Can Microsoft make Silverlight shine?
Goldfarb, like Microsoft, is keenly aware though, that until Silverlight fares better on the first front, many Web developers won't spend much time worrying about the second question.Microsoft is taking several approaches to trying to boost Silverlight's distribution, ranging from striking third-party deals like its pact to power the NBC Olympics Web site to bundling Silverlight into other Microsoft products. Although Goldfarb didn't use the word "bundling," he did say Microsoft is actively trying to get other product groups within the company to adopt Silverlight in some way and then distribute it as part of their product."We are working with a broad cross section of our product groups," he said, adding that evangelizing Silverlight across the company is still a challenge, even though CEO Steve Ballmer has highlighted the technology as key to its future. "It's a big ship to start turning around."One of the earliest examples of Microsoft distributing Silverlight with other products: the new version of Office for Mac that shipped earlier this year. Goldfarb acknowledges that there are many considerations in trying to decide which products to include Silverlight with, noting that people are sensitive to having software thrust upon them."What I want to avoid is arbitrarily pushing things on people's machines," he said. "Apple just jammed Safari 3.1 down as part of iTunes."The tie with Office is somewhat tenuous, however. Silverlight is part of the standard installation of Office 2008 for Mac. Office itself doesn't use Silverlight, although the highest-end version of Office now comes with a product called Expression Media, which does make use of Silverlight, Goldfarb said.Over time, Goldfarb said there's the possibility of further integration, such as having the help videos in Office 2008 use Silverlight.Microsoft also uses Silverlight as part of the latest version of the MSN Toolbar, using it to offer display dynamic content, such as RSS feeds.Another potential vehicle for distribution is convincing computer makers to preload Silverlight onto new PCs."Microsoft is already talking with leading (computer makers)," Goldfarb said, adding that the company has developed software that PC makers can use to preinstall Silverlight on new machines. Microsoft also signed a deal with Nokia to distribute a version of Silverlight for mobile phones. "Overall, our intention is to use the Web to distribute Silverlight which offers an easy download experience that takes less than 10 seconds to install but we will also work closely with channel distributors to preinstall Silverlight as appropriate," he added.Attracting mainstream developers Greg DeMichillie, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, said that if Microsoft is willing to pay, computer makers will be willing to include Silverlight."The OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) will preinstall anything if you pay them," he said. DeMichillie said that whatever its strategy, Microsoft needs to get Silverlight on more than three-quarters of Web-connected PCs to really get mainstream developer attention."The magic number seems to be something like 80 percent," he said. "I've heard that from various Web developers."While Microsoft showed some impressive technologies at its recent Mix '08 conference, DeMichillie said most Web developers want to see a lot more eyeballs before they are willing to consider an alternative to Flash. "If Flash is on 98 percent and Silverlight is on 10 percent, you don't even get to the merits of Silverlight. You just pick Flash."Goldfarb wouldn't say what percentage of machines he thought were running Silverlight, pointing to the momentum numbers given out at Mix that Microsoft was generating 1.5 million downloads of Silverlight per day. Goldfarb said the response from Web developers convinces him that Microsoft is on the right path. "We've already started to change the dialogue," he said. "People are believing. It's not a matter of 'if', it's a matter of 'when,' and 'when' isn't that far away."
Rayman- Jungle Run, The Room top Apple's games of the year
Rayman: Jungle Run, The Room top Apple's games of the year
As another year draws to a close, Apple has honoured some of the best releases across the iTunes store in 2012.This year, we had a major and an independent games publisher walking away with top prizes in the games category. Ubisoft's Rayman: Jungle Run (AU$2.99) took top prize for iPhone, and Firebox Games' stunning puzzler The Room (AU$1.99) took the top spot for iPad.Both, in our opinion, well deserve the honour.Rayman: Jungle Run is an eye-popping explosion of gorgeous colours â€" and a really fun to play arcade title in its own right. It's divided into four sections â€" Jump, Fly, Wall Run and Punch â€" each of which is based around a simple one-touch control system. Rayman runs automatically, and you control what he does by tapping or holding the screen; for example, in Jump, tapping the screen anywhere makes Rayman jump, and so forth. The objective in each level is to collect all 100 Electoons â€" not as simple a prospect as it sounds â€" in order to obtain a Death's Tooth. Five of these teeth will unlock the next level, so there's actually incentive to collect a perfect score. It's not exactly deep, but Ubisoft has created the perfect balance between challenging and pick-up-and-put-down gameplay.The Room is a puzzle-box game that sees you exploring in 3D a series of chests, boxes and cabinets that are scrawled with arcane symbols and scratchings and filled with clockworks and cryptic notes. You have to figure out how to open various hidden compartments, fix broken mechanical features to solve the box, collect the story clues and move onto the next box. It can be really tricky â€" but the marvellous thing is that it's never frustrating, with gentle clues that you can read (or ignore) to nudge you in the right direction â€" and we found ourselves, with each successful solution, feeling that excited "a-ha!" â€" accompanied by a warm satisfaction that has us gleefully returning for more. Combined with the tactile experience of touch-based gaming, and minus the pressures of points and achievements, it's a title that's actually exciting to play.Between the beautiful game design, the spooky-but-not-terrifying ambience and the mysterious storyline, it's a stellar achievement in iPad gaming.For App of the Year, Action Movie FX (free) won the prize for iPhone: a movie-making app that lets you add special effects to your iPhone-shot films â€" such as alien attacks, death rays, explosions and floods.Action Movie FX also took runner-up in the iPad category, with victory going to Paper by FiftyThree (free). Paper is one elegant notebook, kind of like turning your iPad into a Moleskine. The free app download includes the pen tool and an array of colours to get you started â€" we love how smooth it is to draw and the touch controls are genuinely clever. Additional tools are purchasable for AU$1.99 each, and you can get pencil, pen, texta and watercolour tools. They all look gorgeous. One minor niggle is that the colour palette is quite small â€" we're hoping to see an expansion in the future, but, in the meantime, it's still one of the most stylish notebook apps we've seen.The runners up also included Figure (AU$0.99) (iPhone app of the year runner up), an intuitive and stylish music-making app; Letterpress (free) (iPhone game of the year runner up), a multiplayer strategic word game; and Waking Mars (AU$5.49) (iPad game of the year runner up), a beautiful exploration game about first contact with alien life.Apple also nominated the best podcast, movie, music, TV show and book releases for 2012.You can find the full list of Apple's Best of 2012 in iTunes here.
As another year draws to a close, Apple has honoured some of the best releases across the iTunes store in 2012.This year, we had a major and an independent games publisher walking away with top prizes in the games category. Ubisoft's Rayman: Jungle Run (AU$2.99) took top prize for iPhone, and Firebox Games' stunning puzzler The Room (AU$1.99) took the top spot for iPad.Both, in our opinion, well deserve the honour.Rayman: Jungle Run is an eye-popping explosion of gorgeous colours â€" and a really fun to play arcade title in its own right. It's divided into four sections â€" Jump, Fly, Wall Run and Punch â€" each of which is based around a simple one-touch control system. Rayman runs automatically, and you control what he does by tapping or holding the screen; for example, in Jump, tapping the screen anywhere makes Rayman jump, and so forth. The objective in each level is to collect all 100 Electoons â€" not as simple a prospect as it sounds â€" in order to obtain a Death's Tooth. Five of these teeth will unlock the next level, so there's actually incentive to collect a perfect score. It's not exactly deep, but Ubisoft has created the perfect balance between challenging and pick-up-and-put-down gameplay.The Room is a puzzle-box game that sees you exploring in 3D a series of chests, boxes and cabinets that are scrawled with arcane symbols and scratchings and filled with clockworks and cryptic notes. You have to figure out how to open various hidden compartments, fix broken mechanical features to solve the box, collect the story clues and move onto the next box. It can be really tricky â€" but the marvellous thing is that it's never frustrating, with gentle clues that you can read (or ignore) to nudge you in the right direction â€" and we found ourselves, with each successful solution, feeling that excited "a-ha!" â€" accompanied by a warm satisfaction that has us gleefully returning for more. Combined with the tactile experience of touch-based gaming, and minus the pressures of points and achievements, it's a title that's actually exciting to play.Between the beautiful game design, the spooky-but-not-terrifying ambience and the mysterious storyline, it's a stellar achievement in iPad gaming.For App of the Year, Action Movie FX (free) won the prize for iPhone: a movie-making app that lets you add special effects to your iPhone-shot films â€" such as alien attacks, death rays, explosions and floods.Action Movie FX also took runner-up in the iPad category, with victory going to Paper by FiftyThree (free). Paper is one elegant notebook, kind of like turning your iPad into a Moleskine. The free app download includes the pen tool and an array of colours to get you started â€" we love how smooth it is to draw and the touch controls are genuinely clever. Additional tools are purchasable for AU$1.99 each, and you can get pencil, pen, texta and watercolour tools. They all look gorgeous. One minor niggle is that the colour palette is quite small â€" we're hoping to see an expansion in the future, but, in the meantime, it's still one of the most stylish notebook apps we've seen.The runners up also included Figure (AU$0.99) (iPhone app of the year runner up), an intuitive and stylish music-making app; Letterpress (free) (iPhone game of the year runner up), a multiplayer strategic word game; and Waking Mars (AU$5.49) (iPad game of the year runner up), a beautiful exploration game about first contact with alien life.Apple also nominated the best podcast, movie, music, TV show and book releases for 2012.You can find the full list of Apple's Best of 2012 in iTunes here.
Estimates peg App Store at 500,000 apps
Estimates peg App Store at 500,000 apps
Apple's App Store has crossed an important benchmark, jumping past 500,000 apps in the App Store when combining apps for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. That's according to Chomp, 148apps and Chillingo, which have put together an infographic of some of the milestones and trends on the way to that number.The infographic pulls out some interesting data points about the progression of the App Store, particularly the price and makeup of the store's volume. Paid apps, for instance, account for 63 percent of the App Store's overall library, and average out at $3.64 an app. Altogether that would cost you $891,982.24 if you wanted to buy the entire library of paid apps.Individual applications are also broken out for both news significance, and chart-topping prowess. That includes Rovio's Angry Birds, which has claimed the top spot in the paid apps category for a cumulative 275 days, followed distantly by The Moron Test, which held the spot for 38 days. Then there are titles like Texas Hold 'em, the first and only iOS game from Apple, which the infographic notes has not been updated in nearly two and a half years.Applefirst launched the App Store in 2008 alongside the release of the iPhone 3G, the company's second-generation handset. When the iPhone was first introduced, there was no software development kit for it, with Apple pushing developers to use the Web instead. Since launching, the App Store's gone on to bring developers more than a $2 billion in revenue, with Apple taking a 30 percent cut of each app sold. The road to 500,000 has been brisk. In January, Apple announced it was up to 350,000 applications, meaning it's taken a little more than four months to tack on another 150,000. To put that in perspective, the jump from 10,000 to 100,000 early on in the store's lifetime took about a year. Competitor Microsoft this morning announced it had just reached 17,000 apps in its Windows Phone Marketplace, which opened up near the end of 2010.Apple's lead in the battle over who has the biggest app volume could be nearing an end though. A report released by analytics firm Distimo near the end of April estimated that Google's Android Market would surpass Apple's in volume sometime in July. That estimate was made based on several months of growth tracking on multiple platforms. Android's split approach, allowing multiple application stores as well as the side-loading of applications, was singled out for opening up the possibility for those numbers to grow even faster than those of Apple, which must approve each application.Apple has not yet made any official mention of hitting 500,000 apps, and AppShopper--another third-party app tracking service--says Apple is about 5,000 shy of that number. Apple is expected to provide more precise information about overall volume, and any changes at this year's Worldwide Developers Conference, which kicks off in a few weeks. A section of the infographic. Click to see the entire image.Chomp, 148apps and Chillingo
Apple's App Store has crossed an important benchmark, jumping past 500,000 apps in the App Store when combining apps for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. That's according to Chomp, 148apps and Chillingo, which have put together an infographic of some of the milestones and trends on the way to that number.The infographic pulls out some interesting data points about the progression of the App Store, particularly the price and makeup of the store's volume. Paid apps, for instance, account for 63 percent of the App Store's overall library, and average out at $3.64 an app. Altogether that would cost you $891,982.24 if you wanted to buy the entire library of paid apps.Individual applications are also broken out for both news significance, and chart-topping prowess. That includes Rovio's Angry Birds, which has claimed the top spot in the paid apps category for a cumulative 275 days, followed distantly by The Moron Test, which held the spot for 38 days. Then there are titles like Texas Hold 'em, the first and only iOS game from Apple, which the infographic notes has not been updated in nearly two and a half years.Applefirst launched the App Store in 2008 alongside the release of the iPhone 3G, the company's second-generation handset. When the iPhone was first introduced, there was no software development kit for it, with Apple pushing developers to use the Web instead. Since launching, the App Store's gone on to bring developers more than a $2 billion in revenue, with Apple taking a 30 percent cut of each app sold. The road to 500,000 has been brisk. In January, Apple announced it was up to 350,000 applications, meaning it's taken a little more than four months to tack on another 150,000. To put that in perspective, the jump from 10,000 to 100,000 early on in the store's lifetime took about a year. Competitor Microsoft this morning announced it had just reached 17,000 apps in its Windows Phone Marketplace, which opened up near the end of 2010.Apple's lead in the battle over who has the biggest app volume could be nearing an end though. A report released by analytics firm Distimo near the end of April estimated that Google's Android Market would surpass Apple's in volume sometime in July. That estimate was made based on several months of growth tracking on multiple platforms. Android's split approach, allowing multiple application stores as well as the side-loading of applications, was singled out for opening up the possibility for those numbers to grow even faster than those of Apple, which must approve each application.Apple has not yet made any official mention of hitting 500,000 apps, and AppShopper--another third-party app tracking service--says Apple is about 5,000 shy of that number. Apple is expected to provide more precise information about overall volume, and any changes at this year's Worldwide Developers Conference, which kicks off in a few weeks. A section of the infographic. Click to see the entire image.Chomp, 148apps and Chillingo
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