MacRumors

Valve Corporation's foray into PC digital games distribution can't be defined as anything less than a success. Steam, the service, has garnered tons of fanfare from users, critics, and publishers alike for its simplistic design and non-obtrusive DRM.

In early March Valve teased, and then revealed, that a Macintosh version of the client would be on its way. Even better, the developer announced several of its games were slated to be ported as well. I've had the beta of the client, which officially hits on May 12th, for a week. The two games currently available in the beta are Portal and Team Fortress 2.

PC users, or Mac owners with Boot Camp, will feel at home with the client. Its simple interface is mostly unchanged in the Mac beta version. Tabs indicating its essential functions line the top of its window, displaying the virtual "Store," your "Library" of games, patch and update "News," and "Community" functionality. Invitations from friends, as well as advertisements for games, still pop up with the speed and appearance of a Growl notification. In fact, the entire program is smooth and fast. It works and, most importantly, without a hitch.

Cross Platform

Steam for Macintosh and Steam for PC are married via "Steam Play." This feature allows you free access to any Mac ports of PC games you've already purchased through the service. Games like Portal and Team Fortress 2 support this option, while several more are sure to come.

And keep in mind that this sort of cross-platform approach is something the Valve crew is seemingly taking seriously. Team Fortress 2 Mac owners like me have been playing with PC owners of the game on their very same servers during this latter end of the beta. I expect more of this in the future.

On a tangential note: the Steam cloud also keeps all of your information in-line between the two versions. Friends, profile and Library data is shared between both. I'm told that Steam for Mac, though, will have a specific Library option that displays what games you can play on the platform. It's currently not in the beta.

The Games So Far

Two Source engine games, Portal and Team Fortress 2, are essentially finished and available for play in the beta. Both games run natively using OpenGL.

Portal and Team Fortress 2 feel and play like their PC counterparts, though they may not look quite the same for all users. I, for example, had to do a bit of software-side tweaking to achieve fluid experiences: my 15" Macbook Pro -- rocking the integrated NVIDIA GeForce 9400M video card only, 4 Gigs of RAM, and 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo -- couldn't handle either game on its "High" settings. (But do keep in mind that integrated graphics represent the low-end of graphics hardware and those with discrete chipsets should fare much better.)

Team Fortress 2 in particular needed to be brought down to its lowest lows in order to run well. But even at this point, the game retains its characteristic charm -- both in terms of the over-the-top, manic multiplayer action and presentation.

I'm not sure if these two titles are the best indicators of what Valve is doing with their ports, though: they're both old titles. In the near future Valve will be adding in Mac functionality to Left 4 Dead 2 and its predecessor, as well as the Half-Life series and Counter-Strike: Source. These games should give us a better idea of what to expect. As of now, though, I'm left with the impression of promise and the minor satisfaction of playing games that I've played on multiple platforms natively on my Macintosh.

What's Missing and What's Coming

Gamepad support, despite it being listed in the options menus for games, is not something the beta has. I was told by Valve earlier that this support is definitely on their to-do list.

Other developers might have their own to-do lists, too. As of right now, only one other developer, Tripwire Interactive, have pledged support. That developer is releasing Mac versions of Red Orchestra Ostfront 41-45 and Killing Floor.

Other notable games I've spotted with "Install" options for the Mac beta are: Torchlight, Peggle Nights, Altitude, Bejeweled 2 Deluxe, the Dash games, Dream Chronicles: The Chosen Child, the Tales of Monkey Island series, and World of Goo.

While there hasn't been much to ogle over with the Mac beta of Steam, I still can't stop smiling. There's a lot to like with the functionality of Team Fortress 2 and Portal, and a lot to enjoy from Valve's native-support of the platform. Games will continue to hit on the service as it grows and grows, and we'll be direct beneficiaries of its current -- and hopefully future -- dominance as more publishers join the fray. Valve need only to convince publishers that Mac owners are consumers.

Steam for Mac should become publicly available on May 12th.

SmartPhoneMedic has posted a video of the outer shell of the next generation iPhone along with the front screen LCD. SmartPhoneMedic is a repair outfit for iPhones and other smartphones, so has supplier sources that can provide them parts for these devices.

The iPhone parts clearly resemble the leaked iPhone photos posted in April. Apple has since acknowledged that that iPhone was a prototype design, and is widely expected to represent the next generation iPhone. It seems they aren't the only ones who have been able to obtain early parts of the next generation iPhone. Late last week, iSpazio posted photos of the LCD portion of the next generation iPhone.

Apple is expected to announce the new iPhone at WWDC in June. Rumors have suggested that device availability will also be in June. If so, then Apple likely needs to start ramping up production which make make these part leaks far more likely.

With Apple's announcement on Friday regarding availability of the iPad in nine new countries later this month, a number of potential customers expressed dismay at the apparent higher prices in those countries relative to those in the United States. Several of those customers took the time to email Apple CEO Steve Jobs with complaints on the issue, two of whom shared his identical responses with us.

Please educate yourself. UK prices must by law include VAT, which is around 18%. US prices do not include tax.

Value added tax (VAT) is similar to the sales tax that is familiar to most residents of the United States, but is applied uniformly throughout the country for a given type of item and is included in the advertised pricing. Sales tax in the United States is not included in advertised pricing, as it varies significantly by region, even down to the municipality level.

The standard VAT rate in the UK is 17.5%, meaning that the 429 base price for the 16 GB Wi-Fi iPad in the UK is actually only 365 in "pre-tax" pricing. At current exchange rates, this corresponds to approximately $540 in the United States, or an approximately $40 premium for U.K. customers. While the price difference is not insignificant, it is considerably smaller than it might appear at first glance.

Apple has long offered somewhat higher international pricing on his products than it does in the United States, even accounting for difference in taxation practices. These differences are possibly due to increased overhead for distribution and "cost of business" in other countries, as well as the need to account for foreign exchange rates that can fluctuate over time.

Meanwhile, users in Germany have discovered that their iPad prices are higher than in other European countries, even when accounting for tax differences. At least one reader also emailed Jobs about this issue and reported to fscklog that he noted a special copyright tax imposed by the government there.

Blame your government. Germany just added a new copyright levy for computers.

The report notes that iPad prices in Germany are about 15 euros higher than those in France and Italy, with the extra copyright tax being applied due to the iPad's classification as a "PC without burner".

In late March, we noted that U.S. television network CBS appeared to be preparing to launch HTML5-based video content on its CBS.com streaming site as an alternative to its existing Flash-based player.

Today, CBS Interactive executive Anthony Soohoo confirmed to NewTeeVee that by the start of the fall television season CBS will be offering its full CBS.com video content in an iPad-friendly HTML5 format.

Unlike ABC, which built an iPad app to deliver its full-length episodes and promotional clips on the device, CBS decided to focus on delivering video through its website, CBS.com. Since the Apple tablet doesn't support Adobe Flash, CBS has created a video site for the iPad through HTML5 instead. It's still early days, but Soohoo expects CBS to deploy more and more video that is iPad-ready, until it reaches content parity with what's available on the website through a PC.

Soohoo notes that HTML5 still requires some work to improve its features to be on par with Flash, but CBS is committed to HTML5 and iPad development. He also points to some unique features of the iPad such as Multi-Touch that will enable CBS to "doing some interesting advertising programs" on the platform.

AppleInsider yesterday reported that Apple's retail stores in the U.S. are running short of iPad Wi-Fi + 3G models, less than one week since the models launched. The report noted that all ten stores contacted had no 3G models on hand and were directing customers to Apple's "Notify Me" waiting list service. Many of the stores had also run out of Wi-Fi-only iPad models.

Bloomberg follows up up on the story today, reaching out to at least nineteen stores around the country to find a complete lack of availability of 3G models.

"Demand continues to exceed supply," Natalie Kerris, a spokeswoman for Apple, said yesterday. She declined to comment on iPad supplies at the company's stores. "We're working hard" to provide iPads to additional customers, she said.

Apple announced earlier this week that it had sold over one million iPads in the first 28 days of availability in the United States. The company continues to struggle meeting demand, with shipping estimates in the company's online store currently checking in at 5-7 business days for all models.

Despite the issues with iPad supplies in the U.S., Apple today announced that all models will launch in nine additional countries on May 28th, with nine more countries set to follow in July. Pre-orders for the first batch of international markets begin next Monday.

While a number of indicators have shown that Apple's iPhone OS platform has become a factor in the portable gaming industry, Times Online reports that Nintendo finally appears to have acknowledged the threat it faces from the increasing popularity of the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad and turned its focus to address Apple head-on.

Satoru Iwata, the Nintendo president, is understood to have told his senior executives recently to regard the battle with Sony as a victory already won and to treat Apple, and its iPhone and iPad devices, as the "enemy of the future".

In trying to move away from its background as a platform targeting younger gamers, Nintendo has run up against Apple's devices, which tend to cater to the same demographics as Nintendo's focus.

Two years ago, the company claimed to have permanently altered the demographics of video games by raising the average age and the gender mix of gamers. Unfortunately, the very people it claimed to have converted -- high-school girls and men aged between 30 and 40 -- reported that they would rather have an iPhone than a DS in their pockets or handbags.

While analysts warn that Nintendo should not turn its back on its battle with Sony, the company is reported to be preparing to "unleash the full force of its development and marketing artillery against Apple". It remains unclear, however, exactly what strategy Nintendo is intending to pursue as it seeks to compete with Apple's products that offer a multitude of functions beyond gaming.

With Apple's official announcement of international availability for the iPad, Orange has announced pricing for its data service for 3G-capable iPad owners in the United Kingdom. The plans offer somewhat more flexibility in payment options than AT&T does in the United States, although Orange's monthly plans come in somewhat higher in price than AT&T's and Orange does not offer unlimited data packages.

Orange UK will offer tailored 3G data plans for iPad Wi-Fi + 3G, from 10th May, and will launch a pre-registration site for SIM's at Orange.co.uk/iPad. Pay-as-you-consume, daily, weekly and monthly data plans will be available, providing the freedom to choose a type of plan depending on usage.

Orange will offer a daily access fee with up to 200 MB of data for 2, and a weekly package priced at 7.50 with 1 GB of data. Recurring monthly plans are priced at 15 (3 GB) and 25 (10 GB), with both plans offering "unlimited" data at BT Openzone Wi-Fi hotspots. Orange will also offer "pay-as-you-consume" access priced at 5p/MB.

Orange is also rolling out iPad 3G service plans in France, Spain and Switzerland, with additional markets to come later this year.

Nokia today announced that it has filed a new lawsuit against Apple alleging patent infringement by the company's iPhone and 3G-capable iPad products.

Nokia announced that it has today filed a complaint against Apple with the Federal District Court in the Western District of Wisconsin, alleging that Apple iPhone and iPad 3G products infringe five important Nokia patents.

The patents in question relate to technologies for enhanced speech and data transmission, using positioning data in applications and innovations in antenna configurations that improve performance and save space, allowing smaller and more compact devices. These patented innovations are important to Nokia's success as they allow improved product performance and design.

Nokia first filed suit against Apple in October 2009 alleging infringement of its patents by the iPhone, and later increased the scope of its claims to include "virtually all" Apple products. Apple has fought back with lawsuits and International Trade Commission complaints of its own as the two companies continue to fight for position in the competitive mobile phone industry.

Earlier today, Apple announced the launch of the iPad in nine new countries later this month: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. As noted by iLounge, Apple is also rolling out its iBooks iPad application and associated iBookstore in many of these countries at launch.

Apple's country-specific press releases for Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the UK all indicate availability of the iBooks app and the iBookstore on May 28th. Apple has yet to post press releases for France, Germany, and Switzerland, however, and thus iBooks availability for those countries has not yet been confirmed.

The iBookstore was announced as a U.S.-only feature during the iPad's introduction in late January, although evidence soon surfaced that Apple was making plans to extend it internationally. Apple also announced last month that it will be bringing iBooks and the iBookstore to the iPhone and iPod touch with iPhone OS 4 later this year.

Update: Apple has now posted its French press release, which confirms that iBooks and the iBookstore will be appearing there as well.

Research firm IDC today released data on global smartphone ("converged mobile device") sales for the first quarter of 2010, showing Apple maintaining its third-place ranking behind Nokia and Research in Motion on very strong year-over-year growth. The overall picture remains nearly identical to last quarter, with most metrics moving only a tiny amount.

On a year-over-year basis, Apple's shipments grew by 131.6% to 8.8 million, easily outpacing the overall industry growth of 56.7%. That performance now has Apple trailing Research in Motion for second place by only slightly over 3% in industry market share (19.4% vs. 16.1%). Nokia continues lead the pack with 39.3% of the market, more than twice the share of Research in Motion.

The report, which is a follow-up to the company's overall mobile phone report released last week, notes that smartphones represented 18.8% of all mobile phones shipped during the quarter, up from 14.4% in the year-ago quarter.

Apple today announced that it will begin taking pre-orders for all iPad models in nine new countries on Monday, May 10th. The devices will launch on Friday, May 28th.

Apple today announced that iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK on Friday, May 28. Customers can pre-order all iPad models from Apple's online store in all nine countries beginning on Monday, May 10. In the US, Apple has already sold over one million iPads and customers have downloaded over 12 million apps from the App Store, as well as over 1.5 million ebooks from the new iBookstore.

Customers should check their country's Apple Store for pricing information, but as an example, the UK is seeing Wi-Fi iPad price points of 429/499/599 including VAT, with 3G-capable models carrying a 100 premium.

Apple also announced that the next round of international releases will occur in an additional nine countries in July: Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore. Pricing and pre-order details will be announced at a later date.

Apple has updated their WWDC website to indicate that the event has sold out. The event took only 8 days to sell out after being officially announced last week.

WWDC 2010 will take place June 7-11 and is expected to focus intensively on the iPhone OS platform. Apple is widely expected to introduce its new iPhone hardware during a keynote address at the event, although the device has already received considerable publicity since Gizmodo published details on one lost by an Apple employee in a California bar.

This is the third straight year that Apple's WWDC conference has sold out, with the streak beginning in 2008.

World of Apple reports that Apple has seeded a new version of Mac OS X 10.6.4, termed Build 10F46, to developers. The report notes that the update currently weighs in at 573.1 MB and asks developers to focus on GraphicsDrivers, SMB, USB, VoiceOver, and VPN. Apple also highlights nearly a dozen issues addressed in the update and lists one known issue in the current build involving an error message with fonts.

Apple today gave a select number of developers access to the second build of Mac OS X 10.6.4. Build 10F46 includes a multitude of fixes and just one known issues affecting a font within the operating system.

Apple seeded Build 10F37 of Mac OS X 10.6.4 to developers just last week, focusing on many of the same areas. Mac OS X 10.6.3 was released to the public in late March and brought a significant number of fixes to Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

Yahoo today published the results of some number crunching it performed on iPad users accessing its Web content. According to the data, males currently outnumber females 2:1 among iPad users on Yahoo's network, significantly about the nearly 50-50 split seen for overall usage. The survey also shows relative overrepresentation among the 30-54 age range (peaking in the 35-44 age group), as well as data revealing that early iPad users tend to be more affluent than typical Yahoo users.

As expected within the classic early-adopter profile, we identified a male skew in the 35-44 age group among these early users. In fact, among all users, men outnumber women 2:1. Given the economy, people with higher earning power were probably the first to buy the iPad. The first Yahoo! iPad users were 94% more likely to be affluent consumers with solid wealth and strong incomes than typical U.S. Yahoo! users.

In analyzing what iPad users are looking at on Yahoo's network, the company also found higher-than-average usage for Flickr, with Finance, News, and Sports also seeing heavy interest.

Possibly the most interesting piece of data from Yahoo's analysis is the observation that approximately of 10% of users are coming from outside the United States. Given that the iPad has only been made available in the U.S. and that Apple has taken steps such as limiting per-person orders and cutting off third-party services facilitating international orders, it appears that a relatively significant percentage of iPads are still making it out of the United States.

During the measurement period, the iPad has only been available for purchase in the U.S. market; however, we observe approximately 10% of IP traffic coming from Europe and Asia Pacific. Specifically, the U.K., France, and Germany are the top countries in Europe, and Taiwan and Hong Kong make up the most traffic in Asia Pacific.

Finally, Yahoo noted that nearly half of Yahoo iPad users own an iPhone and had visited Yahoo sites using the iPhone.

TechCrunch reports that social document sharing and publishing site Scribd has announced that it is scrapping its current Flash-based system for one based on HTML5.

Scribd co-founder and chief technology officer Jared Friedman tells me: "We are scrapping three years of Flash development and betting the company on HTML5 because we believe HTML5 is a dramatically better reading experience than Flash. Now any document can become a Web page."

Instead of displaying documents in a Flash-based box, Scribd's content will become large webpages viewable directly in the browser and will offer bookmarking support to assist with long documents. The move to HTML5 will obviously also make content compatible with devices such as the iPad that do not support Flash.

Scribd's currently uses a Flash player much like YouTube's to allow people to upload and view documents on the Web. But with HTML5 standards now making their way through not [sic] browsers, there is little reason to do that. "Right now the document is in a box," says Friedman, "a Youtube-type of experience. There is a bunch of content and a bunch of stuff around it. In the new experience we are taking the content out of the box."

According to the report, Scribd is rolling out HTML5 versions of 200,000 of its most popular documents today as it begins the switch for its complete library, which numbers in the tens of millions of documents.

TechRadar reports that a representative of Opera Software, the company behind the Opera browser for a number of platforms including the iPhone OS, has stepped into the discussion of Adobe's Flash and its role in Web content at the present and going forward. According to Opera product analyst Phillip Grnvold, Opera will continue to support Flash in its products due to it being an integral part of the Web experience, but sees Flash taking a backseat to HTML5 in the future for video-based content.

"But at Opera we say that the future of the web is open web standards and Flash is not an open web standards technology.

"Flash does have its purposes and will have its purposes, the same as [Microsoft's] Silverlight and others, especially for dynamic content.

"But flash as a video container makes very little sense for CPU, WiFi battery usage etcetera - you can cook an egg on [devices] once you start running Flash on them and there's a reason for that."

While Opera may not be going as far as Apple CEO Steve Jobs's condemnation of Flash, it is clear that the company believes in a future where Flash plays a less ubiquitous role in the Web experience and open standards such as HTML5 arise to provide more universal access to content.

Microsoft has expressed similar views in recent days, acknowledging that it is throwing its weight behind H.264-based HTML5 for video content in its forthcoming Internet Explorer 9. While IE9 will continue to support plug-ins such as Flash Player, Microsoft too is expecting Adobe's dominant role as a container for video content on the Web to wane over time.

Hardmac reports that Intel has yet to begin shipping significant quantities of its six-core Xeon processors that many expect to appear in a refreshed Mac Pro. According to the report, distributors will have to wait until "the end of the second quarter" to receive mass quantities of the chips.

Intel informed its distribution networks that the 6 core Xeon will only be available in limited quantity until at the end of the second quarter.

A report from mid-March indicated that a Mac Pro refresh was due "by June", and it is unknown whether there has been any change to this timeline with Intel still not producing mass quantities of the necessary processors. Given the company's history of being first in line for chips used in its Mac Pro machines, it has been suggested that Apple could receive priority access to new processors.

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) has been scheduled for early June, and while the conference seems to be carrying a heavy iPhone OS focus this year, it does represent a reasonable opportunity for Apple to introduce revised pro-level machines like the Mac Pro. An introduction would not, however, necessarily mean immediate availability, as chip supply constraints could cause Apple to delay shipments by several weeks as it gathers sufficient quantities of the Xeon processors.