An email to the game publisher Interplay (update)

The following email I just sent to the game publisher Interplay. I wonder if I’ll get an actual response.

Good evening.

I recently went through some old boxes and found my copy of Starfleet Academy. With glee I remembered the hours of fun I had playing it.

Then I asked myself: Why is there not one good Star Trek game for iOS? Sure there was the promo game for the 2009 Star Trek movie, but that was it.

So I thought: Starfleet Academy would be the one of the best games to re-release and port to iOS. Both the iPad and the iPhone 4 have displays that can easily handle the games interface and the internals are more than capable to run smoothly.

What other devices have come closer to what we have seen in the countless Star Trek episodes than the iPad (P.A.D.D. anyone?) and the iPhone?

What better homage could you give the creators of Star Trek, than making them and yourselves more money, by letting people play one of the greatest Star Trek games on an interface that so closely resembles what the characters in the movies and TV series have used daily?

Just think about it.

Kind regards,

…

Well, I received a response from a nice soul at Interplay this morning. I’m going to assume he or she doesn’t mind me posting it:

Mr. Hoffmann,

Thank you for writing. Star Trek for iOS makes sense to us, unfortunately, we no longer have the Star Trek license and are not permitted to make Star Trek games for any platform, including iOS.

I’m not sure who is the current license holder for Star Trek. Last I heard, it was Bethesda, but that was a while ago. Perhaps you should contact Paramount directly.

Thanks again for the suggestion, sorry we can’t do anything about it.

It looks like I’m going to have to write another email. I’m not giving up though.

The App Store Terrorist

dueapp:

Hi Charlie,

Thanks for buying Due and taking time and effort to write to me. I appreciate your suggestion.

Please know that I receive many requests from many users each day, and if I end up implementing every single one of them because users threaten me with a bad review, then:

1) you’ll end up with yet another reminder app that is so bloated with features and so tedious to setup a reminder you might as well not buy Due in the first place, and

2) I won’t have to sleep because I’ll have to work my ass off implementing every single one of them

Best regards,
Junjie
support@dueapp.com
Web: http://www.dueapp.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/dueapp

This is why I love the internet. People with no clue think they can hold developers/companies hostage with “negative reviews”, in oder to make them do the things they want.

basic reading comprehension

This translates into: “Warning!!! App not usable without online registration. Stay away!”

To post a review so stupid, this buyer of Second Gear’s iOS application Elements, must’ve ignored/misunderstood the title,

Elements — Dropbox Powered Text Editor

the description

All of your data is stored in a folder on your personal Dropbox account so that its accessible from any device you have.

and the requirements

• iPhone or iPod Touch running iOS 4
• iPad running iOS 3.2
• Dropbox account

I reported this review as stupid.

A short take on Second Gear’s Elements

Late yesterday evening I found out about Second Gear’s latest software release on The Loop. The application is called Elements and is a text editor with Dropbox synchronisation.

Having been quite happy with the system I use for note taking right now,
— Simplenote (iPhone) + Simplenote cloud sync + Notational Velocity (Mac) —
I still liked the prospect of having one less service in my workflow, without sacrificing efficiency.

After having used Elements throughout the day, I have to say that I really like the app: It strats-up quickly, the interface looks nice and nicely customisable to fit my needs.

This 1.0 release it’s still a bit flaky — I’ve encountered a bug that crashes the app when you scroll to the bottom of the list— and for me (YMMV) it’s missing a few key functions to make it as useful as Simplenote:

1. On-device-renaming — it’s coming in version 1.1
2. (Full text) Search on the iPhone/iPad
3. The ability to sort the file list by creation date or name. Though to be fair, Simplenote doesn’t have this ability either.

Nevertheless, Elements has already replaced Simplenote on my iPhone 4.

If you want to, you can check out the quick guide I wrote, explaining how to synchronise notes between Notational Velocity and Elements.

Oh my, I’m an AppStore addict

Since I sold my iPhone 3GS in anticipation of the iPhone 4 last week, I downloaded six applications, five of which I paid money for. The sixth one was Twitterrific Universal, which I’m going to upgrade to ‘premium’ in App, once I have an iPhone again.

What does that tell you?

For one it tells you that I’m much too trigger happy when it comes to new apps. It also tells you that I see so much value in the AppStore and the products that are offered therein, that I’m willing to buy applications, even though I won’t be able to use them for at least another three weeks*.

*until the white iPhone 4 with 32GB is available in the UK.