Apple never ceases to amaze me. The iPad is not a device that I would have expected to be widely popular and yet, two months after its release, the new handheld thingamajig has already sold two million units. Over 30,000 iPads would have to move every day to make that number.

You know, I haven’t even touched one of these yet? Yeah, that’s right. A virgin. I don’t want to either because then I will probably desire one of my own. I need another gadget lying around this house about as much as I need an alien dinosaur robot ninja to lay waste to my building. I’m pretty sure my insurance won’t cover something like that.

iPad Reaches Two Million Sales [Edge]

Valve has not revealed the price for Half-Life 2 for Mac nor confirmed if Episodes 1 & 2 will also be made available tomorrow. The PC version of HL2 for Steam is currently priced at $20.

To celebrate Steam’s arrival on Mac, Valve went ahead and did what Valve does best: create a sweet promotion that will raise awareness of its games and client, earning them big bucks in the long run. They have all sorts of fancy charts and graphs to prove this works, I’m sure.

Starting now and lasting until May 24, Portal is free on Steam. That goes for Windows and Mac, so there’s no reason not to queue up the download right this second. Since I already own this phenomenal game, I can’t say whether or not massive demand has the servers struggling to keep up. Let’s hope not!

[Update: If you're unable to play Portal on Mac Steam, close it and run this in Safari: steam://run/52003 . This will open Steam bypassing the beta check.]

[Thanks, sicPOS, @Jcapote]

Steam forum members dug through newly released files from the recently launched open beta and dug up a handful of Mac OS X-specific graphics, like the open, maximize and minimize jewel icons that are used in the operating system’s windows.

While those icons could be chalked up to Steam’s change to a WebKit-based rendering engine for the client—Valve has moved away from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer for Steam’s new UI—there are a few other Mac-specific graphics buried within. That includes system dock graphics and a handful of OS X menu files.

While the current Steam library is Windows only, many of Valve’s publishing partners, including EA, Take-Two Interactive, PopCap Games and id Software, publish Mac versions of their games, a potential audience whose needs are not being met by Steam.

We’ve reached out to Valve to see why the developer has added OS X graphics to Steam and if that means support for the Apple crowd, but have not yet heard back.

Mac OS X Support! [Steam Forums - thanks, Mark & Luke!]

As revealed by Wobble iBoobs developer Jon Atherton via website TechCrunch, here is the Victorian laundry list of no-nos in apps:

1. No images of women in bikinis (Ice skating tights are not OK either)
2. No images of men in bikinis! (I didn’t ask about Ice Skating tights for men)
3. No skin (he seriously said this) (I asked if a Burqa was OK, and the Apple guy got angry)
4. No silhouettes that indicate that Wobble can be used for wobbling boobs (yes – I am serious, we have to remove the silhouette in this pic)
5. No sexual connotations or innuendo: boobs, babes, booty, sex – all banned
6. Nothing that can be sexually arousing!! (I doubt many people could get aroused with the pic above but those puritanical guys at Apple must get off on pretty mundane things to find Wobble “overtly sexual!)
7. No apps will be approved that in any way imply sexual content (not sure how Playboy is still in the store, but …)

Oh, and no piano legs. Kidding! As Kotaku pointed out, the iPhone and iPod Touch (as well as the iTunes Application Store) are Apple products so the free speech argument doesn’t fly. And so, fairly innocuous apps like Pixel Love have gotten the boot.

“It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see,” said Apple exec Phil Schiller.

These are the same children able to download R-rated movies and songs with explicit lyrics — with valid credit cards. Hey, that’s just like the App Store! Can’t Apple create an age gate for its mature app content? Or must it insist on treating all of us like small children?

When asked why the Sports Illustrated and FHM apps remain in the iTunes Applications store, Schiller replied, “The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format.” Read: Sports Illustrated and FHM (and Playboy, too) aren’t some small-time developers.

Good thing the App Store prevents us from seeing women and men in bikinis, because racy stuff like that is never shown in magazine ads, television commercials, billboards and TV shows. And ice-skating outfits, too! Phew.

Good thing one cannot access the internet for the iPhone and iPod Touch. And good thing there is no pornography on the internet.

Also, sure glad Apple is being fair about this. Thanks, Apple!

Apple Purges Blue Apps from Online Store [New York Times via Tech Crunch via Gizmodo] [Pic]

In addition, Manomio, developer of the on-again, off-again Commodore 64 emulator for iPhone, has gotten an Amiga emulator working and plans to release Amiga games as standalone apps. According to Touch Arcade‘s report of a Retro Gamer magazine article, one of the first games in the works is another early karate title, International Karate+ — a slightly more modern version of a C64 fighter. The two titles will then face off in a one-on-one battle to be the most popular retro fighting game.

For very many years Electronic Arts were the biggest game publisher on earth. They have an income of billions every year and they employ thousands of people all around the globe. EA are very important indeed for the video games industry. But they are no longer undisputed number one. The marriage of Vivendi and Activision, fed by the cash cow that is World of Warcraft, with mega hits like Modern Warfare and Guitar Hero and very ably led by Bob Kotick are now probably established at the top of the heap, especially when it comes to profit. (Amazingly they were bankrupt in the early ’90s.)

So again, very unsurprisingly, Electronic Arts have issued more bad financial results. They lost $82 million in the quarter ended 31 December (the best time of year for video games!). Their stock price took another hit. They can’t blame the industry, big global publishers like the aforementioned Activision, and also Ubisoft have done very well indeed. Even Sega have managed to get themselves back into profit. I have written about EA’s problems on here before. Repeatedly.

So what is going wrong?:

• The market for all entertainment IP (including films, television and books) is polarising into blockbusters and niche. Everything else is a potential loss maker. The most successful publishers are those who have geared themselves to the new reality.
• This generation of HD home consoles have awful business models to develop for. Basically making a came costs far, far too much. Several times the cost of games for the previous generation. The root of this is that HD games need a massive amount of content which is still largely hand crafted. The next generation of platforms will have enough power to run lots and lots of middleware so development costs should drop back to sensible levels. In the meantime we are stuck with the PS3 and 360 and they are causing a lot of problems.
• The Wii has been a black hole for many third party publishers. Their fault. They mostly haven’t made the games that Wii owners want to buy. Just look at the Metacritic for Wii to see this. Electronic Arts on the Wii published NCAA Football 09 All-Play (Metacritic 49), Celebrity Sports Showdown (Metacritic 50), NBA Live 09 All-Play (Metacritic 51), G I Joe: The Rise of Cobra (Metacritic 51) and many other such gems that should never have seen the light of day.
• There is a trend on the more casual platforms for developers to self publish. This removes discipline from the market, especially on price. The job of a publisher is to provide editorial control, finance and marketing. Self publishers tend to use the price mechanism as their main marketing tool. Done competitively this rapidly collapses the viability of a platform. Electronic Arts have not taken the grip that they should have, thus allowing upstarts like PopCap to gain traction. Also they were late on the scene for emerging platforms, such as Facebook.
• Electronic Arts’ marketing still seems to be largely based on that of the 1960s detergent companies with expensive broadcast advertising. Their customers’ lifestyle habits have moved on and EA seemingly haven’t moved with them. Marketing now is far more about one on one, two way communication.
• Electronic Arts is very corporate. This is expensive and not necessarily the best way to run a large organisation, no matter how good the man at the top is. Far better to take a lesson from Alfred Sloan and break it up into semi autonomous profit centres with individual bosses who live and die by the sword and who are far more receptive to their customers.

It is not all doom and gloom. The losses are less than they were. The management are cutting out the non block buster games. EA moved away from licensed products so have built up the beginning of a portfolio of good IP that they actually own. There are huge economic advantages of scale in publishing, which positions EA very nicely indeed. The world’s consumers will spend more on games in the future than they are now. The next generation of home consoles will reward those with enough clout to invest heavily in middleware.  And EA do have some excellent employees.

So where does the future lie? I still think that EA are a prime M&A target. They would make a perfect acquisition for Microsoft to give them ammunition in their console wars against Sony and Nintendo. And they would also be a perfect fit for Apple, if and when Apple launch their own home gaming console. To both of these companies EA would be far more valuable than it is for its current stockholders. And both of them have the cash sitting in the bank to buy EA with ease.

We told you about our experience with the just-announced Apple iPad yesterday; this morning, we’ll show you, by way of the above video. You’ll note that both Need for Speed Shift and NOVA are the same non-iPad versions available on the App Store today – the enhanced versions shown during the keynote are works-in-progress and weren’t available to demo. On the down side, the versions we played included the “2X” upscale button; on the up side, they benefited from the larger screen and increased tilt sensitivity.

While the above video isn’t representative of what the iPad is capable of, it is representative of how we think many iPhone owners will use the device, since iPhone and iPad games won’t be cross-compatible.

The Journal’s report cites “people briefed by the company” who say the multimedia device will “let people watch movies and television shows, play games, surf the Internet and read electronic books and newspapers.” That long-rumored, now apparently impending device is reported to be finally revealed on January 27 and ship as early as March, according to the WSJ.

Obviously, we’re somewhat interested in the game-playing capabilities of such a device, given the popularity of Apple’s App Store, currently bursting with games—admittedly of wildly varying quality—and the desire to acquire shiny new things with touchscreens and Apple branding.

Will the Slate—or iSlate, which I do not prefer—simply be a bigger iPhone, only bigger and of larger size? Will games and applications designed for the 3.5″ screen of the iPhone work on the Slate? If so, how will 480-by-320-pixel resolution games look on the rumored 10″ screen? Probably not very good.

But speculation that the Slate is simply an iPhone given the XL treatment probably aren’t accurate. It has to do more—well, maybe with the exception of making phone calls. As Apple subject matter expert John Gruber of Daring Fireball notes, Apple’s tablet likely falls somewhere in between the iPhone and MacBook lines, designed and marketed as a potential third pillar. Or a viable alternative for the MacBook.

“Like all Apple products,” Gruber writes. “The Tablet will do less than we expect but the things it does do, it will do insanely well. It will offer a fraction of the functionality of a MacBook – but that fraction will be way more fun.”

As far as the Slate’s gaming capabilities, it may sit somewhere in the middle, capable of playing anything you’d find on an iPhone (or iPod Touch), but maybe not as powerful a gaming device as a MacBook or MacBook Pro.

And what of the meager library of Mac OS native PC games? Can it at the very least play a capable game of World of Warcraft? A completely non-competitive game of StarCraft II? The device is likely to support an on-screen keyboard and multi-touch gestures, making more complex, more traditionally controlled games a possibility. How awkward would it be?

What the Slate is almost guaranteed to have is at least one id Software port. Expect Doom in some form. Maybe a few PopCap games, specifically tailored for the device. And probably some good interactive fiction players. Homebrew emulators. And it may be a much better multiplayer portable device—it could be great for board games on-the-go—given its larger touchscreen.

It’s actually starting to sound like we already need it.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on the device—our cohorts at Gizmodo have been on the thing like white on rice—which analysts are pegging in the $800 to $1000 USD range, when it launches this year.

Apple to Ship Tablet Device in March [Wall Street Journal]