There are hundreds of thousands of apps. Given so much competition, it is no longer enough for an app to be good to be successful. You have to be able to take away attention from other ones. Since older programs that have survived have more users, the lists of “best apps” they put out each year don’t seem to change much.
This confuses me a little, since newer apps in theory might benefit from not being the first mover, better technology, more programming libraries and a better understanding of markets.
Anyway, I want to know which apps or games you highly esteem, noting that ideally they should be a new product developed in the last couple years. What new things do you like?
Nothing? I get this thread is boring and this board may not be the ideal venue. But doing searches for “best new - of 2023” just turned up lists of stuff that has been around for a decade. Suggestions on how to search for, or links to, more modern lists would be welcomed.
I just play whatever get added to Apple Arcade since that’s usually a good way to get decent games without the predatory baggage mobile gaming is known for.
Some more GPS games would be nice. Pokemon Go was fun back in the day, but I only care about the original 151.
From this user’s perspective, the game market on the iphone is completely broken. Apple makes it impossible to filter their storefront in a meaningful way, so they push the same crappy games year after year.
It’s really a big middle finger to their customers. I’m sure there are games I would love that I would have bought over the years, but Apple seems to prefer that I have to scroll through the flood of cookie-cutter pay-to-play money-grab games to maybe find something worthwhile and new somewhere down the list.
I wish someone would curate a list of worthwhile new stuff. There must be a ton of great, underappreciated stuff. That said, I wanted something to cut down on my phone use. The stuff with the features I really wanted was just Android, which surprised me but shouldn’t have.
To be fair, if there ever was a thread title screaming “spam! get your spam here! Spam!”
This is it.
Stand-alone apps do not really interest me. Some services have apps that work really well, others not so much. The worst I’ve seen is booking. I will be avoiding their services just to stay away from their app.
It’s a game originally developed a decade ago in Ukraine, it’s a simulator where you place people that form tribes and kingdoms and cities, fight each other, etc. It reminds me of Sim Earth or Populous from way back in the day.
It’s not really new, it has been out a few years on mobile, but I just discovered it. You have full “god mode” powers; reshape land, place biomes, introduce hazards like a storm or volcano, and so on. It’s like an ant farm with people that you can shake if you get bored.
It is technically free, though many options are locked. You can choose to watch a short ad to unlock specific features for a limited time, or pay a small amount of money and unlock everything. Or just play the basic version, there’s plenty to do. I enjoyed it so much I put down the money after a few days.
I’ve tried and uninstalled a bunch of mobile games this past month, that’s the only one I kept.