A new Mac Mini has been announced, but unless you're part of the Apple app developing elite, you probably can't get it.
As revealed during the WWDC 2020 keynote, macOS 11 Big Sur brings some big changes with it – not least the fact that future Macs built on Apple's own silicon will be able to run iOS mobile apps natively. Though it's designed to be a seamless porting transition, some tinkering may still be required – and Apple has new kit to help developers through the process.
The new Mac Mini however is part of a 'Developer Transition Kit' that's shipping this week, but will not be available to the average consumer, only developers. In fact, even the developers won't own the kit – it'll be part of a $500 Universal App Quick Start Program, at the conclusion of which the test Mac Mini must be returned to Apple.
The mini Apple computer does give an indication of what to expect from future Macs powered by Apple Silicon however.
It uses Apple's A12Z chip, as can already be found in the 2020 iPad Pro, and comes complete with a 512GB SSD and 16GB of RAM. Beta versions of macOS Big Sur and Xcode come pre-installed, so that developers can test their apps across devices ahead of the consumer launch of the new machines.
The first Apple Silicon Macs should be ready by the end of 2020, but CEO Tim Cook stated that the complete Intel-to-Apple transition will take around two years.
We've seen the games, we've seen the console – but we still don't know the PS5 price. Even after last week's big PlayStation 5 showcase, Sony remains tight-lipped on the cost of its new console, and instead is making only vague references to its apparent value.
Speaking to the BBC, PlayStation CEO wanted to "emphasize value as opposed to price". With that in mind, the company is offering two different designs of the PS5 – a disc-based offering and a digital only PS5.
Ryan said that "consumers are purchasing solely digitally these days" and that the company would be doing "what we typically try and do" by "just [offering] choice" to its consumers.
But Ryan did not contextualize that 'value' proposition with any hard pricing figures, failing to acknowledge that even 'value' can be defined very differently dependent on your income.
That value proposition will be more important than ever, given the current global financial climate. The financial fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic has yet to be fully felt, but it's understood that many nations may be approaching the worst recessions in a generation, if not a century.
Ryan remained confident around the PlayStation's ability to perform in these difficult financial times, but acknowledged Sony's need to adapt to a fast-changing situation.
"Conventional wisdom and history show that our business is one of the more recession-proof businesses," said Ryan.
"But I think this will sharpen our need to ensure that we focus on getting the value equation right. And I emphasize value as opposed to price.
"We must be more attentive than ever before to ensure that the overall value proposition in terms of the console and the games - the range of games, the quality of games, the quantity of games – makes this something that our community aspires towards."
Hey! Gamer! Chill out! Your hot take may be sizzling, but I think the PS5 console design looks cool.
After years of sticking black boxes under my TV, I’m more than ready for something that has a bit more flair to it. With its white plastic wraparound shell and curvy design, the PlayStation 5 looks like a science-fiction movie prop, complete with glowing blue highlights that give it an icy personality.
If the Xbox Series X is Pixar’s Wall-E, the PS5 is his robot lady friend E.V.E, the roadster to Xbox’s Humvee. Both look good in their own way, both serve to lure in slightly different audiences and I think, interestingly, both speak to the direction their different ideologies towards consoles are going in.
The Xbox Series X is a bigger, beefier black box. It shouts grunt and power. An Xbox + an Xbox = better Xbox. If you want more Xbox, the Xbox Series X is more Xboxy. And that’s absolutely fine! It’s what Microsoft wants you to think – it’s not so much a step away from Xbox’s past as it is the latest chunky evolution of it, the One X on ‘roids.
As Microsoft itself has said in the marketing, it’s ‘the most powerful console ever’, and it looks as muscled as that title demands. Its design language follows Microsoft’s plan to make the idea of console ‘generations’ moot this time around, a generation-less generation, with new games working on older hardware and being enhanced if you pick them up on the incoming machine.
The Xbox Series X isn’t so much the ‘next’ Xbox as it is ‘another’ Xbox, right down to its continuation of the black box design; but it’s the one you’re going to want if you demand the absolute most powerful beast of an Xbox you can find.
Future nostalgia
Sony has taken a different approach. It’s stated that it still believes in the power of distinct generations – it’s pushing titles exclusive to the PS5 generation (if not exclusive to PS5) primarily, and hasn’t made anywhere near the progress Microsoft has made with backwards compatibility efforts.
And that future-gazing desire is reflected in the design. The PS5 looks nothing like the PlayStation 4, or the PlayStation 3, or even the PlayStation 2. In fact, its color scheme and curved elements have more in common with the original PlayStation than any recent iteration.
That’s an interesting thought, tying in not only to what products the hardware designers of today were brought up on, but also what the promise of a new console used to mean. A SNES, for instance, looked vastly different from a NES, and its design was playful, a reflection of the gameplay experiences it would offer. The PlayStation 1 entered a gaming space where consoles were still seen alongside toys, and ground-breakingly bridged the gap in its industrial design between playful box and more adult-oriented consumer electronics device.
The PS5 sees Sony come full circle – here is a games console that verges on cliche in its attempt to look futuristic, one that your younger self would have screamed for, in a modern age where consoles are increasingly being compared to more conventional-looking PC hardware. The PS5 design looks forward, while playing to an imagined nostalgia you may have sketched on the back of your school books. That’s very attractive for the now-older gaming audience (or at least in terms of grown-ups having more disposable income than kids, and more likely to be the cash-flushed early adopters of sure-to-be-expensive wave one hardware).
In fact, I read a tweet (that I’ve now lost to the annals of my Twitter timeline) that said the PS5 looks like what a 15 year-old would have scribbled as their hopes for a PS3 design back in 2005. And that’s probably pretty accurate, given a Sony designer now in their thirties would have been about that age then.
But it goes to show that the kids eventually become the gatekeepers of taste, and I’m all for what they’ve grown up to produce this time around. Me and the PS5, we’re in sync. And, in turn, I expect I’ll be duly horrified by what the kids of today conjure up for the PS6 and PS7 of tomorrow.
It looks like Netflix has a real stinker on its hands. The streaming company's latest original movie, The Last Days of American Crime, is currently languishing with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 0%.
The Last Days of American Crime is an apocalyptic tale that sees the US government planning to emit a signal to essentially make crime impossible to commit. But it seems there's one crime still possible – watching the film itself.
At the time of writing, 25 professional critics have weighed in on the movie, and not a single one has anything positive to say about it.
Johnny Oleksinski of the New York Post said of the film "Don't care about story, characters or words, but love violence? Even you will be disappointed."
David Fear of Rolling Stone was even more direct in his criticism, saying "This is not good action cinema. This is not even good alligator-brain cinema."
Things are a little better when it comes to Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes, with 180 members of the general public offering a reprieve with a 27% average fresh rating. But that's hardly Oscar worthy.
The Last Days of American Crime joins the likes of Cabin Fever, Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 and another Netflix original, The Ridiculous 6, in the hallowed halls of Rotten Tomatoes zero percenters.
For every Roma or Uncut Gems, there are a few flops – not that it's stopping people from firing up a stream, as The Last Days of American Crime is still riding high in the trending sections of the Netflix territories it's available in.
Looking for something actually good to watch? Check out our top-tier movie and TV streaming round ups below:
Well, it was never going to be sunshine and daffodils, was it? As if you were in any doubt of the tone HBO's upcoming The Last of Us TV show was going to take, it's just been announced that the pilot episode is going to be directed by Johan Renck, who helmed five episodes of Chernobyl.
“I’m an executive producer on it and attached to it," Renck said in an interview with Discussing Film.
"I’m part of that series and I will be directing at least the pilot. Then we’ll see how it goes on further.”
Renck joins Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin on the project, who is set to co-write and executive produce the series alongside Neil Druckman, the writer and executive director of the game itself.
With Druckman on board, and the Chernobyl tag-team talent in place, The Last of Us TV show looks set to be a very faithful adaptation of the game. Its grim pallette and post apocalyptic tale is a perfect fit for the Chernobyl duo, who took a real world tragedy and instilled it with anger, humanity and an unflinching view of an awful event. It's considered one of the best TV shows of all time for good reason, meaning we could finally have a good gaming adaptation on our hands.
The TV series is set to follow the events of the first game in the series, with haggard smuggler Joel tasked with escorting teenage orphan Ellie across a diseased United States to uncover the secret she carries.
With The Last of Us: Part 2's release just over the horizon, it's a good time to be a fan of the series.
The PS5 SSD storage system is fast – that much is clear from the focus being put on it by Sony during its piecemeal console reveal, and the feedback developers of upcoming PlayStation 5 games have already stated.
But according to Epic, the team behind the Unreal Engine (and its forthcoming update, Unreal Engine 5), the framework many games are built upon, that storage solution is so speedy that it's in fact altered the way they make the tools that games are made with.
"The ability to stream in content at extreme speeds enables developers to create denser and more detailed environments, changing how we think about streaming content. It’s so impactful that we’ve rewritten our core I/O subsystems for Unreal Engine with the PlayStation 5 in mind," Epic’s VP of engineering, Nick Penwarden said to VG247.
Best PS4 games: the most essential PlayStation 4 releases
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has clarified that both the PS5 and Xbox Series X will both benefit from the advances made in relation to the PS5 tweaks, but Sony's console seem to have a clear advantage here.
Though both machines make use of NVMe SSDs, Sony's PS5 system's bespoke solution matches, and even outclasses, top of the line SSDs offered to consumers today.
The Xbox Series X however, has more raw horsepower under the hood, particularly in terms of CPU power. How this will balance out in terms of game experiences across both remains to be seen, but the strengths and weaknesses of both consoles are certainly not identical.
One of the big questions resting on the tip of gamers' tongues is, just what will the PS5 price tag be? A new interview with Sony Interactive Entertainment's president and CEO Jim Ryan may have PlayStation 5's would-be buyers rattling their piggy-banks.
In a wide-ranging interview with GamesIndustryBiz, Ryan addressed speculation around the PS5 cost. While not revealing the price, Ryan suggested the PS5 price could be a significant hit on gamers' savings, and certainly not committing to beating the Xbox Series X on price.
Speaking on whether the potential for a Covid-19-related recession will affect sales of the PS5, a high-value gadget, Ryan said:
"I think the best way that we can address this is by providing the best possible value proposition that we can. I don't necessarily mean lowest price. Value is a combination of many things. In our area it means games, it means number of games, depth of games, breadth of games, quality of games, price of games... all of these things and how they avail themselves of the feature set of the platform."
Best PS4 games: the most essential PlayStation 4 releases
Ryan however stressed that gaming tends to be one of the pastimes that remains strong in times of economic hardship:
"Recent history has told us that gaming is one of the pastimes, and one of the businesses, that benefits in economically difficult times. It's quite logical, people don't have the money to go out so they stay at home. Now, who knows how this recession is going to look, how deep it will be and how long it will last. It could be that the historic templates, the historic models, that have applied in the past may not apply in the future."
Price is always a major battleground in the console ways, arguably more significant in a console's early days on sale than its game library or feature set. The PS3 lost out to the Xbox 360 on price, and roles were reversed in the following PS4 and Xbox One generation with Sony undercutting Microsoft by $100 at launch. It's a critical decision both companies have yet to reveal their stances on.
Could we find out the exact PS5 price this week? All eyes will be on the PS5 games reveal this Thursday – we'll keep you posted.
Nvidia GeForce Now subscribers, do you want the good news first, or the bad news?
Bad news it is then – the technically-accomplished game streaming service is about to lose a significant number of games, including popular titles like Yakuza 0 and Kiwami, Two Point Hospital as well as Shenmue I and II. You can see the full list of titles leaving the service here.
It's the latest blow to the service, following a number of high profile catalog losses following GeForce Now's move out of beta and into a full, paid-for product.
But this time at least, it comes with a silver lining. The good news? Nvidia may finally have a solution to stabilize its library, and build stronger, consistent relationships with the developers of the games it wants to feature.
Going forward, developers and publishers will have to opt-in for their games to be a part of Nvidia GeForce Now. Previously, it seems Nvidia had moved to add support for titles without the explicit prior approval of the publishers behind them, on the basis that it wasn't selling licenses to games directly itself. Instead, GeForce Now was seen as just a portal to access titles gamers already owned on existing PC streaming platforms, and GeForce Now was just the conduit to access them.
But with publishers and developers still figuring out their own cloud gaming strategies, this introduced conflict. So instead, Nvidia will now require all parties to opt-in before a game is featured.
“Response has been strong with over 200 publishers committing to streaming on the service,” said Phil Eisler, Nvidia’s GeForce Now vice president.
“Going forward, only the games that are opted in will be available on the service, providing confidence in the GeForce Now game library. Yet some publishers are still figuring out their cloud strategies. Those that haven’t opted in as of May 31 will be removed.”
While in the short term this will mean more game losses, looking forward it means that you're far less likely to see games suddenly disappear from GeForce Now. Plus, it gives a framework for those that have left the service to re-negotiate and come back onboard. It finally feels like progress for a service that showed so much early potential.
Historical epics are no strangers to the open world genre. We’ve globe-trotted and time-hopped with Assassin’s Creed everywhere from Ancient Egypt to the pirate-filled Caribbean, while Red Dead Redemption recreated the Wild West so perfectly you could almost taste the chewing tobacco. But whether you’re playing as a Grecian heroine or a bandana-brandishing bandit, these have been open worlds to be conquered and tamed, rather than cherished.
Not so it seems with Ghost of Tsushima, the upcoming PS4 historical open-world adventure from Infamous developers Sucker Punch, which sees a wandering samurai fending off a terrorizing Mongol invasion force from his homeland. In keeping with its Feudal Japanese setting, protagonist Jin Sakai has a far more peaceful relationship with the island of Tsushima that he inhabits – he’s at one with nature, rather than looking to hunt and skin its animal inhabitants for an arbitrary gear upgrade.
“Our goal for the game is to have a grounded human focus on Jin and his story. We wanted to focus on something that was human and emotionally driven and story driven - we like to make story-driven games,” Jason Connell, Creative Director and Art Director for Ghost of Tsushima at developer Sucker Punch, told TechRadar.
“We want you to be connected in the way that Jin is connected to the island. He loves Tsushima, this is his home and that's very important to him when these invaders come and they're torching the landscapes and taking over sacred locations. This is his home, and they are wrecking it. And so, he was willing to sacrifice anything to protect this home and these people. What better way to make you feel a sense of your homeland than if nature helps too?”
Best PS4 games: what to play while waiting for Ghost of Tsushima
Tsushima’s animal population isn’t a mere resource to be harvested, then. Instead, by paying close attention to the behavior of birds, foxes and other wildlife, Jin will be able to find secrets hidden among the sprawling island, a location that Sucker Punch’s play testers are finding it easy to spend “five days straight” playing inside “without getting to the end of the story,” says Connell.
Wind walker
It’s not just animals that will help Jin, but also the very elements themselves.
“We don't go as far as to say that it is fantasy or anything like that but there's some connection between Jin, the wind, and these animals – maybe it is spiritual but we don't go to an effort to try to explain it,” says Connell.
The wind in particular plays a crucial role. In an inspired move, it acts as a visual compass, removing the need for a distracting module in the game’s heads-up display. Set a destination on the map, and the wind will guide you to the location, with calligraphy-like gusts and trails of leaves cutting a path across the gameworld in a naturalistic way.
“From the first slide deck talking to the team about our direction and the goals and the way we wanted Tsushima to look and feel, the wind was right up there, alongside bold colors,” says Connell.
“The goal was that everything was moving in the frame if possible, and the reason it had to be early is that that’s a pretty big technical hurdle to overcome.
“Eventually we got to a point where it works and everything moves. The wind though is a theme throughout the game – we were also kind of like ‘okay, the game is beautiful, it's a great visual experience. How do we keep you in this world and not have UI up on the screen as much?’ That was another goal, it just wasn't as mature a goal until about midway through the project. And then one of our team members suggested, ‘Well, let's see if we can have the wind guide you.’”
Historical, cinematic immersion
It also ties into a historical beat the developers wanted to tap into, explains Connell.
“There's actually historical context to the wind in this time period. The Mongols came and there's this force of wind that came and drove them away and sunk all their ships, which is kind of a miraculous story if people want to read about it – it happened again, a few years later.
“So there's like this ‘protective’ wind over the island which is interesting, that's a great thematic tie [...] And so by using the wind, part of nature, part of the island, helping you as you're playing through it, the idea is that maybe you'll identify with [Jin’s] love for the island as well.”
It also allows for an interface free from many of the distractions that other open-world games fall foul of.
“All HUD serves a purpose. You know it's trying to help you communicate something,” says Connell.
“And so, certainly, if you remove that HUD or we say ‘hey, let's see if we can do without HUD,’ suddenly the design problem is harder. If you say ‘no compass, no mini map,’ well, then we have to solve that with an alternative and our answer to that was the wind. I certainly have personal taste that I think a HUD-less feel creates more immersion – I'm just in the world more, I listen to the music and I hear the sounds more, and I just like my experience more.”
A dynamic HUD, combined with clever in-universe prompting such as secret-shrine guiding foxes, lend themselves to create a stunningly cinematic presentation. It’s no accident that the game evokes memories of Akira Kurosawa’s work, the master of samurai cinema.
“There are movies that have kind of stuck with us from the very beginning, all the way through to where we are now,” says Connell.
“And that is movies like ‘Seven Samurai’, that was a big inspiration just in general, it’s quite a cool story. And we also like 13 Assassins - it’s a little bit newer, certainly more modern, but has some of the same ideas behind it that were very inspiring. So those two films in particular, I think from an art perspective I pull from. Kurosawa’s ‘Ran’ is an awesome movie too – lots of color, that’s one that kind of stands out.”
From samurai to ninja-like Ghost
Kurosawa’s films weren’t afraid to paint the screen red with blood however – or dark gray for his black and white efforts at least, itself mirrored in a black-and-white film grain filter homage that Sucker Punch lets players activate from the very beginning of the game. He may be green fingered, but Jin’s a red-blooded killer, too.
“We want a wide audience, we want a lot of people to enjoy our game,” admits Connell, “But at the same time, samurai were incredibly lethal. If you have watched any samurai movie ever sometimes people die in the blink of an eye – like he's just standing there surrounded by four people and then suddenly everybody's dead. I feel like I've seen that scene, 10 times! We let you do that.”
Not that the Mongols will be a pushover.
“You can't recreate that everywhere because then suddenly the game's super easy or there's maybe no challenge, and we really want the Mongols to feel like a deep presence in the world and have a challenge. One or two of them you may feel, ‘I got this’. Three or four of them slightly less so, and so it's gonna start getting hard at five or six combatants. You better be really good at our game. I would say that it's unique in that way that you're balancing this lethal fighting style but at the same time you can get overwhelmed.”
While Jin may be a samurai at heart, there’s only so much mileage he’ll get from an ‘honorable’ face-to-face fight with the Mongol forces. The player will have to adapt with him, as the game guides him towards his transition to the ninja-like Ghost, where the playstyle shifts to a more covert, stealthy approach.
“The evolution into becoming the Ghost will require using different combat stances and timing your perfect parry and dodge,” says Connell. “If you don't master those in the game, it will potentially wreck you a little bit. We want that challenge, you want the Mongols to feel like a force.
“We do have difficulty settings. If you want a harder experience you can take it up a notch. If you feel like you're getting beat up two much you can take it down a notch.”
Sunsetting the PS4
Regardless of how you play, whether exploring Tsushima side-by-side with animal friends, or flicking the blood from your katana, there are few upcoming games as beautiful as Ghost of Tsushima. Its burning temples, glistening armor and serene forests show the PS4 at its very best. With the Infamous series ushering in the PS4 era, and Ghost of Tsushima its swan song, Sucker Punch has been with the console every step of the way.
“We were lucky to be one of the first games that came out on PS4 with Infamous: Second Son,“ says Connell. “That allowed us to have a good head start on what's so great about the PS4, that was certainly helpful as we went into a new game with all kinds of new technical and creative challenges.
“Things like landscapes – how do you do landscapes and how do you do large sightlines and dynamic time of day versus static time of day, all while keeping the frame rate great? So having those early days on Infamous certainly helped us on our journey towards the ‘ending chapters’ of PS4. It’s great to be able to be there in the beginning and sort of somewhere there's that sense of ending – it afforded us a lot of expertise, early on, to create a beautiful-looking and performing game.”
Ghost of Tsushima is rarely spoken of without the whisper of a potential PS5 port surrounding it. Connell and Sucker Punch won’t be drawn on the validity of those predictions, but appear to be pushing the ageing machine to its limits, especially on the base-spec console.
“I feel like I'm at a unique position because I asked our team, you know, like our wizards and our technical artists and artists to do crazy stuff and they always deliver, they never disappoint. So I'm not in the greatest position to say ‘Oh yeah we're running out of this or that’. But I will say that the game looks really incredible even on the base kit which to me has been really impressive, what our team's been able to pull out of it.“
Whichever machine we eventually get to enjoy Ghost of Tsushima on, it’ll hopefully be a fittingly epic conclusion to a monumental chapter in PlayStation history.
Apple Arcade had long been rumored ahead of its launch, and while its subscription model was no surprise, its direction was – it landed with around 100 mobile-exclusive titles for a small monthly fee, free of ads, in-app purchases and bursting with creativity.
I was intrigued as a gamer, but as an Android phone user, and because as a ‘vintage’ MacBook Pro owner I was locked out of the service, much of Apple Arcade passed me by at launch – I attended a press event, and had a play with a few games in the office on a colleague’s device, and that was about it.
And then I bought a secondhand iPad Pro. And then coronavirus happened. And then I was laid up in bed for a week… and then I realized Apple is building something quite remarkable with Apple Arcade.
The long road to Apple Arcade
In terms of a direct investment in the gaming community, Apple has historically steered clear, ever since its ill-fated partnership with Bandai on the Apple Pippin.
That quickly-shelved home console soured Apple’s relationship with the games industry for years (Macs still aren’t the greatest home for gamers), and it was only the introduction of mobile devices that turned the tide.
That’s billions of hours of play on billions of devices, and that’s in massive part thanks to the future-gazing work pioneered in the early days of the iPhone App Store.
But mobile gaming on iPhone and Android alike is inundated with clones, cynical in-app purchases, and quick-buck making games with literal “money-or-your-life” timers ticking down the seconds we’re each given on this planet.
They've been hugely profitable, and the way Apple let them run rampant on the App Store, diluting the quality of its charts, made it seem over the years like it had little genuine interest in raising the quality bar – especially when you consider that Apple has always claimed to have the most stringent standards of all mobile operating systems when it comes to what is allowed entry into its 'walled garden' App store ecosystem.
During this period of worldwide lockdown however I’ve seen that, for the first time in a generation, Apple is back in the gaming game, – and it’s all thanks to Apple Arcade.
iOS(olation)
I can’t say that I contracted Covid-19 – I’d need a highly sought-after test to find that out, and (as I’m now in good health) I’m happy to stay indoors, thank you very much. But whatever it was that was ailing me, I felt like a sack of heavily sedated, hungover potatoes for a week.
My expectations had been colored by past experiences with mobile games – the mindless grind of Candy Crush, the-wait-or-pay-to-play city builders.
Aside from the odd loping trip to the bathroom, I didn’t feel like doing very much of anything other than staying beneath the covers, so my iPad was my window on the world for a while.
But with that window being a portal to the internet, offering a panoramic view of the end of the world, it wasn’t long before I had to turn away from news apps and streaming services; there’s only so much Tiger King a person can handle.
And Apple Arcade came to the rescue. It’s the best distillation yet of what makes mobile gaming so appealing: the option to have dozens upon dozens of titles in the palm of your hand, ready for bite-sized chunks of play.
I’m definitely refer to myself as a ‘hardcore’ gamer – I grind through Diablo sessions, and I’ve recently been on the epic quest to get through Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey.
My expectations had been colored by past experiences with mobile games – the mindless grind of Candy Crush, the-wait-or-pay-to-play city builders.
As a gamer who enjoys precision controls and a gameplay flow uninterrupted by cooldown timers and in-app purchase advertisements, I’d lost faith in mobile gaming. But Apple Arcade really pulled me in with its playfulness, and its surprisingly oft-spotted theme of mindfulness.
Apple’s service is superbly curated, and my experience so far has showcased nothing but wild ambition from the wide array of (mostly indie) developers that have jumped on board.
Its growing catalogue runs the gamut from established franchises – such as appearances from SEGA’s Sonic to Ubisoft’s Rayman, to indie darlings such as developers Capybara Games and Bossa Studios.
All genres, from racing sim to turn-based tactics to puzzler to arcade sports are catered for, and most importantly there’s tons of titles that defy easy categorisation, like literary puzzler Dear Reader or color-mixing brain teaser Tint.
Touching creativity
But where Apple Arcade came into its own for me was in two key aspects: its games are all touch-friendly, so didn’t require me to dig out a gamepad in order to play (though they are widely supported), and that the sheer variety of games on offer meant there was always another interesting distraction to turn to if a particular title didn’t suit my tastes.
I may not have been able to go anywhere in the real world, but with Apple Arcade I could certainly forget that I was stuck at home, ill and in bed.
RPG puzzler Grindstone, with its wild Adventure Time-like art style, was addictive and challenging; What The Golf? and its acid-trip crazy golf courses hid better punchlines than any Netflix comedy special I’d seen in recent times; Beyond Blue was a transportative experience, a superb underwater accompaniment to the BBC’s Blue Planet series; and while Overland’s strategic take on the post-apocalypse felt a little too close to home, given current events, it was a marvellously presented take on the end of the world.
What surprised me, though, was how much I was drawn to the more meditative games on the service – the sort of titles I wouldn’t usually approach on a console.
Patterned is a simple-but-gorgeous jigsaw puzzle game that, in the best possible way, helped me to fall asleep. I’ve written about Lifelike before, but again it captivated me with its soothing pace and flower-like visuals.
I may not have been able to go anywhere in the real world, but with Apple Arcade I could certainly forget that I was stuck at home, ill and in bed.
There’s a sense that Apple wants to encompass all the possibilities that modern gaming can be with Apple Arcade – right down to cross-device play from tablet and smartphone to the Apple TV box sat under your television.
It made me think of the (so far at least) relatively muted reception the PS5 and Xbox Series X reveals have been met with: for all the talk of teraflops and speedy SSDs, there’s the sense that gaming’s more esoteric joys are being left behind.
Yes, we love a Red Dead Redemption or a The Last of Us, but it’s worth remembering that one of the biggest games in the world, Minecraft, remains a quirky indie game at heart, and runs on the lowliest of hardware.
If Minecraft were to launch today, it’d feel most at home on Apple Arcade, where variety and invention seems the most important factor for consideration.
Just like Disney Plus, Apple Arcade will have surely benefited from the side-effects of lockdown, with consumers' usual recreational habits curtailed.
I hope they too, like me, found some quiet joy in Apple Arcade’s library – and I hope realises that now is the time to really pump out those licensing deals to get more fantastic games and developers onboard, and keep the attention of a literally-captive audience.
Best iPhone games: wile away lockdown with these addictive app games
Amazon Prime Day 2020 will take place in September. That's according to insider sources speaking to the Wall Street Journal, claiming that the annual online sales deals marathon will shift from its usual July slot two months further into the year.
Like businesses across the globe, Amazon has felt the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, with a surge in demand leading to stock and distribution issues. The move to later in the year is believed to give Amazon time to restore "normalcy" to its services and workforce.
The news also means that Amazon should be able to fulfill a greater variety of orders, and approach a return to the speedy delivery reputation that has made Amazon such a force to be reckoned with in online retail.
During the pandemic it has been forced to limit its sales to essential items only in some regions of the world, while its free next day and 1-hour delivery services, exclusive to Amazon Prime subscribers, were hit with delays.
The sources claim there is still concern that Amazon's capacity to fulfill orders in its customarily speedy manner may still exist in September. Right now, some of its star Memorial Day 2020 deals in the US have been impacted.
Amazon Prime Day, which last year became a full two-day event despite the name, would likely kick off on one of four new dates (all are Mondays): September 7, September 14, September 21 or September 28.
While this would be a shift from the summer sales window (which had likely been settled on as it tends to be a relatively quiet period for retailers in comparison to the fourth quarter of the year), it would retain enough distance from the Black Friday and Christmas shopping surges to make it worth both customers' and Amazon's time – and money.
Its closer proximity to Black Friday 2020 could in fact take some of the shine away from that shopping sales event which, while open to a much wider array of retailers, is still dominated by Amazon in the online realm.
Apple's AR glasses have been a source of speculation for years, with patents dating back to 2015 and 2017 detailing AR-related software and hardware. But it wasn't until 2019 that it felt like Apple's highly-anticipated AR eyewear project would really happen as the rumor mill released more and more early information.
Industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo initially said manufacturing of the AR specs would get underway at the end of 2019 or the start of 2020, according to money.udn.com, noting they would be reliant on a connected iPhone to do a lot of processing and connectivity. But by mid-2020, with no glasses in sight, a research note from Kuo surfaced that pushed back an estimated release date until 2022.
That said, another source has said that while they might not go on sale until then, they're likely to be announced either alongside the iPhone 12 in late 2020, or at an event in March 2021. The source added that they will apparently be called Apple Glass.
AR-enabled iGlasses have been swaddled in mystery given how little info has come out, and news even broke that Apple had scrapped its plan for AR glasses altogether. A report from Digitimes stated that supply chain sources had confirmed Apple disbanded its AR team.
But a new patent appeared in late 2019 that detailed what appeared to be the much-rumored Apple AR glasses, reigniting the potential of their existence.
Other sources meanwhile have said they're still coming but have been delayed by years, with an AR headset apparently landing in either 2021 or 2022, followed by AR glasses in 2023.
So there's a lot of confusion and debate around when or even if we'll get Apple glasses, but the latest leaks suggest they might be announced before too long, but won't hit stores until a lot later.
While you try and get your head around all that, let's take a look at all the Apple glasses leaks and rumors, as well as Apple's augmented reality background and why AR specs seemed like the next big move for the tech giant.
Update: A massive leak has detailed the possible Apple glasses name, release date, price, and features.
What is it? A new Apple wearable, a pair of glasses using augmented reality tech
When is it out? May be announced in 2020, but would hit stores later
What will it cost? A source suggests $499 (roughly £410 / AU$765)
What will Apple AR glasses cost?
That’s a tough question, as there’s no real precedent for this sort of thing yet. The only rumor on that subject so far claims $499 (roughly £410 / AU$765) - not including any prescription charges.
Beyond that we can guess based on other devices. On the one hand, you’ve got the Snap Spectacles, which were recently revamped as the Snap Spectacles 3 and now cost $380 / £330 (about AU$590). But as fancy as these new models are, they're basic, have simple AR features and we imagine Apple will have a more feature-rich experience in mind.
On the other, you have the HoloLens 2. It’s not, strictly speaking, really a consumer device yet and is only up for pre-order.
But it looks like it'll cost around $3,000 (£2,719, AU$4,369), like the original Hololens, and will include additional software at an extra cost. However, Apple’s glasses will likely be built to mass-market scale, and with consumers (and associated price tags) in mind.
So it’s a guessing game really. Keeping in mind that Apple tends to slap a premium on its devices, a broad estimate of somewhere between $500/$AU670/£400 and $1,000/£800/AU$1,300 could be the ballpark. But don’t hold us to that.
Apple AR glasses hardware: the evidence, the patents and the specs
The biggest and latest leak on that front has detailed a lot of things. According to Jon Prosser (a reliable leaker), the Apple Glasses will be called Apple Glass and will be capable of displaying information on both lenses, with a user controlling them via gestures both on and in front of the frames.
All the processing would apparently be handled by a connected iPhone, and Apple Glass supposedly wouldn't have conventional cameras but would have a LiDAR scanner to power AR experiences.
Other details from the source include that there apparently won't be a sunglasses version, as the display doesn't work with tinted lenses, that observers won't be able to tell the lenses are displaying anything, and that the frame - at least in a prototype - is made from plastic.
Beyond that, Apple has been busy picking up companies with an interest in AR, which suggests it's prepping a product of its own – and recently Cook said that Apple had several new products in the pipeline that could "blow you away".
We've also seen a bunch of Apple patents appear recently, explaining how specially-designed lenses could be used to cast images on a user's eye, and how a touchscreen surface (like an iPhone or an iPad) could be used as a controller.
One patent points to glasses with adjustable opacity, which might help add focus to a video, for example, or aid visibility on a particularly bright day.
A glimpse at digital items placed in the real world
Apple also filed a patent for a catadioptric optical system – a series of lenses designed to project images into a user’s eyes – in early February this year.
In fact, Apple has been granted 53 patents, covering its AR wearable, 3D mapping technology, and a more intelligent iPhone Home screen, amongst others, as discovered by Patently Apple.
Perhaps most telling of all is a leaked injury report out of Apple’s Cupertino headquarters, which suggests Apple is working on a “prototype unit” which has resulted in eye injuries for two users. Eugh.
Apple has also made a number of key AR talent hires over the years. According to a report from Bloomberg, Apple has poached a leading employee of Nasa for the project, hiring Jeff Norris, founder of the Mission Operations Innovation Office of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Lab.
He is said to be working as part of an augmented reality team being headed up by another poached talent, Dolby Labs executive Mike Rockwell.
That team is apparently 1,000 people strong, and the AR glasses they're working on are said to have a high-resolution display, cameras, 3D scanning, and "advanced human detection". They're also apparently working on an AR headset, which could launch first with a design like the Oculus Quest, but a lightweight, comfortable build.
In May 2020, Apple confirmed it had acquired NextVR, a startup that produced virtual reality content from the likes of the NBA and Fox Sports. While it's unclear how this could impact the Apple AR Glasses, it's logical the startup's expertise will contribute to product design in some way.
Hololens. Image Credit: TechRadar.
What is augmented reality?
You're familiar with the concept of virtual reality, right? Popping on a headset and having software transport you to an interactive, 360-degree, left, right, up, down, all-encompassing virtual world?
Augmented reality works a bit like that but with one big difference. Rather than giving a window into an invented world, it uses either screens or transparent lenses to place digital items on top of the real world around you.
Pokemon Go makes the pocket monster appear in your world using AR
The most popular example of this in action would be the lenses and filters available on Instagram and Snapchat – the ones that make it look like you have a squashed face, a dog's tongue or hearts coming out of your eyeballs.
Another great example of well-executed and mainstream AR is Pokemon Go which puts Pikachu and co into your world through a combination of your phone’s camera and screen.
Both see your real world 'augmented' by software on your smart device. Essentially, AR lets you get context sensitive digital information overlaid onto your real world surroundings – look at a subway station and get train times automatically displayed, for instance, or walk down the aisles of a food store and have the specs recommend a recipe. The applications could be exciting and used for games and entertainment or just extremely boring and extremely practical.
Augmented reality could also get a significant boost thanks to the advent of 5G. In fact, many believe 5G could prove instrumental to augmented reality finally hitting the mainstream – at least for those in the UK.
First launched back in 2017, ARKit was Apple's way of sticking its flag down into the augmented reality landscape, an attempt to claim the space as its own.
First revealed at WWDC 2017, ARKit is a new set of APIs to let developers build augmented reality applications for Apple devices. They can now create apps that use the cameras, processors and sensors in your iPhone or iPad and use this information to overlay virtual objects onto the real world.
It's now in its third version, with the latest iteration arriving with iOS 13 in September 2019.
Users don't necessarily know that an app has been created with ARKit – there's no label – but they'll see a fun, AR experience. For example, the IKEA app allows you to hold up your iPhone and 'preview' how furniture will look.
Apple ARKit is already bringing augmented reality to the forefront of consumer technology – but it's just a platform. It's long been suggested that the real future of Apple’s augmented reality road map would be AR glasses.
After all, Apple’s in need of a new product category. The last time the tech giant launched an inarguably successful new product line was the iPad – and even that has proved difficult to maintain momentum in.
AR is an exciting new area, and one in which Apple (at least in hardware terms) wouldn’t have much competition in, at least in the present with a mainstream and consumer focus.
Apple boss Tim Cook sees great potential in augmented reality. Image Credit: Apple.
Tim Cook has sung the praises of AR tech, going so far as to say augmented reality use will become as common as "eating three meals a day".
"A significant portion of the population of developed countries, and eventually all countries, will have AR experiences every day," he said during the 2016 Utah Tech tour, before casting shade on VR.
"I can't imagine everyone in here getting in an enclosed VR experience while you're sitting in here with me," said Cook to those assembled for the Utah talk.
"AR is going to take a while, because there are some really hard technology challenges there," he added.
"But it will happen, it will happen in a big way, and we will wonder when it does, how we ever lived without it. Like we wonder how we lived without our phone today."
Right now, there are a number of augmented reality glasses already on the market from companies like Vuzix, Epson and Vue. But many of them are reserved for enterprise use (in big businesses), are being used by developers or have been built for a rather niche purpose.
There are also mixed reality headsets, like the Microsoft Hololens 2, which sits somewhere between VR and AR. As well as one of the most exciting AR headsets, the Magic Leap One.
The main difference between these devices and the promise of AR glasses made so infamous by Google Glass, is AR glasses were tipped to be smaller, slimmer and could easily be mistaken for regular glasses. The Magic Leap One is an extraordinary piece of kit, but not exactly what Apple would have in store with AR specs.
There could also be mounting competition from other big tech giants. For example, in July, details were leaked about a patent, which suggests Samsung might be working on its own pair of AR specs.
Spotted by Patently Apple, the filing shows a fairly standard design for a pair of glasses with added smarts on board. They're going to be foldable, apparently, so you can pop them in your pocket when you're not being wowed by AR.
What's more, according to a patent filed by Huawei at the World Intellectual Property Organization (and spotted by LetsGoDigital), the company is experimenting with a pair of AR glasses that are lightweight but only work when you insert your smartwatch into them.
It's also not a surprise to hear that Facebook, which owns Oculus, has also been rumored to be working on its own AR eyewear.
According to a 2017 patent, Facebook's AR glasses could use a ‘waveguide display' to combine computer graphics with the real world – essentially an advanced method of giving the illusion of depth on specs right in front of your face.
Based on the patent images, the AR glasses could look just like a regular pair of glasses, which means there will be lot of complex, miniaturized technology to get right before they can be released.
This means Apple may not be releasing its own AR glasses anytime soon, but its competitors might be just a year or two away.
Glass Enterprise Edition 2. Image Credit: Google
Of course we can't talk about AR specs without mentioning the legacy of Google Glass. These advanced smart glasses were tipped to change everything, from tech to the way we live, by overlaying layers of information onto the real world. But thanks to public perception, financial problems and design challenges they never fully materialised – apart from for a small number of developers and testers.
Well, at least not how they were meant to. Google Glass is still around, but exists as the Glass Enterprise Edition aimed at business use.
Although the troubled story of Google Glass may sound like a bit of a failure (at least when it comes to consumer traction), it actually taught tech companies a great deal about building AR, tech-enabled eyewear and the challenges of bringing a whole new product category to market.
Could the Call of Duty series be about to return to the brooding era of the Cold War? That's what's being suggested by the latest rumors that point to a new Black Ops game being released this year – a 'soft reboot' tentatively titled Call of Duty: Classified.
Building on reports previously shared by Kotaku, Reddit user SunnyMatrix claims to have spoken to "a source that is involved in primarily screenwriting for television and film, although they sometimes are brought on as a consultant to review storytelling in the videogame industry."
This source claims that the backdrop for the next Call of Duty game will be the Cold War, and will take in historical globe-trotting locations like war-torn Vietnam and parts of the old Soviet Union.
A reboot in the same vein as the recent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, it'll be a more grounded tale than the way recent Black Ops games have leaned towards the futuristic.
The story is said to involve espionage, government conspiracy theories and real-world events, from "the assassination of John F. Kennedy" to MK-ULTRA, a real project sanctioned by the American government in which civilians were given psychedelic drugs, and subjected to psychotherapy and electroshock treatments with the aim of opening them up to potential mind control.
Stealth could feature more heavily too, with an opening level described in which the player is "attacked in the dead of the night by Vietcong forces with an emphasis on stealth gameplay after the initial attack."
While the legitimacy of the leak is uncertain, with the leaker making the rare admission that it is unverified and "in no way, shape, or form concrete," lots suggested here aligns with what we've already heard, right down to a troubled story development dealing with sensitive real-world subject matter.
As it stands, Activision is still on track to release a new Call of Duty title before 2020 is out, targeting the PC, PS4 and Xbox One, as well as the new PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles. Could Call of Duty: Classified be that game?
If your idea of fun is being at the financial mercy of a landlord raccoon, then Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Nintendo Switch is really going to push your buttons this week.
A new update is rolling out which is going to slash the spawn rates of creepy crawlies in the game that are worth the most money.
As spotted by data miner @_Ninji (via Polygon), it seems like Nintendo is changing the clock cycles of the spawn rates of the most valuable bugs. Whereas they currently appear in larger numbers at different times of the in-game year, that rate is going to be flattened so they appear in lower numbers more consistently every month of the year.
"Agrias butterfly used to be less common in April than in its other available months. Wharf roach had a higher rate in March," says Ninji.
"Peacock butterflies have been cut by 80-90%; emperors and atlas moths by 50%. Regular stinkbugs are up 100%, man-faced ones down 50%. Tiger beetles up by 33%, Scarab beetles down 40%.
So while the bugs you're after will still appear in the game, you might have to diversify your farming plans throughout the in game year to maximise your money-making schemes. A bit of re-designing of your island to attract what you're after may be in order, too.
You’ve read every comic and you’ve seen every film, but you still need your Marvel superhero fix. So, what next?
Disney’s takeover of the premier comic book production house has seen the likes of Spider-Man and the Avengers ascend to ever greater heights, expanding further into TV and video games than ever before, not to mention the world-beating silver screen flicks. But one area that had been relatively unexplored by Marvel is audio adaptations. Well, not any more, true believers.
Having feasted on the Marvel Cinematic Universe's visual splendor, podcasts might seem like an unlikely home for Marvel’s heroes. But the company’s podcast tales are among the best audio fiction the podcast format has ever served up. If you haven't got the time to read a graphic novel or marathon a movie collection, they're perfect listening material when you're doing chores around the house.
Marvel has teamed up with podcast production powerhouse Stitcher to make episodic tales based on some of the Marvel universes’ favorite characters.
A new universe to explore
There are three series so far, two focusing on the X-Men’s gruff king of the claws, Wolverine, and another based on the Marvels graphic novel – considered by many to be one of the finest Marvel tales ever told.
Kicking off with Wolverine: The Long Night, we find Logan (voiced by The Hobbit's Richard Armitage) in his old haunt of Alaska. Trying to outrun his past as ever, he soon becomes entangled in a tale of small-town corruption, a murder mystery and the worrying behavior of a local cult.
In season two, Wolverine: The Lost Trail sees Logan looking to track down an old flame in New Orleans, Louisiana. You can’t pick New Orleans as the setting, though, without fellow X-Man Gambit making an appearance, and the two get caught up in a story following the disappearance of mutants and humans alike.
Marvels tells a completely different story. Based on the graphic novel by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross, it explores how a world filled with superheroes would affect the everyday lives of the humans on the ground, kicking off in the aftermath of an epic battle between the Fantastic Four and super-villain Galactus:
Free to listen to on your podcast service of choice, the 30-ish minute episodes do a great job of capturing the tone of the characters involved, and have so far been impeccably cast. The production values here are through the roof – casting Armitage as Wolverine is inspired (and surely makes him a shoo-in for any big-screen revival of the character), while the production team’s insistence on having as much of each show recorded in real-world environments similar to their fictional counterparts as possible adds to the authenticity of the performances. There’s real chemistry between the cast members throughout.
It takes some getting used to initially, listening to Wolverine rather than seeing him in action, and the podcasts so far have been of a slightly slower, more introspective pace than the bombastic action of the comics and movies. But they’re great character studies, and show the flexibility and depth that years of Marvel storytelling has imbued your favorite heroes with. The podcasts are definitely worth settling down with during these uncertain times.
