Want some premium Pi? The Raspberry Pi 500+ tries something new, bringing a properly clacky keyboard to its all-in-one. This and the internal SSD ramp up the price, but it’s nice to see the Pi lot exploring new markets.
UK ID cards are back! And just as divisive as ever. I have no issues with ID cards in the abstract, but the Labour Party’s reasoning for them is “because migrants”, which isn’t remotely OK. Also, the government’s obsession with digital-only doesn’t seem a great idea for a national ID card. Just ask people with settled status and that digital-only document…
The new Met Office app is terrible. I love the Met Office. Its forecasts are often excellent. The current app is workmanlike but really good for getting information across. To me, the new one is like a cheap take on Yahoo Weather, totally misunderstanding the benefits of reasonable information density. It just takes longer to do anything and the provided information has less clarity. You can get the betas here. Do provide feedback if you use it.
Immersion has a new album out.WTF?? is a hopeful soundtrack to the times we find ourselves in. Grab a copy.
The keynote for Apple’s developer conference was held yesterday. Much of it involved Apple executives hyping Apple’s “delightful and elegant new software design”. In short, it’s like Windows Vista, visionOS and the interfaces in Minority Report had a baby. As I explain in a column for Stuff, I’m not thrilled about this new direction.
Online, I’ve seen plenty of pushback against those complaining. A common thread appears to be that Apple is a leader in accessibility and there are options to turn some Liquid Glass elements off. But there are problems with that point of view.
While I’m more writer than designer these days, I was trained in the visual arts. I was always taught that clarity and legibility should be at the forefront of anyone’s mind when designing. Surely, that’s even more the case when creating an operating system for many millions of users. Yet even in Apple’s press release, linked earlier, there are multiple screenshots where key interface components are, at best, very difficult to read. That is the new foundational point for Apple design. And those screenshots will have been designed to show the best of things.
Furthermore, Apple may be a leader in accessibility, but it is far from perfect. I first wrote about vestibular issues on this blog, back in 2012. But it was the following year, with a piece for The Guardian (Why iOS 7 is making some users sick) that the word got out there regarding major accessibility issues with a new design language. To Apple’s credit, it did listen. Changes happened. The iOS team in particular has been very responsive to my recommendations – and I’m sure also to those from others.
But the key word is responsive. Apple is still very often reactive rather than proactive regarding vision accessibility. Even today, there are major problems with the previous versions of its operating systems (one example being the vestibular trigger if you tap-hold the Focus button in Control Centre). One year on, they aren’t fixed. And now we have an entirely new design language that will upend everything and that starts from a place where clarity has been eroded, animations are even more prevalent, and broad accessibility is seemingly an afterthought.
My hope is that there will be time in this beta run for enough fixes to be made. My fear is that many of us will be waiting months for a fully usable OS, if that ever occurs. So, sure, argue against what I and others are concerned about. State, correctly, that Apple is a leader in accessibility. But stop assuming that just because this new design might be OK for you and because Apple has controls in place that might help people avoid the worst effects of design changes, everything is just peachy. Because it isn’t. Millions of people are now a coin flip away from whether or not they’ll be able to comfortably use their devices in just a few short months from now.
Last year, I argued that Apple never wanted emulators on the App Store. I suspected it felt strong-armed by EU regulators into allowing them, or was using them as a tool to blunt AltStore, which looked set to specialise in the kind of apps Apple wouldn’t approve. I also noted that MAME4iOS was in limbo. But the situation is in fact worse.
The developer had already renamed MAME4iOS to ArcadeMania, due to Apple raising concerns about ownership of the MAME brand. OK. I get that. But a couple of months back, the creator revealed (and I noted on Mastodon) that Apple rejected the app anyway because “they said it can only run ROMs owned by the developer”.
Still, this is app review, right? Mistakes happen. So the app was resubmitted. And computer said no:
The App Review Board evaluated your app and determined that the original rejection feedback is valid.
To address the 5.2.2 issue, please revise your app to only run ROM files created by you or that you specifically own.
We encourage you to review the previous rejection correspondence for this app, make the necessary changes to bring it into compliance with the App Review Guidelines, and resubmit it for review.
ArcadeMania’s creator adds: “I’m kind of at a loss of what to do at this point”. And, yeah, it’s easy to see why. Emulators, by definition, tend to run ROMs their creators don’t own. Apple’s demand is like mandating music player developers own every song users might add. And it’s a doubly baffling decision, given the existence of other emulators, including arcade emulators, on the App Store.
Apple isn’t serious about emulation. It never was. Right now, creating an emulator for iPhone, iPad or Apple TV is a waste of time, given that approval is a lottery with opaque rules Apple changes on a whim and does not apply evenly. And all this further damages the company’s gaming credibility. People who like emulators tend to really like games and they’re vocal. Right now, they continue to shout about Android.
I was immersed in ancient games this week for Stuff, reviewing the Evercade Alpha and The Spectrum. The common theme? I liked both of these gadgets a lot more than I expected to. Both delivered a neat blast of nostalgia and immediacy, while recognising that people like to load additional games on to gaming devices.
The end of the year is blazing towards us all. Which means… retrospectives. Lots and lots of retrospectives. 2024 was a weird year in lots of ways. It’ll be interesting to see how it shakes out when I review it in terms of Apple and tech.
After a long break, I returned to Wired this week, with a deep dive to ask: Is Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro good for games? I’ve long been an advocate for iPhone gaming, but Apple in recent years has made bold claims about its devices being suitable for AAA. I spent many hours separating fact from fiction and even exploring whether you could ‘consolise’ an iPhone, making any nearby Switch look on, aghast.
Apple released a bunch of new Macs this week. Some of the best coverage is over on Six Colors. I was particularly happy to see Jason Snell mentioning sustainability in his iMac review. You used to be able to use old iMacs as a display for another Mac. That went away long ago. It’s a feature Apple should bring back if it gives a damn about being green.
This week has seen another exodus from X. But I still see people worried about moving on – and a lot of folks getting angry about those who are sticking it out. I can understand why people remain on the site, but suspect there’s no saving what it once was. When an owner is so directly influential in a site, it becomes a reflection of them. Still, when I removed my presence there last summer, it was nonetheless gut-wrenching. I had amassed a wonderful collection of follows and followers over the years. But many of them have long gone now or, at most, shifted to ‘broadcast’ mode. So there’s no going back.
My take these days is there’s nothing that replaces X, but there are plenty of options online for those who’d like to have something broadly similar. I recall David Allen Green referring to Bluesky as Twitter cosplay, and that’s fair enough. But it is marrying familiarity with robust tools that improve the user experience in meaningful ways. Beyond that, Mastodon is chugging along, and there’s Threads for people who want to chat with Pizza Hut.
Also, if you or someone you know is reluctant to leave X because it’s good for news, I’d caution against staying for that reason. The algorithm is too aggressive. Instead, look into RSS and create your own feed of sources you care about. This can include major news outlets, indie blogs and even accounts on the likes of Bluesky, Mastodon and YouTube. My favourite RSS reader is NetNewsWire, but there are many more. If you’d like to get started with NetNewsWire, my colleague Tom Rolfe wrote about that for TapSmart. And I wrote an iPhone toolkit for staying informed – without the need for X.
Incidentally, if you are looking for a new online home and head to one of those networks, do say hi. I’m active on Bluesky, Threads and Mastodon.
