EDITORIAL · ARCHIVE · PAGE 72 OF 75
Articles.
The full editorial archive — every review and roundup the App Comrade desk has published, newest first.
8 Ball Pool – 1 Shot is Miniclip's Apple version of the same hustle.
The iOS-distinct 1 Shot variant of Miniclip's flagship pool game has the same physics, the same cash economy, and the same questionable Cue stat advantages as the Android version.
MAY 8, 2026
DuckDuckGo is the iPhone privacy product Apple was supposed to be.
What started as a search engine has become a full browser, an email forwarder, an AI chat layer, and a VPN. The bet — that consumers will pay for tracking-free as a positive product, not a defensive one — keeps paying off.
MAY 8, 2026
Coin Master is a slot machine wearing a Pokemon hat.
Moon Active's runaway hit packages slot-machine pulls, raid mechanics, and Facebook-friend reciprocity into one of the highest-grossing iOS games of the past decade. The design works. The legality is debated.
MAY 8, 2026
Avast SecureLine VPN works fine. Avast still has a Jumpshot problem.
The VPN itself is competent — solid speeds, modern protocols, Apple-respectful interface. The owner is the company that, until 2020, sold its users' browsing data to advertisers.
MAY 8, 2026
My Lands is a 2010 browser MMO that wandered onto a phone.
Elyland's Russian-developed strategy game has 200,000 active players, four races, and a UI that hasn't been substantially redrawn since the iPad 2. There's a niche audience and the niche is real.
MAY 8, 2026
McDonald's app is the Big Mac of consumer apps.
Reliable, predictable, structurally indifferent to delight, and used by tens of millions of people every week. The deals are the entire reason.
MAY 8, 2026
Affirm is the BNPL app that grew up.
While Klarna chased fast fashion and Afterpay leaned into the Gen-Z aesthetic, Affirm focused on the boring stuff: longer terms, real interest disclosure, no late fees. The 2026 product is the most honest BNPL on the App Store.
MAY 8, 2026
Chrome on Android is the browser most Android users will use whether they want to or not.
Pre-installed on every non-Samsung Android phone, tied to your Google account by default, and quietly maintained by the largest browser engineering team in the world. The default has won.
MAY 8, 2026
Wish is the company Temu replaced. The app is what's left.
Once a $30B IPO, now a Qoo10-owned husk losing market share to its better-funded successor. The app still works. The catalogue is thinner. The promise is harder to recommend.
MAY 8, 2026
Facebook is the social network most people don't post to anymore.
Three billion monthly active users, declining engagement among under-30s, and an app that's increasingly a content-feed delivering Reels, AI-generated posts, and Marketplace listings rather than your friends' updates.
MAY 8, 2026
Messenger is the chat app Facebook tried not to make.
What was a feature inside Facebook in 2014 is now Meta's second-largest standalone messaging product. End-to-end encryption is finally on by default. The reach is its own moat.
MAY 8, 2026
Google Photos is the photo library for everyone who didn't pick a side.
Apple users have iCloud, Microsoft users have OneDrive, and the rest of the planet has Google Photos. The 2026 product is the most capable photo library on a phone, with a privacy posture that is exactly what you'd expect from Google.
MAY 8, 2026
YouTube on Android is the closest thing to television in 2026.
Three billion users, every video format from 30-second Shorts to 12-hour livestreams, and an ad strategy that's pushed YouTube Premium from luxury to near-necessity for heavy users.
MAY 8, 2026
Instagram is what TikTok would look like with fewer good ideas.
The 2026 Instagram is a vertical-video feed with a Stories tab, a Reels tab, a shopping tab, and a Direct Messages app stitched on. The squares are gone.
MAY 8, 2026
Subway Surfers is the only mobile game that became a TikTok genre.
Twelve years old, downloaded over 5 billion times, and now best known as the gameplay layered under unrelated TikTok videos to keep viewers watching. The game itself is fine.
MAY 8, 2026
Candy Crush is the longest-running F2P case study on the App Store.
King's match-three has been on Android for thirteen years and still grosses more than most launches do in their first quarter. The mechanic is the same. The monetisation has gotten more sophisticated.
MAY 8, 2026
8 Ball Pool is the closest a mobile game has come to a real arcade.
Miniclip's flagship has been the most-played pool game on the planet for over a decade. The physics are still good, the matchmaking is still aggressive, and the in-app purchases are still a problem.
MAY 8, 2026
Pokémon GO is the longest-running outlier in mobile gaming.
Ten years after the 2016 launch event, Niantic's GPS-tied collection game is still pulling 50+ million monthly active users and grossing more than most launches do in their first year. The product is the city around it.
MAY 8, 2026
Roblox is the operating system 8-year-olds use most.
Not a game — a games platform with 80 million daily active users, most of them under 16. The 2024-2025 safety overhaul is real progress and the 2026 product is more honest about what it is.
MAY 8, 2026
Snapchat is a teen messaging app with augmented-reality glasses on the roadmap.
What survived the Stories wars is a small-but-loyal Gen-Z chat client, the best AR camera in any consumer app, and a hardware bet on Spectacles that may or may not actually ship.
MAY 8, 2026
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