In an argument as useless of Roger Ebert’s ongoing Video Games Aren’t Art, Terry Pratchett is now weighing in on the classification of Dr. Who as science-fiction, a description Sir Pratchett takes great exception with.

People say Doctor Who is science fiction. At least people who don’t know what science fiction is, say that Doctor Who is science fiction. Star Trek approaches science fiction. The horribly titled Star Cops which ran all too briefly on the BBC in the 1980s was the genuine pure quill of science fiction, unbelievable in some aspects but nevertheless pretty much about the possible. Indeed, several of its episodes relied on the laws of physics for their effect (I’m particularly thinking of the episode “Conversations With The Dead”). It had a following, but never caught on in a big way. It was clever, and well thought out. Doctor Who on the other hand had an episode wherein people’s surplus body fat turns into little waddling creatures. I’m not sure how old you have to be to come up with an idea like that. The Doctor himself has in recent years been built up into an amalgam of Mother Teresa, Jesus Christ (I laughed my socks off during the Titanic episode when two golden angels lifted the Doctor heavenwards) and Tinkerbell. There is nothing he doesn’t know, and nothing he can’t do. He is now becoming God, given that the position is vacant. Earth is protected, we are told, and not by Torchwood, who are human and therefore not very competent. Perhaps they should start transmitting the programme on Sundays.

Source

I saw a lot of game journalists playing the beta of Halo: Reach over the weekend, though I didn’t detect much in the way of excitement. Not that it matters, as Halo and its sales are critic-proof, nor is it ever reviewed with anything close to a critical eye, seemingly immune to criticism lest magazines and websites upset their vociferous and loyal fan-base. Me? Previous Halo games have been boring and empty. Should be called Hollow.

Now that you’ve completely disregarded my opinion, why not read the opinions of two hardcore Halo freaks as they discuss the pros and cons of the new Halo: Reach beta:

Sascha Lichtenstein: Let’s make this conversation quick, because I’d much rather be playing this beta than talking about it.

I’m having a blast with Halo: Reach. Arena and Invasion are both locked out until the official start, so it’s a little light on new features, but I like the way the combat has evolved. The four armor abilities all bring different strategic elements to the game, and their value changes depending on the map and the game type.

Kyle Wattenmaker: I like it, and I’m saying that with tempered enthusiasm. I’m not nearly as enthusiastic as I thought I might be, but there’s still plenty I haven’t seen. Balance is iffy, but it’s a beta. Armor abilities are awesome.

SL: I was worried that the armor abilities would be completely unbalanced, that some would be incredibly powerful and others would be completely useless. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of an armor ability that I haven’t been able to use with great success, save for maybe armor lock…and that’s only because I keep forgetting I have the ability with the battles start getting heated. I always die and say “Dammit, I could have used my ability!” But I’ll get used to it.

The rest of this excellent feature can be found here.

Instead of one sentence explanations buried in emails to obscure customers, Steve Jobs has finally written a proper open-letter that explains Apple’s position on Flash. Frankly, I’ve had an iPad since launch day and have yet to miss Flash.

Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products. Today the two companies still work together to serve their joint creative customers – Mac users buy around half of Adobe’s Creative Suite products – but beyond that there are few joint interests.

I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain.

First, there’s “Open”.

Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.

Apple has many proprietary products too. Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash). HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member.

Apple even creates open standards for the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the Safari web browser used in all our products. WebKit has been widely adopted. Google uses it for Android’s browser, Palm uses it, Nokia uses it, and RIM (Blackberry) has announced they will use it too. Almost every smartphone web browser other than Microsoft’s uses WebKit. By making its WebKit technology open, Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers.

Second, there’s the “full web”.

Adobe has repeatedly said that Apple mobile devices cannot access “the full web” because 75% of video on the web is in Flash. What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads. YouTube, with an estimated 40% of the web’s video, shines in an app bundled on all Apple mobile devices, with the iPad offering perhaps the best YouTube discovery and viewing experience ever. Add to this video from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, and many, many others. iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video.

Another Adobe claim is that Apple devices cannot play Flash games. This is true. Fortunately, there are over 50,000 games and entertainment titles on the App Store, and many of them are free. There are more games and entertainment titles available for iPhone, iPod and iPad than for any other platform in the world.

Third, there’s reliability, security and performance.

Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.

In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?

Fourth, there’s battery life.

To achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware; decoding it in software uses too much power. Many of the chips used in modern mobile devices contain a decoder called H.264 – an industry standard that is used in every Blu-ray DVD player and has been adopted by Apple, Google (YouTube), Vimeo, Netflix and many other companies.

Although Flash has recently added support for H.264, the video on almost all Flash websites currently requires an older generation decoder that is not implemented in mobile chips and must be run in software. The difference is striking: on an iPhone, for example, H.264 videos play for up to 10 hours, while videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is fully drained.

When websites re-encode their videos using H.264, they can offer them without using Flash at all. They play perfectly in browsers like Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome without any plugins whatsoever, and look great on iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Fifth, there’s Touch.

Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?

Even if iPhones, iPods and iPads ran Flash, it would not solve the problem that most Flash websites need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices.

Sixth, the most important reason.

Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms.

Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.

Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins – we sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform.

Conclusions.

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

Steve Jobs
April, 2010

You’ve just spent a boatload of money on Apple’s new iPad and now the time has come to show it off to friends and family. They expect to be impressed and wowed, so you had better deliver a quality presentation that really shows off its various strengths. What follows are 12 excellent apps covering a wide-range of areas, from games to utilities, that should do an excellent job in justifying your new technological wonder.

Warpgate HD

If you’re old enough to remember the glory days of space-trading sims like Elite and Privateer, then you’ll feel right at home with Warpgate HD. This is a beautifully realized, very polished real-time space exploration, combat and trading game offering a mammoth universe, tons of combat, excellent graphics, great sounds and oodles of missions. Warpgate will show off the processing-power of your iPad as well as its brilliant use of touch-controls to navigate the streamlined interface.

Warpgate HD is $7.99 on iTunes.

Pocket Legends

I’ve probably put more time into Pocket Legends than any other game currently available for the iPad. This is an excellent game that will remind many of Diablo, featuring 3D graphics that are lush with details, fast-paced gameplay and seamless multiplayer. If you thought you’d never see an MMO on the iPad, then Pocket Legends explodes that theory and promises a great future for the genre. Pocket Legends is free to download and play, though you won’t be able to progress past level 13 unless you pay $1.99 for an expansion pack.

Pocket Legends is Free on iTunes

Words With Friends

Words With Friends won’t impress from a technical standpoint, but it will illustrate one of the many strong-points of the iPad, namely turn-based multiplayer games that you can pick up and play at any moment. Words With Friends is basically Scrabble with a different name, but the game is essentially the same. However, one big selling point that Words with Friends has over its competitor, EA’s Scrabble, is that you can have 20 concurrent games running at any time. Once you dive into the world of Words with Friends you will become hopelessly addicted.

Words With Friends is $2.99 on iTunes

Brushes/Sketchbook Pro/ArtStudio

One area where the iPad really shines and has no equal is the wonderful library of artistic applications. There are several choices available, depending on your needs and existing skills.

Brushes is a great place to start, though compared to its competitors, you’ll find it lacking in many features. However, Brushes allows for high-resolution export, which is a critical consideration for many artists.

Sketchbook Pro has the most features of all the art programs, tons of brushes and a very effective interface. If you need more options than Brushes, you simply can’t go wrong with Sketchbook Pro.

ArtStudio is another excellent app, the cheapest on offer at only 99-cents, which is a total steal. ArtStudio falls somewhere between Brushes and Sketchbook Pro in terms of features, has a great minimal interface and is a worthy option. You can’t beat the price.

Brushes is $9.99 on iTunes

Sketchbook Pro is $7.99 on iTunes

ArtStudio is $0.99 on iTunes

Pandora

Pandora is a well-known music streaming service that offers tons of free tracks based on your tastes. The interface is slick, easy to navigate and a pleasure to use. Steaming is fast and responsive. You also can’t beat the price, since its free!

Pandora is Free on iTunes

Air Video

Air Video is a revelation! This little app will stream any and all video formats on your PC or MAC to your iPad, converting video on the fly for seamless transmission. I threw some pretty obscure formats at this thing and it worked wonders. It worked better than PS3 Media Server, better than TVersity and better than the Xbox 360 as a media streamer. All you do is download a free program for either PC or MAC that runs a server on your system. Once you have the app running on your iPad, the two hook up as if by magic. Very little setup required. This thing just flat-out works.

Air Video is $2.99 on iTunes.

A free version is available for testing.

Twitterific

There is no shortage of Twitter-apps for the iPad, some free, some expensive, some useless. Since my Twitter needs are on the slight side, I have opted to use Twitterific since it is free and, more importantly, effective at what it does. A crisp display reveals all incoming tweets and users can create custom lists and searches.

Twitterific is Free on iTunes

Star Walk

This app isn’t for everyone, but it sure is impressive and a real showcase for the capabilities of the iPad. Star Walk is a portable telescope of sorts. The real magic happens when you hold the iPad up to the night sky and it automatically reveals the names and pertinent information, including diagrams of the constellations. As you move the iPad across the sky, Star Walk automatically follows your movement. Never again will you not know what something is called in the night sky. It’s an amazing piece of software.

Star Walk is $4.99 on iTunes

Good Reader

Need to read Adobe PDF files on your iPad? Look no further than Good Reader. This fast app is easy to use, allowing you to sync documents between iTunes and your iPad with ease. Files move around quickly and, more importantly, Good Reader is super-fast at displaying large PDF documents.

Good Reader is $0.99 on iTunes

IMDB/Netflix

If you’re a movie and/or television buff than IMDB is a must download. IMDB, known as the Internet Movie Database, has really delivered a beautifully designed app that puts an impressive amount of information at your fingertips, including the latest box-office results, what’s opening this weekend, movie trailers and television schedules.

If you have a Netflix subscription and want to stream movies to your iPad, then this app is a no-brainer. I have to say, the iPad version is the best yet, faster than the PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 at streaming.

IMDB is Free on iTunes

Netflix is Free on iTunes

X-Plane

A flight-simulator on your iPad? Believe it. X-Plane is probably the most impressive game I have yet seen on the iPad. Amazingly fast and detailed graphics, excellent physics, tons of flyable planes and oodles of varied regions to fly them over. Brilliant interface, responsive controls, great pick-up-and-play sensibility. Even if you don’t like flight-sims, you’d be hard-pressed to not be blown away by X-Plane.

X-Plane is $9.99 on iTunes

Marvel/Comic Zeal 4

If you’re into comics then you can’t go wrong with Marvels free reader app. It features a built-in store so you can easily snag new comics, though you’ll find far more back issues for sale than current works. Marvel is offering several recent comics for free, so you can at least check out this impressive comic reader without investing any money.

If Marvel isn’t your thing and/or you already have a library of digital comics in CBR or other popular formats, then Comic Zeal 4 is your best bet. Adding comic to your library is very easy via iTunes and once you have comics on your iPad, Comic Zeal will then compress the files further to help minimize space. Once the comics are imported, you can read them at your leisure on the iPad. Heck, Comic Zeal even puts a series of comics together in a cool little comic bin.

Marvel Comic Reader is Free on iTunes

Comic Zeal 4 is $7.99 on iTunes