Start menu and the new calendar widget.

React Native though.

I have listened to audio books since car radios with cassette slots exist, predating CarPlay in decades.

Still no CarPlay here.

Delivery, and not wanting to target each platform individually.

The Chrome OS Platform (given the browser engines left) is the most successful WORA since UNCOL was introduced as idea in 1958.

I would rather that we kept Web for documents and everything else native with networking protocols.

This isn't new however, Applets, ActiveX, Silverlight, Flash, NaCL and PNaCL, asm.js, plugins,...

Running LibGDX on the browser has a certain Applets revenge feeling to it.

Until something else takes over the domains where C++ rules, it is what we have, even the crustacean compiler is built on top of C++ infrastructure (LLVM/GCC).

While I agree it has a certain Perl feeling and I used to advocate for functions/operators, e.g. reflex or similar, it still feels better than unicode operators in FP languages or the two macro systems used by Rust.

At least being based on compile time execution infrastructure means you can debug it on IDEs, Clion already has some work into that direction.

https://blog.jetbrains.com/clion/2025/09/introducing-constex...

Except only a few countries in the world have wages where their citizens can afford Apple.

While I can afford Apple, out of principle I am not buying anything above 300 euros, that requires me to also buy another computer for hobby coding, and a dev license.

All my use of Apple hardware is via projects where pool devices are assigned to the delivery team.

Mobile providers usually offer loans ("service contracts") where people get phones outside their financial standing (I regularly see high end iPhones and foldable phones of €1-2k run by people in a country where average monthly salary is less than €1k): if a highly visible device like your phone can be had for 10% of your monthly salary, people will, unfortunately, opt for it.

I tend to not use Apple not due to cost (I honestly believe it's OK to pay a premium for quality; I might disagree they offer it today though, as I do use a couple of their devices at work), but because of how closed their ecosystem is (and yes, all my personal devices are running some sort of Linux, and Android phones are rooted and with bootloader unlocked).

Many countries prefer the freedom of pre-pay/post-pay than being bound by contracts though.

Not everyone has the US culture of running their life on credit.

Because when life changes, it isn't only their phone they lose.

The only single time I had a contract, because it was the only way to get a Nokia N70, I learnt never to do another one ever again.

Are you sure it is your whole country or it's you?

I mostly buy my phones outright too, but I am under no impression that everybody else does it as well.

I've only seen the carrier locked phones and long-term contracts in a handful of countries. I've lived in a lot of countries on three continents.

In many places the default is prepaid SIMs with separately purchased phones. Sometimes the prepaying can be automated (e.g. in Russia), sometimes it involves you physically going to a shop once a month or so (e.g. in Egypt).

In my country, for example, buying phones from carriers as part of your plan just isn't a thing. As in, you couldn't do it even if you wanted to. Same for postpaid plans and contracts.

As a result, quite a lot of people use the "I can't believe they could make and sell an entire phone at this price" Xiaomi and similar phones.

The planet is full of such countries, it isn't only me.

This is one of Apple's marketing strategy.

Faux luxury.

Totally works in the US too on teens, moms, and lower middle class people.

It's getting to French teens unfortunately.

They'll make fun of the kid who has a Galaxy S24 while proudly showing off their aging iPhone 12...

In LibGDX, that is great!

Yeah, libGDX is my go to now for web-based emulators and interpreters. JVIC is the third one I've written now. The other two are JOric and AGILE:

https://oric.games/

https://agi.sierra.games/

They all use the GWT html target. I realise that there is now also a TeaVM target. I might try converting JVIC to use TeaVM at some point.

I still remember when it used to be all the rage before Unity and Unreal took off, especially in Android indie games.

JVIC (the libGDX version of JVIC) actually started out as mainly an Android project 10 years ago, but I didn't release it at that time. It was only a few months ago that I decided to add the html platform as a target, tidied it up in general, and thought it was time to release it. Given that this html version can be installed as an app on android phones, I'm not sure I need the android target anymore :D. It avoids the whole play store / app store process.

Thanks to US, Huawei now is fully independent of US technology and they have all relevant apps for the Chinese market, using one of those microkernels that apparently are useless.

I share the feeling, but too many hobbies already. :)

The Apple that offers gold statues to authoritarian regimes would certainly behave differently.

People also forget how they kind of always played ball in similar governments.