Marvel Comics, iPad team-up reviewed |
- Marvel Comics, iPad team-up reviewed
- Read Marvel comics and race with one finger: iPhone apps of the week
- Trick Gmail into thinking you're on an iPad for two-pane goodness
- Spurned, Adobe touts iPad apps using AIR, Flash
- Tony Hawk skates onto the iPhone
- Plants vs. Zombies for iPad gets hot and buttered
- Mozilla fixes security hole with Firefox 3.6.3
| Marvel Comics, iPad team-up reviewed Posted: 02 Apr 2010 06:22 PM PDT The largest comic book publisher in the United States has joined forces with the hottest device so far in 2010 to create a seamless comic book reading experience. Marvel on the iPad is slick and sexy, as users have come to expect from high-end apps on Apple devices, but it's not the digital panacea that comic book readers or publishers have hoped for. At least, not yet. The app opens to a splash page image of some of Marvel's best-known superheroes: Wolverine, Iron Man, Captain America, Spider-Woman, and Thor. That's no small irony that Marvel's version of the mythological Norse god is included in the art, since Thor and other Asgaardian deities are part of the public domain, and the closed system approach is one of the big prerelease complaints of the iPad. The biggest strength of Marvel on the iPad is the size and portability of the screen, which has very little to do with the ComiXology app that Marvel's is built on. The iPad screen, as you've read elsewhere, is gorgeous. It doesn't do very well in direct, bright daylight, but otherwise it's easy to both read the word balloons and gaze at the art. The resolution of the drawn pages on the iPad can't be understated, as the device is the closest thing to replicating a readable, holdable comic book page. The lettering style of comics, now done mostly on computers but based on handwritten fonts, looks natural on the iPad. This effortless display and readability works in tandem with the second strength of the Marvel app: it's hardly noticeable. There's no awkward design in the interface, no confusing labeling or odd button placement. When you're reading a comic, the app disappears completely. When you tap the screen, the thin menu bar appears at the top, with a minuscule page preview at the bottom of the app. This keeps upcoming pages from spoiling the story, but the navigation requires you to slide your finger along the pages to choose the one you want. The previews are too small to simply tap and go with accuracy for most people.  Marvel's comics store uses Cover Flow well in an attempt to start readers off on familiar footing. (Credit: Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)If you're not familiar with the Marvel app for the iPhone, which is also built on the ComiXology platform, the page zoom resolves into high-resolution close-ups of individual panels. Reading the comic with only one panel visible at a time won't work for all comics out there since many page layouts are more complicated than an array of rectangles, but for pages that use standard formatting the letterboxing view allows the reader a surprising amount of control of tension in the story. How fast you read the comic, and how fast you discover what happens next, is entirely up to you. The panel-by-panel zoom and progression isn't new, but it never looked this good on the iPhone. One drawback from a reading perspective is that the app splits double-page spreads into single pages, where one image covers two sequential pages. That's not a deal-breaker, but it seems an odd defect given that comics from around the world often have double-page spreads. A more important problem has nothing to do with readability, and will likely go unnoticed by many readers. The comics are nonportable. You can not transfer them to your desktop, or even to your iPhone. When you buy them, unlike when you purchase MP3s, you are purchasing them for the iPad only. This may change in the future, but for now this means that your comics are only as good as your iPad is. This is an incredibly restrictive DRM, and unlike movies, music, and books, binds your comics to this particular device in a way never seen before. To me, at least, this is a deal-breaker. Why pay for something that you don't truly own?  A minuscule strip at the bottom of the comic lets you navigate pages out of order. (Credit: Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Despite these hang-ups, there's no doubt that the comics store is just as well-oiled as the comics reader. The Marvel Comics store takes heavy cues from the iTunes store, complete with Cover Flow. This looks fantastic on the iPad, especially with Marvel's brightly colored superhero comics covers a natural fit for the Cover Flow style. Tabs at the top help you narrow down your choices, and tapping a comic will pull up more detailed information on the book. You can download or read it if you've already downloaded it, check out the preview, or see the full series of issues for that title. There's also a "Buy in print" link that takes you to a comic book shop locator, but that's the current extent of outreach to comic book shops. Marvel says that readers will be able to preview three pages from each comic for free. According to a press release from Marvel, the comics currently need to be recolored and "redigitized" before being added to Marvel's catalog, so don't expect new comics on their regular Wednesday street date for the time being. Marvel has said that it expects to have about 500 comics available Saturday, when the iPad reaches the general public. The available comics run the gamut from modern incarnations of Iron Man and multihero stories like Civil War to the first appearance of Spider-Man from 1963. There's no doubt that the Marvel app is a great piece of eye candy. If you don't mind the restrictions it could be the catalyst that gets you reading comics again, or reading them on a computer for the first time. However, not being able to remove your comics from the iPad and read them elsewhere can be a bitter pill to swallow for those who don't like Apple's new paradigm. The Marvel Comics app for the iPad is free. The comics themselves are currently available only as individual issues, and most are $1.99. A small handful are available in full for free. Originally posted at iPad Atlas |
| Read Marvel comics and race with one finger: iPhone apps of the week Posted: 02 Apr 2010 05:38 PM PDT  (Credit: CNET) The iPad will be released to the public tomorrow, April 3, but we have one in the building for review purposes today (check out our hands-on review). I had a chance to try a couple of apps out myself and--let me tell you--this thing is something special. Pardon me for a few moments while I exhibit a little breathless fanboyism, but the iPad is truly an experience that you need to try for yourself before making any judgments. What I noticed right off the bat is that the iPad puts out great sound (along with the large, bright screen), adding to the experience of iPad-enhanced games I've played previously on the iPhone. The iPad we have on loan from Apple came loaded with popular apps, and if you read any of the Apple news sites, you know the iPad-ready apps are pouring in like a flood. Every 20 minutes I'm getting a new press release from app publishers announcing their iPad versions. I guess we now know that there will be no shortage of iPad exclusive apps--even on launch day. We already knew that Apple developed the iWork apps for iPad (I will be reviewing them at Download.com early next week), but there's plenty more to be excited about. Some of the more noteworthy new titles include Real Racing HD, the super realistic auto racing game; Things for iPad, the to-do list and productivity app; Scrabble, now made even better by the larger screen; and many more. As the iPad apps keep flooding in, I'll keep my eye on my favorites so when I have a dedicated iPad I can start writing more for our newly launched iPad Atlas site. Want more iPad news? Check out our iPad landing page where you can check out all iPad related news and articles. This week's iPhone apps include a big-name comic book app and a racing game with unique controls. View each panel full screen or you can double tap to zoom in. The interesting thing about the Marvel Comics app is how you view an actual issue. The app dispays each panel by itself and lets you zoom in on artwork with a double tap. A swipe of your finger moves on to the next panel, but with larger panels, the swipe can zoom out further to reveal more of the action--a unique method of revealing more of the story. Overall, if you're a fan of comic books and the Marvel Comics universe, this app offers an easy way to search for and purchase new issues and a great way to experience comic books on the go. The iPad version offers several other features and shows entire pages. We have a detailed review of Marvel along with other comic book apps at Download.com. Touch Racing Nitro ($3.99) lets you race around complex tracks with sharp curves, jumps, and obstacles using only one finger to control your car. The game offers a tutorial for learning the one finger-controls, and I recommend starting there first, because it's a little tricky. The two main game modes in Touch Racing Nitro are the Free Racing mode and the Tournament mode. Free racing comes in handy to practice your one-finger driving skills with no time limits and no opponents. But once you start a Tournament, you'll need to race against three computer-controlled opponents and try for the best position to unlock tracks and more Tournaments. As you progress you'll be able to compete in indoor races, 4x4 Monster Truck races, and the high-speed Supertrax Cup. There are 12 vehicles in all (along with custom paint jobs) and 18 challenging tracks to explore. The control system in Touch Racing Nitro takes time to learn and the one-finger racing--though effective--is not without its drawbacks. The idea is that you touch the track ahead of your car to make it accelerate; the further away from your car you touch, the faster you go. When you want to slow down for sharp turns, bring your finger closer to your car. After some practice I was able to be competitive with the computer racers, but the biggest problem was not being able to see enough of the track. Unfortunately, the one-finger racing mechanic often means your finger and hand obscure large parts of the screen while racing. Clearly this is not ideal and may even be a good argument for grabbing the iPad version (should you decide to buy an iPad). Though I think Touch Racing Nitro has a lot to offer with a unique control system, several tracks, and challenging race modes, I'm not sure it's worth the $3.99. In other words: it's a good game, but you may want to wait for a price drop. What's your favorite iPhone app? Are you excited about the iPad? What do you think of Marvel Comics' iPhone viewing style? Is Touch Racing Nitro better than I make it out to be? Let me know in the comments! |
| Trick Gmail into thinking you're on an iPad for two-pane goodness Posted: 02 Apr 2010 01:04 PM PDT  Gmail's two-pane view on an iPad (click to enlarge). (Credit: Google)Google on Friday announced that it's got an iPad-centric version of its Gmail Web app that gives users a two-pane reading view of their in-boxes. The funny thing is, you don't even get this on the normal version of Gmail, or on most mobile clients. You can, however, trick Gmail into thinking you're on an iPad with some tweaking. All that needs to be done is to change the browser's user agent, which can be done with just a small amount of effort on some browsers. Here's how to do it in three of them (in order of easiest to most difficult): Safari This works on both the Mac and PC platforms. Just head into Safari's "preferences" menu, then hop over to the "advanced" tab. Go all the way to the bottom, and make sure the "show develop in menu bar" box is checked. Close the menu, then you'll find a new "develop" option in the main menu. On the Mac this can be found as one of the options on the top of the screen. On the PC, it's on the page-looking icon next to the Safari settings button on the top right of the screen. In either case, find the develop menu, then go to user agent, then pick "other." You will get a menu to type a custom user agent string. Just drop this (found at blog Digital Inspiration) in there:
Easy peasy--now you're done. Head over to Gmail, log in, and you're good to go. Firefox With Firefox, it's not nearly as easy to change user agents as it is in Safari. You're going to have to download an extension for it first. User Agent Switcher is the most popular one. And the good news is that this add-on is good for many other things, like tricking certain sites into thinking you're on the browser they require. Once you've installed UAS, you'll find its options in the Tools menu at the top of your browser. A new option for "default user agent" will be there, go ahead and select that, then "edit user agents" in the sub-menu. Now you just have to opt to create a new user agent. Clear out all the text boxes that are already filled out, then give it a name (like "iPad"), and drop the same user agent text that we used in Safari (above) in the user agent box. When finished, User Agent Switcher should have already picked your new iPad setting as its default, meaning you're good to go. Just be sure to switch it back to the default for any other pages you're on. Chrome Chrome is the hardest of the browsers to trick into thinking it's an iPad. For the time being, the Chameleon User Agent Spoofer extension does not work with the settings we used for Safari and Firefox. Instead, you need to go into the guts of Chrome, and change the user agent settings with a hex code editor. Does this sound like too much work? It is, but it can be done. Blog Labnol has a good how-to guide here. Just swap out the agent string at the end of step two with the same code we used for Safari and Firefox. Bonus for Android users:  Users of the xScope browser on Android (QR download code on the right) might have noticed that an overnight update of the app added the iPad user agent option in the browser's built-in user agent switching. On our Nexus One, this kind of worked when holding the phone in landscape mode, though it was utterly useless when held in portrait mode. Still, this option was a whole heck of a lot easier than trying to tweak the user agent settings in any of the aforementioned desktop browsers, even if it's just as useless. Some big caveats all around Since Gmail for iPad has been designed for the touch screen, you may have some trouble cruising through your list of messages on the left with your mouse. For us, in Safari, this wasn't even possible. We just had to go through messages by using the up and down arrows. The same goes for viewing conversations that went off the page. That's honestly not worth the benefit of a two-pane view, if you're losing the option to see more than a few messages at a time. With the iPad view you're also missing out on all the other goodies like Gmail Labs add-ons and keyboard shortcuts. So the verdict for now is: "hey, this is neat!" But it's nowhere near being worth the hassle. It is, however, a good sign that a two-pane view could be headed to the regular old version of Gmail in short order. Update: As you may have discovered, browsers don't always carry over the user agent setting to new tabs. Safari, for instance, won't. This means you have to set the user agent for that particular tab, then open up Gmail within it. Trying to go to Gmail in a freshly opened tab will simply take you to regular old Gmail. Originally posted at Web Crawler |
| Spurned, Adobe touts iPad apps using AIR, Flash Posted: 02 Apr 2010 10:56 AM PDT  Just as a host of Apple iPad applications emerged Friday, Adobe Systems took the opportunity to tout its own programming technology that in some ways is in opposition. Adobe's Flash technology is ubiquitously plugged in to PC browsers, and the company is trying to spread a related technology called AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) for standalone applications. But Apple has barred the doors against it on the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and now the iPad. Adobe wishes it were otherwise, but meanwhile, it offers other options for programmers: Flash Pro CS5, which lets programmers repackage AIR apps so they run on the iPhone and now iPad. There are 100 applications written this way in the Apple App store that run on the iPhone and iPad. The repackaged AIR approach will work on Android, BlackBerry, and other devices in the future, Adobe said. And Adobe also touted Dell's 12-inch Latitude XT2, a tablet PC with a 12-inch screen, and an upcoming tablet with a 5-inch screen. Both run "a broad variety of Flash content," Adobe said. Google, though it is allied with Apple in the effort to augment HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to provide a no-plug-in alternative to Flash Player, takes a more pragmatic stance. Google is building Flash into its Chrome browser and updating it automatically to patch security holes faster. Originally posted at Deep Tech |
| Tony Hawk skates onto the iPhone Posted: 02 Apr 2010 09:46 AM PDT  If you can master the onscreen controls, you should find THPS2 an enjoyable skate down memory lane. (Credit: Activision)Believe it or not, there is some game news this week that doesn't involve the iPad. Activision's console classic, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2, is now available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The game looks and plays much like its 10-year-old PlayStation precursor--with, I'm sorry to say, similarly chunky graphics and a rather muted color palette. But you know what? Those things won't matter to THPS2 fans (whose numbers are legion), because the iPhone port delivers the same kind of freewheeling fun as the original. You can hit the 'boards as the titular legend or one of a dozen other pros, skating your way from the classic warehouse level to 13 other locales. Of course, you'll need to perform tricks, complete various goals, and, ultimately, earn enough points to unlock subsequent levels. That's all part of the game's career mode, though there's also a free-skate option if you're just learning the ropes (make that rails).  (Credit: Activision) As for the controls, you can rely on the accelerometers or an onscreen D-pad to steer your skater. But with either configuration, you'll still use onscreen buttons for the four basic trick maneuvers: flip, grind, grab, and ollie. Make no mistake: these are no substitute for a physical controller, and I think they can make for a frustrating experience. What's more, newcomers should take note: THPS2 comes with no instructions to speak of, nor any in-game tutorials. As a relative newcomer myself (I played a little Tony Hawk back in the day, but was never a giant fan), I couldn't figure out how to build enough speed to perform, say, a flip without ending in a face-plant. What's more, I found the game rather claustrophobic on my iPhone screen. THPS2 all but begs to be played on an iPad. However, though I fully expect that Activision will release an iPad-optimized version at some point, for now the game is categorically an iPhone/Touch title. And a pricey one, at that. THPS2 sells for $9.99, though it's a safe bet Activision will drop the price before long. That's been the case with virtually every high-profile game like this one. Will you wait, or is the lure of Tony Hawk made mobile too strong to resist? While you're mulling that over, be sure to check out these other console classics for the iPhone: Driver, Earthworm Jim, Resident Evil 4, and Rock Band. Originally posted at iPhone Atlas |
| Plants vs. Zombies for iPad gets hot and buttered Posted: 02 Apr 2010 08:34 AM PDT  The iPad's bigger screen real estate has held some of the biggest promise for fans of tower defense games, and iPhone and iPod Touch best-seller Plants vs. Zombies from PopCap could be one of the best early examples. The iPad version of the title, dubbed Plants vs. Zombies HD, was leaked last week along with a slew of other iPad games through Apple's iTunes Web interface for apps. At $9.99, it costs more than three times its smaller sibling. However, the iPad-optimized version brings the game nearly up to parity with the versions found on PC and Mac computers, which cost twice as much. This includes the proper top placement (instead of the side) of all the weapons and resources you must work with to defeat your zombie foes, as well as survival mode, which lets players try to stay alive for as long as possible. For many of those who have finished the game's campaign, this is the mode of choice, and something that was sorely missing from the iPhone version. iPad users also get a new (and exclusive) mini-game mode called "buttered popcorn," which makes use of the iPad's multitouch display. As PopCap explains it: Players attack zombies by first "buttering" them up before firing corn-cob cannons at them. To defeat the growing hordes of zombies, players can touch them to place butter on their heads. With the multitouch user interface, players can select up to 11 zombies at a time, targeted for 'buttering' by the powerful cob cannons. Presumably, by selecting "11 at a time," PopCap means players are expected to use their nose, or the help of a friend, to select the extra zombie beyond their own 10 digits.
 The new "buttered popcorn" mode has players tagging the zombies they want to take out with their fingers. Useful for times you want to focus your attentions on the baddies at the front of the line. (Credit: PopCap/CNET)PopCap says it's sold 650,000 copies of the title for the iPhone and iPod. Users who have already paid for that version will, of course, still be able to play it on the iPad, but will need to buy a copy of the HD version if they want to take advantage of all the new features and extra screen real estate. More screens after the break. Click on any shot to see it in its native iPad resolution.
 Butter and zombie flesh does not normally go all that well together--unless you're using it to help corn cannons find their targets. (Credit: PopCap/CNET)
 Situations where you have a ton of zombies on the screen are made slightly less difficult to see with the iPad's larger resolution. (Credit: PopCap/CNET)
 The UI for selecting defenses has been moved back up to the top of the screen. On the iPod/iPhone version, it had been moved to the left of the screen. (Credit: PopCap/CNET)
 More hot zombie defense action. (Credit: PopCap/CNET)Originally posted at Web Crawler |
| Mozilla fixes security hole with Firefox 3.6.3 Posted: 02 Apr 2010 02:12 AM PDT  Mozilla released Firefox 3.6.3 on Thursday to close a critical security hole. The hole, a memory corruption flaw, could have let a remote attacker run arbitrary code on a person's computer. The problem doesn't affect Firefox 3.5 or other earlier versions, Mozilla said. Mozilla released Firefox 3.6.2 just over a week earlier, also for security reasons. Update at 7:12 a.m. PDT: The new vulnerability was disclosed at the CanSecWest conference in March, according to a message from Mozilla security team member Dan Veditz. Originally posted at Deep Tech |
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