Interesting Links for 14-9-2011

[andrewducker]

• Windows 8 "Metro" apps to only be installable through the App store? Fuck. That.
  (tags: windows microsoft business EpicFail)
• Android support for x86 is coming
  (tags: android intel)
• And the winner of the feminist game of the year so far is...Space Marine?
  (tags: games computer_games warhammer feminism)
• An amazing gaming table
  (tags: gaming)
• A casting spoiler for next year's True Blood. I was unshocked, and excited
  (tags: trueblood)
• 66% of current iPhone 4 users plan to upgrade to an iPhone 5, despite not knowing any specifics about the new handset
  (tags: iphone apple headdesk technology marketing)
• Possibly the finest customer service ever.
  (tags: customerservice MarksAndSpencer business dinosaurs)

Comments

[matgb]

Heh, Penny Arcade amazed by the sort of thing my then boss was turning out for fun 15 years ago. OK, without the stuff made by 3d printer, but... (seriously, working for one of the White Dwarf scenery guys was great fun, I was shit at terrain but playing game on his stuff was awesome)

I'm currently lookng at getting a new computer soon. Making sure it'll run Space Marine looks like a priority.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Space Marine does sound pretty awesome. It's jumped way up my wanted games list.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

I finished it on the weekend; great fun (particularly if you`ve been playing the tabletop version of 40k for over twenty years, as I have), well crafted, very pretty, and Lt.* Mira is an awesome character, but I wouldn`t put it in the top tier of games I`ve played. I found it well worth the purchase given that I somehow got it at a 10% discount and was using a gift card; I don`t know if less die-hard fans will enjoy it as much as I did, but there are free demos available and I`d recommend to anyone who hasn`t been indoctrinated into GW`s cult that they give the demo a try before buying.

-- Steve has yet to try the multiplayer, which does sound a bit underwhelming but he shouldn`t judge before playing.

* and that`s pronounced correctly, for a pleasant change

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I love the fact that in video games a "feminist" game is one that has a normal looking female character.

[andrewducker]

Well, that's what feminism should be about, innit? A varied representation of women in the same way you get a varied representation of men.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but it's a pretty low standard innit? I mean in pretty much every other media it takes rather more than not giving the female characters absurd vital statistics and skimpy clothing.



(I feel this comment is becoming too feminist. Let me restore the balance with a userpic of a more traditional game character...)

[andrewducker]

Oh, computer games are stereotypically the preserve of teenage boys, so they're pretty awful.

But if you look at a lot of SF movies/TV then having female characters that aren't just there to look pretty was an uphill battle too.

It would be awesome to have more deep female characters, but considering how many deep characters there are in general, that's possibly pushing it :->

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

That should be "medium", not "media". Sorry.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

At first I thought it was going to be a multiplayer only online shooter. Was very pleased to learn it's single-player.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

From the brief bit of the demo I played, it is exactly like Gears of War, but without cover.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Ah, so Gears Of War on easy difficulty, when you can just run and gun it and don't have to use cover. :)

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Well, there are button-combos in the hand to hand fighting... and you don't have full regenerating health, you have something closer to the first Halo's system of recharging shields plus a health bar. (You replenish the health bar by executing finishing attacks on opponents, like Gears's curb-stomping. This is not a game for the wee tykes.) But the comparison with Gears of War isn't completely off the mark.

-- Steve thinks that the Emperor's Space Marines should not cower in cover!

[skington.livejournal.com]

Why "headdesk" and "marketing" as tags for the iPhone 5 story? Each iteration of the iPhone - the original iPhone, the 3G, the 3GS and the 4 - has been obviously better than the previous version, so why wouldn't most iPhone 4 owners expect to switch to the new model at some point?

Also, almost by definition this can't be a marketing triumph, given that the iPhone 4 is more than a year old and the iPhone 5 hasn't been announced yet.

[andrewducker]

Being sure that you want something without knowing anything about it goes beyond being a general fan, and into blind following. Sure, Apple may bring out something that's so much better than the iPhone 4 that it's worth rushing out to the shops for it, but without knowing anything about it, already planning in your upgrade is erring a little too far towards fandom for my tastes.

[nojay.livejournal.com]

http://www.theonion.com/articles/interim-apple-chief-under-fire-after-unveiling-gro,19111/

"As of press time, 3.2 million loyal customers were lining up overnight outside of Apple stores across the country for the chance to buy the slick new abomination."

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Hm. I think there is a significant base of people who have become apple-tribalized[1], but I'm not sure the those numbers support that particularly more than anything else. I would usually upgrade to the next version of firefox, of Windows, of a linux distro, of all sorts of stuff, because I expect it to be better, unless I hear something dire about it[1]. Not that "I will buy this come what may" but "I expect to get it, unless I hear it's not as good as I expected". That is, people are generally bad at forseeing that sort of difference in themselves, and polls are even worse at representing it, so probably lots of them do mean "I'll buy it without even stopping to consider whether its bad" but I'd expect much the same results even if they thought "I'll buy it assuming it's as good as I expect and I think that's very likely"...

[1] Eg. I don't want anything xkcd thinks is worse than Hitler :)

[andrewducker]

Firefox is free though. So updating that doesn't require much in the way of thought.

I move up versions of Windows because of all the software I have tying me to it. And even then, I'd have happily skipped Vista (and a huge number of people did).

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Is there an element that many iPhone4 owners will be on contracts where they get their choice of new phone every twelve months? If that is the case, then they will get a new handset anyway, and by that time the choice may be between iPhone5 and something else. And since it would be reasonable to expect the iPhone5 to be better than the iPhone4, then in this context, two thirds of owners saying they would get the new iPhone rather than a competitor handset might actually be quite low.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

"I might want that at some point, if I knew something about it" is not the same as "I want that" in the minds of rational consumers.

Coda: No iPhone customer is rational, by definition. They bought an iPhone, an objectively stupid and irrational decision.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

As much as I detest Apple and the iPhone, I still think it is a better personal computing device than any comparable Android phone I've used, and I've used a LOT.

I've liked my experiences of Windows Phone but not enough to get one.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Why do you say that all iPhone customers (not just the 66% percent that have Faith in Apple's next product) are irrational?

I have non-technical friends who think their iPhone is marvellous. And it is a very useful and usable device for the general public.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Because there are better products, for cheaper, from less annoying companies.

Basically.

The iPhone does nothing[1] that other smartphones don't do, better.

[1]: assuming, of course, that "give money to Apple" is not a goal of the end-user in and of itself. If it is, then yes, the iPhone does that better.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Hm, If I'd ever used an iPhone, I'd be able to confirm or deny that. I'm still kind of assuming that Android phones are for geeks, iPhones are for hairdressers.

Heaven knows who Win7 phones are for. Maybe hipsters who want to push the boat quite far out with that "cool underdog nerd irony" thing?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

iPhones are for people who don't know anything about computers, or phones, and thus don't mind that they paid extra for something that does less than the competition and what it does do, it doesn't do as well.

Android phones are for people who want something like an iPhone, but that actually works as expected. And is cheaper. And more powerful.

(Win7 Phones are for people who use Bing instead of Google by preference.)

[danmilburn.livejournal.com]

You know, I work for Nokia, in an office full of software engineers. Guess what? Some of them have iPhones. You can dismiss anyone who buys one as stupid, ignorant or irrational if that makes you feel better, but it doesn't actually make it true.

I have an Android phone, I've never bought an Apple product and dislike the way they do business, but I can think of a couple of sensible reasons why a person might buy one:

They got an iPhone before there was any reasonable competition, they like it, and they have made an investment, in knowing how it works, in libraries of purchased apps and, yes, in brand loyalty. So it might make sense to get the latest one if they want an upgrade.

There is one way in which iDevices are indisputably miles ahead of the competition, and that's the number of apps and particularly games available. You can also be sure that a given app will actually run properly on your device.

[danmilburn.livejournal.com]

Oh, and something else I've just discovered: Android has quite astonishingly poor proxy options.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

That's quite a statement. I don't have an iPhone (or for that matter my own mobile phone), but I can perceive a situation where buying one makes sense. What am I missing? For your logic to work, for _every_ _possible_ consumer, there must be some outcome (some function of mobile phone, no mobile phone, cash, mobile internet etc) that is better than an iPhone.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Anything an iPhone does, a different smartphone does better, easier, for less money. Most often, the other smartphone does EVERYTHING better, easier, and for less money.

There is no possible combination of desired features for which the best smartphone fit is "iPhone". They are an inferior product in every way.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

as much as i find you in general an extremely intelligent, intersting, informative and fun gay, the *rampant* anti-Apple rhetoric is rather disconcerting

it's not that I find it offensive [I have an iPhone and I'm very happy with it], it's just the sort of thing I'd expect from a frothing web-troll retard. Which I know you are not.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I would not agree that each successive iPhone has been "obviously better" enough from the previous one to justify dumping the old one and getting a new one on release day.

A computer with a a slightly pricier graphics card is better than my current one, but not necessarily worth getting rid of my old one and buying a whole new computer if I'm going to be doing exactly the same things on it.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I think the app store ship has sailed now for the forseeable future. I don't think it technically counts as a fail these days as it's turning into a great means for control and money making.

customer service

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

My all-time favorite customer service story is apocryphal but:
Someone was driving their Rolls-Royce way deep in the Alps, and managed to break an axle.
He wired Rolls-Royce, and they sent a mechanic with a new axle to do the repair.
And that was the last he heard of it. Eventually, he wrote a letter, effusively praising their service, and noting that he had not received a bill. He received a reply, There is no such thing as a broken axle in a Rolls-Royce.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

66% of gullible technically-illiterate assholes are STILL gullible, technically-illiterate assholes? NO. YOU LIE.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

I'm still on a 3G. Didn't by the 3GS cos it came out just after I got the 3G, didn't get the 4 because they sold the last one while I was away earning the money to buy it, then I changed my mind. I don't especially like the 4 design.


I saw a 'leak' image of the 5 a couple of weeks ago, and want it. If that *is* the final design I'll almost certainly buy one. If not I'll see about alternatives.

Concerning the 66%: I'm guessing [based on no research at all] that this is similar to the Android early adoption rate - ie people who just jump at the next spec boost because they can. With the iPhone, you can only really do that with one specific phone, so the effect is far more concentrated. Most of the people who said they will have been waiting for a good 6 months longer than they expected. That, in tech, is a huge stack of anticipation.