I was immersed in ancient games this week for Stuff, reviewing the Evercade Alpha and The Spectrum. The common theme? I liked both of these gadgets a lot more than I expected to. Both delivered a neat blast of nostalgia and immediacy, while recognising that people like to load additional games on to gaming devices.
The end of the year is blazing towards us all. Which means… retrospectives. Lots and lots of retrospectives. 2024 was a weird year in lots of ways. It’ll be interesting to see how it shakes out when I review it in terms of Apple and tech.
Apple never wanted emulators on the App Store. I imagine it felt strong-armed into allowing them, due to EU regulators getting antsy, or as a means to attempt to derail third-party app AltStore, which an awful lot of people primarily cared about due to Nintendo emulator Delta. Even with that, Apple first authorised a terrible rip-off over Delta, and everything since has been at best a crapshoot.
PPSSPP Gold is currently in kafkaesque hell, with absurdist responses from app review. Mini vMac was blocked from the App Store, because Apple took umbrage at the idea of an emulator that used its IP. But then Apple went a step further and wouldn’t notarise it for third-party stores, which is outrageous.
These aren’t the only issues emulator authors have faced. Last I checked, MAME4iOS was in limbo. Several other emulator authors have given up. Meanwhile, Apple merrily approves emulators that barely work and are exploitative crap. A cynic might wonder whether this is intent, to showcase the worst of emulation and put people off. Although given app review’s history, it’s perhaps more realistic to instead go for the old saying that you should never put down to malice what could be explained by incompetence.
Thinking about it, I probably should have written those in the opposite order above, since one headline answers the other. Anyway, there is some good stuff in Apple Intelligence, and I’m glad Apple is being deliberate and cautious rather than stamping on creators’ faces. But I can’t help but feel all this effort could be put to better use – and that what this entire industry is delivering isn’t coming close to matching user expectations.
On her Young Vulgarian blog, Marie Le Conte wrote an excellent piece on (some) people’s need to post on social media. For me, it’s always been about human connection. As someone who’s worked from home for well over 20 years, social networking has – at its best – been a great way to feel less isolated.
Where I diverge a little from Le Conte’s take is in her thinking on Meta. She argues that Threads is struggling because Meta didn’t take into account the “posting middle classes” and their needs. I just think Meta can’t help but be anything other than itself. So Threads wants to be different, but Meta’s culture forces it to be little more than another Facebook.
It was notable to see Meta’s Adam Mosseri reveal that the algorithm is being shaken up, presumably because people are getting tired of For You being full of engagement bait. But the ‘rebalancing’ he spoke of only served to annoy people who like For You as it is – and those who hate it. The solution is to give people the option in Threads to default to a chronological feed – or an algorithmic feed of their choosing. But Meta has never been about letting you see what you want to see. Meta wants you to see what it wants you to see.
As a writer, it’s great when your instincts turn out to be sound. I’d written a Bluesky piece for the issue of Stuff currently going to print, but then saw the massive wave of new users and so got it online ASAP. And I’m thrilled to report that The best Bluesky tips 2024: replace Twitter and make social media fun again has done really well, because it’s good for the site but, more importantly, helps more people get started with Bluesky. Numbers-wise, it’s even creeping towards my surprise breakout column about why I’m buying my first CD player in 20 years.
The latest Bluesky wave has got people talking. Often in ways that to me make little sense. Over on Threads, people seem genuinely annoyed that Bluesky is the current social media darling. There’s lots of hand-wringing from the people in charge, who don’t seem to realise that Threads cloning the best Bluesky features won’t matter if Meta continues being Meta, making decisions that are user-hostile.
For me, the key thing about Bluesky (like Mastodon) is that it defaults to the content you want to see. Threads adding custom feeds is meaningless if it always shows you inane engagement bait in ‘For You’ every time you open the app. And the company continuing to conflate – or not – Threads and Instagram depending on whether – or not – it’s in Meta’s best interests is getting old. (‘Use a totally different social network for DMs’ is wild from a user-experience standpoint.)
But the big argument about Bluesky comes from people still posting on X. They claim we need to save the town square. We’re told Bluesky will become a left-wing bubble. Just no. X’s algorithm was aggressively pushing right-wing content into my feed when I quit the site in 2023, so I can only imagine how bad it is now. It is no longer a level playing field. And right-wing voices are not blocked from Bluesky – it’s just that people will block them if they start being dicks.
Moreover, X is not and was never a town square. It was more like a pub. And you don’t stay and fight for a pub you like if a new landlord scraps the barred list, starts yelling about how much he hates “the libs”, makes friends with a bunch of far-right nutters, and ensures your entire time there will be spent dealing with arseholes yelling shit your way. What you do is this: you find another pub. In all, I get the impression certain people are mostly fuming because we won’t play their game anymore. Tough.
Speaking of Bluesky (again – last time, I promise), I asked over there the following: Do writers have that thing when they read themselves from 10 or 20 years ago and it’s like reading someone else entirely? Some old columns on this blog and elsewhere still sound like me to some degree, but many feel weirdly alien. It’s odd. And this isn’t about quality. In fact, sometimes I read an old column and think it’s really clever, which helpfully sends me into a spiral of “oh my god, I’m shit” as my deadline roars towards me with all of the subtlety of a rhinoceros wearing a jetpack.
Still, I suppose this is a good thing. I’d rather evolve than always be the same. And I’m heading towards 25 years of being paid to smash out words for various folks, and so I must be doing something right.
After a long break, I returned to Wired this week, with a deep dive to ask: Is Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro good for games? I’ve long been an advocate for iPhone gaming, but Apple in recent years has made bold claims about its devices being suitable for AAA. I spent many hours separating fact from fiction and even exploring whether you could ‘consolise’ an iPhone, making any nearby Switch look on, aghast.
Apple released a bunch of new Macs this week. Some of the best coverage is over on Six Colors. I was particularly happy to see Jason Snell mentioning sustainability in his iMac review. You used to be able to use old iMacs as a display for another Mac. That went away long ago. It’s a feature Apple should bring back if it gives a damn about being green.
This week has seen another exodus from X. But I still see people worried about moving on – and a lot of folks getting angry about those who are sticking it out. I can understand why people remain on the site, but suspect there’s no saving what it once was. When an owner is so directly influential in a site, it becomes a reflection of them. Still, when I removed my presence there last summer, it was nonetheless gut-wrenching. I had amassed a wonderful collection of follows and followers over the years. But many of them have long gone now or, at most, shifted to ‘broadcast’ mode. So there’s no going back.
My take these days is there’s nothing that replaces X, but there are plenty of options online for those who’d like to have something broadly similar. I recall David Allen Green referring to Bluesky as Twitter cosplay, and that’s fair enough. But it is marrying familiarity with robust tools that improve the user experience in meaningful ways. Beyond that, Mastodon is chugging along, and there’s Threads for people who want to chat with Pizza Hut.
Also, if you or someone you know is reluctant to leave X because it’s good for news, I’d caution against staying for that reason. The algorithm is too aggressive. Instead, look into RSS and create your own feed of sources you care about. This can include major news outlets, indie blogs and even accounts on the likes of Bluesky, Mastodon and YouTube. My favourite RSS reader is NetNewsWire, but there are many more. If you’d like to get started with NetNewsWire, my colleague Tom Rolfe wrote about that for TapSmart. And I wrote an iPhone toolkit for staying informed – without the need for X.
Incidentally, if you are looking for a new online home and head to one of those networks, do say hi. I’m active on Bluesky, Threads and Mastodon.
