I like it when companies port their old games to the iPhone platform, even when the results are somewhat less than amazing. Aside from being the best way to convince your somewhat technophobe friends that the iPhone and iPod touch are totally worth buying, they also allow me to indulge in some pleasant gaming nostalgia during my commute or whenever I have a spare moment. Even though I have played them both many times before, I have no doubt that I’ll enjoy playing through Final Fantasy I and II once again now that they’re available on the iPhone. Square Enix ported both titles to Apple’s App Store, now available for $8.99 a piece. Now whether or not you’re willing to pay $9 for these classic titles may depend on how many times you’ve played through them in the past, and on how many different platforms. Versions of the games have appeared on the NES, GameBoy Advance, PSP, PlayStation, DS and Wii. Some of the newer ports featured extra levels and bonus content, which are included in the new iPhone versions, so if you haven’t played them lately, you might have good reason to take another spin. The new iPhone versions also offer much-improved avatar designs and better sprites, though the story and gameplay mechanics remain unchanged. As someone who’s never not enjoyed playing through a classic Square title, I’m not too worried about becoming bored or being underwhelmed. By the same token, I know exactly what I’m in for, so there’s not likely to be any surprises coming my way. I’m mostly just hoping that my purchase in this instance encourages Square Enix to continue releasing its classic titles for the platform

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Final Fantasy I and II Now Available for iPhone

Photoshop co-creators John Knoll (left) and Thomas Knoll (right), photo by Rafael Concepcion. Last night Adobe, along with the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, celebrated 20 years of its flagship photo-manipulation application at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre in San Francisco. You can check out our history of Photoshop on the site now.  The event showcased the main updates to Photoshop over the years and featured a presentation by Adobe’s senior creative director, Russell Brown. Russell’s entertaining presentation included a working version of Photoshop 1.0.7 on an iPhone. The application was developed for the event by Ansca Mobile using Corona. The application only adjusts the levels of a photo, but it’s a fun piece of nostalgia. You can check out video of Russell demoing the application in the video below.     As of now, there are no plans to release the app in the iTunes store.    Ansca shares the backstory on the unreleased special-edition app on their blog : Russell originally approached us shortly after we launched Corona 1.0, and his idea was that the “Levels” panel was the soul of the original Photoshop — and that it would be really cool to see it replicated on the iPhone. We even used the original pre-1.0 program icon, from when “PhotoHut” (as Photoshop was originally named) was first presented to Adobe.  We’re hoping this app hits the App Store soon.

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Adobe Celebrates 20 Years of Photoshop – Demos Photoshop 1.0.7 on iPhone

Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Apps , Reviews Category: Adventure game Developer: Big Blue Bubble Requirements: iPhone 3.0 software Compatibility: iPhone and iPod touch File Size: 44.9 MB Version Reviewed: 1.0 Price: $2.99 If you don’t know what a Choose Your Own Adventure book is, you’re pretty much dead to me. Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston graphed more of a role-playing game onto the genre, adding stats, combat and dice, while retaining the “make a choice and turn to this page” mechanic. And now the books by Jackson & Livingstone have come to the iPhone: literally; the same text, the same choices and art. In Deathtrap Dungeon, you take on the role of an adventurer trying to make your way through a, well, dungeon filled with deathtraps. You’ll explore and fight your way through the caverns, finding monsters, treasure, and puzzles. Your skill, stamina (health), and luck will go up and down (mostly down) depending on the choices you make and how well you do in combat. The app takes advantage of advances in technology; dice rolls are built into the game (you can either shake your iPhone or tap to roll), and it keeps track of the choices you’ve made—if you drank the mysterious potion earlier in the game, it might open up a choice later on. The game remembers even if you don’t

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Appletell reviews Fighting Fantasy: Deathtrap Dungeon for iPhone, iPod touch

Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iDevice Apps , Mac Software Macintosh and iPhone/iPod/iPad product updates and announcements for February 5, 2010: Macintosh iPod Macintosh Ashlar-Vellum has announced the release of Service Pack 2 for Graphite version 8 , their software for 2D/3D precision wireframe drafting. Graphite offers extremely powerful, precision wire-frame drafting with the elegant ease-of-use that makes it productive even when only used occasionally. Running on Mac and Windows, Graphite provides an interface that lets creative people get the job done without worrying about how to run their software. CoreMelt has announced there is only only three days left in their Show Us Your Pixels Competition . Submissions will be accepted until end of business on the 8th February 2010. Winners will be chosen on Feb 10th 2009. The Grand Prize winner will be chosen randomly from the five best entrants in each category of entrant. The grand prize is a Sumatran Adventure Trek with Rainforest Rescue to help support their rainforest salvation projects. Walrus Group LLC, has announced they have extended their distinct approach to presentation themes into Microsoft’s PowerPoint software, launching a new website, OfficeDocsPro , and announcing the immediate availability of five premium themes for PowerPoint 2008. The five inaugural OfficeDocsPro Themes are built for THMX, the newest PowerPoint theme standard and first introduced in Microsoft Office 2007 and Office:Mac 2008. TypeDNA will introduce the world’s first standalone creative font plug-ins developed specifically for Adobe’s CS suite. TypeDNA’s Plugged-in solution seamlessly integrates directly into Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, significantly enhancing font capabilities. During installation each font is analyzed, characteristics are determined and from this data a unique signature is generated

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Mac, iPhone, iPod and iPad product news – February 5, 2010

Filed under: Hardware , Multimedia , Cult of Mac , Education , Apple , Apple History Earlier this month we took you down memory lane for a 1987 video that Apple produced about a futuristic product called the Knowledge Navigator. It was a super smart, full featured tablet with internet connectivity, video conferencing, datebook and browser. It also contained a nifty personable digital assistant. Ten years later, Apple was still selling the idea of an enhanced tablet. One of our readers sent us this YouTube video of a concept that Apple sent around to educators. It had a lot of the same great technology, like video conferencing and browsing, but the video shows a variety of form factors, including a desktop unit, a tablet, and a small hand held device. It’s pretty clear Apple has done a lot of thinking about what a tablet should do. Who knows if any of these concepts will get into tomorrow’s announcement, but the technology is pretty much here to make the dreams into some kind of software/hardware reality. Will an Apple tablet change the world? Stay tuned. Thanks to Fred for the Apple nostalgia! Apple and the tablet go a long way back originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds

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Apple and the tablet go a long way back

Section: Apple Two Apple-inspired documentaries, Welcome to Macintosh and MacHEADS , are scheduled to be shown during the first week of the new year on CNBC. Save the date and set your DVRs to stun record, you won’t want to miss either. Welcome to Macintosh is a great documentary about the technology and products that have come from Apple over the years. Sure, we all know Apple changed the game in 1984 with the introduction of the Macintosh, but not all of us know the whole story. And that’s fine, because Welcome to Macintosh would love to show you.  And even if you do know everything, the nostalgia is enough to keep it very interesting. MacHEADS takes a very different look at the Apple community. This doc is all about the Apple fanboys we love and the rest of the tech community loves to hate. We’re a strange bunch, and this documentary doesn’t try to hide it. Welcome to Macintosh is scheduled to premiere on Monday, January 4th at 9:30PM ET, and MacHEADS is scheduled to premiere on Tuesday, January 5th at 10:00PM ET. Check both of these out, I’m sure you’ll enjoy them.

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“Welcome to Macintosh” and “MacHEADS” to be shown on CNBC January 4th-5th

EA has enlisted a strong ally for its first iPhone game based on The Simpson s, nostalgia. Wasn’t The Simpsons show–and its videogames–better years ago? EA hope so, reviving the spirit of the original Simpsons arcade game, as the company prepares to release The Simpsons Arcade. We enjoyed briefly sampling a late version of the finished iPhone title; expect it to be released soon. The Simpsons Arcade follows the style of that old videogame, but all of the content differs. As Homer, you progress through a series of show-themed levels–Krustyland, Channel 6, Springfield Mall, and more–beating up countless thugs. While most of the generic foes are forgettable, many characters from the show block your progress. Quimby, Krusty, Burns, Wiggum, Moe, and others regularly show up as bosses or background ambience, filling out the Springfield world. EA enlisted one of the TV writers and the 6 main actors to help create a real sense of the show. Most of the dialogue we saw appeared as floating text, but characters occasionally tossed out quips amid the action

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Hands-on Impressions: The Simpsons Arcade for iPhone

"This really could have screwed up our lives, and you know, a whole bunch of little geeks saved us." – Paul Saffo. Director of the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, California, in an interview with American RadioWorks   It was a fear fest of epic proportions. Magazine headlines predicted that the end of the world would shortly befall us. They told harrowing tales of feral computer systems going awry the minute the clock struck midnight on January 1st, 2000–planes would fall from the sky, power grids would fail, the global economy would crash, nuclear power plants would go into meltdown mode, lines of communication would be cut, and the contents of bank accounts would vanish. "I cannot be optimistic…It’s clear we can’t solve the whole problem, so we have to allow some systems to die so mission-critical systems can work… Pay attention to the things that are vulnerable in your life and make contingency plans…. Don’t panic, but don’t spend too much time sleeping, either." – Senator Robert Bennett, then-Chairman of the Senate’s Special Committee on the Year 2000 Problem, Y2K Citizens Action Guide The cause of all this excitement was the purported Y2K bug. In response to dealing with computers that were about as capable as the iPhone, programmers prided themselves on being thrifty with their code to ensure it didn’t stress memory or capacity. One way to do this was to skip putting a “19” in front of the year and use only the last two numerals.

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10 Years After Y2K — Stories From the IT Battlegrounds

"This really could have screwed up our lives, and you know, a whole bunch of little geeks saved us." – Paul Saffo. Director of the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, California, in an interview with American RadioWorks   It was a fear fest of epic proportions. Magazine headlines predicted that the end of the world would shortly befall us. They told harrowing tales of feral computer systems going awry the minute the clock struck midnight on January 1st, 2000–planes would fall from the sky, power grids would fail, the global economy would crash, nuclear power plants would go into meltdown mode, lines of communication would be cut, and the contents of bank accounts would vanish. "I cannot be optimistic…It’s clear we can’t solve the whole problem, so we have to allow some systems to die so mission-critical systems can work… Pay attention to the things that are vulnerable in your life and make contingency plans…. Don’t panic, but don’t spend too much time sleeping, either." – Senator Robert Bennett, then-Chairman of the Senate’s Special Committee on the Year 2000 Problem, Y2K Citizens Action Guide The cause of all this excitement was the purported Y2K bug. In response to dealing with computers that were about as capable as the iPhone, programmers prided themselves on being thrifty with their code to ensure it didn’t stress memory or capacity. One way to do this was to skip putting a “19” in front of the year and use only the last two numerals. And why not? These programs would be long retired by the time 2000 rolled around. However, not only were many expired programs, operating systems, and applications still chugging away as 2000 crept around the corner, they were also running critical systems like power grids, government agencies and financial systems, hospitals and airports, elevators and public transportation. And so, the race was on to fix the code before the bug bit.

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10 Years After Y2K — Stories From the IT Battlegrounds

Section: Apple , Mac + Computers , Discontinued Products , Originals Can you boil down the history of Apple to two minutes? Sure you can! This is the era of communicating in 140 characters, so who needs those pesky books, what with their words and pages and weight. Who has the time and physical endurance required to read a book these days? Thankfully, we’ve got YouTube and good folks like applemctom who has given us the History of Apple, told in two minutes. Tom is the fellow who gave us the History of Mac Games video, and this one is just as good. There’s plenty of nostalgia to be found here. Sure, there’s “1984,” but how can you not love seeing those spinning, candy-like iMacs again? Even “Myst” makes a cameo. But it’s not all good times; remember the Newton? Quadra and Performa? Pippin ? Dark days, indeed.

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History of Apple [video]