Two columns over at Stuff this week. First, The Prodigy’s Wind It Up vanishing from music streaming makes me want to buy CDs again. Which given my previous articles on physical vs digital is perhaps cementing my position as Old Man Shakes Fist At Cloud on the site. Oh well.

Elsewhere, I dipped a toe into the Apple vs EU scrap and surprised myself with this conclusion: Apple and the EU’s browser fight will only have one winner – and it won’t be you. As per the article, I do think the EU has a point, but with browsers I’m not sure it’s thought through the likely unintended consequence of its actions.

Over at TapSmart, three pieces this week. First up, Apollo is added to my classic app series. Then I grump about the need for a Screen Time kill switch. And finally there’s a round-up of the best music discovery apps for iPhone.

Finally, on Mastodon, my daily retro game series hit 250 entries, with Snare (for Thalamus, created by Rob Stevens).

Other stuff

Given all the legal fights going on, you have to wonder if there’s something in the water right now. Apple vs the EU – often completely misunderstood by commentators, especially those from the US – is skilfully covered by Baldur Bjarnason. I also recommend Dan Moren’s piece for Six Colors, because it’s good and also to highlight that some smart folks in the US do get it.

Elsewhere, The Verge explores the consequences of Nintendo kicking Yuzu to death in a back alley. Personally, I’m not in favour of current-gen systems being emulated, but I’m also against Nintendo’s known position that all emulation should be wiped out.

Without emulation, most games would be lost – in a literal sense (it’s the pirates who’ve rescued most games from oblivion, after all) and also in an access sense, since gaming companies are keen to sell you the same old suspects over and over again, and in locked formats that mean you cannot take a legally bought ROM or disk image and do with it as you please.

There should be a middle ground, but there probably won’t ever be one. And that Verge article doesn’t explore all of the fallout, given that I’m now reading about people behind multi-emulator frameworks wondering how much Nintendo stuff they have to remove, not because Nintendo has threatened legal action, but because they’re fearful Nintendo will. 

And this isn’t me dumping on Nintendo. Others in this space (hello, Sony, eg) have acted similarly multiple times. If they all got their way, playing old games would be like streaming music if the likes of Spotify and Apple Music were replaced by label-specific services, which never gave you more than a handful of greatest hits albums, and pretended 99% of music history just didn’t exist. Bah.

Let’s end on a happier note. Or at least something that made me happy. I finally got a bunch of pictures up on the office wall, which gave me a lift. Now for the rest…