The guys at Touch Arcade are at it again -- this time, ZodTTD has ported temper, a TurboGrafx-16 emulator, to the iPhone, and as you can see above, this means something amazing: Bonk on the touchscreen. Sounds like the audio has a few little glitches, but seems like the controls and graphics are working as well as could be asked -- even in the slower Landscape mode (with the controls overlaid on the graphics), he says it was pulling about 50FPS.
There's even an emulator for the TurboGrafx-16 CD PC Engine, as long as you do a little tweaking (and nab the bios from somewhere that may or may not be legal -- same for the ROMs). temper4iPhone is still in beta, and just like all of these other emulators and jailbreak apps, we have no clue at all whether we'll ever get the chance to see them on the (rapidly approaching) App Store. Still, it's awesome to see -- we've definitely come a long way from the NES emulator way back when.
John Gruber's (and my) favorite Twitter web app for the iPhone is about to get better -- if you've been on the Hahlo for iPhone homepage lately, you'll have seen that Dean Robinson is working on version 3 of Hahlo (titled, hilariously for us gamers, the Legendary Edition).
TUAW got to take a look (along with all of the other beta users) at the new software, and here's a short preview running through what the new Hahlo will look like, as well as updates to the system, including a brand new Settings page, inline replies, hashtags and searching, and lots of other cool tweaks and updates.
Bare Feats continues to pit Macs against each other in a no-holds-barred, up-against-the-wall benchmarking breakdown, and this time around it's the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air in the octagon together. And things go about as planned -- while the solid state drive in the MBA has its advantages, the processor and GPU (what little there is of it) in the MBA don't even really compare to the MBP. Sure, it's a small, super thin, super portable computer, but not only are you paying in cash for the portability, you're paying in performance, too.
This doesn't mean the MBA is a bad computer at all -- for most tasks, it'll work just fine. But complicated 3D graphics (both Halo and Unreal Tournament 2004 were tested) will be almost unplayable in games, and there will be a substantial wait, sometimes up to minutes more, for certain processor intensive tasks. If speed is a high priority (at least higher than portability), the MBA isn't for you.
I would like to see how the MacBook compares, though. It's not surprising that the MBP is a fast machine, but where does the MBA line up compared to the cheaper model?
Our good friends over at WoW Insider (disclaimer: I'm a lead over there) have unlocked one of the first secrets about 10.5.2 (which dropped today in Software Update): it'll make World of Warcraft play faster.
After hearing that the patch made reader Jason's Mac play faster, WoW Insider's Adam Holisky saw his FPS jump from 30 to 50 on his first-gen Intel iMac (he also has 2gb of RAM, and installed the graphics update with 10.5.2). The picture on the upper right was a test under 10.5.1, and on the lower right was after the update.
Pretty slick. I'd imagine that this would probably affect most 3D games (although who knows how EA's games will work on the Mac at any given moment). The only note that might document this in the update itself is just a "general stability" fix for "third-party applications,' but if you see your 3D go faster after 10.5.2 let us know. Azeroth has never looked so good.
As a couple of you astute readers have noticed (thanks!), Madden NFL '08 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08 are now available on the Apple Store, just a little over a month after they were released for PC and consoles last August. A month isn't too bad for Mac ports-- at least the football season is still going on.
I haven't played this year's Madden yet, but I can wholeheartedly vouch for Tiger Woods-- I've been playing the Xbox 360 version of it, and it is some good (if sometimes very difficult, read: frustrating) golf. If you do pick up either game, however, make sure to check your innards first-- neither game will work on Intel's GMA950 graphics processors, found in the MacBook and the Mac mini. If you're boasting a MacBook Pro, a Mac Pro, or a new iMac, you're in the clear, as they use higher end video cards.
I'm going to mark this one rumor for right now, but there's an interesting thread going on over at MacRumors Forums that suggests that the new iMacs may have a stealth upgrade. When they were announced a lot of folks were disappointed with the included Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphics card, however, some people have discovered that (at least running Windows in Boot Camp) their machines appear to be reporting that the GPU is actually an underclocked mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT, which is a more powerful chip. This would not be the first time that Windows has revealed hardware that Apple wanted hidden, as several machines were discovered to have draft 802.11n wireless networking chipsets in that way before they were later activated by Apple. Many are expressing hope that some future update or some ATI specific tool might unlock the hidden power of the GPU, but at this point it seems to be wishful thinking.
So there you go-- if you don't have something pretty on your iPhone yet, you're not looking hard enough. And if you need help getting these on your iPhone we've got you covered there, too.
iPhone eye candy (or should that be iCa... oh never mind) is starting to roll in.
Wes (thanks!) dropped us this "very nice selection" of specially sized wallpaper. Most of it seems to be about birds, but there are a few cool non-bird shots included as well. And Sarah from SuicideGirls says she's a fan of TUAW (hawt!) and pointed out their iPhone wallpaper packs-- one is supposedly a pack of "PG13" desktops (they say it's work safe, but not if you work in a monastery), and there's a pack of R-rated desktops as well as a pack of SG logos which also, upon inspection, turn out to be R-rated. But they all look pretty good (if you like looking at geeky cool chicks), and of course they're all fitted for the iPhone.
Also SG and iPhone related, Sarah mentioned that Rob Corddry (of the Daily Show and Frank Wrench fame) has also written a short piece for their site about his experience buying an iPhone, which turns out to be very NSFW as well. But hey, it's the holiday-- kick back and enjoy a little iPhone-related adult humor.
On this day of excess tryptophan and annoying relatives, it's important to take a minute and give thanks for the things we enjoy, yet take for granted the rest of the year. This year, I'm thankful that I get to sit around and blog about a company that cares enough about design to go that extra step in everything it does, including elevators. Where other companies would put simple buttons, Apple placed an elegant masterpiece of interaction design in front of the elevator at its flagship Ginza store in Tokyo. I've long been impressed by the motion graphics work produced by Apple, but I have to say that this is by far one of my favorites. Enjoy, and happy turkey day!
MacsimumNews broke down a MacGeneration post (a French publication) revealing that the new 24-inch iMac Apple introduced this week could quite possibly be the first iMac with a truly upgradeable graphics card. Thanks to a new Mobile PCI Express Module (MXM - originally designed for high-end notebooks) standard in the biggest iMac of 'em all, owners might be able to upgrade their own graphics card and (finally) ditch that old just throw it out when you want to upgrade stigma - if this is true, of course. You can also thank NVIDIA and their partnership with some of the industry leading notebook manufacturers (we would imagine Alienware and even Dell, believe it or not) for this standard that was quite a long time coming.
Why this much-requested feature isn't getting any spotlight time on the new iMac's graphics page, or why the 24-inch is the only model to receive the coveted upgrade-ability treatment, definitely doesn't help our skeptical side. We'll be investigating this further, as it could easily be that Apple adopted the standard for one reason or another (like cheaper manufacturing costs), but still soldered the card (which will most surely cause an uproar, if true).
We'd also like to echo MacsimumNews' observation that it would be stellar if Apple could work this standard into the next MacBook Pro revision, as the company kinda dropped the ball with their current lineup.
AMD, the #2 CPU maker in the world, has announced a purchase of ATI, a leading graphics card manufacturer, for $5.4 billion. IMG has more details on the buyout and the business end of things, but we're more interested in finding out what exactly this means for the Mac market. ATI currently supplies the graphics hardware in a good portion of Apple's machines, including the MacBook Pro I'm typing this on and my wife's iMac, so here's hoping ATI makes enough money from working with Apple to keep AMD - an arch rival to Intel - happy. Stay tuned for more details as they develop.
Lineform, formerly Inform, has reached 1.1 and added many features. This $79 graphics program now boasts AppleScriptablity, support for Core Image, media browsing and much more.
This program is designed to be powerful but simple to use and seems to be focused on logo design.
Are you dying for a sneak peek at Leopard, the next incarnation
of OS X? If so, book a ticket for San Francisco in mid-August. Apple has announced, on its site and by email to
customers, that it will offer a preview of OS X Leopard at WWDC
2006, scheduled for August 7-11.
The Apple site briefly describes five WWDC session tracks --
Application Technologies, Development Tools, Graphics and Media, Information Technologies, and OS Foundations --
but doesn't provide details about specific sessions. If you're considering going, try to get your boss to pick up the
registration fee, which is a stiff $1295-$3500 before June 23 and even more after that date. If you're a student, don't
overlook Apple's Student Scholarship Program. We told you before -- but it's worth a
reminder -- that applications for a free WWDC ticket through that program are due on April 28.
Our good friends 
Tons of 
iPhone eye candy (or should that be iCa... oh never mind) is 
AMD, the #2 CPU maker in the world, has announced a purchase of ATI, a leading graphics card manufacturer, for $5.4 billion. 
Are you dying for a sneak peek at Leopard, the next incarnation
of OS X? If so, book a ticket for San Francisco in mid-August. Apple has announced, on its site and by email to
customers, that it will offer a preview of OS X Leopard at 
