Linked List: May 23, 2019

Thursday, 23 May 2019

Edge Magazine’s Cover Story on Playdate 

My own excitement about Playdate aside, Jen Simpkins’s cover story for the new issue of Edge magazine (issue #333) is just a terrific read and an amazing behind-the-scenes look at how a 4-year project comes to life. Edge doesn’t publish on the web — how old-school cool is that? — but there are a few ways to read it:

  • Panic has a brief excerpt on the Playdate website.
  • You can buy a hard copy of Edge #333 for $10.
  • Edge is part of Apple News+, so if you’re a News+ subscriber (or sign up for a trial), you can read the whole thing.

One more thing: if you visit the media page on the Playdate site using an iPhone or iPad, Panic has created two ARKit models of the Playdate hardware. It’s fun to play with, and gives you a good sense of the device’s size.

Mac Toolbar Labels and Accessibility 

Interesting post — and that rarest of all beasts, a good comment thread — on a creeping trend in Mac app design: toolbars that don’t have an option to show text labels under the button icons. I like showing button labels in (a) apps that I use infrequently, and (b) apps which have a lot of buttons, some of which have icons that are similar to each other (Apple Mail comes to mind).

I think it’s a real accessibility issue, and another instance of something that looks better but, for at least some people, works worse. I also think the problem is exacerbated by the current fashion where icons are just simple one-color hairline outline objects, not colorful illustrations of actual objects.

Vice News: Inside Huawei-Land 

Tight 8-minute video tour of Huawei’s campus from Vice News:

“We wanted to invite U.S. media to come ask any questions on behalf of American customers,” said Catherine Chen, Huawei’s corporate senior vice president and director of the board.

VICE News took Huawei up on its offer and found out we were the only news organization that showed up.

I don’t know what Huawei thought this tour would accomplish, but I found it interesting.

Ars: ‘Why the Quirky Playdate Portable Could Succeed Where Ouya Failed’ 

Kyle Orland, writing at Ars Technica:

This is the hipster microbrew of the console world, mixing in weird gaming flavors and unique controller ingredients that the Sony/Budweisers and Nintendo/Millers of the world can’t. Playdate is aiming to be the console you buy more as a statement about your refined and eclectic gaming tastes and less as a workhorse that will be a central point in your gaming life.

I think this is pretty good, but I quibble with the word “hipster”. To me, a hipster handheld would have big fat pixels, a more decidedly retro take. Some microbrews are hipsters, no argument, but most aren’t — they’re just good beers made at a small scale. That’s Playdate.