I have never been a total fan though. At the end of the day, they are tools that I use to get things done throughout my day. I don’t hold them in any higher regard than the PCs that I use at my workplace (or grew up with). I’ve had my issues with their products as well and I’ll be the first to point them out. I will also be the first in line to point out that Apple has ‘screwing their clientele’ down to a high art. I mean, they have a release schedule and setup that makes sure that everyone that purchases their wares will be jealous of those who purchase the next iteration. They can really be dicks like that. They engineer demand so well that there should be a degree in it available to higher education locales.

But as of Thursday, July 7th, 2011, I can say that I am now a loyal customer of Apple. Still not a fanboy, but they’ve secured my loyalty. And all it took was an email.

The Story

To understand my new-found loyalty, we have to roll back to July 1st, 2011. Canada Day, for anyone that is unaware happens on this day. As a proud Canadian I went off to the large London-based party that took place in Trafalgar Square. It was a fun day despite a gross lack of cider, and fun was had by all. I was decked out in Canadian stuff (shirt, tattoos, etc.) and I was even wearing shorts! I almost never wear shorts due to a general lack of ownership as well as a general distaste for them.

As the day wore down, I, along with my friends, decided to head on home as we were a bit drunk, a bit tired, and in my case a bit (a lot) sunburnt. We took the district line from Embankment, and then transfered to the National rail at Liverpool street. After getting off the train and walking half way home from the station to my house, I noticed that my phone was missing.

Now I knew that I had my phone when I got onto the underground at Embankment, so I had either lost it or my phone had been nicked whilst I was on the train. This can basically be blamed on my shorts – damn you shorts! – since they have wide, shallow pockets, and that’s a bad thing when you are sitting down with a long phone in said pocket. Regardless, my phone was gone.

Fuck.

For those that have never lost their phone, let me describe it to you: it sucks. It sucks badly. It sucks even more if you’re a tech addict like me, and even more so if you legitimately need your phone to do thinks like call people and services.

As soon as I got home, I jumped onto my mobileMe account. Thankfully, I’m involved in the iOS 5 beta (thanks @geofas), which means that I have free access to their Find My Iphone services (something that will be free for everyone, and was formerly a paid-for perk of the mobileMe service). I sent a message to the phone – ‘If you could turn this phone in, that would be amazing’ –  but I had to wipe the phone anyways. Why? Because it’s a company phone, and it’s got a lot of stuff on it that I’d get hell for if it leaked. Nothing sinister, but important work I.P. stuff.

Anyways, once you wipe your iPhone you can no longer track it. This was a sad reality that I just had to take. I had no hope of anyone actually turning in an iPhone 4. I mean, it’s an iPhone 4 in full working order.

On monday, I got the IMEI and SIM numbers from my work and logged the phone as lost with the TFL and National Rail. I wasn’t expecting much. I didn’t even bother reporting it to the police, because in all truthfulness, there isn’t really much they can do. I logged an order with my work for a new phone, and whimpered at the £450+ cost attached to my own stupidity. It was an expensive mistake.

“But Corey!” you sputter, ” Surely a man of your rugged good looks and shining brillance would have phone insurance, no?” No. I didn’t. I almost do now, I have to wait a week after upgrading my bank account but I didn’t have it at the time. Some friends suggested I get some for a phone that I no longer possessed, wait a week, and then report it lost. Basically they suggested I commit fraud. I declined, because I was going to take my costly lesson with as much good grace as I could muster. The high ground sucks sometimes.

I’ll skip the part where I went through horrible tech withdrawal. Suffice it to say, it’s horrible, and I totally understand people who are quitting smoking. Well, the mental portion anyways. I didn’t suffer from the shakes or anything, but I was irritable as shit and perpetually frustrated at everyone around me that still had their phones. It was bad, man, real bad.

As the week went on, I kept an eye on my email, hoping that I’d see an email show up from TFL or National Rail. On Thursday the 7th, I got an email from Apple Support. Now I hadn’t logged anything with them, and so I thought it was probably spam. Just to be on the safe side though I opened the mail, and was given the following:

Mr. Corey dutson

We were contacted today, because your iphone was found, it is in :
Shepherds Bush Police Station
226 Shepherds Bush Road
Hammersmith
London
W6 7NX

kind regards,
andreia, apple team*

*This is actually the address for the Hammersmith Metro Police station. Apple sorta screwed that up, but looking at the street name, I totally get why they could screw that up.

Now either this was the most specific spam email ever, or it was a legit email from Apple. I was willing to take that chance. I dropped what I was doing, jumped on the train, and made my way to the address. Then I went to the real address after I found out Apple gave me the wrong one. I walked into the police station and 5 minutes, some joking, and a lot of thank yous later, I was re-united with my phone.

We had celebratory Thai food that night. It was divine.

What happened?

As near as I can tell, when I logged into the Find My iPhone system and wiped my phone, Apple must have flagged the IMEI number in relation to my account. When the phone was plugged in, charged, and processed at the police station, Apple must have been alerted through the phone popping up in iTunes or the like. They then emailed me to let me know where it was, and I got my phone back, against all the odds.

The result?

Apple didn’t have to do that. I hadn’t logged a support request with them, nor ever paid for mobileMe. They had no obligation to do anything about it, and yet they did. Sure it’s not a large amount of effort on their part, and I’m sure most of it is automated anyways. The point is: they did me a small kindness, and I got my phone back.

What basically equated to about 40 seconds of effort on their part reunited me with my phone. If they hadn’t done that, I would have to purchase another one of their products. Their emailing me actually stopped them from making a sale. It did, however, make me see them in a new light and they’ve secured my pocket book for a good long while to come now. That’s an amazing long-term view and a gamble, and more companies should think like this. It fosters loyalty that you just cant buy with discounts or free soda.

So you know what? People can go on and on about how they screw their customers, their price-points are insane, and all their stuffs for hipsters, designers, etc. All I know is they’ve made themselves one more loyal customer, and all for sending an email.

One more thing…

The police wouldn’t give me the contact details for the woman that turned in the phone. I totally understand, but I’m a bit sad because I can’t thank her myself properly. I will say this though:

Thank you Ema. Thank you so much for doing what many others wouldn’t have done. You’re a swell human being, and I hope you get that promotion you want because damnit, you deserve it. Also, your hair looks amazing today. Seriously, you’ve got like, TV hair goin’ today. And hey, have you been working out? You’re looking really good! I am totally jealous.

You’re awesome, but you already knew that didn’t you.

Theresa and I bought an iPad a while ago. A completely impulse-based purchase that was tinged with a bit of buyers remorse about 20 minutes later. Not that I’m hating on it or anything, it’s a nice little tablet… thing. I regret mostly how goddamned expensive the little bastards are.

To get my moneys-worth out of the thing, I’ve been on a perpetual quest to find games on it that I genuinely enjoy. Not in a ’5 minute quickie’ sort of way, but rather in a ‘oh goddamnit what happened to the last hour of my life?’ sort of way. It’s been slim pickings, let me tell you. Other than Battle for Wesnoth and Chaos Rings, there hasn’t really been much out there that I’ve managed to find.

Then I cam across two very good games very close together. The result is that my sleep schedule despises me. As an added bonus, both games can be played on iPhone 3GS/ iPhone 4s, so you can miss your tube stops like me as well!

Today you are in for a treat. I’m not going to review one, but two games! Consider this your Christmas present. Hey money is tight. Wh– shutup! The games were really cheap! Your card is in the mail, honest! Don’t look at me like that. You know I love you, right baby?

Game the first: Galaxy on Fire 2

Yeah somehow Galaxy on Fire 1 totally slipped by me. Can’t imagine how that could happen with an app store that has a bazillion friggin’ games in it. From what I’ve played of the first one though, It’s pretty safe to say that you can just skip right to number 2, which is far nicer in graphics, story, gameplay, and pretty much everything else.

Storyline

You play as super merc Keith T. Maxwell (badass name, am I right?) who through some convenient plot devices, ends up 35 years in the future, and across the universe. He quickly finds his legs, and starts making a life for himself in the reasonable but not that far off future. He doesn’t really care about going home, which seems a bit sad to me. You quickly find out that a mysterious race call the Void are poaching freighter cargo, and no one can stop them because they use wormhole technology to just show up.

At this point everything in the story pretty much revolves around you stopping them from being assholes. I haven’t finished the game yet, but unless the writers are gonna go all Shyamalan on me, I can’t foresee the story deviating too heavily from this.

Gameplay

The game has a very Wing Commander meets Freelancer vibe going on, and that’s a good thing. There are the main missions to complete, which usually involve going somewhere far away from you, getting shot at by every enemy you run into, and collecting stuff. While this is pretty boring, there are a slew of side-things to do.

For start, the galaxy is massive. They boast 100 or so planets, but I think that’s pushing it a bit. I’d place it more around 70 – 80, but that’s still a lot of places to visit. There is a wide collection of ships to upgrade to; weapons that you can buy, salvage, or create; goods that can be bought and sold for differing market prices; bounty, collection, betting, escort, rescue, and interception missions you can take on; blueprints to build; ores you can mine; and achievements to gain. There are a lot of game hours in this game if you choose to deviate from the main story.

Flight uses a screen-based joystick that takes a little getting used to. Alternately, you can use the accelerometer if you want everyone around you to think you’re retarded. There is an auto-fire button which is a mixed blessing due to the less-than-amazing targeting system built into the game. There’s no way to ‘lock’ your target, so when you are shooting homing weaponry at them, and then a neutral flys in front of your target for too long, you will lock onto them, beat the hell out of them, and then everyone hates you.

This frustration is compounded by the fact that when you show up in an orbit and there are pirates messing about, as soon as you get within range of them they will start shooting at you. It doesn’t matter if someone else is shooting at them; it doesn’t matter if they were busy wailing on someone else; the second you show up, like moths to the fire, they try and mess up your grill. This isn’t so bad at the start of the game, when pirates come in 2s. At my point in the game, there are normally 6 pirates, they’re strong, and they’re grouped close together. Oh and they’re right by my jump in point. This makes for some panic-y flights. If they happen to be near your fly in point, you start getting shot before your can control your ship, and you will take damage.

In their recent update, they added some basic dodge maneuvers while in flight. This helps a little bit when you are getting tailed by 1 or more ships when all you want to do is dock at the fucking station. Other than that, it’s a bit disorienting.

The writing isn’t stunning, nor is the voice acting. Now I’m not saying that either are bad in this game, because they’re not. They’re not particularly good though. The voice acting is mainly held back by the writing, and the writing is trying  so hard for you to like it, but it’s held back more or less by the unimaginative missions. I tend to read faster than the voice actors, and then just skip the text. Again, not because the acting is bad, but because it’s unoriginal.

Overall

Despite the in-flight issues that I suffer while playing this game, it is overall a pretty good game. The game mechanics and heaps of extras more than make up for the games other short-comings, and it’s a lot of fun to play on the ipad. I’ve only played the iPhone version a bit, but from what I’ve seen, they did an excellent job of translating the controls and the menus to fit the smaller screen-size.

7/10

Game B: Infinity Blade

Just gonna throw this out here, but that ‘Infinity Blade‘ is way more literal than you think when you first get the game. This game suffers from what I like to call ‘too lazy to write a goddamned ending’ syndrome. It’s fun, but goddamnit guys, I like my sense of accomplishment when I actually beat a goddamned game. Don’t screw with people like that!

Storyline

The storyline… such that it is, goes like this: Your dad seeks revenge on some guy called The Godless or the God King or… something. He gets a breakfast full of sword-in-the-gut, and this ties your bloodline into attempting the same quest of vengeance  generation after generation after generation. That’s it. That’s the story. I could spoil the ending, but considering how fast it is to get there, I won’t bother.

Gameplay

The basic concept of this game is that if you die, your son comes to finish what you started. and if your son dies, your grandson comes to clean up after you to, etc etc. You get all the equipment and stats and level etc as your previous incarnation, and the enemies get stronger to compensate. This’d be really boring really quick if the graphics weren’t bloody amazing. I will give them credit though, it’s a unique way to handle the game over system without the player utterly losing.

Now if you downloaded the Epic Citadel app a while back, your mind was probably a bit blown. The graphics in that game were are so utterly off the hook that you really have to think hard to remember that it’s playing on a mobile device (or an iPad, in my case). Seriously, the graphics in Epic Citadel are mind-boggling. The reason I bring this up is because Epic Citadel was a tech demo for the engine that Infinity Blade is based off of. You don’t get to free-roam, but Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is this game pretty. It’s an engineering marvel to say the least, and it’s a pleasure to look at, even when you’re on your 5th timeline.

The fighting in this game is fun, original, and worth the purchase of the game simply to experience. You sword fight. You can dodge attacks, block them with your shield, or if you can match your opponents’ angle you can parry their attacks. After you go through a sequence of dodging, blocking, or parrying you get your chance to wail on them with either a hack ‘n slack back and forth attack, or with some magic, which requires you to draw some sort of pegan symbol on the screen. Lots of fun, and can get challenging if you’re not paying attention.

P.S. Parrying is really, really difficult. The game is pretty picky about certain angles and timing. You’ve been warned.

So the idea of this game is that when you get to the end boss, either you beat his ass or he beats yours. Regardless of the outcome, your ancestor will come seeking revenge. This is where the ‘too lazy to write a goddamned ending’ syndrome kicks in. I mean it might take you a couple bloodlines to beat the end boss (I was level 12 when I managed it), but even after you’ve beaten him. you just get a whack of experience and then you go onto the next bloodline. There is no end to the game. At all. At least none that I’ve found. Oh, and while you’re fighting him, there is a point where you can choose to fight or join the God King Emperor guy. Don’t bother doing that other than to get a bit of story. Know why? Because the game will roll credits and start you RIGHT BACK WHERE YOU WERE BEFORE THE FIGHT. Meaning you have to do the whole fight again.

The other real pain with Infinity blade is that there’s not that much variation. Sure you can put on different equipment and such, but new parts of the castle don’t open up to you. No new paths are revealed as you level up. I  have played through 5 bloodlines now, and I know exactly where all the chests are, where the normal money bag spots are, where all the enemies are, etc. I could automate all of the walking through the ‘dungeon’ (if that’s what you want to call it).

The sound also bugs me a bit. Not the combat sounds so much, but the music bites are small and don’t loop well, and the enemy ‘voices’ are annoying as a five  year-old with a caffeine addiction.

Overall

The game looks stunning. The actual fighting is lots of challenging fun. Everything in-between let me down. It’s literally a game about grinding. It is ‘Grinding: The Game’ I still play it in small fits now (it’s a great way to pass time on the bus or train) but after blazing through to the ‘end’ of the game, my interest for the game has dropped a couple pegs.  Apparently an upcoming update will have new areas to explore, P2P combat, new enemies, etc. When that happens, we’ll see if my opinion changes. Until then, it’s a game with great potential that just sort of missed the mark a bit.

6/10

Not at all.

For those who bother keeping up with my site, you will have noticed that I’ve recently been accepted to school for graphic design. Now I never actually saw any requirement for purchasing a laptop, and I prayed that I had dodged that financial bullet. Turns out that I did no such thing, as I was alerted via letter that I would have to purchase a MacBook for the course.

I was … unimpressed to say the least. Not only did I not know I had to purchase one (which would have affected my saving plans just a touch… roughly 1400 dollars), but I was being told that I had to get a device that I have little knowledge of or about. This does not make me a happy camper.

The start of it all

I bit the bullet and bought the standard MacBook (which I notice they’ve “cheapened” since my purchase. Had I waited I would have saved roughly 60 bucks. Woo.) I didn’t get any bells and whistles, as I figured I’d get them as I needed them. I placed my order, felt my wallet give a death shudder, and felt rather dirty. Please note that this was on a Saturday. It’s important to the story. It told me that my new MacBook would be shipping within the next 8 days (free shipping! YAY!) and I could expect it 8 days after that. Fair enough, I thought.

So Monday morning rolls around and I get an email saying that my Mac has been shipped. “Wow!” I thought, “that was fast.” Alright I’ll get it next week, which will give me loads of time to get used to the bastard. Tuesday after work, my mother hands me a letter saying that Purolator had come and missed me. “That can’t be my MacBook. It’s only been a couple days!” Wednesday morning I woke up early, swung by Purolator, and picked up my mystery package.

It was my MacBook. My order went from 16 days down to 3 days (4 if you include me getting it the next day). I have to admit that turn-around time like that is nothing short of herculean. My mind was blown, and I figured that Apple was working extra hard to try and convert me.

So what do I think of my new computer-turned-art?

It’s pretty.

From the second I opened it, to my current use of it (this blogpost has been entirely done via the new Book, as a bit of training for me) the whole thing has just been so damned pretty. no, not pretty; sexy. Sexy like that 23 year old teacher with the low cut tops. Sexy like the rich guys car down the street that he bought to make up for his useless penis. Sexy like those dreams that you don’t tell anyone about while you’re washing your sheets at 3 in the morning. That sort of sexy.

Everything works pretty much the way you expect it to.

It took me five minutes to get it all setup and started, which is something that the PC user in me geeked out over. The wireless setup was simple, and within moments I was up and running. Programs run smoothly, and I’ve yet to experience any crashes or oddities. All the weirdness is reserved for the input devices.

New buttons ahoy! Fuck you normal other buttons!

Where the hell is my Home key? How about my End key? Paging? nope, not there. Oh wait it’s all multi-key combos now? Excuse me while I blow my brains out. Why the hell would you remove common keys like that? Stupid users (like me) are used to them on their keyboards! I’m still getting used to using the function, alt, control, and option keys to do different things.

Now to rag on the mouse.

Whether it’s mighty or not, the mouse for the mac makes me want to kick puppies while flipping off an old lady all while stealing money from a blind beggars money can. The fact that I have to use the mouse in conjunction with the keyboard angers me so very, very much.

I’m a lazy person, I shouldn’t have to plug in a third party mouse that has a left, right, and middle clickwheel just to get what has become standard functionality. Even with the improved “two-finger” options built into the touch pad, I still find myself having to jump between the two inputs. This is not what I call simple, nor sexy. This failing sits in the “granny-panty” section of the sex market.

Built in programs are … cute but useless

iCal: sucks. TextEdit: Weak. Mail: Sucks, Front Row: totally useless. Preview: Waste of time. The list goes on. Don’t get me wrong, I like that there are basic versions of commonly used things… but there is such a thing as too basic. I ended up having to get more robust programs to handle everything. Not a bad thing, but somewhat annoying.

The battery lasts for-fucking-ever

Seriously now. When a battery can clear the 4 hour mark while playing music? That’s just impressive.

Overall I think I like it, though I’ll reserve my comments for until after I’ve had to do some serious work with it. I’m sure I’ll swear at it as much as I swear at PCs.

If this works as well as it says, then this is pretty much the best backup device for a home network I’ve ever seen. Granted it only really comes to life if you have the new Mac OS, but that’s how Mac has always worked. If you like their new toys, you have to play by their rules… and buy all their crap. It’s a dick business plan, but it works for them.

As I was saying, Time Capsule really comes to life when you combine it with Time Machine, which is a pretty slick backup program that comes with Leopard. I wont bore you with all the details (you can view them here) but the short of it is basically a backup as you go program that handles it all for you on the fly. It only backs up files that have been changed, which are used to stack off of the base image it takes. It’s pretty hot. On top of that it acts as a WiFi centre that features the new 802.11n mode and even allows you to share a printer as a network item.

If I had been raised on Macs I would be pre-ordering this so fast my mouse would be burning from my ferocious clicking, simply to make my house go up a notch on the sex-o-meter.

Item number 2: Apple TV

They’ve fixed it, from what I’ve been told. I’m going to just declare my ignorance here and state that I don’t know what they did wrong with the first version, and so I really cannot discuss that here. I will discuss how Apple is offering a free upgrade to everyone who bought the original. That’s just solid customer service people.

What I can discuss is their new game plan. Basically the new Apple TV is supposed to put movie rental places utterly out of business. I know that’s not the written intent, but when you set up your business plan the way Apple has… well it’s just hard to ignore. The general idea is that you can now rent movies from iTunes. You keep it for 30 days, but once you start watching it you have 24 hours to complete it. This is just what I’ve gotten from the Macworld meeting, so I assume there are possibly different plans.

The prices are pretty reasonable; with 2.99 for library titles, 3.99 for new releases, and 4.99 for total HD movies they don’t really seem to be heavy on the money pouch. On top of this, they’ve already got most of the major labels signed up so there isn’t going to be a shortage of movies to choose from. They’re also going to feature TV shows and a slew of other media types (Flickr integration anyone?) that will turn your TV into a haven of ocular goodness.

They’ve also added a bit of Social Web 2.0 to the mix with trend-viewing. The idea behind trend-viewing is pretty straight forward. You can see who else has rented this movie (anonymous or not, I have no idea) and what other movies they have rented. People are going to end up feeling mixed about this, but I’m sure you can opt out if you’re afraid of Big Brother.

I’m going to be honest. When I have my own place and a nice TV setup, I’m pretty sure I’ll own this. It really takes the pain out of movie rentals, watching TV, and it even broadcasts to wireless speakers. That’s just awesome.

Item Number 3: Macbook Air

This was the finale piece to the Macworld expo, and with good reason. It’s fucking amazing.

Seriously.

I could go on and on about this laptop, and it’s shear sex factor breaks the whatever the hell you use to measure sex as a unit in the first place. It’s thin, its light, it’s still got processing power. It’s every Starbucks bloggers wet-dream.

First off, lets start with the obvious: it’s thin. Please note my use of both bold and italics there, because they are the best tools I have to articulate my amazement. Go watch the ad, and the guided tour. The specs can be found here, and I have to admit that it’s actually a pretty solid laptop.

The one thing I noticed is that it does not come with a built in CD/DVD drive. this is pretty much the only weakness for the laptop itself, and once again proves that Mac are amazing at getting you to spend more money on their stuff. In order to get CD/DVD support, you need to nab one of their AirDrives (or borrow another computers drive, if what I remember is right). The other flaw is that it’s magnetically clasped, and something about that bugs me. Call me old fashioned, but I like my plastic, sliding clasps.

As I stated, this is the pro-bloggers wet-dream come to life, as it’s perfect for bringing about with you. Small, light, and still managing to provide a solid computer experience what with a full keyboard and reasonable screen-size. If I had to own a Macbook, this would probably be the one i’d go for, simply for the ease of transport it offers. That, and it would make my nerd-penis fucking massive.

Of course I cannot afford 1900 dollar starting price, but I’m sure they’ll come down in a little while. I’ll probably end up just waiting for when computers are chips inserted into your brain.

So that’s the run-down of my feelings on Macworld. To summarize: Apple knows what they’re doing. They’re going for markets that are otherwise faltering, and then throwing every creative bone right at them. They’re not directly competing with anyone, and yet their winning every fight. I still don’t think I’d ever buy a Mac, but goddamn they can run my entertainment system anytime.

Also, Randy Newman? Seriously Apple, you could have picked someone younger then 9 million? Is he a robot yet? Was that some secret plug for Macworld 2009? Randy-bots? I’m pretty sure he’s gone totally nuts. If nothing else it’s clear he hates what America is becoming, so props to him for that. I cannot find a recording of his Mac performance, but this was the song he played.

And that’s the end of my gushing.