Browsing Category

Main

Main

Overall impressions of iOS 7

I had my doubts about iOS 7 when I first started seeing the screenshots for it, but I did go ahead and take the plunge and install it on both of my iThings this past week: my iPhone 5, and my iPad 2. And on the whole, I gotta admit, it grew on me pretty quickly.

Design

First, the things I like.

Once I got used to the new design, I really appreciated that it’s less cluttered. I didn’t like the various screenshots I was seeing of super-bright, super-flat backgrounds with all the candy-colored icons in front of them. But once I set the devices up and chose some of the darker, less gaudy backgrounds, everything looked fine. (Pro tip: the white text labels on the various icons are a lot easier to read if you do in fact choose a darker background.)

I also like how a lot more of the UI is oriented around text now rather than inexplicable buttons. (Although I also am cognizant of the localization challenge, there!)

Definitely liking that I’m finally able to stuff several of the icons for standard iOS apps I never use (e.g., Stocks, FaceTime, Newsstand, and such) into a folder so I can just forget about ’em, and clean up some real estate space on my home screen. Also finally able to put more than twelve icons into one folder. YAY! This is helpful for my folders for games. And I do like the pagination of said folders, though this’ll mean I gotta remember to move the more important icons in a folder forward so I don’t forget about ’em.)

Quebecois Guitarists are an Important UI Element

Quebecois Guitarists are an Important UI Element

The new layout of the lock screen, particularly on a device with a Retina screen like my iPhone 5, is nice–but it meant that the previous pic I was using of myself and Eric Beaudry of De Temps Antan was suddenly unacceptably fuzzy. OH DARN, I said, WHATEVER SHALL I DO IF ONLY I HAD A CACHE OF SUITABLE ALTERNATE HIGH RES PICS oh wait I DO.

And now, the things I don’t like:

Not a fan of the animations of swooping in and out when you unlock the device or when you’re switching back to the home screen. It actually makes me a little motion sick on my phone, though it’s not as bad on the iPad–possibly because there’s more screen to play with, I dunno. After a few days of having the OS on my devices, as I suspected, I am getting accustomed to the motion of app switching. Still though, given my druthers, I’d turn that off.

Also don’t like that the “Reduce motion” setting, buried under Accessibility, does not in fact reduce the animations. There’s no way to turn those off, as near as I can tell. That said, I did in fact turn that setting on because I’m also not a fan of the parallax of the backgrounds. See previous commentary re: don’t really need my phone making me motion sick, mmkay?

ETA: OH YES, I forgot to mention another thing about the parallax–apparently if you have parallax on, it impacts how you can center whatever photos you may be using on your lock screen. I noticed this on my iPad, where I’m using a photo I took of my signed Le Vent du Nord poster as my lock screen photo, and the centering of it went off once iOS 7 was installed. This problem went away once I turned on “Reduce motion”.

You can find this setting under Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion.

Functionality

And now that I’ve talked about what the OS looks like, here’s what I like about what it does.

I’m really digging the new task switcher. It’s a lot more elegant, and it’s super-easy to get rid of a task just by swiping upward on it.

The new “Today” screen is very nice. Its arrangement is intuitive and the info it shows is useful, particularly the new layout of notifications.

I haven’t had a reason to find the new control center useful yet, but I’m suspecting I will. Particularly the next time Dara and I go to Canada, at which point quick access to turning wifi off and on will be nice.

They actually didn’t break my Not Recently Played playlist this time. Well done there, Apple. I’ve complained before about this–though to be fair, when they’ve broken this before, it’s seemed like it’s always been variants of the same bug, i.e., if you try to use a “Limit” criteria on a playlist. My “Not Recently Played” playlist was previously trying to limit to 200 or 300 songs depending on how long I felt like making it. And since I turned off that criterion on the list some time ago, I honestly don’t know if the bug with it is still in there.

So far the things I don’t like are few. I’m vaguely miffed that they moved podcasts out of the Music app and off into their own thing. Presumably to free up real estate for iTunes Radio, about which I give exactly zero damns since I never use Pandora or Spotify–if I like music, I’m just going to buy it, and if I’ve bought it, chances are it’s already on my phone anyway.

And, while they haven’t managed to break my Not Recently Played smart playlist this time around as has happened on previous major revs of the OS, I did notice that there’s a visual bug involving showing the wrong album art for several of my smart playlists in general.

My personal jury is still out on whether they’ve managed to make the Maps app suck less. I did give it a test run to see how well it’d handle live walking directions, on a walk that took me about an hour. I did follow its directions successfully, but I also noticed lag time several times in how fast the phone caught up with my position along the route. More than once it gave me a spoken direction after I’d actually passed the spot in question.

Other Stuff

Plantes contre Zombies

Plantes contre Zombies

And file this under category “never tried this in a prior version of the OS, but discovered it playing around with iOS 7 and thought it was cool”–just to see what would happen, I changed my phone’s language setting to French, and quite liked that you could do that on the fly. But what tickled me even more was seeing that both versions of Plants Vs. Zombies actually dynamically changed over to French, too!

What ultimately sold me on installing the OS on my devices were a couple of in-depth reviews, here and here–but also, just hearing from Dara and Paul that they were having positive reactions to it installing it on their devices at home. If you’re thinking about going for it, do go ahead and read the reviews first, so you can get an informed idea of what you’re signing up for.

Also, two other things I’ll mention that you’ll want to keep an eye out for. One is that there’s a potential vulnerability with the aforementioned lock screen, described here. I was able to reproduce the behavior it describes, though it does require you to be very quick to make it happen. On the other hand, I also noticed that I could not actually get to any applications in my task switcher which were not themselves accessible by the control panel. For example, I couldn’t get to either my Facebook app OR Echofon (the app I use for Twitter). So be on the lookout for this, be cognizant of what apps you’re running, and if you’re feeling paranoid about this particular thing, you might consider disabling the control panel.

The second thing I’ll mention is that if you’re concerned about privacy settings, go read this article about the various things you’ll want to make sure are OFF. In particular, eh, no, Apple, you really don’t need to know what places I commonly go to in my life.

TL;DR version

On the whole, I’m considering this a win, and certainly a less painful transition than going from iOS 5 to iOS 6 was. On the other hand, I’ve also got a reasonably new phone, and I wouldn’t recommend trying to install this on an older one. My iPad 2 does appear to be handling it well, though.

Drop me your thoughts in the comments on how the upgrade’s working for you!

September 23, 2013 by
Main

And now, today’s episode of Conversations at the Murkworks, online edition

In which I react to the possibility of what might happen if Le Vent du Nord were to actually come to Seattle for a concert, and ideally, to do the same block of workshops, concert, and after party that so splendidly happened here with Genticorum before!

Me: Because JESUS SKIPPING JUMP ROPE CHRIST if she can get them here and do the workshop and then after party thing and if I could wind up with my actual instruments in my actual hands in a room occupied by Olivier goddamn Demers eeeeeee XD ahem. Yes, that would be PLEASANT.

Taliesin chuckles. …. and get invited to sit in… 🙂

Me: Dude I am NOT good enough to actually seriously play along with Olivier. But in a session context, everybody‘s playing, so that’s OKAY. And I will absolutely happily park in any workshop he does for an opportunity to slurp tunes out of his brain. 😀 😀

Taliesin: Zombie Anna? Eat musician brains?

Me: I don’t wanna eat his brain! He needs it! No no I just wanna slurp ALL THE TUNES out of it! And okay yeah fine I could swipe some of Dara’s knowledge transfer equipment but that’s no fun, because then I couldn’t hear him PLAY. 😉

Dara: You’d think ‘copy’ would be easier than ‘move,’ wouldn’t you? And yet.

Me: Yeah working out all the pesky bugs out of the non-destructive copy functionality, that’s the tricky part.

Dara: Also, wildcards don’t work in brainOS like they do in Linux. That discovery was… interesting.

And now I gotta work on that “this isn’t a flute, this is a stringless fiddle with holes” perception filter so I can crash workshops full of fiddlers…

September 19, 2013 by
Main

Not enough facepalm in the world

Jesus jumping Christ on a pogo stick, this again?

I just read Foz Meadows’ post over here responding to Paul Cook’s piece at Amazing Stories about “When Science Fiction Isn’t Science Fiction”. Foz has several quotes from the piece in question, and, SPOILER ALERT: apparently, according to Mr. Cook, SF isn’t SF when it’s written by women. Because they’re writing about girly things that only women with their girly brains would be interested in, and that people like Lois McMaster Bujold are writing thinly disguised romance novels, not “real SF”.

Lois. McMaster. Bujold. Let that sink in for a minute, you guys.

Also, he has a side helping of going all ranty mcrantypants about steampunk, especially when steampunk involves zombies, so apparently Cherie Priest isn’t writing real SF either.

And I’m not sure what makes me go WHAT IS THIS I DON’T EVEN more: that he’s got it in his pointy little head that only women are interested in reading about things like balls, gossiping in corridors, palace intrigues, and the like; that presumably, by contrast, he must therefore also believe that women aren’t interested in reading about rocketships or whatever ground he feels that “real SF” actually breaks; or that he pulls in comparisons to Alexandre Dumas. Comma, the guy who wrote The Three Musketeers, which last I checked was chock full of swashbuckly manly action and palace intrigue, so I can’t even figure out where the hell he was going with this.

(I don’t even know where the hell I’d fall in this guy’s perception of readership, either. I am a female reader who gives exactly zero fucks about fancy shoes or fancy purses in my personal life. I’m way more interested in spending my money on computers and musical instruments. I also generally give zero fucks about sex scenes, but I do like reading about a love story. I’ve got some hard SF on my shelves, too. None of which would make a damn bit of difference, I think, since I am after all still a girl.)

And don’t even get me started on the digs against the entire romance genre. I’ve expressed my deep frustration before with SF readers snarking on romance (and how a LOT of it is driven by sexism). A whole HELL of a lot of other writers have continued to express their frustration over this as the year continues, including this excellent post by Ann Aguirre, asking exactly what the hell is wrong with having sex in SF, anyway?

I saw James Nicoll link up to this a couple days ago too, and only paid passing attention at the time. I kind of wish I’d continued to pay passing attention. But on the other hand, women in SF/F don’t really have the luxury of not paying attention to this.

We have to keep talking about it until it stops.

ETA: Link roundup for other people’s commentary!

J.B. Whelan has a great skewering of this entire concept, written by his wife Stephanie, quoted in full over here. BWAHAHAHAHA.

Chris Meadows points and laughs.

Cora Buhlert facepalms right along with the rest of us.

Steven Brust pretty much makes the o.O face over here.

September 7, 2013 by
Main

Plants Vs. Zombies 2: An almost complete review

Finally did grab Plants Vs. Zombies 2 for my iPad 2, and I’ve been playing the hell out of it, pretty much as expected. I was a little dubious going on, since this is a Free to Play game and the whole Free to Play concept does make me sort of make this face: o.O

That said, PopCap was swearing up and down that you’re supposed to be able to complete the game without having to make any purchases. So far, I can attest that this seems to be the case. As of this writing, I’ve completed the three main levels but haven’t unlocked the boss level yet.

So what then is different about playing this game vs. playing the original?

The Free to Play experience is a big one. You will find that a lot of the familiar plants you got for free on leveling up in the original game are now plants that you have to unlock. And by ‘unlock’, I mean, you can either buy them immediately to get them, or else you can play through to the point in the game to which you get to unlock them for free. I found this only slightly annoying–I DO love that Squash that whomps on zombies, I do love it so–and have so far been generally pleased at the pacing of when you get what plants.

Some familiar plants from the first game behave slightly differently than their first game versions, too, so keep an eye out for that. For example, the twin sunflower is no longer an upgrade to the standard sunflower–it’s its own plant. So you can’t plant it on top of a single sunflower.

There are also plenty of new plants, several of which are highly entertaining. I like the Snapdragon that spits fire a LOT, as well as the Lightning Reed.

And, of course, this game in theory has an actual plot (above and beyond OHNOEZ ZOMBIES ARE INVADING YOUR LAWN, that is). You’ve been recruited to come with Crazy Dave from the first game on a time travel jaunt to try to locate his missing taco, so he can eat it again! Because of COURSE Dave has a time machine, and of COURSE the whole point of this is to find his taco. It’s really rather adorable. Now how you get from this to zombies in Ancient Egypt, the Pirate Seas, and the Wild West, you got me! But who cares? They’re ZOMBIES and if you played the first game, you absolutely know what to do.

Be on the lookout for zombies with new attacks, too, based on whatever world you’re in at the moment. Ancient Egypt has Pharaoh zombies that can steal your sun, Anubis zombies that can generate new gravestones, archaeologist zombies with torches that can set your plants on fire, and zombies in sarcophagi which are real hard to take down. Over in Pirate Seas, you’ll find the zombies keep saying “BRAINS AHOY”, which totally made me giggle. And be on the lookout there for zombies carried by parrots who can fly over your plants, and the tiny zombie you may remember from the first game as being carried by the Gargantuars now being shot out of cannons. And in the Wild West, I’m deeply charmed by the Saloon Piano Player zombie, who, once he starts tinkling the ivories, gets all the zombies currently on the screen dancing. Also, two words: ZOMBIE CHICKENS.

Music-wise, many of the gameplay themes are familiar, yet with amusing variations and new instruments depending on which world you’re in. Listen for the squeezebox in Pirate Seas and the banjo in Wild West.

They’ve tweaked Crazy Dave’s appearance a bit, as well as the appearance of pretty much all of the plants, yet everything still looks generally familiar. And I like as well that once you finish playing a level proper, you can keep doing side branches of it with interesting puzzles in order to pick up more stars and keys to unlock yet more stuff.

Also: as near as I can tell the whole front-facing camera thing does indeed ONLY come into play if you want to add a photo to your player profile on game startup. Which I didn’t even bother to use. I just tried the UI just to see what it would do, and it gave me a message saying that the photo would only be saved to “this device”–which makes me think this feature is entirely unnecessary. For my money, they should have left it out in order to make the game available to generation 1 iPads as well.

On the whole though this game is definitely entertaining, and while the sheer fact that I’ve seen these game mechanics before does diminish the freshness a bit, nonetheless all the new additions are delightful. Especially the zombie chickens. Here’s hoping the game will be deployed out to other platforms and that a version will deploy to desktops, in particular. I totally want this thing on my Mac, and I want to give them money for their work!

September 6, 2013 by
Main

PAX followup

Saw a couple more links go up today about the PAX controversy that spawned this week, with the Return of the Dickwolves.

From Lesley at xojane.com: “What Are Dickwolves, And What Do They Have to Do With Rape Culture? A Cautionary Tale of How Not to Respond to Feminist Criticism.”

And from Rachel Edidin at Wired: “Why I’m Never Going Back to Penny Arcade Expo”

To these I will further add that Dara has commentary here as to what it would actually mean to try to boycott PAX, and here as to what she’d really like to ask people to consider taking as an action in all of this.

And in the interests of clarity and forthrightness, I note that I’ve seen Gabe’s post here and have read what he’s got to say about the matter.

Me, I’ll repeat that to some degree I have no horse in this race because I’ve not been much of a PAX person or a Penny Arcade reader, either. On the other hand, I do have a horse on the very edge of the race because people close to me are PAX people and Penny Arcade readers. And in several cases, they are also survivors of rape. And it bothers the hell out of me, on their behalf, that this kind of shit keeps happening. It encourages the creation of a space that is actively hostile to them. And from a bigger picture perspective, it contributes to the ongoing misogyny of gamer culture. That, yeah, I do have a problem with.

And for me, it’s less a question of any specific bullshit remark the man makes, and more of a question of a repeating pattern of behavior. Gabe’s new post certainly sounds sincere, and if his heart is in the right place, awesome… except his heart being in the right place only means so much when he keeps making remarks like this over and over and over and over and over. He keeps getting called out on them, and keeps not stopping making these remarks. And since he is indeed half of the public face of the giant Godzilla of gamer culture, he is a huge influence on how that culture responds and behaves.

To paraphrase what I said in comments in response to my last post on this: I’ll be happy to stop calling bullshit on his behavior when he stops doing it. I have nothing personal against the man. I don’t hate him. But this ongoing pattern of behavior is bullshit, and if he wants his apologies to be taken seriously, it needs to stop.

We’ll see if it manages to stop this time, before next year’s PAX rolls around. It’ll be a deciding factor in whether I choose to go again, myself.

September 5, 2013 by
Main

So I skipped PAX this year

… in no small part due to how I’m back in edit mode for Vengeance of the Hunter. But from what I’m hearing, first from Dara’s PAX report and then from rumblings around Twitter this morning, apparently Gabe opened his mouth again and highly unfortunate things fell out.

PAX has always been a bit of a problem for me. For one thing, hi, raging introvert girl here. So many people attend that thing that my tolerance for the crowds goes only so far if I’m there too. A couple of hours on the expo floor and eventually I get to a point of wanting to go all Invader Zim and stand up yelling STAND AWAY! YOU SMELL LIKE FEET! Which, y’know, not terribly productive.

There’s also the problem that I’ve never been a console gamer. There’s other types of gaming covered at PAX, sure–Big Fish has had a booth there the last couple of years, so casual games do have a presence. I’m given to understand we were hawking our forthcoming Zombie Zombie Zombie match 3 game, and yeah, I’ll be playing the hell out of that. But mostly, the whole event is filled with stuff I’ve never been particularly interested in. I quite enjoy watching Dara and Paul play various console games, and experiencing their stories vicariously–I really liked the storyline of the BioShock games, enough that I went and grabbed the tie-in novel just so I could read about the founding of Rapture. Portal and Portal II, also great fun to watch, and of course between Paul and Dara we’ve been HOUSE OF SKYRIM for a while now too. Also great fun to watch, if nothing else because Skyrim’s always struck me as a way fancier version of Nethack.

But. Looking from the outside in, and seeing repeated incidents of misogyny and queerphobia in gaming culture, I can’t help but get a big vibe of ‘yeah that? That’s not for me.’

I’ll be going to GeekGirlCon, though. And who knows? Maybe I’ll see something there that’ll change my mind about console gaming, even before Dara and Paul launch their campaign to try to pull me into Elder Scrolls Online next year.

ETA: First of the pertinent commentary links that have come across my radar: From Make Me a Sammich, who has generally Had Enough of This Shit

ETA #2: Elizabeth Sampat says Quit Going to PAX already, in no uncertain terms (Dara’s in the comments over there, too)

September 3, 2013 by
Main

In which Anna finds her tiny doppleganger

Yesterday was the anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death, and as many of y’all will know, Elvis was my very first musical fandom, the very first musician I ever adored. So naturally, I took it upon myself to post amusing Elvis-related things to the Intarwebz (such as a callback to last year when Alan Doyle sang “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and killed me DED FROM SWOON).

Then a Facebook friend (hi Venus!) sent me this! And this is the most OMG ADORABLE thing I have seen this entire week: a baby girl singing along with Elvis on “American Trilogy”. In no small part because it totally reminded me of how my dad used to swear up and down that among the first words I ever uttered were “Play more Elvis, Daddy!”

I’m not sure what slays me more, how she keeps going Daddy Daddy Daddy HI DADDY, how she then realizes there’s music happening and swaps back and forth, how she starts coming in on “look away”, the bit where she headbangs, or how she’s either conducting the orchestra or maybe playing imaginary timpani in the bridge leading up to the final chorus. <3

If this kid starts asking for Great Big Sea and Le Vent du Nord next, I’m going to have to have a word with Dara about my clones escaping into the wild too early. 😉

August 17, 2013 by