A quick look at Angry Birds Go! on Metacritic shows that reviews of Rovio’s latest game—essentially MarioKart with Angry Birds characters—has been broadly positively received. Only Pocket Gamer was really critical, ‘awarding’ the game 5/10.

I didn’t go into the game in a particularly positive frame of mind. Reports had suggested the IAP underpinnings weren’t too bad, but I’ve played relatively few titles where that’s the case, and only a tiny handful where IAP and micro-transactions have worked to the product’s favour. I was skeptical that a fast-paced kart-racer wouldn’t be undone by a freemium model. However, I truly love kart racers, and so I nonetheless wanted to like this game.

Initially, all appears well with Angry Birds Go!, and it gets two things very right. First, it looks fantastic on the iPhone. The courses are nicely cartoonish and organic, and the karts themselves are amusingly ramshackle. Secondly, it handles very nicely indeed. There’s little of the floaty physics evident in iOS kart racers—everything feels pleasingly solid, if still arcadey. It’s only when you play on for an extended period of time that you realise the game is a grindy, boring mess.

The problems with Angry Birds Go! are down to structure and greed. In terms of structure, you’re essentially forced to race over and over on the same small slice of track until you’ve ‘earned’ the right to progress to the next one. But the best kart racers (indeed, the best racers) thrive on variety. This is perhaps why the similarly IAP-infused Asphalt 8 doesn’t rub me up the wrong way—it’s still fun when you’re working your way through the game, because it regularly flings different tracks at you.

But greed is the bigger problem. Angry Birds Go! has a cooldown system for the racers—the conceit being that the birds doing the driving get tired. Naturally, they can be revived by spending one of the game’s two in-game currencies. Infuriatingly, the game also spams Notification Center when the birds are awake:

Your racers just needed some sleep! They’re now feeling fully charged and desperate to take the wheel!

Here’s a better idea, Rovio: how about you don’t place arbitrary barriers such as this in your game, and let me play for however long I want to? That way, I don’t have to make the choice of paying to continue or leaving your app, and you don’t need to spam my notifications!

Additionally, there are the usual walls racers of this ilk tend to throw up: races that need a certain type of vehicle upgrade; painfully obvious catch-up mechanisms; the requirement to have certain vehicles to race certain races; and stupidly expensive karts that you can only buy using real money. Furthermore, power-ups can only be used once per race unless you pay, and they’re also, astonishingly, ad-sponsored. A smaller number of these pungent ingredients wouldn’t have run Angry Birds Go! off of the road, but the combination makes for a truly grind-oriented trudge. And, of course, Angry Birds Go! will make a mint, thereby further justifying this business model, and validating it in the eyes of not only Rovio but also its competitors.

What could have been a minor iOS classic has therefore been reduced to a joyless slog through a business model, an accountant’s leer lurking underneath every angry bird’s feather.

Steven Aquino writes about iOS 7.1 beta 2’s new accessibility option:

The biggest addition, feature-wise, is the inclusion of a “Button Shapes” option under Accessibility. If enabled, what this toggle does is puts borders around the heretofore plain text, non-bordered UI buttons.

Most of the commentary I’ve read on this change has been from designers who are upset that the borders are ugly, and they question why Apple chose to add them.

That’s not what I’m questioning. My concern is more that Apple has created an operating system that clearly has a ton of UX and UI issues, and yet is now burying ‘fixes’ within accessibility, away from where the typical user will see it. To my mind, the defaults of any design should be the most usable, even if that means some kind of compromise on whatever artistic and aesthetic vision you have. With iOS 7, Apple’s strayed some way from that goal; I hope as its mobile OS continues to evolve it will trend back towards being more usable, rather than being a showcase for Jony Ive’s infatuation with a certain kind of minimalism.

Further reading: Visual Preferences by Lukas Mathis • Shaping Buttons by Eric Schwarz.

This entirely scientific post is inspired by recent App Store reviews I’ve seen, summing up how people respond to mobile games.

Free game with IAP: This is a total rip-off! I hate the developer! It’s totally unfair that they want to make money from this game that I’ve nonetheless played for hours on my shiny, expensive iPhone!

Paid-for game with IAP: This is a total rip-off on top of a rip-off! I will ignore the many hours of fun that the game gave me, and wish the developer accidentally falls down a canyon for having the sheer audacity to provide the means to pay for extra content and/or a means to progress more rapidly through the game.

A game with no IAP but in-app currency: This is a total rip-off, because I don’t understand what ‘in-app purchase’ actually means! Also, I’m really annoyed that I can’t just buy loads of extra currency to speed through the game, although I hate in-app purchases. Therefore, this developer’s supposed generosity has also denied me the opportunity to complain about IAP and also made me look stupid in an App Store review! I hope they get kidnapped by a giant eagle and dropped in the ocean, so they’re torn to pieces by sharks who also hate IAP!

A game with no IAP but generous in-app currency that enables rapid progression: I finished this game too quickly. This is a total rip-off!

A totally free game with no IAP and generous in-app currency that enables rapid progression, but that also, miraculously, lasts for ages, through new level packs being issued almost daily: Man, this game’s getting boring now. Why hasn’t the developer done something new, the lazy git?

My latest piece for Stuff explores the current mess that’s being created by the British government regarding UK internet access. In short, political ideology and a certain kind of morality appear to be driving decision-making when it comes to web access more than pesky facts and evidence. Ironically, the day the piece was filed with Stuff, it was widely reported Google would “block child porn” and that the UK government had been instrumental in this (which is a rather dubious claim to say the least).

It was less widely reported that Google blocks child-abuse images already, and that UK organisations and police already dealing with such problems reckon the new changes will make little difference. Almost no-one questioned the nature of the blocking the government wants to introduce by default, specificity, and whether legal material should in fact be blocked by default at all. (Instead, David Cameron said husbands were “going to have a discussion” with their partners if they wish to continue using porn, because women apparently don’t use or watch porn, and family filters by default are the way it should be in ‘his’ Britain.)

Still, it all worked out rather well for Google, now getting some positive column inches, none of which appear to be talking any more about how the company pays bugger-all tax in the UK.

Apple is again under fire as it was revealed that its latest unannounced product that no-one knows for sure it is even working on has been delayed by an arbitrary amount of time, according to guesswork made by an interchangeable analyst. “Apple hasn’t released any new products since a few weeks ago, and even they were only minor updates to the iPad,” said the interchangeable analyst. “This proves that Apple is understaffed and just doesn’t have the resources to truly invest in the unannounced product that no-one knows for sure it is even working on, but that we’re all writing about because ‘sources’ say they have seen it and so we can get page hits from people clamouring for more Apple rumours.”

Another interchangeable analyst said this latest unforeseen delay to an unannounced product that there’s no proof Apple is even working on could spell doom for the company: “The big problem is that once you take away the profits and income Apple’s getting from the iPhone, iPad, Mac, iPods, accessories, and media sales, what is left? Without the unannounced product that there’s no proof the company is even working on anyway, and that we’re all writing about because ‘sources’ say they have seen it and so we can get page hits from people clamouring for more Apple rumours, there’s a good chance Apple will disappear entirely next year.”

A Samsung spokesperson was quick to respond to Apple’s new low, noting that its own unannounced product was “right on schedule” and would be released in “at least seven different sizes and 36 colours, to appeal to the widest possible demographic”.