Archive for the 'iPhone' Category

Split-Screen TV Gaming Comes to iOS 5

Published on October 8, 2011 in Apple, Gaming, iPhone and Technology. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

With iOS 5, Apple is extending Airplay to any third-party app, allowing iPhones and iPads to serve as wireless game controllers for the Apple TV.

Real Racing 2 developer Firemint is showing off something new: split-screen gaming on the television, with up to four players racing at the same time.

This resembles Nintendo’s upcoming Wii U console, but in reverse. Instead of sending a wireless signal from the set-top box to the controller, as the Wii U will do, Airplay sends a signal from the phone or tablet to the Apple TV. What’s interesting here is that the TV can show a composite image from multiple iPhones and iPads. The game changes because you’re seeing something different on the larger display from what’s on your individual screen. I’m sure we’ll see more apps designed to take advantage of this iOS 5 feature.

Is Airplay gaming reason enough to buy an Apple TV and four iPod Touches? Of course not. But if you’ve got an Apple TV, chances are you’ve already got at least one other iOS device. Or if you own a bunch of iOS devices, the Apple TV’s $99 price isn’t bad for a simple multiplayer game console.

This is another example of TVs and set-top boxes doing what previously required a dedicated game system. Although Real Racing 2 isn’t as dense as, say, Gran Turismo 5, it’s cheaper and simpler, and may therefore appeal to a wider audience. You’d better believe that what happened to the established games industry in mobile will eventually happen in the living room.

Once AppleTV functionality is integrated into future LED televisions, we will have a new revolution in online gaming.

How do you kill Microsoft?

Published on September 3, 2011 in Apple, Google, iPhone, Microsoft, Technology and user experience. 0 Comments

How do you kill Microsoft? Improve the end user experience. Microsoft has bright engineers and business people. They have been extremely good at consistently making satisfactory products and in some cases stellar products for their time (and then over charging companies.) Yes, competition has been stifled which has resulted in innovation being hampered in some areas. But it has also allowed for companies to standardize and work on improving their own end user experience. Administrators can integrate technologies and come up with some amazing solutions which have resulted in allowing these corporations to bring more and better services to its customers. It has allowed all companies who have adopted these technologies and practices to remain competitive and increase the barriers to entry in their respective markets. Microsoft has been great at slowly improving the user experience but their focus has been on the corporate technology manager and administrator.  But I want more and better. And better means they need to regain their original frame of mind where they knew it was about making the user experience, regardless of who that user is, amazing. Make the buying experience better for the consumer and CIO. Make the implementation and administration experience better for the technology manager and administrator. Make the development experience better for the developer. Make the technology available and free for the student, open source engineer and business start-up with a special limited license. Make the product fun, fast and error free for the user.

Steve Ballmer once said at a conference to employees that Microsoft technologies have to be like toasters where they just work and it’s easy enough for his mother to use it. Ok, but make the products not only as stable as a toaster but so great I want to butter my bread all the time.

What Apple and Google has demonstrated to the world was that it can be done better. And that improving the user experience regardless of their technical skill is the key to killing any reigning champ.  I once remember a Lotus Notes developer telling me that the only reason everyone was adopting Microsoft Exchange Server was that it was so colorful and easy to use. Regardless of the feature strengths the product had over the competition, she was right. The product was designed for an amazing user experience over any other product on the market.

Here’s another story… A month after the Apple iPhone was released, I was in Redmond having a conversation with a number of the Exchange and Windows mobile product developers and managers. I spoke to one of the developers who said he quit the mobile team out of frustration and moved into the Exchange team. He said not only was he bored with the mobile development work he was doing but frustrated that there was no drive to change the UI or user experience within the team. And he wanted to join a winning team. A group formed around us listening to our conversation. I explained that I loved the iPhone and was trying to get the product adopted in my company as the standard mobile phone for communication and collaboration. The Microsoft employees, ever faithful and oblivious, told me the iPhone would never be widely adopted by corporations given security concerns. I disagreed. The security issues can be resolved and Apple also licenses the Microsoft ActiveSync technology, but the user experience is so far superior that end users will mobilize and bring this technology into the company, just as customers had done in Microsoft’s early history.

To command line, or not command line, that is the question: Whether it be nobler in the GUI…Well, give them both is obviously the answer but give them BETTER is the key.