Crazy winds here in the UK right now, where a scorching June somehow gave way to April. There’s a 50:50 chance my house will be blown into the North Sea. So I’d best get on with it.

Published stuff

A busy week over at Stuff. First up, I took a look back at the App Store’s launch 15 years ago – and 15 notable launch day apps. This then took me down a rabbit-hole of trying to find a list of every launch-day iPhone app, which doesn’t exist. I chatted with PCalc creator James Thomson and a cunning plan was formed to crowdsource the list. At the time of writing, there are almost 350 items on the spreadsheet. Nice.

In similar territory, I then mulled: Most of the original 500 iPhone apps and games have gone – and that’s good news. Mostly. The ‘mostly’ there is doing heavy lifting. This is really a piece about the inherent tension that has long existed in the App Store between evolution and its own history, with the former winning out. It was stark when making my list to discover how few of the original App Store entries remain – something John Voorhees also dug into over at MacStories.

With Elon Musk continuing to set fire to Twitter, I also took the opportunity to suggest eight Twitter alternatives and spruce up my Mastodon explainer.

Finally, Blaze Entertainment announced two new pocket-sized devices, which I just had to write about. The Super Pocket has proved controversial, though. Some folks are angry the people behind Evercade have moved away from a physical carts only policy.

I don’t see it that way. Clearly, Capcom and Taito won’t allow cart versions of these games. But Blaze saw an opportunity to create inexpensive handhelds they could add value to by way of Evercade compatibility. And it’s not like Blaze isn’t churning out new Evercade carts anyway – most of which comprise collections of rare and interesting stuff. So I think the Super Pocket is a win-win.

Anyway, TapSmart published some pieces by me this week as well: a round-up of text-based ‘AI’ apps, a column on Apple thinking iOS 17 has the solutions to help you relax, a gripe about the lack of multi-user mobile devices from Apple, and a piece on Procreate, the latest entry in my classic apps series. Phew!

Other stuff

It’s been an odd week of things rattling around my brain. In part, this has been down to post-birthday season. (Our entire family’s birthdays are squashed together into a three-week space.) And also because it’s now very grey and dull here on Normal Island. Lots of time for thinking.

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The horrors of Prime Day got me thinking about advertising, given that Amazon still wants me to buy an electric toothbrush every time I visit. Because I bought an electric toothbrush a few years ago. Electric toothbrush ads follow me around the internet. They won’t leave me alone.

It never used to be this way. When I read mags in the 1980s, they were packed full of ads, but they felt relevant and you’d often refer back to them. Now, websites bombard you with ads in an obnoxious manner, driven in part by the immediate, ephemeral nature of the medium. But dumb tracking systems creepily bug you about goods ads think you want.

I this week figured out what this is: web ads are the uncanny valley of personalised advertising. You can have that one for free.

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I last week wrote about Threads, but this week one thing has changed with the social network: Meta is clamping down heavily on usage in the EU, attempting to turn it off.

I get that Meta blocking access in the EU frustrates people. But the anti-EU takes from primarily US-based people are astonishing. The EU prioritises guardrails and safety. Yes, that can sometimes lower agility. But it does mean eg food quality and safety tend to be higher. And it means tech companies have less opportunity to ride roughshod over its population.

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The other tech concern causing a row is ChatGPT, with discussions trending towards extremes. In many people’s eyes, it’s either magic or evil. For me, it’s neither. ChatGPT remains fancy autocomplete.

What it kicks out is generic boilerplate mush that’s full of errors. Which means it’s useless, right? Well, no. Throw a short outline at it and ChatGPT can sometimes output a workable draft a skilled editor can quickly bash into shape.

I don’t often use ChatGPT myself. It doesn’t work for consumer media outlets (I’ve done A/B tests* with articles I’ve already filed.) It can sometimes be useful, though, for rewording a specific paragraph that sounds clunky, if you’re tight for time and having a brain fart.

But I do work with a company that is very keen in its use in workflow. And for corporate copy, it can help you quickly blaze through ideas. That’s not a bad thing.

* One of the most stark of these was for the Wired Space Invaders origin feature. Once that was live, I threw the original interview with Tomohiro Nishikado into ChatGPT’s maw and prompted the service to write a piece.

The result was eye-wateringly awful. It was too short, despite me providing a word count. The copy was dull. The quotes were messed up. It included made up ‘facts’. It would have taken me longer to bash it into shape than write from scratch. But if I were a PR putting together some boilerplate emails…

Threads? Threads! Threads. That was a chunk of my week, and forms a worrying amount of where I spent my time. Sadly.

Published stuff

My Stuff column this week is How Threads became part a world where your job is to check 500 social media apps a day. I look into the future and see where things will go.

Twitter finally went bankrupt and was bought by a man with a suspicious moustache called Zark Muckerberg.

You heard it here first, etc.

Stuff’s August issue is out, and includes my regulars: a round-up of noise apps, an explainer on how to use your phone to enjoy music more, and a back-page column on the Apple Newton MessagePad that’s one of my all-time favourites for the mag.

Elsewhere, the new issue of Swipe arrived on iPhone and iPad. I write for every issue and in #279 dig into a month of Duolingo and outline my thoughts on Apple Vision Pro.

Other stuff

I had a spat with BlaBlaCar. Someone had apparently signed up with my email and started driving people around. I was getting bombarded with messages. In the end, I password-reset the account and took a bunch of screenshots. Shortly thereafter, it was blocked for “suspicious activity”, and I received a threatening email in Portuguese that told me my information may be sent to the police and tax authorities.

Good job, everyone!

Naturally, BlaBlaCar’s press team hasn’t responded to my questions related to this. Its Twitter team did at least apologise, although wrongly inferred its emails were designed to inform people in my situation about what was happening, and then bizarrely recommended I change the password on my email. Er, no. My account was not breached. BlaBlaCar’s system is inept.

Minus eleven billion out of five, then, for BlaBlaCar. Would not use. Ever.

One might argue a similar rating could be applied to Meta’s Twitter knock-off, Threads. That launched last week and everyone has an opinion about it either being the most amazing thing ever, or Satan made digital flesh as a microblogging social network.

My thoughts mostly align with those of Ian Betteridge. I think Twitter is screwed, Bluesky is in deep trouble, and Mastodon will continue tootling along. But I like Threads a bit less than Ian, and my feed hasn’t got that much better than it was when I first started. (If you’ve not signed up yet, Threads fills your feed full of blue-tick influencers mostly spouting banal rubbish. Fun times.)

It rarely takes that much scrolling before I’m immersed in some kind of influencer/brand hellscape, where DoorDash and Starbucks are chatting each other up, like the most low-rent text-based romantic comedy imaginable.

Still, at least that’s a good indication of when it’s time to step away from the screen and go and stand in the rain, screaming at the sky.

A quick one this week, because I’m very tired.

Published stuff

For Stuff, The Nintendo eShop is a bag of hurt compared to Google Play and the App Store, about my own personal hell when attempting to buy games for my daughter’s new Switch. And an update to my best browser games piece, which brings a different kind of hell, in the form of The Password Game.

Meanwhile, over at TapSmart, I write about a month with Duolingo and induct the wonderful Threes! into my classic apps series.

Other stuff

My family just got back from a trip to Alton Towers, which I’ve not been to since I was a teenager. Some lessons learned there. One was about how it’s a really good idea to bring a nine-year-old up to the faster roller coasters, so they don’t clam up for an entire day. (Oops. Day two was better.) Another is that if you’ve placed a ban on cuddly toys, accidentally winning a gigantic one in a fairground-style game isn’t the smartest parenting move. Sigh.

What I got up to this week…

Published stuff

For my Stuff column this week, I grumbled about the robotic and prescriptive nature of streaks in I lost my Apple Watch streak – here’s why it should have more humanity. Judging by the response on social media, I’m far from alone in this. It’s quite something how systems designed to engage and maintain interest lack the flexibility to avoid making people instantly demoralised – not least since, as I note, games creator Eugene Jarvis solved this problem in 1980 (and the third-party iPhone Streaks app has solved it today). Elsewhere for Stuff, I updated its list of upcoming Lego sets. Banchu the Bunny looks the business.

Over at TapSmart, Soulver is the latest entry in my classic apps series. I also bring my five-minute wonders up to date and ask What is the point of Apple Vision Pro, and who is it really for?

Upcoming stuff

I’m still surrounded by boxes. For Stuff, I’m digging into interesting hardware. One item is an audio controller unlike anything else I’ve ever seen. It resembles a games controller from 1983. And I also have a massive pen display, which mini-G (8) fell in love with and asked if we could buy. Sorry, kid. Have an Apple Pencil and Procreate instead.

Other stuff

Mini-G’s birthday is imminent and so we decided to get her a Switch. I’m true to form in this, buying a console as it nears end of life. But I’m sure we’ll love it. What I didn’t love was the process of setting the thing up. I think I’ll write a quick second piece on that though…

The UK’s still an oven. But I’ve heroically managed to avoid melting and managed to smash words into shape over the past seven days…

Published stuff

Apple Vision Pro has unsurprisingly impacted on my work. Not in the sense of first-hand experience (I wasn’t one of the lucky few whisked out to WWDC), but in terms of the device’s wider impact. For TapSmart, I outline ways in which lessons drawn from the Vision Pro interface could make iPhone and iPad feel alive again. And over at Stuff, I head ten years into the future, with ‘How Apple’s Apple Vision vision came to pass after WWDC33’.

For TapSmart, I also explored whether you should install Apple’s 2023 betas and wrote up my pick of the best music players for iPhone. (If you’d like to support our work there, please consider subscribing to our iPhone indie mag, Swipe.) And for Stuff, I celebrated the 45th anniversary of Space Invaders with a touch of snark and a look back at some of the best sequels.

If you like that piece, also check out my article on the upcoming Space Invaders Quarter Arcades (Stuff) and my interview with the game’s creator, Tomohiro Nishikado (Wired).

Upcoming stuff

I currently exist in a world of boxes as I work on pieces for Stuff. Very early next week, my Mac Studio review should go live. The Studio a lovely desktop unit, which 99% of people absolutely don’t need. For the 1%, however, it’s compelling – and my review unit was noticeably quieter than last year’s M1 Max model. That said, it’s odd to me these days when a Mac isn’t silent when idling.

I’m also about to delve into pieces on kit for creativity, specifically illustration/design and music-making. Given that these pieces demanding new (well, newish) hardware, this one’s been challenging. Release schedules for graphics tablets and MIDI keyboards are hardly hectic. And in the music realm, it’s strange how certain companies make it almost impossible to get in touch with them. (Hey, Akai! If you’re reading this, please email me…)

Other stuff

Having been mostly WFH for over 20 years, I place a lot of value in online communities. They can keep you sane when you’re otherwise working alone. But lately, it really does feel like the heart is being torn out of such places by rich white men with the temperament of spoiled toddlers.

Twitter was the first to go, with Musk making good on his promise to relegate to ‘spam’ any input from those who wouldn’t pay. My ‘For You’ feed is now at least 50% AI grifters and Tory MPs. And the number of posts from people I enjoyed hearing from has dropped precipitously. Mastodon, alas, has not filled the void, since only a smallish fraction of folks I know made the jump – but it (for me, at least) has been a largely pleasant experience. I am on BlueSky also, but have no idea what to do with that.

Reddit’s rapid implosion, though, has hit me hard. I ended up spending more time there after Twitter went splat, and crafted a great feed of uplifting and fun content. So of course a rich idiot CEO decided to set fire to everything. A long-time friend and colleague suggested with Twitter I’m finally at the acceptance stage – and I think that’s true. With Reddit, I suspect I’m pinging back and forth between anger and bargaining. Here’s hoping whatever comes next will be decentralised to the degree that one rich white guy can’t bring it all tumbling down on a whim.