Up Ahead

Countdown apps have been around since the dawn of the App Store. Even before smartphones were a thing, people marked off days on their wall calendars to count down to a big event. I’m not sure what people used before wall calendars, but I’m sure they had some way to keep track of how many days stood between them and whatever it was they were looking forward to.

The truth is that humans love countdowns.

I’ve personally never gotten into these sorts of tools, but when Up Ahead by Daniel Gauthier came out recently, I had to give it a try based on its unique design alone. The app is beautiful. And in case you can’t tell from the fact that I’m writing a blog post about it, Up Ahead ended up sticking for me.

As I’ve previously written about, I use a combination of Calendar, Reminders, and my day planner Structured to keep track of events and tasks. But even with this combination, I found that there was a still a hole in my setup. (Am I destined to keep finding apps that fill smaller and smaller gaps in my life for the rest of my days? It’s a possibility.)

There are events that I look forward to but don’t necessarily want taking up space in my calendar. These are things like movie and TV show premieres or events in games that I play. But because I don’t have a system for recording them, they often end up slipping through the cracks. I realize too late that a movie I want to see comes out tomorrow and tickets are sold out, or that I’ve missed something cool in Pokémon Go because I wasn’t paying attention.

That’s where a countdown app like Up Ahead can come in handy for me. I now have a place to put events that aren’t urgent or even all that consequential but still worth keeping track of.

Of course, I also use Up Ahead to count down to big events like my wife’s birthday and trips we’re planning, but that’s mostly just to add to the anticipation. That stuff is too important not to be front-and-center on my calendar. However, a continual countdown is a fun way to keep those important events in mind as they get closer.

So even though I started out skeptical that I would have any use for Up Ahead, its gorgeous design and usefulness combine to make something that I enjoy opening every day. It’s even made its way onto my home screen. That’s why I decided to write up this quick overview of the app’s features and what I love about it, just in case you might find some use for it, too.

View fullsize

The Up Ahead timeline features all of your upcoming events.

Up Ahead’s main feature is the timeline, a running list of all of your events. As you scroll through your timeline, you’ll see how many days are left until an event occurs and, if applicable, how many gap days there are between events. The timeline is a simple, straightforward way to see what’s happening and what’s coming up.

Of course, the timeline is only useful once you’ve added your events to it. In the bottom right corner of the timeline is a + button that opens the New Event pane. This screen is full options for customizing an event before adding it to your timeline.

Events in Up Next have the following properties:

• Name

• Date

• Category

• Color

• Pattern

Naming an event is pretty straightforward. You can call it whatever you like. Assigning a date can be as simple as picking the day that you’re counting down to, but Up Ahead also gives you some options. You can add a time to your event in the bottom right corner of the date picker, and you can set an end date if the event lasts more than one day. Finally, events can repeat on a regular basis every week, every two weeks, every month, or every year. (Yearly events are a great way to remember loved ones’ birthdays!)

Each event is also assigned a category, which is represented by a symbol. There are lots of symbols to choose from with a search box to help you find just what you’re looking for. Categories might seem at first like a simple way to add a bit of flair to the timeline (which they certainly do), but there’s more to them than that. They allow you to organize your events into groups, and that organization is very useful once your timeline is full of events. At any time, you can filter the timeline to only show events from a certain category.

For example, I have a category in Up Ahead for upcoming TV show debuts, represented of course by the TV icon. If I want to look at a list of just my TV-related events, I can tap the filter button in the top left corner of the timeline, choose the TV icon, and voila. Now I see a list of my upcoming TV shows in a single, clean timeline.

Categories also come in handy when using Up Ahead’s widgets, which we’ll get into later. Suffice it to say that organizing your events into categories from the start will pay dividends for you down the line.

I find it interesting that categories are assigned an icon but not a color. Personally, I prefer for all of the events in a given category to have the same color, but Up Ahead allows you to set any color for an event regardless of its category.

View fullsize

Up Ahead has a variety of fun patterns.

Beyond color and category icon, you can customize the look of your events with patterns. These background decorations for your events come in all varieties and are unlocked as you perform certain tasks in the app. This gives Up Ahead a bit of gamification and encourages users to keep exploring. I’ve personally unlocked 20 patterns so far but hope to discover more. They’re quite a bit of fun to collect, and you can always check your progress in the pattern gallery.

Creating events and keeping track of them in the timeline are the big features of Up Ahead, and in that sense, it’s pretty similar to other countdown tools you might have seen before. But for me, it’s the small details and design considerations that really set the app apart from the crowd.

I love the look of the timeline and the way it invites you to look forward to the events you’re planning. The timeline can also be customized to only show the details you’re interested in and to format dates in the way that makes the most sense to you. If you like customizing apps to your liking, Up Ahead offers a handful of color themes and app icons to choose from, too.

Widgets are another feature of Up Ahead that I really appreciate. The Countdown widget allows you to select a particular event and add its countdown to your home or lock screen. And the Coming Up widget lists whatever’s next in your timeline. The Coming Up widget can be filtered by category, so you can have one widget listing upcoming TV shows and another for holidays or whatever else you’re looking forward to. Personally, I have a Coming Up widget on my phone so I can see the next three events on my timeline without opening the app.

View fullsize

The Coming Up widget is my favorite way to quickly check in on my next few events.

Up Ahead also offers three Shortcuts actions: Create Event, Get Next Event, and Get Days Until Event. I haven’t had a chance to try these out in my own shortcuts yet, but I imagine they can be quite useful, and they show the amount of care and effort that went into the app.

And I think that’s what sticks out to me about Up Ahead. Yes, it’s useful, and I appreciate its utility. But more than that, I appreciate it as a tool that’s been meticulously crafted. The developer really put his heart into Up Ahead, and it shows on every screen. There’s a consideredness and a whimsy to the app that I can’t help but be drawn in by.

The fact that the developer cares so much makes me hopeful for its future, too. Up Ahead has already received its first big update, the Low-Hanging Fruit Update, which added some nice customization options. And Daniel Gauthier has put out a list other potential updates in a sort-of loose road map that makes me very excited for what’s to come.

Of course, there are a few things I hope to see added to the app. Right now, it’s iPhone-only, and I’d like to see it come to more devices. I can run the iPhone app on my iPads and Macs, but it’s a bit of a limited experience. And I really think this is the kind of tool that makes sense on the Apple Watch. I’d love to be able to scroll my timeline on my wrist.

iCloud syncing is another feature I think Up Ahead is in need of. Right now, the app automatically backs up events to iCloud Drive for safekeeping, but it doesn’t sync events across devices. As someone who likes having all of my information everywhere, I’ve been able to turn this backup system into a sort of manual sync, but it’s clunky and not ideal. I imagine that if the app ever expands beyond the iPhone, iCloud sync will come along with it.

Finally, I’d like the ability to share events with other people. The app will generate a nice image of an event that you can share with others, but you can’t actually send someone an Up Ahead event that they can add to their device. Shared events and even shared categories would be a welcome addition in a future update.

As it is today, Up Ahead is a wonderful countdown app that I so enjoy using. Its design is impeccable, and the experience of using the app only adds to my excitement for the events I’m counting down to. If you haven’t yet, I encourage you to give Up Ahead a try and see how much fun countdowns can be when they’re done this well.

Up Ahead is available on on the App Store as free download. An in-app subscription to Up Ahead Plus includes unlimited events, repeating and multi-day events, widgets, and more for $1.50/month, $10/year, or a one-time payment of $30.

Apple’s New Color Story

This is an update to my article on Apple’s color offerings going into the fall hardware season. Now that things have settled down a bit from the big announcements, I think it’s time to analyze Apple’s new color story.

Apple Watch

My biggest complaint about the Apple Watch Series 7 was that there was no neutral color option for the aluminum models. That problem has been fixed this year, with silver joining starlight, midnight, and red in the Apple Watch lineup. I’m really happy with this set of choices, though I know some might be disappointed that the blue and green finishes have gone away. Personally, I prefer an accessory that can go with any outfit over a bold color. But if you loved one of those finishes, I certainly feel for you.

The Apple Watch SE comes in silver, starlight, and midnight, which is a great range of choices for such an affordable product. I’ve seen these SEs in action, and they are really good. They’re going to sell well this holiday season.

The Apple Watch Ultra offers no color options, which is not a complete surprise for a high-end Apple device. I imagine the space black titanium finish will come back at some point, but for this year, silver titanium will have to do.

iPhone

The iPhone 14 still doesn’t offer a true neutral color option like silver or black, which is disappointing. However, I do think that midnight looks more neutral in glass than aluminum, so maybe a black iPhone isn’t quite as necessary. I still think there are iPhone users who’d like a true white option, though.

As far as the colorful options on the iPhone 14, we’ve got red, blue, and purple. I love the pale look of the purple and blue phones, but I’ve heard some people complain that they’re too washed out. They definitely don’t match the rich red finish, but if I were an iPhone 14 user, I’d be delighted by that purple myself.

The pro iPhones come in space black, silver, gold, and deep purple this year. That deep purple is gorgeous, both in photos and in person. I love it. Silver and gold are mostly unchanged, which is fine because they’ve looked great for a long time. Space black is a huge improvement over graphite. It’s much darker both on the stainless steel sides and the back glass. I thought I would go with deep purple this year, but the surprise of the space black won me over.

The pro iPhone color options are better this year than any previous year. My only complaint is that I can’t buy an Apple Watch to match my space black iPhone without spending $1,300 on an Hermès version. That’s not happening. Hopefully space black fully replaces graphite on the stainless steel Apple Watch Series 9 next year.

iPads

This year’s iPad updates caused a lot of commotion in the Apple community, but one opinion that seemed to be universally shared was an appreciation for the color offerings on the tenth-generation iPad. The blue, pink, and yellow hues look rich and fun, and then there’s a silver option for those who prefer something more subtle. They nailed it.

The iPad Pro comes in space grey and silver, as usual. I know some iPad Pro users wish for more colorful options on the higher end, but I just don’t see it happening. In Apple’s world, pros don’t get to have fun like that.

The rumors are pointing to no new Macs this year, so I guess that part of the story will have to wait for another day. I don’t expect the color options on Macs to change much anytime soon, though I’d love to be wrong.

Takeaways

All in all, I’m much happier with this lineup than last year’s. There’s always room for improvement, including a wider array of colors on the standard iPhone line. I’d also like to see silver or space grey return with the iPhone 15 and space black replace graphite on the Apple Watch Series 9. But this year was certainly a correction for Apple’s color story. Hopefully they continue that trend into 2023.

Double Standard

With the announcement of the iPhone 12 in 2020, Apple revealed a change in the product’s packaging and included accessories: Each phone would ship without a charging adapter (the white plastic brick you plug into the wall), allowing the company to significantly shrink the size of the box and fit more iPhones in fewer shipping containers. Why would they do something like this? It depends who you ask.

Apple claims that this was an environmental measure. Many people already have chargers at home, so they often end up in a landfill. Smaller packaging and more efficient shipping can lead to massive environmental gains at the scale of the iPhone. It’s not that Apple doesn’t want to include the charger in the box; it’s just not good for the planet.

But outside the company, people have different theories. Just like the transition to the Lightning connector on the iPhone 5, many saw this decision as a money-grab. The company charges $20 for a charging adapter in their online store. That may not seem like a significant amount of money, but when you multiply it by the number of people who buy an iPhone and don’t have a charging adapter, it adds up to big revenue.

I tend to believe that Apple was being genuine in saying that this decision was meant to help the environment. But I can certainly understand the skepticism around it as well. After all, this change came only a year after the company completely redesigned the iPhone charging adapter to use USB-C and support faster charging, meaning that anyone who hadn’t just bought an iPhone 11 the year before wouldn’t have a charger at home—at least not one with the latest fancy charging technology.

The response to Apple’s decision was an expected wave of fury, think pieces, and even a few lawsuits. Customers were understandably upset by the fact that the company had made a decision that inconvenienced and financially impacted them without truly recognizing that fact. Most of us are happy to make some sacrifices for the future of our planet, but the way this was handled just didn’t sit right.

Personally, I was onboard with the decision. It might have been a year too early, and it certainly wasn’t communicated well, but I thought it was the right call in the long run. Short-term pain in exchange for a long-term investment in the environment seemed like a fair trade to me, though I still certainly sympathized with those were annoyed.

Over time, the public anger seemed to die down. And then, of course, Apple’s competitors started making similar announcements of their own, one by one. It became the norm, and we all moved on. Now no one bats an eye at the fact that we live in a post-charger-in-the-box world.

I bring all of this up not to rehash old debates, but to give context for a recent story from my own life.

My wife purchased an Apple Watch Series 8, so we’ve been preparing to sell her Series 7 when the new one arrives. Thinking through the process, I voiced my concern that we didn’t have an extra power adapter to include in the sale. We’d have to give the buyer one of ours and replace it. (I wasn’t too upset because I’d been secretly hoping to upgrade my power adapter anyway.)

And then we had a brief conversation that honestly left me dumbfounded.

“Did Apple include a charging brick when we bought the watch?” she asked.

“No,” I responded. “They don’t do that anymore.” (Apple stopped shipping power adapters with the Apple Watch at the same time as the iPhone.)

“Then why would we need to include one when we sell it?“

I had no answer. My mind literally froze. The idea of selling someone an Apple Watch without everything they’d need to enjoy it had never crossed my mind. It seemed preposterous to me. And yet, when Apple did the same thing to me and their millions of other customers, I didn’t protest a bit.

It’s a double standard, plain and simple. I was okay with a company I love doing one thing; meanwhile, I was quite uncomfortable with doing the same thing myself.

Have I been so blinded by my adoration for Apple that I can’t bring myself to criticize any of their choices? I certainly hope not. I don’t think I’ve fallen that far. But it’s apparent that in this case at least, I was giving the company a pass on something I hadn’t quite thought through.

Given this realization, I now had to find a way to reconcile my two minds on this matter. Should I stand my ground and refuse to include a charger in order to be consistent? Should I start getting mad at Apple for something they did two years ago? I had to solve the double standard somehow.

I’m not finished working through it yet, but I think I’m still somewhere in the middle on the issue, though not exactly where I started. I still think that Apple’s decision did more good than harm and that it was the right move long-term. But there should have been a better option for people who, unlike me, couldn’t use their products with just what was included in the box. Maybe a free charging adapter with their order only if they requested it? That would have mitigated a lot of the damage, even if the option was only offered for a year or two as everyone transition to the new USB-C chargers.

At my scale, on a one-to-one basis, I can’t rationalize selling someone a device without a charger. At a macro level, Apple has a lot more to take into consideration than I do: the environment, waste, shipping. But when it comes down to it, there’s still a person at the other end of that transaction who wants to use their device, and that individual experience still matters.

Is it morally wrong for Apple to sell products without the charger included? I still don’t think so, especially since it’s not as much of a surprise to customers anymore. But I didn’t appreciate just how inconsiderate it was until I thought about it from this alternate perspective.

As a seller, I’m not okay with giving someone only part of what they’ll need in order to enjoy their new product. I will at the very least confirm with the buyer that they have something to charge their watch with even if I don’t give them a charger myself. That’s just not a line I’m willing to cross.

But there’s clearly a line I have crossed when it comes to holding companies like Apple to the same standards I apply to myself. Double standards are not a good thing; it felt icky realizing I’d allowed myself to develop one. Hopefully I’ve not made room for them on issues more significant than Apple Watch chargers, but if I have, I’m now on the lookout.

Long story short: I need to be more careful about defending the decisions of Apple and others that I admire. Also, I’m definitely including a charger when I sell the watch.

Apple and Color

Over the past year, I’ve become increasingly concerned about the color options available on Apple’s latest products. I’m not the only one, with this topic serving as endless inspiration for podcast discussions and blog posts. The company’s fall hardware announcements are on the horizon, so I thought now would be as good a time as any to offer my thoughts on the subject. Let’s talk about Apple and color.

When Apple Got Color Right

What frustrates me the most about the color offerings on Apple’s products is that at this time last year, it felt like the company was this close to a cohesive, intelligible, customer-friendly approach to color. We had been moving in that direction for a while.

• The iPhone XR in 2018 brought fun colors back to the iPhone line for the first time since 2013’s iPhone 5c. These colors looked great, especially the coral option. The variety of colors, combined with the fact that it was the first somewhat affordable iPhone with the iPhone X-style design, made the iPhone XR a hit and set the stage for a big move the following year.

• In 2019, the XR was replaced by the iPhone 11, which came in new fun color options. Between the XR and the 11, the iPhone was offered in every color of the rainbow, which meant customers could own an iPhone in their favorite color no matter what that color was.

• The 2020 iPad Air not only featured a complete redesign, but the option to purchase an iPad in blue, pink, or even green.

• At the same event as the iPad Air, the company introduced the Apple Watch Series 6, which came in colors for the first time. The product was available in blue and red in addition to the expected silver, black, and gold finishes.

• The iPhone 12 continued the trend of offering new color choices to those who upgraded, this time with a twist: A new option, purple, was introduced in the spring. This mid-cycle addition was repeated with the iPhone 13 and 13 Pro, adding another element of fun and surprise to Apple’s color story.

• At the end of 2020, the AirPods Max were released in the same colors as the iPad Air. Colorful headphones from Apple? It seemed impossible, but it was true!

• Of course, the epitome of this story came with the release of the M1 iMac in spring of 2021. This product came in every color of the rainbow (matching Apple’s classic six-color rainbow logo), and the aluminum finishes really popped. Each option came with a matching keyboard, mouse or trackpad, and even Lightning cable. The colors were bold and downright delightful.

Of course, during this time, the Pro product lines continued to come in fewer and more reserved finishes. Silver and black pervaded, with the occasional addition of a dark, muted color option in the iPhone Pro lines. And lower-end products were only offered in limited finishes to keep prices down. But, for the products that most people bought most of the time, there were at least a few true color options beyond the typical neutral tones. And the color options looked like they were growing.

Based on Apple’s product offerings over these years, there seemed to be a cohesive strategy emerging when it came to which products came in which colors. One’s color choices would depend on whether the product in question was a budget, consumer, or professional device.

View fullsize

There’s a bit of generalizing here, but this is the pattern that emerged beginning with the introduction of the iPhone XR and continuing into the early days of Apple Silicon Macs. Rumors for impending updates to the MacBook Air and Mac Mini lines suggested that this pattern would continue.

Clearly, those rumors were mistaken.

Off the Rails

At last year’s September event, something happened with Apple’s color options that I’m still trying to wrap my head around. The company boasted about two new beautiful finishes: starlight and midnight. Starlight is a champagne sort of color, like a mix between silver and gold but without any glimmer. Midnight is a very dark blue color that looks almost matte black under certain light, but never quite black.

Apple seemed very proud of these colors—so much so that the company rebuilt their color offerings around them. Starlight replaced the silver finish on the iPhone 13, aluminum Apple Watch Series 7, and iPad mini. And midnight replaced black (also known as space grey in Apple land) on the iPhone and aluminum Apple Watch as well. To make matter worse, the iPhone 13 and aluminum Apple Watch Series 7 came in fewer color options than before.

This put customers looking to buy Apple’s consumer-grade products in a tough position: Their color choices were limited, and the neutral options they’d grown used to were nowhere to be found. They’d been replaced by these new colors that looked kind of like the old colors, but not enough to blend in the way silver and space grey could. Those who didn’t like the limited color options available were forced to choose between these two new, foreign finishes that looked like they were from a slightly altered version of our world.

Silver and black suddenly were limited to professional, high-end products like the iPhone 13 Pro and the stainless steel Apple Watch—except for the odd exceptions like the space grey iPad mini and the base model iPad, which still comes in silver and space grey. This one event turned Apple’s mostly cohesive color story into a mess.

Personally, I was deflated. I was planning to upgrade my Apple Watch Series 4 to a Series 7, but I hated every aluminum finish available, and I didn’t want to pay more for stainless steel just to get a neutral color option. (Full honesty: I did eventually cave and buy a stainless steel Apple Watch in black, which Apple calls graphite.) Why were the colors I liked suddenly unavailable to me?

It’s not that I have a particular problem with starlight or midnight. They aren’t for me, but I’m sure a lot of people think they’re great. I just don’t understand why they abruptly became the standard finishes at the exact moment the color options became more limited. That one-two punch didn’t feel great to me.

As time went on, the color story didn’t get much better. Last year’s Apple Silicon MacBook Pro came in the expected finishes: silver and space grey. But the recently-released M2 MacBook Air, which was anticipated to come in a variety of colors, instead offered four non-colorful finishes: silver, space grey, starlight, and midnight.

It’s odd to see all four of these neutral/neutral-ish choices in one product line; I would have expected either starlight/midnight or silver/space grey plus at least one colorful option. Alas, that was not the case. If Apple’s color strategy has any sort of rhyme or reason at this point, I can’t see it. And it makes me sad.

What Happened?

All of this leads me to wonder why Apple chose to go in this new color direction. Of course, we’re never going to get a direct answer to that sort of question from the company itself. That’s not how they roll. But a few different explanations have been floated in the community over the past year.

First of all, it’s possible that Apple is changing up the color story just to do something different. Repetition and predictability aren’t good for business. And with something as ever-changing as color preferences on a global scale, the company can’t afford to sit still.

It also could be that supply chain issues caused by the pandemic have forced Apple to scale back on their color options. It’s easier and cheaper to only produce a few different finishes, so when things get tricky and something has to be sacrificed, color options get thrown out.

Or Apple are so proud of these new finishes they’ve crafted that they’re sure everyone else will love them, and thus they’ve become the new default. Silver and black have been Apple’s go-to colors for so long; the decision to replace them with starlight and midnight could not have been made lightly. But if the company believed in those colors enough, they may have decided it was worth it.

I’m not sure that any of these explanations tells the whole story, and none of them make me feel better about the current choices on offer. But I also know that these decisions are taken seriously, so they can’t have come out of the blue.

Looking Ahead

That’s where we’ve been. Where do we go from here?

I think that starlight and midnight are here to stay. Apple clearly loves them, and I’m sure many customers do, too. I can accept that. I’d just like to see a truly neutral option added back into the consumer products. Can we at least have silver back, if not also space grey? The fact that the new MacBook Air is offered in all four finishes might mean that silver and space grey are coming back to more products.

All of those neutral/neutral-ish tones aside, people love fun colors, and I’d like to see Apple take the iMac approach with more products. Is it a lot of work to keep all of those options in stock and sorted out? I’m sure it is. But people love them, and it honestly could lead to some earlier upgrades. If a consumer isn’t totally thrilled about the finish they chose out of the limited iPhone 13 lineup, they might be tempted to get an iPhone 14 in their favorite color. (Personally, I’m rooting for a purple iPhone 14 Pro.)

Consistency in Apple’s color offerings may be too much to ask in the long-term. Fashion is a fickle thing, and people’s feelings about colors shift over time. So while I’d like to see my fancy chart become the reality, I understand that it’s not a likely scenario. But if we can at least get back to a point where we’re given a true neutral option in addition to at least a few fun, delightful color options, I think we’ll be okay.

Apple’s color story went off-script last year, but I hope it’s coming back around to an approach that makes a little more sense. Will the company’s color strategy in 2022 be more well-received than last year? We’ll find out soon at their September 7 event. I’ve got my fingers crossed for some good news and a bright, colorful future ahead.

Lifeslide

For years, I’ve lived in a vicious cycle when it comes to video games. It goes something like this:

• I hear about a game that interests me.

• I read up on it to see if I’ll actually like it, then decide I will.

• I buy the game.

• I get very excited to play the game while I wait for it to arrive/release.

• The games arrives.

• I load up the game and expectantly hit the Start button.

• I play the game for a few hours and declare that I love it.

• I turn the game off and go to bed.

• I forget about the game.

• I never play the game again.

It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even trust myself to buy new games anymore. I can’t stick with them, even ones that I really like. Even ones that I love, like the re-release of Super Mario 64 that came out last year. I was so excited to play back through that game and relive my childhood. But you know what? I got halfway through and forgot about it. What a waste!

I’m not sure why this is the case. Maybe it’s a part of growing up and finding new interests, or it’s that I’m too busy in general, or it’s that gaming doesn’t have the same social aspect for me that it used to. Regardless, it is very, very rare for a game to stick with me anymore, and it’s not from a lack of trying.

That’s why I was intrigued by the introduction of Apple Arcade. For $5/month, I could have access to a wide variety of games on my phone, tablet, and TV. The cost was low enough that I could justify it if I got any amount of entertainment from the service, and I wouldn’t have to feel bad if I moved from game to game. It seemed ideal for someone like me.

What I didn’t expect was to find my new favorite video game, but that’s what happened.

Not long into my Arcade subscription, after trying a few games and bouncing off of them almost immediately, I came across this quirky-looking flight simulator and thought, “That might be worth a try.” So I downloaded Lifeslide by Dreamteck and started it up.

I was immediately captured. In the game, you control a paper airplane as it flies through a series of gorgeous levels representing the various stages of a person’s life. You start at birth and work your way through an entire lifespan, collecting power-ups and new planes as you go. Each stage has different environments and challenges that reflect where you are in the lifecycle.

View fullsize

One of the many gorgeous levels in Lifeslide.

The game is elegant in its simplicity. To control your plane, all you have to do is tilt your device. Of course, you can use a controller if you prefer to play that way, or if you’re on the big screen. But the tilt controls are my favorite because they’re very intuitive. They make you feel connected to this place as you try to keep it airborne through all the ups and down of life.

I don’t know how long it took me to play through Lifeslide the first time, but it wasn’t long. The game isn’t particularly drawn out or difficult, attributes that work in its favor in my view. I enjoyed the game so much that as soon as I beat it, I decided to start over. I ended up playing it through multiple times over many hours.

Eventually, the developers added a zen mode that I played even more than the main story. In that mode, you don’t even have to worry about the challenges or keeping your plane afloat. You just steer and enjoy the scenery. I logged so many hours playing zen mode on Lifeslide—more than on any video game in the past few years for sure.

Something about it just clicks with my brain in a way no other game has. It’s effect is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. It doesn’t induce a particularly strong reaction, negative or positive. I don’t get excited or frustrated when playing through. I just feel present. Engaged. Maybe even peaceful. And when I finish a gaming session, I don’t feel like I’ve spent any energy. In fact, I feel more calm and centered than I did when I started. It leaves me feeling relaxed, and that’s nothing something I can say about any other game I’ve played.

I’m not a particularly adept multitasker. When I’m playing a game, I usually have to focus very intently. (That’s partially because of my one-track mind and particularly because I’m bad at video games.) But when I’m playing Lifeslide, I don’t feel that way. I can carry on a conversation or listen to a podcast while simultaneously flying my little plane. I’ve never had an experience like that, and it’s really nice.

Most people think that the purpose of a video game is to have fun or be entertained, but that’s not what Lifeslide does for me. It does something more than that. It appeals to a part of my brain that isn’t usually engaged, and I honestly think it’s good for my mental health.

Which is why I was so sad to see Lifeslide on a list of games leaving Apple Arcade recently. It must not be accomplishing what Apple are going for with their service, and so they’ve decided not to renew their contract with the developers. In fact, it’s already been delisted from the App Store. My favorite game will soon be gone.

That’s the flip side of these subscription services, I suppose. We get access to all of these great things, but they aren’t ever really ours. That’s usually a tradeoff I’m willing to make, but in this case, I really wish there was a way I could own Lifeslide.

It’s available on a couple of other platforms that I don’t have access to, and the developers are apparently working on a version for the Nintendo Switch, which I would buy in a heartbeat. But what I really hope is that Lifeslide makes its way back into the App Store as an independent purchase. I would love to be able to support the developers directly, and I would be overjoyed to have Lifeslide live permanently on my devices.

For now, I’ll enjoy the last bit of access I have to the game on Apple Arcade. I know that one day soon, I’ll open it up and receive a message that it’s no longer accessible. I’ve accepted that fact. But it still makes me sad, and I hate to see it go.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever connect with another game the way I have with Lifeslide. The enjoyment I’ve gotten out of it is so unique. I guess it’s time to pick up the search again. But I’ll always cherish the time I spent playing Lifeslide, and if I ever somehow get the opportunity, I’ll definitely be diving back in.

Who knew a digital paper airplane flying through artistic landscapes would mean so much to a serial game abandoner? Not me, but I’m grateful for it.

So here’s to Lifeslide, a game that gave me many hours of enjoyment and always left with a sense of calm when I needed it. Wherever it lands after flying away from Apple Arcade, I hope we cross paths again. Either way, it’s been quite a ride.