Thoughts on Apple's WWDC 2011 Keynote

Apple recently opened the curtain on the latest developments in its operating system world, and while I am no big fan of Apple by any stretch of the imagination, whenever they make an announcement I try to follow what is said. This is mostly to see what Microsoft’s biggest competitor is up to, but also because of how much industry-wide influence Apple have (for better or for worse, you can decide). Their annual WWDC is usually where the next generation iPhone is announced, and while there was no iPhone 5 announcement this year (latest rumours suggest that will be coming in September), a visibly ill Steve Jobs took to the stage to unveil the latest version of Mac OS X, code named Lion, along with iOS 5 and their latest attempt at a cloud computer service, iCloud (replacing the disaster that was MobileMe). So was what they announced as revolutionary and magical as indicated?

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Fable: Coin Golf

I don’t own an XBox 360, although it is on my bucket list of things to buy. Furthermore, while I have heard of the Fable series of games, because of my lack of an XBox I’ve never played one. So when I heard that the series was coming to Windows Phone 7, I thought this might be a nice way to get in on the action. With Fable Coin Golf it’s apparently part of the Fable universe, but isn’t the same type of game as found on the XBox 360. It’s actually quite a fun little physics game (what other kind is there?) which is more akin to an obstacle course / golf game than anything else. Which is fun to play, and is great for the mobile nature of a smartphone. The graphics are kind of cool, with the difficulty setting on the game actually being quite suitable for a little casual fun.

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Windows 8 revealed!!

Yesterday Microsoft unveiled to the public the first glimpse of what Windows 8, the next version of their highly successful operating system, will look like. As you can see from the above image, it’s going to be quite different from the look and feel introduced in Windows Vista, and then further refined in Windows 7. The goal here on the part of Microsoft would appear to be to position Windows 8 as their single OS for desktops and laptops, as well as the emerging tablet PC market that is presently dominated by Apple’s iPad. While it’s quite clearly still in an alpha phase of development (the demo at the All Thing’s D conference didn’t go into a huge amount of detail), what we have seen already looks gorgeous, seems very responsive, and best of all is so much more touch-enabled than anything Microsoft has released previously as a mainstream desktop operating system.

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Windows Phone Mango revealed!!

A few days ago Microsoft offered up a public unveiling of the next major release of Windows Phone, codenamed “Mango” (quite why it’s code-named this I have no idea). While other companies, such as Apple and Google, have gone with lots of small updates in between annual major refreshes, Microsoft appear to be backing a more pedestrian update schedule. Sure, we seem to be getting a major new version every 12 months, but instead of lots of minor bug fixes and updates in between, so far we’ve only received one “service pack” style update since the original Windows Phone launch late last year. Mango appears to be quite a significant upgrade over the original, with a large number of improvements across the board. Does it bring it in line with iOS 4 and Android Honeycomb? Not sure, but it’s certainly got a wealth of very welcome new features and improvements.

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Who is Johnny X?

Back in 2009 I was looking at buying my first Windows Mobile device, and I couldn’t decide which one to get. While I was attracted to the work by HTC, in particular their then current HTC Touch 3G mobile phone (itself their response to the then current iPhone 3G), I was a bit of a Sony Ericsson fanboi, and was seriously considering going for their first WM6.1 device, the XPERIA X1. It was a great little phone, with a fantastic slideout QWERTY keyboard and the world’s first real Retina Display (despite whatever claims Apple might make about the iPhone 4).

What really swayed me about getting the device was the amazing Webisode series that Sony Ericsson put together to assist in marketing the phone. Who is Johnny X? was a 9-part series that was a rip-off of The Bourne Identity, but one in which the hero of the piece uses the features of his new X1 to find out his identity. Ambitious, certainly, but it actually did work as a nice piece of cinema.

So while the original web site itself has long since vanished, the YouTube channel that SE set up for the series is still active, and I thought it might be nice to present the edited together version of the serial on the blog here. Yes, it does attempt to sell you a hideously outdated mobile phone, but the actual storyline is quite cool, and the production values are to die for.

The trailer and the full movie are embedded after the break. Enjoy!

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