Month: March 2013

Categories
bitching Google? Doh!

The new gmail: Downgraded, hated by users

I really don’t understand this. My best guess: there’s a new Senior Manager at Google who was doing badly in their peer-reviews, and was determined to “make their mark” by changing Gmail – if necessary over the cold, dead bodies of the thousands of people pointing out that this is a bad idea.

I thought Google was a company that prided itself on taking the best of a group of people, and putting “Product” concerns above all else?

But this week they forced a change on all several hundred million users that removes core features, breaks existing features, and adds only 1 minor feature (you can compose two emails at once without opening a new tab).

Let’s run through it, using Google’s own “Learn more” page as a reference.

Continue reading “The new gmail: Downgraded, hated by users”
Categories
fixing your desktop programming

Apple finally supports Windows 8

Apple has finally released drivers for Windows 8 (NB: because Apple takes standard PC hardware and then customizes it, Apple customers are reliant on Apple for “custom” drivers; the manufacturer drivers don’t work)

Download link for the new drivers (March 2013)

Also: the built-in copy of BootCamp has been updated, if you upgrade OS X to version 10.8.3 or later.

To recap:

  • 2011 September: Microsoft releases first beta of Windows 8
  • 2012 May: Microsoft releases final beta of Windows 8
  • 2012 September: Windows 8 (final) goes on sale
  • …
  • 2013 March: Apple enables their customers to install Windows 8

Even being generous, that’s an 11 month delay between “the world discovering that Apple hardware needed a new set of drivers, or Windows 8 wouldn’t run” and “Apple delivering the drivers”. Many Apple machines were fine, but a large proportion were effectively blocked from running Windows 8 at all. It’s good to see this finally released, but … that’s a pretty poor service from a company the size of Apple.

Worst was the iMacs, where even machines less than 18 months old were (allegedly, according to the Apple.com forums) unusable on Windows 8. You could install it (with some hacks), but then the graphics card was disabled. This means: most major software won’t run (because the graphics card is used so heavily on modern computers you got corruption of on-screen info, or just massive drops in performance, so that apps were unusable), and definitely: no games.

…which, after all, is one of the main reasons for Mac users to dual-install Windows.

Interestingly, it seems this was caused by Apple’s modifications of the ATI graphics card, so that the ATI drivers were convinced there was an external monitor (which Apple didn’t provide a socket for, so there was nothing you could do – even if you owned a second monitor).

Interesting because: in the PC world, ATi used to be famous for writing low-quality, poorly-tested graphics drivers. ATi owners were accustomed to poring over every new minor version update “just in case” it fixed the glaring bugs in the previous one – and spent a lot of time de-installing and re-installing the older versions (when the newest version frequently introduced major new bugs).

So … although it’s ostensibly Apple to blame here in being so late to fix it, my suspicion is that it was some shoddy code in ATi’s driver that (accidentally) only affected Apple-modified cards.

3rd Party Device drivers: every OS-developer’s nightmare!

Categories
computer games games design games industry

Tomb Raider 2013 shows games as a force for good

Ashelia/HellMode’s review of Tomb Raider 2013:

“Tomb Raider triggered me, sure. But it didn’t do it needlessly. It didn’t do it tactlessly. It didn’t do it for a cheap rise. It instead captured a real emotion and a real experience millions of women will encounter in their life. Some of them won’t be as lucky as I was. Some of them won’t be as lucky as Lara Croft was, either. Some of them won’t survive. Some of them will be silenced forever.

Some of them will die and some of their attackers will live.

Tomb Raider triggered me and that’s ok. Maybe that’s even good. I think it is because it means it’s the first realistic, non-gratifying portrayal of violence against women that I’ve seen in video games. It’s the first one I’ve seen that wasn’t exploitive.”

Categories
conferences games industry

GDC 2013 feedback on speakers

This year: I hadn’t even left the talk before I got this email:

Screen Shot 2013-03-26 at 11.36.14

This is excellent. Easy and automated (using the RFID tags in the pass itself, that’s scanned as you walk in the door), it’s quick and accurate.

As a bonus, I can rely on it to give me an email record of which talks I attended (so I can easily look them up, share with colleagues, etc).

I’m looking forwards to more conferences doing this…

Categories
computer games games design games industry

“We are a compromised profession” (Game Designers)

Carlo Delallana responds to the sensationalized report that “I think most game designers really just suck”:

“One of biggest problems that game designers face in their path towards mastery is respect. It’s easy to respect an artist with a demonstrable skill, no average person assumes they can do what an engineer does. But game designer? For one thing our profession faces a common misconception, that game design is coming up with ideas (as noted by Garrott’s comment on lazy designers). That all you need to do is clone, that you are no better than your competition (as noted by Mark Pincus).

We are a compromised profession, tasked at executing a formula to minimize risk. Unfortunately, executing on formula is counter to mastery of any skill. If the marching order is “status quo” instead of “challenge yourself” then how does a game designer grow?”

(NB: Gamasutra clearly did the IMHO scummy journalist thing of sensationalizing RG’s quote; and RG should have been a lot more careful – personally I believe he didn’t mean it the way it came across, but it came across … badly)

Either way, Carlo’s reply is worth reading in full

Categories
android

Download link for Android ADT in 2013

Tonight I lost 30 minutes because Google’s Android team still has the wrong links on the download page of their website. Every few months someone from their team copy/pastes the wrong link back onto the page…

Android’s download page (http://tools.android.com/download) says:

“download …ADT and Tools … from http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html ”

This is 50% true. The “Tools” are on that page (although some poor web design means you now have to jump through silly JavaScript hoops to see them – this is a new “feature”).

…but “ADT” has NOT been on that page for something like 2 years now. I am surprised that no-one cares enough to fix this. You can wipe your system and download 0.5 gigabytes of trash to replace it, hidden inside which is the ADT – but you cannot get to the ADT itself.

So, until the Android team checks their links and fixes their webpage, here’s the actual (official!) download page for ADT:

http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/installing-adt.html – Google’s ADT download page, NB: IGNORE the part at the top, the actual link is in “Troubleshooting”, and has been there for 3+ years

Categories
iphone programming

Every size you need to know when designing for iOS

References

Building an app, the basics

iPhone launchimage/splash

Default.png Default-568@2x.png
Model Size Model Size
3 + 3GS 320×480
4 + 4S 640×960
5 640×1136

iPad launchimage/splash

Default.png Default@2x.png
Model Size Model Size
1 + 2 768×1004
or 1024×748
3 + 4 1536×2008
or 2048×1496

iPhone fullscreen

No status bar with status bar with status bar + navbar
Model Size Model Size Model Size
3 + 3GS 320×480 3 + 3GS 320×460
or 480×300		 3 + 3GS 320×416
or 480×268
4 + 4S 640×960 4 + 4S 640×920
or 960×600		 4S 640×832
or 960×536
5 640×1136 5 640×1096
or 1136×600		 5 640×1008
or 1136×512

iPad fullscreen

No status bar with status bar with status bar + navbar
Model Size Model Size Model Size
1 + 2 768×1024 1 + 2 768×1004
or 1024×748		 1 + 2 768×960
or 1024×704
3 + 4 1536×2048 3 + 4 1536×2008
or 2048×1496		 3 + 4 1536×1920
or 2048×1408

iPhone app icons

App iTunes Spotlight
Model Size Model Size Model Size
3 + 3GS 57×57 3 + 3GS 512×512 3 + 3GS 29×29
4 + 4S + 5 114×114 4 + 4S + 5 1024×1024 4 + 4S + 5 58×58

iPad app icons

REQUIRED
App iTunes NewsStand (if Newsstand app)
Model Size Model Size Model Size
1 + 2 72×72 1 + 2 512×512 1 + 2 >= 512
3 + 4 144×144 3 + 4 1024×1024 3 + 4 >= 1024
OPTIONAL
Spotlight Settings
Model Size Model Size
1 + 2 50×50 1 + 2 29×29
3 + 4 100×100 1 + 2 58×58