year end
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2022 was a surprisingly great year for monitors
As we close out the year, it's nice to take a look back and revisit a number of products that made 2022 an unusually great year for monitors.
Tamriel Infinium: The year before launching the Elder Scrolls Online
Based on the comments for this column a couple of weeks ago, it became apparent to me that many readers have very little idea about what to expect when the Elder Scrolls Online launches. And I guess with the big push of information about PvP, it would seem that that is all ESO has to offer. In some people's minds, that might still hold true. I admit that I believe PvP might be the thrust of the max-level game, but ESO will offer different things to do as you level up as well as when you hit max level. Today, for my year-end review of ESO, I will attempt to paint a picture of the Elder Scrolls Online game based on what we know so far. I think you'll find that the game does have more to offer than PvP, but ultimately, I'll let you decide if it's enough.
The best Mac applications I used in 2010
As the end of 2010 approaches, I started looking back over the Mac applications that I used this year to see which ones stood out. They weren't necessarily released this year (although many were), but they were apps that helped me get stuff done in 2010. I didn't try to come up with some specific number or any other predefined criteria, I just took a good hard look at my Applications folder, menu bar and System Preferences. They are presented in no particular order. Dropbox reached 1.0 in 2010, and the milestone release included some significant Mac-specific features such as Extended Attribute Sync. This was also the first year that I exceeded the free space Dropbox provides, and paid for a 50 GB account. Thanks to the referral program, educational user referral bonus, and extra free space programs that Dropbox offers, I have 83.4 GB of space in my "50 GB" account. TUAW folks have written extensively about our love of Dropbox, but if you've somehow missed it: Dropbox is a folder on your computer which syncs (and therefore is "backed up" and version-managed) online, and which you can then sync to all of your other Mac, Windows, or Linux computers. (Want to know more? Check out the official Dropbox tour.) Thanks to the API which the company announced back in May, many iOS developers have added Dropbox syncing as well, making 2010 a pretty significant year for Dropbox and its users. (Cost: 2 GB/free; $9.99/month or $99.00/year for 50 GB; or $19.99/month or $199.00/year for 100 GB.) Read on for the rest of 2010's best Mac apps...
Year-end reflections and predictions roundup
All our prognostications, anticipations, best-of lists and year-end reflections -- in one handy place. Our favorite iPhone games of 2009 The first full year of the App Store is coming to a close, and so let's take a look back at our favorite games of 2009. Note that these aren't best-selling, most important, or even the best games... TUAW bloggers post their Apple predictions for 2010 It's the end of another calendar year, which can mean only two things. First, every blog is going to be posting lists of 2009 retrospectives, and second, there are going to be a lot of posts... Our Favorite Apps: Stuff that stayed on our phones in 2009 As the year draws to a close, we thought we'd shine a spotlight on some of the favorite apps we used this year. These are the "sticky" apps, the ones that lingered on our iPhones after we gave... Also of interest: Apple nabs four of Engadget's 10 gadgets of the decade January 1 reflections on my favorite things How early iPhone predictions fared in the face of reality Two broken promises from AT&T and Apple as 2009 comes to a close
More games and players in 2009, but fewer sales
The gaming industry wasn't immune to the economic turmoil around the globe in 2009, but it appears that more people are playing games -- even if they aren't necessarily buying "core" games. USA Today has a year-end piece noting that 2008's record $21.3 billion in US sales isn't in the cards this year, with NPD data revealing that, as of November, consumers bought 12.2 million consoles, compared to 14.2 million the year prior. An optimist could argue that'll be made up for in software sales, but we'll need to wait until January for that data. EEDAR's Jesse Divnich reiterated that "the big games are getting bigger," indicating that blockbuster, marketed games are siphoning more sales from everyone else. Then again, casual games like Farmville on Facebook had 65 million players. A complication here is that retail sales may be declining (which is tracked by organizations like NPD), but we don't really know what goes on in closed digital distribution systems. The actual industry sales figures may be debatable, but we'll take the rise of casual games as a sign of demographic diversity within the industry.
The Light and How to Swing It: The Paladin of 2009
With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and helps with the puppet shows at the Argent Ren Faire up in Icecrown. This week we're taking a look back at 2009 and the ups and downs we've felt as paladins. Well, it's after Christmas and another year is almost behind us. Two-double-zero-nine was a particularly frustrating year for paladins, because we felt we were either at the top of the pile or the bottom and it changed from day to day. The development team has even been quoted as saying that paladins have been the hardest class in Wrath to balance even when taking death knights into consideration. Let's walk down memory lane and see where we were and where we're going.
ComputerWorld crowns iPhone as 2nd most innovative product of 2007
ComputerWorld has created another end of the year list: the 25 most innovative products of 2007. An Apple product isn't on the top of the list, that place goes to Google Gears, but the iPhone does clock in at the number 2 spot which isn't too shabby. The biggest innovation, according to CW, is the touch screen display. I'm going to disagree with that, because I've used devices before the iPhone that had touch screens and they weren't as much fun, or as easy to use, as the iPhone. The real innovation of the iPhone is that the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts. The software and hardware work together to make using this device a pleasure. Here's hoping that in a few years other handset makers will figure out what Apple has done with the iPhone and emulate it, of course by then Apple will be on the 3 or 4th revision of the iPhone. The mind boggles as to what that future iPhone will do.Oh, and ComputerWorld, how about innovating a little bit with your website and not splitting up a relatively short article into 5 separate webpages? That'd be awesome.
