Apple Brings Back Texas Hold’em

John Voorhees, writing for MacStories:

When the App Store opened for business in 2008, Apple released Texas Hold’em, the company’s first and only iOS game and successor to an iPod version that debuted in 2006. The game, which Stephen Hackett profiled for MacStories last year was short-lived, disappearing from the App Store in 2011.

In the eight years since the game’s release, Apple has left the iOS game market to third-party developers, with the exception of Warren Buffett’s Paper Wizard. Today, however, the company released an updated version, which was spotted by an eagle-eyed 9to5Mac reader. Strangely, the game’s description says the release is meant to celebrate the App Store’s 10th Anniversary, which occurred last July 10th, not quite 11 years ago today.

I find this so fascinating. First, I actually enjoy this game. I’m sure there are better poker games in the App Store now — or at least smarter ones — but the game mechanics of this one, in landscape mode, are just fun. But why bring it back now? Why say it’s to commemorate the App Store’s 10th anniversary after its 11th anniversary? Was this meant for last year but held up for a year for some reason?

It’s also interesting what they’ve updated and what they haven’t. They’ve switched the font to San Francisco (but maybe that’s just because they were always specifying the system font), and it adapts to fit the iPhone X-class displays, but there’s still no iPad version and still no iCloud syncing across devices. For the most part, the game seems unchanged. Oh, and in a sign of the times, the price dropped from $4.99 to free.

★ Saturday, 13 July 2019