Published stuff

For Stuff, I say old games consoles aren’t redundant – I think they’re a must-buy. This in response to commentators griping about the Switch 2’s delay, and one of my Stuff colleagues buying a PS5 recently and fretting he made an error. 

Hey, I bought a Dreamcast in 2002 and had a C64 until the mid-1990s, and I had loads of fun with them. You don’t always need the shiny new thing – consoles and games systems that have proven themselves can often be a better buy.

I also updated my best iPhone/iPad apps list with an interesting app called Presets that lets you stash and reuse edit stacks in Apple Photos.

Over at TapSmart, I throw in my 2p on Apple’s headset with Apple Vision Pro’s limitations may define it – or kill it. I also ask if you can be tempted back to the ‘grid of apps’ on Apple’s little black box in a new piece on the best Apple TV apps. Finally, leapy endless runner Canabalt has been added to my classics series. If you’d like more insight into that game, I wrote a long-read for Stuff about it some time ago that digs into the game’s origins and eventually its induction into the MOMA permanent videogame collection.

Upcoming stuff

I recently filed a piece for Stuff on Atari’s best hardware – at least as I see it. Next up, I’m tackling Sinclair and Commodore. Please do comment if there’s something you feel I should absolutely not omit.

Other stuff

Medium and Substack spam is becoming a big problem. I’m not sure quite what’s going on, but I’m now very regularly getting confirmations of subscriptions to writers I’ve never heard of. 

In better news, we took the 9yo to her first proper gig last weekend – and our first in several years: Slowdive at the Apollo. (Not my video.) Slowdive is one of my absolute favourite bands. Star Roving has for years been my favourite song, and there’s something about Slowdive live that eclipses even the studio versions.

Anyway, I’ve been having a pretty rough year mentally. I’m not sure why. But for a short while at that gig – and especially during that song – everything bad faded away and I felt ridiculously happy. So, thank you, Slowdive. And, I think, more of this kind of thing throughout the year.