I’ve been on the search for the perfect retro gaming handheld for the past couple of years. I’ve modded a PlayStation Portable, used flash cartridges in my old Nintendo DS, and have purchased the Retroid Pocket 2+, and Retroid Pocket 3.

None of these ever felt like the right setup for me, though. I had a lot of fun playing games on them and setting them up, but in the end I just had yet-another device to maintain. It always felt a bit too cumbersome. And it didn’t help that none of the devices I tried were particularly comfortable to use.

I also own a Switch. But, not only does that miss the mark on all of the points above, it’s also not that great at playing retro games, which was my primary goal. I’ve had a ton of fun playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Maker 2, and others, but the retro games on Switch require a subscription or the stand-alone purchase of remakes that are, more often than not, far worse than the original.

Backbone

Rather than introduce a new device into my life with its own operating system and battery life to manage, I’m now using the Backbone with my existing iPhone 13 Pro. It’s one of those retractable controllers that you can place your device in to turn it into a gaming handheld.

I had never had much interest in these products because I hadn’t heard good things about them. They all seemed to be poorly made by fly-by-night companies. And although there isn’t much history to go on with Backbone, they have partnered with Sony for a PlayStation edition, which is what I decided to go for.

The hardware feels quite good. It’s obviously not as sturdy as an actual gaming handheld due to the nature of the form factor, but I don’t expect it to break anytime soon. The buttons and thumb sticks are all as responsive as you’d hope and they feel great to use.

I wish there was an option to have the directional pad positioned above the left analog stick. That would match the layout of Sony’s DualShock controllers and would be far better for the types of games I tend to play. But that layout doesn’t seem to exist among the competition either.

The Backbone has a dedicated screenshot/screen recording button, which is quite handy. And there’s a Backbone button as well that, when pressed, takes you right into Backbone’s launcher app. I can’t say the launcher app is great, by any means. Especially when compared to the launcher options on Android. But it’s serviceable.

The Backbone app showcases popular games from the App Store, Xbox game streaming, PS Remote Play, it has screenshot and screen recording section, and more. But, for me, the app is basically just a way to quickly launch games using the controller.

Within the section that displays your games there are also games and apps that Backbone is promoting. I wish there was a way to remove those more consistently — I’ve been able to remove some, but no luck with others. Luckily they’re generally out of my way since games are sorted by most-recently played.

App Store

In terms of what I’ve actually been playing on it, there’s been a lot of Minecraft. The game suffers from the same problems I have with titles like The Sims in that it’s a lot more fun at the beginning when you’re first collecting resources and building your base. But I think my current world is the one I’ve spent the most time in.

I’m not actively playing as frequently in recent weeks, but I have some ideas for projects that I still haven’t done in and around my base, so I expect I’ll be picking it up again more regularly in the not-too-distant future.

I’ve also had a blast streaming games through Steam Link. I have a Windows machine in my office that I essentially only interact with over VNC through Screens and with Steam Link. I’ve replayed Half-Life 2 recently and have a number of other Steam games in my backlog that I want to play soon, too — Celeste, Hogwarts Legacy, and Cuphead to name a few.

AltStore

Games from Steam and the App Store are fine and dandy, but the real stars of the show are made possible with AltStore, which makes it easy to install apps from outside of the App Store. You basically install a piece of software on a Mac or PC, enter your Apple ID credentials, and the AltStore app will install on your device.

AltStore has a number of apps that you can install right from within the Browse tab — Flycast, UTM, Provenance, and more — but you can also sideload any .ipa file from the My Apps tab. I’ve installed Dolphin and RetroArch. This gives me access to emulating the following systems:

• Game Boy Advance
• Game Boy Color
• Game Boy
• Nintendo 64
• Nintendo DS
• Nintendo Entertainment System
• Super Nintendo
• Sega 32X
• Sega Game Gear
• Sega Master System
• Sega Genesis
• Sega CD
• Sega Saturn
• PlayStation Portable
• PlayStation
• GameCube
• Nintendo Wii

Everything runs surprisingly well. I’ve only come across a small number of games on PSP, Wii, and GameCube that were unplayable — either because of performance issues or incompatibilities with the emulator. In the case of PSP, I could install the stand-alone PPSSPP emulator to improve compatibility, but I prefer RetroArch’s interface.

Speaking of interface — launching sideloaded apps is one thing the Backbone app isn’t capable of. However, as a workaround, I’ve installed the PlayStation App and setup an automation in Shortcuts that triggers every time the PlayStation App is opened. It simply displays a menu listing my sideloaded apps — Dolphin and RetroArch — and launches the one I choose.

With this setup I can open the PlayStation App from within the Backbone app and then select the emulator I’d like to use. It’s not as slick as the emulation-focused launchers available on Android — my current favorite is Daijishō — but it gets the job done.

Moving back to the emulators themselves, there is a bit of a caveat with Dolphin. It requires JIT — just-in-time compilation — which allows the games to emulate at full speed. Without it, the experience would be abysmal. But in order to enable JIT, you need to be on the same network as a JIT enabling server. This is, conveniently, built-in to the AltServer software that AltStore interfaces with, but means that playing games in Dolphin while out and about is a no-go.

It’s an inconvenience for sure, but the vast majority of my gaming is done while at home and in other cases I can always just play something in RetroArch. Hopefully this will change when sideloading is officially offered in the future, but for now the workaround is rarely a hindrance in my use.

With these emulators I’ve been playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Tony Hawk’s Underground, The Lion King, and Super Mario World. And that’s just what I’ve had in my regular rotation, I’ve added about 50GB of ROMs between the two emulators, which will keep me busy for quite some time.

I’m very happy with my current setup. I can emulate roughly the same number of systems as I could on my Retroid devices, but because of the increased performance of the iPhone there’s likely a much larger number of games that are actually playable. And all of them run on a device that I already bring with me everywhere I go.

No need to maintain a separate device with its own software updates and battery life. All I need is the Backbone controller and my iPhone for access to modern mobile games on iOS, PC games through Steam Link, and a collection of the best games from the seventh generation of consoles and earlier.

Dan Frieth, writing for Reclaim the Net:

This week, Montana’s Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a law banning TikTok on all devices in the state. Five TikTok content creators in the state filed a lawsuit to challenge the law, which takes effect on January 1, 2024.

This seemed inevitable. And the law will almost certainly be turned over in the courts.

➝ Source: reclaimthenet.org

Shawn Blanc:

I know, I know. It’s an impossible choice. I’d be so torn between several: camera, notes, music, messages, tasks…

And, as nerdy as it sounds, I think I’d pick the app Things. (The to-do list manager.)

It feels like cheating to choose a web browser, as Shawn notes, so I think I’d go with Pocket Casts. I spend too much time listening to podcasts while I’m mowing the lawn, doing dishes, driving, and more.

➝ Source: shawnblanc.net

While I don’t use any hamburger menus here on Initial Charge, I am guilty of this on some of my other projects. I should take some time to get rid of those and move to something better. I like Brad Taunt’s suggestion at the main link — a sitemap in the footer with a jump link in the header.

➝ Source: bt.ht

Brave:

Every Web search result seen in Brave Search is now served by our own index. We’ve removed all search API calls to Bing, which previously represented about 7% of query results.

Now they just need to convince Apple to offer it as a default search option in Safari so I can start hounding my friends and family to switch.

➝ Source: brave.com

I agree with Chris Hannah on this, however, I would make an exception for applications with core functionality that relies on an online service. To ensure the developer is able to maintain that web service, I think it’s perfectly fine to charge a subscription fee.

➝ Source: chrishannah.me

Shawn Blanc:

If 100% of our down time is filled with passive entertainment and bits of information, then when does our mind have a chance to be calm? When do we have a moment to think without needing to think?

For those of us with children, not only do we have to make room for boredom in our own lives, we also have to make sure our children are given opportunities to be bored as well. Which is quite the challenge when our society has been blessed with so much abundance.

➝ Source: shawnblanc.net

Heather Kelly, reporting for the Washington Post:

After 25 years of sending discs of movies and TV shows to people through the mail, Netflix is discontinuing the DVD subscription business that started it all, the company announced in its Tuesday earnings report.

Another sad day for physical media.

➝ Source: washingtonpost.com

Mark Gurman, reporting for Bloomberg:

iOS 17 will cause some noise beyond WWDC itself. Apple is working to overhaul the software to open up the iPhone to sideloading — the downloading of apps outside of its official store — to comply with new European regulations by next year.

If the rumors are true, Apple may be announcing an iPhone with USB-C at the same event that they’ll be releasing a version of iOS with official sideloading support.

Our pocket computers will soon be a bit more like actual computers. And I’m really glad this is an upgrade year for me.

➝ Source: bloomberg.com

Josh Nicholas, writing for the Guardian:

The number of active users on the Mastodon social network has dropped more than 30% since the peak and is continuing a slow decline, according to the latest data posted on its website. There were about 1.8 million active users in the first week of January, down from over 2.5 million in early December.

The article is titled “Elon Musk Drove More Than a Million People to Mastodon – but Many Aren’t Sticking Around” and the paragraph above is the lede. It paints a dire picture for Mastodon.

But then we get to this bit:

There were about 500,000 active Mastodon users before Elon Musk took control of Twitter at the end of October. By mid-November, that number climbed to almost 2 million active users.

Wait. Over the past three months, Mastodon went from 500,000 users to 1.8 million and they’re spinning this as a bad thing because it didn’t continue to climb or maintain its peak? That’s completely absurd.

There are going to be peaks and valleys. And you can’t expect any social network to maintain its peak number of active user when there’s a massive surge like this. Anyone could have told you that it wouldn’t last. But the important point isn’t that it didn’t maintain its peak. The important point is that the number of Mastodon users has grown 260% in three months.

That’s a tremendous accomplishment. And not just for Mastodon, but for ActivityPub, open source, and the health of the open web. That should be the lede.

Matt Hauger shared a couple of graphs charting Mastodon’s active user numbers. And it illustrates how the state of things looks drastically different depending on where the timeframe begins. And while I agree with him that I’d prefer to see the trend line curving upward, I think it’s dishonest to frame the situation with such a pessimistic bend like Josh Nicholas has.

When I first joined Twitter in 2007, there were less than 700,000 accounts on the platform. I have no idea how many of those were active — I could only find numbers that went back to 2010 — but given how early it was and the total user count, I would guess that the monthly active user number wasn’t too far off from the 500,000 that we had on Mastodon in October.

Compared to Twitter, Mastodon has a much higher barrier to entry. The competition is far more established than it was when Twitter launched and they don’t have the benefit of millions of dollars of venture capital to spur growth.

But here’s the thing, although I would love to see Mastodon and other ActivityPub-based services grow, I understand that what is already there is great. I had fun on Twitter in 2007 and I’m having a ton of fun on Mastodon now.

Mastodon doesn’t need to maintain the explosive growth it’s had in the wake of Elon acquiring Twitter. And for the long-term health of the network, it would be better for Mastodon to grow slowly, allowing developers to tackle the inevitable scaling issues with a steadier hand.

And it should go without saying, but it needs to be said — Twitter doesn’t have to fail in order for Mastodon to succeed.