writing
Latest
Ask Massively: How I mine for games journos
In the last few months, the Ask Massively inbox has received several letters about breaking into the games journalism industry and employment at Massively specifically. This first one came from a reader named Vernon: I rarely see current journalists write or blog about their own experiences of getting into the industry. I always told myself I would try to figure out how to make a go of writing about games if the opera thing did not work out. So, how did you get there (Editor in Chief), and how do you get there now? Short answer: the two skillsets rule.
Hyperspace Beacon: The SWTOR awards
The Oscars were given out two nights ago. Celebrities, actors, and film crews dressed in their red-carpet best to be handed a 13.5-inch golden statue of a naked bald man. As I heard these writers and directors give thanks to various loved-ones and talent agencies, I thought about Star Wars: The Old Republic. (Sad. I know.) SWTOR contains some of the best writing and storytelling in all of MMOs. In my opinion, it's better than some of movies represented on that stage. Sure, it didn't impact the world like Zero Dark Thirty, but it did impact my world, and I'd like to recognize some of the best parts of this MMORPG.
Game Blocks offers free, open-source game creation for novices
Sheldon Pacotti, writer of the original Deus Ex games and indie developer in his own right, created Game Blocks, an open-source library for making games, for the students in his video game writing course at the University of Texas. Game Blocks is designed to help novice developers craft their stories, animations and physics effects with a simple, snap-to interface, as demonstrated above.Game Blocks is able to compile platformers, adventure games, simulation games and arcade shooters for PC and Mac, and makes it easy to organize dialogue and story. Best of all, it's completely free. Anyone interested in messing around with game design or interactive storytelling, download Game Blocks directly from Pacotti's New Life Interactive.
Ask Massively: Why tpyos matter
Whenever you sit down to read an article -- let's say it's an article about MMOs on your favorite MMO blog -- the author has a hidden persuasive advantage. Readers are inclined to believe what they read unless they have a compelling reason not to because believing is easier than not believing. In fact, humans have a hard time mentally readjusting if they hear a lie about a topic before they hear the truth, especially when the lie confirms comforting pre-existing beliefs. And like it or not, we grant a measure of authority to published articles, to what we see in print from people we presume are professionals. But even a lowly games writer squanders that "authoritativeness bonus" when he can't even be arsed to press the darn spellcheck button.
Flameseeker Chronicles: Five of the purest joys of Guild Wars 2's PvE
I had a really bright idea to title this post "Five things that don't suck about Guild Wars 2's PvE." However, being a denizen of the Interblags, I paused as I typed out those words. "You know, Elisabeth," I said to myself, "someone somewhere would probably see that as an invitation to troll." "But Elisabeth," myself responded, "isn't everything on the Interblags an invitation to troll?" I had to confess that I made a fair point. I mean, it was probably a silly title anyway. There are a lot of things, I tend to think, that don't suck about Guild Wars 2's PvE, and I don't want to give you the wrong impression. Saying they don't suck is a pretty negative way to frame it, don't you think? I'm glad we agree. Anyway, read on to catch some of the most non-suckiest things in Guild Wars 2's PvE.
NaNoWriMo tools for Apple devices ... and a few hot deals on writing tools
When it's time for Halloween, it's also time for another autumn tradition -- National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo. Over the years, a number of TUAW bloggers and readers have participated in the annual event, which runs exactly thirty days and is designed to give would-be writers the confidence and support needed to write a 50,000-word novel. Let's look at some tools for helping you crank out your novel, and revel in some deals on tools for planning and writing that book. iOS You may mock the idea of using an iOS device as a serious writing platform, but with an external keyboard you can definitely get some work done. All of my NaNoWriMo 2012 pre-planning work has been done on an iPad with a Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover in Apple's Pages (US$9.99) app, and it works very well. This year, thanks to iCloud syncing, I've decided to use Pages as my virtual typewriter and paper for NaNoWriMo. If I want to do work on the iPad, I can turn on the Logitech keyboard, fire up Pages, and get to work. When I am sitting at a Mac, I'll fire up Pages and pull in the document from there. The app, combined with iCloud, is finally quite useful in round-tripping between devices. One other advantage pointed out by my erstwhile publishing companion Erica Sadun was that I should be able to use Dictation on the iPad (as well as my OS X Mountain Lion Mac and iPhone) to write, so perhaps I can actually do some writing on the iPhone this year. When Erica brought this up, it occurred to me that Dictation could be very helpful in writing more realistic dialogue between characters. I'll let you know how that goes... Anyway, let's look at some app choices you have for the iPad other than Pages. I'll leave it to the reader to determine which app fits your writing style and wallet. My Writing Spot for iPad ($4.99) Novel in 30 ($4.99) NanoWriter ($1.99) Storyist for iPad ($9.99) Yarny (free, for iPhone, requires Yarny Pro cloud account) iA Writer ($0.99, universal app) PlainText (free, universal app) A Novel Idea (free, universal app) DraftPad (free, universal app) celtx script ($4.99, universal app, screenwriting) Write 2 ($2.99, universal app) Elements for Dropbox (On sale for $2.99, universal app) Free Writing (free, universal app) Just Type ($0.99, universal app) enso Writer ($3.99, universal app) WriteRoom ($1.99, universal app) Werdsmith (free, $2.99 in-app purchase for full features, universal app) Writing Kit ($4.99, universal app) Byword (On sale for $2.99, universal app) Of all of these choices, my personal recommendations would be Pages, Storyist for iPad, iA Writer, PlainText, or WriteRoom. Mac Many writers are probably going to want to sit down at a keyboard in front of a MacBook or iMac to do their work. It's comfortable, it makes you feel like a real writing professional and with a larger screen you have the ability to tweet your friends while slaving over your hot novel (that's known as having writer's block...). As mentioned, I'll be doing work on the iPad this year, if anything just to see how much the tools have improved. But my MacBook Air and iMac will also be pulling duty as I crank out my daily allotment of 1,666 words. Here are some Mac writing tools you can count on to get your novel written by 11:59:59 PM on November 30, 2012. Pages ($19.99) Write 2 ($6.99) TextEdit (free, comes with OS X, iCloud enabled) Notepad (free) FoldingText ($24.99) WriteRoom ($4.99) WordMate ($12.99) Clean Writer Pro ($0.99) Writer ($2.99) MultiMarkdown Composer ($9.99) StoryMill ($29.99) Manuscript ($39.99) Nisus Writer Pro ($79.99) Zen Writer ($19.99) Microsoft Word (Part of Microsoft Office 2011, $149.99 for Home & Student Edition) Scrivener 2.0 (50% off normal price of $45 for NaNoWriMo winners, 20% off for all participants, and free trial version available for the month of November) Storyist ($59 for download version, use code NANOWRIMO12 for a 25% discount, free Nanowrimo trial edition (download link) is available) Ulysses ($11.99) Although I've personally tried a lot of these apps for TUAW reviews, some tools I'd consider using are Pages, WriteRoom, StoryMill, Ulysses, Microsoft Word 2011 and Storyist. Why Word? Well, if I was going to send my novel to a publisher, chances are very good that they'd want the manuscript in Word format, so make sure that whatever app you use can save your document into Word. Me? I'm using Pages. Good luck, NaNoWriMo participants, and if you're so inclined sign me up as your writing buddy on the NaNoWriMo site -- I'm "Tantalus."
New iBooks Author supports LaTeX and MathML
LaTeX is document markup system (similar to the popular Markdown) that's popular among high-level academia and mathematics authors. iBooks Author 2, which was released during Apple's big event, now supports the LaTeX protocol. It works through the MathML markup language, which a lot of educational textbooks often use for marking up and displaying complex mathematical equations and formulas. In other words, iBooks Author has gained significant functionality for working together with a markup language already used by education professionals, mathematics authors and students. That fits right in line with Apple intentions for iBooks Author, namely the creation of academic documents for college curriculums and classes. That's good news for anyone who commonly uses this language, as they can now load up iBooks Author and continue their work there. This is a small, very technical change, that accomplishes Apple's mission of making this software work for the systems already being used to create higher education texts. [via Michael Tsai]
Write fiction for EVE Online, win fabulous prizes
EVE Online lends itself to stories. Not just news stories, although those crop up with fair regularity, but stories about the vast and hostile galaxy filled with spaceships, mining, and corporate warfare. If you've got a story to tell about the game, then you're in luck: An officially endorsed writing contest has just been announced, judged by representatives of CCP Games. And the prizes are nothing to sneeze at, including a new graphics card, a year's worth of PLEX, and over 20 billion ISK. The contest offers two ways for players to enter. First, you can write up a wholly fictional story based entirely in the lore, or second, you can write up an account of events centered around your characters in the game. Either way, contest entries are expected to be between 1500-5000 words in length and must be submitted by December 2nd. If you've got a story to tell, take a look at the full contest page and get writing.
Alt-week 9.15.12: The ultimate wind machine, Egyptian Lego and the office of our dreams
Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days. Sometimes we wonder, what would we have ended up doing if we didn't spend our time trawling the web for the week's best alternative tech stories? We could have been paleontologists, novelists, engineers, or if we were really lucky, worked for Google. Instead, here we are bringing you some of the more colorful tech-tales from the last seven days, which we're really not complaining about. That said though, at least on this occasion, we got to taste a bit of all the above. This is alt-week.
R.A. Salvatore details the lack of death in Project Copernicus
"To be or not to be" is not a question asked in most MMOs. Characters don't die permanently, after all. But Project Copernicus wouldn't have waved that fact off as an irrelevant necessity of game mechanics. No, according to R.A. Salvatore, the game world would have explored the meaning behind a world wherein no one truly dies and everyone is functionally immortal. Players who enjoyed Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning will recall that the game opens with the player character returning from death thanks to the Well of Souls. In Project Copernicus, the Well of Souls would have been active not just for one individual but for everyone in the world. Returning from death would be something that happens not just to players but to every part of the world. It's not hard to imagine the ways in which a world would seem different if death was no longer something to be feared or avoided. Salvatore laments that the concept is unlikely to see execution now, even with buyers looking to purchase the 38 Studios assets from the state of Rhode Island.
Aaron Sorkin talks about future Steve Jobs movie, impact of technology on his writing
You don't have to look far to get a grasp on who Aaron Sorkin is -- he wrote A Few Good Men, The American President, The West Wing, Moneyball and The Social Network, for starters -- and he showed up at D10 to talk creative media, how the digital age impacts his writing and his impending movie about late Apple CEO Steve Jobs. While not involving hard technology news, the interview was exceedingly refreshing, and it delved deep into the world of tech as it impacts his upcoming show about a fictional newsroom (The Newsroom on HBO). The highlights included a frank quote that whoever ends up playing Jobs in his movie -- not to be confused with the one already in production with Ashton Kutcher -- will have to be "good, and intelligent." He also confessed to being fully engaged in the "three screens" movement, but wasn't too prideful to admit that he taps into the brain of his 11-year old daughter for lots of technological help. Pretty wild for a guy that many would label "genius." For more from the interview, head on past the break.
TERA writer discusses the labor of love behind game writing
There's a conception among some gamers that working with video games for a living entails more "video games" than "working." A new development diary by TERA's writing team manager David Noonan is quick to disabuse readers of that notion. He does see the job as a labor of love, but he also freely admits that every day brings the question of how much time will be "love" and how much time will be plain old "labor." Noonan explains the way that he and his team look at bug reports relating to their department. Sometimes, the only thing that needs to be changed is a simple typo; other times, the dialogue of an entire quest chain will need to be rewritten from the start. But that doesn't negate the joy of filling in a story and creating a world, from the major quests down to the item names. If you have an interest in TERA's writing, game writing in general, or both, Noonan has some interesting insights to share. [Thanks to Mike for the tip!]
iBook Lessons: Creating Amazon KDP tables of contents on MS Word for Macintosh
For whatever reason, many Amazon authors seem to be under the impression that you can only create a proper table of contents for Kindle Direct Publishing on Windows, not the Mac. Having just uploaded our newest book (Getting Ready for Mountain Lion) to Amazon, Steve Sande and I have invested a lot of time learning the quirks of KDP and its tools, as well as those for iBooks (but more about that in another post). For any of our readers who are also budding authors or publishers, we'll be sharing what we've learned in a TUAW series called "iBook Lessons." We thought we'd share our KDP Table of Contents strategy with you to help reduce the hair-pulling and frustration associated with document preparation. Here are the steps we use in Microsoft Word 2008 and 2011 to create our TOC. Create a fresh page and add Table of Contents text line, formatted with your favorite header style. Move your cursor just to the left of "Table". Choose Insert > Bookmark. Call the bookmark toc and click Add. This creates a bookmark before the title, named in such a way that KDP's automatic conversion tools will recognize it as the start of your Table of Contents. All the Kindle hardware and apps will be able to use it as well. Generate a temporary TOC, so you have an outline to start working with. Move to under your Table of Contents header to a new line. Choose Insert > Index and Tables > Table of Contents. Uncheck "Show Page Numbers". Click Options. Choose which heading styles you wish to include. If you use custom styles (e.g. H1 instead of Header 1) make sure to add a level for those as well. Typically, most ebook TOCs use either just H1 or H1 and H2. Your call. Click OK to finish options. Click OK again to generate the contents. Select the entire TOC, cut it, and paste it into TextEdit to be your guide to the next step. For each entry in the TOC, locate the start of that section in your manuscript. Set your cursor to the left of each section title. Again, use Insert > Bookmark to create a bookmark at that position. Name each item with a meaningful (and easy-to-recognize) tag. After bookmarking your entire document, return to the initial Table of Contents section. Paste the text from TextEdit back into your document as simple, unlinked text. For each item on your list, select the entire line: i.e. every word, not just clicking to the left of the name as you did to set bookmarks. Then choose Insert > Hyperlink (Command-K). Choose the Document tab, and click the Locate button to the right of the Anchor text field. Choose the bookmark you wish to link to, and click OK. Repeat for the remaining TOC entries. Once you've finished adding bookmarks and hyperlinks, save your work. Go to KDP and upload the file (you may want to create a testbed skeleton book entry just for this purpose). Download the .mobi file it generates and try it out on the Kindle Mac app and/or any Kindles or iPads/iPhones you have on-hand. Amazon's Kindle Previewer app is also available for download from KDP, and provides simulated views of your ebook on iPhone, iPad, Kindle, Kindle DX, and Kindle Fire. Always make sure you test each link to ensure that the bookmarks are placed properly. Also test the Table of Contents button in-app and check that it jumps you to the TOC correctly. Best of luck in your ebook / iBook publishing efforts, and look forward to more tips about publishing here on TUAW.
Scrivener for iPad under development
Last December, Literature & Latte confirmed the company will begin porting its popular Mac writing app, Scrivener, to the iPad. Though work is under way, progress is slow because, as Literature & Latte points out, good apps take time to plan and develop. Much of the time since December has been spent designing the app and testing which features will work best in a mobile version. When it launches, Scrivener for the iPad will include a working binder and corkboard, a rich text editor, and access to labels, status, synopses, notes and project notes. It will also let you seamlessly sync your project without having to close it on your Mac or Windows machine. Because of the complexity of the app, Literature & Latte expects to release Scrivener for the iPad by the end of the year. You can read more about the development in a detailed post on Literature & Latte's website. [Via MacSparky]
Insert Coin: HAND Stylus for touch devices
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. Inventive scribbler Steve King -- no, not that one -- is working his fingers raw trying to raise $25,000 on Kickstarter. His project, the colorfully-named HAND Stylus, works with all your capacitive touchscreens, sports a retractable nib that rotates to avoid uneven wear, and even sticks to the magnet on an iPad. While it can't replace the need for natural digits, it could potentially come in handy while taking notes, sketching, cooking, or experiencing frostbite. Skip down below the break for a video if you need more convincing, or you already lost the one that came with your Galaxy Note.
Captain's Log: Interview with Star Trek Online lead writer Christine Thompson, part one
Today Captain's Log continues with the first of two installments of my interview with Christine Thompson, Star Trek Online's lead writer at Cryptic Studios! I began the discussion by asking Thompson about her background as a writer and journalist before she began working for Cryptic. She stated that she had held positions as a reporter, editor, page designer, and wire editor for 13 years, after which she found herself in a position of "either having to move up into management or having to find something else to do." Yet she spent a lot of her personal time playing MMOs, reading comic books and fantasy novels, and watching Star Trek. Since she had to find a new career anyway, she thought, "Why not find a career I actually enjoy?" That's when she began to look for writing positions in the gaming industry.
Byword for iOS released
Those who know me know that Byword has become my favorite writing tool. I've been keeping my mouth shut about this release during the beta testing period, but I'm really excited to announce it's arrival: Byword for iOS. The iOS version includes the Markdown-editing features that I love on the Mac, and has full iCloud and Dropbox sync between devices. There's an update to the Desktop version as well, enabling iCloud support for the multi-device sync. You can start typing on your Mac, pick up your iPhone and walk away, then continue typing wherever you end up. Your text is ready and waiting for you. Byword for iOS is a universal app, and one price gets you editing bliss on your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch (or whatever combination you happen to have). The price is starting at US $2.99, and will start going up by $1 every three days until it reaches its standard price of US $4.99. Byword for Mac is available on the Mac App Store for $9.99. Even without the new iOS companion app, it's an excellent writing tool. Portability just makes it that much more useful to me. If you write on a Mac, and especially if you write in Markdown (see the TUAW Markdown Primer) Byword is a gorgeous and elegant environment to do it in. The feature set looks sparse; everything just works. You don't need to see a bunch of buttons, you can just type. Features such as automatic list continuation, selection wrapping, and unobtrusive word count just happen, and additional requirements are filled by keyboard shortcuts. It's worth every penny to me.
Some Assembly Required: Six must-haves for creative expression
Creativity. It is expressed in so many ways in so many mediums. Art, literature, architecture, music, performance... I love it all, conventional and unconventional. Heck, I revel in it! Why do you think my work and recreation include gaming? Wait, gaming?! You betcha! Beyond the artistry of the developers, MMORPGs offer outlets for player creativity in a variety of ways. I am not ashamed to admit that the primary reason I delve into MMORPGs is not for the gameplay but to explore and experience the creative expression of others (and to express some of my own as well). In fact, finding and sharing that very creativity by championing and highlighting player-generated content is precisely what Some Assembly Required is about. Between (or in lieu of) the hacking, the slashing, and the plundering, players seize proffered tools in myriad virtual realms to build works of art, pen masterpieces, construct edifices, compose melodies, and take the stage, all within the pixeled confines of a virtual world. Unfortunately, not all games have adequate tools for such creative expression. While inspired players can make do if they must, having supporting features exponentially enhances a game (and positively affects retention). Thankfully, some games provide a few standard-setting features that -- in my opinion -- should be included in every game on the market. Here are six of those must-have features.
Want to write for Engadget? We're hiring in Europe!
We know you're out there, dear future Engadget writer, but we need you here with us, where we can touch you, teach you and pay you to write about all those gadgets you love so much. Professional writing experience isn't strictly necessary, but what we do require is an ability to write about gadgets with wit, concision and authority. And being obsessed with Engadget is good too. So here's what we're after: A European Editor: Full-time, based in or near any major European city, able to work from home but also able to travel to European events and meetings, if required. English must be your first language, as that's what you'll be writing for us in. To clarify, this is an Engadget US position, but based in Europe. This is not a position for Engadget German or any of our sister sites.Want to apply? Read on.
How to avoid sounding dumb when you write about Apple
So, you want to write about Apple? Lots of people do these days. The company is a household name, its financial performance is virtually unparalleled, and it makes products that millions upon millions of users enjoy every single day. I can tell you from personal experience that getting paid to write about Apple, something I would do on my own anyway, is quite rewarding. But first you have to decide what kind of Apple writer you'll be. Will you be the kind of writer who takes a step back from the linkbaiting Controversy of the Week, calmly and logically analyzes the situation, and then writes objectively about it? Will you keep your BS detector active and not believe every single rumor that blooms on your RSS feed? Will you have the patience and foresight to analyze past trends before predicting future performance, even if it means dragging yourself across a desert of spreadsheets and financial statements? If you're saying to yourself, "Nah, that all sounds like work," and you're not worried about sounding dumb when you write about Apple, then by all means, write whatever comes into your head without putting it through a logic filter first. You'll have absolutely zero credibility among anyone who doesn't actively loathe Apple, but at least your page views will be through the roof. On the other hand, if you'd rather not wind up the laughingstock of the Internet every time you write something about Apple, I have a few points of advice to offer. Leave "fanboy" and the cult metaphors on the cutting room floor I'm declaring a fatwa on the word "fanboy." I've said before that I stop reading any argument that uses the word "fanboy" as soon as I see it, and that remains true. But the word still gets tossed around like a hacky sack at Burning Man, and it's gone from overused and tired to straight out offensive and stupid. I look at people who use the word "fanboy" as an epithet with the same disdain I have for people who use racially-charged insults. Seriously, it's 2012, and Apple has rocketed past Exxon Mobil as the most valuable corporation on the planet. You don't get to that level of success driven along by a handful of dedicated, froth-flecked fans, nor do you achieve what Apple's achieved by having a "cult" of people who will buy what Apple sells no matter what. Think logically for just half a second: Apple sold 37 million iPhones in 3 months. 37 million. If that's a cult, it's one damned huge cult. How many posts do we see about Exxon Mobil "fanboys" or cultlike people mindlessly lining up their cars at Exxon stations and worshipping at the altar of the almighty unleaded octane 92? Exactly none. Because that would be stupid. Whether you like the company and its products or not, Apple is now thoroughly mainstream. Maybe in 2002 you could've gotten away with painting Apple's users with the "cult" brush, but doing so today just makes you sound brainwashed yourself. Don't predict Apple's doom How many times has Apple actually been doomed in the past 15 years? None. How many times have people said Apple is doomed? I bet if you spent all day counting, not only would you not finish, you'd seriously start to question your life and the way you choose to spend your free time. Look at Apple's ledgers, specifically the giant pile of cash it's sitting on, and tell me with a straight face that Apple as a company is going to disappear anytime in the near or even far future. At this point, for Apple to fail or be truly doomed would require close to a decade of deliberate, malicious mismanagement. I'm not saying Apple's "too big to fail" -- Microsoft is moribund proof of how far the mighty may fall when men of vision aren't holding the reins. But if you think that "Apple is doomed" will come true eventually if you just repeat that mantra often enough, I humbly suggest that you instead repeat to yourself, "I won $10 billion in the lottery and the Swedish Bikini Team moved into my guest bedroom." That has a far better chance of happening, and it'll likely be far more personally fulfilling if it does. Now if we're talking about a more specific subset of Apple being doomed, the story's still the same. To this day I can still hear faint echoes of my laughter from 2006 when John Dvorak tried to convince us the Mac was doomed unless Apple switched to Windows. If you thought the iPhone was doomed in 2007 because the thing would just never catch on, then congratulations: you're capable of running Microsoft. If you thought the iPad was doomed in 2010 because it didn't ship with support for Flash Player, then man have they got a gig open for you at Adobe, you scamp. If you thought that either the iPhone or the iPad would be crushed and fade into obscurity because of Android's market share gains in 2010 and early 2011, then... well, maybe we can get you a job corralling the shopping carts at Target. Take Apple's expectations for quarterly revenue and multiply by 1.15 If you intend to write about Apple with the least bit of credibility in forecasting its financial performance, you must follow the company's quarterly performance reports. As a publicly-traded company beholden to its shareholders, Apple quite carefully lays out its expectations for the quarter to come, including factors it expects to impact its performance for good or ill. Being the secretive company it is, Apple doesn't connect the dots for you, but the picture isn't all that hard to comprehend anyway. It can't be, because Apple has a responsibility to the people who've invested in it, and deliberately misleading those investors would get the company into seriously hot water. Apple isn't run by idiots. These are very smart people who know what they're doing. Apple's success isn't a fluke; it's the result of an expertly steered company with some of the best business minds on the planet at the helm. If Apple saw something in the forthcoming quarter that it expected to have a significant impact on its earnings, and there was nothing it could do to avoid that financial iceberg, you can bet it would adjust its financial guidance accordingly. We saw that two quarters ago, in fact, when Apple said it didn't expect great Q4 results due to a "product transition" - i.e., the iPhone 4 hanging around for an extra 3 months. Apple still beat its own guidance but (heavy sarcasm quotes) "missed" Wall Street's expectations. Every quarter, a gaggle of "financial analysts" pull Magic 8-Balls out of their Park Avenue closets, blow off the dust, and forecast financial doom for Apple. "Sell AAPL now," say these people who somehow still have jobs telling others how to invest actual money. To avoid sounding like someone dropped an anvil on your head, here's what you do when it comes time to discuss Apple's financial future. It will require two minutes of research first, where you'll learn what Apple's own revenue guidance for the forthcoming quarter is. Once you have that number, multiply it by 1.15. Use a calculator if you must. That number is about what you can expect Apple to actually return for the next quarter. It sort of takes all the fun out of the earnings announcement, like mathematically determining on Labor Day exactly what you'll get for Christmas, but it sure does stop you from saying stupid stuff like "Apple can't possibly earn $30 billion in revenue in one quarter" when the company turns around and earns $46 billion instead. Keep your product expectations moderate and realistic One surefire way to make yourself sound ridiculous: take any article from Popular Mechanics circa 1950-1960, slightly update the retro-futurist themes to suit the modern era, and tell us Apple will usher in this new age all by itself. Use Siri to talk to your car! Multi-Touch screens on your refrigerator! A FaceTime watch (just like Dick Tracy!!!)! In the leadup to every one of Apple's product announcements, the speculation gets so rampant and so out of control that the only surefire way to separate fiction from reality is to believe none of it. That's essentially what I decided to do two months before the iPhone 4S launched; after overdosing on fever dream rumors of the supposed iPhone 5, I asked myself what Apple was actually likely to do. "Apple's redesigned the exterior of the iPhone twice in four years," I said to myself when my wife wasn't home to stare at me for saying such things aloud. "How likely are they to do another major external redesign just over a year after the iPhone 4 launched?" If you asked yourself this same question and answered, "Not likely in the slightest," then I bet you weren't one of those people beating their chests in early October and screaming, "But it looks just like the iPhone 4! Where is the iPhone 5?! So disappointing, Apple blew it, they're doooooomed!"See also The Rumor That Will Not Die: the Apple-branded HDTV. How to do it wrong: "Apple will introduce an HDTV with a 42-inch LCD screen, FaceTime camera, built-in App Store, and eleventy billion gigabytes of onboard storage. The entire interface will be voice-activated via Siri. The whole thing will cost $1500. It's going to be a total revolution in the way we interact with our TVs, man, you don't even know." How to do it less wrong: "Apple might introduce an HDTV, but for a whole lot of (logical, well-thought out) reasons it sure doesn't seem likely." Apple makes technology that occasionally seems like magic, but as far as I know Apple doesn't employ any actual magicians, sorcerers, or wizards among its design staff in Cupertino. Adjust your product expectations accordingly. Don't try to tell us what Apple "must" do Any time I come across a headline that reads like a gauntlet thrown at Apple's collective feet, I brace for The Stupid. These "Apple Must (x)" headlines usually follow like derp-derp jetsam after the rabble-rabble hurricane of whatever the "-gate" Controversy of the Week happens to be. The iPhone 4 drops signal when held a certain way, so Apple must issue a full recall. The iPhone contains buggy code that causes people's location info to be held for longer than necessary, so Apple must go before Congress and explain itself. Siri doesn't return results for Planned Parenthood when users ask it to find abortion clinics, so Apple must apologize to women everywhere for stealthily promoting a right-wing agenda on reproductive rights. Apple's EULA for iBooks Author says you can only publish iBooks-formatted books on the iBookstore, so Apple must be subjected to antitrust hearings before the week is out. In the increasingly rare respites from storm-in-a-teacup controversy, there's the usual roundup of typically myopic suggestions from "analysts" and the blogosphere at large, all of which manage to sound hilarious in hindsight. Remember when Apple had to put a netbook on the market if it wanted to stay relevant? Or how it had to build an iPhone with a physical keyboard? Or how the iPad had to support Flash Player? Occasionally people do come up with some decent advice for Apple, and I'll find myself nodding along in agreement. But those times are about as rare as sunny days in Cleveland, and just as fleeting before the usual gray, dummkopf skies return. Think first, type later I saved the most important advice for last. Some bloggers are so quick to rush to judgement on absolutely everything Apple does that I often find myself wondering if there's any actual thought behind what they write or if they're just spitting out pure rage like the father character in A Christmas Story. "Apple broke my lamp on purpose! NOTTAFINGA!" We can't go a single week anymore without some "-gate" suffixed scandal surfacing that's supposedly proof everlasting of Apple's nefarious intentions, leading directly to the company's ultimate downfall. Just recently, a simple boneheaded mistake in Apple's writing in the EULA for iBooks Author had bloggers jumping over one another to launch ICBMs full of monkey poo toward Cupertino, with one guffaw-inducing example classifying it as "mind-bogglingly greedy and evil." The only truly mind-boggling thing was the swift rush to judgement without even a breath's pause for logical evaluation of the facts at hand. It was clear to me from the beginning that Apple had no interest in owning anyone's content, only the iBooks format. A week went by, Apple updated the iBooks Author EULA, and people everywhere who don't spend their afternoons sticking pins in an iPhone-shaped voodoo doll looked at the rest of the blogosphere and said, "Duh." So many bloggers (and an exponentially greater number of commenters) are used to seeing Apple as this grand dystopian force in their lives that literally everything the company does must have some mustache-twirling, villainous motivation behind it. That mindset is both sad and dumb. If you're going to write about any topic, but particularly one as widely read about as Apple, for your own sake be sure to think first and type later. If you just take that one small step, everything else I've said here will follow naturally, and the chances of your writing being subjected to eternal ridicule will be much smaller.
