Had an idea on the subway home last night and sketched it out in photoshop, think I nailed the minimalism and I like the not-so-subtle twitter hint.

Maybe the quote could be seen as arrogant?

Simplicity with a dash of twitter

After the pre launch hype exploded into a million voices screaming in rage or intoxication one argument about the iPad seems to remain; why would I need one if I have a laptop?

Last week I didn’t have an answer to this question. I figured I might buy one for my mom as she has no use for the extra complexity of a full laptop, but I presumed I would hold off until tablets had evolved a couple of generations.

But yesterday I realized I will buy the iPad. Possibly even the first generation machine.

I have an avid interest in gaming and game design. But I rarely play games anymore, it’s just to time consuming to start up machines and and load save games. I don’t have two hours without interruption to play  games. I have many short periods interspersed throughout the day. Today I fill these periods with gaming, reading and twittering from my iPhone. Only one thing could make this more enjoyable, a larger screen.

The iPad is the perfect casual media machine. A tad expensive perhaps, but still worth it. I’m getting one.

All design matters. But design that is functional matters to me for a specific reason.

Function is an embodiment of an idea. And when the function is used the designer and user share that same idea. Not a diluted idea, reshaped by subjective language, but a perfect one. Captured in the form of the function.

If you think this sounds like mumbo jumbo consider mathematics, algorithms and functions that describe how something happens. Most people never realize just how exact the representations are until they program games for computers. All of a sudden all the dull math creates engaging experiences of movement colors and transformations.

A design can be just as exact. Consider how you use scissors, the designer of the original function had an idea about how cutting surfaces and how the movement of the hand could work together. The idea is perfectly translated in the function.

This is why design is so inspiring for me.

Regardless of what OS you like it really is the applications that make up most of your experience on a computer. Some applications become iconic to the platform they are built for becoming inseparable from the experience. And when they disappear, the platform trembles.

My recent move from Windows to Os X has made me realize that Apple’s insistence on aesthetic applications from developers really does make an impact for the end user.

Which is why it saddens me when my two favorite developers Atebits and Cultured Code, makers of Tweetie and Things respectively, both have disappeared from they’re online homes.

They are still there, small updates trickle out. But from the devs themselves there is not a sound to be heard. The last post on the Atebits blog was in November, Cultured Code hasn’t let out a peep since September.

They seem to have learned the same secretive style that Apple is so famous for. But for small application developers this can be a fatal tactic.

Delivering perfect polished updates to any product is every developers dream. But we all know from the large hulking creations of larger development companies that this strategy is flawed. Without releasing updates consistently to the end user you might be heading in the wrong direction without ever knowing it.

If the web in the last few years has taught us anything, it is that focus and communication is key to any feature. Twitter is more focused than Buzz, Google Apps  have a constant stream of features being tested compared to the take it or leave it strategy of MS Outlook.

So please Apple developers, don’t hide behind a wall like Apple does. Come out and talk to us, what are you  working on? How is it progressing?

When you’re releasing updates to each physical product every 18 months you might need to work in secret silence. But when you’re creating a better Twitter app, you can at least let your waiting fans know how it’s going.

Had a little downtime and decided to design a T-shirt based on one of my mantras in life:

Discrete? I have none

The most over hyped machine ever has been unveiled and a torrent of fanboyism and hatred has echoed over the blogosphere. So now should be a good time to talk about what the iPad really is.

It’s just a larger iPod touch!

Yes. Yes that’s exactly what it is. Well ok not exactly, it’s a lot faster. But basically just a large iPhone without the phone. Not sure why people are complaining about this though since I’ve heard tens or possibly hundreds say they wanted a larger iPhone when it was first launched.

Why isn’t it wide screen?
Because it’s a doubled iPod touch screen, this way apps will work with very little fuss and developers don’t have put too much effort into designing specific apps for the iPad and iPhone.

So, will it be awesome?
Probably yes, your iPhone is pretty awesome right? Imagine not having to squint at the screen to surf and you’re there already. Also we know Apple will release a software update for the device before launch. It probably won’t mean too much but we’re likely to see at least one more feature that we’ll like. Just because Apple likes to push positive.

So it will sell a billions units?
Apples track record says yes. But they have failed before. and all tablets so far have died a gruesome death. Mind you, smart phones weren’t exactly a super hot market before the iPhone launched. They certainly didn’t cause the amount of hype and development that Apple created in the marketplace.

That’s it. The iPad. We haven’t seen all it can do, but this is what it is. A larger iPhone, just like millions of users have been clamoring for.

Just because it doesn’t cure cancer and live up to the pre unveiling hype doesn’t mean it won’t be awesome. It’s to early to tell if the iPad will be a hit or a miss. But regardless it will push general computing further towards touch UI. Which is really the innovation Apple is bringing to the table. Not a new UI. But a new use for their most successful one.

When the iPhone opened the app store to third party developers and basically anyone who could afford the $99 SDK we we’re all amazed at the enormous success. Thousands upon thousands of great apps have been launched transforming the mobile marketplace forever as it can now compete with laptops on the go.

So, I ask, why the hell can’t I run my apps on my mac?!
I know that the iPhone OS, while based on OS X technology, isn’t the same operating system. But as a consumer I don’t care. Sure, most apps are just boiled down versions of larger applications for Mac or the web. But some of them are not, games especially are available only on the iPhone in that form.

Well I want to use some of them on my Mac!
And it shouldn’t be that hard, the SDK for developing apps can already emulate apps directly in OS X.
But I want to run them from iTunes or, better yet, directly from my dock. I already own them and they’re already stored on my Mac from constant syncing.

Please Apple, let me run my Apps on my Mac as well.

If you agree with this, retweet as far as you can!

One of the largest problems facing the games industry today is used games. Publishers can’t compete with the low prices and have launched campaigns trying to persuade customers that buying used games hurt developers. This is almost certainly true but the problem is, as so often with situations like this, not used games but how games as a medium are developed and sold. Let me describe why this phenomenon exists and what developers can do to change it today.

Books and movies are more rarely sold used then games

There is a market for used books and movies, and it’s pretty large, but nowhere near as large as for games. This is because the products leave a lingering thought with the consumer that they “might want to see / read it again”. In this post I’ll call this emotional impact.

I’m not saying that games don’t have emotional impact, in fact they might have more emotional impact then traditional media, but in games it works a bit differently.

Traditional media is completely based on narrative

Narrative has always been a way for humans to interpret the things happening around us, in other words; we look for patterns that might not be there. Putting stories on events to make them understandable.

Traditional media is a way to channel this interest by offering interesting stories, that have been thought out before hand and then feeding them to the audience. We’ve been doing it since long before Shakespeare

When a movie, book or any work of fiction presents us with a narrative that we particularly like we achieve a sense of satisfaction. Known in story telling as catharsis.

Games don’t work like this

Games have two sets of narrative going on at once; the story narrative that is usually fed to the player (s) in more or less sophisticated ways. The game mechanical narrative, the story that the player build by doing things in the game: “I ran around the wall and shot that guy from behind, I’m such a ninja!“.

The first narrative is directly comparable to traditional media and is the dominant narrative in games such as the Final Fantasy series or the Metal Gear series. The emotional impact of these games are usually quite high and sure enough, you’ll find a lot less of them on the used shelves at your local Gamestop.

The second narrative however, is unique to games as a medium. It is the dominant form of narrative in games such as Battlefield or Gran Turismo. These games can be resold without much emotional impact because the main experience is already experienced. Playing the game again won’t be as interesting.

Let’s compare this to a vacation trip. The pictures from said vacation are valuable, because they let the consumer remember the experience. But going back will be different, we all know this, that’s why we don’t always travel to the same spots.

Experiencing the game mechanic again can often be more interesting by playing the sequel or a similar game. A consumer will rarely play the same game again if there aren’t new goals to reach or if similar games and sequels are noticeably different. (If your game is a shooter you’ll probably not ever get consumers to do more then one play through. If that.)

So how are we going to solve this?

From this point of view, I’ve identified three key ways of making more emotional impact and staying of the used games shelf:

1. Create games that capture the emotional impact of narrative. Create games with more traditional story that can keep the players coming back.
2. Create games with game mechanic lock-ins. So that they are forced to keep playing your game to get the same pleasurable mechanic. Look at fighting games for example. Fighting games seem to be generally online or party experiences, with unique fighting styles they deliver experiences that you can’t interchange easily.
3. Games that are more focused on mechanic narrative, don’t release them as boxed products. Seriously. They are easily interchangeable and after one play through they are simply not very interesting. Sell them as episodic content through direct downloads or as subscription services.

This might sound a bit crude, but the games industry is not as successful per unit as other media industries and mostly I believe this is because the industry isn’t selling games as consumers want them. The games industry is just copying other mediums and then complaining about all the problems that they run into.

If you’ve read this far I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject, comment away, I answer all comments.

Rumors about the possibly impending launch of a tablet computer/thing from Apple have been raging since the release of the iPhone. But all this buildup will hurt the product.

Apple is always secretive about new launches and improvements of their products. This strategy, coupled with benchmark-creating levels of quality, makes Apple appear to deliver almost perfect quality beyond anything their competitors can achieve. (This is why most nay-sayers focus on technological specs and the like when comparing Apple’s products to others. )
But this same stamp of quality also creates enormous pressure on new product launches. And the iSlate/iTablet /Apple Tablet will quite probably be highest pressure launch yet.

Already analysts are talking about the iSlate/iTablet as a Kindle killer, presuming millions of units sold in the first 6 months and a market created or recreated solely by this machine.

While I don’t doubt that Apple will release a Tablet, and that it’s quality will be outstanding, I do doubt that it can live up to all this hype.

A color e-ink tablet with touch display and the perfect UI using all the products from Apple’s App store and launched with an SDK to make developers sit up and howl could just barely live up to the hype.

And Apple can hardly deliver this, since color e-ink touch is just a tad expensive these days.

Don’t get me wrong, he Apple iSlate will be awesome. It has to live up to the highest quality standards in tech today just for Apple to launch it, my faith in Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive is solid as rock. But the hype might be killing a perfect product. What if they release the iSlate and it doesn’t live up to half the expectations? Will sales half just because of the anticlimax?

Well, this being Apple, probably not. But still, it would be a shame if an innovative product unlike anything but the invention of the iPhone and the Personal Computer would be accepted as anything but great innovation.

Every Day the same Dream is a short flash game that I think you should play.

It’s story of a faceless man who tries to break out of his routine of getting up, dressing, saying good bye to his emotionally detached wife and driving to a miserable job. It’s not exactly cheerful. It might even provoke dark thoughts. It’s conveys a sense of how valuable life is in a strange way. This game is provoking. It doesn’t provoke your ideals. It provokes how you live.

A fantastic interactive experiment that I can really recommend:

Every Day the Same Dream