Arcane Legions appears to be an interesting project by some of the former minds behind FASA and WizKids!, and was shown off at Origins this year. Robot Viking posted some early thoughts on the game, and admittedly, the premise of the game intrigued us. That’s because Arcane Legions has the potential to do for large-scale combat what Mage Knight did for smaller battles, though we’re not convinced it’s capable of that in its current form. Since the game as reviewed remains a prototype, hopefully it will evolve enough to further tempt us down the road. In the meantime, here’s our thoughts on where Arcane Legions falls short.

Firstly, Robot Viking describes the armies as having clear historical themes, though the game is clearly fantasy, what with magical attacks being included. There’s certainly no problems with a fictional army being strongly influenced by a real-life culture or society, but thus far, it sounds like Arcane Legions is too bland in its influence. It’s not that we think it’s uncool to stage imaginary battles between the great empires of yore, but unless some sense of historical accuracy is to exist, the concept is destroyed in its execution because of its blandness. That is to say, if the armies are accurate depictions of their historical influences, then maybe we can see history buffs taking notice, but since that doesn’t appear to be the case, we can only envision the potential audience for this game thinking that the armies are simply too bland. Compare this to the cultural influences in other games, which form the basis for an army’s feel, and are then added upon by rather fantastical concepts. Just look at Warmachine’s Khador faction for an example of real-life historical themes permeating a fantasy world done right.

Secondly, as intriguing as large-scale tray-based battles are, the scale of the units is off. Look, we did large-scale battles in Mage Knight (Conquest rules) well enough, without needing trays to configure troop formations. For tray-based games to be worthwhile, the scale of the miniatures needs to be changed dramatically. Based on what we see from Robot Viking’s preview, we see army trays consisting of approximately five to 15 units, which is not any bigger than what we would have found in our Mage Knight Conquest battles. For tray-based games to shine, we should see the smallest trays hold at least a dozen units, and scale up from there. Even if we don’t take large-scale battles to the extreme, where a player can literally field 100+ units, games like Flames of War have found solid ways to portray large-sized battles with smaller units. Sadly, Arcane Legions doesn’t seem to get this right at all.

Thirdly, and while acknowledging that the pics at Robot Viking depict prototype units/armies, the game just doesn’t look good. The units look “saggy” like many of the plastic units from the original Mage Knight, and simply don’t compare to heavyweight miniatures from Warhammer, Warmachine, etc. Similarly, the unit trays look uninspired, and not something we’d be proud to field. And really, if our units don’t look good on the battlefield, much of the fun is lost. And then there’s this strange bit on what’s painted and what’s not:

Special units and heroes will come pre-painted, while common figures will ship unpainted (a few commons seemed to have some parts painted, such as insignias on shields, but I’m not sure if that’s just because they were prototype pieces).

Given the paint jobs on most pre-painted plastic miniatures, it seems odd that it’s the common units that will come unpainted. If anything, we’d rather our rarer pieces be unpainted so we can make them look especially good, whereas the common units don’t need to stand out quite as much. The reality is that many wargaming fans won’t want unpainted figures in the armies for long, which means it will become rather aggravating for the special units to look worse than the commons.

Those three issues aside, Arcane Legions does bring a number of cool features to the table. For one, distribution of rarer pieces seems much better than other collectible miniature games, since there will be boosted specifically for uncommon units and heroes, and larger boxes for collecting commons. This means that collectors, in theory, won’t be spending as much money to complete armies, and similarly won’t have an unneeded number of commons around collecting dust. Additionally, the subscription option is a nice one, which allows members to purchase special units online, and even customize unit configurations on trays, with an online system tracking point distribution and recording these custom trays to an online database for any member to use. Effectively, the individual player can contribute to the game by submitting army ideas and being recognized for their strategic theorycraft, as other players can download these unit configurations for their own, tournament-legal, use.

So Arcane Legions seems like a fair mix of good-and-bad. The game is set for release this upcoming September, which makes us wonder just how drastic any changes can be at this point. In any case, it will be interesting to see just how fun the core mechanic is, and how well it works: reconfiguring trays to adjust army strengths/weaknesses each turn. It sounds intriguing in theory, but it may not be quite as revolutionary as the Clix system before it. Of course, for casual miniature wargamers, Arcane Legions may be just the thing to fill in the void since Mage Knight support dried up.

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Looking back at the decades of games we’ve played, a handful jump out not only as among our favorites, but as enormous time and money sinks. It’s not that the dollars and time spent were wasted, because we certainly enjoyed them all, but it makes for an interesting retrospective when we consider the lengths we went to in order to maintain our addiction. The top-five titles we can recall, in order of release, follow.

The Wing Commander series: Okay, so maybe it’s not fair to give the title to a series, but our time spent playing the Wing Commander games is one big blur of space combat. The experience bled right into our time spent playing the Freespace games, as well as X-Wing and TIE Fighter, making for a slightly hazy recollection, but one certainly based on the Wing Commander franchise of old. Arguably, our love for flight simulators was born with Dynamic’s Red Baron, and quickly grew to higher destinations. While Wing Commander I and II didn’t necessarily steal our hearts right away, Wing Commander: Privateer destroyed any hope we may have had for returning to earth, introducing us not only to sandbox-style gameplay (unmatched to this day in space sims outside EVE Online), but also solidifying the love we had for the Kilrathi. When Wing Commander III stepped up to the plate with live-action cut-scenes and Mark-fucking-Hamill (we were huge Star Wars fans back then), the franchise proved even more groundbreaking than Sierra’s Phantasmagoria (also a solid title). Indeed, Wing Commander III became such a must-have for us, that we spent over $200 on new RAM just to get it to run. (The game needed at least 8MB of RAM for its future-like space graphics.) That’s dedication.

That’s not all, though – we easily spent another $200 on flight sticks, from the Flight Stick Pro, to the Phoenix, to our final multi-part Saitek model. Maybe it was more like $300.

Quake: While we were already firmly hooked on first-person shooters (FPS), Quake took our obsession to the next level. Ironic, then, that when we first picked up Quake at a computer convention, we played through it and thought little of it, wishing that the game captured a hint of the fun we faced when playing Doom 2 with a friend. But then we went to college where we discovered the joys of real broadband, and finally saw the amazing graphics that 3Dfx video accelerator cards produced, breathing new life into old games. Another ~$200 purchase later, with new accelerator card installed, Quake took on its new life with Quakeworld, and dorm-room fragging became our new past-time, eating up our time in just as bad a way as booze and late-night college parties.

Diablo 2: Again, not our introduction to a genre, but our continued obsession with it. In this case, Diablo 2 prevailed over our experience with Diablo and Darkstone, and may even have fallen into similar obscurity if it hadn’t been for the rather strange siren’s call it would produce every six to 12 months. Indeed, after playing Diablo 2 to death once, or even twice, it somehow kept wrangling us back as though we were some abused house-wife who just couldn’t will herself to get away. So it was with Diablo 2, playing first with single-player characters, then on Battle.Net a few times, and ultimately with hardcore characters who would inevitably die thanks to a bad-timed lag spike. Ultimately, this technical obstacle is what drove us away from the game, but more than once we’ve been called back to re-install the monster that influenced World of Warcraft. Indeed, if there wasn’t a problem installing Diablo 2 on the latest versions of OS X, we may be running a copy right now.

Counterstrike: What Quake was to our first year of university, Counterstrike was to every year after its release. While Half-Life didn’t really do much for us, Counterstrike took our soul and replaced it with a frag-crazed maniac. It’s the only title we can claim to have played on an internationally competitive level (we’re talking tournaments here, not just skills), and we followed the game’s development from its early betas to what we consider to have been its decline circa 2.0. By the time Source came along, we were already out of the mix, but before that, a desire to min-max our performance resulted in $100 mouse purchases (Razer Boomslang FTW!) and countless hardware upgrades. Granted, those upgrades may have been for other games as well, but it was Counterstrike that remained the prevailing force. Funny that, since this is the only free game on this list (purchase of Half-Life not withstanding). It’s also the only non-commercial game on this list, even though some enterprising folks decided to release a boxed version later.

World of Warcraft (WoW): Not only the most recent game obsession of ours, but also the one with our strongest memories of angst, aimed squarely at Blizzard for making some outright dumb decisions on the game’s evolution. But hey, they gave us Diablo 2, and much like that demonic enterprise, WoW sucked us in twice after we gave it up, so perhaps the fruit doesn’t fall that far from the tree. At the very least, it’s a solid testament to Blizzard polish that the company produced two of the games on this list. So addicted were we to WoW that we mostly ignored everything else out there, and for WoW to run adequately, we purchased at least one video card for our aging PC before dumping the system entirely in favor of pure-Apple goodness. Of course, to make this transition, we had to upgrade our PowerBook, so we effectively purchased a machine for over $2k just to have an Apple notebook capable of running the game. This, on top of miscellaneous buys like second-hand copies of the Collector’s Editions, a strategy guide, and a book of maps. These purchases combined clearly dwarf the money we spent on previous games, and that’s all on top of the huge amount of time we put into the game in order to reach, and continue playing, the endgame.

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While wrong about Aion’s lack of an auction house, Tobold raised an interesting point concerning player-run shops in MMOGs. Namely, that in games where players can “set up” shops, the marketplace becomes unnavigable, because there are simply too many vendors to go through in order to find gear that one wants. That’s in great part because gear in MMOGs is often class-specific, so only a small subset of the gear on the market can even be used by a given character. So, the auction-house mechanic is a good substitute for such player-run shops.

We think there’s a place for both, however, given very specific limitations on who can run a player-run shop. For immersion, there’s a reason we should allow player-run shops to operate, and serve as a viable in-game profession. In most games, however, the auction-house doubles both as an auction block, and as a global store. For player-run shops to thrive, this latter component of auction-houses needs to be removed, and all items at auction should not have a “buyout” option. This would force players who want immediate gratification to look at player-run shops, instead of heading to the auction-house as a one-stop shop.

The issue of having too many player-run shops seems a simple problem to fix: limit the amount of shops per city or city district, and make shop owners purchase a “license” for a storefront. Ideally, these storefronts would have physical, fixed locations, and the price of these storefronts would vary based on how ideal the location is for foot-traffic. In addition to requiring a license purchase, a would-be shop-owner would have to “submit” an inventory of a certain size and value, which would be proof that a vendor is serious about their chosen profession. Routinely, the system could query established shops to ensure that stores remained well-stocked, and the value of a store’s goods would further determine the storefront value of shops in the immediate vicinity. This value could also be used for players to filter shops on the local map, such that shops carrying mostly worthless goods can easily be passed over. The value mechanic would have to be based on the rarity, level, and NPC vendor value for an item, such that there’s a reasonable consistency across shops.

If the threshold for item numbers/values were set high enough, then the problem of vendor sprawl would be a non-issue, even if it meant that properly stocking a store for success meant that a guild effort was necessary. At the very least, this system would promote a greater community effort, and slowly move MMOGs away from NPC vendors for all but very basic items.

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Now that iPhone OS 3.0 is out, with better support for bluetooth accessory access, it’s time we start seeing some nice accessories to make our iPhone-using experience even better. Sure, we already have a slew of standard bluetooth headsets to choose from, and now we even have A2DP stereo headsets, but that’s not what we’re talking about. No, we mean game controllers like the iControlPad, Zeemote JS1 and GameBone Pro.

The problem with these devices is simple, however: they rely on developer support to work with anything, making a spontaneous purchase moot for the foreseeable future. What the manufacturers of these devices need to do is make a deal with big-name iPhone gaming developers (is that an oxymoron?) like EA or ngmoco, and have them include support for gaming peripherals. Otherwise, there’s no sign of a gaming peripheral standard for the iPhone, which is sorely needed if these devices are to carve out a niche market among iPhone gamers. Establishing a set of standards is something these companies can actually do now, and arguably should have been doing all along. As we’re still a bit away from seeing these devices hit retail, however, perhaps we can look at them as mere prototypes while a multi-company standards board is enacted (wishful thinking, we know).

More exciting to us, however, is the prospect of a bluetooth keyboard for the iPhone, which could work with any text-input-based application. Aside from serving as a better way to input long streams of text, such a device could also be used for gamers, much as they still are for PC gaming. Combined with id iPhone releases of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, the fond memories would come trickling back like a waterfall.Similar Posts:

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AT&T, known for gouging people due to what we can assume is only pure greed, just released AT&T Navigator, a turn-by-turn GPS app that we can describe as pathetic at best. Never mind that the application is free to download, because it relies on a monthly subscription of $9.99 to actually work. The sadness doesn’t end there, however, because the application neither integrates the local address book, nor works without a data connection. Interestingly, for a company concerned about unnecessary bandwidth usage, one would think that AT&T would at least provide the option for users to download maps. Whether this is a limitation imposed by partner TeleNav or not is hardly the point: AT&T Navigator is crap.

A few days ago, people were upset that Gokivo, another GPS application, similarly restricted functionality to customers paying $9.99 per month, only their application costs $0.99 in the AppStore. The iPhone Blog was, apparently, incorrect in identifying Gokivo’s two-time wallet attack:

Note, Gokivo isn’t free just for the app because Apple doesn’t let developers do in-app purchases for free apps. Hence, $0.99 will likely be the foundation for what TiPb considers iPhone “scaleware”.

If this were true, it would mean that AT&T is exempt from this rule, but a more likely scenario is that any app can charge for in-app features once downloaded, though this would, of course, remove the need for “lite” versions of applications in the AppStore, which we recall Apple not wanting. Admittedly, charging for content after a free AppStore download is questionable if the application is listed as a “free” one.

While the issue undoubtedly crosses application boundaries, as far as GPS is concerned, we’re not happy with the status quo at the moment. Quite simply, turn-by-turn GPS applications should not require a monthly subscription, particularly when they don’t in stand-alone GPS device. At least MobileNavigator Europe is playing fair, even though their “introductory” price of $94.99 is a tad high.

For comparison, updated Garmin maps for their devices run for about $70 online. New (decent) GPS devices, complete with updated maps, run for about $200+. Since iPhone owners already have the hardware, however, we’d expect to pay only for updated maps and the core software using these maps. Really, anything more than $100 is definitely in unreasonable territory, unless we’re to expect future map updates for free, even if that’s just yearly.

Using the AT&T and Gokivo system, however, a user will easily move beyond the $100 price barrier in under a year, regardless of whether or not their map updates are free (which we’re guessing they are). But for unreliable systems (like when data service goes out), the price we’re talking for turn-by-turn is simply ridiculous. Hopefully, the folks at Tom Tom will set the iPhone GPS market straight, else another well-known GPS company (i.e. Garmin or Magellan) will enter the ring instead.

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What’s most interesting about the iPhone feature chart posted earlier today by The iPhone Blog isn’t the evolution of the iPhone since 2007, but that the chart makes the 3G S stand out over the other models by its evolutionary leap. That’s not to say that we think the 3G S is hugely innovative, but that it’s more innovative compared to the 3G than the 3G was to the 2G iPhone. This is particularly noticeable when we begin factoring in not only the iPhone’s 3.0 OS, but the availability of jailbreak-enabled applications: with MMS, tethering, and video recording all features enabled after a jailbreak, the 2G iPhone and iPhone 3G have few differences (albeit the major one: 3G network speed).

While AT&T’s 3G network was bumpy at best when the iPhone 3G was released, it’s much more stable one year later, and we can say with glee that our network experience on the 3G S has been fantastic, to the point where we’d certainly feel weighed down by the 2G iPhone’s EDGE limitation. We’ve even forgotten a couple times when we were on our home broadband network – that’s how fast our 3G connection has been: little noticeable difference between it and wi-fi.

So sure, the 3G S sports more unique features than the 3G did compared to its own predecessor, but how earth-shattering are these new features? Beyond testing video recording, we don’t anticipate using the upgraded camera for video outside of a few special circumstance (which could change, perhaps). Still images, however, especially improved thanks to a tappable auto-focus, have suddenly made the camera far more useful, to the point where we’ll likely retire our Pentax Optio S for everything except macro photography. The 3G S’ compass is a novelty item in itself (the app), but its integration with other apps is what will make it killer. Already, we’ve found our Google Maps experience greatly improved, and once we start seeing great turn-by-turn apps available, and the use of the compass in other apps (e.g. Geocaching), the presence of the digital compass will truly shine.

As far as voice control goes, we haven’t used the application outside a quick test run, which proved fruitless; we’d prefer to see functionality akin to Google Search, such that we can perform web searches straight from the voice control app. With its primary focus on telephone calling, the voice control app doesn’t do anything we couldn’t with apps from Installer.app back in 2007, though perhaps we’ll utilize it more with the iPod once we have more hands-on experience with it. The Nike+ integration is another nice feature, and we’ll probably whip out our ailing Nike+ transmitter to give it a spin, but that means we’ll have to find a new armband or other method of bringing the iPhone along on a run. Really, it was the iPod Nano’s size that made it ideal for this purpose, while the iPhone is a bit clunky here.

Our biggest complaint about the iPhone 3G S is battery life. Indeed, being attached to a 3G signal must burn energy like no one’s business, because we’re constantly running low. We’re starting to think that heavy use of the GPS is another contributing factor, but it’s hard to rule this out until we start using the Geocaching app in offline mode, when we’re not relying on the network to continuously retrieve information on nearby caches. For most days of use, our 2G iPhone was happy enough with a night-time charge while we were sleeping, and it would rarely be dead by the time we laid our head to rest. The iPhone 3G S, however, uses significantly more battery life just in standby mode, to the point where we’re actually considering turning it off when we’re at work and not using it. This despite Apple’s claim that the 3G S sports longer battery life the the 3G. No wonder so many of 3G-toting fools were turning 3G off for routine travel.

We were right about leaving our jailbroken 2G iPhone behind, however. SBSettings was an invaluable tool, and with the speed and extra RAM of the 3G S’ hardware, Backgrounder would be ever more useful now than it was before. These two apps alone would be killer additions to a future iPhone OS update, but as it’s unlikely we’ll ever see anything like them made official, we’re eagerly looking forward to the eventual iPhone 3G S jalbreak solution.

It looks like we can’t expect major improvements from year-to-year, but enough has happened over two years that we can expect to want another upgrade come 2011. That said, we can certainly see why some people are clamoring to get ahold of Apple’s latest and greatest phone, even if they did buy last year’s version. As far as a phone and ultra-compact web browser go, the 3G S’ specs didn’t wet our appetite all that much, but a number of lesser features added up in this case, putting our tech desire over the edge. Heck, if we didn’t already want to replace our Garmin 60CS and Optio S, maybe we would’ve held onto the 2G iPhone for another year, but in our case, consolidating three devices into one is more than worth it, especially since it’s a device always nearby.

With turn-by-turn GPS soon-to-be-realized, the next big trick will be identifying the best ways to mount the iPhone 3G S on our vehicles without spending an inordinate amount of money. Some thoughts:

1. While we already have a GPS in our Volkswagen R32, the GPS software (and interface) is simply miserable. So, we’d like to mount the iPhone in an easy-to-reach location. The trick here is figuring out wiring, With the 2G iPhone, we used the car’s integrated iPod interface, which tucked the iPhone away in the center console. The iPhone 3G/S runs at a different voltage, so the old charger won’t work. Audio alone isn’t an option given the battery life and we need to see the iPhone’s screen now, so we can either find an adapter/cable for the dock, else get a (likely cheaper) cigarette lighter adapter, and then run a second cable (for audio) to the glove box which contains an aux-in port for the stereo. This is a messier solution (since it requires two cables), but potentially frees up the console for our iPod Nano, which we can use for backup music (it’s not like the older Nano will have a decent resale rate these days anyway). We’ll have to check with other VW owners to see what their solutions will be.

2. Our BMW 1200GS motorcycle is currently fitted with a RAM and Touratech mount that holds our Garmin 60CS. The power adapter is hard-wired into the 1200GS’ system. We may try to avoid the headache of doing the same thing with the iPhone, and instead simply find an iPhone power cable with a socket adapter. The next step would be to either modify the RAM mount to somehow hold the iPhone (perhaps by attaching a cradle of some sort), else get a new mounting system entirely. Also, whatever we do, we nee to find a way to keep the iPhone dry, either by finding a water-proof mount, or ghetto-rigging a water-proof armband to attach to our mount. The final step will be to attach something to the index finger on our glove to work the touch-screen. Obviously, this motorcycle scenario will be the most difficult to deal with. Again, a motorcycle user group may be a good source of ideas.

3. With a bicycle coming our way soon, we’d like to find a mount that we can use with the iPhone here, too. If the mount/cradle for this can also be used in one of the aforementioned scenarios also, that would be fantastic, but we don’t have high hopes. Any bicycle mounts worth recommending?

Worth mentioning about the 3G S (and perhaps the iPhone 3.0 software in general) is that the extensibility of the iPhone is furthered. No longer do we own an iPhone simply because it’s a great smartphone, we now own an iPhone because it’s a solid GPS too (okay, so we’re jumping the gun a bit because great turn-by-turn apps are still weeks away). In other words, the iPhone 3G S is changing our daily habits compared to how we lived with the 2G iPhone, and that’s notable. Had we purchased the iPhone 3G last year, we wouldn’t have changed our habits in any significant way. The effect of the conglomeration of iPhone OS 3.0, and the new hardware in the 3G S, is what makes the latest iPhone a wonder-toy.

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When jailbreaking first began on the iPhone, allowing users to install third-party applications, there were definitive advantages for going through with the somewhat tedious procedure, which is why some sources claim that at least ten percent of iPhone owners had done the deed. We did it, unlocked our iPhone, and have been happy using our 2G iPhone on T-Mobile’s network since the first unlocking apps were available in 2007. To this day, we still use applications only available from Cydia to compliment what we can obtain through the AppStore, because many apps available from Cydia have features restricted by Apple (tethering apps, background apps, etc).

Slowly, however, the need to jailbreak has dwindled, despite the fact that the process for doing so has gotten easier and easier. The AppStore’s selection of applications, compounded with Apple’s own improvements in the iPhone’s OS, have been effective in combating the jeailbreaking scene; many reasons to jailbreak have been nullified, such as the official inclusion of copy/paste, turn-by-turn directions in upcoming GPS applications, (eventual) AT&T support for tethering and MMS, and the sheer size of apps available. In other words, there are only a handful of reasons left to jailbreak and run unsigned Apple code, and every one of these reasons goes back to restrictions imposed upon developers by Apple. Interestingly, the fact that Apple didn’t crush the jailbreaking scene by somehow banning jailbroken or unlocked phones from accessing the AppStore/iTunes, and instead paving ahead with software improvements, was a much more effective solution to their perceived “problem”.

Our recent revisions of our must-have app list for the iPhone should be some indication of jailbreaking usefulness. All of the apps we recommend from Cydia clearly do things that Apple, or AT&T, would not be pleased with, though definitely make power-users happy. There’s the ability to selectively give applications the opportunity to run as a background process, a way to store app icons in folders so as to keep icon sprawl on the Springboard to a minimum, the requisite tethering app, a quick and efficient way to toggle phone features on/off, and finally an app to customize the look of one’s device by skinning the UI. Arguably, all of these things should be allowable in the AppStore, though clearly they’re not because they can alter the “feel” of the iPhone experience in a way that may be negative if used improperly. (For example, background apps can make the iPhone sluggish, poor UI skins may be ugly, etc.) In other words, Apple would rather guarantee a common experience, rather than give people a potentially bad user experience, so as to make more sales.

With less people needing to jailbreak, there’s obviously less need for multiple distribution centers for unsigned apps (if there ever was one). So it’s no surprise that Installer.app is now dead, with Cydia remaining king of unofficial app repositories. Maybe Installer.app and Cydia haven’t exactly become resources for the truly hardcore, but in many ways, Cydia remains the only source for software that Apple will likely never allow. That’s despite the fluff still available on Cydia, but sifting through it, there’s enough hardcore apps left that we’re still glad jailbreaking is around, and why we look forward to a jailbreaking method for the iPhone 3G S soon.

In the meantime, we expect Apple to continue adding features to the iPhone OS, and some day in the future, perhaps we’ll finally see better icon management on the Springboard, interface customizations, and a quicker method for toggling features on/off without having to dig through Settings. And when that comes to pass (iPhone OS 4.0?), the need to jailbreak will be even slimmer. It may not kill the jailbreaking scene entirely (heck, retro-gamers still need their emulators), but with less reasons to jailbreak, less developers will be interested in making jailbreaking a possibility, and that means that further jailbreaking improvements will move along much slower.

In the end, the lesson to developers is clear: it’s not about keeping a device from being hacked, its about lessening the reasons to hack a device in the first place.

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As we hadn’t updated our recommended iPhone apps compilation in some time, we thought that a quick refresh was in order, especially with iPhone OS 3.0 out, and a new iPhone just days away. With the iPhone 3G now a mere $99 (albeit with a two-year contract), many holdouts will undoubtedly be giving up their souls to AT&T, and will, in short order, seek out must-have apps to fill their new smartphone. If you want to get right to our complete list, take a look at mendax.iphone, but if you first want to see what changes we made to it, keep reading.

Replacements.

First up, let’s take a look at the apps we removed. iTalk was a nice audio recording app, but since Apple bundled one along with iPhone OS 3.0, iTalk is redundant.

We also gave ByLine another look, as it received a couple updates since we replaced it with Feeds, and surprisingly, Byline’s performance put it back in the lead. Both apps are priced competitively, but since Feeds’ integration with Google Reader appeared worse than quirky for us, we went back to Byline, which has thus far worked solidly both online and offline. As far as RSS readers go, ByLine definitely stands ahead of the rest (admittedly, there are few that support Google Reader integration, but we consider this a must-have feature).

We pulled another retro-glance with i.TV, which we initially supported as a great television programming guide before it started to suffer unbearable crashes. We gave it another look recently, and since it integrates television programming, theater movies, NetFlix, and remote TiVo programming, we decided to dump both Now Playing and What’s On in lieu of i.TV. It’s a real twofer, and so far, stability hasn’t been much of an issue.

On a recent trip across the country, we found ourselves scanning for wireless hotspots, and as anyone who’s used the built-in wi-fi tool under Settings can tell you, the out-of-box method is annoyingly poor, even if one resorts to the auto-alert pop-up when walking around. WiFinder was our previous winner for this function, but it didn’t let us join open networks despite advertising the feature – the join network button simply didn’t do anything. The icon for WiFinder was horrible besides, so we finally found a replacement, even if it’s not for free. WiFiFoFum handles wi-fi scanning admirably, and appears to be a great wardriving tool if that’s one’s purpose for this type of app. Even if it’s not, being able to triangulate the source of local wi-fi signals makes troubleshooting a local wi-fi network a much easier task.

Newfish.

Since our last update, we also added some apps that are simply fantastic, especially since we weren’t happy with previous apps that may have claimed to have similar functionality. For example, Bento is a great database app, which is cheaply priced and syncs with the desktop version. With a little time to set up database templates, Bento itself is a replacement for numerous apps in the AppStore that claim to handle inventory management, tasks, and other projects built around a database that users can’t edit. It took awhile, but there’s finally an awesome database app available.

We finally added Air Sharing to the list even though we’ve had it for awhile. Way back, we picked it up for free, but lost it and didn’t re-download it until recently. In short, Air Sharing sets the iPhone up to be discoverable, such that it can be used as a portable hard drive. The main benefit to this is that one can copy various document files to the iPhone via Air Sharing, and use the app as a document viewer when on the go. We’ve found that it can’t handle PDFs that are fairly large (at least 100MB), but does well with smaller documents. (Anyone know of Air Sharing Pro addresses this limitation?)

DVR Remote is an app we added to compliment Apple’s own Remote app. Rather than control apps on our computer, however, DVR Remote is used to control our TiVo, effectively acting as a replacement for the TiVo remote, and also letting us browse what’s on our TiVo as long as we’re in range of our home network. Flashlight is another utility app that we’ve used for some time now, and though all flashlight apps in the AppStore are similar, we’re happy with it’s zero cost and decent features.

Since the first iPump apps were available, we got ahold of a couple just to see what all the fuss was about, and we quickly decided that they were quality apps for the home workout (we bought the Kettlebell app, and picked up the Yoga and Stretch versions later on for free). Since, we decided to give in and pick up FitBuilder, which consolidates all of the iPump applications and allows one to set up great workouts. We think the app could be streamlined a bit more for usability, but the feature-set and number of exercises makes FitBuilder the best workout app out there.

Finally, the last AppStore app we picked up was Geocaching, which is the “official” app for the hobby with the same name. This purchase was more to prepare us for the iPhone 3G S, such that we can get our Geocaching groove on with full force, but with only one other real competitor in the mix, this app has an excellent feature-set for an excellent outdoor hobby.

Black sheeps.

As far as Cydia apps go, we decided to remove CyCorder as a recommended app, not because it isn’t a great tool, but because it’s unnecessary for iPhone 3G S users. If you’re still using an iPhone 3G or 2G iPhone, however, CyCorder is a reasonable stand-in. Obviously, the video quality isn’t the same as with the iPhone 3G S (it pulls approximately half the frames per second), but since video recording is otherwise impossible, CyCorder is a nice tool to have along.

We also pulled MobileFinder and OpenSSH from the list, because we simply never used them after our initial iPhone setup. Both apps, along with Mobile Terminal, are nice tools to have, but just as we rarely need a command prompt, messing with iPhone files at all is rarely a task we need to undertake. In circumstances where they are necessary, such as with moving Winterboard theme files around, they’re easy to install, but otherwise the icons just take up screen real-estate that we’re happy to use for other apps.

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Shortly after the iPhone 3G S was announced on Monday, the opinions of the masses leaked onto the blogosphere, and never were they more fierce than when it was revealed that most iPhone 3G owners would not be subject to the subsidized 3G S price should they want to upgrade. But do they even want to upgrade? Some, like Steve Gillmore, see the 3G S as appropriately innovative.

Apple’s rigorous march forward and its deep understanding of what the market will want next is not only keeping them ahead of the competition but building the markets they will own tomorrow.

We happen to disagree. Apple hasn’t identified what the market will want next, they’ve seen what the market already offered, then delivered it better than the competition. Much like Blizzard’s foray into MMOGs, Apple succeeded with the iPhone because of polish, not pure innovation. That’s why we were underwhelmed with the iPhone at launch. To reiterate, the only “killer features” the iPhone offered at launch was a branded iPod app and a web browser which properly rendered web sites. Even with the evolution of the iPhone’s firmware, upon the release of the iPhone 3G and “2.0″, Apple wasn’t really offering a revolutionary product, but again simply polished the features that other companies previously failed to deliver.

What’s amusing is that this round of iPhone revisions is little different from the evolution we saw last year, so it’s no wonder that folks like Chad Garrett won’t be upgrading from the iPhone 3G.

Beyond aesthetics, the iPhone simply does not do much beyond it’s little brother the iPhone 3G (after the 3.0 software update). What are we getting other then [sic] a little extra speed?

What Garrett seems to overlook is the fact that this minor speed boost is exactly what the 3G offered over the original iPhone. After all, original iPhone owners still got the 2.0 firmware upgrade, so all 3G buyers were getting was GPS and a “a little extra speed”. The GPS, in fact, was arguably negligible: no turn-by-turn directions, and somewhat redundant given the accuracy of cell-tower triangulation in densely-populated areas. Now, we’re getting enhanced GPS features (via the digital compass), voice commands, and a better camera.

Any of this sound similar? Yeah, all these features already exist on other phones. Apple is simply polishing them up once again and packaging them up in the iPhone format.

So why are we getting the 3G S?

Quite simply, because it’s time. We held out against the 3G because we didn’t find it to be a good upgrade, particularly when we saved money by keeping the original iPhone unlocked and on T-Mobile’s network. The initial draw of the GPS was because of the possibility of turn-by-turn directions, and now that this will be possible, we can finally replace our aging Garmin 60CS with a newer iPhone. With the option to get either either the iPhone 3G or iPhone 3G S (both of which require a 2-year contract for the subsidized price), we’re opting for the unit with more features, and the 3G S’ integrated digital compass duplicates the functionality of our Garmin unit, and will work great as a Geocaching device (particularly with the available geocaching app available in the AppStore).

The camera upgrades arguably match the specs of our digital camera (Pentax Optio S), which means that we can once again replace an aging device, thereby reducing our electronics clutter. Finally, better battery life and performance are nice additions, and for a $100 extra over the “new” $99 iPhone 3G, the 3G S makes perfect sense for us. That said, for current 3G owners, the upgrade to the 3G S may not be the smartest use of $200.

What we would have liked to see.

Why no video recording as a basic option under firmware 3.0? Jailbroken application CyCorder already runs on the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G, and offers up to 15 frames per second (FpS). While the 3G S offers 30 FpS, there’s no reason that previous iPhone revisions couldn’t offer video recording, albeit at lower frame rates. Why not give that option to existing iPhone owners? And for the 3G S, no HD video? Apple could have seriously attacked the mini HD camera market with this kind of feature, but instead we have a rather small 640×480 resolution. (Remember when that was normal?)

Why no better still camera? Three megapixels is nice, but with Sony Ericsson phones soon to offer 12 megapixels, the iPhone’s camera functionality is pathetic. There’s also no zoom (optical or otherwise), and no flash. Not even a micro-photography mode, despite the auto-focus. Who would deny that a flash disguised as the Apple logo would be pure awesome?

Why no bigger screen? The iPhone should be able to properly display video at the 16:9 aspect ratio. Making the screen slightly bigger would have no effect on existing iPhone applications, since applications could remain restricted to the existing size.

Conclusion.

In the end, we expect to see even more refinement in the iPhone platform next year, to include a better camera. But in the meantime, as owners of the original iPhone, the 3G S fits the bill as a reasonable upgrade. If you’re already a 3G owner, however, you’re much better off jailbreaking the phone and loading on the unsigned apps rather than picking up the 3G S. And that’s one thing we’ll definitely miss: Cydia and its contents. Here’s hoping that the iPhone Dev Team will come up with a solution.

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We’ve complained about the Jawbone before, and really hoped that Aliph would fix a couple things with the Jawbone 2 before releasing “Prime”. We were even told by more than one person that Aliph was indeed looking at the fragile ear-loop stem issue, but apparently Aliph only wanted to put forth minimal effort, and this they did with the latest Jawbone re-issue. The iPhone Blog has a review of the Jawbone Prime online, and as usual, their review is abnormally high. (Seriously, guys, do you ever give poor reviews?

All in all, the Jawbone Prime looks just like the Jawbone 2, with some refinement in the audio quality (and noise cancellation). Beyond that, the device still doesn’t have a mini-USB port on it, and instead requires the use of a ridiculous, proprietary USB cable. Then there’s the infamous ear-loop issue that we already alluded to, in which the plastic “stem” of the Jawbone ear-loops is prone to failure because it’s just a piece of lightweight plastic. How hard is it to ship ear-loops with a metal stem alongside a product that already costs $120? Fancy acoustic filtering or not, the Jawbone fails in the most fundamental category for bluetooth headsets: the ability to stay on one’s frikken head without buying countless ear-loop replacements.

With iPhone OS 3.0 to be previewed in depth later today, with support for stereo bluetooth included, maybe Aliph’s failure is moot, though. Perhaps the market for one-ear bluetooth devices is finally over, and maybe Aliph will wake up from their drunken stupor and announce a stereo headset offering soon that isn’t physically a piece of junk. In the meantime, we’re still flying with an acoustically inferior, yet far more practical Motorola earpiece. Our Jawbone 2, meanwhile, is still ear-loop-less and collecting dust as a result.Similar Posts:

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