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PhoneSaber Pulled by Lucasfilm... But Official Version In Works
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You wouldn't believe how many times that's happened to me. Stupid imperialist scumbags.
It also comes in handy when some ugly goober tries to assault you at the bar
You wouldn't believe how many times that's happened to me. Stupid imperialist scumbags.
It also comes in handy when some ugly goober tries to assault you at the bar
I've found it also useful for opening steel doors to which I do not have a key for.
You shove the thing in, move it around a little and boom, a nice hole to dive through.Personally I'm glad Lucasfilm have done this.
I'm looking forward to a new version with far too much extra CGI and perhaps some nonsensical idea like the light being created by midichlorians and the noise being them singing, or something.
Thanks for ruining happy childhood memories George.
(And yes, I do have issues with episodes 1-3)
I'm looking forward to a new version with far too much extra CGI and perhaps some nonsensical idea like the light being created by midichlorians and the noise being them singing, or something.
Thanks for ruining happy childhood memories George.
(And yes, I do have issues with episodes 1-3)
Ben Burtt put a lot of work into the sounds and if they just sampled the sounds, as hip hop artists from the 1980s and 1990s know, you have to pay to use copyrighted materials.
I doubt an official Lucasfilm/LucasArts version would be as good. They seem to intentionally add bugs to their products to annoy.
I doubt an official Lucasfilm/LucasArts version would be as good. They seem to intentionally add bugs to their products to annoy.
A buck indeed. And Apple gets 30 cents of each buck.
That's a sweet deal for Apple: The developer dukes it out on his own with Lucas, and Apple collects 30% when they're done. Better than giving away free apps, huh? Won't hurt the stock price either.
It has mostly be suggested that this would only be used to disable malicious apps. I don't see how this one qualifies as malicious.
I downloaded it and after the first 5 min of fun I was done with it. I give kudos to the guy for developing the cutest dumb app at the store.
Unless George Lucas and Co. makes the iPhone shoot a beam of light to make it realistic why even pay for a dumb app????????
Unless George Lucas and Co. makes the iPhone shoot a beam of light to make it realistic why even pay for a dumb app????????
Depends how you define "malicious". Using someone else's intellectual property (copyrighted sounds, trade marks, etc) and denying them the right to earn royalties on it may count as malicious. I'm not sure if PhoneSaber does any of that "malicious" stuff BTW, but I'm sure Lucas' lawyers will be happy to argue it does. Expense accounts and fancy offices don't come cheap
And if you think the IP wasn't really worth much in this case, then consider this: One of the first apps in the app store did much he same as PhoneSaber. I can't remember what it was called, but it flashed a red light and made a noise. I think it used the motion detector too. That app, with no Star Wars connection was mercilessly panned and died a quick death!
So the Star Wars franchise is worth something - probably quite a bit. Can't fault Lucas for going after it.
Knowing George, he'll probably release his version as PhoneSaber SE and redo all the graphics in 3D and re-master the sound in THX. Then he'll insert new animations of cute little robots carrying the light saber onto the screen and turning it on for you because he thinks that type of thing was missing from the original. Of course, the new version will be a 50MB download and cost $9.99.
Can't wait!
Can't wait!
Totally Lame!
I've had this on my iPhone since day one, and just got the updated version a few days ago, just in the nick of time.
Yeah, it's FREE and it's silly, but it still is the app that, for some reason, gets the most ooohs and aaahs from folks whenever I show it to them. I've had several who have iPhones themselves get it after I've "performed" with it.
It's been wildly "successful" from a download standpoint.
I agree with some of the posters here - they've seen how popular it's become and now they're gonna "re-tool" it and charge $. Whatever, yeah, thanks but no thanks. *sheesh*
I've had this on my iPhone since day one, and just got the updated version a few days ago, just in the nick of time.
Yeah, it's FREE and it's silly, but it still is the app that, for some reason, gets the most ooohs and aaahs from folks whenever I show it to them. I've had several who have iPhones themselves get it after I've "performed" with it.
It's been wildly "successful" from a download standpoint.
I agree with some of the posters here - they've seen how popular it's become and now they're gonna "re-tool" it and charge $. Whatever, yeah, thanks but no thanks. *sheesh*
Most of the tec in Star Wars is ether inspired by or a copy of tec in Star Trek (same goes for most sci-fi shows).
I bet Lucas Films could come up with something.
They could say, "Oh, it could fly out of your hand and hit someone or break the iPhone."
That app is still up, search it and prove me wrong.
It's called the iSaber.
Even though it shared a lot of the same characteristics as the phonesaber, it was really bad quality and got really bad reviews.
I think that the reason it wasn't confronted by Lucas Films is because of all the bad reviews and it wasn't as popular.
And maybe Lucas Films doesn't even know about it because it sucks so bad.
Well, of course the big corporation is only going to attack the little guy who is succeeding. No point in complaining about an app that nobody likes. It's just interesting that Lucas, Apple (with the Psystar thing), and Hasbro (Scrabbulous) waited a while to gauge the interest in the violators work instead of complaining on day one.
So strange the way some management ops think these days. They want to make a couple thousand dollars by selling some cheesy phone light saber app (that won't be any better than current phone saber), so what do they do? Pull a terrible PR move by taking a fun toy app AWAY from users.
Yeah. iPhone users are certainly going to queue up for LucasArts-brand nonsense after they forcibly said NO you can't have that fun toy app anymore, we're taking it down and we're gonna make you buy whatever we come up with, whenever we get around to it.
Terrible, terrible public relations. I am now so off put by LucasArts' greedy nonsense that I could care less about purchasing anything they put out in the near future, app store or otherwise.
Allowing a slight copyright infringement that is not making anyone any money > Bad PR move. Fools.
Yeah. iPhone users are certainly going to queue up for LucasArts-brand nonsense after they forcibly said NO you can't have that fun toy app anymore, we're taking it down and we're gonna make you buy whatever we come up with, whenever we get around to it.
Terrible, terrible public relations. I am now so off put by LucasArts' greedy nonsense that I could care less about purchasing anything they put out in the near future, app store or otherwise.
Allowing a slight copyright infringement that is not making anyone any money > Bad PR move. Fools.
Oh its the definition of GRIMMY, absolutely.
They've watched and counted the downloads of phonesaber and said, WOW, thats a lot of people.
Of course, they don't understand at all that the app was FREE and there is almost no one that would pay even the minimum price of 0.99 for it, or something similar.
If iPhone users had any integrity at all, they would absolutely boycott the Lucas Arts app whenever it appears. Protect the small developer. F Lucas.
Well, not to defend them or anything, but if copyright works anything like trademarks (and this may be a trademark issue as well), they don't have a choice but to do this. To let infringements pass can risk the trademark.
Of course, they could also just give written consent to let it happen...