Stuart Dredge’s iPhone Games Bulletin just ran a story on Edge magazine once again placing itself firmly in bizarre-o-land. Despite its constant claims at being at the forefront of gaming, it’s made a bunch of stunning screw-ups over the years, the most obvious perhaps being an off-hand dismissal of WarioWare (which got 7/10, a rating Edge has tried ever since to remove from the history books, both by arguing that the review was written by a poor widdle overworked freelancer, and by running 46-page articles on why Made in Wario—the Japanese name for the game that Edge insists on using over the localised one—is so good).

Gosh, that was a long sentence, wasn’t it? Almost as long as one from Edge. Anyway, anyone who’s been keeping tabs on my work will know that I’ve become a total iPod gaming fan-boy of late. The reason isn’t some insane, misguided love for Apple, but the simple fact that iPod (as in touch, or the iPhone) is the only gaming platform that matters.

Ignoring for a second the problems surrounding the App Store (most of which don’t concern the general public), not least the rush to 59p/99 cents that every publisher seems to be taking part in, the simple fact is that since I got an iPhone, I’ve barely used any other games console. The App Store offers thousands of games, most of which are by independent developers, offering highly individual takes on gaming. Because of the nature of Apple handhelds—touchscreen; accelerometer; no tactile buttons—you can’t easily port stuff over from other platforms, and the best games therefore take direct advantage of the system.

To a great extent, iPod gaming is like a return to the 1980s, but with modern technology. Independent developers can make and sell a game, without pandering to the needs of focus groups. These games are then easily accessible (simply download from the App Store), affordable (even ‘expensive’ iPod games are about six quid) and often innovative. Games like Eliss are genuinely doing something new, and I can’t remember the last time I was so excited about a videogames system.

This is why it’s so galling—so hugely irritating—that Future’s supposedly forward-thinking industry bible has once again got it wrong. In its Edge Award For Interactive Innovation 2009 Shortlist, you’d think at least one iPod game would make the cut. You’d think that the magazine, despite its inexplicably tiny amount of iPod gaming coverage, would notice one of the genuine futures of gaming, and champion it, shouting from the rooftops.

But no. Instead, the publication specifically singles out iPod gaming, stating “the games made for these environments are still nascent” (And why is that a bad thing? I seem to recall arcade games development was once ‘nascent’, but we still hail Defender, Robotron and Missile Command as classics) and “It’s difficult to think of an iPhone game that truly exemplifies the singular abilities of its host”. Really? I can think of at least a dozen, but perhaps this merely shows how Edge is stuck in the past rather than the future, if it’d rather showcase the likes of Far Cry 2—an impressive but incremental update on the FPS genre—over products that genuinely innovate.

Many gaming platforms are suddenly finding themselves becoming increasingly irrelevant as new formats take hold. It seems Edge is going the same way.

UPDATE: Phil Schiller Responds on Daring Fireball regarding dictionary app Ninjawords and the App Store.

The iPhone and iPod touch are nothing special from a hardware standpoint. In fact, they are in some ways (such as the iPhone camera) inferior to the competition. However, a combination of a fantastic UI and the App Store ensured both devices became top sellers. But the environment is changing fast, and Apple’s doing little to help.

In terms of UI, others are playing catch-up, and this is—bar flinging lawsuits around—something Apple can’t really guard against. It’s long been an R&D department for less able companies, and that will continue. But Apple’s handling of the App Store has gone from the worrisome to the surprising to the outright absurd.

Initially, one could argue that the App Store was new and surprisingly successful, and so the submissions reviewers were caught off guard and made the odd mistake. This was usually rectified via a combination of public pressure and explanation from developers. Now, though, it seems Apple’s being at once systematically destructive, puritanical and utterly stupid.

I reported yesterday on TechRadar about Apple censoring a dictionary, a story initially broke by Daring Fireball. Today, TUAW claims Apple’s about to start removing eBook apps, under the guise of copyright concerns (something Apple doesn’t seem terribly concerned about when it comes to gaming, judging by the number of IP breaches littering the store).

I sincerely hope there’s little truth to this story, but the report claims Apple’s now even rejecting eBook apps from developers who can prove they own rights to the content. If that’s the case, we’ll presumably soon see the likes of Classics, Eucalyptus and Stanza removed from the store, smashing the App Store’s credibility to dust and removing the ability for Apple handhelds to act as eReaders.

In the aforementioned Daring Fireball piece, John Gruber said: “Every time I think I’ve seen the most outrageous App Store rejection, I’m soon proven wrong. I can’t imagine what it will take to top this one.” I think the removal of eBooks and readers would just about do it.

As a writer myself, I understand the temptation in having a point you want to get across, interviewing a bunch of people and then cherry-picking the responses to support your agenda. However, good journalism shouldn’t have to resort to such tactics (and, to the best of my knowledge, it’s not something I’ve done myself in any articles that have seen print), and certainly not when the resulting article not only takes comments entirely out of context but also ends up borderline libelling those interviewed.

The new offenders of standup comedy by Brian Logan in the Guardian escaped me on publication, but came to my attention today via Twitter. Logan essentially paints Richard Herring and his latest show as utterly racist when it is in fact the opposite. Those people who’ve not seen this material but who’ve no inclination to research further—And why should they? After all, this is an article from a supposedly reputable publication!—will no doubt avoid a show that, ironically, would ideally suit them.

This isn’t nearly the first time the Guardian’s resolved to such hackery, but this is nonetheless a dangerous example, and with a suitably ironic strap: How did things get so nasty? One might ask the same question of Guardian ‘journalism’.

The paper should either apologise or give Herring the right to reply. If it doesn’t, it pretty much proves the point that it’d rather pander to the bullshit brigade than entertain the possibility of good journalism and proper representation, and while one might expect that from current and former red-tops, or the likes of the Mail, that really shouldn’t be the case regarding the Guardian—or perhaps my rose-tinted spectacles need painting a clearer and less nostalgic shade.

Herring himself responds on his blog as does Dave Gorman.

You know what? You can keep your Spotlight, your Cut, Copy & Paste, your MMS and your landscape keyboards, your improved calendar and your Voice Memos* app. With Apple’s latest iPhone OS update, it was a much smaller new feature that made me happy.

Buried in Settings > Phone is a shiny new field: ‘My Number’. For many iPhone owners, this won’t make any odds, but I bought a Pay and Go model, and transferred a number from my old T-Mobile account. Although the transfer was eventually fine, my iPhone resolutely decided that my number (accessible via the Phone app) was the one on the iPhone SIM card, not the one that had been transferred.

As someone notoriously bad at remembering my phone number, this wasn’t great. However, the aforementioned new feature means my Swiss-Cheese memory won’t have the problem again. (And, yeah, I know many other phones have been able to do this for ages—yada yada—but my phone couldn’t.)

* In fact, you really can keep that one, Apple, because I don’t use it, and it’s getting really annoying that you can’t get rid of the default apps. Do we really need Stocks ‘forced’ on us? Gnh.

Marvellous. Finally, the EU has had the bottle to give Microsoft a slap, and reports now state Windows 7 will ship without Internet Explorer 8. Good news, everyone!

Expect that it isn’t. Now the internet is practically ubiquitous and so important in many people’s lives, the prospect of an operating system lacking a browser in the default install is an appalling notion that will only cause a world of pain. What’s worse is that we now appear to be in an age where a weakening Microsoft is being beaten by all and sundry, several years after such actions might have actually had some benefit.

To clarify, I’m no Internet Explorer fan, nor a particularly huge Microsoft fan. The company as a whole has engaged in truly shocking business practices over the years (the nadir perhaps being the ‘knife the baby‘ incident with Apple’s QuickTime), and the company’s browser is a joke. Eight versions in and it’s still stuffed full of bugs, and it now has a confusing and misleadingly named ‘compatibility mode’ welded on. Since I spend about half my working life designing websites, I’d like nothing better in the browser space than for Trident—the engine powering Internet Explorer—to be taken round the back of the shed and shot, and for IE9 to be driven by WebKit. (Alternatively, IE9 could be WebKit and the ‘compatibility mode’ could switch the IE engine to Trident for a couple of versions.)

But—and this is a big ‘but’—the EU’s decision, if it comes to pass, will ultimately hurt users and benefit no-one. At best, a user with a new PC will have to install a browser from a standalone disc, or they’ll have to launch a utility to download and install a browser. This shouldn’t be necessary.

Arguments rage that this might at least offer users a choice—a multi-browser installer of some sort. Thing is, most people stick with what they know, and the typical home user will only have heard of IE. Corporates will also stick with Microsoft. IE’s market-share won’t significantly change due to the EU, but PC users in the area will have to do a little more work to get a system with a piece of software that almost everyone needs in the modern age.

This decision (assuming it’s more than a rumour) could have been an effective means of giving Microsoft the slap it needed years ago. But the browser wars are over and they have been for a long time. IE’s hold is slipping, slowly but surely, like the browser equivalent of the British Empire after the war. With savvy users, Firefox is gaining ground, as are Safari and Opera, and it’s only a matter of time before Chrome claims a large chunk of the market, driven by Google’s massive marketing clout. So quite what benefit the EU thinks depriving new PC users of a default browser is, especially now that Microsoft’s largely knocked on the head trying to warp web standards to its own ends, I really don’t know.