Veteran Apple expert and commentator Jason Snell asked of me the question that’s the title of this post. This was after I (playfully) responded to his thoughts about Apple working on a “new, consistent design” with an XKCD klaxon jibe.

The actual answer to the question, in true Betteridge’s Law fashion, is no. But really: it’s complicated. 

In the full Mastodon thread, Snell suggested we should praise optimism over negativity, and called the latter “no way to live”. Similar sentiments about Apple have recently been expressed by Federico Viticci and David Smith. And, despite my often cynical and curmudgeonly demeanour, I think there’s value in that way of thinking. Being relentlessly negative is no fun.

But.

I’m not keen on recent trends that suggest where Apple might head, hiding or removing yet more UI, including iPhone app tabs and iPad app sidebars. More importantly, every single major Apple redesign – even more so than ‘standard’ annual OS updates – results in a slew of vestibular accessibility issues that slip through the net.

I’m not sure why this is the case. And, to be fair, Apple’s iOS team has been very responsive ever since the iOS 7 days. Multiple requests that I’ve made have been rolled into iOS, which remains far ahead of Apple’s other operating systems in terms of usability for people who have vestibular conditions. (Stern glare @ tvOS team…)

Even so, more proactive support would be welcome. And so, returning to the question posed at the start, I’m not afraid of a major iOS redesign per se, but I am concerned that it will render my devices unusable for weeks or even months until fixes are made. If that’s primarily for a coat of fresh paint, that will be particularly dispiriting.

Atari has created a smartwatch. The Atari 2600 My Play combines a fitness tracker, four games and retro vibes to fashion gadget catnip for the over 40s. And I’m over 40. So, for my Stuff column, I got overexcited at how the My Play could replace my Apple Watch, before coming to the conclusion Apple is what really needs to change.

A report claims Apple is losing $1bn per year on Apple TV+. Lack of viewership is to blame, along with the shallow (but slowly growing) catalogue. Also, to my mind, Apple TV+ movies are expensive to make yet often underwhem. But the TV shows range from solid to fantastic; and as someone who tends to watch one episode of TV per day at most, Apple TV+ offers solid value as part of Apple One. Which is arguably… kind of the point? I’m unsure whether it even matters that Apple is ‘losing’ money on TV+, when it’s part of a greater ecosystem that remains colossally profitable.

The new iPad does not support Apple Intelligence. Over at TapSmart, I outline why this matters – even if many people would suggest a lack of Apple Intelligence is a benefit.

Incidentally, if you’d like to support our indie journalism at TapSmart, please consider subscribing to Swipe. It packages up our content every other week, in an iPhone/iPad app. $1.99/£1.99 per month, for which you also get a pile of back issues. And we get to keep the lights on.

Lego and Nintendo hate us. If by ‘us’, I mean anyone gagging for Mario minifigs. In the duo’s latest attempt to do anything other than offer them, there’s now a gigantic Mario + kart display piece coming in May. I cover that and other upcoming Lego sets here.

The global video game crash of 1983 was not global.Yet again, this narrative was kicked off by an ill-advised social media post by a journo who should know better, who referred to the European video game industry in the 1980s as a ‘scene’ – and a largely irrelevant one at that. It’s almost become settled fact now that the games industry crashed in 1983 and the NES swooped in to save it. The end. Except no. Even in the USA, this isn’t true, because arcades and home computing continued, relatively unscathed. And during the mid-1980s, other countries, like the UK, had a massive boom in gaming. 

As Kara Jane Adams said, the crash from over here was like watching someone lob a boulder into a river. From the other bank. You didn’t even get wet. If you want to read about what really happened at the time, Critical Kate offered a succinct overview, ChinnyVision posted eye-popping sales stats from Mastertronic (and last year dismantled a similar attempt to rewrite history) and Damiano Gerli wrote a stats-rich deep-dive.

Skype is going away. Which might surprise you if you’d assumed it had long winked out of existence. Still, it was a good excuse to run through the best Skype alternatives for iPhone, published over at TapSmart.

Captain Cowboy has returned to the App Store.Wadonk’s game has my favourite ever mobile game trailer. And the game itself is superb – Boulder Dash with unique twists, playing out on a single, massive map. Get it now, before it goes away again.

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.

The PS2 turned 25 last week. Which means more time has passed since that date than between the PS2’s debut and the launch of the Atari 2600. Sorry if that makes you feel old. But, hey, I wrote a fun piece for Stuff about the PS2 to temporarily take your mind off of your own impending demise.

Samsung Flex Gaming is like a Nintendo Switch folded in half. It’s bonkers and the subject of my Stuff column this week. Honestly, it’s probably a bit too bonkers to take seriously, but I’ve always had a thing for folding handhelds, ever since setting eyes on a Game & Watch Donkey Kong. (Alas, I’ve never been fortunate enough to own one.)

I don’t like iCloud but I still use it. And, hey, I’m paid to write about it. If you hate-use iCloud too, you might find some handy tips in my iCloud deep dive for TapSmart.

The UK’s Online Safety Act is a shitshow. The latest proof? Girl on the Net having to break an accessibility feature on her website, because she’s not willing to risk an £18 million fine. The law was designed with massive corporations in mind, not individuals and small organisations. And, as ever, a British government didn’t consider and/or care about wider use cases. No clarity is forthcoming. (In related news, the long-running Wire forum I set up in 2008 will be removed this weekend, because the band and I are not willing to take the risk that it might overstep the compliance line.)

A Canada goose fought off a bald eagle. One can only hope that’s an omen.

Photoshop is now on iPhone. I’m not sure I want it after all. In my column for Stuff, I conclude that the dream was for apps like Photoshop to come to mobile years ago. They did. Adobe didn’t. Now I’m not sure Adobe being on iPhone is relevant for most people.

The iPhone SE was small and relatively cheap. The iPhone 16e is neither. I wrote about this for TapSmart. Honestly, I think the branding is just marketing spin from Apple. It’s absurd from a tech standpoint to talk about a phone being part of the iPhone 16 family when it doesn’t look like it nor have features to match. The lack of MagSafe is especially baffling.

Given current politics, people are looking for alternatives to US services. The linked site outlines European options for the likes of email, search engines, and so on. Also, while people on Bluesky won’t want to hear it, that’s a US organisation too. By contrast, Mastodon is decentralised and based in Germany. I’m not suggesting quitting Bluesky (I won’t be), but I am gently suggesting more people – and organisations – give Mastodon another shot and use both.

Speaking of the US, a story broke about a German tourist being held by the CBP. I’ve fortunately never had that happen to me, but it did remind me of a surreal encounter I had when travelling to WWDC. And bear in mind I play life with a cheat code when it comes to the US – white man with Home Counties (ish) English accent.

LOK Digital is a great puzzle game, like a crossword puzzle where the creator got drunk and mashed keys to fill the gaps. I added it to my best Android games list, but it’s also available for iPhone, iPad, Windows and Mac.

Speaking of games, I updated my best one-thumb games for iPhone feature for TapSmart. It’s always amazing to see what game creators can do with the most minimal of player interaction models.

It’s actually sunny in the UK. Time for a spring clean? I wrote about how you can use your iPhone to help.

Lego made a T. rex fossil set almost as big as an actual dinosaur. OK, slight exaggeration. But it’s a metre long. I love Lego, but where do people store this stuff?