Published stuff

Retrogaming week over at Stuff, as I checked out the new Space Invaders Quarter Arcade and the Atari 2600+.

Why I think Numskull’s Space Invaders Quarter Arcade is the best retro gaming gadget ever is the title to the first piece, and speaks for itself. The diminutive cab feels like a love letter to my first videogame experience, recreated in near-perfect miniaturised form by Numskull. It’s so good.

Atari 2600+ review: slots of fun or gaming relic? has me explore a new take on the similarly ancient Atari 2600. I admit I had difficulty with this one. Mostly, I’m not sure who it’s for. Currently, the unit isn’t accurate enough to be authentic, and yet its not user-friendly enough for people who just want a quick nostalgia blast.

I liked it a lot – notably, the chunky buttons and using old carts. It feels very analogue. But objectively it’s a tricky sell – hence the disparity between the rating (which I spent a long time mulling over) and the more positive verdict. I am glad Atari’s doing things like this though.

Elsewhere, my browser games list got a bump due to the wonderful Puzzmo, and I wrote I was right about Nothing Chats. It’s time to stop thinking ‘move fast and break things’ is OK. This followed up last week’s piece on iMessage on Android, where I predicted “Nothing Chats will amount to nothing”. Although I fully admit I had no idea the level of disaster the app would be.

It was a busy week over at TapSmart too. Check out my gift guide for iPhone owners, a list of the best iPhone apps to run on your Mac, and device sharing hacks for iPhone and iPad. The last of those looks into how best to share devices between multiple people. Step one is mostly to only share them with people you really trust.

Upcoming stuff

Looking at the next couple of weeks, I’m in full-on end-of-year mode. I’ll be looking to update features about using gadgets to help with the holidays, and delving into the best of Apple in 2023 – and what I’d like to see next year. Time to copy and paste my gripe about the Home indicator…

Other stuff

Over on Threads, senior CNN reporter Oliver Darcy is annoyed about cross-posting. This was in response to an app that lets you crosspost to several social networks. He argued: “No one needs to post the exact same thing across multiple social platforms. Pick one and stick with it!”

I mostly agree with the first part of that. I don’t think every post needs to go everywhere, but I do post my weeknote to Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky and LinkedIn, and often post my columns to multiple networks.

I vehemently disagree with the second part: “Pick one and stick with it!” Why pick one social network? Even when Twitter was at its height, I dabbled elsewhere. Nowadays, no alternative has anywhere near the convenience of Twitter, where the biggest advantage was the crossover of communities.

Right now, Mastodon has many of my dev and tech friends, a smattering of academics, and a few other random folks. Threads has a smattering of Twitter/X ‘refugees’. Bluesky is where the Twitter comics community and most authors went. If I decided to ‘pick one and stick with it’, I’d lose multiple communities because none of them will ever be like Twitter once was.

So I’ll never just pick one and I will continue to crosspost some things, because my Twitter community fractured and I don’t want to lose even more pieces of it.

By the way, if you’d like to follow me on any of those places, there are links over at my Linktree page.