Traction

Many pundits have been speculating over the past few months over what impact the new Apple appStore will have on the smart phone market as a whole. The possible ramifications of having such easy access to software on a phone platform were brought home too me this weekend when my iPhone packed up and I considered replacing it.
Now, I'm far from a card carrying member of the Steve Jobs fan club, and my issues with iTunes are many. However, looking around the marketplace for alternatives to my iPhone, I found myself considering such phones as the Nokia e71 and HTC Touch Dimaond, both fine phones to be sure. Now, whilst I dismissed the Nokia easily enough thanks to my personal inability to use blackberry style thumbpads (I'm one of those mutants who prefers the touch screen), the HTC Touch Diamond should have given me more to chew over.

Even trying to ignore the intrinsic flaws in building of the Windows Mobile core (an area where Microsofts policy of "build it slow, computers will get faster" hasn't happened due to battery life concerns, but, I digress) lends a beautiful design but compromised UI to the Touch. Even ignoring the poor battery life and the flaws the phone shares with the iPhone; fingerprint prone and a sub-par camera, my main sticking point was software.

Strange to say such a thing, perhaps the main advantage windows had over palm in the PDA space was the breadth of it's software line-up. However, at a stroke with the appStore, Apple has redefined the software purchase model. already I have several applications on my iPhone that I'd be lost without, it seems clear that within months the clear superiority of the Windows platform in it's third party software range will be called into question. So, the real question is this:
How long till Apple achieves the same degree of customer "lock-in" that they enjoy with their mp3 players? And how long till that becomes a negative for the consumer, ala DRM.

Oh, and I managed to coax my iPhone back to life luckily...

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Too Ordinary

So, I finally tried the Too Human demo

First impressions:

Take the basic structure of Knights of the old republic (not necessarily the good bits)

Add equal parts the over-long cutscenes and hackneyed storyline of MGS

And slap down a big old hunk of confusing and derivative DMC combat


Yeah, not really worth the wait. Oh, hang on, I wasn't actually waiting anyway...

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