Last weekend, Glenna, Paul and I attended E For All, the consumer-oriented half of what used to be the E3 Expo.

We had a good time, though in many respects the expo itself did not live up to the hype. There were a handful of big exhibitors in attendance (Nintendo, EA and Konami being notable examples) but many more opted not to - including the likes of industry giants Sony and Microsoft. As you can imagine, this put a huge dent in how many people showed up and the number of A-list titles on display.

The following video recap from Screw Attack more or less sums up the positives and negatives of the show. Granted, this is their first year out but I hope they put a stronger effort into recruiting the big names in the market to show up.

Even though it was definitely no E3 (which I’ve also been to in the past and enjoyed greatly), we did get to see a few good games. Here are my impressions:

Guitar Hero III

If you liked Guitar Hero II, you’re probably going to like this game just as much. There honestly isn’t that much new to it, though battle mode is a lot of fun and should offer Paul ever more ways to hand my ass to me in a Guitar Hero game.

Rock Band

Rock Band is similar to Guitar Hero, though it takes the game a step further by including drums and a microphone to the mix along with the usual lead and bass guitars - allowing for up to four players to get in on the action.

I personally feel that Rock Band’s presentation is much better in Rock Band, though, and the tour mode (single or multiple player) adds an element and feel to the game lacking in Guitar Hero’s comparatively simple “play down a list of increasingly difficult songs” motif.

IGN has what is probably the most in-depth preview of the game to date, including information on the tour mode that we didn’t have a chance to see when we played it at E For All.

I have to admit, I am a bit more hyped for this game than Guitar Hero III, though I’m planning to get both when released. I also preferred the look and feel of the Rock Band guitar, though that is somewhat subjective.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Glenna and I had a chance to go head-to-head in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the upcoming continuation of Nintendo’s unusual and highly-addictive fighting franchise. Not much to say here except that if you liked the previous games, I think this one will be a hit as well.

Rayman Raving Rabbids 2

A sequel to the enjoyable launch title for the Nintendo Wii, Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 continues along the same vein (judging from the six European-themed mini-games we played). They seem to have improved the multiplayer experience, however, allowing up to four players to get in on the action at once - in the previous game, you usually took turns.

There were a few other A-list titles shown at E For All - Super Mario Bros. Galaxy and Metal Gear Solid 4 in particular - but not really a whole lot else. More notable were all the games that weren’t there in any capacity, some of which I really would like to see (Spore, LittleBigPlanet, Haze, Grand Theft Auto IV, etc).

Immediately after Apple dropped the price of the 8 GB iPhone by $200 (from the outrageously overpriced $600 to the only somewhat overpriced $400), Glenna and I went out and purchased a couple.

What kept me from buying before were what I saw as an extraordinarily high price (which Apple has, to a great degree, remedied) and the lack of support for 3rd party software - which I’ve gone into some detail about in the past.

Well, not long after its release some enterprising people were able to gain access to the iPhone and now there is a relatively straightforward way in which to put 3rd party software onto it. While most of what has been released so far is of limited value, more and more software is being released daily (you can even install an Apache web server and Perl onto it, which completely blows my mind). Better yet, there are some indications that Apple really doesn’t mind - even going so far as to say that they have no intention of intentionally breaking 3rd party software installed on iPhones.

This gives me some hope that they will be offering up an official SDK and 3rd party support some time in the not-too-distant future.

As for the phone itself: It’s really nice.

The user interface is far more intuitive and enjoyable to use than anything I’ve ever seen in a cell phone to date, and clearly lives up to Apple’s reputation in that regard. Unlike my old Treo or RAZR everything is just about where I would expect it to be and works well. Some features - such as visual voice mail - are so obvious that it’s hard to believe it has taken this long for it to make it into the market.

That said, it also lacks a lot of functionality that phones in this price range - or even that of phones that are far less expensive. I understand and agree with Apple’s “less is more” philosophy of minimalism, but there are some places where it seems that they cut a little too close to the bone.

Some of this, I hope (and believe) will be solved over time as Apple updates the iPhone software. It’s definitely a v1.0 product and everything that entails (except that, for me at least, it has been perfectly stable). Some of these functionality holes are those that would be best addressed by 3rd party developers, though, so I hope that Apple reconsiders their currently exclusive policy.

…

On a vaguely related note, in a post today John Gruber dissects Apple’s recent inclusion of ringtone purchasing in iTunes, exposing it for the blatant money-grab that it is. I pretty much agree with him on the matter - it’s really quite disappointing that Apple has chosen to force people to pay for 30 second snippets of songs that they already own.

My mother Sondra - who had been battling small-cell lung cancer since November - passed away at 3:35 AM yesterday morning. She was 56 years old.

Even though she faced many difficulties in her short life that she did not deserve and was abused and discarded by some she had trusted, she still offered her love freely and in great abundance. I can think of nobody else who has suffered so greatly and yet still have such boundless capacity to give to those who would accept it.

I was but one recipient of that love, and it has made all the difference in my life.

I love you, Mom - and I will miss you…

Well, the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference keynote for 2007 has come and gone, and some interesting info has come out.

Mac OS X

First and foremost, this WWDC was clearly centered on the upcoming Mac OS X v10.5 (”Leopard”), as it should be. From what I’ve seen, Apple has been doing a great job at cleaning up the Mac OS X user experience and adding some nice user-interface improvements.

One of the most interesting new features are what Apple calls “Stacks“, which are really just a re-implementation of a UI concept they toyed with (but never actually released) in the mid-1990’s called “Piles“. Basically, it allows you to throw a bunch of associated files and folders together in a loosely grouped virtual pile, easily accessed from within the Finder. It’s nice to see Apple burrowing through its long history of user interface research and implementing it.

Quick Look seems like a no-brainer to me, and I’m a bit surprised it’s taken this long (though in some cases you could already see previews of certain media types from within the Finder by using Get Info).

The improvements to the Finder look nice, though quite honestly I don’t see much practical benefit to Cover Flow (I barely saw a purpose when Apple implemented the same interface in iTunes). It seems like a horribly slow - but flashy, I guess - way to dig through your files.

I have to admit, though, I do like the added polish that Mac OS X is getting. While they are unlikely to result in any actual usability improvements, the slightly transparent menu bar and reflective Dock shelf do look nice. What will help usability, I think, is the apparent decision to decide on a single window chrome appearance and stick with it (how far this will go remains to be seen - will Apple’s pro-level apps, such as Logic, take on the same consistency?).

Either way, it sounds like it may be death to brushed metal, and not a moment too soon.

Improvements to the Finder sidebar will make it easier to access files on other computers or over a network (even remotely, if you are using .Mac). Very cool. I doubt I’ll use it often, but it will certainly be a nice option.

A lot of the keynote was spent reviewing already announced changed, such as Mac OS X’s virtual desktop feature “Spaces” and goofy new iChat functionality. The former will be a great boon to window management on the Mac while the latter will demo well but be ultimately useless. Time Machine still looks cool and useful.

Safari for Windows

Completely out of the blue, Apple announced that they are porting Safari over to Windows. I’m not entirely sure what the purpose of this is, though it’s clearly a shot across Microsoft’s bow, especially now when Firefox is already putting the squeeze on Internet Explorer’s market-share.

While I’m uncertain as to the motive behind this move, anything that helps prevent Microsoft from lording over web standards is fine with me.

Anyhow, a beta is already available.

iPhone

I don’t know whether I should laugh or cry.

The eagerly-awaited iPhone is about to land with a June 29th release and one of the biggest questions in the Mac developer community has been whether or not Apple would open it up to 3rd parties. Early on, statements by Steve Jobs have indicated that they would not. Jobs even went on record as saying that they didn’t want errant 3rd party applications crashing AT&T/Cingular’s network:

“You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.”

Of course, anyone who knows anything knows that this explanation is a load of BS, and that if an errant client side application can crash the entire AT&T/Cingular cellular network they have a lot more to worry about than piggy 3rd party software. It becomes even more absurd when you realize that many cell phones on the market now already support 3rd party software.

Anyhow, months have passed and there has been a lot of complaining from within the developer community (myself included) about this huge Apple misstep. The real reason Apple opted not to provide a way for developers to access the iPhone is, obviously, because AT&T/Cingular are deathly worried that someone will create a killer VOIP app and find a way to make phone calls for free. The iPhone’s 802.11 “wi-fi” support makes this a real possibility, especially as open hot-spots become more common.

But, really, is it the developer community’s fault that a fully-functional iPhone SDK puts pressure on AT&T/Cingular’s business model? Is it the customer’s fault? No on both counts. If AT&T/Cingular didn’t suck so damn much, maybe people wouldn’t be so inclined to route around them in the first place.

Rumblings and rumors had it that during WWDC Apple would offer a mea culpa, provide a nice iPhone SDK and earn the adulation of anyone and everyone who had an itch that Apple itself could not scratch (which, Apple worship included, means a lot of people). I even had plans of writing a nice little “with that out of the way, I can begin drooling over the iPhone now” weblog entry today.

So, what happened?

Apple copped out.

During the keynote, Jobs announced that “no SDK” would be required to write software for the iPhone - that you could write remotely hosted web-applications (using XHTML, Javascript, etc) that would run under Safari with some added hooks to help integrate them into the iPhone user interface. In other words, if you’re lucky, you might be able to re-implement the kind of functionality found in Mac OS X Dashboard widgets.

This leaves all sorts of questions unanswered: What if the network is down - will there be a way to store code locally so that it can be used offline?

How will this work, running applications over AT&T/Cingular’s lousy EDGE network? I can’t imagine that it would be very fun. Will they be introducing a reasonably priced unlimited data plan, or continue reaming the consumer with their current plans?

Of course, this completely undercuts developers. As a web developer myself, there are entire classes of software that just can’t be implemented using XHTML and Javascript. I hate to think of someone trying to write an SSH client using AJAX, for example. Don’t even bother writing a game more exciting than, say, Solitaire.

That VOIP application I referred to above? Count that out - which, of course, is the entire point.

Ultimately, it’s the consumer (and the developers who cater to them) who have to do without.

I’ve not missed a month in over half a decade, and I’m not about to start now.

Forgive me - just been busy, is all. I’ll have a bit more time and inclination to write sooner or later, I’m sure.