First Look: Chinese Input on the iPhone and iPod touch

Adam Berenstain — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:26:15 -0500

After more than a year of training, Apple’s star duo is ready for the Beijing Olympics. The 2.0 Software Update finally brings support for Chinese input to the iPhone and iPod touch, just in time for next month’s opening ceremonies.

To turn on a Chinese keyboard, just launch Settings>General>Keyboard or International. In Keyboard, tap International Keyboards; in International, tap Keyboards. From there, scroll through the available languages and turn on Chinese input. We’re most familiar with Simplified Chinese, but the iPhone supports Traditional Chinese as well. Whichever form you choose, you can activate support for both handwritten characters and Pinyin. With Chinese input turned on, your keyboard will sport a new key with a globe icon; it lets you switch back and forth among any active international keyboards.

The keyboard for handwritten Chinese is actually a blank pad bordered by a handful of useful keys like delete, return, space, and the globe key. To write, just draw characters on the pad and your iPhone or iPod Touch turns them into text. The software dynamically suggests the character it thinks you’re drawing, and displays possible subsequent characters beside the pad. You can cycle through these options and select one with a few taps. Character recognition worked pretty well once we figured out the software likes neat, distinct strokes. Dragging a finger around to draw with one continuous line leads to inaccurate suggestions. Corrections can be frustrating since there’s no way to erase part of a character you’ve drawn – you’ll have to tap delete and try again if your handwriting isn’t up to snuff. We’re seeing more of the delete key than we’d like, but we’re not sure if the 2.0 update or our fingers are to blame.

If you’ve used Pinyin in OS X, you’ll be right at home on the iPhone and iPod touch. Typing Pinyin representations of Chinese words produces a pop-up menu offering four possible characters, and you can either tap the space bar to cycle through them (tapping return to make your selection), or just tap the character you want directly. If there are more than four options, you can cycle or tap to a whole page of characters to select. Thanks to Multi-Touch, Pinyin is faster and feels more natural on the go than in OS X.

No matter which input method you use, entering Chinese text works just as you’d expect in all applications. You can double-tap the spacebar to add a period, and touch and hold to reposition your cursor when writing. Names written in Chinese characters will be auto-completed in apps like Mail and Contacts, and Chinese keyboards grow a Google button when typing in Safari’s search field.

The iPhone may have taken its time meeting China halfway, but it’s gotten there in style. Now there’s no excuse not to write to our Chinese pen pals when we’re out and about, and we couldn’t be happier.

Video: Mini Mic

Leslie Ayers — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:23:55 -0500

Editor in Chief, Leslie Ayers, shares with us, the Blue Snowflake portable microphone. A nice choice for podcasters looking to recreate the Edward R. Murrow look, instead of the fast-food employee headset look.

iPod touch/iPhone link.

Video: Charging in the Sun

Ray Aguilera — Sat, 17 May 2008 20:07:56 -0500

If you enjoy spending time outdoors, Reviews Editor Ray Aguilera may have the answer to your iPod battery-dying issues, the Solio Magnesium Edition.

iPod touch/iPhone link.

First Look: The Evolution of Spore

Zack Stern — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:20:32 -0500

Spore starts small. A simple life form--you, specifically--merrily swims around in primordial goo, absorbing nutrients. Nothing matters outside of this pool, not the rock basin that holds it, the continent that cradles the rock basin, the planet that holds the continent, the solar system that contains the planet, or the galaxy that surrounds the solar system.

None of that matters--yet. Spore keeps its focus on the immediate goal, a race to survive and grow. Just like those scaling worlds, there’s always a hungry creature bigger than you.

Spore ends big. Your fully developed species extends its reach beyond its home planet, exploring and colonizing worlds across the galaxy. Literally, a million stars with about four planets each hold other creatures and civilizations, or may be barren and ready for development. All of them are unique, and all can be explored.

Spore is about the evolution of your organism: the transition to land, the development of appendages and teeth, the invention of tools and tribes, and the creation of global societies. The game simulates life evolving over billions of years while drunkenly zooming back like the Eames short “Powers of Ten.” And the result is playful, experimental, and explorative, as we found in our recent demo.

Seeds of Spore. EA says it will release Spore for Macs on the same day as the PC version, September 7. Spore will use TransGaming’s Cider technology, meaning it’ll require an Intel Mac.

Spore’s chief designer, Will Wright, defined the sim genre with SimCity, emphasizing creativity and play versus strict objectives. His later follow-up, The Sims, took simulation to the interpersonal level, experimenting with relationships in a dollhouse-like family. With the help of a massive team of developers, Spore builds on these themes, letting players interact with the game any way they want.

Players can start at any of its five evolutionary phases—cell, creature, tribal, civilization, and space—or progress through each in a linear pattern. Or gamers could just get sucked into the many building tools, endlessly creating whimsical life forms, buildings, and vehicles. There’s no right way to play Spore, although it has enough objectives to steer those of us who want more guidance.

About the space exploration phase, Wright said, “Different players will come at this with totally different styles. You might just play this totally aggressively and conquer all these neighbors. You might want to make allies with all of them.... We want the game to basically accommodate all of these different play styles. And I just want to be creative and [go around] looking for cool planets. But for the players who want a hardcore challenge, that’s what it’s going to be.”

Spore evolution, a series of funny hats.

Creature comforts. Creature editors are the root of Spore’s creativity, a cross between Mr. Potato Head and Maya. After earning enough points and upgrade options--typically through eating enemies--you’ll be able to swap in an assortment of dozens of parts. Each trait directly impacts the creature’s performance in the world. Bigger arms pump up strength, extra legs boost movement, and a spiked tail adds an always-ready weapon. But the part roster includes horns, antlers, noses, mouths, and practically any other body part.

Those parts can go nearly anywhere. Instead of pre-planned animation, a procedural graphics engine figures out how your choice and position of parts affect the creature. Stick stocky legs at the back of a body, and the game makes the creature wobble. Add a third leg for awkward ambling. You control neck length, body shape, and nearly everything else, and the game automatically brings your creature to life.

EA expects that some gamers will play with the creature editor almost exclusively. Sometime before the Spore launch--the company wouldn’t specify when--EA plans to release a creature-only version of the title, letting gamers model and play with new species.

Single-player plus massive community. Spore is a self-centered game at heart. This is your personal universe to build and change any way you want. At any given time, you’re the only one playing--all in-game creatures are controlled by your Mac.

But that doesn’t mean that it’s a single-player game. Extensive networking features retrieve player-created content from other gamers’ universes, sloshing it around until it washes up on your shores. By default, nearly everything that you don’t create will come from those other gamers--friends or strangers. Ambient life forms, distant aliens, buildings, vehicles, and even whole planets will be delivered into your universe. You can favor certain friends, subscribing to all of their newly created content, or block this feature entirely if you’re feeling overwhelmed.

Wright showed off a spaceship, chuckling about its player-created design. He said, “This happens to be a four-poster bed. You get some weird content in this game. Sometimes [the spaceship] is Santa Claus. If I’d said I want this very specifically to be my favorite sci-fi thing… then it’s more likely to be [that].”

Your actions to blow up a planet created by a friend or to wipe out their civilization will only affect your universe (and possibly your friendship). In-game recording tools can capture video of these taunts or other triumphs, even allowing direct YouTube uploads for online bragging rights.

While single-player, Spore is far from solitary. Its massive, SimEverything scale continues to boggle our minds. But it could usher in more than an evolution in how we think about games. We might not look at a mold colony—or star—the same way again.

Phases of Spore

Spore has five distinct phases, so you never get bored.

With its distinct and different phases in the game, Spore is no bore.

Spore’s gigantic scope provides a lot of value. It’s like five or more different games bridged together. While Spore could begin anywhere—and we half-jokingly expect an expansion pack to simulate the Big Bang—it starts with the creation of life on your planet. Its five phases eventually culminate in the colonization of the universe.

Cell Phase
The goal: Eat and evolve
Genre it resembles: Classic arcade
It plays like: Pac-Man without mazes
Total time we’d play before getting bored: 1 hour
Your simple organism pops into existence, and you swim around a 2D view, absorbing protein to grow. It’s a simple outlook at this size, drifting through a primordial bath; your job is to eat or avoid. Eat enough, and discover enough parts to evolve in a creature-building
cut-away, positioning extra tentacles, eyes, and other primitive upgrades. As the organism grows, the camera pulls back to show a wider perspective. That far-away blur of colors initially looks benign. Zoomed back, it sharpens into the hungry eyes of giant creatures.

Creature Phase
The goal: Evolve into the planet’s dominant life form
Genre it resembles: Simulation
It plays like: The Sims with extra tails
Total time we’d play before getting bored: 15 hours
Your organism eventually flops onto land, where you follow a similar mechanic to evolve. This time, the game takes a 3D perspective, where you can run, hop, or gallop in any direction. Avoid bigger enemies, keep eating, find new parts, and evolve. The extensive creature editor can create nearly anything you imagine, including custom colors and Seuss-ian—or Kafka-esque—attributes. Befriend ambient critters to add allies to your evolutionary gang.

Tribal Phase
The goal: Unite or conquer opposing tribes of the same species
Genre it resembles: Real-time strategy plus simulation
It plays like: Age of Empires on a simpler scale
Total time we’d play before getting bored: 10 hours
Once your creature emerges as the planet’s dominant life form, you control a group of them for the first time. Food acts as the key resource, keeping the tribe alive but also allowing for upgrades. With enough food, you can develop tools, like spears to catch more fish and armor to defend against other tribes. Or you can win the opposing tribes over with gifts and entertainment. Dance or destroy: It’s your choice.

Civilization Phase
The goal: Expand your territory to control cities
Genre it resembles: Real-time strategy
It plays like: Command & Conquer on a simpler scale
Total time we’d play before getting bored: 15 hours
The game expands its scope again to show competing civilizations. If you’re playing the phases in a linear progression, your previous actions determine if you’ll initially control a military, religious, or economic society. Militaries wield the most power. Religions convert others with music and propaganda. Economic societies buy (and bribe) everything they encounter. Race to capture Spice Nodes, which drive your economy and allow further expansion. In-city buildings add town attributes. Launch custom-made land, sea, and air vehicles to expand territory and conquer other cities.

Space Phase
The goal: Explore, expand, and prank other planets
Genre it resembles: Real-time strategy with light adventure and role-playing
It plays like: Master of Orion with streamlined controls but millions of planets
Total time we’d play before getting bored: 30 hours
Once your civilization dominates the entire planet, you’ll change scale, launching into space. Again, choose from prebuilt spaceships or design your own. This final section of the game allows for the most open-ended play but also includes an option for the most specific story. Tool around the galaxy visiting primitive planets and building outposts to mine more Spice. Make friends or enemies with other spacefaring cultures. Eventually, you’ll unravel the game’s narrative journey to expand further and uncover the mysteries in the center of the galaxy.

Want more Spore? Check out our interview with Spore Chief Designer Will Wright and Executive Producer Lucy Bradshaw.

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First Look: Chinese Input on the iPhone and iPod touch

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First Look: The Evolution of Spore