Old media crumbles. So digitise it before that happens. That’s the theme of my column for Stuff this week, possibly in an attempt to make me finally digitise my old video art and band tapes from decades ago. Assuming that’s still possible.

Using AI isn’t always a bad thing. Lots of people this week slammed UK Cabinet minister Peter Kyle for saying he used AI to “come up with policy advice”. There must, of course, be caveats. I think as long as he’s using it for research AND the results have source links AND ChatGPT is not his sole input AND he or his team fact-check output AND he’s not then asking AI for literal policy decisions, fine. At that point, it’s a souped-up search engine. Frankly, if we can’t have nuance in the AI discussion, then anyone against its more nefarious applications has already lost.

New Apple devices rocked up recently. So my iPhone and iPad buyer’s guides got a refresh.

For what’s coming next, iOS is reportedly getting another redesign. Michael Tsai has an excellent compilation of responses on his blog. Personally, I’m not looking forward to this for a range of reasons. Apple almost never proactively tests its interfaces for vestibular disorders, which means a potential repeat of the iOS 7 disaster. It also merely adds another visual option to the pile, making operating systems feel increasingly disjointed and inconsistent. And if the rumours are true that the redesign will be based on visionOS – an OS for a device that, charitably, did not set the world on fire, then that’s wild.

Stacking pigs is fun. At least, that’s the case with the cartoon pigs in recently released web game Styscraper. I duly added it to my productivity-destroying free browser games round-up.

Helsing’s Fire is now part of my iPhone classics series. I still really love the main gameplay mechanic, which has you move a torch to play with light and shadow, and then wipe out demons with potions. It strikes me a spruced-up version should really be on Apple Arcade.

Speaking of Apple Arcade, Space Invaders Infinity Gene is making a return to iPhone and iPad. Sort of. The new, weirdly named game, SpaceInvaders InfinityGene EVO ‘evolves’ the original. Although one way it does that is in switching play to landscape. Boo! In the original, that was an Easter Egg of sorts, transforming Space Invaders-style levels into those more reminiscent of Gradius. That said, I’m still hugely looking forward to this one.