Slade Watkins

24 (he/they 🏳️‍🌈) • software engineer; tech/games journalist, co-founder of Rogueport Media LLC • DMs for friends only, email: [email protected]

[Slade Watkins @sladew]

@DimensionsInJen "Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind."

[Slade Watkins @sladew]

@SnazzyLabs yeaaaaaah this is why my family and i swore off Verizon years ago. they have never had their shit together haha

[Spectre#799 @Spectre799games]

I think Geoff owes it to gamers by calling out all of this at the Game Awards.

Put it on blast. This shouldn’t be happening and the people at the top are to blame.

The gaming industry is in its worse possible state and to act like everything’s all fine and dandy is infuriating.

[Slade Watkins @sladew]

@aaronp613 once again, no, it’s just a 27.1 SDK rebuild lol

[aridan @actuallyaridan]

This applies to my mutuals as well. You're just engagement baiting.

[Slade Watkins @sladew]

i am not jealous at all. nope.

[Michael Kukielka @DetroitBORG]

Obscenely excited to fold an iPhone.

[Artem Russakovskii @ArtemR]

The Nintendo Switch 2 has been jailbroken.

ns2jb is a software-only jailbreak of the switch 2 for the current latest firmware 23.0.1

https://t.co/JdOYnP6fIk

[Slade Watkins @sladew]

@stetsondoggett hey! would you be willing to follow me so i can DM you? have a thing that’s kinda private to share and can’t get to my email haha

[Slade Watkins @sladew]

@elobornola @jmwilt21 Maps is, so is Calendar, but other Google apps are 27.1. Suspect the ones still being built with 27.0 will follow suit.

[SCARY Jaca 🎉🎉 playing DA2 @jacaxen]

With the power of Canada we shall smite Electronic Arts

[Slade Watkins @sladew]

this is excellent! highly encourage the read:

[Ryan McCaffrey @DMC_Ryan]

I wrote a eulogy of sorts for BioWare. It's called, "BioWare was the greatest RPG developer ever."

KOTOR, Mass Effect, Baldur's Gate, Jade Empire, and the list just keeps going. Wow. Check it out if you're interested: https://t.co/nGtVV9CIPZ

[Kala Elizabeth #SaveMassEffect @kalaelizabeth]

To add to this, this is an older trailer created internally for EA leadership... meaning they had made more progress on Mass Effect Universe

[MrMattyPlays @G27Status]

It's just a guess, but I have to imagine that EA's phone is ringing off the hook. Maybe it's just my timeline, but I've never seen so much outcry over a developer shutdown.

There are so many publishers who would benefit from being the ones who saved Mass Effect.

[Slade Watkins @sladew]

@BigWum @jazzychad @MKBHD very bold of you to tell me how we operate things! you’re not my coworker or colleague, so i don’t know how you know all that! just because that way works for you doesn’t mean that everyone does it the same way. fuck off.

[Slade Watkins @sladew]

THIS! everyone who says we could do our jobs with simulators alone is dumb. on-device validation is extremely important and us devs don’t get units until launch day like the rest of you, except in really rare circumstances.

if you genuinely believe we can do 100% app validations in Simulators and never touch an actual device to make sure something’s working, especially for edge cases, take a hike!

[Andy Allen @asallen]

If you're hearing about the lack of app support on the Duo and wagging your finger at the makers of your favorite app…

+ Duo is a complicated device—many poses & core UI changes.
+ Developers had 3 weeks before press units went out
+ Likely <1% were able to test on real devices
+ Expect many app updates to land before you get your device
+ Long term, it'll take time for new patterns to emerge

Lastly, app makers don't get any of the $2K+ you paid for this device and most won't make any additional $ off this work. So instead of wagging your finger, consider a hug.

[Slade Watkins @sladew]

@BigWum @jazzychad @MKBHD yes, but it's not reliable. this:

[Slade Watkins @sladew]

simulators are by no means reliable and don't tell the full story. at my workplace, we're actually REQUIRED to test on-device before shipping because it has caused issues in the past where something looks fine in a simulator but not on-device. if you think a simulator can replace on-device validation, you're being silly.

[Slade Watkins @sladew]

simulators are by no means reliable and don't tell the full story. at my workplace, we're actually REQUIRED to test on-device before shipping because it has caused issues in the past where something looks fine in a simulator but not on-device. if you think a simulator can replace on-device validation, you're being silly.

[Slade Watkins @sladew]

[Soapbox/Opinion]

it goes without saying how i and many others feel about Dia. it was a misstep by @browsercompany and @joshm's (imo) poor management of the company he founded. they've struggled to have the same amount of momentum behind Dia that Arc had for MONTHS, but it hasn't worked. because it's just not a good product. Arc was.

and by making this announcement, Josh and his company broke their promise not to discontinue Arc. they just signed a death warrant for their own jobs. now, what do i mean by that?

well, Dia cannot be the Arc replacement it wishes to be under the regime currently in charge. the priorities that Browser Company/Josh believe in do not match what the Arc holdouts want. indeed,

it is my belief that @joshm should resign or allow the company to dissolve gracefully into the night. without Arc, they have nothing. it is also my belief that they know that.

at the very bare minimum, i join the echoes of many who ask for Arc's ENTIRE corebase to be open sourced freely in a permissive license for everyone. and i ask you all not to use Dia.

[Arc @arcinternet]

We've decided to sunset Arc on December 22, 2026.

That's not an easy sentence to write. We spent years building Arc and celebrating each and every release along the way: we have so much pride and love for what we made alongside the Arc community.

Our priority is to deliver best-in-class security for our members. Keeping a browser secure takes constant, dedicated work that is only increasing in the age of AI. Dia was built from the ground up to meet today’s security standards, so that's where our engineering and security teams will focus moving forward.

We've worked to make switching to @diabrowser as easy as possible for Arc members. Here's how:

· Your passwords, bookmarks, extensions and history come over to Dia seamlessly.
· Spaces, Folders, and Tab Groups are in Dia and import over with your data intact.
· Dia now surpasses Arc benchmarks in stability, speed, and security.
· The browser features you use in Arc are free in Dia, and the AI is optional.

Thank you for using Arc, for pushing us to make it better, and for building alongside us. The team that made Arc is the same team behind Dia, and some of our most ambitious work is just ahead. We'd love for you to be there with us when it lands.

[Slade Watkins @sladew]

feel the need to remind everyone that iOS 27.1 is an interim release. 27.2 is going to available almost immediately after the device hits most people's hands. think we'll see most apps be optimized by end of year, to be honest. Apple's really good at lighting the fire under people's asses on that front.

[Slade Watkins @sladew]

@Jon4Lakers @techradar @TechnoBuffalo *appending to say, my thought would be cool to revisit it sometime. lots of goodies in here. plus seeing what it could have been with Liquid Glass and Material 3 in the modern era!

[Slade Watkins @sladew]

@Jon4Lakers @techradar @TechnoBuffalo if you get it back, does this mean i can dig out the good ol' app i had? i literally found the project files this week as i was cleaning up my Mac's storage 👀