super-structure

So, you might have picked up that I’ve been on something of a fantasy kick lately. One thing that I’ve considered doing off and on for several years now (Okay, ever since I got out grad. school - whatever) was picking up role-playing games again. I played them a lot as a kid and loved every minute of it. They appealed to me on so many levels: tons of maps, loads of math & tables, and open ended stories.

I ended up find a group on MeetUp.org who run some 4 hour games, once a month; most of which were aimed at beginners and people getting back into the game. This sounded like a perfect fit. Saturday evening, I broke out an old Player’s Handbook and created¹ a pretty basic character for myself. I was never very good at coming up with fantasy character names (I once named a rogue character Robin Stealer. Subtle, no?), but I know of a group that is great at it: Ikea. So, I named my first level, dwarf fighter after a very tasteful and modern coffee table (Ramvik, if you’re curious).

Sunday, we all drove down to Murfreesboro to the comic and games shop. I got a seat at the D&D table while Angela and Ainsley looked around briefly at some comics. They then took off to tool around the mall while my game got underway.

Now, I suppose on some level, the seven people around the table fit exactly the description of D&D players you likely have in mind right now: white males sitting indoors on a perfectly nice sunny day. However, despite that general stereotype, these were a fairly diverse lot: a grad. student, a downtown lawyer, a high school math teacher, a father and his son - who had recently gotten his dad back into gaming, and the father of a 1 1/2 year old (who seemed happy to get out of the house and play a game with adults). What’s more, they were all outgoing and fun personalities. While the game ran a bit long (even at five hours, we didn’t quite finish); a good bit of the time was spent joking around. Instead of dice and pencils, we could have just as easily had poker cards and chips in our hands.

Other than the fact that I ended up losing my voice by the end of it (as much from all the laughing as anything else), I had a really great time. So much so, I plan to make it a monthly event. Angela said she might even join in for a game in the future (by the way, there are females in the MeetUp group, just none happened to be playing this past weekend).

Oh, and the game itself? It was a fairly tough module, actually. Fortunately, we had a decent mix of a 7th level barbarian, a 3rd level cleric, a 3rd level rogue, a 1st level ranger, and two 1st level fighters (including my Swedish furniture namesake). I ended up dying at the end, but the DM allowed for the NPC cleric whom we were helping to resurrect my character out of gratitude after the fact. I think the DM felt bad since my character died on my first game and that I might not have enjoyed it. Quite to the contrary, I had had a great time and I was actually kind of glad that it wasn’t a cakewalk. I got to feel like I was working on a team trying to figure out a mystery.

As I said, I can’t wait until next time.

1. I would have formerly said "rolled" instead of created, but there’s no rolling involved in character creation anymore - at least not in the method employed by this group.↵

Oh, to have blogged in so long and only to come back with a measly list of fluff. Well, something’s better than nothing, right?

I’ve been on a rather rampant fantasy kick as of late:

1. "Dungeons & Dragons" - That venerable fantasy RPG lost one of it’s founders last month. However, not to be stopped, a new 4th edition of the rules are being published in June. D&D has definitely come up out of Mom’s basement, showered, and decided that hanging out with some of the cool kids isn’t so bad, after all. This, along with the fact that nerds are now cool, might just make for a renaissance of table-top gaming.
2. "Dragonlance" - When I was a kid, "Dragonlance" was the coolest D&D setting (at least to my pal, TJ, and I - he even had the campaign book). An animated film was released to DVD in January of the first of the original trilogy of novels. You know, the sort of the thing that every kid dreams about as they read fantasy novels at age 12? Ah, even at that age, I’d have understood just how bad this adaptation was. I was depressed but happened upon a fantastic graphic novel by Devil’s Due Publishing of the same series of novels made me almost completely forget what an awful film Dragons of Autumn Twilight was. I even picked up a new novel by the same authors, which so far has been quite enjoyable.
3. Krull - Speaking of D&D and my childhood (the two of which are pretty closely linked), I learned from IMDb that the 80’s fantasy film Krull was originally to be the first official "Dungeons & Dragons" movie. I went back and watched it and too things struck me: A) it doesn’t really resemble D&D at all and B) it wasn’t nearly as good a movie as I remembered it being (Great way to start a career, there, Liam Neeson!). Then I realized that pretty much all movies based on D&D have been awful: Krull, Dungeons & Dragons, Dragons of Autumn Twilight. When a movie by the SciFi channel is the best of the back, that’s just plain sad. I think Wizards of the Coast should encourage a TV series, instead. Better yet: more graphic novels.
4. Graphic Novels - Having read the graphic novel of Dragons of Winter Night, I went in search of more graphic novels to feed my endless need for scifi and fantasy. Oh boy, did I find them: Aliens, Predators, Aliens vs. Predators, Conan the Barbarian, G.I. Joe… okay that last one isn’t really scifi, but did I mention childhood nostalgia? Maybe that’s a better theme here. Anyway, I’ve been on a graphic novel kick and, despite it being a rather pricey habit, it has been very rewarding. A lot of these really represent some great comic book artform and I’ve determined are often my best hope for amazing fantasy visuals, gripping plotlines, and epic characters. They sure as hell aren’t to be found in any of the movies.

5. Audiobooks - Lastly, I’ve also been on something of an audiobook habit (more posts to follow on this subject). I was able to find some really great audiobooks by R. A. Salvatore and Michael Moorcock; two men who write about troubled anti-heroes with long, white hair. I even found audiobooks for that original Dragonlance trilogy I mentioned. There’s just one drawback to the audiobooks: I used to listen to these (along with podcasts) on my commute. Now that I hardly drive at all, it’s going to me forever to listen to them all!

Well, before you give me a wedgie and shove inside my locker along side my Player’s Manual, I should also say that I’ve been enjoying Season Two of The Wire, as well as all this fantasy stuff. Perhaps that explains it: I needed something whimsical and out-of-this-world to balance out the dark, gritty nature of a show like the The Wire. At least, that’s why I keep telling myself.

When I was a kid, I played just about every computer text adventure game I could get my hands on. I did try to play one of those graphical D&D games, but it never seemed to run very well on my VTech Laser128 (an Apple II clone). However, the text adventure games seemed to have so much more wit to them. I think it was very much a result of the games’ authors being required to focus on story and find creative responses to all the crazy sorts of input that players would be sure to enter. I mean, didn’t we all instruct our brave adventurer to “pick nose” at some point?

So, I was really excited to see the trailer for Get Lamp, a documentary film about the text adventure game. Check it out. Of course, this is about as Indy as independent films get and the film maker isn’t too sure when he’s going to release it — you’ll just have to sign up for the e-mail list.

And if you’ve never played a game like this, or just forgot how fun they were, then why don’t you go play Zork for a while? Don’t forget your trusty map:

…and if you’ve got a more recent version of OS X installed (like me), then you can no longer play the copy of Zork you downloaded from Infocom’s website. You can still install the Zork engine and play via the Terminal. However, if you’re too lazy to do that (also like me), you can still play a web-based version at iFiction.

Naturally, the internet is glowing white hot with people talking about Apple’s iPhone SDK (software developer kit) meeting earlier today. Anything Apple related gets a lot of buzz, and iPhone news pegs the hype-o-meter. However, lest I sound bitter, I think today’s announcements deserve the attention. I wanted to point out some of what made today’s meeting important.

Business-Conscious

There were three important items that showed just how serious Apple wants to corner the business smartphone market. I don’t think anyone argued it wasn’t a huge market, but there have been some rather loud Apple pundits cough fanboys cough who seemed to think that much of this was unimportant to Apple and their market plans for the iPhone. I think it’s pretty obvious that such a huge portion of the smartphone market with some very particular demands are either going to get those demands met or they simply aren’t going to use iPhones. Apple is likely to completely ignore them.

First, and most obvious, is the fact that the iPhone is going to support Microsoft Exchange e-mail. This is important for me, personally, if I want to use an iPhone for business in any practical way (web mail isn’t what you’d call an efficient method of checking mail on the go). Not only is the iPhone going to support it, they are integrating it directly. This is a much better implementation than what RIM currently has for their Blackberry phones. For Apple to have taken the mentality that because Exchange isn’t in-house (or simply just because it’s Microsoft), they should ignore it, would have been a huge and costly mistake. Possibly at the chagrin of many an Apple fanboy, Apple is simply licensing this popular enterprise technology from Microsoft; which is absolutely the right move.

Next, I found Apple’s choice of demo applications particularly interesting. While they had the obvious crowd pleasers like AOL’s Instant Messenger, EA’s Spore, and Sega’s Monkeyball, they also showed off to apps for very specific business markets: Epocrates and Salesforce. Of course, most of the internet just gave a collective "uh, okay. And?" because these aren’t sexy or flashy pieces of software for the masses. In fact, that’s exactly the point. By choosing these apps for the demo, Apple sent a clear message to users of high-end, specific apps: We got your backs. Epocrates is widely known among medical professionals (just ask my wife¹), who adopted the Palm platform early on and have been with it for a very long time. Of course, as Palm slowly dies, they’ve gotten little love in the Windows Mobile world. Now, Apple comes along and shows off something that speaks directly to them. Getting Salesforce on stage, I suspect, is the same for the sales people of the business world. The fact that most of the tech pundits have no idea what these pieces of software are, nor do they care, must feel like status-quo for the people in these markets. However, here’s Apple saying we care, guys. We care.

Lastly, on the business side, was Peter Schiller’s response to ArsTechnica’s question regarding private organizations distributing applications internally:

We are working on a version of the AppStore for enterprise that will allow corporations to distribute apps to their end-users securely.

So, while it is essentially true that the only method to get your app on iPhones is via the AppStore, Apple is recognizing business’ need to distribute applications internally only.

So there’s the three things for business: first-class Exchange support, showing off specialized business apps, and opening the possibility for internal app distribution at the enterprise level. Sure, most of the tech pundits don’t really care about those things, except that they don’t represent a huge chunk of Palm and Blackberry users, do they?

VOIP

Another very short, yet very important piece of information came during the Q & A. When asked about the possibility of VOIP on the iPhone, Steve Jobs responded:

We’ll limit them over the cellular network but WiFi will be fine.

As well as when asked about dealing with the carriers (emphasis mine):

We have a great relationship with our carriers. We struck a new kind of relationship with our carriers where Apple is responsible for the software on the phone. Really, this is our program and we’re running it.

So Jobs says VOIP is fine over WiFi and the cellular networks aren’t going to get to decide what apps get on the phone. Well, I’m not sure why you’d use VOIP over the cellular network. VOIP over WiFi is there to replace voice over cellular! Which of course, is why the networks wouldn’t want it there in the first place. Apple will, of course, be selective as to what apps make it. They’ll be no where as bad as the cellular networks would be, though.

But is VOIP on the iPhone practicle? I suspect there are a number of urban users who could use Skype (etc.) over WiFi and never even activate their phone with AT&T. Of course, that’s a bit hypothetical right now since there are no VOIP apps available right now and we don’t entirely know the specifics of how the AppStore is going to work. However, I think the cellular-less iPhone is not just possible, but a real solution for some people.

Small Developers

A sizable portion of the apps on my Mac aren’t even to version 1.0 yet² That is to say, they is a lot of great "Beta" software out there that is available for download and, despite not yet being fully baked, can be very useful. These are, by and large, from independent developers who have bigger ideas to offer than they have time to devote to. They want something out there for folks to kick around (for any number of reason, self-promotion and prior-art arguments not the least of). However, with Apple controlling the gateway (just as I, and pretty much everyone else, predicted), we may not see a lot of these potentially useful little apps getting onto iPhones. I don’t really know just how tight Apple is going govern this. They may not at all, especially for the free apps. However, given they’re just now opening up the platform at all, I suspect they’re going to keep a pretty short guest list at the party. Given my desire to see long-tail apps on the iPhone, this would a real disappointment to me³.

I was really impressed with the developer tools. I think Apple has provided a great package. By doing so, and by stressing just how easy it is to develop apps quickly (how many times was “I can’t believe this was done in two weeks!” said?), they’re really hoping to entice developers quickly. Apple is doing a great job of betting customers and developers to come to the platform at the same time with this. Often, the developers don’t want to code for a platform with no customers and the customers don’t want to buy into a platform that doesn’t have any software. Apple looks like their straddling that problem with near perfection.

Regardless, over a year after it’s first formal announcement, I’m ready to just go ahead and buy an iPhone. I may not do it tomorrow, but pretty much all my demands have been met. It’s time I just go ahead and drink the Kool-Aid.

So, anyone interested in buying a used 80GB iPod Classic or Sony Ericson W810i?

1. Angela told me she is going to seek out the people at Lexi-Comp, Epocrates’ main competition, at her conference next week. She’s pretty much going to tell them that either they get their app on the iPhone platform, or they lose her to Epocrates as a customer - and probably many more like her. Then again, since the iPhone already has over 3x the market share of Palm smarthone users, they’re likely to do just that.↵
2. Some good examples of sub-1.0 software that I use fairly regularly:
   • VLC 0.8.6
   • KisMAC 0.2
   • TVShows 0.3.4
   • Lostify 0.7

   ↵

3. Of course, the obvious solution to this is just to call you’re first piece of software v1.0 - and never have a 0.X "Beta" version. That’ll work, right, Apple?↵

Initially, Angela was pretty excited about the Apple iPhone when we watched Steve Job’s presentation on the day of it’s announcement. The ability to have all of her electronics in one easy-to-handle device was very appealing to her, even with the high price tag and required cell provider switch (which we did, with some regret after the fact). Of course, this is the big draw to the iPhone for a lot of people, coupled with the amazingly elegant interface.

However, her enthusiasm soured as she learned that not only would her old handheld software not work on the iPhone, there was not going to be any sanctioned third party applications. Her handheld pharmacy data base is her killer ap and it’s non-existence is a deal-killer for her.

Big deal, right? Who else cares about a pharmacy database? But that is the big deal: there is a large pool of existing applications for the handheld market that don’t work on the iPhone and those users aren’t (and sometimes can’t) turn their backs on them just for a nicer phone experience. Sure, the iPhone isn’t just a PDA, but if it is to replace all those gadgets in someone’s pocket, it has to replace all those gadgets.

Apple was the poster child for long tail economics. The iTunes Music Store showed what was possible with infinite, free shelf space. Apple doesn’t write music or shows, they just re-sell them in a central and easy to use store. They even now have some software (even if they are just some rather unappealing games for the iPod).

So, in my opinion, the killer ap for the iPhone isn’t even entirely on the phone. Rather, it is a software store in the iTMS. Apple gets to set some barrier to entry which will help to screen out a lot ‘undesirable’ stuff, helping to ensure the stability and usability of it’s phone platform. This allows for software that goes way down the long tail to flourish and opens up the entire platform of the iPhone to users that might not have been able to take advantage previously. I think that this is the gateway that February’s SDK is going to present: Apple as online software re-seller.

The second part couples with this: getting existing long tail software onto the new platform. If we are to believe that the iPhone is a mobile version of OS X, then what is to stop it from running Palm or Windows Mobile software in a mini-virtual machine environment? Of course, there is some overhead with running software this way. However, it’s not too hard to imagine that a current iPhone can run at least a Palm emulator and software from a decade old mobile OS¹. Sure, Windows Mobile might be more of a stretch, but it also doesn’t have the number of applications that Palm does (did, if the rumors of Palm’s death are to be believed). Therefore, a Palm VM would have the most reach down the long tail.

So that’s my half-prediction/ half-wish for the iPhone: An online store from Apple for third-party apps and one of those apps being a Palm emulator on the phone itself.

1. One possible advantage the iPhone may have here is that it uses an ARM architecture processor, similar to that found Palm v5.0 devices. Of course, I don’t know whether Palm apps from earlier versions (v4.0 and earlier), which ran on Freescale processors, run on Palm v5.0. If not, this isn’t an advantage but a not-so-small hurdle. Further, the iPhone uses the ARM11 where-as recent Palms seem to use the X Scale. I’m not going to pretend to know enough about chip architecture to make any further assertions, other than to say this might be an advantage.↵