Thurrott Daily: October 18, 2015

Here’s what’s happening today.

10/18/2015 12:27:46 PM

Still messing around with the format of these posts. Today, a small test.

Developer: Xbox One will always lag PS4 because it is less powerful

Alan Kertz, a developer behind such games as Battlefield 4 and Star Wars Battlefront took to Twitter recently to shit all over the Xbox One:

Xbone will always be behind the PS4 this generation because it isn’t as powerful.

No amount of consumer trust can change that it’s just an inferior horse in the horsepower category.

Noting later that the abbreviation “Xbone” bothered Xbox One fanboys, he then taunted them and suggested “Pony”as an abbreviation for PlayStation 4. But he also threw distraught Xbox One fans this bone.

But just like last gen, when enough exclusives pile up and the price drops [the Xbox One will] be a worthy purchase.

If the XBO/PS4 wars work out like the 360/PS3 generation, the technical shortcomings of the Xbox One will almost certainly become less of an issue because developers learn how to best take advantage of each platform.

So let me make a prediction.

Just as 1080p support let Xbox 360 take a nice leap forward, and one that few onlookers thought was possible, so too will DirectX 12 support work some magic for Xbox One in 2016. I’m not saying it will close the gap from a sales perspective—that may in fact not be possible—but it should close the tech/game quality gap.

Of Intel and smart phones

I have heard that Microsoft is indeed working on an Intel-based smart phone for 2016 that may or may not be marketed as a Surface rather than a Lumia. But it seems that Microsoft isn’t the only platform maker examining a switch of sorts to Intel: Apple reportedly is looking at using an Intel modem in its next iPhone.VentureBeat reports.

Intel now has a thousand people or more working to outfit a 2016 iPhone with its lauded 7360 LTE modem chip, sources say. If all goes well, Intel may end up providing both the modem and the fabrication for a new Apple system on a chip.

Sources close to the matter say Intel is pulling out the stops to supply the modems for at least some of the iPhones Apple manufactures in 2016. This phone will likely be the iPhone 7.

Apple, of course, uses its own ARM-based line of processors in its mobile devices. But if all goes well with this first Intel experiment, Intel could pick up Apple’s entire SoC business, delivering future A/M chips together with other components in new iPhones. And that could propel Intel from last to first in a market it has yet to crack. Thus it’s a big deal.

iOS 9 jailbreak lets 3D Touch work with iPhone 6

As I suspected, the 3D Touch feature in iOS 9 does not technically require an iPhone 6S or 6S Plus and can easily be made to work with older devices. A reportin ValueWalk says that 3D Touch—which provides multitouch gestures like peek and pop—works just fine with older devices that do not feature Force Touch screens. Which makes sense, since other platforms, including Windows, already support “long tap” and “push” gestures.