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Soul Calibur Coming To iOS This Week→

Soul Calibur Coming To iOS This Week

Namco’s Soul Calibur – the first episode that was released on arcade in 1998, then on SEGA’s Dreamcast in 1999 – has been ported to iOS and will be released this week, on January 19. Aside from being compatible with the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, the game will feature Retina graphics and Game Center support.

Namco Bandai also promises that the virtual pad controls on the touch screen will better recreate traditional controls. The game will have Game Center support with high scores listed on the Leaderboard; six modes (arcade battle, time attack, survival, extra survival, practice, museum); and 19 playable characters, including Kilik, Xianghua, Maxi, Mitsurugi, Taki, Voldo, Sophitia, Nightmare, Astaroth, Ivy, Hwang, Yoshimitsu, Lizardman, Siegfried, Rock, Seong Mi-na, Cervantes, and Edge Master.

Japanese blog 4Gamer offers the first screenshots of the game showing graphics comparable to the Dreamcast version, as well as touchscreen controls for iOS devices – here’s a direct link to a single screenshot. 4Gamer also posted actual hands-on material, including first impressions of a pre-release version and a trailer [Google Translation].

Fans of the original Soul Calibur can look for the game to hit the App Store on Thursday, January 19.

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The Omni Group Posts Omni Sync Server Stats, Service Coming To More Apps

As a follow-up to their previous update on Lion adoption numbers, The Omni Group has published a blog post on Omni Sync Server usage stats. The Omni Sync Server is a cloud-based system that handles OmniFocus databases across Macs, iPhones and iPads. It’s been in “beta” for several months and it’s free, allowing OmniFocus customers to keep their tasks in sync over-the-air free of charge.

The Omni Group monitored usage on the OSS, and found out that roughly 31,500 users were active in the past 8 days (at the time of publishing the blog post). 92% of iOS devices on the OSS were updated to the latest version of iOS, 5.0.1; the most popular Mac computer in usage logs has turned out to be the 2011 MacBook Air with 10%. As for OmniFocus, the majority of active users are opting for the Mac+iPhone combo, with “all 3” being the second most registered option. Surprisingly, “only” 2069 users were active as iPad-only.

With Omni Sync Server, The Omni Group has built its own cloud that syncs user data across the whole OmniFocus ecosystem on OS X and iOS. The developers have also confirmed that the service will come to other document-based Omni apps, such as the popular OmniOutliner. Indeed, the lack of proper automatic sync between the mobile and desktop versions of these apps has forced many users to either switch to different software with Dropbox support or rely on third-party tools such as DropDAV, which turns your Dropbox into a webDAV server compatible with Omni apps and Apple’s iWork for iOS (the latter lacking cloud sync before version 1.5).

You can read more about OmniFocus’ sync and the Omni Sync Server here.

Camera+ Reaches 6 Million Downloads, Over $5 Million In Revenue

The developers of Camera+, the most popular alternative to Apple’s Camera.app on the iPhone, have posted updated statistics regarding the performances of Camera+ in the App Store, and the results are quite astonishing. To date, Camera+ has sold over 6 million copies and earned over $5 million after Apple’s cut. Camera+ was first released on June 7, 2010, and was later pulled from the App Store in late July, only to come back in December 2o10 with version 2.0. Since then, the app has been growing in popularity and receiving updates with various enhancements and bug fixes.

Over the past 6 months, Camera+ revenue has increased over 3x. Play along and fantasize for a second about that trend continuing over time… if it keeps going, by 2018 our daily sales would be twice the world population. Yeah, this growth might not be sustainable over time. Anyway…

The two most relevant things contributing to the large jumps on the right side of the above chart were the launch of the iPhone 4S in early October and the annual Christmas bump. Both were increases that were expected but what’s been surprising is how long each has lasted.

tap tap tap’s latest blog post is interesting not just because of app sales numbers alone: I think it provides good insight into the 4S “bump” from October and the typical sales increase in the holiday season, which is related to new users buying apps for their new devices. This year, however, sees a new iPhone model released against the holiday season for the first time. It’s been widely reported the iPhone 4S should be selling really well (we’ll know more on January 24), but tap tap tap’s numbers seems to suggest an impressive growth, not just a good one.

Camera+ is a rare example of a paid app maintaining a stable growth over time with only a few promotions and features by Apple. Read more about the app’s sales figures here.

“Developers, A Love Story”→

“Developers, A Love Story”

Gabe Weatherhead sums up the reason why I started MacStories in 2009, one that still holds true today:

While browsing my Application folder on my Mac, I noticed something. I have a fondness for some apps that I rarely use. I’m just glad that I own them. I may not use them all but I feel good about the money I’ve spent.

If I like a developer I buy their wares just to support their work. When I say “I like a developer” I don’t just mean I like their products. I mean that I like the people behind the products. I like the philosophy, the commitment, the personalities. Sure, I’ll buy software and services from people I think are ass-hats if they make polished high quality stuff. But I’m more likely to buy less awesome software from someone I like than I am to buy highly polished stuff from a jerk. This is especially true in the Indie Software scene. There are real people behind every pixel and algorithm.

We may talk about news and rumors occasionally, but ultimately the people that make the products we use are what really matters. Their stories, the choices they make in developing great software they use in the first place, the way they handle customer support and engage with the community only to make amazing apps that make us more productive every day. I could add a few names from my Applications and iTunes folders: all the app from Edovia. Hazel and MindNode Pro. Airfoil, Alfred, and iStat Menus. I’m serious when I say MacStories is here today also thanks to the Apple developer community. People I (and many others) trust. And great things still have to come.

What’s not to love about the iOS/Mac indie development scene, honestly? Go read Gabe’s post now.

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The Thunderbolt Accessories of CES 2012

The Thunderbolt ports on our new MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros didn’t receive a lot of attention in 2011, with tech demos still carrying on through the mid-year as LaCie and Promise flexed their muscles at Computex. Seven months later at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, several companies were finally prepared to unveil their products integrated with Thunderbolt technologies on the show floor (and we expect to see more at the upcoming Macworld | iWorld). Past the break we’ll take a look at ten new Thunderbolt accessories that offer connected solutions, speedy storage, and new possibilities for stellar gaming performance.

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iPad 3 To Launch In March with LTE, Retina Display, Quad-Core Processor

According to a rumor posted by Bloomberg this afternoon, production for Apple’s next generation iPad, unofficially dubbed ‘iPad 3’, has ramped up and will reach full volumes in February. Several rumors in the past months have tried to pinpoint the exact hardware features of the iPad 3; Bloomberg claims the device will sport a quad-core processor, LTE compatibility and a sharper screen with ‘greater resolution’.

Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s next iPad, expected to go sale in March, will sport a high-definition screen, run a faster processor and work with next-generation wireless networks, according to three people familiar with the product.

Since the introduction of the iPad 2 last year, many industry observers in the Apple community have noted the iPad 2 hardware wouldn’t have been able to manage an increased number of pixels on screen, which require faster processing power. A quad-core CPU, however, would enable Apple to support a ‘Retina’ 2048x1536 screen resolution (thus doubling pixels on screen as the with the transition from iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4), faster app switching and smoother video playback. Support for LTE would allow for faster data connections in regions where 4G is available, and it’ll likely be added through new chips by Qualcomm. According to Bloomberg, LTE will be introduced on the iPad first as the device has got a bigger battery than the iPhone, and LTE is widely known to require a larger amount of power than GSM and CDMA chips.

Bloomberg adds the iPad 3 is ‘expected’ to become available in March, a timeframe that would resemble last year’s iPad 2 launch with a press conference in early March and product rollout in the following weeks. From a design standpoint, recent rumors have suggested the iPad 3 will be either thicker or thinner than the iPad 2 due to the addition of the Retina display, so we’d take this speculation with a grain of salt. Bloomberg’s report seems to fall in line with several separate rumors from the past months, suggesting that the iPad 3 will be a not so minor upgrade with new screen, LTE and quad-core CPU (like A6 processor from Apple).

App Store Search Results Get “Quick Look” Previews

As first noticed by iSpazio [Google Translation], it appears Apple has introduced sometime earlier today a new “quick look” preview feature for App Store search results on iTunes. When searching for apps in the desktop application, in fact, users are now able to click on a small “i” button next to an app’s icon to get a modal preview with additional information about the app. The new preview window organizes Description, What’s New and Screenshots in multiple tabs, and separates iPhone screenshots from iPad screenshots when the app is universal, as with the example above.

You can try the new app preview system by starting a new search in iTunes (here’s a search for Instapaper).

Personally, I believe this minor addition greatly improves usability and app discovery in iTunes. Not only it makes app descriptions more readable (it’s easier to scan information and changelog with tabs), it also allows users to browse top charts and categories without having to go back and forth between the main results and a single app page (often losing view options like “sort by release date” in the refresh process). Recently, Apple also introduced a minor update to the iPad App Store that made swiping through apps more intuitive.

A Software Experiment

For the past couple of years, I’ve been using OmniFocus to keep track of my projects and tasks. I love OmniFocus: it is a trusted system from developers I respect with an amazing set of native apps, constantly updated to take advantage of the latest features Apple has to offer. Yet for as much as I’d trust OmniFocus to handle everything for me, when personal needs change, habits are re-imagined and your workflow has to be finely tuned in a different way, software that is not meant for the purpose can only cover so much before you figure out it’s time to move on.

In the past months, some things changed in my personal life, I started a couple of new projects (including the next two iterations of MacStories), hired new people, and started helping out my girlfriend more with her job, too. To keep track of all this, I used to rely on OmniFocus, which worked extremely well until I realized I wasn’t really following any GTD methodology anymore and I had tweaked the app and made compromises with the software that turned OF into a beast it really isn’t. At the same time, I realized a part of my job – writing for this site – just can’t fit into OmniFocus’ style, at least not in the way I work. Which is to say, my colleagues use OmniFocus to manage their articles, and it works pretty well for them.

I compromised because I love OmniFocus too much. I have a deep respect for The Omni Group – a piece of history in Apple’s third-party development scene – and I have spent hours just browsing the company’s forums to read more about how people use Omni Group apps to get things done. I have dedicated Evernote notebooks just for OmniFocus and OmniOutliner, full with tips, stories, AppleScripts and lots of other cool resources. But it comes a point when, even if a specific software is flexible enough to allow for a huge amount of customization, spending hours learning and tweaking isn’t worth it anymore, especially when you have actual work to get done and people to report to. And tweaking is not getting work done, although it can give you such illusion sometimes.

I’ve been working exclusively from my iPad and iPhone for the past two months. Most recently, I got back to writing full-time again and decided to use my iPad for that, too. In this short period of time, I have used a different set of tools than OmniFocus to get things done, and this ‘experiment’ seems to be working so far.

I don’t blame it on OmniFocus. Like I said that app is fantastic, and version 2.0 is on my wish list of apps I’m looking forward to this year. I kept denying this, but the way I work (and, more generally, live) has changed in the last months of 2011; the app I used to manage my tasks wasn’t the perfect tool for the job anymore. So I stopped tweaking and moved on.

I’m now using a combination of Remember The Milk, Todo.txt and iCloud calendar. This setup is very simple, really, and I can assure you it’s more straightforward then what I had done with OmniFocus over the years. Read more