My iPhone development diary on Twitter

Announcements, Comics, Electronic Literature, Games, iPhone, Music,
9/12/08

Since the iPhone 3G was released and the developer program opened to the general public, I’ve been cramming—learning the ins and outs of the SDK (not to mention C, Objective-C and Cocoa) in the hope of developing an original application by year’s end. Progress has been good so far, in that wonderfully frustrating way that happens when you’re really stretching your skills. Painful happiness!

I’ll be releasing more info about the project as time goes on, but there’s two things I can report now: the first is that I’m working again with comic artist Ezra Claytan Daniels, who is doing some really wonderful illustrations for the piece. The second is that I’ve finally caved and started a Twitter account for the purposes of keeping a micro development diary on the project. So, if slightly vague descriptions of programming tasks and other minutia are up your alley, then you’ve come to the right place. Must remember not to violate NDA…

 

Top five sci-fi/fantasy moments evoked by the iPhone buying experience

Fun, iPhone,
7/15/08

So, even though I told myself on Saturday at the Glendale Apple Store that to stand in line for 5+ hours for an iPhone was patently ridiculous, somehow I ended up doing it myself yesterday at the Sherman Oaks Apple Store. At first, I was suckered in by a line that initially seemed to be moving briskly, slowing down only after I had invested too much time in the experience to give up. Ultimately, however, waiting inside the Fashion Square mall with the encouragement of my wife and kids and some pleasant chaps to chat with (even if mall policy required the security guards to prevent us from sitting down) was just way more pleasant than standing inside the Glendale Galleria parking garage next to some obnoxious dude bragging about his romantic exploits.

During my extended stay on the polished marble, I kept finding myself reminded of seminal moments in sci-fi and fantasy movies and TV in which anticipation and revelation play a major role (usually with unhappy results!). So, without further ado (and with thanks to linemate Nathan Bowers for suggesting item number two), here are my Top Five Sci-Fi/Fantasy Moments Evoked by the iPhone Buying Experience:

5. “Mr. Roth, will that be the 8 or the 16 gigabyte model?”

Perhaps we were all waiting in line to “go home” like poor Sol Roth in Soylent Green, shuffling off this mortal coil to a glorious montage of the 1984 commercial intercut with endless musings of Mac Guy and PC Guy. iPhone is… do I have to say it?

4. “An entrance, Captain, but no exit. They go in, but they do not come out.”

At one point we heard that activation could take as long as two hours for one person. Why? Perhaps in reality the whole iPhone line had been declared dead in a simulated war like the one fought in the classic Star Trek episode “A Taste of Armageddon,” and nobody was coming out… ever.

3. “Farewell, my friends! I go on to a better place!”

If death was to be our fate, it didn’t have to be an unhappy one. What about the cute little green aliens from Toy Story awaiting selection from the divine claw? They had a great attitude about the beyond. Of course, it was completely naive and unjustified, but…

2. “How would you like your earthlings, Supreme Commander Jobs?”

Great user experience, powerful applications… the iPhone is all about service, right? Serving Apple’s customers? Serving mankind? In fact, you could say that Apple’s unspoken mission statement is “To Serve Man”... hmm… wait a second…

1. Worst. Unboxing. Ever.

Finally, if we did ever manage to get our hands on an iPhone after spending ridiculously long amounts of time in line, what was likely to occur? Technological bliss, or… divine judgment? Raiders of the Lost Ark offered one scenario. “Don’t look at the light, Marion, keep your eyes shut!”

 

BAVC’s Producers Institute kick-starts innovative online documentaries, serious games

Events, Games,
6/27/08

I was recently invited to be a mentor at the Bay Area Video Coalition’s Producers Institute, a week-long intensive workshop in which teams of independent documentary producers are immersed in interactive technologies and techniques and then develop pitches for interactive projects based on their work. At the end of the week the project teams pitch their ideas to potential funders and hopefully get a kick-start on the path to getting their proposals underway. Though I was only able to help out for two days towards the end of the workshop, it was still a pretty amazing gathering to see and be a part of.

The main project I was involved with at the Institute was the forthcoming work from Take Action Games (TAG), the company best known for Darfur Is Dying, a game about the crisis in Sudan which received a lot of media attention and helped to put serious games on the map for many people. I’ve had the pleasure of consulting with TAG team members Susana Ruiz and Huy Truong before, and have found their professional style to be a wonderful mix of a strong vision combined with a genuine excitement about the medium and an openness to new ideas. Looking forward to finding out more about their latest project, In The Balance: The Death Penalty Game, I wasn’t disappointed, as Susana, Huy, and Ashley York are again bringing their talents to bear on a challenging social issue and stretching the boundaries of the medium in the process (the project was recently written up in the Washington Post).

I met with a number of project teams while at BAVC—the whole atmosphere of the gathering had a lot of camaraderie and intensity as the various groups, flush with new information from the Institute’s various speakers and events about leveraging documentary content online, sought to assemble compelling pitches for a host of fascinating projects. For a taste, check out the following video from The Drax Files, whose creator Bernhard Drax was documenting the goings-on. This clip touches briefly on In The Balance during a chat with Tony Walsh, a veteran BAVC mentor and founder of the game development firm Phantom Compass. Drax filed a number of reports from the Institute, so check out The Drax Files if you want to see more.