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Posts tagged apple
The iPhone as a Gaming Device
Aug 1st
When I got my iPhone back in 2006 I thought it was the most marvelous device ever. There really were no ‘app stores’ for phones back then. I remember my previous phone, you could purchase these over-priced Java-based games which were terrible, but other then that you simply got the programs which came with the phone and that was it. That said, it made me a bit puzzled as to why people were up in arms about the fact that there were and at that point would be no 3rd party applications on the iPhone. I mean I did understand it, but I wasn’t that upset over it.
However as time went on, I definitely started to see the potential of the iPhone and more and more wanted for there to be 3rd party applications. For one, I really wanted to see my favorite To-Do application, Things to have an iPhone application. I even started to see potential for the phone to be a gaming device. Finally Apple released their SDK and the games and other applications started pouring in.
I think one of the first games I had for my iPhone was Pangea’s Cro-Mag Rally which coincidentally was the first game (or maybe it was Bugdom) that I really enjoyed playing on a Mac. The game took advantage of the iPhone’s accelerometers which I thought was really awesome and really showed the iPhone’s potentials. After that I picked up Pocket God, Plants vs. Zombies, Minigore, Words with Friends, Angry Birds, Doodle Jump, Critter Crunch, Peggle, Tap Tap (and it’s multiple versions), Driver, Oregon Trail and more. At some point I saw a a reference which pitted the iPhone against the devices which were solely meant for portable gaming; the Nintendo DS as well as Sony’s PSP. While I am not sure I would personally put the Apple iPhone in the same category as those devices it surely can be considered a portable gaming device, however I think there’s something that separates the iPhone from those. When I game on the iPhone it’s usually a quick round of Plants vs. Zombies, or I’m playing a few quick rounds of Tap Tap. I find the Apple iPhone to be better suited for my life style in that I always have it with me, whereas my Nintendo DS or Sony PSP are extra devices I need to pack to bring around with me. The games for those devices (or at least the ones I take interest in) require me to set aside time to play them (which can be quite difficult with my busy life). With my iPhone I can just whip it out and play a few rounds of Angry Birds or I can play a quick game of Doodle Jump without needing to set aside 30 minutes or a couple hours.
Of course, most of the games for iPhone don’t have much of a story-line or go into as much depth as the games for consoles and other popular portable gaming devices have. I doubt I’ll be seeing the next Final Fantasy XIII, DiRT2 or Modern Warfare for iPhone. But for general, quick, good, fun pick-up games, iPhone is certainly my device of choice. I am really impressed with the library of games available on the iPhone and am excited to see what developers have in-store for us over the next few years.
What’s your favorite iPhone game? I think mine’s a toss up between Plants vs. Zombies and Minigore. Both very well put together games which have provided me countless hours of fun!
My New OS X Netbook – Dell Mini 9
Mar 22nd
After hearing about a sale ($50 off their Dell Mini) that Dell was having on their netbook line, I just had to get one. Of course in the process I managed to talk my friend into getting on too. Our plan? To install Mac OS X Leopard on these machines for our very own “ultimate OS X netbooks”! We ordered them at the end of February and just this past Friday (March 20) we got them. Definitely wasn’t too happy about having to wait that long, and as of right now I still don’t have the 2GB memory chip that I ordered from them. Fortunately I did have an extra 1GB PC-5300 SO-DIMM that I’m using for the time being.
I used the guide that Gizmodo wrote up, you can find it by clicking on this link. Pretty much as long as you follow their steps, you’ll be up and running in an hour or less. I highly recommend getting an external DVD drive instead of going the route of the flash keys, although if you have to use a flash key make sure you’ve got at least 2 of them and that one of them at least 8GBs in size, the other one can be small, 512MBs or 1GB.
There were a couple things that happened in my install that I think I feel should be mentioned. First the Gizmodo article did mention that the install might fail and although theirs didn’t and nor did mine, my friends did. Fortunately I told him that it might happen and not to worry. And of course, I was right, his install worked fine. So if you get a “failed to install” message, don’t panic. Just continue to the next step in the guide and it should work fine.
The next thing was that upon my first boot into my OS X install, WiFi nor sound didn’t work. As per Gizmodo this was was normal too, but after doing a reboot again with the “-f” option it should work. Well I tried that 3-4 times but it failed to get WiFi or the audio working. I did some searching around on the MyDellMini forums and came across a few posts detailing fixes for this issue. What I ended up doing was again booting up using the “-f” option, then I ran the DellEFI application and rebooted. Upon that reboot, my WiFi and sound worked fine. Odd, as it was supposed to work right after install, but either way, I’m happy that it works perfectly fine now.
I’m extremely pleased with the Dell Mini 9 as an OS X netbook. It’s very easy to get working (so long as you can follow directions and have the right tools), all of the main features (Bluetooth, Airport, screen brightness, sleep, audio, WiFi, Ethernet) are supported almost out of the box. The larger 16GB drive is amazing. Being able to use my retail OS X Leopard disk was great too.
Now, my biggest gripe about the Mini is the keyboard. It’s absolutely terrible. The keys are small, have odd placement and just all around annoy me. Fortunately I ordered my Mini with a Bluetooth chip installed. I’ve finally found a use for the $80 Apple keyboard I purchased almost a year ago and barely ever used since then. Bluetooth pairing worked just as if I was on a real Apple machine and took seconds to setup and get working. This is a really great solution for when I’m just sitting at my desk, for when I’m not, I think I’ll just have to learn to deal with the built-in keyboard. The photo above compares the HP Mini keyboard to the Dell Mini, I much prefer the HP to the Dell. If the audio had worked in the HP I would probably be using that instead of the Dell.
Both the Dell and the HP are relatively the same size. They’re about the same thickness, but the HP is a tad bit wider then the Dell. I believe it’s that little bit that gives it the better keyboard.
Overall I am quite impressed with the Dell Mini 9. If the keyboard had been a bit better, this truly would have been the ultimate OS X netbook. So, I guess now I’ve gotta get an MSI Wind and try it out on there? Haha. Here’s to hoping that Apple just comes out with one.
My New Netbook!
Feb 10th
Note: I do not condone breaking laws, downloading software that isn’t rightfully yours or anything of that sort. I just love tinkering with things and challenging myself to see if I can make something happen.
For about 6 months or so I’ve been really interested in purchasing a netbook. Not only for the small size but because there’s a huge community with interest in running Mac OS X on them. While I would love it for Apple to put out something more official, I enjoy doing it the “un-official” way. One, it gives me something to do, and two, I really enjoy messing around with things and make them work in ways they’re not originally intended work! Plus, I’ve been wanting a super portable Mac for quite some time now!
After doing a bit of research, I found out that the HP Mini was one of the better and more supported netbooks out there. I picked one up at my local Staples (I just had to have one and didn’t want to wait for shipping) for $300. I mean, that’s a pretty good deal right?
After getting home, I brought up a couple other useful websites:
After perusing through some other forums and threads, I decided to stick with the MyHPMini guide. Seemed simple and quite easy to follow.
In a nutshell, one must obtain a specially “fixed” version of the Mac OS X operating system. I went with iDeneb v1.3 10.5.5. I do have a copy of 10.5.6 that I might install should I not be able to easily upgrade my existing 10.5.5 install. You’ll first want to format the drive as Mac OS X Extended. I normally do this through Disk Utility but it can also be done on the screen where it asks you where you want to install OS X too.
Install it just as you normally would an OS X install, but remember to choose Customized so you can apply a few extra fixes (these are needed because we’re installing on a non-Macintosh computer). The fixes you need to apply are outlined in the tutorial. Now, for some reason the install progress screen did not show up for me. I am not sure if this is true for all installs on the Mini, but it did happen to me so I thought it would be worth mentioning. What I did was opened up the log viewer and had it display all log messages. Eventually after about 25-30 minutes my install had completed. The machine rebooted, but after running through about half the OS X Welcome screens it keep kicking me back out to the first one. Fortunately the tutorial explains how to get around this. Basically you need to reboot into single user mode, input a few commands and you’re done!
Now, even though you’ve got OS X installed, there are a few drivers that I highly recommend you install so that you can get the most out of your OS X’d netbook. The drivers are for things like VGA, sleep, wifi and a few others. Using the Kext installer (which is one of the applications I recommend installing during the initial install) it’s really very simple!
Once you’ve done that, you’vepretty much got a cute little Macbook to take anywhere!
Now one thing I noticed is that if you’re like me and got the 8GB HP Mini you’ll only have about 1.5GBs of space left. For some that may be fine, I use my netbook for blogging, web surfing and chatting only so it’s not such a big deal. You can also snag an 8GB SD card from NewEgg for about $15.00. The Mini has a built-in card reader which works in OS X. Currently I’ve got a 2GB SD card and I use it for storing applications.
Here’s a few other things I’ve noticed. Audio/Sound does not work at the moment. I’ve read that it’s actively being worked on, but there’s no solution at this time. Second, the wifi directions (included in the MyHPMini tutorial) forget to mention, that the first command you’ll need to run is:
/sbin/mount -uw /
What that does is mounts the drive and allows its contents to be modified, which is exactly what needs to happen. Without running that command, the kext file(s) cannot be properly installed.
Second, after you’ve installed WiFi it doesn’t appear to reconnect when you open your netbook from sleep. Now, this only happens to me, and it might just be something I’m doing wrong. I have to go back into System Preferences and select the network I want to connect to each time, even though it’s listed in my Preferred networks. The menu bar item also does not work and just tells me that Airport is not configured.
I also should mention that I upgraded my netbook to 1GB of RAM although I will eventually max it out at 2GBs. I suggest you upgrade to at least 1GB also, especially if you plan on install Mac OS X Leopard.
Besides those few issues, I’m really enjoying my new OS X netbook. I take it everywhere I go and I find a lot nicer to pull out on the bus then my Apple MacBook. So far, the battery seems to last about 3 hours which is fine with me, it last the bus ride to and from work and then some. It’s really fabulous and it’ll definitely hold me over until Apple comes out with their own netbook!
