The tinyPod is a case for your Apple Watch, which probably doesn’t sound too exciting on its own. However, its unique angle — a click wheel that controls the watch’s Digital Crown — makes Apple’s wearable look and feel (at least in its marketing) like the company’s first breakthrough product of the 21st century: the iPod. Although you can use it as a music player, it also works with everything else in watchOS, transforming Apple’s smartwatch into a minimalist, distraction-free “phone.”
The $80 tinyPod works with Apple Watch models in Series 4 through 9, along with the Apple Watch SE. (The 41/40mm and 45/44mm Apple Watches have separate tinyPods.) Meanwhile, another 49mm version for the Apple Watch Ultra — because who wouldn’t want to turn their $800 wearable into a minimalist phone? — costs $90. There’s also tinyPod lite, a $30 case sans click wheel.
That click wheel is its core gimmick, and its creator apparently believes it will be safe from Apple’s lawyers. (The fact that it relies on an Apple product probably doesn’t hurt.) The case’s wheel syncs its movement with the Apple Watch’s Digital Crown via “carefully mechanized components inside” that make “direct rotation contact with your Apple Watch crown.” In other words, anywhere on watchOS that lets you scroll with the crown will be scrollable with the tinyPod click wheel. In theory, anyway.
Newar / tinyPod
The tinyPod website says it can support multi-day battery life by turning off the watch’s wrist detection (which you don’t need here). But living up to that may be a tall order, given how short the battery life of cellular Apple Watches tends to be when used without a phone in Bluetooth range. Of course, you could use a GPS-only model (or turn off cellular) and stick to locally stored music, but that would also limit what it can do.
tinyPod is the product of Newar, a former Snap designer and one-time jailbreak guru. In May, the creator posted that it began as a side project before being transformed into “a real, shipping product for one reason: Whenever I left the house with it, I loved how I felt.”
Whether the tinyPod lives up to its billing as a minimalist, distraction-free and nostalgia-laden “phone” or not, its creator appears to have put significant thought into aesthetics, clarity of purpose and consistency in marketing. Its website demonstrates an eye for detail that relishes in its iPod inspiration, including era-appropriate Apple fonts and a teaser video in a classic 4:3 aspect ratio. (Cue silhouettes dancing to Gorillaz.)
The tinyPod is available for pre-order ahead of shipments “this summer.” You can reserve one today at the product website.
While it didn’t technically start last year, in 2023 we saw an increase in the number of games offering “early access” for a price. Mortal Kombat 1, The Crew: Motorfest, Starfield, Diablo 4, and a few others all offered players an option: Pay the standard price to play the game at launch or pay extra to play a few days “early,” assuming the servers are working properly.
To me, it all seemed like an obvious ploy by publishers to milk gamers for even more money than they already do via in-app purchases, cosmetics, battle passes, and XP boosters. I hoped that people would realize that all these publishers were doing was holding back a game’s release for a few days just to make some extra money. I hoped that gamers would see this was a scam and that these early access perks were worthless.
I was apparently wrong. Looking ahead at the rest of 2024, it’s clear that publishers big and small have seen other games making lots of money via early access launches and are following their lead.
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keep in mind that all of the games listed above aren’t actually being released early. I can’t stress that enough. That’s not what’s happening here. Not at all.
If a company can release a game like Madden NFL 25 on August 12 for some, they can release it for everyone, instead of making players wait three days because they didn’t spend an extra $20 on some special edition. A game launched on July 10 for some players still had to go through all the same certifications and testing that any other game released on a console is forced to complete. So the only thing holding the game back for three days is greedy publishers.
Basically, publishers are delaying games by three days for no reason, and then charging you more to play early. They have created a fake problem and are selling you a silly solution.
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In multiplayer games this can lead to people arriving well after others have hit the max level and mastered maps and weapons. And for single-player games, it means folks with less money might have stories spoiled days before they can play. It’s just a real mess of garbage and none of it is necessary at all.
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I also want to give a special shout-out to Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown, which seems to be the first game to take this paid early access shenanigans to the next level with two separate tiers depending on which special edition you pre-order. The silver editions of the game include two days of early access while the even pricier gold edition bumps that up to seven days.
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next year, we might see a game with a 15-day early access period and a separate 18-day super early access window. Are you all excited for that future, because I’m not.
Pre-order is enough of a scam. If you are going to pay beforehand, then you should receive equity. You are taking a risk. But to pay extra for a few days? Really?
