A smart piece by David Barnard, Apps and the Apple TV, starkly showcases how the mouse and other abstract pointing devices are largely on borrowed time—at least for the most part. He talks about how he was using AirPlay to send video to his TV, and his toddler then concluded he could play his favourite iPad game on the same TV.

When handed the iPad, he looked down at it and launched this week’s favorite app, The Monster at the End of This Book. He looked up at the screen and was excited to see Grover on TV. Then he looked down at the book and flipped the page. Then he looked up and was again excited to see Grover on TV. Then he looked down and turned the page. After just 60 seconds the thrill was gone and he was mostly just playing with the iPad, only intermittently looking up to confirm that Grover was still on TV.

After a few minutes he exited the app and looked up to see the icons of all his favorite apps on the TV. He immediately set down the iPad, walked up to the TV, and tried launching an app by touching the TV screen. My wife and I instinctually told him not to touch the TV, but he looked back at us quite puzzled. The thing is, Luke has never used a mouse-like pointing device. Other than using the TV remote to turn the TV on and off, or turning a light switch on and off, he’s never used one object to remotely manipulate another.

Barnard doesn’t go all sensationalist by then arguing that all remote-manipulation and abstract pointing devices are doomed, but instead claims we’re in the midst of a fundamental shift that will see such things become increasingly niche. I think he’s right. And for those who think otherwise, bear in mind your world-view is coloured by your experience. If you don’t believe me, try handing a cassette Walkman to a young teenager and see how well they get on using it.

Around 28:26 in the Steve Jobs closing keynote of WWDC ’97:

A few weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal [said that] in this industry, the only companies doing really well are Intel, Microsoft and perhaps Compaq.

How things change. One thing that doesn’t was Jobs’s response to the question, highlighting how Apple has worked since his return to the company:

I think every good product that I’ve ever seen in this industry […] is because a group of people cared deeply about making something wonderful that they and their friends wanted. They want to use it themselves.

Original link via Daring Fireball.

One of the disadvantages of going on holiday, to a place without web access, is that you miss slices of pure crazy. This one involves everyone’s favourite games industry celeb Tim Langdell.

If you don’t know the story, Langdell ran a couple of software companies in the 1980s that released games for home computers. One of the most fondly remembered is Bobby Bearing, an isometric adventure game created by Robert Figgins and Trevor Figgins. Little was heard of Langdell during the 1990s and beyond, but he rose to infamy when he started suing the pants off of iOS developers (and others) who had the audacity to use the word ‘Edge’ in their videogame titles and other products. (The full story can be found at ChaosEdge.) Indie game developer Mobigame got hit particularly hard, with Langdell claiming its Edge game was somehow ripping off both his brand and Bobby Bearing, arguing that it had been named to capitalise on Langdell’s ‘famous’ trademark. This was, of course, total bollocks.

Langdell came unstuck when he decided to sue EA over Mirror’s Edge. The software giant used its powers for good, assisted indie developers being attacked by Langdell, and pretty much smashed him into the ground, culminating in his marks being removed. And with Langdell using all kinds of bizarre material in his ‘defence’, including a fake cover of a non-existent US version of Edge magazine, along with using a variant on the magazine’s logo for his company, he awoke the sleeping beast that is Future Publishing’s legal department. John Walker at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, offers a fantastic report into how Langdell fared there. (Spoiler: not well.)

Amazingly, though, on June 30, Edge did actually release a new game, which is supposedly a sequel to Bobby Bearing. Presumably, it’s called Bobby Bearing 2, you’d think, but you’d be wrong. Sort of. While the game is called Bobby Bearing 2 – “ReRolled” on its title screen, it has a subtly different name on the App Store: EDGEBobby2. Yeah, that sounds like an obvious, intuitive name for the game, and not at all some kind of attempt to ‘prove’ to courts that Langdell was making games that utilised his ‘famous’ mark (that, note, he no longer holds). I only hope he won’t use this to launch yet more crazy attacks on iOS developers.

Oh, and the game not only looks like crap but also plays poorly and isn’t a patch on its 25-year-old prequel-of-sorts.

Oldish news (since I’m catching up post-hols), but good to see common sense has prevailed regarding Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs (which is the first to get the blessing of Apple’s head honcho). CNN reported a few days back that it’s now called Steve Jobs By Walter Isaacson. Simple, straightforward and to the point, just like the best of Apple’s hardware and software.

The old title, chosen by the publisher’s publicity department, was iSteve: The Book of Jobs. That sounds, at best, like a knock-off unauthorised hack job or some kind of joke that went horribly wrong, in somehow getting voted through the marketing process, rather than immediately being shot in the head.

The book itself is due out in March 2012.

Joshua Topolsky for This is my next…:

Our sources are saying that not only will there be a newly designed iPhone coming in the fall, but there is going to be a new entry into the iPad family as well. As hard as it might be to believe, the new tablet is said to sport a double resolution screen (2048 x 1536), and will be dubbed the “iPad HD.” The idea behind the product is apparently that it will be a “pro” device aimed at a higher end market — folks who work in video and photo production possibly — and will be introduced alongside something like an iPad version of Final Cut or Aperture. This product is specifically said to not be the iPad 3, rather a complimentary piece of the iPad 2 line. Think MacBook and MacBook Pro.

Sounds like bullshit to me. I’ll be amazed if the iPad doesn’t follow one of the following two patterns:

1. A full-line ‘upgrade’ to a 2048-by-1536 display.
2. An iPhone-style system, with the lowest-end model being a version of the previous tablet, but the rest of the line being the newest spec.

The alternative—having an iPad HD in a niche and high-end position—would be a dangerous move, as would signifying it’s some kind of ‘pro’ device. Right now, all iPads are relatively equal. The point is that they are everything, from a children’s colouring book to a tool for professional writers and artists. By making a single high-end iPad HD device, Apple would immediately position the rest of the entire iPad line as something not for professionals, and it would also further fragment the line. You’d also have a situation where it wouldn’t be obvious to most developers when and how to update their apps to take advantage of the new display.

My thinking: when it’s financially viable to do so (or when Apple’s hand is forced by a competitor), we’ll see the entire iPad line shift to 2048 x 1536. At the same time, the internals will get a pretty significant boost (RAM, chip speed) that Apple will entirely avoid talking about, because the display and what you can do with the device is all that’s really important.