Skip to main content

Dots, a simple and addictive iOS game, hits one million downloads in a week

Dots iOS gameIs it time for mobile “classics” like Angry Birds and Draw Something to watch their back? Dots, a new iOS game from Betaworks, appears to be climbing the charts quickly in the iOS App Store. After just a week of availability, the game has hit over 1 million downloads and hit the top spot on the downloads list in eight different countries. 

Dots2Dots has a strong pedigree to support its quick path to success. Backed by the same team over at Betaworks that brought Instapaper into existence, revived Digg, and created Bitly, it should be no surprise that Dots has managed to catch on well so early into its life cycle. According to a blogpost from Betaworks, over 25 million games of Dots have been played so far. That number is likely growing exponentially. 

Recommended Videos

Despite the advancement of mobile technology and the newfound graphical capacity of many portable devices, it seems that the simpler a game is, the better. Dots is pretty much the perfect example of that. It takes an old classic game that we all know and love – in this case the connect-the-dots that you’ve no doubt played on a napkin while waiting for food or used to pass the time while in the back seat on a road trip – mixes it with Bejeweled-style gameplay that requires you to clear out colors by connecting them, and supercharges it with mobile game musts like power-ups and some (available but not absolutely necessary) in-app purchases.

The game relies on familiar mechanics, reworked slightly, and the ever-powerful tool of competition by keeping leader boards. As you clear off colors of dots, you rack up points. These scores can be improved by top-stopping or dot-clearing power ups, neither of which are needed to play but likely are to knock your friends down a few pegs on the top score list. It does suffer from some redundancy, but that’s kind of the point. The game should feel familiar every time you open it and be enjoyable for however long your gaming session is. With games occurring in 60 second blasts, the repetition never gets overwhelming or drags down the experience. Add to it a deceivingly gorgeous design that offers plenty of subtle beauty despite such simplicity, and Dots seems to have just about everything it takes to be a mobile hit.

Dots is available for free on iOS from the iTunes App Store.

AJ Dellinger
AJ Dellinger is a freelance reporter from Madison, Wisconsin with an affinity for all things tech. He has been published by…
I finally have RCS on my iPhone, and it’s one of my favorite iOS 18 features
An iPhone 16 Pro showing RCS messaging.

Apple’s Messages app has certainly come a long way. When the first iPhone launched in 2007, it could only send SMS -- there weren't even picture messages. Then it got MMS protocol support in iPhone OS 3.0 with the iPhone 3GS. With iPhone OS 5.0, Apple implemented its own iMessage chat protocol, making it easy for Apple users to communicate with other Apple device users.

However, when it came to messaging Android users, Apple dragged its feet for the longest time, sticking with SMS and MMS, which aren’t encrypted and don't offer full-quality photo and video sending. It also sparked the whole blue bubble versus green bubble war.

Read more
If your iPhone can handle iOS 18.2, it can probably handle iOS 19
An iPhone 15 Pro Max running iOS 18, showing its home screen.

The last few iPhone updates have brought a lot of changes with them. Just take a look at iOS 18.2: It introduced a ton of AI-powered features that had never before been available. If you have an older phone, it's easy to worry that its hardware won't be up to snuff for the next round of updates. For now, you can breathe easy: If your iPhone can handle iOS 18, then it should also work with iOS 19, according to a new leak.

The news comes from the French site iPhoneSoft. Although Apple guarantees five years of support for its devices, some devices get supported for longer periods of time, but this tip suggests that any phone currently capable of downloading and installing iOS 18 will also work with iOS 19, although some features could be limited.

Read more
How to use Visual Intelligence on your iPhone with iOS 18.2
Using Visual Intelligence on an iPhone 16 Pro showing ChatGPT answer.

Though the iPhone 16 series launched in September, it shipped with iOS 18 sans Apple Intelligence. Instead, Apple began rolling out Apple Intelligence features starting with iOS 18.1, and then more AI tools arrived in iOS 18.2, including Visual Intelligence for the iPhone 16.

Read more