MacRumors

Video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto wants the gaming industry to stop "nickel-and-diming" users, and launch games at fixed prices (via Bloomberg).

As long as the upfront prices aren't too high, such "premium" games would create a more sustainable business model over the long term, Miyamoto says, seemingly referencing video games across mobile, console, and PC. The Super Mario creator made the comments during the Computer Entertainment Developers Conference on Wednesday in Yokohama, Japan.

“We’re lucky to have such a giant market, so our thinking is, if we can deliver games at reasonable prices to as many people as possible, we will see big profits,” Miyamoto said at the Computer Entertainment Developers Conference (CEDEC) on Wednesday in Yokohama, Japan.

Nintendo has tried both models on smartphones: in "Super Mario Run" it charged an upfront price of $9.99 to gain access to the full game, and in "Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp" and "Fire Emblem Heroes" it launched the games for free, with numerous opportunities for in-game purchases. Nintendo has previously said it prefers the pay-once structure of "Super Mario Run," but it still released two free-to-play apps in the year after that game launched.

Additionally, even one year after launch "Super Mario Run" had yet to reach an "acceptable profit point," while stories about revenue from the freemium games were consistently more positive. Miyamoto admits that the "Super Mario Run" model hasn't exactly been a success, but says the company will "continue pushing" the pay-once model forward in an effort to avoid freemium mobile games and promote a healthier, more "comfortable" development environment in the industry.

“I can’t say that our fixed-cost model has really been a success,” the usually candid Miyamoto said. “But we’re going to continue pushing it forward until it becomes entrenched. That way everyone can develop games in a comfortable environment. By focusing on bringing games to the widest range of people possible, we can continue boosting our mobile game business.”

Next, Nintendo will launch "Dragalia Lost" on iOS and Android in North America and Europe later this year, through a partnership with Japanese mobile developer Cygames. The payment structure of the game is unknown, but previous apps by Cygames have been reliant upon Japan's popular "gacha" system, which encourages players to spend real money on in-game currency that they can use to unlock random items.

In total, Nintendo's mobile game library includes the now-defunct "Miitomo," "Super Mario Run," "Fire Emblem Heroes," and "Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp." The next smartphone game inspired by a Nintendo property will be "Mario Kart Tour," expected to launch by March 2019.

Nintendo's new president, Shuntaro Furukawa, has said that mobile gaming will be a priority of his time leading the company, with plans to increase the output of smartphone games and launch a singular "game-changing" app that surges in popularity, akin to "Pokémon Go."

In iOS 12, Apple has added the ability to share pictures or video in your Photo Library using an iCloud.com link that lasts for 30 days.

Not only is sharing a link quicker and less burdensome on your data allowance than sending several images or gigabytes of video, you can also share the same link as many times as you want within the expiry limit.

For the new photo link option to appear, you'll need to ensure iCloud Photos is enabled on your iOS device. To do so, launch the Settings app, tap your Apple ID at the top, select iCloud -> Photos, and make sure the toggle next to iCloud Photos is on.

How to Share an iCloud Photo Link in iOS 12

1. Launch the Photos app on your iPhone or iPad
2. Tap the photo you want to link to. If you want to share a link to several photos, tap Select in the upper right corner of the screen and tap the photos you want to include.
3. Next, tap the Share Sheet button at the lower left corner of the screen.
   
   

4. Tap the Copy Link button in the third row of the Share Sheet.
5. Wait a moment while iCloud prepares your link.
6. Launch the app or service you want to use to share the link. We're using Messages in our example.
   
   

7. In the message text field, tap and hold your finger.
8. Tap Paste.
9. Send the message to share the link.

If you share the link over Messages and the recipient is using an iOS device, they'll see a tappable thumbnail of the shared photo(s). If they're on an Android device, they'll just see the URL.

Tapping the thumbnail/URL link will take them to an iCloud.com web page similar to the one above, with a preview image, the author's name, the photo's title, an expiry date, and an option to download the photo or add it to an existing Apple ‌Photos‌ library. If several photos have been shared, the recipient can select which ones they'd like to add or download.

To share the same link again within the 30-day time limit, or simply stop sharing the photo altogether, launch the ‌Photos‌ app and navigate to the For You tab, where you'll find a Recently Shared section.

Tap the photo you shared and then tap the blue dotted button in the upper right corner of the screen, and you should see two options: Copy Link and Stop Sharing.

Anker this week has debuted a large new collection of promo codes on Amazon, offering up to 45 percent off wireless chargers, Lightning cables, portable battery packs, and more. Most of the codes last through the end of the week, but some extend into September. We've listed a few of the best deals below, but for the full collection be sure to visit our Deals Roundup and scroll down to the "Anker Sale at Amazon" section.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

August Codes

• Soundcore Bluetooth Speaker - $23.99 with code SDC31021, down from $26.99 (exp. 8/25)

• Premium Double-Braided Nylon Lightning Cable 6ft (All 3 Colors) - $9.74 with code CABLELTN, down from $12.99 (exp. 8/26)

• PowerCore 5,000 External Battery - $15.99 with code ANKERPC9, down from $19.99 (exp. 8/26)

• PowerCore II Slim 10,000 Ultra Slim Power Bank - $28.79 with code ANKERPC2, down from $35.99 (exp. 8/26)

• PowerPort Wireless Charger - $10.99 with code ANKER1099, down from $19.99 (exp. 8/31)

• Powerline+ II Lightning Cable 10ft (All Colors) - $14.99 with code CABLE454, down from $19.99 (exp. 8/31)

• Soundcore Space Wireless Noise Canceling Headphones - $79.99 with code SDCORENC, down from $99.00 (exp. 9/2)

No Codes Needed

• eufy Smart Plug Mini - $15.99, down from $20.99 (exp. 8/25)

• Soundcore Motion B Portable Bluetooth Speaker - $27.98, down from $32.99 (exp. 8/26)

• PowerPort Cube, 3 Outlets and 3 USB Ports with Switch Control - $19.54, down from $25.99 (exp. 8/26)

• 5-in-1 Premium USB C Adapter - $43.99, down from $59.99 (exp. 8/26)

• Soundcore Motion B Portable Bluetooth Speaker - $27.98, down from $32.99 (exp. 8/26)

• Fast Wireless Charging Stand - $23.99, down from $29.99 (exp. 9/2)

On eBay, the retailer today kicked off its latest coupon code discount, this one aimed at end-of-summer savings on eyewear, smartphones, drones, luggage, and more. While not sitewide, anyone interested can browse the full list of supported sellers at the bottom of this landing page, add $25 worth of eligible items to your cart, and enter the code JUSTSAVE10 to save 10 percent on your order. This code lasts through 11:59 p.m. PT on August 26.

Pad and Quill is hosting a sitewide sale for Labor Day, allowing customers to save 15 percent sitewide. The sale doesn't require a coupon code, so you can simply browse Pad and Quill to see the discount automatically applied to the company's leather iPhone and iPad cases, wallets, bags, Apple Watch bands, and more.

Additionally, Best Buy is taking $30 off the latest iPad models. This means that the 9.7-inch 2018 iPad with 32GB is available for $299.99 and the 128GB model is $399.99, some of the best prices for these models online. You can also get $50 off the Apple Watch Series 3, with the GPS Aluminum models down to $279.00 (38mm) and $309.00 (42mm).

A few of Brydge's iPad keyboard offers are still up on its website as well, with the Brydge 9.7 available for $99.99, down from $129.99, and a Brydge 9.7 Bundle (with a 5,000 mAh portable battery and Lightning cable) available for $129.99, down from $179.99. Head over to Brydge's website to see more of its keyboards, including those supporting the 12.9-inch iPad Pro and iPad mini.

For more sales, check out our full Deals Roundup.

watchOS 5 introduces a new Podcasts app for Apple Watch, which is designed to let you listen to your favorite podcasts on the watch without the need for the iPhone.

Streaming podcasts works over Wi-Fi or a cellular connection, and you can also use the Podcasts app to play podcasts from a connected iPhone if desired.

Using the Podcasts App on Apple Watch

As with Apple Music, when using Podcasts on the Apple Watch, you will need to have a pair of AirPods or other Bluetooth headphones paired to your Apple Watch.

Once Bluetooth headphones are paired, you will need to tap on the Podcasts icon, which looks like a radio antenna on a field of purple, much like the Podcasts app icon on the iPhone. You can also ask Siri to open it.

The Podcasts app will open up to the most recent podcast among the podcasts you're subscribed to, and you can play it by tapping on it.

Music controls are available by scrolling with the Digital Crown or swiping and tapping on "Now Playing."

Viewing Your Library

To view your library of subscribed podcasts, follow these steps:

1. Open the Podcasts app.
2. Scroll down with the Digital Crown or Swipe to get to the list of app options.
3. Choose "Library."

The Library section of the Podcasts app will let you see all of the different podcasts that you subscribe to in the "Shows" section, and individual episodes in the "Episodes" section.

Scroll through each section using a swipe on the Apple Watch's face or the Digital Crown.

Adding New Podcast Subscriptions

To add new podcast subscriptions on the Apple Watch, you'll need to know the name of the podcast you want to add. You can subscribe using Siri, with a command like "Hey Siri, subscribe to Reply All" or Hey Siri, subscribe to The Daily podcast."

If you would rather listen to a podcast or a specific podcast without subscribing to it, you can ask Siri to play it with commands like "Hey Siri, Play Reply All," or "Hey Siri, Play episode 21 of The Daily."

Outside of subscribing to new podcasts using Siri, there is no way to browse through podcast content on the Apple Watch. If you want to find new podcasts to listen to, you'll need to use the Podcasts app on iPhone.

Offline Usage

Podcasts that are listed in the episodes section of the Podcasts app are downloaded to the Apple Watch and can be listened to even without a cellular or WiFi connection. According to Apple, podcasts are downloaded when the Apple Watch is connected to power and placed near the iPhone.

After an episode has been played, it will be removed from the Apple Watch to make room for new episodes.

Controlling Podcasts on iPhone From Apple Watch

If your phone is connected to your Apple Watch and there's a podcast playing, you'll see an "On Phone" section in the Apple Watch Podcasts app and there will be a little red icon on the Apple Watch's face.

If you tap on the "On iPhone" section in the Podcasts app, you'll see options for "Now Playing" with controls for the current content, a "Listen Now" section that shows recent podcasts, a "Shows" section that displays all of the shows you subscribe to, an "Episodes" section that displays all of the available episodes, and a "Stations" section that displays Podcasts stations created on iPhone.

Walmart today announced that it has partnered with Rakuten Kobo to launch its own dedicated eBooks platform, simply called Walmart eBooks. The service will be available as an iOS and Android application, as well as on Kobo's eReaders, and function similarly to rival eBook services from Apple and Amazon.

"More than six million" eBooks will be up for purchase on Walmart's site, and once you find your next book you can choose the "eBook" option, click "Buy", checkout, and find the book in any app or eReader synced to your Walmart account. It appears that you can't buy books directly from the iOS app, and can only download a sample of each novel to read.

In stores, Walmart will also debut "digital book cards" of nearly 40 novels, which will provide codes that you can then go home and redeem to save the eBook on your devices. The partnership is also introducing Kobo eReaders on Walmart.com and in 1,000 Walmart retail stores, starting at $99.99 with the Kobo Aura.

Summer is almost over, which means there are only a few more weeks left to soak up the sun and enjoy one of the beach reads all of your friends have been talking about. Today, we’re making it easier than ever to check out the latest new releases with the launch of Walmart eBooks by Rakuten Kobo, Walmart’s partnership with Kobo to offer an all-new digital books catalog in stores and online.

Walmart eBooks will complement our vast physical book assortment and offer customers a comprehensive digital book solution, introducing an entirely new category that hasn’t been previously available at Walmart.

The free Walmart eBooks app is available to download today from the iOS App Store [Direct Link], and will act as a hub for Walmart's new initiative, collecting your eBooks, audiobooks, graphic novels, and children's books on iPhone and iPad. Features include resizable text, a Night Mode, screen orientation lock, automatic bookmarks, bookmark syncing across devices, free book previews, and more.

The app provides "Awards" for accomplishing certain literary tasks, such as finishing a certain number of books, highlighting quotes, sharing a passage on social media, and more. The app will also track your reading stats and library activity, showing the percentage complete of the current book you're reading, the amount of time you've spent reading the book, and number of pages turned. Additionally, Walmart eBooks will track the total hours you spend reading, hours per book, pages per hour, pages per session, and more.

There's also a new audiobook subscription service that will let customers subscribe for $9.99 per month and gain access to one audiobook every month. Comparatively, Amazon's Audible service offers credit for one audiobook every month at $14.95 per month. Customers who sign up online will also get $10 off their first a la carte audiobook or eBook, and the audiobook service includes a 30-day free trial.

Walmart's entry into the eBook market comes eight years after Apple announced iBooks alongside the iPad in 2010, and just over ten years after Amazon's original Kindle launched in the United States alongside the Kindle eBooks store.

Ustwo Games' popular iOS and Android puzzle series "Monument Valley" is being turned into a movie, as reported this week by Deadline. Paramount Pictures and Weed Road Pictures have won the rights to the games, and Patrick Osborne has already been selected to develop and direct the first film.

Osborne won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short for his short film "Feast" in 2014, which was shown before "Big Hero 6" in theaters. He has also worked as an animator on Disney films including "Wreck-It Ralph" and "Bolt." With Monument Valley, Paramount and Weed Road are hoping to launch a family-friendly franchise if the first film does well enough.

“Monument Valley is a one of a kind experience, at once small in its meditative, simple gameplay, as well as enormous in its sense of history,” Osborne said. “I’m privileged to be handed the reins to Ida’s mysterious kingdom, to play in her world of impossible architecture where seeing things differently is everything. I am thrilled to bring this unique world to theaters with the talented storytellers of Paramount and Weed Road.”

In the games, players guide Ida (in the original) and Ro and her child (in the sequel) through a series of mazes that present optical illusion challenges that the player must manipulate to solve. In the film, "contemporary live-action characters" will be sent into Monument Valley's surreal world and have to figure out a way to get back home.

The original Monument Valley launched on iOS in 2014, and eventually won numerous awards including one of Apple's Design Awards for that year. The game also went on to be a financial success thanks in part to its avoidance of a free-to-play structure, and four years later the sequel nearly doubled the first-year revenue of the original game.

The New York Public Library today launched a new initiative it's calling "Insta Novels," in which it will post classic novels and short stories as Instagram Stories. You won't need a NYPL card or have to live nearby to gain access to Insta Novels as the feature will be available to anyone who has an Instagram account (via The Wall Street Journal).

To start off, the library is offering Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," and plans to next highlight Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis." The platform was built to "promote reading in general," as well as expand the brand recognition of the NYPL and its ability to "adapt to the digital era."

“We want people to understand that libraries aren’t just those brick-and-mortar places full of dusty books,” said Christopher Platt, the NYPL’s chief branch library officer.

Specifically, these novels and stories will be housed on the NYPL's Instagram page as Story Highlights. The library is dividing Alice's Adventures in Wonderland up in multiple parts, and Part 1 is available to read today. Once you open up the "Alice Part 1" story, the library has created an area on the page to rest your thumb on the screen.

The way Instagram Stories work is that when you place a finger on the story, it pauses as long as you continue to interact with it. So, in order to ensure you can read a full page without the story progressing at a fast speed, you can rest your thumb on the screen, and then lift it to turn the page. Alice Part 1 extends to page 83 and the sixth chapter of Lewis Carroll's novel, and Part 2 will be added as a Story Highlight tomorrow.

Unlike stories posted to the central area of Instagram, which disappear after 24 hours, stories that you add to your "Highlights" on your account page are permanent. This means that those reading Insta Novels don't have to worry about finishing the books in under a day, although there doesn't appear to be any way to save your progress if you don't finish the story in one sitting.

The library worked with advertising agency Mother in New York to create Insta Novels, with Mother chief creative officer Corinna Falusi stating that the experience is "unmistakably like reading a paperback novel."

Popular journaling app Day One reached version 3 today and introduced a number of new features for both free and premium users.

Headlining version 3 of the app is an all-new editor interface that the developers say has been built from the ground up. The action of editing an entry has been simplified so that now it's just a matter of tapping wherever in the entry text that you want to place the cursor.

Tapping the "Aa" icon now brings up a new Editor menu with entry formatting options including Headers, Bold, Italic, Lists, Quote Block, Code Block, Rule Line, and indents. Meanwhile, Markdown support continues to include auto-conversion of Headers, Lists, Bold, and Italic into rich text.

In addition, Advanced Markdown like tables and HTML are also now supported by means of a Code Block option that auto-detects existing content wrapped in a code block and remembers your viewing preference (code/HTML rendered).

Elsewhere in the new UI, there's a new entry content menu for for adding Photos, Camera, Audio, and Tags, a dynamic photo group collection grid, and entry checklists.

For Premium subscribers, Day One 3 brings a new Dark Mode that can be set to change with the local sunset/sunrise times. There's also a new Audio Recording feature that supports transcription using Apple's Speech dictation service and allows users to record 30 minutes of audio.

Day One 3 is a free download for iPhone and iPad from the App Store. [Direct Link] The Day One Premium subscription costs $34.99/year and is available via in-app purchase, while paid-app users of 2.0 get a lifetime discount for $24.99/year, also available via in-app purchase.