iPhone 4 Presser

CNN always finds the "best" quotes:

"From a customer's point of view, this is a really unsatisfying response, because a lot of people feel like the bumper cases -- or cases of any kind -- are just not that pretty," said Dylan Tweney, an editor at Wired.com. "They definitely make the phone look less attractive than it does by itself."

So, let me get this straight, the problem is that the design of the phone is causing the issue (according to much of the press), but the solution to the problem - which is to change the design - is not acceptable? While the bumpers might not represent the most attractive possible solution, I doubt Apple will be able to solve this "problem" without taking away from the elegance of the phone.

But I feel like I'm just pouring fuel on the fire. Want a solution that allows you to enjoy your phone and not detract from the design? Just use the phone as is... because for 99% of the users that are quietly enjoying their awesome new phone - it works just fine.

No Flash on iPad Now More Irrelevant

http://www.hulu.com/plus

If only they had all previous seasons of House.

Editing Key Bindings in OSX

If you're like me, you want the 'end' key to take you to the end of the line and the 'home' key to take you the other direction. On OSX this isn't so. Perhaps more frustrating than doing nothing, it takes you to the end of the file! The OSX shortcut (cmd ->) works well on laptops but is a disaster on full keyboards.

I found this great tutorial by the TextMate guys on how to do this.

http://blog.macromates.com/2005/key-bindings-for-switchers/

Enjoy!

How To Identify A Race Track

MINI is running a clever viral marketing campaign by challenging Porsche to a race. They even suggested it be at Road Atlanta - a highly respected, established circuit.

However, when they came out with the actual track, the whole thing became a joke. So, I made this guide for anyone that decides they want to race, but don't know where.

Premultiplied Alpha for iPhone Games

If you have made a game, you know that premultiplied alpha (or lack there of) is a huge pain. If all your textures are one or the other it is no problem...

Premultiplied -> blend mode(ONE, ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA)

Straight alpha-> blend mode (SRC_ALPHA, ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA)

The problem arises when you have a mix. No one wants to switch their blend modes depending on the active texture. For the iPhone, your textures need to be straight alpha. You may find some blog posts about how premultiplied is better, but in the end, the iPhone uses PowerVR hardware and compressed PVR textures have straight alpha - regardless of the source image's alpha scheme (If think you don't need PVR compression... well.. good luck). Here is why that can be annoying:

PVRTextTool (texturetool): straight

Photoshop: premultiplied

3ds max renderings: premultiplied

Bitmaps generated with Quartz: premultiplied

So how do you convert those premultiplied images into straight alpha images AND not use compression (for example on a character atlas)? The answer is still PVRTexTool! To my greatest pleasure, PVRTexTool outputs all raw OpenGL supported formats in addition to compressed formats (eg RGBA8888).

Set up a "Script Build Phase" to your iPhone app target which runs PVRTexTool for all your textures - compressed or uncompressed - it may save you some pain... and loading time.

Scott Forstall / Facetime

Farmville on iPhone

Yuck. The allowance eating virus has made it's way to the iPhone. I would really love to see a breakdown of the dollar spend by age group in Farmville. The game itself is fine, but selling kids objects of incomprehensible value is an ethical grey zone. Throw in the fact that those virtual items can improve in game performance - and you have a full scale ethical nightmare.

Just what I want, 80 million kids who think money is the means to success.

Zygna v. Ngmoco - FIGHT!