Nuclear Monster

  • IPad 9 7 inch Pencil Slider 32718

    Apple announced a new iPad with a bunch of backslapping about how much they love education today at their event held at Lane Tech College Prep High School in Chicago. It’s an updated version of last year’s iPad Cheap with an A10 system-on-a-chip that also works with their stylus, the Pencil. The 2018 iPad Cheap is still missing a ton from the more expensive iPad Pro line, like more modern display technology with a variable framerate. The iPad Mini still hasn’t been updated in almost 3 years despite Apple charging $400 for the iPad Mini 4 versus $330 for this new iPad Cheap.

    As usual, I round numbers up to the nearest whole dollar because I don’t care for deceptive pricing.

    Here’s an updated rundown of their iPad lineup:

    • 2018 iPad Cheap at 9.7
      • non-laminated (thicker) display
      • A10 processor
      • 2GB RAM
      • Supports the ($100) Apple Pencil.
      • Old ass 1st generation Touch ID.
      • 32GB ($330) or 128 GB ($430) wifi only
      • 32GB ($460) and 128GB ($560) with cellular
    • iPad Mini 4 at 7.9
      • laminated (thinner) display
      • A8 processor
      • 2GB RAM
      • 128GB ($400) wifi only
      • 128GB ($530) with cellular
    • iPad Pro at 12.9
      • laminated (thinner) display
      • Wide color gamut (for professional color accuracy and better looking photos and videos)
      • True tone (makes the screen match the color temperature of the environment like a sheet of paper would)
      • ProMotion (variable frame rate)
      • A10X processor
      • 4GB RAM
      • Smart connector
      • 64GB ($800) 256GB ($950) wifi only 512GB ($1150)
      • 64GB ($930) 256GB ($1080) and 512GB ($1280) with cellular
    • iPad Pro at 10.5
      • laminated (thinner) display
      • Wide color gamut (for professional color accuracy and better looking photos and videos)
      • True tone (makes the screen match the color temperature of the environment like a sheet of paper would)
      • ProMotion (variable frame rate)
      • A10X processor
      • 4GB RAM
      • Smart connector
      • 64GB ($650) 256GB ($800) 512GB ($1000) wifi only
      • 64GB ($780) 256GB ($930) 512GB ($1130) with cellular

    Since I last revisited the table of confusing iPad decisions, Apple bumped up the price of some storage tiers.

    Apple also updated their free iWork office utilities today with new features like smart annotation. Additionally, they announced other software for educators, students, and developers who want to work with the new ClassKit API.

    New hardware was announced from Logitech, including a cut-down $50 version of Apple’s Pencil, called the Crayon that lacks pressure sensitivity but has a better external design for normal human beings. It appears that this device will only be sold through educational sales channels.

    One good thing that Apple announced is that students and teachers get 200GB of iCloud storage as long as the Apple ID they use is managed through their organization. Regular iCloud accounts have a tiny 5GB of storage for all their photos and other data. Apple typically charges $3 per month for 200GB of iCloud storage.

    Apple’s extended warranty program with accidental damage insurance was dropped in price to $70 for this iPad Cheap as well as the Mini.

    Overall, I don’t think that this new iPad Cheap is at all an approachable device for many educators who are still scrounging for basic materials like paper and pencils, while their students are dealing with hunger and homelessness. The $30 discount offered for schools who want to buy this new iPad Cheap is probably meaningful with large purchases, but it won’t mean anything for the poorest schools and students.

    The education theme of the event is an extension of the ongoing co-option of public resources by private businesses. Just like NASA ceding their public work and research to private industries, using expensive closed platforms for public schools is not a good look. One Apple presenter even referenced JFK’s “We Choose to go to The Moon” speech.

    Apple spend a large part of the presentation advocating for the iPad as a device for creation, but also for coding software. To treat the iPad as a replacement for the modern computer in creative endeavors, or a device for coding, is especially ridiculous when you realize that you can’t ship a game or app for Apple’s app store without using a Mac. iPads don’t have Xcode.

    For anyone else who wants an iPad with support for Apple’s Pencil stylus, almost as much processing power as the current Pro models, but is OK giving up enhanced display technologies and half the RAM, the 2018 iPad Cheap is a fine choice and a decent upgrade to last year’s model. It’s available today and I would expect more updates to the iPad line later this year.

  • I’ve loved Far Cry games in the past, 3 was a particular high point, but that was 6 years ago and Far Cry 4 lost me somewhere along the way. I never finished it. 5 looks to be more of the same kind of an outdoor adventure through a beautiful land that is beset upon with chaos, light RPG mechanics without the role-playing, and this time they’ve set it in Montana.

    The most important difference with this game is that it once had some promise in making a statement about the current political situation. There’s a lot of things that it’d be incredible to see a game even try to talk about, but Far Cry 5 isn’t that game despite having all of the opportunity in the world to try.

    Austin Walker:

    Thematically, Far Cry 5 is such an inconsistent mess of ideas that there is hardly a recognizable through line at all. Instead, the game gestures towards ambiguity as if looking for a shield to save itself with.

    This is a game that undeniably knows that Donald Trump is president, but cannot decide if that fact should be punchline or key plot device. When, in two different scenes, cult leaders make oblique references to “America’s leadership” or the failures of the person “who’s in charge” as proof of the American empire’s final days, the game reaches for sincere relevance. But an hour later, you’ll be recovering the notorious piss tape from a Russian spy in a pun-filled quest.

    Jeff Gerstmann:

    There’s probably a great story you could tell around a Christian Doomsday Prepper Cult that has you fighting them off as they prepare for the End Times by murdering everyone around them and stealing all the resources they can. That’s meat that few games even attempt to chew. But the ambitious setting doesn’t pay off in this story that seems to want to hedge every chance it gets. The end result is a story that goes nowhere, says nothing, and fails to live up to the previous settings and villains in the franchise. If you can get past that… the rest is pretty much fine if you’re up for another Far Cry game.

    Far Cry 5 is up now on Steam for Windows, as well as your Xbox One or PlayStation 4. It’s also got the traditional slap in the face of $60 not being enough, and offering both Deluxe ($70) and Gold ($90) editions.

    I have a stack of open-world Ubisoft games that I haven’t finished, Far Cry 5 isn’t joining them.

  • The year is 2018 AD, new games are illegal, only old games can be endlessly remastered until nobody is interested in games anymore. Except for one game designer who would dare defy the law, Tetsuya Mizuguchi is… Tetsuya Mizuguchi!

    He’s probably working on something new, as well, but I don’t really mind playing more Rez, or maybe the same Lumines in HD but without the stuff I didn’t like in the sequels.

    The original Lumines is re-releasing in HD this May on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Steam for Windows. The version on Steam today is apparently not so hot, so look out for this remaster.

  • I've never been more excited to get pants on.

    You can call it PUBG, you can call it plunkbat, but the mobile version of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is out on iOS and Android. Now we know what you’re paying for when you buy the $30 Windows version on Steam, pants, and a shirt and shoes. This free-to-play-as-heck mobile PUBG doesn’t include any of those to start, you’re going to have to find them in the game or in the exploitative loot boxes you get for playing it. At least if you don’t want to be an exhibitionist non-conformer, which if you do, go right ahead.

    I’ve played one match and it was perfectly cromulent PUBGeeing, players are still getting used to the controls so I managed to get four small victories before losing in 16th place.

    It’s out for free now on Android and iOS, it doesn’t cross-play with the Windows version at all.

  • Let me check one thing, I’ve forgotten since the last time, should we let algorithms written by an advertising publisher decide what is OK or not for kids to watch? James Cook:

    Search for “UFO” on YouTube Kids and you’ll mostly find videos of toys that are clearly fine for children to watch. But one of the top videos claimed to show a UFO shooting at a chemtrail, and we found several videos by prominent conspiracy theorist David Icke in the suggested videos. YouTube removed the videos from YouTube Kids after we contacted it about the issue.

    One suggested video was an hours-long lecture by Icke in which he claims that aliens built the pyramids, that the planet is run by reptile-human hybrids, that Freemasons engage in human sacrifice, that the assassination of President Kennedy was planned by the US government, and that humans would evolve in 2012.

    Ah, that would be a “no” on the algorithms by an advertising publisher then. I’ve never had more love for the PBS Kids apps and video programming.