Sometimes, you wish these things were fake.

That’s how I felt, when I watched the new Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Multiplayer Reveal video, which was released by Infinity Ward today. Here, watch this thing:

See what I mean? Now watch this trailer:

See the difference? One looks like it took some time and effort the produce, while the other looks like it was made by a 12 year old with too much free time on their hands. What a travesty. The MW3 trailer has way too many slow mo, “Zach Snyder” moments. You saw the movie “300″ right? Yeah. That. The trailer also follows various soldiers around the map using the worst 3rd person angles one could think of. They tried to show and feature the new customization options and the new killstreaks, but it failed. It failed miserably.

This video was supposed to get me excited about MW3, but instead, it’s making me think about cancelling my pre-order. That’s pretty sad.

Update 09/05/2011 – Activision has released a MUCH BETTER trailer called “Tango Down”. Check it out:

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Ever since FriendFeed was consumed by Facebook, online discussions have been dominated by Quora, Twitter and Facebook. Without getting into my opinions about those three services, let me say, I wasn’t motivated to have discussions using them. I really enjoyed the time I had with FriendFeed and the ease of contributing to a topic.

Enter Google+.

Google has been dabbling in social networking for quite some time and in my opinion, has been a bit out of focus. We’ve seen orkut, social bars, and of course Google Buzz, but we really haven’t seen a robust, solid solution. With Google+, I can say that Google is serious about making online discussions easily accessible. Google has made engagement with existing and new contacts about as easy as one could ask. I find myself more willing to talk about technology on Google+ than I ever did on Quora, Twitter and Facebook. That’s enough for me to consider Google+ as a success.

Is it perfect? I don’t think so. There are still a lot of issues to work out with the Circles implementation of managing information streams. The hangouts feature is somewhat unstable and prone to crash, while sparks is sort of just out there without a real underlining purpose. Google+ definitely has room to grow.

I’m happy to have a place on the web to have discussions much like the days of FriendFeed. Click here to view my Google+ profile.

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Recently, I was invited to a service that I heard about a while ago, but for some reason I dismissed it. The service is called Empire Avenue, and I think it’s quite a bit of fun.

Empire Avenue is the Social Media Exchange, where you can invest in any social media profile by buying their shares, meet new people, unlock Achievement badges, and earn boatloads of virtual cash by being active and social online! Buy shares in your friends, your followers, people with similar interests, brands you love, celebrities – anyone! All using a virtual currency and all for free!

A long, long time ago, in an internet far, far away, I participated in a very similar site called Blogshares, which did similar techniques to promote websites. Empire Avenue (EAv for short) takes it a step further by throwing in achievements, and encourages you to contribute to your connected social networking services. Our community has started playing around with EAv, and quite a few of us are taken by how fun it is. I’ve been criticized by you all that I don’t communicate to my audience enough unless something is broken. I can’t say I disagree with you there, but something like EAv gives me a bit more motivation to tweet to everyone that I’m doing a show soon, or to communicate the latest promotion – You know, that thing called “social media”?

At any rate, I doubt the game is for everyone and I think a lot of you out there will probably dismiss it as a gimmick or a waste of time. As for me, I’m going to be buying some shares of (e)PIRILLO as soon as I get the chance. Perhaps I can convince (e)OREO to lower their prices a bit. If you wish to join, please visit http://bwna.me/empavenue to give me and you 10,000 “Eaves”, which is their virtual currency.

I’m listed as (e)BWANA on EAv. Surprised?

P.S. If you do decide to sign up, I highly recommend getting a cup of coffee and a few cookies. After you smile a bit, read Chris Pirillo’s THOROUGH EAv guide here. You’ll be glad you did

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Tablet wars. Gotta love ‘em.

I found this interesting article from John Gruber at daringfireball.net. He rips into Walt Mossberg’s review of the iPad 2. Specifically, he focuses on the Mossberg’s drawbacks of the iPad 2:

So Mossberg’s second “downside” is that battery life for movie playback — with the brightness set 25 percent higher than Apple’s factory default — exceeds Apple’s stated 10 hours by nine minutes. Apple says you can play video for 10 hours, Mossberg gets 10 hours and nine minutes, and it’s a downside?

[...]

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a review where a product that exceeds the manufacturer’s stated specs for battery life gets dinged for battery life.

I gotta say I agree with Gruber’s disagreement of Mossberg’s battery life “drawback”. It seems to be really reaching, but then again, a lot of the iPad 2 naysayers are doing the same thing.

The iPad 2 is a real thing that you can go buy in a store tomorrow. What is Mossberg comparing the iPad to? An imaginary tablet, available today, that does have Flash Player and 4G networking, on which neither technology has an adverse effect on battery life? Why not list the lack of a quad-core processor, instead of the iPad 2’s actual dual-cure one, as a drawback, too?

Bingo. I don’t think I could have stated that better myself. I find it puzzling that Mossberg would mention Flash/4G as drawbacks on the iPad 2 and those drawbacks are not even working on the competitors’ tablets Mossberg mentioned. I guess it comes down to pleasing everyone:

Mossberg’s entire review is only 1,500 words; measured by the word, a full third of what he has to say about it are these “drawbacks”. By contrast, his 1,200-word review of the Motorola Xoom — a tablet nearly everyone, including Mossberg, agrees is inferior to the iPad 2 — contains one 62-word paragraph of “downsides”.

Sounds like Mossberg was tired of being called an Apple lover

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On my past shows of Game Chat With Bwana, I pleaded with Nintendo to justify the seemingly high price ($250) of its new handheld, the 3DS. Recently at the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC), Nintendo announced the device would support Netflix as well as 3D recording. Iwato discussed that 3D video will be coming to the 3DS in the form of an exclusive channel with content like the “Green Lantern” trailer and so forth. (HELLOOOO NURSE!) The big N also announced a partnership with AT&T which will grant access 10,000 Wi-Fi hot spots across the country.

The downside is that all of this great stuff won’t be available at launch apparently. (Always a catch) It will come in a future software update that nerds across the country will pester Nintendo for months for. While I’m not crazy about that part of the package, I am extremely pleased to see that Nintendo is reaching beyond the games on the 3DS and looking more and more like the PSP in terms of overall digital entertainment. If they deliver as promised, the 3DS may well be worth its price.

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If you follow the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) gaming genre, then you have probably heard of Rift. It’s a new entry in the already crowded market, and aims to cater to both experienced and new MMO players. If you want to give it a try, there’s another open beta round going on this weekend.

If you need a beta key, head over to zam.com and get a key there. Once you obtain a key, you need to create an account at riftgame.com and apply the beta key to your account. The developers will email you an official invitation to the beta and you can get into the game. I’ll be playing on the Seastone server with various characters. If you wish to check out the game, I’ll also probably stream gameplay at my live stream.

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Some of you may not know, but I love comic books. I grew up reading Marvel in my early years and gradually moved towards DC Comics in my adult life. So I was definitely excited to see that DC was releasing a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) called DC Universe Online.

It first caught my attention by the brilliant cinematic trailer. I literally got goosebumps watching this because it was so well done. Many people who watched this, really wanted this to be made into a movie. It’s just that good.

The trailer is very important to understanding the story of the game. SPOILER ALERT! Lex Luthor has traveled back in time to save humanity from the clutches of Brainiac. He has released Braniac’s “exobyte” technology to give ordinary people super powers to fight against Brainiac. As a character in the game, you have been captured by Brainiac since the exobytes granted you powers and you manage to escape his harvester ship to join the heroes or the villains.

Now on to the gameplay elements. This game is not World of Warcraft. Let me repeat, this game is not World of Warcraft. With that said, DC Universe Online (DCUO) plays like an action game with real-time attacks, blocks, and special abilities. This sub-genre of MMORPGs has been deemed “Action MMO” by the industry, and has been very popular in the Korean market. Most notably, Vindictus, is the latest of the genre which has been popular in the west as well.

Controls

DCUO is available on both the PC and PS3 platforms. If you think about this situation, you can’t help but come to the conclusion that the control scheme is going to stink on one of these platforms. It’s a valid assumption, because games like Final Fantasy XIV completely dropped the ball in bringing a smooth control scheme to the PC platform. For more information on that, check out my first impressions of that disaster.

I’ve been playing on the PC platform and immediately noticed a unique control scheme for a PC MMO. The mouse has no cursor. The mouse is used for combinations and camera movement, while the keyboard is used for ability shortcuts and character movement. For example, if you wish to conduct a superhero combo, you would click the left mouse button once or twice and then, hold down the right mouse button. It took me 5-10 minutes to get used to this control scheme during the game’s tutorial phase. All in all, I was happy with it and got used to it rather quickly. If you’ve played action RPGs such as Torchlight/Diablo, you should be used to the large amount of mouse clicking to engage enemies.

Rating: 8/10

Social Features

DCUO has basic features such as leagues (essentially guilds), groups and general chat. I’ve found that these features lack considerably. For one, the group and guild chat stops working for unknown reasons and no one knows why. The interface for chat on PC is terrible and has horrible response time. I find it to be the most frustrating part of grouping up with people. The player search controls are quite confusing at first. For example, to add a player as a friend requires you find a hidden option in a drop down. Little things like this make it counter-intuitive and can drive you nuts if you let it.

This is easily my number 1 gripe with DCUO

Rating: 4/10

Questing/Leveling

DCUO employs a mentor system, where your character is introduced to superhero’ism by one of 6 heroes/villains: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Joker, Lex Luthor, Circe. These mentors guide you through initial character development and direct you to various assignments in the cities. Depending on which mentor you choose, your character will begin in either Metropolis or Gotham. As you level up, you venture out into the alternate city which will include instances that the game calls “Alerts”.

The questing operates at a good pace for both novice MMO players and experienced ones. I found myself able to level quite easily and found no issue with this part of the game.

Rating: 9/10

PVP

If you’re interested in Player Vs. Player (PVP), DC Universe Online doesn’t disappoint. The “open-world” PVP can be a bit intimidating for those who wish to just level their character and interact with the storyline. What does “open-world” mean? It means that players can attack opposing forces anywhere in the world. It adds a suspenseful, yet dynamic element to a seemingly boring quest grind. Say you’re killing 20 of the Joker’s henchmen, and you’ve got one more left. All of a sudden, five villains fly in from out of the sky and ambush you. Even if you try to go back and kill that last henchman, those villains will there waiting on you. It’s quite fun.

There are also PVP dedicated areas, or instances, for you to enjoy. They range from 2v2 all the way up to 5v5 matches with various objectives. The Legends PVP mode allows you to even play as characters such as Batman, Robin, Harley Quinn, The Joker, and Nightwing. There’s also various rewards and gear you can earn with your wins in these instances. You’ll find some of the more attractive armor can be obtained through PVP. Overall, I believe it is a success and couldn’t find anything wrong with it.

Rating: 10/10

Lore

I was happy to see that the DCUO lore was consistent with fairly recent developments from the comic books. Before the game was even released, I knew they wouldn’t have a problem bringing DC content in the game.

There’s a wealth of lore that has been around since the birth of DC Comics in 1934, and a lot of that is present in the game. For example, we see the classic clashes between Batman and Joker, Superman and Lex Luthor, Wonder Woman and Giganta, Green Lantern and Sinestro.

One area of the lore that I have to speak against, is the performance of voice actors to play the parts. I was happy to see that DCUO nabbed most of the voice actors from the popular Justice League and Batman series of cartoons (including Mark Hamill as the Joker!), but some of the voice actors are just plain terrible. The immersion of the game suffers due to this incredibly bad voice acting. You can tell it was rushed and that voice actors were not at their best. It is quite disappointing.

Rating: 6/10

Endgame?

In the time that I have played DCUO, I was unable to participate in the majority of the endgame, so I will not comment nor rate it. I did however, reach level 30 and completed the final quest which opened up the raids. I was quite shocked by what I saw.

Batman thanked me and invited me back to the bat cave.

This is quite unheard of in DC lore and is reserved for no one. Even if Superman entered the bat cave, Batman would reach for his Kryptonite to get him out of there. I couldn’t believe they made him such a softy. I’ll try not to hold it against DCUO.

Conclusion

Overall, I think the game has a lot of potential in an already crowded 2011 MMO lineup. It’s a refreshing take on the level grind with a much more interactive controls scheme, decent lore, and virtually unlimited content to expand with. SoE has promised that a majority of this new content will not cost us money. Given that there are rumors of Green Lantern powers in the works, I’m pretty excited for the game. I recommend this MMO to you PC owners out there to try. Even if you don’t play beyond the first 30 days, you’ll get $50 worth of fun out of the game.

Now will it last? This is a hard question to answer with a high level of certainty, but I’ll do my best to guess. I think the game will be solid for at least another 6 months. I believe there’s enough in the game and to come for it to be one of my top MMO picks of 2011. Beyond those 6 months will be totally up to SoE which doesn’t have a very good track record with keeping MMORPGs up to date and interesting.

Final Ratings

Controls: 8/10
Social Features: 4/10
Questing/Leveling: 9/10
PVP: 10/10
Lore: 6/10

Overall: 7.4/10

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A while ago, I tried Raptr during the beta and I liked it since it combined gaming with the social web. Here’s my initial review from 2008:

It kind of fell off my radar since I was primarily using Xfire to track my gaming. I also had a problem with Adobe Air at the time since it was a memory hog. Since then, Adobe Air has improved a great deal (still pretty heavy) and Raptr has improved by leaps and bounds.

Some of the improvements I noticed right off are:

1. The site has grown tremendously and supports a lot more. Steam (achievements/history), Xfire (history), Playstation Network trophies and deeper integration into popular Flash games like Farmville.
2. The in-game overlay rivals Xfire. The new browser is actually quite snazzy. All it needs now is custom overlays and webcam support and Xfire is dead.
3. Many more customization options are available to make your profile your own. These come in the form of themes, twitter like status updates, and a small mini-blurb thing to introduce yourself to the community.
4. More granular tracking and snazzy flash applets to show who’s playing what… right now.
5. Overall better site design and easy to navigate.
6. The new iPhone app is actually quite decent and gives you Raptr on the go.

So if you tried Raptr back in 2008 like I did and it didn’t quite fit your needs, I suggest giving it another try now that they’ve been hard at work for the past 2 years. If you wish to add me, I’m Bwana on there at http://raptr.com/bwana

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Real time strategy (RTS) games are something else.

These games tend to turn most off since they require quick thinking and analysis. They also require lots and lots of practice and patience. Many people are intimidated by these type of games since they seem so complicated. This is unavoidable, since most RTS communities are condescending and unforgiving to the newcomers, forcing them to completely avoid online play. Personally, I don’t blame new users, since I felt the same way for a great deal of time.

I reluctantly purchased StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty a while ago, and for good reason. This game can be VERY addictive. Let me describe the stages I’ve gone through with it.

Step 1 – Initial purchase and shelf. Yeah, it sat there for a good 2-3 weeks unplayed due to … Minecraft.
Step 2 – Began Single player campaign, and saw the appeal of the story. Shelved again for Minecraft.
Step 3 – Began watching more competitive play at GSL and IEM. Inspired and awed by professionals.
Step 4 – Began playing against the AI (computer player) to get the basics of the mechanics for the Zerg race.
Step 5 – Watched more and more GSL tournaments and began playing on official battle.net ladders. Placed in bronze league.
Step 6 (Now) – Played over 50 ladder matches, practicing hotkey mechanics against AI. Having dreams about “We require more minerals” voice.

Image courtesy of fuxorz@deviantart

It took a while, but I’ve been bitten by the StarCraft bug. Ow! I’m by no means a high level player like you’ll see on justin.tv often, but I’m having fun, and that’s the whole point. Lots of players take the game way too seriously, and end up frustrated in the end. My goal with every video game I play is to have fun. If it’s not fun, it’s not worth playing.

As a result of the newest craze, our Bwana.TV gaming community hosts friendly matches every Friday night to mainly help new players get better. We call it “StarCraft 2 community night”:

Our next one is scheduled for November 5th, 2010 at around 8PM EST at live.bwana.tv. If you’re a new StarCraft 2 player, and are intimidated by online play, this night is for you! Stop on by and participate.

Also, if you’re in the market for a strategy guide, try out Diamond Gamer. It’s a nifty in-game plugin for StarCraft 2 that guarantees (with money back guarantee) that you’ll be a Diamond Level StarCraft 2 player in no time.

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As an iPhone 4 user who doesn’t have reception issues with or without a case in areas with or without a signal, I have a certain perspective on this whole “iPhone 4 death grip” issue. What I see here is a corner case (no pun intended) of a risk that I discussed in my “cons” section of my iPhone 4 review. Sure it’s a problem, but I definitely don’t think it’s a recall type problem. The phone isn’t blowing up in people’s hands, nor is it melting our ear drums. The internet has turned this minor issue into a show stopping, stock killing, PR nightmare, and the tech blogs all over the web smell blood and are on the attack.

Apple has called a press conference tomorrow to talk about the iPhone 4. People who want Apple to fail are begging for an embarrassing, tear filled, bumbling apology from Steve Jobs. They also want a multi-billion dollar recall. People who own the phone (that I know of) generally want a clear cut explanation and a plan of action. Me? I don’t want anything.

Yeah I said it.

The antenna issue is a minor inconvenience on a great smartphone that just about every review claims is the best phone to date, yet can’t recommend it. It boggles the mind how you can say this is the best smartphone out, but this minor defect (yes it is minor) will prevent you from recommending it? If that’s the case, then it’s not the best smartphone. You can’t have it both ways. Just about every review I’ve read claims of increased reception and better call quality, except for this corner case. (no pun intended again)

In my mind, either the phone sucks because of the antenna issue, or it’s a great phone with minor antenna concerns.

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A few days ago I expressed my thoughts on the whole iPhone 4 antenna issue:

Some people got upset because I stated it wasn’t an Apple issue, but a cellular design/technology issue with attenuation. I even stated in the video that it is a legitimate problem with iPhone 4, but not as big as people are making it out to be.

Let me repeat that: I acknowledge this is a legitimate issue with the iPhone 4 (or maybe even iOS4). Is it worth national attention? Maybe. Is it worth a lawsuit? Heck no. People seem to think attenuation doesn’t happen anywhere else and I even gathered a few videos demonstrating just that, but as most of us know, the iPhone 4 has increased attenuation due to its design. Is it as extreme as people make it out to be? i.e. “OMG! I hold my iPhone and it goes from 5 bars to 0 and I can’t make a call! ZOMG!” Let’s see.

Bars Mean Nothing
I also stated something else that no one seemed to acknowledge: “I’ve dropped calls with full bars on my phone. Bars don’t mean anything”. I don’t know why, but people see those bars go down and ultimately believe that it’s representative of their phone signal. Today I read Anandtech’s analysis of the issue and they found some very interesting results:

So, an entire day and more than a quarter tank of gas later, here are the results. Holding the iPhone 4 without a case, in your left hand, crossing the black strip can result in a worst case drop of 24 dBm in signal. As we’ll show in a second, how you hold the phone makes a huge difference across every smartphone – and we’ve tested thoroughly in 5 different positions.

Now, there are two vastly different possibilities for what happens to the bar visualization after you drop 24 dBm. I happen to live less than one block from an AT&T UMTS tower (it’s across the street, literally), and have exceptionally strong signal in all of my house – it’s part of why I chose to live here, actually. Signal is above -65 dBm in every single room, in most cases it’s at -51 dBm. When I incur that worst case drop of 24 dBm from squeezing the phone, I fall down to -83 dBm, which is still visualized as 5 bars.

However, in locales that have less signal, but where iOS still displays 5 bars, the drop of 24 dBm is visualized much differently. For example, at another test location, signal without holding the phone is -89 dBm, which is still displayed as 5 bars. Cup the phone, and you’ll fall all the way to -113 dBm. All the bars dramatically disappear one after the other, people think they’ve dramatically lost all the signal, and you know the rest.

Death Grip Doesn’t Discriminate
Check out what Anandtech found compared to the Nexus One and iPhone 3GS in terms of attenuation:

Not only do they confirm that you need to squeeze the life out of the phone to get the maximum effect, but that attenuation does occur in other tests though not as extreme as iPhone 4 with its exposed antenna. It does make sense that an exposed antenna will give more attenuation.

Liars? Fanboys? No.
So when people say they don’t have the issue, there’s a high chance, they don’t have the issue. Why? Because they are getting 5 bars in iOS4 and likely have a high dB signal, whereas those who low dB, and have 5 bars in iOS4 will show increased attenuation. Example:

If she’s lying or doctoring results, then I’d be very impressed. I would bet the farm she has a high dB signal coupled with 5 bars.

But Wait, It’s Not Terrible?
Here’s another thing that is pretty much in line with my usage: The iPhone 4 antenna is actually better! What gets me is that pretty much every review I’ve read stated they got better signal with normal use, but this information gets glossed over. Anandtech expressed it best:

From my day of testing, I’ve determined that the iPhone 4 performs much better than the 3GS in situations where signal is very low, at -113 dBm (1 bar). Previously, dropping this low all but guaranteed that calls would drop, fail to be placed, and data would no longer be transacted at all. I can honestly say that I’ve never held onto so many calls and data simultaneously on 1 bar at -113 dBm as I have with the iPhone 4, so it’s readily apparent that the new baseband hardware is much more sensitive compared to what was in the 3GS. The difference is that reception is massively better on the iPhone 4 in actual use.

So while everyone wants to focus on squeezing their iPhone 4, I’m focusing on my experience of improved call quality, less dropped calls, overall better reception. While I don’t grip my phone like shown in the experiements, I have done some tests in different areas and I have had varied results just like Anandtech. The perception is that every iPhone 4 has this issue and if anyone says otherwise, they’re a lying, brainwashed, Apple fanboy who is protecting their pride. Well to that I say:

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I recommend you watch the WWDC 2010 keynote before reading.

If you watch the video above, you’ll note that I was generally impressed with the announcements made by Apple. I’ll attempt to go into more detail on this post as to some of the other features and what I think about them.

History repeating itself?

Before I talk about the iPhone 4, I want to comment on a statement that Steve Jobs made regarding the pre-iPhone world. He said that before the iPhone and App store, things were completely different. If you think about it, he is absolutely right. I can barely remember what it was like to run apps on my phone, perform firmware upgrades, check email, and surf the web on my smartphones. iPhone was definitely a game changer in 2007-2008.

So will the iPhone 4 be a game changer as well? It’s really hard to predict these things, especially with how often Apple reinvents features that sucked on other phones in a way that we love them somehow. Distortion field? Magic? I don’t know, but it’s a force to be reckoned with. Take for example, the engineering of the iPhone 4 case. What other smartphone maker will take you into the manufacturing process and explain to you why they made the choices they did? I can’t think of many. Apple has put together an integrated antenna design that I have not seen before. Has it been done before? I don’t know, because other companies don’t bother to share these important information. Some may dismiss Apple’s focus on their stainless steel + space age glass design as “useless” or a “distraction from what’s not there” but I disagree with both of those points.

The Screen

My Mechanical Engineering background kicked in a bit when I saw the manufacturing process in action. It sounds pretty unique. Has anyone else done this? I don’t know because companies don’t openly share this information. Apple uses a special lamination technique to bond the screen to the glass, so no more dirt particles as stated by John Gruber:

It’s mentioned briefly in Apple’s promotional video about the design of the iPhone 4, but they’re using a new production process that effectively fuses the LCD and touchscreen — there is no longer any air between the two. One result of this is that the iPhone 4 should be impervious to this dust-under-the-glass issue.

Combined with Apple’s pixel-packing “Retina” technology, we have the makings of an absolutely amazing reading experience. Did you notice how many times Steve Jobs referred to the screen being akin to reading high quality print? Apple sees the trend that everyone else is talking about: the death of print. This is a preemptive strike to capture that rising market through the iPad and iPhone 4.

Two Microphones

For the first time on the iPhone, Apple has introduced a second microphone for “noise cancellation”. Before FaceTime was announced, this didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but now it does. I imagine this will be utilized during video calls and video recording. Currently on iPhone 3GS, the audio quality is not that great on recorded video. I imagine this will not be the case on iPhone 4. We will have to wait and see if this second microphone will help at all.

The A4 Chip and Battery

Apple was proud to announce they are using their own A4 processor in iPhone 4. Not only does this chip offer great performance, but it does so without the cost of heavy power consumption. I think it’s amazing that Apple is able to produce a 40% increase in talk time while providing more power, functionality, and a slimmer design. Again, a lot of critics will overlook this as “ho-hum” because it’s not some futuristic amazing bell or whistle, but I will disagree and will say this is an enormous feat and Apple should be commended.

The Gyroscope

This one surprised me as it did others. The gyroscope has opened up new doors for developers to create spatial awareness type games. Steve Jobs gave a great demonstration of this using a clone of the popular puzzle game, Jenga. As he turned around physically, the iPhone’s display updated its point of view. This is absolutely brilliant!! Think about some of the applications that could utilize the new CoreMotion APIs to create amazing experiences. Kudos to Apple for this one.

The Camera and HD Video

Steve Jobs did an outstanding job explaining protons to a bunch of journalists, and I believe they understood him completely. He went into detail about how megapixels aren’t everything (by the way, thank you Steve for re-iterating this important point). iPhone 4 uses a backside illuminated sensor to produce sharper photos. The 3GS brought a huge increase in quality in photos over the 3G and I wonder if iPhone 4 will do the same. Apple’s example pictures are there, but I’m a bit skeptical until I take my own photos with the thing.

I was extremely happy to hear that Apple has enabled HD video capture from iPhone 4. It will be 720p at 30 frames per second which is perfect for most of us. I doubt it will be professional grade HD video, but I think it will be on par with popular pocket HD cameras like the Creative Vado 3 (which I own), Kodak Zi6 and the Flip HD series. As I stated in the video, I think this opens a new market to Apple which was previously untapped. Pocket HD cameras are fabulous, but we don’t carry them everywhere. We carry our phones everywhere. This is a possible game changer in terms of iPhone reach.

While HD video is not new to smartphones, the ability to edit them on your phone is not common. iMovie for iPhone completely blew me away. This is a fabulous idea and will definitely encourage iPhone 4 owners to shoot more video and to edit it (with transitions, titles, effects, and music) right on the phone! While most of us travel with a laptop where we can edit video, we don’t always have them with us. We carry our phones everywhere. Yet another possible game changer.

Apple is creeping into other markets with iPhone 4.

The Name Change

iPhone OS is now known as iOS. First off, I hate the name, but that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. It actually does make sense to come up with a single name for the OS that powers three separate mobile devices: iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad. Apple was smart this time and licensed the name from Cisco. I welcome the change, but I hate the name.

iOS Tidbits

Apple reiterated a lot of points they covered in the iOS 4 launch event including multitasking, folders, and iAds. All of these are great additions to a polished platform that is getting better and better. I was happy to see iOS will be a free upgrade for all supported devices now.

And Now, Competition

Steve Jobs was on the defensive in this keynote more-so than ever before. He addressed many of the concerns raised by Google’s Android camp including: App approval process, market share, and App store health. For the first time (that I’ve heard of), Apple has publicly acknowledged their main reasons for rejecting apps in the App store: 1. Use of private APIs 2. They crash 3. They don’t do the functionality they describe. When we hear of all of the horror stories of why apps are rejected from developers, it’s usually one sided. We never hear Apple’s side of it and now I’m really skeptical about all of the developers who cried foul. Were your apps actually stable? Did you use private APIs but aren’t telling us? Did your app do other things you didn’t describe? Before this knowledge, we could only assume Apple was being evil and randomly rejecting applications. It’s something to think about.

Apple also did something that I was pleased to see. They didn’t make useless jokes and cracks about their competition. Google, on the other hand, felt it was needed to constantly bash Apple’s products, process, and philosophy. It’s this attitude that has me leaning towards the Apple side of this competition. I acknowledge Android’s incredible momentum and their feature set differentiates itself from iOS in many ways. I hate to see unprofessional, childish acts when your features could speak for themselves.

With this competition, Apple and Google have two very different approaches:

Which do you believe is more powerful? I’m going to say it’s Apple for me, but that’s not the case for everyone. Android has snatched up all the people who are frustrated with Apple’s “limitations”. They’re also capturing folks who want an alternative to the iPhone. Let’s face it, Android is the only real alternative to the iPhone in the marketplace in terms of point by point features. Nokia and RIM may dominate the worldwide marketshare, but neither of these two companies has a direct answer for the almighty “app store”.

If you watch the FaceTime video, you’ll see very clearly why Apple does what it does. You see families connecting and sharing intimate moments through technology. This can be done easily with iPhone 4 because there is zero setup, zero configuration, zero worry. You can’t say the same about Android. Android appeals to those who want to tinker, who want to configure, who want to customize, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s a difference in their approaches. We know video calling on smartphones has been around for a long time on Symbian, but you don’t hear about ordinary, non technical people using it. Why? Because it’s hard to set up, requires technical know-how, and the experience sucks overall. Apple comes in, and makes the experience as simple as a phone call. See what I mean? Android will likely have 50 applications that crop up that do the same thing as FaceTime and we’ve already seen the Qik app on the platform. Will it be as seamless as Apple’s? No. That’s the difference.

Some people don’t want it be seamless. They’d rather have total control of the experience than have it be easy as possible through Apple’s implementation. Apple wants to move the technology in the background and let you make a video call. Some call it “draconian”, I call it “a great experience”.

Apple controls the experience for a reason, and that reason is so you can experience emotion through your technology and not experience technology for emotion.

Conclusion

Overall, iPhone 4′s unveiling went great. Even with technical difficulties, Steve Jobs was able to show why he is king of keynotes. He took control of the situation and actually made it pleasant.

Apple continues to innovate despite the critics. Look at all the engineering that went into iPhone 4 before passing “ho-hum” judgement. Realize that Android is great where it is, and iOS is great where they are, and these two packages offer different perspectives on smartphones. The choice of platform is personal and depends on your preferences and desires.

Related posts:

• Apple iPhone 3G Review
• Is Gizmodo Pimping A Stolen iPhone?
• How Much Have You Spent On iPhone Applications?

If you follow me on various outlets, you probably have seen this:

I’ve decided to go with a new brand for “All Things Bwana”. A lot of you are probably familiar with my cartoonme avatar as my personal brand, but I decided to change that up. I wanted something simple and easy to recognize, so I opened Pixelmator and typed a giant “B” and worked around that. I’m no graphics expert but I think it’s a good brand to move forward with. It represents all the various things I do.

There was a lot of confusion since I had a Bwana.org brand, a Bwana.TV brand and a Bwana.org Radio brand. This new brand will be everywhere and will represent it all. If you see the giant B, know that it’s me

No related posts.

As some of you know, I’ve been producing an audio podcast, Bwana.org Radio, since 2005. I’ve had a lot of fun doing it and what started as a hobby, turned into something that people really enjoy. This is why it saddens me to inform my listeners that I will no longer be producing Bwana.org Radio as of episode #250.

Why am I doing this? Time. I simply don’t have it.

I’ve given this a lot of thought. I’ve been experimenting with various formats for my video show, Bwana.TV, and have polled my users for their preferences. As a result, I’m going to continue producing content that was on Bwana.org Radio, but in a different format. There won’t be an audio only format and it won’t be 20-40 minutes in length. Instead, I will produce shorter videos on the same content, kind of like my “Story of the day” experiment I conducted on Youtube a few months ago.

I thank all of you who have supported me by subscribing to my audio podcast, by downloading the episodes, which have given me the funds to pay for web hosting and even conduct a few giveaways. The time has come to change, and I look forward to it.

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Wow.

We expected a lot of announcements related to Android (more coming today), but yesterday’s barrage of Google news was downright overwhelming. Google IO is a developer’s conference hosted by Google in California to … well this:

Google I/O features 80 sessions, more than 5,000 developers, and over 100 demonstrations from developers showcasing their technologies. Talk shop with engineers building the next generation of web, mobile, and enterprise applications.

Quick breakdown of highlights:

• VP8/WebM Video codec
• Google Wave opened to public
• Chrome Web Store
• Google Buzz API Released
• Google App Engine For Business

That’s just some of the news.

The most exciting ones for me were Google Buzz API and WebM. When Google Buzz came out, Google promised us an API in the future so that developers could write custom applications and consumers could mingle with Google Buzz’s data. That day has finally come and based on the partners that have launched Google Buzz support, the future looks great.

WebM, however, has me excited on a whole new level. Why? Because it could mean a Flash free browser for me.

[WebM is] an open web media format project and open-sourced VP8, a high-quality, web-optimized video codec, that we are contributing to the project under a royalty-free license.

Hear me out. Even though Adobe has already announced that they are going to implement this new WebM/VP8 codec into Flash, we really don’t need it. Based on what I’ve gleaned from this new open sourced video codec, it’s perfectly compatible with HTML5. (although not in the official specification…yet) Anything that gives me a way out of Flash is excellent news.

I’ll have many more thoughts as Google IO progresses, but for now, these are my two favorites. Look for more Google announcements today at approximately 10:30AM EST on their live stream.

Related posts:

• Official Google Buzz Buttons Available
• Google+ Revitalizes Online Discussions
• Google Sidewiki Shakes Up The Web