Zephyrus of the Anemoi

My buddy jpar (yes, that jpar) posted a picture of his iPhone home screen yesterday, asking others to reveal theirs. At first, I wasn’t going to do mine, as it was still primarily the stock applications (even though YouTube and Stocks got little or no use).

However, I used his request as an opportunity to finally choose my top apps and get them onto the front screen, moving the less-used apps to other pages (something I’d done with a few already when I added replacements for them). I decided to do him one better and show not only the front-most page of my home screen, but also the second page, as I think it speaks volumes about a person what they keep close by, but just out-of-sight.

From top-left to bottom-right:

• Ping! – An iPhone messenger that does not require you to log in, but instead sends messages directly to your device via push. The nice thing about this is that (unlike SMS) it’s free to send messages and (unlike instant messengers) it never logs you out if you don’t open the app every so often. My ID is zepfhyr. Feel free to contact me.
• Calendar – One of the stock apps, but still my “go-to” anytime I need to remind myself of something far in the future.
• Photos – I’ve thought several times of pulling this off the front page, but I can’t think of anything to put in its place, especially since it’s really the only way to access your photos for sharing. If you know of an app that gives all the same functionality as this but also lets you upload directly to Flickr or adds some other cool feature that makes it worth it, please leave me a message in the comments.
• Camera – I’ve seen a number of apps released that are intended to replace the Camera. I almost came close to switching to Darkroom, but didn’t like how there was no option to turn of the “wait-until-your-hand-is-steady” picture-taking method. Darkroom Premium on the other hand does allow you to adjust the sensitivity, as well as let you shoot with a timer mode. I will be taking a closer look at this app.
• BargainBin – One of the more useful apps I have on my iPhone. BargainBin lets you find apps you like but want to wait to buy until they are at a lower price. You add them to your watch list, set your target price (all the way down to free), and then receive a push notification when the app is available at that price. Plus, it will send you notifications when popular apps become free.
• reQall – This particular app has been installed and removed from my iPhone a number of times since its release as I tried repeatedly to find a way to make it work for me. Then, suddenly, it just hit me: I set alarms all the time to remind myself of things that I almost never am able to accomplish at the time the alarm goes off. But I hate all the other to-d0 list apps I’ve ever downloaded, as they’re either too simple, or too ugly. reQall is brilliant because you don’t have to categorize your to-do’s, it does that for you. And you can just talk to it and have it interpret the words for you if you don’t feel like typing. Your list is synced automatically to the Internet and can be accessed from any computer online. If it’s still not powerful enough for you, you can subscribe to a pro account for $3 per month or $20 each year.
• Maps – I use this app all the time. Even when I know how to get places. And not only to check the traffic. It’s a disease.
• The Weather Channel – The best weather app in the iTunes Store. I’ve used the stock application, Weatherbug (free version only, though Weatherbug Elite looks pretty slick), and Weather Underground’s web app. None of them compare to this excellent app. It’s free. Go get it.
• Clock – I set alarms all the time: as a reminder to take out the trash, to get up earlier than usual, to check a website at a specific time. I’m transitioning what I can to reQall, but I doubt it will supplant this app.
• Calculator – I don’t use this as often as I used to, as I’m often on my iPhone doing something and don’t want to interrupt that by using a calculator. Luckily, I’m often at a computer that has a calculator app on it. Go tech-saturation.
• Simplenote – In the beginning, there was Notes. And it was good. But then the expected synchronization of Notes with my computer did not appear when expected and sadness fell across the land. Then came Evernote and its promises were sweet. Yet the app was twisted and rotten inside and synchronization become something one merely heard about, but never experienced. But lo, on the horizon appeared a savior: Simplenote. Simplenote synced every time without issue and while no desktop app exists in its paradigm, the Simplenote team is eagerly awaiting the DropBox API for Simplenote integration.
• Settings – ‘nough said.
• Palringo – I hate this app, but I hate it less than I hate AIM, which is really saying something. Meebo desperately needs to get their native IM client finished so that I can just get that instead. Oh, well. Ping! and email work great for now, anyway.
• WordPress – I use this app to start a large number of my posts to this very blog, then fine-tune using the web-interface. Both images in this post were uploaded thanks to this handy app.
• Byline – How I get my Google Reader on. If you like to subscribe to RSS feeds, this app is an excellent and affordable program for doing so. With the death of Newsgator’s RSS services and the new version of NetNewsWire sucking like a vacuum (the absence of atmosphere, not that crap we use to clean our carpets, I’m talking reeeeaaaalllly sucking), Byline is my recommended app for RSS feeds.
• Echofon – Best free Twitter client on the market, and while I haven’t used the Pro version, if this app is any indication, best paid Twitter client on the market. Tweetie 2 may be popular, but it still doesn’t have push notifcations.

And that’s it for the front page of my home screen. I will be posting the second page in a separate post soon.

Just a quick update. Last night, The Creeps received an update that added AGON Online support (one of the social gaming networks for the iPhone I talked about here). What was truly surprising, however was that it seemed to have a newer version of the AGON Online implementation that allowed you to tie multiple AGON Online accounts to one device and select the preferred profile from a list prior to starting your game. It is now the service most similar to Xbox Live on the iPhone and that much closer to supplanting OpenFeint as my preferred service.

In other news, I found a rather nasty bug in Plus+’s “Search Contacts” feature for finding friends on the Plus+ network. When scrolling through my contacts list, both MazeFinger Plus and Topple 2 Plus crashed just before specific contacts became visible on the screen. I was able to replicate and isolate the issue (by removing key contacts from my phone and resolving the issue, at least until I hit the next “bad” contact). Hopefully that gets fixed soon, so I can add some more friends.

For those that missed it, the University of Florida recently had a document on their website outlining a simulation exercise to aid in training for a zombie attack on the campus. Unfortunately, only a few days after it was discovered, it was removed. Fear not, however. I have managed to secure a copy for the masses and will host it upon my blog until someone tells me to stop.

Or I get bored. Whichever comes first.

Read it here.

Side note: Zombie Attack Disaster Plan was the name of my grunge-metal band in college. True story.

Okay, I’ve been putting off posting this for a while, because I’m always afraid of non-constructive criticism. But, I am tired of looking at it sitting there, waiting for me to post it. So here you go. This is my nearly-complete, but eternally-unfinished screenplay. I’d love to hear any and all feedback you have on it. Tell me what works, what doesn’t, what’s funny, what’s not, what scenes you think are missing.

Untitled Love Story

Click to open. Option-click on a Mac to download. Right-click and choose “Save As…” in Windows to do the same.

A lot of media attention (at least, gaming-media) has been given to Plus+ since its announcement. I began this post then to talk about the other lesser-publicized (and in several cases, better) social gaming networks, but stopped due to life getting in the way. At the time, the only game that used Plus+ was developed by the same company that created the service. Since that time, several other games have joined the network, making it something I can actually test out. Thus, I’ve finished this post.

First, let me say up front that I do have a preferred network, and it is OpenFeint. But, as you will see, all of the networks have something to offer, and developers are really the ones that need these services broken down for them so that they can choose the best network for their audience and their business model.

Now, if you’re an iPhone owner, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard of OpenFeint before. Or, at the very least, it sounds familiar. That’s because the developers of OpenFeint are the same developers behind Aurora Feint, one of the first apps available for the iPhone 2.0 software and certainly one of the best action-puzzle apps in the App Store.

OpenFeint started life as a chat subroutine in the Aurora Feint app (called at that time, appropriately enough, Feint) that allowed players to talk to each other while playing the app. As the developers added features to it, it began to take on a new life and morphed into something more. That’s when it was rebranded as OpenFeint and made available to other developers. It can now be find in several apps.

However, OpenFeint is not the only option out there, and while it’s certainly my preferred service at the moment, that doesn’t mean my feelings won’t change as other services provide new features and get into more games. So that said, I’m going to break down the various services a bit for you.

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OpenFeint

• Games include: Pocket God, MyBrute, Knights Onrush, Minigore, Stick Wars, MUST.EAT.BIRDS, Sentinel 2
• Uses a “scoring” method (similar to Xbox Live’s Gamerscore) called Gamerscore. Each Achievement earned is assigned a points value. Achievements can be worth as few as 1 Gamerscore, and vary based on difficulty (at developer’s discretion).
• Use a custom avatar visible to your friends.
• Challenge other players: While this feature has existed since the beginning of the App Store, by sending emails to other players from within the app, with OpenFeint developers can set up “challenge” options inside the game allowing players to challenge each other in a variety of ways (beat my score, beat my time, climb higher than me, finish without dying, etc.)
• Offline support: Players can access a scaled-down version of the OpenFeint Dashboard when offline and scores and achievements will automatically be updated the next time a cell or Wi-Fi signal is reached.
• Find friends through Facebook, Twitter, or directly through OpenFeint.
• Compare achievements, challenges, and games with friends.
• No login required: Your OpenFeint ID is tied to your unique device identifier (UDID) for your iPhone or iPod Touch, meaning any new apps you install with OpenFeint support automatically know who you are. Your account can be recovered to any new device using your email address and password used during registration.

My experiences: I’ve played PocketGod quite a bit since it added OpenFeint support, and I’ve found it to be a rather unobtrusive  way to track “progress” in that “game”, as achievements really let you know if you’re trying everything that’s available to you in its experimental world.

To see more of what OpenFeint has to offer, and to check out screenshots of OpenFeint in action, visit the developer site here.

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Plus+

• Games include: Topple 2 Plus+, Star Defense, Rolando, Rolando 2, Scarecrow, LUXOR
• Uses a “scoring” method (similar to Xbox Live’s Gamerscore) called +Score. Each Award earned is assigned a points value. Awards can be worth varying points, though all seem to be listed at multiples of 5.
• Only supports portrait orientation at this time.
• Allows for a custom avatar and status message that other users can see.
• Remembers your user name across all apps on your device, but requires you to login each time you open an app for the first time.
• Does not allow you to import friends from Twitter or Facebook. Can access your local address book to invite friends, but they must be selected individually; will not find friends already using the service automatically.
• Compare achievements, challenges, and games with friends.
• Challenge other players: This feature seems to either be missing from the games that I play, or is only available once a friend has added you to their friends’ list, as I was unable to issue challenges to anyone.

My experiences: Topple 2 Plus+ is an unplayable mess on my iPhone 3G. However, my son seems to have no issues with it on his iPod Touch, so perhaps it’s time for a restoration. However, I played a little bit of Star Defense and found that the network seems to work fine, though I don’t have any friends to play with. Shows promise, but needs more than just adoption by Freeverse before I’d recommend a developer use this service.

Learn more about Plus+ and see some screenshots of it in action here.

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Scoreloop

• Games include: Parachute Panic, Aeio, Zombie Pub Crawl, Circus Acts
• Supports development with Unity Technologies, allowing developers to add Scoreloop support when developing games with the Unity development platform.
• Find friends using Facebook, or invite by email.
• Location-aware leaderboards, as well as a “24 hour leaderboard” to see how you stack up against people playing recently.
• Virtual currency: Earn coins when you first play a game. Then spend those coins to issue and accept challenges. Currency can also be used to purchase in-game bonuses and add-ons.
• Use the Avatar Builder to create your own custom avatar. However, options are fairly limited and you cannot upload your own preferred avatar instead.
• Challenge other players: One big difference in Scoreloop’s implementation of challenges, is that players can actually win or lose the network’s virtual currency in challenges. Winning also earns medals for your profile.
• Does not contain support for achievements, nor does it have a gamerscore.
• Has a stand-alone app specifically for managing your profile, viewing your challenges, etc.

My experiences: Unfortunately, all of the free games I could find to test this out were either incredibly basic, or just not fun. All focus around the concept of high scores and challenges rather than presenting the player with a campaign to play through or multiplayer experience. Not that it’s necessarily bad, just not my cup of tea.

Learn more about Scoreloop’s features here.

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AGON Online

• Games include: Underworlds, Eyegore’s Eye Blast, QuizQuizQuiz, Inkvaders, Samurai: Way of the Warrior, Peter und Vlad, Hot Dog Down a Hallway, Puzzle Girls
• Supports portrait and landscape orientation, switching back and forth on the fly.
• Find friends using Facebook and your local contacts. Searches local contacts to see if any of them are on the AGON network already.
• Uses a “scoring” method (similar to Xbox Live’s Gamerscore) called PocketScore. Each Award earned is assigned a points value. Awards can be worth as few as 1 PocketScore, and vary based on difficulty (at developer’s discretion).
• Leaderboards are location-aware, allowing you to see how you stack up against those around you. You can control if your “Nearby” leaderboard is based on country, region, city, or suburb.
• Able to store profile information in the cloud (tied to your username) so that it can be restored if an app is deleted and reinstalled, or if it is played on multiple devices.
• Supports development with Unity Technologies, allowing developers to add AGON Online integration when developing games with the Unity development platform.

My experiences: While the first time I heard about AGON, it only supported a very small few games that were not fun to play, it’s now in Underworlds, one of my favorite games on the iPhone. Having played around with it, it seems to be most similar in style and step to OpenFeint. If any social network was going to change my preference, it would be this one.

Learn more about AGON Online here.

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Crystal SDK

Not much is known about Crystal, beyond it’s announcement by Chillingo to be essentially the same thing as all the other services out there, but better for some reason. The decision of Chillingo to announce their own social gaming network was actually a bit of a shock, as Chillingo has recently added support in a number of their games for the OpenFeint and AGON Online networks. The only thing I can assume is that, since Chillingo produces games for the iPhone and Android devices, they’re hedging their bets that allowing interoperability of their service between iPhone and Android users will give them the edge in the market.

I’m sure all 30 Android users are thrilled.

The other reason that Chillingo may have support for OpenFeint currently, is that Chillingo publishes lots of games developed by individual studios, leaving the decision in their hands. At least for now. I’ll be watching this one closely, regardless. Especially if Chillingo published games switch networks over to Crystal upon release.

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Now that I’ve gotten all of that out of the way, let me finish with this. None of these services is really in a “winning” position, and is unlikely to be able to be the “de facto” standard, unless Apple picks one of them up. The reason being, they can all add features that the others do, they can all integrate with the same groups of people by adding Facebook and Twitter support, and they can all ultimately be included in whatever game the developers choose for them. The key thing I’m looking for is a stand-alone app (similar to what Scoreloop has published) that lets you receive notifications of your friends’ achievements, challenges, etc. Scoreloop is the first one to get there, but their app is useless unless you want to actually buy their virtual currency, as it merely duplicates features existent in the games themselves. I will certainly be following the future of these services as they unfold, and will give you any major news here.

About two weeks ago, my son and I had this exchange while he was cracking open acorns outside.

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Avery: I found a baby!

Me: What?

Avery: I found a baby inside one.

Me: (looking at the acorn) That’s just the nut.

Avery: (setting the acorn half on the coffee table) But I found something little in there.

Me: Let me see it.

I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but figured that if I took another look, I’d be able to explain what it was. Sure enough, there was a larva of some sort curled up in the “meat” of the acorn.

Me: You’re right. That’s a larva.

Avery: A what?

Me: A baby insect. Take it outside.

Avery: What does it do?

Me: It grows into a bug. I don’t want it in the house. Take it outside.

He proceeds to take it outside, but mutters something I couldn’t quite make out. When he comes back in, I ask him about it.

Avery: Oh, I was putting some grass on the Martha.

Me: The what?

Avery: The Martha, or whatever it’s called.

Me: Oh. The LARVA.

Avery: Yeah. The larva.

As you may have already discovered, the web address for my blog has changed to zepfhyr.com. I had to switch up the hosting a bit, and change the address as a result. Old links that pointed to the original site should still work for some time, but I encourage you to update your bookmarks and the like.

I should begin regular updates soon, once I’ve fixed all the images and links to point to their new locations.