Good Morning! Most apps are struggling to make even $1,000 a month, which explains why they’re constantly pushing subscriptions—because without them, they might not survive. Meanwhile, Pebble is making a comeback with two open-source smartwatches, bringing back the e-paper displays and long battery life that made it a cult favorite. And in a weird twist, aging SNES consoles are actually speeding up over time, causing chaos for speedrunners and proving that even retro hardware has its quirks.

— Forrest Knight & Meghanadh Vasireddy

Why Your Favorite Apps Won’t Stop Nagging You for Subscriptions

Context: Ever wonder why every app these days is trying to get you to subscribe to something? Turns out, most mobile apps struggle to make even $1,000 a month. A new report from RevenueCat, which analyzed over 75,000 apps, found that only 20% of them hit that revenue mark within two years. Worse, just 5% make it to $10,000 per month.

What’s New:

• The top 5% of apps are making 500 times more than the other 95%. The gap is only getting wider.

• Most subscription trials (82%) start the same day users install an app. But here’s the kicker—nearly 30% of users cancel within a week.

• For monthly subscriptions, only 10% of users make it to year two. If it’s a weekly subscription? Less than 5% survive six months.

What This Means for Devs: Subscription models aren’t just about squeezing extra cash from users—they’re often the only way to keep an app alive. Expect to see more paywalls, upsells, and AI-powered pricing models in the future. Love it or hate it, app subscriptions are here to stay.

Pebble is Back! And It’s Open Source This Time

Context: Remember Pebble? The legendary smartwatch that refused to die? Well, it’s back—but this time, it’s open source. Eric Migicovsky and the rePebble team just announced two new PebbleOS-powered smartwatches, the Core 2 Duo and the Core Time 2. Both bring back the e-paper displays, physical buttons, and ridiculous battery life that made Pebble great.

What’s New:

• Core 2 Duo ($149, July release) → Looks like a Pebble 2, but with a 30-day battery, a speaker, and better buttons.

• Core Time 2 ($225, December release) → Think Pebble Time 2, but real. Larger 64-color display, touchscreen, heart rate sensor, and metal build.

• Both run open-source PebbleOS, support 10,000+ old Pebble apps, and are fully hackable.

Why This Matters: This isn’t just nostalgia—it’s a rebellion according to the team. No big tech company is making simple, functional smartwatches anymore. This project is built by Pebble lovers for Pebble lovers. And because it’s open source, developers can actually own their watch experience again.

These will be pre-order only, so if you want one, hit up store.rePebble.com before they sell out.

Your SNES Might Be Aging Like Fine Wine—But Faster

Context: Turns out, your childhood SNES might not be running at the same speed it did back in the '90s. A new deep dive by the TASBot team found that the Super Nintendo's Audio Processing Unit (APU) is getting faster over time, thanks to its cheap ceramic resonator. While casual players might only notice slightly higher-pitched music, for speedrunners and tool-assisted runs, this is a nightmare.

What’s New:

• The APU’s clock speed is inconsistent across different consoles—with a difference of up to 234 Hz between the slowest and fastest systems tested.

• Heat barely impacts speed, but aging does—many SNES units today run faster than their original 32,000 Hz spec.

• Some emulators had already adjusted for this back in the 2000s, setting their DSP sample rate to 32,040 Hz—but the latest tests show the average is now 32,076 Hz.

Why This Matters: For most players, it’s no big deal. But for TASBot and hardcore speedrunners? It’s a headache. Frame-perfect runs desync on real hardware, and fixing it isn't as simple as swapping out a chip. Turns out, even old-school hardware has its own version of clock drift—and it’s throwing off decades of precise gaming.

🔥 More Notes

1. Google’s Alphabet Acquires Cybersecurity Startup Wiz for $32 Billion: Alphabet is making a major move in cloud security by acquiring Wiz, a fast-growing cybersecurity startup, for $32 billion. This acquisition strengthens Google's position in cloud security, competing with Amazon and Microsoft.

2. Nvidia’s CEO Says AI is Moving Beyond Data Centers: Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, emphasized that AI is shifting beyond traditional data centers, integrating into edge devices, robotics, and personal computing. Nvidia plans to stay ahead by optimizing AI chips for broader applications.

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