Re:I Now Assume That All Ads on Apple News Are Scams
by mghackerlady on Friday February 06, 2026 @11:06AM
(#46914542)
Have you thought of getting your kid a nintendo console of some kind? A jailbroken 3DS seems like it'd be great for avoiding that kind of slop since the 3DSs app store died a few years ago
Re:I Now Assume That All Ads on Apple News Are Scams
by SSLy on Friday February 06, 2026 @12:38PM
(#46915776)
note to others: any 3DS can be very easily jailbroken, doesn't require any soldering or sth. https://3ds.hacks.guide/
Re:I Now Assume That All Ads on Apple News Are Scams
by crummy on Friday February 06, 2026 @01:53PM
(#46916624)
Agreed. "Free mobile game" almost certainly means "malicious gambling app" at this point.
Re:I Now Assume That All Ads on Apple News Are Scams
by eek2121 on Friday February 06, 2026 @06:38PM
(#46919687)
Taste is subjective. I get it. There are Triple A games on Arcade. Things like Civilization 7, for example. I don't know what the current standalone price is because we use Apple One Family, however, it used to cost $5/mo.
Apple one is a steal IMO. Apple TV, Fitness+, 2TB, Arcade, and other smaller perks like News+ make it an easy sell. Compared to something like Netflix? Netflix is $25/mo for their top tier streaming alone. Apple TV consistently has higher quality content. So does Apple Arcade and Apple Fitness...then you get 2TB of storage to back your crap up to.
Ask Google or Samsung what they are doing for the cost of an Apple One subscription.
Not a fanboy or anything. I'm basically critical of all tech companies, however, Apple is doing something that is working well for them.
Re:I Now Assume That All Ads on Apple News Are Scams
by latexr on Friday February 06, 2026 @07:05PM
(#46919885)
> I don't know what the current standalone price is because we use Apple One Family, however, it used to cost $5/mo.
They raised it a while back to $7/month.
Re:I Now Assume That All Ads on Apple News Are Scams
by chocochunks on Friday February 06, 2026 @07:25PM
(#46919999)
Just forget that mobile gaming exists? I think one of the cheapo Linux retro handhelds offer a better portable gaming experience than 99% of mobile games, ads or no.
Re:I Now Assume That All Ads on Apple News Are Scams
by boredChimp on Saturday February 07, 2026 @09:27PM
(#46930732)
Any specific models you’ve used and can recommend?
Re:I Now Assume That All Ads on Apple News Are Scams
by chocochunks on Saturday February 14, 2026 @03:43PM
(#47018189)
I rather like the Anbernic RG35XXSP for the form factor. It is missing analog sticks, which does cut down on playable games a little but it's cute and tiny and is decently powerful for the price and has good community support. The rest of the RGYYXX line(where YY is the screen size) uses the same hardware but have different form factors so you can pick what you like best.
Re:I Now Assume That All Ads on Apple News Are Scams
by akdev1l on Saturday February 07, 2026 @09:29AM
(#46924172)
I like Apple Arcade because it has non-shittified versions of classic games
Like Angry Birds, the official version is fucked up to the gills with ads
Re:I Now Assume That All Ads on Apple News Are Scams
by esskay on Sunday February 08, 2026 @06:18AM
(#46933307)
Sure, but in another time you'd have paid ~$2.99 for the ad-free version one-time, and carried on using it. They intentionally deleted that version of the game, screwing over everyone who did so, then quietly launched the same game again, removing the ad-free one time purchase option.
However, I’ve been subscribed to it since its inception because it is the best way to have games that my kid can play without shady ads or engagement practices.
I know that is not going to last, as my kid is now a pre-teen and likes other types of games (like Hollow Knight) that are not available on Apple Arcade.
But the current state of the gaming industry is terrible, especially on mobile. Indy companies producing games like Dead Cells, Hollow Knight, and Stray are good, and there is the extremely rare case of Larian. But other than that, the market is full of dark-UX patterns to promote app purchases. Mobile apps are a minefield of gacha games that should be forbidden for kids.