Last week’s review is here.

The Applications reviewed this week

1. Pixelmator
2. OmniGraffle
3. Money
4. Racer
5. Battle for Wesnoth

Pixelmator:
This is an interesting program I picked up.  It has an interface very similar to Photoshop, but it’s not quite like Photoshop.  It’s covered in hundreds of features and advance editing tools.  One big bonus for this application compared to Adobe’s Photoshop, is the fact that this program is a native Cocoa app, while Photoshop is Carbon.  For those who don’t know about Cocoa or Carbon, it means that Pixelmator is much faster, more efficient, and less bug prone. Saying this I do have to point out a few problems I’ve encountered.  The first one is the image browser,  I have yet to ever get this working.  Every time I open it it freezes not just the application, but the whole system, making me have to do a hard shutdown.  It is also very limiting when trying to create an image from scratch, rather than tweaking one.   Overall it’s a fairly nice alternative to Photoshop.

Latest Version: 1.1.3; 4 March, 2008
Price: $59, shareware
Developer:  Pixelmator Team Ltd.

• Type: Image Editor
• Efficiency: 4/5
• Features: 3/5
• Graphics: 3/5
• Stability: 4/5
• Ease of Use: 4/5
• Modern Mac Look: 5/5
• Price: 4/5

Total: 27/35;  77%

OmniGraffle:
If you need a graphical representation or diagramming software, this is about the best program I’ve used whether on the Mac or PC.  It has many different categories for the job you need done.  It even contains pre-made graphics to design a user interface sketch (if your making an application).  In fact there are so many features and assets within this program that at times it can be a little hard to navigate through to find what you were looking for.  After a while though it becomes second-nature and a great full-featured application.

• Latest Version: 5.0; 5 March, 2008
• Price: $99(Standard) and $199(Pro)
• Developer:  OmniGroup

1. Type: Diagraming Software
2. Efficiency: 4/5
3. Features: 5/5
4. Graphics: 3/5
5. Stability: 5/5
6. Ease of Use: 3/5
7. Modern Mac Look: 5/5
8. Price: 5/5

Total: 30/35;  86%

Money:
This is a little nifty program for people that like to organize their personal finances.  This application is like a database that keeps track of spending and even your bank accounts.  It has a very intuitive feature that actually will connect to your bank account and update automatically with it.  I have found this program to be extremely simplistic, so it’s not for advance usage, but it is fairly nice.  In truth I think the price is a little high, I believe it should be donate ware or maybe $14.99.

• Latest Version: 5.0; 5 March, 2008
• Price: $99(Standard) and $39.99(Pro)
• Developer:  jumsoft

• Type: Diagraming Software
• Efficiency: 4/5
• Features: 2/5
• Stability: 5/5
• Ease of Use: 5/5
• Modern Mac Look: 5/5
• Price: 2/5

Total: 23/30;  76%

Racer:
This is a pretty nice racing game.  It’s a multi-platform online game which uses the mouse to accelerate and turn the cars.    For a free game it has really nice graphics, and great game play,  Saying this, it is very very easy to drive and doesn’t completely follow real physics.   Along with this, just a tab from another car will send you spinning like crazy.

• Latest Version: 0.5.4.3; 6 March, 2008
• Price: Free
• Developer:  Ruud van Gaal

• Type: Racing Game
• Efficiency: 2/5
• Features: 3/5
• Graphics: 3/5
• Stability: 4/5
• Ease of Use: 5/5
• Modern Mac Look: N/A(Opengl Based)

Total: 18/25;  72%

Battle For Wesnoth:
A very addictive game.  It’s similar to Civilization or Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, with a turn based RPG style simulation.  The theme in this game is fantasy as you build up your army of warriors.  There are many different sagas with in it and a lot of replay value.  The graphics aren’t the best, but I love the music.

• Latest Version: 1.4; 8 March, 2008
• Price: Free
• Developer:  The Battle for Wesnoth development team

• Type: Turn Based Strategy Game(fantasy themed)
• Efficiency: 3/5
• Features: 4/5
• Graphics: 2/5
• Audio: 3/5
• Stability: 5/5
• Ease of Use: 4/5
• Modern Mac Look: N/A(Opengl Based)

Total: 21/30;  70%

Yesturday, it seems that Apple’s servers were bogging down. Now I don’t just mean they were running slow, I mean many people couldn’t even access the developers site. Why is this? Because there were over one million developers trying to download the 2GB, finally released, iPhone SDK. Yes, it appears, after what Apple demoed at yesterday’s conference, that Apple wasn’t joking around when it bluntly said the iPhone is years ahead of its competition.

Personally, I’ll be one to say, I’ve never seen a full desktop game running on a smart phone. Most have low resolution graphics and very horrible sound. Apple, EA, and even Sega show-case the power of the iPhone with three very good looking games like Spore and Super Monkey Ball.

Just in five minutes on the Internet, I spotted about six articles about the iPhone and its SDK. All of these takes upon it were positive and very similar. They all saw the iPhone as a next generation phone, that could in fact make a decade long monopoly for Apple as the dominate mobile device. Here’re a few quotes and snippets:

“It’s clear we’re not the only ones interested in the software development kit (SDK) — after a few hours of trying, we still haven’t had any luck downloading it” - alleyinsider

“There should be significant concern in the RIM camp… By summer there could be hundreds, if not thousands, of applications ready for the iPhone” - Computer World

“The iPhone/iPod touch games will make the iPhone analogous to the Wii, in that it opens up new concepts in game UI design”

“[Apple’s iPhone, iPod touch developer] tools look awesome — far better and more advanced than what most Mac developers were expecting”

“Then Apple kicked things up a notch with the SDK details… But the real surprise was Apple’s efforts to market and develop an ecosystem for third-party iPhone development [including] Kleiner Perkins’ [launch of the] $100 million iFund to fund iPhone developer companies” - Notes From Anywhere

“By the time Apple officially releases the OS X 2.0 update in June, there will be no doubt that the iPhone will have turned both the personal computing and mobile communications industries on their head in just one year” - CNET

Apple today finally showed its SDK. Here’s a link. One thing that caught my eye was a demo game Apple made in two weeks. It was a space shooter that fully used the features of the iPhone. You steer by rotating the iPhone itself, and you shoot by tapping the screen.

Even better!!!!!! Apple went to game companies and asked them to make a game in two weeks. One of them was EA. It ported its new game Spore to the iPhone! Or at least 18 levels of it so far. Another game showcased was Sega’s Monkey Ball.

This kind of concludes my theory that Apple was trying to make the iPhone a gaming platform, not just for basic applications.

How the applications are rated:
I first have a small summary of the application, and a tidbit of my experience. Then I put down the latest version of the program, along with the price and the developer. The next part is a list of relative items, which are scored from 1 - 5, or N/A. These change depending on the application. After that the total is added up from the scores, and then a percentage is made. In this way of reviewing, it is just about impossible to get 100%, and about 85% is extremely good. To get 100%, the application has to pretty much be perfect in every way, and I have yet to ever find an application like this.

The applications reviewed this week:

1. TextWrangler
2. Stellarium
3. Get Tube
4. Return To Dark Castle
5. Cheetah3D

TextWrangler:
Summary - This is a nice, simplistic text editor. This is not something you would normally use for word processing or typing up a review like what I am doing now. It is designed primarily for programming languages and scripts. TextWrangler understands and helps organize over 35 languages, from the ancient 68k assembler cod, to the more modern C++ and Objective-C languages. Overall it’s a fairly nice application having everything a developer needs but a debugger. There is a con to it however, one being that it feels like a Panther (10.3) application. It still seems to use many old controls and frameworks, which today are obsolete.

• Latest Version: 2.3; 12 Jan, 2008
• Price: Free
• Developer: Bare Bones Software

• Type: Text Editor
• Efficiency: 4/5
• Features: 5/5
• Stability: 5/5
• Ease of Use: 3/5
• Modern Mac Look: 2/5

Total: 19/25; 76%

Stellarium:
Summary - If you’re a person interested in astronomy, then this program is a nice asset to your collection. It’s not as full featured or as nice as a starry sky, but hey, it’s free! Stellarium lets you view the stars, constellations, planets, and even clusters in the sky. It also has a nice zoom features to get even closer to the objects, just like you have a telescope. I find myself very entertained by this little widget, but there are a few setbacks. I do wish you could position yourself on other planets instead of just on the Earth, but how can I complain if it’s free?

• Latest Version: 0.9.1; 17 Jan, 2008
• Price: Free
• Developer: www.stellarium.org

• Type: Software-Based Planetarium
• Efficiency: 3/5
• Features: 3/5
• Graphics: 4/5
• Stability: 5/5
• Ease of Use: 5/5
• Modern Mac Look: N/A (OpenGL based)

Total: 20/25; 80%

Get Tube:
Summary - For the past year or so I’ve been using TubeTV to get videos from YouTube. However, I’ve just recently found this new program, Get Tube. Well I can say, it has a very very basic interface all consisting of a window. There in fact is no menu bar for it, just a small window containing an icon for Firefox and another for Safari. This means no customization. Now what happens is you open up either Firefox or Safari, then you go to the video you want. After you find it, you switch back to Get Tube and click on the appropriate icon. In the preferences, you can tell where the file goes and the format to convert it to. You can choose mp4, mp3, or avi. Overall, the quality of compression is excellent, and with a very small file size, however the resolution was quite low (cut in half of what YouTube recommends).

• Latest Version: 2.2; 2 Mar, 2008
• Price: Free
• Developer: Simon VREL

• Type: Downloader (YouTube videos)
• Efficiency: 4/5
• Features: 2/5
• Graphics: 3/5
• Audio: 3/5
• Stability: 3/5
• Ease of Use: 4/5
• Modern Mac Look: 4/5

Total: 23/35; 66%

Return to Dark Castle:
Summary - This is the 3rd installment of the classic Mac game Dark Castle. It was first released in 1986; the sequel soon followed in 1987. This new version, the second sequel, was announced in 2000 and is now about to be released. They have just recently released the demo of the game, which so far mimics that of the original game. This game, like the original, is full of puzzles, twists, and bad turns. This is not an easy game, mind you - it’s not one that starts off easy and slightly gets tougher. It’s like any classic game - it’s hard throughout. So far I have really enjoyed it, and it actually makes me want to start playing the original game once more. If you care more about game play than graphics, this is a game for you.

• Latest Version: 3; 28 Feb, 2008
• Price: N/A
• Developer: Z Sculpt Entertainment

• Type: Video Game
• Efficiency: 4/5
• Game Play: 4/5
• Graphics: 3/5
• Audio: 5/5
• Stability: 5/5
• Ease of Use: 3/5
• Modern Mac Look: N/A (OpenGL based)

Total: 24/30; 80%

Cheetah3D:
Summary - One of the very rare 3D modelers built exclusively for the Mac. I’m personally familiar with a profession model known as Maya. Maya is the most famous application for “Hollywood” films to clarify a little bit about what it is. I have found Cheetah3D it be a very good program and a very good start. It’s still no Maya, but for $129, it’s adequate enough to get the job done. It has many professional features, many of which are usable with the unregistered version. If you own a Mac and want to get into 3D graphics, especially for developing video games this is a perfect asset.

• Latest Version: 4.4; 9 Jan, 2008
• Price: Free (very usable), $129 (fully featured)
• Developer: MW 3D-Solutions

• Type: 3D Modeler
• Efficiency: 5/5
• Features: 3/5
• Graphics: 4/5
• Stability: 5/5
• Ease of Use: 2/5
• Modern Mac Look: 5/5
• Price: 5/5

Total: 29/35; 83%

The old classic, Dark Castle, is returning. It was a hit when it first came out in the late 80s and now a 3rd game to the series is almost complete, Return to Dark Castle. There is a demo of the game finished for anyone who wants to try it out here.

The graphics improve upon the original game, but in fact stay very similar. From playing it, the game play is also the same, and is very fun. The game is sprite based, so if your into high-end graphics and realistic effects, this game is not for you. However, if your a person that loves game play, you need this game for your collection.

I’ve noticed recently that people have been giving Apple’s Pippin attention, saying Apple did once have a gaming console. The truth is Apple has never had a game console, unless you count the Apple ][ with the old DOS games. The Pippin physically doesn’t truly exist. It doesn’t have a form of solidity because it’s an SDK and an operating system, not a computer or console. Now what people have seen, if they’ve seen a console-like device, is something called World. World was a platform made by Bandai, the only Licensee that Apple could get for the Pippin platform. I do need to add, however, that in America people sometimes refer to World as Pippin instead of just the operating system or SDK.

World is not a gaming console. It was based on Apple’s idea that the computer world would end up in the living room. In other words, it was a Windows Media Center before there was a Windows Media Center. It could, of course, play games, but it could also play much more — like movies and music. It also had Netscape to access the Internet.

Here’s a video I have from Computer Chronicles (1995):

Recently Apple had added a few key words and phrases under it’s Trademark name.  Many of these had to do with a gaming console and/or handheld unit.  This caused mass amounts of rumors.

The truth is, from a senior developer at Apple, that this is simply not true:

“Apple is very protective of the reputation it has built in the electronics market, don’t hold your breath for an announcement of an ‘iGame’ console just yet”.

The actual reason for adding to the Apple trademark actually has to do with expanding the gaming market on their Mac OS X platform.  Specifically, they plan to expand it on the iPod and iPhone.  Read my other article here, about the iPhone’s gaming potential.

If you keep up on video game news, then you’ve probably heard of the game SPORE. I for one find it a very fascinating. The point of the game seems to be about you building your own universe, planet by planet. You can even fully customize your species, and even their culture in anyway you want. Here’s a link to the gameplay clips.

From evolution to wars to planetary destruction, SPORE has it all and more. recently the release date has been posted for September 7th, 2008.

SPORE will be released for PCs, Macs, Nintendo DS, and mobile phones.

This is not really an iPhone vs PSP post, but it has to do with the possibility of the iPhone as a gaming platform.

First off the PSP comes with a 333Mhz Processor with 32 MB of RAM.  It has a  4.3 inch screen and has a pixel resolution of 480×272.  For video RAM the PSP has 4MB embedded.  The wireless network standard on it is 802.11b.  So how does this compare to the iPhone or iPod Touch?

The iPhone’s processor is between 680Mhz-700Mhz(breaking the mobile record), although it appears to be under clocked for more battery life.  The President of ARM also stated back in February(2007), that the iPhone’s ARM processor has three cores, Apple wouldn’t comment on this.  As for system memory, it has 128 MB of RAM, which is twice the amount of most current smart phones.  Besides this, the iPhone supports not just 802.11b, but it also supports the g standard as well.  This means it has a much faster network setup than the PSP.  The screen on the iPhone is 3.5 inches, but it’s pixel resolution is 480×320.

Last year and again around June this year, it appeared that Nintendo and Apple were in talk about something, yet nothing has happened. In August  Nintendo patented a new sensor, similar to the Accelerometer in the iPhone, for a portable gaming system.  The pictures look like an old Gameboy, although Nintendo officially declared the Gameboy dead back in September.

In February 2008,  the official SDK for the iPhone will be out.  This will allow you to build native iPhone applications, meaning even better programs and even 3D games using opengl.

Ever since I got into computers I have always been fascinated with making my own games. This fascination is what got me into programming. Video games like Wolfeinstien 3D and Zelda 64 are what really got me into game programming. I originally started out with what many geeks would call newbie languages. The first was Hypercard, a card based programming environment written by Biil Atkinson an Apple employee. Bill is also recognized as the creator of the modern graphical user interface. Eventually Apple got rid of hypercard, so I moved on. The next one I found was something called Realbasic, originally called CrossBasic.

Around 2000, a new game engine came out using Realbasic and C++ plugins. It was called Coldstone. This was about the best and easiest system I had ever used. Sadly though it got bad and then even worse. It had many problems adapting to OS X, being based heavily on classic libraries from OS 9. Eventually Coldstone stopped working with OS X 10.2.7, and although updates were promised, none came. Coldstone sales were eventually suspended in 2003. I never used another game engine until 2007.

Although I hadn’t used another game engine, I still looked. I found another that used Realbasic called Torque. It had okay graphics, but took up a lot of resources. In 2005 a new fully featured game engine came out called Unity. Unity is an advance engine that can render high-end graphics for top of the line machines, but can also lower quality to the point that it can run on an old ATI Rage card. At this point(December ,2007) Unity could make high-end 3D games that could run on the Mac, the web, dashboard(OS X), and Windows. Unity will soon support the Wii as well.

I got Unity about a week ago, and after using it for a little bit, I got to say, it ’s powerful. The games that it can make look as good as 360 or PS3 games, it’s AI and physics are incredible. I downloaded a demo game showing what Unity could do. It had enemies that if shot they didn’t have a set way to fall, but actually every limb independent; the NPCs actually have “true” skeletons. Besides this, it comes with a speedy ray-tracer for shadows, reflections, and refractions. This means it’s real, not some texture map or a cheap(fake) flat reflection.

As far as networking goes, Unity is all setup for networked games. It does most of the work for you, but is open enough for expansion. It also natively supports many file types and programs, meaning no waiting time, and actually Unity only shows a loading screen when it’s compiling. This is by far the best engine I have ever used.

Unity is comparable to $500K game engines, but starts at $199 for Indie and $1999 for Pro. If your a mac developer and want to get into making games try Unity.
www. Unity3D.com