Writer Matt Gemmell decided eight years ago to go all-in on iPad. Now, he’s switched back to the Mac. This should set alarm bells ringing on Apple’s iPad team, but I imagine Apple as a whole won’t really be fussed. After all, Matt simply swapped one Apple product for another. And he’s keeping the iPad. If anything, this is a victory for Apple and precisely what it wants people to do.

In his post, Matt notes part of the problem with the iPad is that it’s never been strongly defined. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPad, it was positioned somewhere between a phone and a laptop. Since then, users have argued for it to take over the capabilities of both devices – but especially the latter. However, while the iPad has the power of Apple’s ‘proper’ computers, it lacks the flexibility and, in some cases, utility. All of which is by design.

What some people tend to forget is that Apple is very opinionated on wanting people to buy (at least one) Mac alongside any Apple mobile devices. It’s my ongoing belief that arbitrary barriers have therefore been – at best – left in place for that purpose. Friction exists in part not because Apple cannot find a solution that works on a tablet, but because Apple wants more of your money, and it gets that through hardware sales.

Right now, any current-gen iPhone is more than powerful enough to run the vast majority of software the average person would want to use. And more. Mine happily runs Korg Gadget projects with an absurd number of tracks. But Apple absolutely does not want your iPhone to become the one device to rule them all. It hates the idea of you getting home and plugging your iPhone into a dock, and using it with a keyboard, display and pointing device. Because then you’d only buy one thousand-buck device, rather than two – or several. The iPad isn’t quite in the same space. After all, Apple is quite happy about selling iPad keyboards that cost as much as entry-level iPads. But it would still prefer for you to own an iPad and a Mac. And an iPhone. And maybe a second Mac. And so on.

I’ve struggled with the same issues as Matt. I for a time really wanted an iPad to become more. I love using the device. But I stuck with an iMac for the day job, primarily due to iPad frictions relating to external display support. Even when Stage Manager arrived, it was far, far too slow and clunky to replace my Mac set-up. My iPad subsequently largely turned into a combination of comics reader and sofa-based music-creation sketchpad, with the odd smattering of video and games. One holiday, I took only the iPad and found myself frustrated by how much longer key tasks took when I was trying to work at speed, in order to enjoy more of my spare time.

From a personal standpoint, things have changed a little since last September, in terms of my iPad usage. Although that’s not really been down to the iPad itself. There’s something very off for me about the iPhone 16 Pro. I’m reasonably certain I cannot use it for any extended length of time without getting dizzy. Despite my issues with vestibular triggers, I’ve never had this with any other Apple display when a device has Reduce Motion active. Perhaps something has changed with the display and PWM. I don’t know. But this does mean my iPad is now doing more work again, in being the device I read on at breakfast or noodle around on of an evening. Notably, though, the iPad is still not being used more for work. And I’m not sure that will ever change.

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.

See also:

• Apple isn’t serious about retro game emulation on iPhone – nor level playing fields for developers
• Apple vs emulation – three months of incoherence and idiocy

Kagi has made a subscription people won’t hate, by crediting you when you don’t use the service. Simple. And I hope it’s effective. It’s the subject of my column this week for Stuff.

Grid Legends: Deluxe Edition recently arrived for mobile. It’s deeply impressive AAA gaming on a phone and shows what modern mobile hardware is capable of. I added it to my best iPhone games list for Stuff.

The best camera app for iPhone is a personal subject. My latest round-up for TapSmart explores a range of products I personally think are great.

Overcast can power up podcasts on iPhone. It’s the latest entry in my deep dive series for TapSmart.

The absence of press kits for apps and games continues to astonish me. It’s a key reason I write less app coverage these days, because shooting images is time-consuming and frustrating. On Mastodon, I outlined how developers can quickly create a press kit and the best format to use. TL;DR: do what Marcos Tanaka did.

Domain renewals are like birthdays for projects that never happened but that you keep kidding yourself one day will. Another came in this week for a new music project. I last released an album in 2012. Maybe one day there will be another.

Design Thinking responded to Disney using AI for an MCU movie poster. It’s a great cartoon that lays bare the problem. Do we give this kind of rubbish oxygen and thereby draw attention to it, or ignore it and let corporations get away with such actions? Feels a bit lose-lose.

Lego has been slammed for being anti-LGBTQ+. Albeit by right-wing press seemingly simultaneously attempting to provoke anger about Lego, ‘wokeness’, marginalised people, the Science Museum, and more. Fortunately, PinkNews cut through the bullshit of this particular story.

Google open-sourced PebbleOS. Pebble’s founder is now looking to resurrect the much-loved wearable in a form that takes a more focused and sustainable approach than today’s leading smartwatch brands. I discuss this in my latest Stuff column: Why I’m excited about a new Pebble smartwatch – and what Apple could learn from Pebble’s rebirth.

Apple Intelligence has stopped serving up fake news.Over at TapSmart, I argue it should never have started as part of a column looking into this whole sorry episode.

Journaling can boost mental health. But if you lack the time or don’t fancy digging out a paper journal and a pen, what’s the alternative? For TapSmart, I outline tips, apps and hardware for journaling using an iPhone.

The new series of Severance started recently. Given how much I loved the first one, I found it surprising to watch the ‘previously’ catch-up and realise how little of it I remembered. With more time, I’d have binge-watched the entire series before tackling the new one, but I barely have time to watch more than a few hours of TV a week these days. So new episodes only it is.

January is done. Good. It wasn’t a great month for all sorts of reasons. Hoping that February brings with it a little more cheer as daylight returns.

I’m finding iPhone SE4 rumours more exciting than iPhone Air gossip (Stuff) – and that’s just weird. Mostly, I’m baffled at the Air rumours, which currently point to a hugely expensive flagship phone with no stereo speakers and a so-so camera. Apple’s obsession with thin: resurrected? I hope not.

Photos for iOS 18 alienated the masses, but Apple’s opinionated redesign largely survived unscathed. I wrote about the uproar and what (little) Apple changed for TapSmart. Also for that site: my pick of the best iPhone Control Centre widgets.

Mastodon is transferring ownership of key ecosystem and platform components to a non-profit. Good. With US social networks kowtowing to the right wing, having one that remains outside the influence of certain presidents and oligarchs is a good thing. What would be even better: more European institutions actively supporting Mastodon.

Ian Dunt wrote about resisting tech overlords. This was a useful, approachable piece, and much of Ian’s thinking aligns with my own. Ultimately, a lot of what we do on devices is habit – and habits can be broken. If you want to ditch a social network, add friction. And more broadly, be more mindful and deliberate about decisions surrounding tech. That might mean as little as moving an app from your Home Screen or using site blockers with cooldowns to wean you off of specific websites. Which might sound infantilising, but it’s not really. It’s about using the technology to help you manage the technology.

Ian’s piece also talks of endings and the finite nature of traditional media. Increasingly, we are sucked into the infinite. An album ends and a streaming service starts playing other things it thinks you’ll like. You watch a video or TV show, and autoplay continues until you or your device conks out. Occasionally, this can be beneficial – I’ve discovered songs and artists through Apple Music continuing on after an album I love. But that’s not always the case if it’s not deliberate. Companies care about engagement, not about you. Hence why I still gravitate towards printed books, and why when I wrote about buying my first CD player in 20 years, the column went bonkers, leading to weeks and weeks of entirely supportive messages. And not one of them told me off for not also recommending ludicrously expensive cable risers.

Tony Yates asked whether people will push back against GenAI. His thinking: people don’t want it, and the market will express that. I’m not so sure. While I don’t think most people get a kick out of GenAI content, the questions for me are 1) will GenAI be ‘good enough’ and 2) will people be told when things are GenAI? With the current flood of GenAI on YouTube and cheap blogs, the answer to Q1 right now is mostly no, and to Q2 is mostly yes. But what if they flip?

Finally, some terribly sad news: Jonathan Nash recently died. He was a games journalist and comedy writer beyond compare, whose influence permeates through an entire generation of writers still smashing out words today. I was only in Nash’s orbit a few times, working on a handful of projects together. Even the man’s emails were works of art – bite-sized nuggets of comedy genius akin to his very best writing in the likes of Amiga Power. 

I lost touch with Nash about ten years ago. As I understand from his close friends, it wasn’t unusual for him to vanish without warning and then suddenly show up, years later. I’m gutted the latter will now never happen. Saying someone was ‘one of a kind’ is an overused phrase, but it’s entirely appropriate here. For longer – better – tributes to the man from people who knew him far better than I did, read John Walker’s wonderful piece at Kotaku and Kieron Gillen’s memories in his recent newsletter.