Published stuff

Nintendo has made an alarm clock. Which – if you’re old enough – shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, Game & Watch units were also clocks. But I figured this was a good excuse over at Stuff to say: Forget Alarmo and Super Mario Clock – here are the 5 video game clocks the world really needs. This… may not be my most sensible column of the year. Fun to write though!

Also for Stuff, I reviewed the new iPhone Pro Max. Unsurprisingly, it’s a very good phone. But in a quietly impressive way. I don’t think there are going to be people throwing parties in the street over the new features. Speaking of which, over at TapSmart I got down my thoughts regarding two weeks with Camera Control. I mostly like it, but I’m not convinced, of all things, that the button is in the right place. 

And finally, I wrote up a guide on how to get started with Things.

Upcoming stuff

I filed a piece on iPhone gaming. This was a properly deep dive, involving some frankly absurd attempts to turn an iPhone into a Switch. I’m not sure when it’ll be published, but I’m looking forward to seeing that in the wild.

Elsewhere, I’m working on another of my classic apps pieces, about a long-time favourite – and an app that’s relevant to the new iPhones, let’s say.

Other stuff

I’m dreadful at bouncing between systems for organising my day. And the way things are for me of late (lots to do; time poor), I need to be better organised.

I used to add meetings in Calendar for approximate times articles would take to write. But as I moved into more corporate work and my schedule became rigid, that no longer worked. So I took to adding all-day events in Calendar for tasks, and used Widget Wizard to put the agenda on my Home Screens. This was twinned with a table in Notes that gave me an at-a-glance view of upcoming projects.

None of this was particularly flexible, and although I have dabbled with a range of GTD apps, I never settled on one. But inspired by Joan Westenberg’s piece on Apple stock apps, I took another look at Reminders. With its column view, you get something that’s like a basic kanban setup. I’ve got one board for freelance and another for a corporate client. Tags and deadlines give me alternate views across publications and times. The Today view tells me what I need to sort urgently.

The Apple solution is imperfect. Most notably, I’d love to have a ‘this week’ view, telling me what I need to sort before the weekend. I’ve faked that to some degree with a ‘next four days’ view, which somewhat works with my schedule. Still, it’s been interesting to use Reminders in this manner – and it really is helping.

Next up: sorting out Notes with something based on Forever * Notes.

Published stuff

My column this week is Nintendo Switch Sports makes me want to ditch the gamepad – and hope the Switch 2 doesn’t ditch innovation. Basically, I’m bored of gamepads. Which isn’t the first time. So I’m also hoping that whatever Nintendo does next isn’t what many people are clamouring for: more Switch 1.1 than Switch 2, with little ‘innovation’ beyond more raw power and a better display.

Also for Stuff, I wrote up a bunch of watchOS tips and updated a feature on mini retro game consoles. And over at TapSmart, I wrote about launcher apps for iPhone and the new AirPods range.

Upcoming stuff

I’m currently immersed in all things iPhone 16, for a bunch of things related to hardware and gaming. More on those as they rock up.

I’m also hoping to dig into some new retro consoles later in the year. Because it turns out, you can never have enough retro consoles. (Note: you probably can, if my very full office is anything to go by.)

Other stuff

I live near a lake that also happens to be a SSSI. It’s good for waterfowl, and also bats. I’d not gone bat spotting in a while, and feared few would be around, given the collapse in UK insect life, which has been noticeable locally. But last night, the family went on a bat walk, and saw a bunch of them flitting around, occasionally divebombing the group of us that had gathered.

The evening also scratched a tech itch I never knew I had. Each family was given a bat detector. And it turns out, you can buy one online. So that might result in one more piece of tech entering the home.

Published stuff

My Stuff column this week is: Not everything needs AI – least of all your Instagram and Facebook feeds. This looks at Meta AI clogging your feed with AI slop and killing any notion Meta social networks are about authenticity. But it also talks about a good AI use case – from HP, of all companies. 

Over at TapSmart, I write about 18 great apps for customising Lock Screen controls, mastering Control Centre, and which Apple Watch to buy. 

Other stuff

In the Verge, Mark Zuckerberg argues “individual creators or publishers tend to overestimate the value of their specific content”. Then dismisses them pulling content from AIs by saying “it’s not like that’s going to change the outcome of this stuff that much”. And also infers if you put something into the wild, it’s fair use.

It’s all bullshit. Creators are merely suggesting their work is worth more than nothing. Zuckerberg disagrees – unless an org his tech is ripping off has enough legal clout to cause Meta a problem in the courts.

More broadly on AI, I worry people are being trained to expect the output is always good. Often, it isn’t. LLMs can save time by providing ideas, iterating copy, or doing basic research. But you need people at either end who know their stuff. Instead, AI companies hype that you no longer need expertise. Anyone can now be a writer, an artist or a musician! Just use GenAI! But don’t look closely at the written facts, the broken anatomy in figures, the rampant plagiarism, or the cost and resource issues. 

Over at Bluesky, ChinnyVision half joked about how his newish MacBook has worn keys but his 38-year-old Amstrad CPC doesn’t. Modern Apple keycaps are dreadful. As I noted, their lack of durability never ceases to amaze me. And if you’ve an iMac that isn’t silver, you can’t even buy a matching replacement on the Apple Store. Some of the keys on my iMac’s keyboard look like they’ve been gouged. Many remain pristine. I’ve no idea why. Maybe I have latent superpowers that could with some work have me fire acid from my fingertips.

Finally, Mark Gurman said on Threads the current version of Apple will never move away from pre-recorded events. Federico Viticci responded by saying live events are more fun. For me, it’s more than that. They are more human. Apple has lost much of that. 

Its events are slick, but beyond the odd fun moment (most of which come from Craig Federighi), they feel robotic. It’s like everyone studied hard in ‘Present Like Jobs 101’ but didn’t go beyond the surface. So we get Jobs cosplay squeezed to within a whisker of its life by the video edit. And it’s not like this is just Apple – every company now follows the same playbook, even when there’s a live component.

Published stuff

My column for Stuff this week: I love my Apple TV – so why doesn’t Apple? Apple used to call its little streaming box a ‘hobby’ and all evidence suggests it’s one that the company is losing interest in. I also wrote up some iOS 18 tips and tricks and updated the best upcoming Lego sets list.

Over at TapSmart, I explored 10 great apps for learning new things, updated the site’s iPhone buyer’s guide and added the much-missed Squareball to my classic apps series. That game was so good. It’s also one of the very few 32-bit games I’ve never been able to get running again on my iPad Air. 

Other stuff

Starved of Netflix, the ten-year-old is now mainlining Animal Park. This BBC show is a behind-the-scenes look at British safari park Longleat, and is objectively very good. But it’s driving me bonkers that the voiceover exclusively uses imperial measurements. While this is a family-friendly show (rather than broadcasting on a children’s channel), I think it’s wild in 2024 that this is still happening. At the very least, you’d think the show would use constructions like the giraffe is five metres – or about 16 and a half feet – tall, not least because British children haven’t been taught imperial in about 50 years. It’s not the 1970s, BBC!

As someone who’s been keen on iPhone gaming since the beginning, I always find it sad when sites go away. But TouchArcade shutting down is a really big one. The signs have been ominous for a while, but reading the linked post was nonetheless a gut-punch. Time to double down on supporting remaining iPhone gaming outlets, such as the excellent AppUnwrapper.

Finally, this was the week my follower count on Bluesky sailed past Threads. I’m not obsessive about such numbers – engagement and enjoyment are what really matter on social networks. But numbers are an indication of momentum. 

For me, Bluesky started out way behind every other network when it came to followers. I joined very early (user 40,269 – one of the first one per cent), and it was like typing into the void. Which was oddly freeing. But today it’s the only social network where it feels like a bunch of new and excited people are joining all the time. It’s also fun, with an energy that’s lacking elsewhere.

This shift also means a post-X social landscape has finally clicked into place for me. I ‘abandoned’ about 7,000 followers there. More importantly, I lost hundreds of great accounts that I followed. I miss what it was, but not what it became, and quit posting publicly in 2023. Other networks swirled around, and for a while Mastodon was the only one that mattered. But many people came and went, annoyed at not immediately getting the audience and engagement they’d enjoyed on Twitter but without working for it. Threads threatened to become good but now bibbles along; worse, Meta prioritises what it wants you to see rather than what you want to see.

Right now, I dip into Bluesky first (plenty of friends, writers and comics folks, retro gaming, politics and pundits), still spend a fair chunk of time on Mastodon (great conversation, tech geeks and devs, academics, wonderful photography accounts), and zoom through Threads in about five minutes daily, to catch up with the few friends who’ve landed there and decided to stay.

I still miss those people who have – for whatever reason – decided to stay on X. But I did twice check in and browse through 24 hours of my ‘filter’ feed – a ‘best of’ I put together during more optimistic times. It was mostly empty. I took that as a sign.

Published stuff

No weekend column this week for Stuff. Instead, my interview with Apple about gaming was published – Apple says the Mac has become a serious gaming platform: here’s why. This is, note, an interview with Apple, not analysis of Apple nor a wider discussion about what the games industry thinks of Apple. Nonetheless, there are interesting insights into how Apple perceives itself in this space, not least in how it differentiates its ecosystem from Windows.

Also at Stuff, I wrote about why Camera Control is the best new iPhone 16 feature and refreshed my best upcoming Lego sets list.

Over at TapSmart, I wrote a guide to using MindNode and jotted down my thoughts on Apple’s Glowtime event

Other stuff

My covid recovery continues but it’s clear everything didn’t snap back to normal, apart from my sense of taste/smell. A month after my first positive test, I’m still tired all the time. I hope that changes.

I mowed the front lawn. First time, bar a border, since April. I think that’s our future now. Pull out the long grasses but just let everything else grow. I like the crickets and the bugs. That’s way better than a boring space of 3cm high grass. That said, the anthills I found were terrifying.

Bluesky is increasingly fun. I’ve been trying to figure out a post-X social landscape for myself, and over a year after quitting that site things are starting to make sense. Mastodon is where most of my dev/tech friends live. Bluesky is comics, writers, and politics stuff. Threads is… for everyone who doesn’t want to be on Mastodon and Bluesky. And X is still dead to me. I just wish a few more people would make the leap to something other than the hellsite.

The CDs piece I wrote got another readership bump last week from somewhere, and I’m still receiving messages about it. Notably, they’re all friendly ones. That piece clicked with a whole bunch of people, which makes me happy. Sometimes when writing columns, it’s like shouting into the void. When a bunch of people make the effort to email a reply, that’s properly old-school and gratifying all at once.