I’m a long time gamer. Since Pong, the 2600, and way before it was “cool”. The Final Fantasy series has always been a big favorite of mine. Here are some thoughts on the new Final Fantasy XIII (affiliate link – make me rich! There’s an Xbox 360 version, too) I shared with a childhood friend (hi, Dusty!) with whom I spent countless hours playing the NES and SNES iterations. For the record, I’m playing on the PS3 in 1080p on a 46″ Samsung LCD.
It’s absolutely gorgeous. Amazing in HD. When I was young, I never even dreamed games could have graphics like this. Never in my wildest imagination. The story so far is convoluted and complex and doesn’t make much sense, so it’s a true Final Fantasy game in that respect. The characters are great – you like some, you hate some. Again, a true Final Fantasy game. Battle is the biggest departure from past iterations – it’s all very fast paced and streamlined and automated. The Paradigm system takes a little getting used to, but then, I never played Final Fantasy X, X-2, XI, or XII, so I’m coming at it from the old school turn-based “pick every action that happens on screen” camp. But it’s fun, battles move fast (almost too fast to see what’s going on and watch the animations), and it “feels” like a Final Fantasy game. The character leveling “crystarium” system sounds complex on paper, but it’s really not, and it’s actually kind of fun to do. Every few battles, I go in and spend the points I’ve accumulated, and my characters get new boosts and abilities. The biggest complaint I’ve read about it is that it’s very linear, and though I’m only a few hours into it, so far, that’s true. Almost no exploration or world roaming, though I hear there’s more of that later in the game. Overall, it’s a worthy descendant, and deserves the Final Fantasy name. If you’ve played more than one of the “numbered” Final Fantasy games, you know you’ll want to play this one.
I have two pages of “short list” apps – ones that I use all the time, that have earned a place of honor. Then I have 7-8 pages of “regular” apps, sorted alphabetically (by hand – yes, it’s a pain, but I tell myself it’s like a game!). And then I keep a page of apps on “probation” – stuff I’ve downloaded to try out, but I’m not sure I’ll keep.
Usually, an app will go from probation to regular to “short list” the more I use it. And I periodically go through and remove apps that I haven’t used in a long time.
One of these days, I should go through and list the apps that make up my short list. A blog post for another day… 
It occurs to me that the main lesson of the ReadWriteWeb Facebook login “event”, where people thought RWW was Facebook because a Google search brought them there to login, isn’t “OMG people are dumb!”, but “OMG there are a LOT of people using the web!”
I don’t think it tells us that a higher percentage of people than we suspected are really dumb, but rather that it’s a normal, small percentage of a VERY large number of web users. A number that’s very hard for me to imagine.
If you think about it, that’s why spam makes money (and therefore, why it still exists). I’m guessing that only a tiny percentage of people fall for it, but a tiny percentage of a huge number is, well, huge.
It’s a big, big Internet out there. Makes me feel kind of small and insignificant.
I can’t predict the future (very well), and I’m not Google, so I can’t say whether Buzz is their answer to XYZ, but it does tie together some interesting pipes, and to me, that’s where its value lies.
Will I start posting status updates to Buzz instead of Twitter? No. Because I can post once to Twitter, and all my friends on Twitter, Facebook, and Friendfeed will see it (plus, it gets archived in half a dozen other places). I want Buzz to tie into that (which, according to the tin, it will).
Will Buzz replace Twitter or Facebook for reading my friends’ updates? Maybe. We’ll have to see. But “Josh’s Theory of Internet Plumbing” and “Josh’s Theory of Social Gravity” are in full effect here. Use the best tools and pipes for the job, and go where your friends are.
Siri Assistant is a new iPhone app/service that has a lot of people talking. I first heard Scoble get all excited about it a couple of weeks ago, and Adam Duvander was telling me about it last night. By the time I got home from the Ignite Portland 8 talk selection meeting last night, it was in the App Store, so I’ve been playing with it. It’s definitely worth grabbing (it’s free), and time will tell if it becomes truly useful, or just a very novel idea.
Siri combines a couple of cool features – speech to text by Nuance, the folks who power the awesome Dragon Dictation iPhone app – and a bunch of search and service APIs, like OpenTable. The result is an app you can tell things like “book me a table for two at an italian restaurant in Portland tomorrow night” and it will come back with a selection of restaurants and times that are available. Simply tap on the time, and your table is booked. You can also look up movie times (“Where is Avatar playing tonight?“), call a taxi, ask for the weather in any city, or find out more about people (“Who is Josh Bancroft?“). The potential for some really cool/clever easter eggs is there, though I haven’t found any yet. This may just be wishful thinking. Alas, there is one command that I’ve always wanted my iPhone to obey, and even the very cool Siri app falls short here:
Update: I’ve scored my predictions below against reality, striking out ones I missed. Not to brag, but the only major items I missed were the keyboard dock (I didn’t think it would have one) and the name. Not too shabby!
The hype is almost overwhelming now. Even for me. You’ve read up on what all the big thinkers have to say about an Apple Tablet device. If you’re like me, you’ve had endless conversations with friends and acquaintances about which rumors you think are true, and which ones aren’t.
You might as well formalize your predictions. I found this awesome PDF Prediction Score Card that David Weiss made, which you can print out, mark whether you think all the predictions are Correct or Incorrect, and then grade yourself after the announcement.
But printing stuff out on dead trees? Ugh. Isn’t there an app for that? Turns out there is. Weiss’ iPhone app Prediction just hit the App Store ($2.99, but worth it IMO) lets you make your own call on predictions for not only Apple’s event, but other upcoming tech stuff like MWC and Google I/O (all stuff I happen to be interested in). The interface is great, and auto-grading after an event takes place is much better than checking your own work on a paper list.
This time tomorrow, we’ll all know what the deal is. Time for the last few breathless hours of speculation.
This is almost bigger than Christmas for me. My nerves can hardly take it.
For the record, here are my predictions (emailed/exported from the Prediction app). I’ll grade them after the event.
(stricken text means I got my prediction wrong):
Apple Tablet Supports Flash: Wrong
Tablet Has Textbook Content: Partially Correct
Tablet Dev API Based on Cocoa Touch: Correct
Tablet Size Between 10 and 11 Inches: Partially Correct
Tablet Plays Video Content: Correct
Tablet Has Docking Mechanism: Partially Correct
Indie Content for Tablet: Correct
Tablet Book, Newspaper and Magazine Content: Correct
Tablet Runs Existing iPhone Apps: Correct
Apple Tablet SDK Announced: Correct
Tablet Has Cell Phone Internet Capability: Correct
Apple Tablet Announced: Correct
Tablet Plays Music Content: Correct
Tablet OS Is a New OS: Correct
Tablet Has TV Content: Partially Correct
Tablet Has a Tactile Keyboard: Wrong
Tablet Apps Only from the App Store: Correct
Apple Tablet Has Hardware Keyboard Option: Wrong (it does, in fact, have a hardware keyboard dock, as well as Bluetooth keyboard support)
Tablet Has Built-In Camera: Correct
Tablet Ships in March 2010: Correct
Tablet named iPad: Wrong
Tablet Priced Around $1000: Partially Correct
Tablet named iBook: Wrong
Tablet named Apple iTablet: Wrong
iPhone OS 4.0 Announced: Correct (it was version 3.2, not 4.0)
T-Mobile Support for iPhone or Tablet: Wrong
Verizon Support for iPhone or Tablet: Wrong
New iLife and iWork Suites Released: Correct (only new iWork for iPad)
Bing on the iPhone: Wrong
Tablet named Apple tablet: Wrong
Paint App on Tablet: Partially Correct (the Brushes demo was awesome, but it’s 3rd party)
Tablet named Canvas: Correct (missed this one!)
Tablet named iSlate: Wrong
AT&T Exclusive Contract for iPhone Ends: Wrong
Tablet named iGuide: Wrong
Touch Screen Macs: Wrong
Apple Announces an iTunes Web App: Wrong
This place is AWESOME. A giant warehouse full of big playthings, tables and couches for parents, pizza, ice cream, and even wifi. And they have gluten-free pizza.
It’s kind of out in the middle of nowhere, north of Highway 26 off Cornelius Pass Rd. And it’s a zoo on Saturday night. But highly recommended if you have small kids. Photo is an Autostich panorama made if seven or so shots on my iPhone 3GS.I asked for (and got) a Perplexus puzzle sphere for Christmas. I had thought I’d bring it to work, as a companion to the Rubik’s 360 I keep on my desk (it’s a great conversation starter, and fun to play with while I’m on phone meetings – shh! . But the Perplexus has become so popular with everyone at home (even 3yo Gabe, who does surprisingly well with it once you get him started) that I don’t dare take it to work for fear of angering Emma, Gabe and Rachel.
What is a Perplexus? It’s like one of those marble labyrinth toys, where you twist and turn to move a steel bearing along a path. Except it’s in 3D, and completely encased inside a 10 inch plastic sphere. The insides of it look like colorful plastic brain matter, and it’s lots of fun to play with. I first heard about it in Make magazine, where they did a story on its creator, Michael McGinnin, and the giant-sized “Superplexuses” he creates (I WANT one of those!). BoingBoing also wrote about it (again) recently.
Here’s a video of 6yo Emma playing with it and explaining it. Watch to the end to see her highly advanced technique.
The Perplexus is available at ThinkGeek, and you can also now pick it up (a little cheaper) at Amazon.com (affiliate link). If you like brain exercise toys, you should definitely pick one up.
I’m trying to avoid writing about rumors and hype these days. There is plenty of that to go around, and I don’t need to tell you where to find it. I don’t have any facts, only opinions, and there’s really one main idea that I want to share here, sprinkled among the following posts. Go read them now, or save them for later when your brain can chew on them. There’s a lot to think about. They’re all interrelated, so read them in order, and form your own conclusions.
- John “Daring Fireball” Gruber on “The Tablet”
- Ars Technica’s John Siracusa on the tablet
- Marco Arment (Tumblr, Instapaper) on the tablet. Part One and Part Two
- MG Siegler (TechCrunch) on the significance of Steve Jobs’ involvement in the project
These posts represent the best thinking I’ve read recently about how an Apple tablet device could potentially change personal computing. Besides the baseline gadget lust that such a device certainly inspires, there’s a bigger potential here. Because of the way the iPhone has changed my computing life (and computing *IS* my life), the idea of a big leap in the model of how we use computers is appealing and exciting to me. And if anyone can do it, Apple can.
Bring it on, Steve. Pretty please?
Update: A great article from Andy Ihnatko along the same lines. Long and worth the read.
Hope your house is in as much merry chaos as ours this morning.
Merry Christmas and wishes for an awesome New Year from the Bancrofts!
TinyScreenfuls Feed (this blog)
Goodbye, San Francisco! See you soon! (@ Courtyard Marriott)