A live blog from the Wall Street Journal covers everything you need to know (and then some) about Nintendo’s mobile strategy going forward. Its first smartphone title will be Miitomo, and while it won’t be out until March 2016, it’ll use the Mii system to communicate with your friends. TouchArcade has more info on Miitomo, which will be free to play, with in-app purchases, but I’m wondering how much actual gameplay there will be, at least in the traditional sense.
Reviews of the new Apple TV reviews went live yesterday, and the reviews all had mostly positive things to say, as summarised by MacRumors. Siri and the new remote, in particular, seem to be well executed. We’ve also gotten confirmation that the new Apple TV will be sold in Australian Apple Stores sometime later today.
The BBC has said they’ll be releasing an iPlayer app for the new Apple TV in the coming months. I doubt we’ll be able to access the catch-up streaming service without some kind of DNS trickery or similar hack we used to get the US Netflix working on our Apple TVs, but at least one major TV company is on board.
Apple has confirmed Siri will be integrated with Apple Music on the media player sometime later this year, with the example provided to BuzzFeed that you’ll be able to tell Siri to play a song from the Siri Remote and Siri will take care of the rest.
Apple’s VP for Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue was interviewed about the new Apple TV, but AppleInsider is reporting the exec dodged questions about original programming for the device, also downplaying the Apple TV for cord-cutting, something Americans do when they get rid of their cable TV subscriptions.
Longtime Mac and iOS developer Pangea Software has already released tvOS games, and already its titles are compatible with 3D TVs, which has to be about the least-publicised feature of the new Apple TV.
Speaking of tvOS games, Alto’s Adventure should be available once you get your hands on the new Apple TV.
Over at iMore, Marc Edwards says apps running on a TV are nothing new, but special considerations should be given when designing TV apps, and especially those on the Apple TV due to the way those parallax icons work.
Apple has released the first iOS 9.2 beta to members of its public beta testing program, along with OS X El Capitan 11.11.2.
But forget games on the new Apple TV, because Zoombinis is out on Steam and works on the Mac. I remember going to the library and spending hours putting the little blue creatures through all sorts of puzzles — many of which I didn’t understand at the time, but I wonder how the title holds up now that I’m older. Well, I guess that’s my weekend sorted.
Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2015/10/friday-morning-news301015/