Ease into the Switch

CUPERTINO, California—October 20, 2009—Apple® today introduced the new wireless Magic Mouse, the first mouse to use Apple’s revolutionary Multi-Touch™ technology. Pioneered on iPhone®, iPod touch® and Mac® notebook trackpads, Multi-Touch allows customers to navigate using intuitive finger gestures. Instead of mechanical buttons, scroll wheels or scroll balls, the entire top of the Magic Mouse is a seamless Multi-Touch surface. Magic Mouse comes standard with the new iMac® and will be available as a Mac accessory at just $69.

“Apple is the Multi-Touch leader, pioneering the use of this innovative technology in iPhone, iPod touch and Mac notebook trackpads,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Apple’s Multi-Touch technology allows us to offer an easy to use mouse in a simple and elegant design.”

Magic Mouse features a seamless touch-sensitive enclosure that allows it to be a single or multi-button mouse with advanced gesture support. Using intuitive gestures, users can easily scroll through long documents, pan across large images or swipe to move forward or backward through a collection of web pages or photos. Magic Mouse works for left or right handed users and multi-button or gesture commands can be easily configured from within System Preferences.

The Magic Mouse laser tracking engine provides a smooth, consistent experience across more surfaces than a traditional optical tracking system. Magic Mouse uses Bluetooth wireless capabilities to create a clean, cable-free desk top and its secure wireless connection works from up to 10 meters away. To extend battery performance, Magic Mouse includes an advanced power management system that works with Mac OS® X to automatically switch to low power modes during periods of inactivity. The wireless Magic Mouse is powered by two AA batteries which are included.

Pricing & Availability
Magic Mouse comes standard with the new iMac and is available at the end of October through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), at Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $69 (US). Magic Mouse requires Mac OS X Leopard® version 10.5.8 or later.

Marco Arment, the lead developer of Tumblr and creator of Instapaper, wrote a great article on how the App Store is really two different stores. He doesn’t say it, but it’s really Wal-Mart and L.L. Bean in the same store. One is focused on low prices and volume while the other is focused on quality.

Marco uses Ramp Champ as an excellent case study in how to approach these two stores. Shortly after this article was published, Gedeon Maheux and the team at Iconfactory updated Ramp Champ’s description and images in the App Store. I’m not a fan of the way they choose to update the images. The compositions they choose look good within iTunes.

Ramp Champ's App Store presence

But, they reduce the level of detail potential buyers are able to see. The Iconfactory put a lot of effort into their art and now with the revised images which are collages of different screenshots, they’re short-selling that work. It gets even worse than that when viewing the new images on the iPhone.

Screenshot collages are often painful to view on the device

The Iconfactory should go back to using full screenshots to display their artwork. But, taking the advice that Marco laid out in his article, they must pay more attention to the order their screens appear in. Clown Town is easily the most reminiscent of Skee-ball and carnival games of this sort and should get top billing rather than the ramp select screen as in the past.

Clown Town should be Ramp Champ's primary screenshot

The first two ramps in Ramp Champ are definitely the most visually appealing and evocative of the carnival aesthetic – and I bet Iconfactory planned this. So, it’s definitely Breakwater Bay that should come second. To the shoppers in the App Store, seeing a second ramp would reinforce the variety that Ramp Champ has over Skee-ball and other games.

Breakwater Bay is also bright and colorful – providing contrast to Clown Town

Now it is time to let the audience know about the hooks to the game. Why would they want to play it for more than a day or two? Because they get to redeem their tickets for cool loot!

Loot worked for World of Warcraft

OK, so they can cash in their tickets for loot. But, what if they’re looking for some more meaningful rewards? Show them the trophies they can get for different achievements on the various ramps.

Maybe they should get this shot from someone that's better at the game

What if they really want a game that they can come back to weeks or months later? The deeper the potential customer goes through the screenshots before making a decision probably correlates well with how deep they want to be able to go within the game. So, the final screenshot is when Ramp Champ should prove it is in it to win it.

Extend your play as you need to – for less than a game of real Skee-ball