Get a Backbone

The best gaming console is the one you have with you.

So says Cult of Mac writer Ed Hardy, who’s been testing the greatly improved Backbone Pro game controller, which launched today.

As Ed notes, gaming on iPhone has taken some huge leaps and bounds in recent years.

Mobile games are no longer poor cousins to their console counterparts.

You can play lots of AAA games on your iPhone. Apple Arcade offers an ever-growing list of titles, and there are also cloud-gaming services. As Ed writes: “The quality of the games you can take with you anywhere is amazing.”

But tap, tap, tapping on the iPhone’s screen to play these games grows old fast. (I discovered this when trying to play classic arcade game Scramble, which has a great clone on the App Store. The on-screen controls make it even more difficult.)

That’s where the Backbone Pro game controller comes in. The snap-on controller transforms the iPhone game experience, and the new, improved hardware is almost perfect, Ed writes.

I’m not much of a gamer, tbh, but reading Ed’s Backbone Pro review makes me want to get one of these right away and spend the afternoon gaming instead of working.

Also in today’s newsletter:

• After Apple lost big in federal court, Epic Games promised to return its popular Fortnite game to the App Store. Only one problem: Apple canceled Epic’s account. But Epic figured out a workaround, surprisingly with Apple’s blessing.

• I’m furiously repeating a new mantra to myself this morning: “I do not want the new Powerbeats Pro 2, even if they are on sale. I do not want the new Powerbeats Pro 2, even if they are on sale.”

• And I don’t want these well-reviewed AirPods Max rivals, either. As Dave Snow, our resident headphones expert, says: “Getting these great cans for under $50 seems like a miracle deal.”

• Five new games will launch on Apple Arcade early next month, including fun racing game What the Car? for all 15 of the Vision Pro users out there.

• Today’s the day in Apple history that the history-making iMac launched. Talk about lusting after a product. I wanted one of these first Bondi blue iMacs so, so bad, but I was too broke at the time. A couple of years later, I picked up a used second-gen model on Craigslist. I almost put my back out lugging it up the stairs to my apartment. My God, 1998 seems so long ago!

— Leander Kahney, EIC.

^{A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team}

^{A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team}

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Today’s poll

Results from yesterday’s poll: If iPhone 17 Air has reduced battery life, is that a deal-breaker?

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