest edition is the coolest Leap app we've yet seen. It's called Free Form, and it's a 3D sculpting app (not unlike 3D Systems' Sculpt) built in house at Leap Motion that lets you manipulate and shape digital objects using your fingertips. David Holz, company co-founder and the man who figured out the math behind Leap Motion's technology, gave us a demo of the app and talked a bit about why Leap built it. Additionally, he showed us a new developer beta software that does 360-degree tracking built to address some of the original Leap shortcomings.
The Game Archaeologist: Rubies of Eventide
I can't say that Rubies of Eventide has been on my radar, like, ever. And yet practically every time I've asked for suggestions of a game to cover in this column, it seems like someone pipes up asking that Rubies gets a little publicity. That tells me that there's some underground love for this title. There are two things that separate Rubies of Eventide from the rest of the MMO pack and make it a fascinating case study. The first is that it's one of the very few MUDs that was transformed into a graphical MMO while retaining its roots in old-school play. The second is that it had an absolutely ridiculous number of playable classes: 104, to be precise. Some days I really miss the era when game designers would aspire to reach these incredible numbers. Faced with the prospect of an early death, Rubies of Eventide miraculously survived and ran for six interesting years. Let's take a look at a MUD-turned-MMO this week, shall we?
'Free form' lens over mobile display could improve audio and haptics, says Motorola patent filing
It's hard to tell exactly what Motorola is thinking of here, but it probably isn't a billowing sheet of fabric stretched loosely over the face of a smartphone -- even if that's what it looks like. Instead, this appears to be a patent application for a "free floating display lens" that helps the panel of a mobile device to be used as a Beo-style acoustic speaker. The idea is that you can get louder and less resonant sound without having to dedicate more precious real estate to a larger traditional speaker unit. The application also talks about generating haptic feedback on the lens, using the same underlying piezoelectric structures that would power the audio. Creating vibrations this way could require "eight times" less voltage than current methods while also delivering a higher-amplitude sensation. Merge that with KDDI's weird vibrational speaker technology and the results could be deafening.
Champions Online features a new grab bag with a potential freeform prize
The big draw behind Champions Online has always been making a freeform character, selecting powers and abilities to your taste instead of along a pre-determined path. Cryptic Studios knows this quite well, hence why freeform characters are normally restricted to subscribers. But the newest grab bag unveiled by the game offers everyone, paid and free, a chance to win a new slot for freeform character creation. And you don't even need to pay money for the chance. Freeform Grab Bags are awarded from the new daily quests from the Drifter, giving players a chance at earning a new Free Form Slot. Subscribers still get a new character slot out of the deal, but free players get a new slot that will unlock every available power for use on that character. You can also pick it up in the C-Store, but it won't be available there after June 22nd. So if you want a chance to play with a freeform character without a subscription, now's your chance... at a chance.
Blizzard seems to think that Cataclysm was too linear
Designing MMOs is often the art of shepherding players in a given direction while at the same time giving them a sense of freedom. Even in a themepark environment, players want to be invested in areas, to have reasons to come back and explore and go off of the rails should they want to. World of Warcraft's most recent expansion, Cataclysm, has frequently been accused of giving players nowhere to go but a series of rails, and according to a recent response from a community manager, Blizzard agrees. A very long thread on the official forums has spawned some interesting discussions about the game's overall endgame philosophy, with community manager Draxxari stating that Cataclysm's tightly linear design was an "error" on the design level. He goes on to state that Mists of Pandaria is meant to give players more reason to venture out and explore the world, although players will have to wait to see whether that promise holds true or not. [Thanks to SgtBaker for the tip!]
Behind the Mask: How freeforms work
This week on Behind the Mask, we'll be looking at freeform characters and how they work. This is more of a primer for players who are interested in the Gold subscription and would like to know more about how freeform characters differ from archetypes. I'm also spotlighting it to show just how archetypes are built poorly and some ways they could be improved. Freeform characters differ dramatically from archetypes. However, they follow a concrete set of rules on how they must be built. A hero can't just select Gigabolt, Ego Storm, or other high-level powers right from the start; there's a list of power restrictions that must be selected first. The power restrictions basically correlate to level restrictions, although there are some ways around that too. While this may be familiar to Gold players, it will serve as a primer for those who are not experts at maneuvering around the power selection process.
Champions Online previews the new Archetype system
When Champions Online first announced that it was joining the ranks of other games offering a no-subscription option, it included a mention that free members would be locked into archetypes. Archetypes were described in broad strokes as a chance for players to develop along the lines of famous heroes from comics, with a locked progression path but the same basic power level. While the development team hasn't yet expounded on what the precise archetypes will be, it has put together a short description about the differences players can expect between the normal free-form heroes and the coming archetype heroes. As it turns out, archetypes will end up with slightly fewer overall powers than freeform heroes but with the same general power level. The preview explains the split as being one of versatility -- freeform heroes will be able to take many roles, but archetype heroes will perform one role well and that's it. If you're one of the players looking forward to trying Champions Online as free-to-play, or if you're just interested in the new build system, take a look at the full rundown and keep your eyes peeled for the coming details on the archetypes themselves.
First Look: Freeform vector drawing app for iPad
The interesting part of being a software reviewer in the early days of the iPad platform is that sometimes you test applications that show a lot of promise and are among the first of their genre in the App Store. Freeform (US$4.99), a vector drawing app for the iPad platform from Stunt Software, falls into this class of app. It's probably the best app of its type right now, and the developer is working on making changes to the app to make it even more useful to iPad users. For those of you who aren't familiar with vector drawing applications, they are used to place and color shapes on a background, and usually provide a way to add text labels. In other words, for creating a diagram of some sort, they work well -- but they aren't the type of app that you'd want to use for freehand sketching. I had the opportunity to try out Freeform, and while it's a good start at a powerful iPad drawing app, it still has some shortcomings that the developer is aware of and is planning on resolving. If this review piques your interest, you may wish to purchase the app soon, as the app price is currently listed as an "introductory price." Read on for more comments and screenshots of Freeform in action.
US Cellular follows Alltel's lead, deploys Samsung Freeform
If this contoured piece of QWERTY kit looks familiar, it should -- it's the same as the Freeform that came late last year to Alltel. US Cellular's version is the same thing (heck, it's even the same color) with a 1.3 megapixel camera, 2.2-inch 176 x 144 display, four-row QWERTY keyboard, and memory expansion up to 16GB via microSD, perfect for the on-board MP3 player (and if you're not a music kind of person, it'll take you a good long while to fill up 16GB worth of storage 1.3 megapixels at a time). Pricing and availability haven't yet been announced, but we'd expect it to be pretty easy on the pocketbook.
Alltel picks up the Samsung Freeform, looks pretty well-defined to us
Most Americans likely won't ever get a crack at Samsung's latest low-end portrait QWERTY design, despite the fact that Virgin Mobile Canada's managed to snag it as the Link. Notice we said "most," because Alltel -- what little remains of it outside Verizon's clutches -- has picked it up as the "Freeform." The phone makes do with a 220 x 176 landscape display clocking in at 2.2 inches, a 1.3 megapixel camera (curiously forgotten from both the spec sheet and the press release), stereo Bluetooth support to accompany the microSD slot, GPS, and availability in both teal and burgundy -- both bolder choices than the deep gray offered up north. It runs $69.99 on a one-year contract (remember that those guys recently dropped the two-year deal), which is a little more than $20 less than what Virgin Mobile Canada's charging on prepaid.
EVE Careers Guide available as free download
A major strength of the sci-fi massively multiplayer online game EVE Online is that there are no classes and certainly no professions that a player is locked into. EVE's professions are freeform, but this can lead to new players being unsure about what to do (or be) in the game. The title's developer CCP Games is attempting to remedy this. One of the resources that complements EVE Online's New Player Experience in the Apocrypha expansion is the "EVE Careers Guide", which introduces new players to the gameplay possibilities in New Eden. It's largely put together by Benilopax of Warp Drive Active: Industry podcast fame and Richie Shoemaker (aka "Zapatero"), the Editor of E-ON -- the official magazine of EVE Online -- who we've interviewed at Massively in the past. The EVE Careers Guide is a PDF file with interactive links throughout to navigate between sections, providing a comprehensive look at the game for rookie pilots. Zapatero welcomes new players to EVE Online, explaining the game in broad terms: "Many have found their own path in EVE by taking turns that are wildly divergent from what its makers envisaged. EVE is about relationships, prejudices, trust, greed and creativity more than it's about spaceships, trade and combat. New Eden is a very human universe, and with almost 300,000 people making up the population, it's a very dynamic one. Yes, it's harsh and uncompromising, frustrating and callous, but it's also illuminating in scope, vast in stature and utterly unique."
