Bungie has an iPad game out!!

Makers of Halo Release Swashbuckling New iPad Game
[Via Cult of Mac]

The studio behind the famous Halo game series, Bungie, has released a new game for the iPad. Crimson: Steam Pirates is a free game in the App Store that takes you on a pirate’s adventure of sinking ships while defending your own. Ahoy!

“In Crimson: Steam Pirates, plumes of black smoke fill the blue Caribbean sky as Thomas Blood’s pirate fleet steams ahead—over, above, and below the waves. On the surface, ships bristle with swivel cannons and lightning guns. Above, zeppelins drip with incendiary bombs. And below, silent and deadly, submarines stalk their targets, torpedoes at the ready.

Command your fleet and your Steampunk crew using an elegant action interface. Crimson: Steam Pirates’ turn-based gameplay provides an addicting mixture of strategy and action as you anticipate your enemies’ moves and counter them, luring them into a deadly hail of weapons fire while uncovering the mystery brewing in the Caribbean.”

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Bungie is my favorite gaming company. They blazed an incredible trail with their Marathon series, each time creating an extremely interesting storyline.

Since they became independent of Microsoft I have been waiting to see what they do. Now I know.

I am downloading this game as I write and will spend the rest of the night with it.

I have not been this excited about a game for a long, long time.

Apple listens: ‘Old’ program now for sale

by flickrnospam

Apple relents, begins selling “old” Final Cut Studio again
[Via Ars Technica]

Just over two months after the controversial launch of Final Cut Pro X, Apple has made “old” Final Cut Studio available once again to the public. But don’t go looking for the suite at the Apple Store down the block or even the company’s online store—those who want to purchase the legacy software will have to call 1-800-MY-APPLE (hey, 1996 called…) in order to get it.

Confirmed by MacRumors, Final Cut Studio can be purchased for $999 (or $899 for educational buyers). That’s the same price the suite was being sold for as of July 2009, but $700 more than its newer replacement, Final Cut Pro X. Final Cut Studio wasn’t just Final Cut Pro though—it included Final Cut Pro 7, Motion 4, Soundtrack Pro 3, DVD Studio Pro 4, Color 1.5 and Compressor 3.5, which was one of the many reasons why professional users were extremely irked at the abrupt changes and discontinuations. Add to that the plethora of complaints about the near complete lack of backwards compatibility and drastic UI changes between Final Cut Pro 7 and X, and pro users were practically waving pitchforks outside of 1 Infinite Loop.

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There were lots of complaints from a relatively small group of customers who wanted the old program because the new, completely rewritten on was not as functional right now.

Now Apple gives them what they want. I wonder if the complaints will stop.

Of course, the old version is still for its old price – $999. The new version can be bought from the App store for $299.95.

Now it becomes a fiscal decision for the customer but it is their choice.

Apple did the same thing with iMovie – coming out with an all new version that was not compatible with the old version and was missing some key components. After some time, they released the old version for those who wanted it capabilities as they continued to make the new version better.