Amongst yesterday’s underwhelming Apple announcements, and parade of celebrities, comes a ray of light. Because mobile gaming, on anything but the Nintendo Switch, is often a disaster. In fact, I’ve largely given up on iOS gaming – for both myself and my daughter. As oh-so-many games are riddled with disruptive advertisements and continual upsells. Enter: Apple Arcade
While we don’t yet know launch timing (beyond “Fall”) or pricing, we do know Apple Arcade will be a subscription service that includes access to complete and ad-free games. Further, it effectively obviates the need for the long-requested free trial (as offered within Google’s competing app store). Again, without knowing how much this is going to run, it’s difficult to call the service “generous” – yet that’s the direction I’m leaning, given access for up to six family members (assuming they’ve got games suitable for very small children). Apple also emphasizes the option for completely offline access (which obviously doesn’t apply to mutiplayer combat or collaboration), distinguishing itself from Google’s incoming cloud-based gaming service, Stadia.
Seems like many people were underwhelmed with yesterday’s TV related news. I was a bit more optimistic. The TV app is largely becoming something unique. People are saying it’s just like Roku’s new service or Amazon’s channels, but the reality is those are largely platform locked, whereas I can use Apple’s service on an Apple TV, iOS device, Mac, Roku or Fire TV. In addition, they integrated PS Vue and one other OTT service (forget which one), plus all the channels they now sell. Man, if they got a deal with YouTube TV and Netflix I would live in that thing. And I think that’s the ultimate goal.
Agree the Apple TV app multiplatform support and broad partnerships are notable. That was to be my next post. Don’t know that I’ll move in, but I linked you. :)
https://zatznotfunny.com/2019-03/apple-reinvents-amazon-video-intends-to-replace-your-roku-interface/