Steve Jobs Speaking at D8 Conference

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is currently speaking at the D8 conference hosted by All Things Digital. Esteemed writers Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg are moderating. I’ll pull some choice quotes from you, courtesy of Engadget’s excellent live blog. Keep refreshing for updates (if you wish)!

On why he wrote that lengthy diatribe about Adobe Flash:

We aren’t going to make an effort to put this on our platform. We told Adobe to show us something better, and they never did. It wasn’t until we shipped the iPad that Adobe started to raise a stink about it. We were trying to have a fight, we just decided to not use one of their products. They made a big deal of it — that’s why I wrote that letter. I said enough is enough, we’re tired of these guys trashing us.

On the stolen iPhone HD prototype that ended up with Gizmodo:

The person who took the phone plugged it into his roommates computer. And this guy was trying to destroy evidence… and his roommate called the police. So this is a story that’s amazing — it’s got theft, it’s got buying stolen property, it’s got extortion, I’m sure there’s some sex in there (huge laughs)… the whole thing is very colorful. The DA is looking into it, and to my knowledge they have someone making sure they only see stuff that relates to this case. I don’t know how it will end up.

On Google suddenly becoming a competitor:

Well they decided to compete with us. We didn’t go into the search business!

On the iPhone giving more choice to consumers and taking away software control from carriers:

When you bought a phone the carrier dictated what you had on the phone. iPhone was the first phone where we said, “You worry about the network. We’ll worry about the phone.”

We found a way to sell the phone that we want to sell. We didn’t think we could do it, but we did. We’d never been in this business, and AT&T took a big leap on us, and it’s worked out really well. And we really changed the rules of the game.

On the App Store approval process:

We have a few rules: has to do what it’s advertised to do, it has to not crash, it can’t use private APIs. And those are the three biggest reasons we reject apps. But we approve 95 percent of all the apps that are submitted every week.

[I’m still wondering why Google Voice got rejected….]

It’s audience Q&A time and the questions have been boring so far. I’m going to watch NXT and check in again later.

Answering a question on gaming:

Clearly iPhone plus iPod Touch have created a new class of gaming. It’s a subset of casual gaming, but it’s surprising how good some of them are. They’re almost as good as console gaming in terms of graphics. Console games the software is $30 or $40 a game. It’s cheaper on iPhone, so the market has exploded.

[Wow, Jobs has no idea what the hell he’s talking about when it comes to games.]

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Developer Pulls a 180 on Apple’s App Store Approval Process

Last April, an unnamed Australian developer wrote a lengthy blog post about how the media was wrong about the “evils” of Apple’s approval process for its iPhone App Store. It was flowery — full of rainbows, unicorns, and pots of gold. Here’s are a few lines from the post:

I love the app store and the amazing hassle-free distribution it provides and I only really have a few niggling concerns with how Apple has dealt with us, as developers.

I don’t think there’s that much that is ‘murky’ about their approval process, every time our apps have been rejected it has been for a reason that is documented in either an interface guidelines document, or some other part of their documentation. In my experience (and that’s all I can comment on) it’s extremely well documented as to what you can and can’t do.

Several weeks later, the developer has changed its tune. Its iPad application, MyFrame, is being removed from the App Store and it’s not sure why.

Our application is being removed for a very murky reason, one which is nowhere to be found in any documentation that Apple give us developers, even worse one which Apple themselves refuse to explain, or put in writing. Reminds me a little of Alice in Wonderland: ‘I think I should understand that better, if I had it written down: but I can’t quite follow it as you say it.’

The developer even emailed Steve Jobs and received an unsatisfactory response. One month was free or murk and the next was completely murky. It’s funny how things can change so quickly.

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Virgin Returns to Games with…a Frickin’ Countdown Clock

For the last week, rumors have been swirling about Virgin’s return to the gaming world. Virgin Interactive was once a big player in the business, releasing several major titles in the ’90s. It didn’t keep pace with the rapidly changing market and quickly fell apart at the end of that decade. Fortunately Sir Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group, is a billionaire and can afford to fund another foray into gaming.

A lot has changed since Virgin Interactive was around. It will be interesting to see how Virgin Gaming will be different than its predecessor. It certainly has the opportunity to take advantage of a weak market and shake things up with a huge infusion of cash. I just wish it didn’t use that stupid countdown clock gimmick.

What do you expect from Virgin Gaming? Does the Virgin brand mean anything to you? Will the company focus on consoles, downloads, or social games? Any guesses as to what (specifically) the clock is counting down to?

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Buy a PSPgo and Get Three Games for Free

Sony Computer Entertainment America has announced a promotion for its PSPgo handheld gaming system — buy a PSPgo by March 31, 2011 and get a coupon code good for three downloadable games. The PSPgo is sexy as hell, but it hasn’t sold as well as Sony would have liked. Perhaps this promotion will give it a boost. Here are more details from marketing manager Kristin Neirinckx (great Scrabble score on her last name):

If you purchase a PSPgo system from today through March 31, 2011, you will receive an e-mail with a PlayStation Network voucher to download three games absolutely free! With premiere titles such as LittleBigPlanet, Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters and SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3, the PSPgo “Digital Game Pack” offers you an $80 value while giving you access to a great variety of our biggest games to get you started gaming on-the-go. What better way to get started with an all digital, full-scale, console-quality handheld gaming experience?

Are any of you tempted by this promotion? Do you think it’s enough to give the PSPgo a significant sales spike? Or is the portable in dire need of a price cut?

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L1 Games’ Chet Muzzalupo Continues to Fight EA Online Pass

Level One Games’, an independent game store in Ohio, owner Chet Muzzalupo has posted another rant against EA Online Pass. Crusading against what he calls “Nazi-esque extortion” by EA, Muzzalupo gets down and dirty in this video. He questions what the “$10 solution” is paying for and who it’s really going to. He wonders why EA execs are making so much money while making it more difficult for its fans to buy games. At the end of the video he issues at challenge to any EA exec that will take him on.

Check out the video if you have a chance and let me know what you think of Muzzalupo’s opinions (please).

Coffee Talk #152: Is Google Mobilizing a Fanboy Army?

At Google I/O 2010, I was fascinated by a number of comments delivered by vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra during the show’s keynote sessions. His not-subtle-at-all jabs against Apple were entertaining and a little curious. Here are two of my favorites.

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, Celtics vs. Lakers, Bryan Danielson taking it to The Miz and Michael Cole, or walking the bases loaded to pitch to A-Rod, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

At Google I/O 2010, I was fascinated by a number of comments delivered by vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra during the show’s keynote sessions. His not-subtle-at-all jabs against Apple were entertaining and a little curious. Here are two of my favorites.

On why Google started Android:

If we did not act, we faced a draconian future where one man, one company, one carrier was the future.

On why Android OS will support Flash in contrast to iPhone OS shunning it:

It turns out, on the Internet…people use Flash!

Although Google I/O is a developers conference, the keynotes were being covered by the press and recorded so that millions of people could watch them on YouTube. Enticing developers to create for Google platforms is certainly the primary goal, but in this day and age, keynotes have a performance element to them as well. I was wondering what Gundotra was trying to achieve.

Over the weekend I read this great article by TechCrunch’s excellent MG Siegler about Android fanboys arriving. In the tech world, you won’t find a more passionate bunch of nerds than Apple fanboys. They will rip your heart out (you know, the Internet equivalent of ripping your heart out) if you tell them that the iPhone isn’t a form of sorcery or that Steve Jobs isn’t God’s other son. No group of fanboys comes close to matching their zeal, but they certainly need competition.

With Android 2.0 and the release of the Motorola Droid (late 2009 for both), the iPhone finally had a worthy competitor. Things have just been getting better and better for the platform with the release of the Nexus One, Android 2.1, and Droid Incredible. Soon the Evo 4G and Android 2.2 will be here to add fuel to the fire. Apple and Google are competing on so many fronts these days — advertising, web browsers, mobile operating systems, television, etc. Perhaps Gundotra’s comments were made to bring fanboys into the Google fold. If so, it’s a wise move.

In the end, Google will not be able to get its fanboys to be as passionate or numerous as Apple’s. In the end, it doesn’t matter. It just needs enough numbers to be a strong #2 or #3. As I told RPadholic smartguy recently, Google’s core competency is advertising and it doesn’t need to be #1 as long as it has millions of customers to serve ads to.

Apple Sells Two-Million iPads in Two Months

Apple has announced that it has sold two-million iPads in less than 60 days. Considering that the device is only (officially) available in certain countries, the number is extremely impressive. I expected the iPad to be tremendously successful, but this situation is different from the success of the iPod and iPhone. There were popular MP3 players before the iPod and popular smartphones before the iPhone. In both of those categories, Apple took things to another level be offering a refined and consumer-friendly experience. In the case of the iPad, Apple was the first company to bring tablet computing to the masses.

The iPad is just a fantastic device for media consumption. I know that a few of you had doubts about the iPad before its release. After seeing those sales figures, how do ya like ‘dem Apples?

Wipeout, Star Strike, and Mr. Pain Going 3D on PlayStation 3

Wipeout HD, Star Strike HD, and Mr. Pain will be getting downloaded patches on June 10 that allow the games to be experienced in stereoscopic 3D. As of this writing, the download date has only been confirmed for Japan. Andriasang has the skinny:

The three lucky first recipients of 3D support will be Wipeout HD, Star Strike HD and Mr. Pain. Current owners will be able to update Wipeout and Star Strike to 3D support for free. Mr. Pain will require a separate ¥300 purchase to unlock a 3D mode.

Those who haven’t purchased the games yet will of course still be able to buy them, with pricing set at the current ¥1,800 for Wipeout HD and ¥800 for for Star Strike. Mr. Pain will be available for ¥1,000, but even new purchasers will have to spend ¥300 extra to get the 3D mode.

It will be interesting to see how well these downloads perform. It’s a real chicken-and-egg scenario here (Aristotle was right, btw). There aren’t many gamers that can experience 3D on PS3, but until there are enough compelling titles available there’s no incentive to upgrade.

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HTC Evo 4G (Not) Review Part 5: Camera Thoughts and Test Shots

My HTC Evo 4G (not a) review continues! This installment covers the phone’s camera. Since HTC has a history of serving up phones with merely average cameras, my expectations were low in this department. I was pleasantly surprised to have them exceeded. While the Evo 4G’s camera isn’t as good as the ones in several Nokia, Samsung, and Sony-Ericcson phones I’ve used, I’d say it’s above average. It will let you snap good photos in pure auto mode. If you take the time to adjust settings, you can snap really good photos with it.

Some reviewers have complained about the Evo 4G’s lack of a dedicated camera button. This wasn’t a problem for me at all. I love the camera’s touch-to-focus feature and almost always use a focus point that isn’t dead center. I understand why some people prefer a dedicated button, but for me it doesn’t get easier than touching your focus point to take a shot (and no, “touching your focus point” is not code for pleasuring yourself).

Since none of you are trying to be Ansel Adam with a camera-phone, all of the test shots I snapped were in full auto mode. This first batch is a bunch pictures that didn’t use the flash. As expected, the camera works best when there’s plenty of natural light. The results were mostly good, but overly sharp.

Here are some shots in low-light conditions using the HTC Evo 4G’s dual-LED flash. The camera’s flash is very powerful and can easily mangle shots. It can blow things out and usually produces images that are too soft. This is not unexpected for a camera phone. I do like that the Evo has a strong flash, unlike some other smartphones. The flash is a good tool, but it’s easy to misuse.

I also snapped a quick video in 720p with the Evo 4G. The video quality is very, very good but it’s difficult to show you the true output. Sure, you can go to this video’s YouTube page and watch the 720p version, but it’s still not the same as plugging the phone directly into an HDTV through HDMI. Hopefully this gives you a decent idea of the phone’s video capabilities.