So people, if you are one of those that busts out the phone PLEASE LEAVE once you finish your business.  There could be a line waiting for you.

That is all.

http://np.reddit.com/r/grilledcheese/comments/2or1p3/you_people_make_me_sick/

So out comes this article  month back on how EA is thinking of putting out an offline mode.  I read the post and though, ok, lets see when they do it.  Later on I returned back to this post and read what I though was a really wonderful comment from Casey Reece on Penny Arcade.  This comment sums up my feelings on SC and why I just cannot bring myself to give EA a penny for this game.

Why this entire episode has been so vile is that EA essentially took a series that had never before had a bad entry in it; and then used it to redefine the very concept of a “bad entry.”

This would be the same if Nintendo released a 2-D side-scrolling Mario game in 1999 that controlled horribly. When it decided to actually be recognized by the console.

Every Sim City game from the first onwards showed such ambition and such love, that those who loved it (rightly) in return were always rewarded. This is a series that has built up nearly a quarter century of good associations, good press, and good feelings. It was a staple in gaming that stood above the concerns of most games (do they work, does it control well, and will you still enjoy it in a year), and delivered on our expectations time and time again. The jump in conceptualization between the first and second Sim Cities was in essence a complete rebirth. The third Sim City then took everything the second did (and much, much more) and polished it even further.

The fourth in the series was an amalgamation of everything that everybody ever wanted in a Sim City game, period. It just nailed it. And nailed it so hard, that they didn’t even consider creating a new one for over a decade.

Until they did. And the concepts for the new Sim City were absolutely worthy of the title. Even so far as to actually justify just naming it “Sim City” and not having to do the “5” afterwards – because that is how large the ambition was with this title.

The idea that every Sim was individually counted – that your factories produced actual goods you could track and watch move throughout your city – that the graphical interface and the statistics (graphs) interface had melded together into a more organic, living, and real entity. This, alongside your map and commerce being directly relate-able to other online Sim City players gave the promise and potential of this Sim City title an absolutely star-bound voyage. And Sim City games were always great – they always came through – and they always rocked the house with whatever it is they tried to accomplish.

Except for this one.

But not only that – this one got things wrong that even the first Sim City got right. Actual balance between commerce, industry, and residential. That the third Sim City nailed; how to get the proper Sims to the proper situations (fire department, police, etc. – they didn’t have robbers doing stick ups right next to the police station – not even in the first).

Then, it turns out, the entire “advanced” engine which is having so many difficulties with acting legit is because the actual “advanced” engine was a lie. It could track a few thousand of your Sims, and after that, everything was made up. The very anti-thesis to what makes a Sim City game.

Even if you got some of the world’s most creative minds in the same room, they couldn’t have possibly planned a better screw-up of one of video-gaming’s most classic franchises. What had always stood as the absolute proof of all good that could be accomplished with and through games was essentially shot dead in a debacle of being unable to connect – and then unable to get a refund. The good will of a quarter century took EA essentially one month to devastate, blow-up, and then salt into the earth forever more.

And now they’re coming out with a game that supposedly is the actual game they promised in the first place? How is that even possible? The entire game was a lie to begin with – did they now manage to actually build the engine they promised and failed to deliver after how many years in production – now just after a few months? Promising to bring in features that should have never been removed – and then having the absolute gull to ask money for it?

That upgrade should be absolutely free. To have the nerve to release an absolutely ruined product, and then when you’re on the verge of (supposedly) correcting your mistake, they ask everyone to pay for it again?

Are they serious? Have they no idea how much bad-will they’ve brought upon themselves with this train-wreck from the start? Are they really that callous? That stupid?

Of course. It’s EA. America’s worst voted company two years running, and, from what they’re showing, at least a few years more.

If you have been trying to order the new iphone 4, I’m sure you have been frustrated with the errors messages you have been getting back from AT&T.

“There was a problem with your request,” the error message reads. “P1015: We’re sorry, but we are experiencing a system error that prevents us from completing your request….

Which begs the question, is there REALLY that much demand, that Apple and AT&T just cannot keep up?  The first reports I say coming over Twitter, when twitter was up, seemed to point to insane demand.  Then as time when on, the arrow moved from ‘too much demand’ to ‘AT&T AGAIN was simply not prepared’.  Remember when the first iphone came out?  I do.  You could go to Apple and pick up a phone (when the lines went down) but its was anyone’s guess if you could get it to register with AT&T.

So here we are a few years later and STILL AT&T cannot seem to predict and deal with demand.  What is it with these guys???  They already have a reputation for dropping calls (mostly in area’s with difficult coverage and high demand usage), heck even John Stewart bangs on AT&T now. So the fact that again, failure is hanging on AT&T neck just propagates the reputation of AT&T not being able to support a network with high demand.

</rant>

Now to be fair, the Twitter Fail Whale has been spotted more times the moby-dick on the last few days, so its not like AT&T is alone in this regard, but then again, I do not depend on Twitter for my phone calls.

He replied to the Apple d**k move of locking out any dev’s but X dev’s. More on that here..

So here is his post, in parts.  Go to Lee Brimelow on his Flash Blog to read the whole statement.

By now you have surely heard about the new iPhone 4.0 SDK language that appears to make creating applications in any non-Apple-approved languages a violation of terms. Obviously Adobe is looking into this wording carefully so I will not comment any further until there is an official conclusion.

[Sentence regarding Apple’s intentions redacted at request from Adobe]. This has nothing to do whatsoever with bringing the Flash player to Apple’s devices. That is a separate discussion entirely. What they are saying is that they won’t allow applications onto their marketplace solely because of what language was originally used to create them. This is a frightening move that has no rational defense other than wanting tyrannical control over developers and more importantly, wanting to use developers as pawns in their crusade against Adobe. This does not just affect Adobe but also other technologies like Unity3D.

…

…

Many of Adobe’s supporters have mentioned that we should discontinue the Creative Suite products on OS X as a form of retaliation. Again, this is something that Adobe would never consider in a million years. We are not looking to abuse our loyal users and make them pawns for the sake of trying to hurt another company. What is clear is that Apple most definitely would do that sort of thing as is evidenced by their recent behavior.

Personally I will not be giving Apple another cent of my money until there is a leadership change over there. I’ve already moved most of my book, music, and video purchases to Amazon and I will continue to look elsewhere. Now, I want to be clear that I am not suggesting you do the same and I’m also not trying to organize some kind of boycott. Me deciding not to give money to Apple is not going to do anything to their bottom line. …

Now let me put aside my role as an official representative of Adobe for a moment as I would look to make it clear what is going through my mind at the moment. Go screw yourself Apple.

I cannot see myself using this at all, kinda a creepy if you ask me, but instead prefer the manual updates I do with foursquare.  But could be useful for some people. REALLY useful if your phone goes ‘missing’.

* AT&T purgatory: A location where your always on the edge of service, and thus your phone has to work much harder to keep sync as well as perform email update. (A post about this coming soon)

“By way of example, for various reasons the company moved from an exclusive relationship with French wireless carrier Orange to a multi-carrier model. In France, the company now enjoys dramatically higher market share (in the 40% range vs. about 15% in ROW) than in countries with exclusive carrier agreements (such as AT&T in the U.S. where the iPhone has market share in the mid-teens)…”

Since starting work in SOMA, and hearing from many of my readers that the 3.0.1 update did not improve cell performace, I decided NOT to get the 3Gs.  I may go to T-Mobile for awhile and see what that is like.  If AT&T fixes it’s issues by the summer, then great.  Else, I’m REALLY looking forward to 3Gs+ on some other service this summer.

Well, guess what I read in CNET?  Apple new about this for 6 weeks!!!  Are you kidding me? From CNET..

The attack is enabled by a serious memory corruption bug in the way the iPhone handles SMS messages, said Miller, a senior security researcher at Independent Security Evaluators. There is no patch, despite the fact that Apple was notified of the problem about six weeks ago, he said.

I don’t get it.  6 weeks?  And no patch?  Huurmmph.  Count down before some script kiddie starts to make trouble in 5.. 4.. 3..   FAIL

I want a bloody keyboard for my smart phone.   There are many thing about the iphone that really pisses me off, but so far, only android comes close to the experience.  I was excited about the palm pre till I tried the keyboard.. too small.  The G1, the keyboard is useless. (FAIL in the design dept.)  So my last hope?  The Nokia N97.  Now its not a full smart phone OS like the iphone, android or WebOS, but I heard they were going to tweak symbian AND I heard the camera was great.  Well, from what I’ve read, it was nothing more then a tweek although the video and web browsers are both up to modern speed. If taking pics are your main concern, the you will like this phone.

But back to the keyboard, most people complain about the spacing of the N97 or the very poor press feedback, or the tilt of the phone vs. the keyboard.

Please!!  Somebody!!  Build a nice, solid keyboard for the iphone!  Use blue tooth to talk if required. It just cannot be all that hard to build something that snaps on. Take a look at what many 3rd party battery extended products do.

For now, I guess I will get the new iphone3GS and simply accept another 2 years of ATT. Sigh..

The WSJ reports that Flash support will be coming to Palm webOS, Google Android, and Nokia Symbian S60 devices by the end of this year, leaving the remaining holdouts the iPhone and BlackBerry smartphone platforms. Analysts suspect this has little to do with technological hurdles and everything to do with Apple and Research In Motion, who may want to favor as much application exclusivity on their devices as possible.