Andy Laub

For most of summer I was in a video game lull. This isn’t exactly atypical; time not spent in front of the computer generally ends up being spent outside or doing basically nothing. The exception was Forza 3, which I finally finished; but even that had become more of a task that I gave myself versus something I did for recreation.

As fall approached I felt like I wanted to play something, but I wasn’t sure what. I wasn’t quite ready to jump into a game that I knew would eat up weeks of my time (nor did such a game even exist that I wanted to play). Usually when this happens I find myself delving into the back burner for “games I kinda sorta was intrigued by or enjoyed tolerated the demo of”, and that’s how I ended up renting Splinter Cell: Conviction.

I had played the Conviction demo when it first hit Xbox Live and found it rather… fun. At the time I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to force myself through a game that required any sort of stealth, and I also didn’t feel like committing another control scheme to memory. On the other hand, the graphics and presentation seemed top notch, and the story… well, I haven’t played any of the other games in the Splinter Cell franchise so I couldn’t really follow anything with the limited objectives provided by the demo.

It took me an hour or two of playing the full title to re-engage my light-stealth-third-person-shooter mindset, but after doing so and getting a handle on the controls, I began to enjoy the game immensely. It sounds like this newest iteration is a departure of sorts from the traditional Splinter Cell manifesto; being detected is no longer the game-ending circumstance that it would’ve been in previous episodes. Instead the game feels somewhat like a modern-day Assassin’s Creed — stealth is certainly the best way to accomplish the task at hand, but it’s generally not the only way.

Honestly I can’t really say much about the story; it’s interesting enough but I assume it would’ve been more meaningful if I had a relationship with the characters that would’ve been achieved via the earlier games. Suffice it to say that it gets the job done and doesn’t leave me much room for complaint. And really that can be applied to Splinter Cell: Conviction as a whole. It got the job done (admirably, I might add) when I just needed something to occupy me for a couple of days.

I haven’t spent a ton of time talking about iOS apps here, but it should come as no surprise that like most iPhone/iPod/iPad users, the downloaded apps on my device of choice far outnumber those that were there originally. While I didn’t share same the OMG NATIVE APPS mentality that many did, I also didn’t become an iPhone user until after the App Store was an established foundation of the platform.

Suffice it to say, the App Store is an important facet of iOS as evidenced by the enthusiasm for it exhibited by both consumers and competitors. Those who make the excuse that apps are unnecessary when you have the web are doing just that: making an excuse. So it was no surprise when the iPad launched with the App Store already implemented, but it did bring into focus the gap between iOS and OS X.

With today’s announcement of the Mac App Store, that gap… is still there, but it’s also different. I noticed that Apple is positioning the different fragments of iLife and iWork as Mac Apps (which refer strictly to those available on the Mac App Store for the purpose of this post). Given that they’re treated similarly on the iOS App Store, that makes sense. What I’m curious about is how this new delivery system will affect the current crop of applications. There are a few in my dock that seem like natural candidates for such a thing; Adium X, Flickr Uploadr and Transmit come to mind, to name a few. However, given that we can simply download them from their respective websites, I have to wonder what added advantage the Mac App Store could offer.

It’s not that I don’t think it’s a good idea; even as a tech nerd, the idea of having what are basically “1-click installs” for all of these Mac Apps is appealing to me, and the familiarity bred by the iOS App Store means users will likely feel right at home doing the same on their OS X machine. Plus it’s one more way to get applications on your hot-sauce MacBook Air or Mac mini server. And the developer has the advantage of added exposure and being able to push updates through a more automated system.

But speaking of updates, don’t iOS Apps have to be submitted for review with every update? While that just may be part of the package on iOS, it’s very different from current OS X environment where they’re free to push updates whenever they finish them. Considering that apps are still distributable the old-fashioned way and the developer is well-known (Panic, for example), they may opt out of the Mac App Store environment completely. And is there some set of unique guidelines for Mac Apps versus “normal” applications?

Furthermore, and this is something that’s been weighing on my mind since the advent of the iPad, it’s obvious to me that Apple wants to somewhat unify the iOS and OS X experiences. I’m not saying they want to start forcing multitouch on OS X users (at least, not yet), but it is logical for them to integrate similar visual cues and behaviors on both sides (just as they do with their hardware). But I think having such similar buying experiences across two (three, if you treat the iPad as its own) platforms may confuse the issue – especially since you can buy apps for any of the three on your Mac.

I initially started typing this paragraph with the intent of naming some of the apps on my phone that I wouldn’t necessarily need on my Mac, but they’re actually mostly inherently useful in some way. That, then, begs the question – why can’t I use the theoretical copy of Pages that I bought on my imaginary iPad on my Mac too? From a technical standpoint I understand that they’re two different environments with different specs and requirements, but I don’t expect that to be as clear to the typical consumer. I guess we just need to think of the Mac as a PS3, for example, while the iOS devices are PSP’s. We may see the same titles on both but we’ll need to understand that they don’t work across the two devices (unlike the iPad’s “backwards compatibility” of sorts).

Don’t get me wrong; I do look forward to seeing how the Mac App Store changes the OS X experience. I am just not 100% sold – yet. Now that new MacBook Air, on the other hand…

At any given time over the last fifteen years I’ve held wildly varying opinions of Volkswagen, from thinking they could do no wrong with the introduction of the A4 Golf and B5 Passat in 1998-1999 to thinking that wrong is all they could do with the successors of those cars (although in fairness they actually were better). Now I’m somewhere in between. On good days I think of cars like the new GTI and… well, that’s really it.

The worst of the modern VW lineup is easily the Beetle. It was an alright car when it came out but always suffered from being packaged incredibly poorly; you could get essentially the same car in a VW Golf or GTI but with the interior space arranged in such a way that it’s actually useful (unless you really needed that extra 8 inches of headroom above the front seat).

But such are the demands of retro design, and the success of the New Beetle meant more old-new cars couldn’t be far behind. Most notable is the resurgence of the entire MINI brand, followed later by Fiat’s (soon-to-be-US-bound) 500. However, the thing about the MINI and 500 is that their original shapes weren’t that different from that of a modern two-door hatchback, meaning that unlike the Beetle the packaging remains inherently practical. A Cooper still has a moderately useful back seat (in terms of headroom) and cargo area, two things that can’t be said for the Volkswagen.

Which is why VW still has to offer overlapping small cars in Europe, where things like that are actually important. While the US lineup bottoms out at the Golf (size: medium), VW Europe continues to move down the scale with the Polo (size: small) and then the Fox (size: extra small). On top of that, both are thousands of pounds (yes, pounds) cheaper than the Beetle, and are infinitely more useful.

But instead of throwing us a bone and federalizing the Polo (a car that’s eminently practical but also enjoyable to drive) for the US, VW has determined that YES, they do need to build a New New Beetle because the old New Beetle was just so good. Sadly, the new car will be just as stupid, and I will be just as bitter.