Widgets
I have a nexus one and enjoy my widgets. I have some for RSS feeds, weather, mint.com, search bars, twitter, financial information, quick settings i need access too, etc. iOS5 needs some widget integration, and I see it opening up an entirely new market for sales. I hope Apple doesn’t ignore the revenue opportunity here, but I have feeling they just might.

Overhaul Notification Handling
One of the biggest knocks on iOS is the way it handles notifications. Sure this was fine when all that was coming in were texts and the occasional alarm or reminder. Now with the advent of push notifications, and every app using it like it’s going out of style it does not take long for it to be a huge annoyance. I turn almost all my push notifications off by default. I’d love to see an android style notification task bar that I can just drag down at my leisure and respond to whatever program is waiting for my response. This is one spot where Apple design is bottlenecking the user experience.

Multitasking makeover
Closer to how safari handles multiple pages. Give me options, i want ot be able to choose what apps stay in multitasking mode, which close every time i press the home button. I like the double click style bottom row launch, but I’d love to see some rework in this area and let the user have a preview of exactly what is running. I like how they handle safari pages, and I’d love to see something similar for multitasking in iOS.

File Management
We need some kind of file manager. Want to attach a document or photograph to that email you already have written? Nope, you can only attach files through the file itself, not through the email client. If apple really wants to push this is a true post-computer device, we really need to see some ability to manipulate files, open then from anywhere.

Air Syncing
Having a completely portable device still pretty much by default be tethered. While I’m at it, add a cloud music service. I hate having my collection all strewn about because I may have purchased an item on one computer, but not another. Setup a cloud for my app save games, my icon layouts and all my mp3s. I’d even pay extra for this service. I love the cloud, Apple come join me.

Air installation
Android’s market place lets me install applications to my device through a simple once-click web interface. I love this a lot. It makes getting apps on my device easy if someone links me to something without even having to pick up my phone. Apple, please release this now through iTunes.

Child Accounts
Apple has taken basically zero precautions to help parents control the spending on the device once it leaves their hands. As a parent I’d like to see either A) A “Child mode” similar to that of Airplane mode where purchases can’t happen without a special 4 digit code+ the account password that I can turn/off quickly or B) Let me setup a child account inside iTunes that will let me put credits in. That way my son can buy what he wants, but not have unlimited access to my credit card.

Animated backgrounds
This request is extremely trivial. But in the right spot animated backgrounds are fun and frivilous. If i judge how long it took apple to give us the ability to select custom backgrounds at all, I don’t see this one coming any time soon.

We’ll know more come this June at WWDC. I’m really hoping we’ll see at least one of these features announced come early summer.

1) Keep your specializations

When developing games, keep the specializations you chose (Game World, Polish, Approachability, etc) for multiple games in a row. This will create a situation where your reputation starts to form and you will get significant increase in fans.  I tend to switch directions after I get this notice, to replicate it in another area.

2) Get multiple game types and styles to lvl 2 and lvl 5.

Every time you get a genre to level 2 and level 5, you gain an additional 2 points to assign in the game specialization.  This will help your over all scores, and fans.  Thus making you more money, which is the primary goal.

3) Do not skimp on your staff hiring.

Everything relies on your staff.  Always spend the extra money to hire the best, it will make you a ton more money in the long run as their skills will create better games, which will sell better.

4) Advertise

Building your fan base inside the game is very important in keeping your sales high.  Spending the money on advertising seems expensive at times, but it will definitely be worth it in the long run.

5) Time your releases around the end of the year.

Try and make sure one of your games per year come out in late November or early December.  This will help even a poorly made game gain significant sales due to the timing of the release.

6) Create your own hardware.

Eventually the game will unlock the ability for you to develop your own console.  This will cost you $90 million if you choose all the top end options.  This is a good idea, as it will save you money in dev costs and produce revenue for you.  The problem most people have is finding a Hardware Engineer.  The way you gain one is to train one of you employees to level 5 in all the roles.  This requires a lot of discs, change job manuals and time.  So start prepping an individual early for this role.  Also, purchase job change manuals early as this will also save you money when it comes time to train yourself an engineer.

7) Take contracts when needed.

At times it’s good to gain some extra fast income from doing contracts.  This can be done very quickly with a highly trained staff sometimes finishing a 10 week contract in 2 weeks.  If you put a couple of these together quickly, you can make up that extra cost hiring that marching band cost you last month.  As a side tip: Never accept someones offer to improve a contracts graphics,sound, etc.  Many times it will cause you a loss of money, delayed time and lost discs.  Don’t even consider it.

8 ) When assigning jobs watch fatigue levels.

When you are giving someone a job at the various stages of development, make sure to give it first to someone who has the highest stat, but you also need to make sure that the person is not tired, and has not been used multiple times in a row.  It is sometimes not a bad idea to hire an outsider to do the job for you to give your main employee a rest.

9) Sequels rule the gaming world.

Eventually you will start creating sequels.  It is good to have about 3 or so different franchises that you run through consistently, trying to never repeat a type/genre.  Any game that reaches the hall of fame will be eligible to have a sequel created.  These will also be your biggest sellers, and as a bonus you get a base start of stats, which will help your score.

10) Use obvious combinations

This one seems like a no brainer, but make sure you always pick types and genres that match.  No one wants to play Puzzle/Marathon, but I’m sure there are a ton that like Shooter/Robot.

11) New Game++

After you complete your 20 years of service to the slave driver known as GDS, you get to go at it again if you want.  Start a new game and you will gain a bonus of all your previously gained levels in each genre/style, as well as access to secret Monkey and Robot employees.

I’ll add to this post as I think of more, or come across any additional information.

Top 3 Games:

It was the year of the sequel.  Each one of these games completely blew away the game before it.  The all deserve to be on this list, and if you haven’t played them, go out and put money down on them.  You will not regret it one bit.

1) Mass Effect 2 (xbox 360) – The first game was one amazing space opera.  It had some flaws, but overall was a much improved experience which took out all the stuff I hated in Mass Effect (Mako driving!).  The space mining was a bit tedious, but overall the game was executed very well.  I’m excited to see how this crazy space trilogy ends.

2) Starcraft 2 (PC) –12 years in the making? A rumoured 100 million spent to make it? Well all of that was worth it.  The best RTS game of all time has captured my attention since I got into the beta in March.  I still play it regularly and have a blast.  There is a pretty amazing e-sport scene surrounding the game over in Korea, and it makes watching the game played fun to watch.

3) Uncharted 2 (xbox 360) – Naughty Dog blended Indiana Jones and game playing perfectly, then improved on it.  This game was a ton of fun, and I’m really excited for the third one coming out sometime this year.

Runners Up: God of War 3(PS3), Assassins Creed 2(xbox 360)

Top 3 Albums:

1) Brothers(Deluxe) by The Black Keys – Hadn’t heard of them until their grammy nomination.  Now I can’t get enough of this blues rock brother combo.  Do not miss this album.  It’s like if you took Gnarls Barkley and Stevie Ray Vaughn and mashed them together.  So weird, yet so good.  Pick this one up.

2) Travel Vol 3 by Future of Forestry – The idea of releasing about 5 songs every 6 months or so is awesome.  More bands need to this more often.  I loved the first two volumes, and the third one of the set was by far the best.  The tempo was increased, more guitars added and the lyrics just as strong.  You need to pick this up.

3) Stone Temple Pilots – Stone Temple Pilots – After a many year hiatus, mutliple “super groups” and apparently a few times in rehab.  The group has reformed to put out which I think was one of the best albums of the year.  If you are a child of the 90s then you owe yourself to buy this album and give a good listen.

Top 3 Movies

1) Inception – Does Christopher Nolan ever make a bad movie? So far the answer is no, and this movie blew away my large expectations for it.  It is a bit mind bending, but simply amazing.

2) True Grit – This one squeaked into my top 3 at the very end of the year.  The Coen brothers do it again with this sort of remake of the original.  This movie was carried by the actors and the excellent dialogue written for them.  Go see it, you still have time.

3) Scott Pilgrim vs the World – This movie was about an hour and half of pure 90s video game references and inside jokes.  It was great to see a film that seem to have been made for my child hood growing up in Canada with the tastes that I have.  It is definitely not for everyone, but it was definitely for me.  If you did like the movie, make sure you go up and pick up the comic books the movie was based off of as well.

Runner Up: The Book of Eli

Top 3 Trips

1) The Hospital - I became a father this year.  Driving to the hospital after Jenn’s waterbroke was something I’ll never forget.  It’s been a pretty crazy experience over the last couple months, learning to be a father but I hav enjoyed every minute of it.. (well most minutes).

2) Europe (Germany, Italy, Austria) - Jenn and I finally got to do our planned trip to Europe.  We are still paying for the trip months later, but it was worth every penny.  Getting to see things like the coliseum and Dachau were pretty amazing.  I could go on for hours about the trip, but I won’t.  Oh yeah, and the food was awesome too.

3) San Francisco –San Fran makes it onto the list for the second straight year as I was able to attend my first GDC.  I had been following the event for many years, and now I was finally able to attend.  I don’t think I’ll get to go to it this year, but it was a blast nonetheless.

Top 3 Restaurants

1) Churchill Arms – For the second straight year, Churchill Arms makes my #1 favourite restaurant.  I still order the same thing every time.  They even got featured on Regis and Kelly this summer.  Get the curry half and half.  They’ll know what you mean and you won’t regret it.

2) Zen Sushi Bar – We are crazy blessed with Asian food now in Charlottetown.  We have Korean, Japanese, Thai, Chinese, and we just now need a Vietnamese place, but regardless of all that, the first real sushi restaurant opened and it good.  It’s a weekly tradition amongst some of my coworkers and we enjoy the trip to the small little shop every time.

3) Casa Mia - They keep me caffeinated daily.  That should say enough.

Top 3 websites

1) Netflix.ca – This year we finally got the video streaming service to Canada and it’s awesome.  The only draw back is that their selection is a tad on the week side.  With the cost only being $8/month, it is very easy to overloook the poor selection, because there is usually something to watch there.  It’s really only 1 movie rental to keep a subscription, so until there stops being stuff I want to watch, I’ll continue subscribing.  I also read somewhere this year that they were 95% of all Canadian web traffic one evening.. that is nuts.

2) Gawker Blogs – This company runs a ton of different blogs such as Kotaku, LifeHacker, and Gizmodo.  They keep me up to date on a ton of different topics and the information is pretty reliable and fast.

3) Huffington Post/Drudge Report- This is technically two different sites, but both exist on the extremes of Right and Left news.  Usually the truth lands somewhere in the middle, but they keep me informed of what’s going on in the world from two very different perspectives.

Runner Up: http://www.google.ca/ig?hl=en – It’s the first thing I see when I launch a browser, and therefor should always make my list until someone figures out a better replacement.

Top 3 Shows

1) The Walking Dead - As soon as you think zombies have been done way too many times, something fresh comes out.  This year it was AMC who are best known for Mad Men and Breaking Bad revealed a 6 part first season of the hit graphical novel of the same name.  It was very well done, and an excellent first real step into a series around zombies.

2) Fringe – This show has really pushed it story line forward this year and made some huge improvements over last years wishy washy parts.  So far the season has been great, and I hope it ends as strong as it began.

3) The Daily Show with John Stewart - The most trusted name in news for people of my age.  He leaves no one alone, and pokes great fun at the obsudirty that is American politics.  It’s a great way to kill 20 minutes while eating supper and always makes me laugh while keeping me informed.

Top 3 Books:

I did not read much this year, therefor this list is not as strong as it could have been.  I will be reading more this year for sure.

1) The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins–I came across this on a “Best books you’ve probably never read” list.  I had never heard of it, but it got me hooked.  I finished the book in about 3 days staying up late to get through it.  It’s pure teen fiction.  Treat the book like fast food and you’ll enjoy it.  It isn’t going to change the world, but it was definitely a really fun read.

2) Tribes by Seth Godin – This small little book had some great quotes in it.  It takes a look at how each person has the capability of influencing others within their Tribe.  The world is becoming increasingly accessible to anyone.  Reading through this gave me a new perspective on just that.

3) Stuff Christians Like by Jon Acuff- Last year his website made my top list, now this year his book did.  It’s a funny take on the stupid and crazy things Christians do.  I love satire, and Jon Acuff does it well.  Pick it up if you like a good laugh.

Well that’s it for this year.  Hopefully 2011 will have just as many good movies, books, games, and trips.

After reading the article, my thoughts first went to what happened to the music industry at the turn of the century.  People found a way to obtain free music in a manner that the industry had not yet developed.  They refused to adapt at the pace needed to keep up and lost billions of dollars in revenue.  I’m not going to go into the details as it’s available for a more detailed explanation elsewhere on the net, but suffice to say, the Apple appstore is creating a similar situation.  People can now obtain games on their handheld devices at speeds and prices never seen before.  This is creating a very volatile market where people complain about price increases of $2.99 from $0.99.

I don’t think the answer is to cry fowl, and run around screaming the sky is falling to publishers.  My opinion is that publishers need to learn to adapt, and fast to this new market.  There is money to be made, but previous practices that have worked before are going to have to be thrown out the window and new ideas tried.  Some ideas will be terrible, some will fail, but in that innovation comes and so does the answer to current situation.  The appstore leveled the playing field between developers, publishers.  It created an easy to use fixed distribution model, and has allowed unparalleled access to innovation and usefull applications in one location.  With the store now being at roughly 90,000 applications and over 2 billion downloads so far, the space is crowded.  The game has changed again, and now publishers need to change with it.

Note:

Michael Pachter the analyst listed who made the claims listed in my article has also stated some crazy things before, and seemed to be way off the mark when it came to digital media, distribution and the power of the online world for gaming.  They are summed up here.

• Tethering Support
• 3mb Camera
• Tap to focus
• Video
• MMS
• Voice Activation
• Hardware Compass
• Battery Upgrade
• CPU/RAM upgrade

Most of this is old technology, and the iPhone should have had when it launched, but plugged some of the final holes/criticisms of the device.  Now we just need a front facing camera, and flash support built into safari.

The only thing stopping me really from getting the iPhone is Rogers.  It has been said before, but Rogers is the worst iPhone provider in the world.  This is a comparison of the fact that they require a 3 year contract, and they don’t offer unlimited data.  I really hope someday soon the spectrum auction that happened late last year here in Canada will open up the GSM spectrum so more than just Rogers will be able to sell the iPhone.

On another note, ngmoco got to show off their game Star Defense, which is available today, and my company Sculpin QA worked on it with them.  When I first heard about the iPhone 2 years ago, never did I dream the device would pay my bills, and I wouldn’t even own one.  haha.

The one thing that really impressed me today was the application for doctors.  I said to myself “wow we are in the future”.  This app lets a doctor monitor his patients without actually being in the hospital, now it just needs to read alien life forms and be used by Captain Kirk.

The new device comes in at $199 and will have 16gb of storage.  No mention of any new iPod touches, but perhaps that will come out later this summer.  Are there better devices out there?  Yeah in some areas, but it’s the App Store that really makes this device limitless in terms of expandability.  Should be another interesting year.