Official iCreate Blog > 2008 > March

   
Not content with having us wander around seemingly jabbering to ourselves when making a phone call on the iPhone headset, Apple has yet another confused look-provoking feature to share. 

Games are coming to the iPhone in June thanks to the recently released SDK (Software Developers Kit). Not just point and click stuff, not just Tetris, games that require shaking, rotating, twisting and flipping. The accelerometer in the iPhone is incredible when you’re looking at pictures or websites and need to quickly rotate the screen and now this impressive technology is being harnessed to make the device the “Wii of handheld gaming”. The iPhone is not a toy, stop it, stop it, stop it! 
 
Picture the scene: 

9.45: Hop on the bus, plug in iPhone headphones and listen to the latest iCreate podcast. A couple of suppressed giggles garner some strange looks from other public transport users but nothing to worry about.   

9.50: Podcast is getting going but I’m interrupted  by a phone call. Click the button on iPhone headphones to receive call. “Hello?” I say, apparently into thin air. Most assume I’m singing along to Lionel Richie.  


10.00: Finish chatting away while appearing to still listen to iPod with no discernible telephone anywhere nearby. It was a friend informing me that the new iPhone App store is available with games and really cool third-party apps. I fire up Safari. 


10.20: Successfully download Super Monkey Ball for iPhone. It’s a primate in a ball that must be rolled, Marble Madness-style, to the end of the level. The controls? You guessed it - accelerometer.


11.30: Level one completed. Successfully navigated the ape in a ball by tilting the iPhone. Imagine how stupid you look playing tennis on a Nintendo Wii and multiply it by ten. Then imagine doing it in public. 


10.35: Game’s getting harder, motions more frantic. Concerned onlookers fear some kind of fit from the guy talking to himself a few minutes before. I bought this iPhone to look cool! 


10.40: Bus arrives outside office. Police & Ambulance are waiting. Apparently someone with a “regular” telephone tipped them off.   


So what’s next? Default ABBA ringtones? A voice-activated unlock feature that requires you to sing the first four bars of Build Me Up Buttercup? Apple, this is the coolest piece of technology ever to be produced, please don’t reduce it to a plaything. Perhaps that’s why they announced the Microsoft Exchange support for iPhone at the same time, to balance the lightweight, consumer extras with heavy business power tools. Then again, that’s Microsoft technology and when have those guys ever been cool? 

Let’s just hope that beyond the games studios, some truly brilliant third-party apps for iPhone are in the works that don’t make us look like morons when using them. Either that or the popularity of the phone will grow by such a degree that swinging your arms and legs about and talking to yourself in public will become the norm.  

  If I ever get kidnapped, bundled into an unmarked van and am forced to wear a bag over my head as I’m driven to an unknown location, I wont need to be James Bond to figure out where I am when I’m finally released. You see, I have an iPhone with the latest firmware installed and it can find my location anywhere in the world by triangulating my co-ordinates (A-la Sayid from Lost) using mobile towers. The wildly over-the-top situation I just envisaged is about the only use for this feature I can think of right now. Sitting in our Bournemouth office I can hit the “Find Me” button in the iPhone maps application and am told I’m somewhere between the promenade about a mile from this building and the Isle of Wight, several miles away out at sea. I’m not.  So, all I can glean from my iPhone is the rough location, nearest city and country I’m currently in (if that country has cell phone masts). All geographical facts that I’m pretty sure I could figure out for myself save being blindfolded/unconscious and waking up in foreign climes.   US iPhone users have the added benefit of wi-fi hot spots to help narrow down a location (we’re hoping to have the same technology in Europe this year) and, if you’re in a particularly built-up, mast-heavy location, you can obtain slightly more accurate results from your pocket slice of Apple goodness but that’s as good as it gets.  Steve Jobs loves to pioneer. I bet he’s already in talks with NASA to use satellites to pinpoint an iPhone user anywhere in the world.    

There have been various reports over the last few days that Apple is about to release a new colour in the iPod nano range. This time it looks like we may see a purple effort. The source of the rumour comes from a Circuit City circular ad distributed in Minneapolis and its spawned some serious debate on the internet.
Picture thanks to Engadget http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/02/ipod-nano-coming-in-purple/


There is already a purple iPod shuffle so its not beyond the bounds of reasoning that we may see an update soon. Watch this space!

It’s not just Macs and iLife down here in iCreate-land. 
We’re also lucky enough to check out some of the great iTunes events held fairly regularly in London. 

 

Last week, Jimmy and I hopped on a train to the capital’s Air Studios in Hampstead where we caught an intimate show recorded for iTunes Live: London Sessions. Featuring the sultry vocals of Dawn Kinnard, effortlessly cool folk-rock from Jason Mraz and the powerful simplicity of Canada’s Ron Sexsmith, it was certainly a night to be remembered.
 
 

Located in the scenic enclosure that is Lyndhurst Hall which has played host to recording sessions from such luminaries as Coldplay, Madonna and George Michael, competition winners and assorted press (the only people with access to the show) stood mere feet from the performing artists. Bathed in ethereal light and with tunes stripped down to simply vocals, piano and guitar, all three artists enjoyed a substantial share of the stage and even spent time singing together, with Americans Mraz and Kinnard performing a delightful duet.There were special guests aplenty too with Nick Lowe and James Morrison gracing the stage to perform alongside Ron Sexsmith and Jason Mraz respectively.
   
The performances are set to be released exclusively on iTunes in March. For more information and an access all areas sneak peak of the show, featuring interviews and detailed reviews, check out the upcoming iCreate podcast on iTunes or at www.icreatemagazine.com/podcasts  For more information on iTunes Live visit www.ituneslive.co.uk  

Smug Ben and his iPhone. He may take some pride in being the first to post from his cool phone but he paid for his and I, being the super cool dude that I am, did not.

That makes me the real winner….

So, Jimmy may have got in there with the first blog post but I’ve certainly got the coolest.That’s right, I’m outside the office in the glorious sunshine posting from my iPhone!Now I’ve got no excuse not to blog from wherever I am…

Weeks of excitement leading up to the new iCreate blog and I can’t think of a thing to say…   Fear not, dear blog-lover. We’ll come up with something.  As I write this, Jimmy “Global” Hayes is furiously tapping away at his keyboard trying to beat me to first blog post and also upload a particularly awful photo of me he took in London.    As I always say, “Slow and steady wins the race”. In years to come when we look back at our first posts, he’ll kick himself for rushing with all the spelling errors and obscurely structured sentences. If, by some miracle however, he provides a flawless and typo free post, I have the power, as editor, to head back into the blog and make some changes or delete the thing entirely. So I’ll always have the last laugh!  Slow and steady wins the race. Slow, steady and with admin privileges rules the blog.   

Welcome to the the brand new shiny and exciting iCreate Blog, where you can expect to get some massively awesome content from myself Jimmy Hayes and Editor Ben Harvell.

Over the coming minutes, days, months and years we will evolve the Blog in the same way we took our fledgling podcast and converted it from a rambling mish-mash of ideas into the extremely well polished chart topper that currently resides on iTunes.

Anyway, I’ve made the first post so I am the King!

Here is a picture of Ben Harvell, the iCreate editor looking his best as we returned from the iTunes Live sessions event at Air studios in London. Keep an eye on the blog to see more about this event….