It is very different. It feels very premium. It's one of the reasons I think the team and I are enjoying the process of building a game for Arcade and why we started from scratch. We have our ideas in the background, but when you say you're going to make something that's going to be on a subscription service, all it has to do is engage the player, be fun, and have that IP representation. We started from that baseline. It's not quite a relief, but it makes you think about things very differently.
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But if you look at the premium market, I actually don't think it shrunk. It just represents a smaller fraction of the overall market size. I think there's still a lot of players that enjoy a good premium experience and enjoy the different types of game design you can make when it doesn't have to have the free-to-play mechanics. I think there's definitely room for it and I think platforms like Apple Arcade, and some of its competitors, that curate content and make sure that there's family friendly, safe havens where kids and people who just want to have a monthly subscription can enjoy the experiences without having to worry about monetization are a really solid supplement to what free-to-play allows you to try for free. And then if you want to, you can dive deeper.
Apple has added a new “Test Alerts” toggle to the Settings app in iOS 15.6 and the third beta of iOS 16. The toggle is visible only on iPhones connected to a U.S. carrier and allows users to enable test emergency alerts from the U.S. government.
Here’s why you should be using a bookmarking app: because it’s the storage unit the internet needs. Seriously, think of it like you rented one of those self-storage squares, and now you have a place for all of the stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else. Instead of emailing yourself links or keeping 100 tabs open just in case, every time you come across a URL you might need, fire it into your bookmarking app. Tweet you want to send to somebody later? Bookmarked. Reddit thread you don’t have time to wade through yet? Bookmarked. Recipe to try someday? Bookmarked. Confirmation page for your car rental next week? Bookmarked. Don’t worry about what it is or where it’ll eventually end up — just pour it all in one place and know it’ll be there waiting for you.
As researchers learn more and more about the link between music and memory, innovators are finding ways to ease the suffering of patients with dementia-related ailments and those looking after them.
Meet the Vera app, a tool that uses music to open up a small window of lucidity between patient and caregiver.
Earlier this year, Apple began allowing “reader” apps to provide external links for customers so they can log in and pay for a subscription from outside the App Store. Now Netflix is rolling out an option in its iOS app that takes users to its website in order to finish a new Netflix subscription.
As both a case and wallet maker, Bellroy is in a unique position to bring a creative solution to the market that is not just functional but has great aesthetics too. And that's just what they've done.
I wish Apple Arcade has better discovery of games. The current screenshots and the one short video is really not that great.
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Thanks for reading.