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Microsoft confirms IE10 won't run on Vista, millions of IE9 users shrug
If you're part of the dwindling group still using Windows Vista, you'll have to wait until your next upgrade to take IE10 for a spin -- Microsoft has confirmed that the latest version of its browser won't run on its last-gen operating system, either in developer preview form or when the final software ships. While it's tempting to interpret that as an attempt on Microsoft's part to put the widely loathed Vista in its past, there's actually a precedent for this -- remember that Microsoft cut off XP support when it unveiled IE9. As a Microsoft rep told Computerworld, the company would rather not have to develop software for a lowest-common denominator. At least, if you do have to stick with the newly minted IE9, you can be sure you'll be in good company.
Internet Explorer versions 1 through 9 compared, signs of progress found (video)
Most sane folks will have greeted the arrival of Internet Explorer 9 with a curious click on a download button or a simple update of the browser they were already using, but that's not enough for everyone. One chap with a taste for the eccentrically geeky decided to take this opportunity to go through a retrospective of every version of IE, going all the way back to Windows 95's first iteration, and to run the Acid compatibility tests to see how they stand up to modern standards. IE1, the ancient, CSS-deprived beast that it is, choked immediately and failed to even display its homepage without an error, but things improved steadily from there until the triumph of iteration 9. See all that glorious progress happening in the space of just a few minutes in the video after the break.
Holiday savings for designers with the Fusion Ads Holiday Bundle
The holidays have become rife with software bundles, bringing big savings to consumers (when there are enough apps in the bundle you don't already own). Fusion Ads is offering a bundle that will be of particular interest to designers. It's especially pertinent to web designers, but any designer who doesn't already own some of the included apps would be wise to take a look! The bundle includes seven Mac applications, plus a copy of the popular CMS, ExpressionEngine and related training products. It also includes credits for Postmark, an email marketing service, some icon packs and the Keynote Wireframe Toolkit for putting together web designs in Keynote. The Mac apps in the bundle include Versions, FontCase, Billings, DrawIt, ExpanDrive, TextExpander and Kaleidoscope (a slick app I'll be reviewing soon). Check out the Fusion Ads Holiday Bundle page for descriptions and links for all of the included apps, services and icons. The bundle will cost you US$79, with a total value of US$626, according to Fusion. That's some serious savings on some really great apps, and there are only 11 days left to grab it. People who purchase the bundle are also entered in a drawing for a MacBook Air, and those who gift the bundle can win a 16 GB Wi-Fi iPad. It's worth a peek!
Code shows future iOS devices currently in testing
I don't know how much of a newsflash it really is that Apple is working on brand new versions of the iPhone and iPad, but just in case you thought that the current iterations were the last, let's set the record straight. Code in the latest iOS release shows that Apple is currently working on "unreleased hardware." The code, which bypasses the required iTunes activation, assuming that you have the right hardware, tends to show up before an iPhone revision -- in other words, while the new hardware is out, about, running the iOS system, and in testing. The code then disappears as the hardware goes off to launch. The code does mention "iPhone 3,2," "iPhone 3,3," and "iProd 2,1," but those names don't tell us anything about the actual hardware, just that they'd be new versions, obviously. And we've seen these names before hidden in iOS documentation, so these aren't new developments -- whatever these versions are, Apple has been working on them for a while. Still, if you haven't been following along over the last few iterations of the iPhone, yes, we can tell you that we'll see new iOS devices at some point in the future. Maybe someone will even leave one sitting around a bar.
Call of Duty: World at War Zombies, Rock Band get free versions
Two of the App Store's biggest hits last year have finally dropped free versions of their apps to try out. Of course, odds are probably slim that you haven't played or heard of these two yet, but just in case you were waiting to try them without paying, now is your chance. First up, Call of Duty: World at War Zombies [iTunes link], which brought the undead to the WWII shooter, has a new lite version to play for free, which plays exactly like the $9.99 full version [iTunes link], but for only three rounds. Strangely enough, it's actually the exact same size download. Rock Band made a splash when it debuted on the iPhone late last year [iTunes link] at $9.99. Since then, it's dropped to $6.99, but there is now a free demo available [iTunes link] that features only the Foo Fighters' "Learn to Fly." If you want to check out the controls, though, and perhaps see how they compare to the console versions, it's worth a download. We kind of like this precedent of releasing best-sellers for free after a delay, though there's probably still some tuning to do in just how much content is enabled in these trial versions.
Evernote's CEO: 5k new users a day, but retention is a problem
Mashable's Ben Parr sat down at CES with Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, which is not only a TUAW favorite, but acts as your "external brain," saving little clips and bits of information both collectible from and accessible by any device you happen to have with you. We love the app, and while it isn't a Mac exclusive, there are both Mac and iPhone versions, and apparently they're doing very well. Libin tells us in the video that not only are they picking up five thousand users a day (!), but over half of their two million users are using the iPhone app [iTunes link]. As Libin says, the app is "very good" -- it's easy to use (and free), the iPhone's camera makes picking up even real-life scraps of information super easy, and Evernote is designed to share information back to your Mac. Libin says that "most" of the iPhone users do access their information back on other PCs. Libin also talks about power users of the service -- there's one in the system that has over 80,000 notes, though due to privacy, Libin doesn't share what they're keeping in there. And apparently one issue they're dealing with is retention, even for people who have used the service. I can identify with that -- while Evernote is a great service, it's tough to remember that you can use it to remember things, and for that reason I think that even with two million users, it's still very underrated. Libin sounds like he's on top of things, though -- he promises that they're always working on not only helping users figure out how to use the service, but also in polishing it and making it even easier and simpler.
Scoreloop introduces Scoreloop Community for the iPhone
We've talked about OpenFeint quite a few times on the site before (and even interviewed the creators), but while they're definitely one of the biggest names in creating gaming communities for the iPhone, they're not alone. A company called Scoreloop has today announced a service called "Scoreloop Community," made up of two different features: a web presence, and a downloadable application for the iPhone that hooks right into other developers' games and apps and allows players to create avatars, view friends and their activities, and share challenges and high scores with others. Just like OpenFeint, Scoreloop says they're offering an easy-to-implement solution for push notifications, letting players send and receive messages (as well as promote and encourage usage of games in the service) and earn achievements and tokens.Of course, the real test for services like this will be in the implementation -- while OpenFeint claims a nice stable of developers, we still haven't seen too many apps take advantage of the latest and greatest versions (Pocket God is an extremely popular app that has implemented OpenFeint, but they use an older version of the software that doesn't have nearly as many features as the latest). Scoreloop says they've got over 50 game commitments from third-party developers already (it sounds like Zombie Pub Crawl is their biggest title yet), but even then, it remains to be seen exactly how devs will implement their functionality, and how players take to the service.If you're a developer looking to implement push notifications and social challenges and networking in your app, it seems that there's no shortage of companies willing to step in and help you do exactly that (you can download the free SDK, if interested, on Scoreloop's site). But in terms of how consumers view and will use these networks, it's still a very wide open field.
Peggle: WoW Edition released as a standalone download
There's Peggle the original PC game, Peggle the XBLA game, Peggle the iPhone game, Peggle: Steam edition, and Peggle the WoW addon, and so when I heard rumblings of "Peggle: WoW edition," I just figured people were talking about one of the many, many already-released versions of PopCap's popular Plinko-inspired pasttime. But no -- the folks at PopCap have released another version of Peggle: Peggle World of Warcraft edition is a standalone, free (PC-only) download that allows you to play a WoW-related version completely outside of World of Warcraft.All that make sense? It sounds like PopCap realized that there was a call for a brand new version of Peggle (including new stages, WoW-related backgrounds, and even a secret easter egg between Arthas and Bjorn the unicorn) that was different enough to stand as its own PC game, so they worked their coding magic and put it all together into a downloadable standalone. And much to the lament of Mac gamers everywhere, it's PC-only.But then again, it's free, it's Peggle, and so if you haven't gotten your Peggle fix through any of the aforementioned channels yet, here's the hit you've been waiting for. If you do the math (and chart the number of Peggle versions over time), we're pretty sure that, soon, all games will be Peggle. And strangely enough, we're kind of OK with that. Peggle is really fun.
Popcap's addons updated
Popcap kindly sent us a note to say that both of their free addons (Bejeweled and Peggle) for World of Warcraft have seen updates lately, so if you're still playing the versions you downloaded when they first came out, better give them a refresh. Bejeweled, the classic gem matching game, is now up to 1.1, and features a completely updated score system (you'll be asked to convert it the first time you load) that tracks all kinds of new features. In addition, the Achievements now have their own screen, so they're all easier to track as well. And a bunch of bug fixes have gone in, to make the game smoother and faster.And Peggle has reached 1.02, with some new code to try and keep users with different versions from having compatibility problems, as well as a few options to keep the chatspam down to a minimum. If your guild is angry that you keep accidentally hitting "Publish" and getting your score in their guild chat, get this new version, as it allows you to control where that goes, as well as change the name from "Publish" to "Brag," to more accurately describe what it is.Both versions can be downloaded right over on Popcap's WoW site, or from the usual suspects at your favorite addon databases. It's great that they're still updating these (still for free!), but, completely selfishly, we still kind of want Zuma next.
Get addon updates via Twitter or RSS
I am pretty notorious for not updating my addons often enough (I think some of the versions I have must be years old by now), but maybe with this, I'll be better: Reader Fin runs a website that tracks RSS updates of addons from most of the database sites, so all you need to do is hook that feed up to your reader of choice, and then whenever a new addon drops (either one that you're waiting for, or all of them, if you just want to watch them go by), you'll see it pop up in your reader, ready for inspection or a download or whatever you like.He's also hooked it right up to a Twitter feed, so you can also tune in on Twitter and watch the new addons go past. I thought there might be too many going out, and that all those addons might spam up your Twitter feed, but actually if you've got a full slate of follows already (I've got about 200 talkative folks), it's not bad at all -- enough to keep you interested, but not so many that you feel flooded.Of course, this probably still won't help me get my addons updated -- only putting an extra hour or two of free time in the day will help me accomplish that one. But it'll nice, at least, to know they're out there.
Braid comes to the Mac
You have to admit: for all of the gaming woes that the Mac faithful has suffered, there's fortunately never been a shortage of great indie games for us to play. Aquaria made it to our platform, World of Goo appeared pretty early on, and now Braid, Jonathan Blow's terrific deconstruction of Super Mario Bros., has appeared on OS X thanks to the kind folks over at Hothead Games. The game has won more awards than you can count, but I can personally tell you it's great, as I played the XBLA release when it first arrived. It's a classic 2D platformer in the vein of Mario with a very important twist: you can reverse, slow, and replay time throughout the various levels. That twist results in an extremely artistic game that takes apart the original Mario story and ends up with something very much more beautiful and sad."Artistic"? "Beautiful"? "Sad"? Can I say these things about a videogame? Of course I can -- Braid stands in a class of its own as an experience that uses art and gameplay together to tell quite a story. If you're a fan of innovative games or just great interactive experiences, and haven't played through it yet (it's fairly short, maybe six hours at the most), it's definitely worth a look. The Greenhouse is selling the Mac or PC versions for $14.95.
App Store: "Demo" no, "Lite" yes
Our dear friend Erica Sadun has outlined one of Apple's more sticky App Store policies over at Ars Technica. There's been a lot of customer pressure, as we've said before, to put "try it" versions of apps on the App Store, and quite a few developers have done exactly that, by releasing a "Free" or "Lite" version of the paid app along with the real thing. But Apple has some pretty strict rules about doing so: every app on the store needs to be fully functional and stand on its own. You can leave out some levels of your game, for example, but you can't put a timed limit on it or remove features that are central to the app itself.Of course, there's a grey area there -- what features are central to the app, exactly? But Erica boils it down to words: putting "Lite" or "Free" in the title are fine, but releasing "Demo" or "Beta" versions are not.It's too bad Apple hasn't fleshed this out more -- everything we've heard about how people are buying these apps shows that if customers have a chance to try the app, they're much more likely to spend money on it later on. But right now, developers have to keep up two different versions, and they have to dodge the pitfalls of deciding what goes in each one, while keeping them both "fully functional."
Multiple Windows 7 versions coming? Say it ain't so!
These pictures supposedly come from a new build of the Windows 7 beta, 7025. It goes without saying that while we knew this was a possibility, we've been seriously wishing against it. We hope these are fake (and they very well could be), but seriously Microsoft... don't even think about this.[Thanks, Pete]
Aurora Feint announces two new iPhone games
Stick with us here: first, there was the free Aurora Feint: The Beginning, which has recieved some pretty rave reviews as one of the first iPhone games. Then there was Aurora Feint II: The Arena, which added multiplayer and some much-awaited MMO features. And now the folks behind it all have announced two more Aurora Feint games: there's Aurora Feint II: The Beginning, which features the gameplay of the first game with new graphics and the extra MMO features included, and Aurora Feint II: The Tower Puzzles, which contains more of the gameplay seen in the "Tower" location in the full game. Got all that? The Arena and The Beginning are not compatible -- The Arena offers multiplayer, while The Beginning is all singleplayer. And the second version (II) of The Beginning is still singleplayer, but offers the MMO features introduced in The Arena along with the singleplayer gameplay. And The Tower Puzzles is more puzzles based on the "Tower" mode, and according to the iTunes description, does not include the MMO features. Whew. Complicated, no? The good news is that it's all cheap -- for now, anyway. The very first game is still free. The Beginning (version II) and The Tower Puzzles are both 99 cents right now as an introductory price, to go up to $2.99 and $1.99 respectively in January. And The Arena is $7.99 -- pricey, but it's the only place you can dive into multiplayer (and it's also not compatible with both versions of The Beginning). All are available in the App Store right now, and even if you don't want any of them, feel free to scan your eyeballs over the pretty pictures below. %Gallery-40068%
Versions out of beta
Since getting schooled in the comments on my last mention of Versions (a favorite of Robert's), I've reacquainted myself with Subversion ... and come to really enjoy using this polished and highly usable SVN client. Git may have its benefits, but for a lot of what I do (especially solo web design), Subversion (and Versions) make a lot of sense. Versions is, as of yesterday, officially out of beta and available for purchase. I even received a 10% discount for being in on the beta test. Versions 1.0.1 is already out, which fixes the registration issues that some of us ran into. The initial 1.0 release included a lot of additional functionality, and Versions has become an amazing tool for handling all manner of Subversion-related revision control. Top on the list of new features, and of pretty major importance (at least to me), is the addition of an "Ignore [file/folder name]" option to the context menu. The full release notes are available at the Versions site, where you'll also find the download for the free demo. Versions is retailing at €39.00 (about $49USD), and users on the email notification list should have received a 10% discount coupon number. Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
Friday Favorite: Coda + Versions + Beanstalk
Welcome to Friday Favorites! Every Friday, one of us will get all sloppy over an app, web service, or Mac feature that makes us grin like an idiot every time we use it. This week, Robert tells us about his favorite Web development tools. It's no secret that I heart Coda. I've been in love with the one-window web development app since the day it came out. It turns out, though, that I was just scratching the surface of using Coda until I signed up for my new favorite web service: Beanstalk. Beanstalk is a service that hosts your version control repositories remotely. This is great for far-flung team members with firewalls and other networking hurdles between them. Having a zero-configuration Subversion repository available no matter where you're working is hot stuff. Best of all, Beanstalk publishes items committed to the repository to my team's development server automatically. It's just like it lives on our network. To make Beanstalk work with Coda, I first had to check out a copy of the repository with Versions. Versions is still in beta (and Christina has written about it before), but its ease of use is unparalleled. In fact, it has Beanstalk in mind, with shortcuts to help you connect with your Beanstalk repositories. With the repo downloaded, it's just a matter of setting it up as a site in Coda, and entering my username and password for Beanstalk. Coda does all the heavy lifting from then on. Committing changes and adding files is as easy as clicking an icon in the same position as if I was uploading it (and not using Subversion). I love that it keeps my muscle memory working for me, and not against me. Coda is $99, Versions is free (while it's in beta), and Beanstalk starts at $15 per month (which is the plan I have). Put together, though, it's a million-dollar solution.
My Dad, the Switcher: Day Zero
This is the first part of an occasional series about my Dad, who, as a long-time Windows user, decided to switch to the Mac. If you're interested in the whole story, more installments are here. As far as database management and Windows programming is concerned, my dad is what you'd call "hard-core." He's been writing software since the 1960s, starting at Honeywell, then Hewlett Packard, eventually starting his own business. He is an expert with the HP 3000 minicomputer, which, in its day, was heavy computing iron to have lying around. So it came as a bit of a shock when he called last week and said, "I'm ready to buy a Mac." He and I are working on a web development project together using open-source tools. Because his workstation is set up for the Microsoft world of SQL Server and .NET, installing XAMPP was wreaking havoc with his complicated array of security software, including Norton and BitDefender. He wanted to start fresh, and work on a system without having to worry about something randomly disallowing access to port 3306. Understandable.
iPhone is the place for adware?
Om Malik posted an interesting piece earlier this week about the growing market of ad-supported software on the iPhone -- due to the strange economies of the App Store (which are still developing), lots of app makers have found the prices on their apps driven way down, as most buyers are pretty wallet-shy when it comes to picking up even quality apps from the store. But as Malik notes, putting ads in the software allows these devs to still get some cash out of their products (and most consumers aren't fazed: Twitterrific, one of the most popular apps on the Store, has had ads in the free version since day one).Unfortunately, Malik doesn't mention the one problem that Apple didn't think to fix in the first release of the App Store -- trial versions. One of the reasons consumers are blanching at the more costly apps is that they have no options to try them out first, and when people are offered a choice of free unknown versus a paid unknown, they'll always take the free option. If Apple could come up with a way to let users try before they buy (some developers, including iconfactory, have created two different versions of their own apps, which people can then upgrade to if they like the app), I'm guessing you'd see more people pay for the more quality apps in the store.But even if not, Malik seems right (though even he admits we're all flying blind here, on only a month's worth of data and anecdotes). If the only app you can sell in the App Store is a free one, ads aren't a bad way to make up as much of the dev costs as you can.
Cornerstone passes Versions on the way to yesterday's finish line
Cornerstone made a dashing premier as a full release recently, outpacing the much-anticipated Versions in its development cycle and leaving many of us wondering: why couldn't we have had such polished Subversion clients back when Subversion really mattered? With friendlier and more flexible version control systems like Mercurial and (my recent favorite) Git taking center stage, it just seems odd that two applications devoted to last year's RCS are vying for the spotlight. After a 10 minute tryout, I have to say that Versions, though still in beta, was more intuitive in general. I really, really like the timeline feature in Cornerstone, though, which allows you to Command-click any two points on the timeline and see a diff with the built-in viewer. For basic Subversion-related tasks (and probably more advanced tasks that I didn't delve into yet), both clients are far ahead of what currently exists, both in usability and aesthetics. For those who still have a strong interest in Subversion, and who haven't already sworn allegiance to Versions at some point in the year (plus) we've been waiting for it, Cornerstone just crowded the playing field. You can read more on Cornerstone at the Zennaware website. Addendum: As noted in the comments, my impression that Subversion is being relegated to obscurity (and the bias which that impression created in this article) is entirely without basis. I concede and would like to say that, given the stats, it's great to see some clients with real polish coming out.
Versions goes beta
Almost a year ago, we wrote about Versions, a program designed to bring an intuitive and attractive interface to the Subversion version control system. Now, Made by Sofa has finally released the first beta.Although Versions isn't the only game in town for accessing Subversion repositories through methods other than the command line, it is certainly the best looking, and at least in the few minutes I've spent with it, the most Mac-like. The application is beautiful and the interface is very easy to use and understand.
