For most of my life, I’ve relied on a paper map when I go outdoors. Then, in March, I joined my friend Rusty on the Appalachian Trail for two weeks. He told me to download FarOut.FarOut was my introduction to the world of app-based navigation. It’s focused on thru-hikers, and has useful details, including comments that tell you whether a specific water source is flowing, and if so, how well. It took me a minute to get the hang of it — I was hiking southbound, and it defaults to northbound — but once I did, I was impressed.FarOut works like a guidebook. But the kind of backpacking I ordinarily do is on more offbeat trails in the local national forests — not the wilderness highways FarOut specializes in. So for my first solo trip, to the Ventana Wilderness area of the Los Padres National Forest, I thought I’d try out some of the other navigation apps, as part of an absolutely transparent ploy to get my job to let me fuck off outdoors more often; there are a lot of hikes I want to do. I suspect many of our readers are connoisseurs of the great indoors, but I also know you love gadgets, and let me tell you something: so do backpackers. You would not believe the conversations I have had with absolute strangers about gear.I do work at the phones website. We kind of specialize in having feelings about appsNow, I’m not going to top Outdoor Gear Lab — I love their reviews, and have found them reliable guides when it comes to big purchases* — but I do work at the phones website. We kind of specialize in having feelings about apps.I considered several options. I quickly discarded onX Backcountry when I discovered on one of my trial hikes how quickly it drained my phone battery. I also used CalTopo to prepare for the hike, but because it’s a fairly complex platform with a steep learning curve, I don’t think I’ve spent enough time with it to give it a proper review.I figured I might as well keep it simple. I already knew Google Maps wouldn’t cut it; the acquisitions Google has made over the years suggest that the company’s more interested in cars than pedestrians. Looking at the Health and Fitness category on the Apple App Store, I noticed AllTrails ranked #10, so trying the popular app seemed natural. The other app I saw frequently mentioned on hiking subreddits — besides CalTopo — was Gaia GPS. So I figured I’d start with those two.There are a few other apps in the space I didn’t consider. The most notable are Avenza and Goat Maps. I’ve found Avenza limited, but it seems the feature set has been updated since the last time I played with it. Goat Maps is new to me, but it’s from the same team that created Gaia GPS before it was sold to Outside. (More about that in a minute.)Route planningBecause this was my first solo hike, I was not interested in doing anything especially difficult. I’ve been to the Ventana Wilderness before, and am familiar with the Pine Ridge Trail, which I viewed as the backbone of my trip. One of the things AllTrails has going for it is suggested routes — for this area, 41 possible hikes.I had originally contemplated doing an overnight at China Camp before heading down the Pine Ridge Trail to Sykes Camp as an out-and-back, but after hiking with Rusty, I decided I could be more ambitious. I considered a few routes before settling on what AllTrails calls the Big Sur Sykes Hot Springs Extended Loop. That was partly because I’d checked in with the Big Sur Trail Map, a volunteer information repository hosted by Jack Glendening for trail conditions, and discovered a few trails I might have otherwise wanted to use were overgrown.Once I started mapping my route, I noticed some troubleAllTrails has user comments, which can be useful. One user told me to prepare for ticks and poison oak. Another suggested a stop at Timber Top for a meal or snack as it was beautiful, even if it was a detour, so I worked that into my agenda.In order to get a sense of what I’d be doing, I used tools to create my routes, with different lines for each day. CalTopo, AllTrails, and Gaia all have “snap to route” tools that let you automatically follow a trail the map knows about, which makes creating a route easier. But once I started mapping my route, I noticed some trouble. AllTrails said this was a 32.8-mile hike. I had trouble getting Gaia to acknowledge the fire road that would be part of my route with its auto-route tool set; also, the app insisted I was hiking 40 miles. Both the AllTrails and Gaia “snap to route” tools were easier to use than CalTopo, and it came up with a totally different mileage count than either: a 35-mile hike.Here’s the AllTrails route I planned. It was the easiest tool to use for routing by farHere’s CalTopo’s route-planning; you can see I’m considering doing the route in three days, rather than four.This is the Gaia GPS route plan. As you can see, it’s a mess, and because it was hard to edit, it was difficult to correct the mess.Similarly, looking at elevation gain, AllTrails told me to expect 9,160 feet, CalTopo told me to expect 8901 feet, and Gaia, for some reason, was insisting on 19,000 feet. I gotta say, 19,000 feet did not seem like it was in the vicinity of right. Looking at the map I created on Gaia, I think that’s because the “snap to route” tool had given me some weird detours.Well, what’s a couple miles and a few hundred feet of elevation between friends? I decided the smartest move would be to plan a four-day hike with three overnight stops: Sykes Camp, Rainbow Camp, and Outlaw Camp. I figured having more stops meant I could more easily absorb some unexpected miles if I had to.AllTrails’ route-building tool was easiest to use, and the easiest to edit if I made a mistake. While I appreciated Gaia’s similarly easy snap-to-trail function, it was a profound pain in the ass to edit after I’d made a route. And CalTopo was the most finicky for route-building of the bunch, requiring painstaking clicking. But it also had the best feature set, in terms of lines, colors, and editing. It also had more base layers and overlays showing, among other things, where to expect cellphone service.CalTopo and Gaia let you build and edit maps on a phone, but I primarily used my laptop because a big screen is better for planning routes, and a mouse is a more precise tool than my finger. Tinkering with Gaia on my phone, I found route creation buggy. AllTrails doesn’t seem to offer route creation on the iPhone at all. This didn’t matter much for me, but if you’re creating routes on the fly in the backcountry, you’re out of luck with AllTrails, and Gaia may suddenly quit working.Why use apps at all?I harbor a deep and profound pro-paper bias. A notebook is the best organizational tool available to you. I own hundreds of paper books because they don’t have DRM and they can’t be altered post-publication, or removed from my devices. I like paper maps a great deal, and have used them as my main navigation tool for my entire hiking career.Paper maps have downsides. They don’t respond well to water, for instance. Wear and tear can render them unusable. They may be out of date. And, of course, there are no crowdsourced comments telling you about trail conditions before your hike.The obvious benefit of the navigation apps is the reassuring little blue dotThe obvious benefit of the navigation apps is the reassuring little blue dot that tells you exactly where you are on the trail, without requiring nearly as much work. You can pull out your phone and see how much farther you need to go before arriving at a landmark. And most of us have our phones on our hikes because they’re the most convenient way to take photos. Gaia and AllTrails offer downloadable maps as part of a premium service — for a subscription fee, of course. That’s either $59.90 for Gaia or $89.99 for Gaia’s Outside Plus, which includes access to Outside’s assorted publications. The AllTrails Plus subscription I tested was $35.99 a year; after I went on my hike, it announced AllTrails Peak, which costs $79.99 a year and includes AI tools for route planning. (Given what I know about LLMs, I personally would not trust an AI to plan any hiking route, but I suppose your mileage may vary.) CalTopo, which offers its own set of subscription plans at $20, $50, and $100 a year, shows weather data and information about how much sunlight any part of its map gets at any hour of the day.There are a couple downsides to these apps. They drain the phone battery, which necessitates carrying a portable charger, which means more weight. If the phone doesn’t work — because, say, you dropped it — the app won’t work either. And there are, of course, the privacy issues.I don’t want people to know where I am at all timesMy location is sensitive information; I don’t want people to know where I am at all times. AllTrails defaults to sharing your data publicly, so anyone on Earth can look up your hikes. While you can change this setting, defaults matter. “Public trail activities and community reviews are a big part of the AllTrails experience,” spokesperson Mia DeSimone in an email. I was also prompted to review my hike afterwards — part of the crowdsourced data that makes AllTrails work, I suppose.AllTrails also shares your data. Some of that is unobjectionable — payment providers, for instance — but some of it, like sharing data with marketing partners, raised my eyebrows. “AllTrails does not process sensitive personal data, including precise geolocation, for purposes other than actual use of the AllTrails platform,” DeSimone said.I can’t speak to the pluses and minuses of AllTrails Peak, which I haven’t experimented with. But after my hike, AllTrails also discontinued its “Advanced Conditions” feature that showed weather along a prospective route, what to expect from the ground (wet? icy?), and mosquito activity. AllTrails Peak users will get access to “Trail Conditions,” which DeSimone says is “significantly more robust and precise than Advanced Conditions.” Some AllTrails users seem unhappy about the new pricing tier.I got this AllTrails pop-up after my hike. Reader, I did not review it.Gaia similarly defaults to public sharing, because of “a social component designed to help users connect, share experiences, and discover trails,” said Devin Lehman, general manager of Gaia GPS, in an emailed statement. “Public sharing of hikes is the default setting to encourage this community engagement.” Gaia also shares some data, including location data, with unnamed “service providers,” but Lehman said this is done “under strict data protection agreements” and is used to “support and power specific features and functionalities.”Last year, Gaia began requiring sign-ins, catching a few people who were on multi-day trips by surprise. “To ensure minimal disruption, we implemented a ‘snooze’ option allowing users to defer login for up to 28 days if prompted during an active trip,” Lehman wrote. “Users entirely offline (airplane mode or zero cell service) would not see the prompt at all. However, we understand some users in areas with intermittent service did encounter unexpected prompts. We’ve taken user feedback seriously and continue refining our app experience to better support uninterrupted outdoor adventures.”Its parent company, Outside, also jacked up the cost of subscriptions, and on April 14th this year, it removed access to the National Geographic Trails Illustrated maps. “While we understand some subscribers valued the National Geographic Trails Illustrated maps, these maps offered limited regional coverage and lacked the global scope and dynamic functionality our growing user base needs,” Lehman wrote. He says Gaia “substantially expanded” its offerings in the last few years, and the price increase reflects “the ongoing investment required to maintain and continuously improve Gaia GPS.”Be that as it may, I’ve got several friends who are disgruntled Gaia subscribers looking around for another option. And I personally do not have faith in Outside’s management of Gaia, or its other properties, in the long run.On the trailRun away with me! Elizabeth LopattoBecause I was uncertain about my mileage, I decided to track myself several ways: AllTrails, Gaia, and my Apple Watch Series 6. The Apple Watch isn’t really an ideal fitness tracker for outdoors enthusiasts — it’s flimsy and its battery drains too fast; even the Ultra 2 only gives you 72 hours in low power mode. What it does have going for it is that I already own it, and there are other pieces of gear that were more important to upgrade after my experience on the AT. The Big Four in pack weight are your tent, sleeping bag or quilt, sleeping pad, and pack itself. Updating my tent and quilt, both expensive, also meant I lost about 5 pounds of weight from my pack immediately. Since this wasn’t a long hike and I was already carrying a battery, the Apple Watch’s propensity to drain quickly, even with both low power mode and theater mode on, didn’t seem too terrible.I set out from the trailhead Monday morning, and turned on tracking for AllTrails, Gaia, and my Apple Watch. As with all tracking, there are opportunities for user error — I am of course capable of forgetting to turn this stuff on, or pausing it and then never unpausing it. I mention this because there was user error: I paused the AllTrails tracker and then never unpaused it, so as far as it’s concerned, I hiked 3.7 miles that first day.See? I really did walk some number of miles. Perhaps 11, who knows!I was more successful with my watch and Gaia. I started my watch late — looking at the map, I seem to have missed at least a mile before I started it; it recorded 9 miles of walking. I did start Gaia at the beginning of my hike, and it recorded I hiked 11.6 miles. Both watch and app recorded about 2,400 feet of ascent, a little less than what CalTopo told me to expect (2,600 feet of elevation gain) and significantly less than what AllTrails told me to expect (3,000 feet).I arrived at Sykes Camp, alongside the Big Sur River, a little after 4PM, and set up my tent. It was close enough to dinnertime that I decided to eat. As I was hunched over the stove, a woman walked by, so I said hello. She was looking for the hot spring, and continued walking upriver. About 45 minutes later, she returned. She hadn’t found it.The hot spring wasn’t listed on the AllTrails map, the CalTopo map, or either of my paper maps. But it was on Gaia, and after dinner, I found the hot spring, a half-mile hike on a somewhat overgrown path downriver, and soaked blissfully for about half an hour. I’d post a selfie, but this is the internet, and I know better than to post feet for free.If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is. Elizabeth LopattoThe next morning I packed up and headed off to Rainbow Camp around 8:45AM. This, I knew, would be an up-and-down day of ridgeline hiking; AllTrails had a helpful elevation map telling me roughly what to expect. Unlike Sykes, Rainbow Camp was likely to be a place I’d be alone. Most of the people I’d spoken to the day before were doing an out-and-back, with Sykes as their only stop. But this ridgeline hike was spotted with wildflowers.I’d planned for this to be a fairly short day, only about 7 miles. I pulled into Rainbow Camp around 2PM and was underwhelmed — it was buggy and not especially scenic. So after eating lunch and refreshing my water supply, I decided to push on to Cold Spring Camp. The AllTrails map suggested it would only be 5 miles more. It was uphill, though, about 2,000 more feet of climbing. Even if I dragged along at 1 mile an hour, I’d still arrive before sunset.I’d thought about camping at Cold Spring before I set off, and had shied away from it both because of the climb and my uncertainty about the actual mileage of my hike. But I was feeling good, and I’d used my Garmin InReach Mini to check in about my change of plans, so I shoved off.According to my trackers recording my actual route — Gaia and AllTrails — it was more like 6 miles, not 5. Gaia tracked 4,884 feet of climb over a total distance of 13.6 miles; AllTrails suggested I’d climbed 5,213 feet over 14.6 miles. (Did I miss a mile somewhere on Gaia? I don’t see a gap in the recording, so I’m not sure how to account for the difference.) My Apple Watch said I’d gone 11.5 miles, also with 4,884 feet of climb — but its battery died before I made camp. I set up camp at Cold Spring, and watched the sun go down over the ocean as I ate dinner.The extra mileage meant I could plausibly make it home the following day. Sure, there were several camps available if I was too tired to do the rest of the hike, but depending on which tracker I used as my source of truth, I had somewhere between 11 and 13 miles left, a fairly easy day of hiking, particularly since it would all be downhill. The third day opened with ridgeline views; I was above a thick ceiling of clouds hiding the ocean. There were, of course, more wildflowers. When I turned off the dirt road onto Terrace Creek Trail, I met a day hiker going the other direction, who warned me about ticks on the grassy descent toward a redwood grove. (Maybe because he went through just before me, or maybe because of the permethrin I’d used on my clothes, I didn’t see any.) I made it back to the parking lot a little after 4PM. I’d had some user error with my Apple Watch — forgetting to start it again after breakfast at Timber Top, so there was an hour and a half gap in its data — and it recorded 11 miles. AllTrails crapped out at some point between when I set off from Cold Spring and breakfast, so it didn’t record my entire hike. Still, it got 11.63 miles. Gaia also had a gap in its recording (something wrong with my phone?) and put me at 12.7 miles.I thought the hike would settle how long the route was. It did, in a way — certainly the hike was longer than the 32.8 miles AllTrails had promised. If we take Gaia’s tracking, which was the most complete of the bunch, as the source of truth, I’d hiked 38 miles, 39 if I added the hike to the hot spring. Conclusion… of some sortWhile I had my paper maps (and compass) with me, the point was to test the apps, and they worked well enough that I didn’t have to refer to my “real” maps at all. But I also didn’t come away with a single clear winner, whether AllTrails or Gaia was best. AllTrails offered better route-planning features, while Gaia was more reliable on the trail. Both had worrisome inaccuracies in their data, which meant in practical terms that I lugged around another day of food in extra weight because I wasn’t totally sure how far I’d be climbing or walking. That’s consequential — food and water are usually the heaviest things a hiker carries.I certainly wouldn’t recommend relying on either of these, particularly without a backup map, and I’m not sold on how they handle my privacy. AllTrails seems to be aimed at people who are more casual hikers than I am. I don’t think Outside has been a good steward of Gaia (or of Outside Magazine). I also hesitate to recommend pricey subscriptions to these apps, given the issues I had with them. In fact, as I was writing this, I realized the most useful app in planning the trip was the one I hadn’t downloaded maps from: CalTopo.I haven’t tested CalTopo in the backcountry yet, so consider this a cliffhanger. Please feel free to pop over to the comments to demand I be allowed to go backpacking for work sooner rather than later, so you can hear more about my map-related misadventures. I’ve been eyeing the Tahoe Rim Trail for later this summer, and if I’m testing gear, it doesn’t count as vacation time, right? Right? Outdoor Gear Lab’s top bra recommendation’s largest size is a C cup, and the reviews are written primarily for teeny tatas. That’s an astounding editorial failure. Not only do athletes of big titty experience have a harder time finding bras at all, we are more likely to experience boob pain — which is a major reason women quit sports. Breast tissue is dead weight, so bra structure is crucial. A bra that’s stretchy enough to fit over your head won’t keep the girls in place during high-impact exercise. Some other rules of thumb: racerbacks press on your traps; thin straps cut into your shoulders; a thick, tight band is a must for weight distribution. A low-cut bra means an astonishing amount of cleavage, but a high neckline will make your gazongas look even bigger, so pick your poison, I guess. (Also, a high-cut bra worn for a long time will incubate a real banner crop of cleavage zits and, in some cases, chafing.) For running, I like Enell’s High Impact Bra — it’s the only one I’ve tried that’s kept my rack from bouncing. (It’s also recommended by Swole Woman Casey Johnston.) I’m still on the lookout for the best backpacking bra; the Enell one is too binding for all-day wear.See More:

These annual rankings were last updated on May 16, 2025. Want to see your firm on next year’s list? Continue reading for more on how you can improve your studio’s ranking. Land of breathtaking terrains and jarring winds, Iceland is known for its magical landscapes filled with lava fields, fjords and verdant hills. Located south of the Arctic Circle, Iceland’s rugged landscape is firmly tied to its built environment, which is fused with a deeply functional architectural language. One of the nation’s earlier building traditions is the turf home. Covered with an exterior turf shell, they simultaneously insulate the home and camouflage into the environment. The nation’s architecture is equally attributed to its Scandinavian neighbors. In the 18th century, Danish architects introduced gable-fronted structures and stone construction to Iceland, which led to a boom in masonry craft and stone creations. Other foreign influences, such as Classical ideas and Swiss designs, were also imported. Notwithstanding, Icelandic design remained practical. In the 30s, functionalism found its way north and found fertile soil in Iceland. Following Iceland’s independence from Denmark, modernism began to inform the nation’s architecture. Today’s Icelandic designers admirably balance past and present. Fusing past traditions with modern innovations, contemporary Icelandic architecture remains beautiful, functional and deeply connected to its unrestrained climatic conditions. With so many architecture firms to choose from, it’s challenging for clients to identify the industry leaders that will be an ideal fit for their project needs. Fortunately, Architizer is able to provide guidance on the top design firms in Iceland based on more than a decade of data and industry knowledge. How are these architecture firms ranked? The following ranking has been created according to key statistics that demonstrate each firm’s level of architectural excellence. The following metrics have been accumulated to establish each architecture firm’s ranking, in order of priority: The number of A+Awards won (2013 to 2025) The number of A+Awards finalists (2013 to 2025) The number of projects selected as “Project of the Day” (2009 to 2025) The number of projects selected as “Featured Project” (2009 to 2025) The number of projects uploaded to Architizer (2009 to 2025) Each of these metrics is explained in more detail at the foot of this article. This ranking list will be updated annually, taking into account new achievements of Iceland architecture firms throughout the year. Without further ado, here are the 10 best architecture firms in Iceland: 10. Studio Granda © Studio Granda Studio Granda was established in Reykjavík by Margret Harðardóttir and Steve Christer in 1987. The practice is based in Reykjavik and works on wide range of commercial and private projects. Some of Studio Granda’s most prominent projects include: B14, Iceland H71a, Hverfisgata, Reykjavík, Iceland The following statistics helped Studio Granda achieve 10th place in the 10 Best Architecture Firms in Iceland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 2 9. Teiknistofan Tröð © Teiknistofan Tröð Beauty | Permanence | Utility are the main values of the company, which operates in the spirit of sustainable development. Each project is one of a kind where local conditions and activities play a key role in the design process. Emphasis is placed on the architecture and technical aspects, utility and efficiency in implementation and operation. Teiknistofan Tröð provides services and consultation on architecture and planning to public authorities, businesses and individuals. Some of Teiknistofan Tröð’s most prominent projects include: The Salvation Army´s headquarters in Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland Félagsheimilið Bolungarvík, Bolungarvik, Iceland Pedestrian and Bicycle Bridges, Reykjavík, Iceland The following statistics helped Teiknistofan Tröð achieve 9th place in the 10 Best Architecture Firms in Iceland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 3 8. ARKÍS Arkitektar photo: Mirra Arnardottir - © ARKÍS Arkitektar ARKÍS is an awarded, progressive architecture firm that has been in operation since 1997. ARKÍS’ works and projects span all levels of architecture, planning and design. ARKÍS has extensive experience with projects in planning and architecture, and from the firm’s founding, ARKÍS has executed numerous large and complex projects, both in Iceland and internationally. That experience, in addition to cross-disciplinary specializations, international high level education and experience of the office’s employees make the firm well equipped to address all projects in architecture, planning and design. Some of ARKÍS Arkitektar’s most prominent projects include: Selhæd Water Retention Tank, Egilsstaðir, Iceland Icelandic Institute of Natural History, Gardabaer, Iceland Snæfellsstofa Visitor’s Center Blágil Park Ranger’s Cabins Villa Lóla The following statistics helped ARKÍS Arkitektar achieve 8th place in the 10 Best Architecture Firms in Iceland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 7 7. Yrki architects © Yrki architects Yrki was founded in 1997 by Ásdís Helga Ágústsdóttir and Sólveig Berg after they had won the 1st prize in an invited competition for Nesstofa, a museum of medical heritage in Seltjarnarnes. Today, a cohesive team of talented designers in the fields of architecture, urban planning and landscape architecture works at Yrki architects. We put our emphasis on meeting our clients’ requests in a professional and viable manner. Yrki architects offer a wide range of services in the fields of architecture, urban planning and landscape architecture. Our wide expertise of architecture and design reflects in a holistic approach to all our projects where the environment, context and scale shape the design. The name Yrki has a specific meaning in Icelandic. Some of Yrki architects’ most prominent projects include: Six ticket houses at the old harbour, Reykjavík, Iceland The following statistics helped Yrki architects achieve 7th place in the 10 Best Architecture Firms in Iceland: A+Awards Finalist 1 Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 1 6. BASALT Architects © Rafn Sigurbjörnsson Basalt Architects is an architectural office established in 2009 in Reykjavik. Led by partners Sigríður Sigþórsdóttir, Hrólfur Karl Cela and Marcos Zotes, Basalt’s dynamic team of architects and designers bring together a rich and extensive architectural design and construction experience in Iceland and abroad. Committed to architecture in concept, design and execution, Basalt provides high quality work and services on projects of different content, expression and scale. Basalt Architects cover a broad spectrum of architectural design services including wellness, office, commercial, residential, leisure, heritage, retail, cultural, exhibition and urban design projects. Extracting what is unique in each project from an environmental, geographic, cultural and historic context is at the core of Basalt’s design approach. Some of BASALT Architects’ most prominent projects include: The Retreat at Blue Lagoon, Grindavik, Iceland Hofsós Swimming Pool, Hofsós, Iceland LAVA Centre, Hvolsvöllur, Iceland The following statistics helped BASALT Architects achieve 6th place in the 10 Best Architecture Firms in Iceland: A+Awards Winner 1 Total Projects 3 5. Batteriid Archtects © Henning Larsen, Batteriid Archtects Batteríið Architects is a consulting architectural firm, founded in 1988, with a broad range of experience in building design and planning. The company benefits from highly trained and well educated employees that emphasize innovative ideas and creative design solutions. The company’s expertise is a comprehensive knowledge of adjusting buildings to local environment and climate, universal design as well occupational safety and health. Some of Batteriid Archtects’ most prominent projects include: Harpa – Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Center, Reykjavik, Iceland The following statistics helped Batteriid Archtects achieve 5th place in the 10 Best Architecture Firms in Iceland: A+Awards Winner 1 Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 1 4. Arkibygg Architects © ESJA Architecture, Arkibygg arkitektar, Okkarheima / ANNA Landscape architect, exa nordic . Arkibygg is an architectural firm founded in 2020 by Ástríður Birna Árnadóttir and Stefanía Helga Pálmarsdóttir. The name Arkibygg is a combination of the words architect and construction engineer. When architects and construction engineers work closely together, they use each other’s knowledge to the fullest to achieve practical and creative solutions right from the start of the design process until the design process is completed. Some of Arkibygg arkitektar’s most prominent projects include: Ring of Bjólfur, Seydisfjordur, Iceland The following statistics helped Okkarheima / ANNA Landscape architect achieve 4th place in the 10 Best Architecture Firms in Iceland: A+Awards Winner 1 Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 1 3. arkibúllan arkitektar © arkibúllan arkitektar Arkibüllan, which has recently changed its name to A arkitektar, was founded in 1999 by Hólmfríðar Ósmann Jónsdóttir and Hrefna Bjargar Þorsteinsdóttir. The work of A arkitekta / Arkibüllun is often shaped by nature and the surrounding environment. The work on each project begins with a search for clues in as many places as possible: in the landscape, human life and one’s own mind. The clues then become the power generator that leads the work from the first sketch to the fully formed structure. Some of arkibúllan arkitektar’s most prominent projects include: Churchyard Offices and Staff Housing in Gufunes Cemetary, Reykjavik, Iceland Brekkuskógur Cottages, Iceland The following statistics helped arkibúllan arkitektar achieve 3rd place in the 10 Best Architecture Firms in Iceland: Featured Projects 2 Total Projects 2 2. EON architecture / Architect – Designer © EON architecture / Architect - Designer EON architecture is strongly related to the layers of information connected to each project we design and we build. Each project is a manifesto and a tribute to its site, to its role and to its owner/the client. EON emphasizes the important threads between architecture and environmental issues. The goal is to combine contemporary architecture with environmental issues in relation to style and history. Thus being related to the distinctions and the history in general in our projects is of great importance to us. EON architecture represent the creativity and design of fabulous spaces and built structures and intends to contribute high quality architecture worldwide. Some of EON architecture / Architect – Designer’s most prominent projects include: House of Shapes, Kopavogur, Iceland Top image: Mt.Hekla Volcanic Museum, Rangárþing ytra, Iceland East Street – Offices of Parliament, Reykjavík, Iceland Grandagarður 8, downtown Old Harbour, Reykjavik, Iceland The Pool of Vikings, Iceland The following statistics helped EON architecture / Architect - Designer achieve 2nd place in the 10 Best Architecture Firms in Iceland: Featured Projects 2 Total Projects 11 1. PK Arkitektar © PK Arkitektar PK Arkitektar is an Icelandic architecture and design studio. Its founder, architect Palmar Kristmundsson, draws his inspiration from Iceland’s stunning natural landscape and from his encounters with vernacular Japanese architecture. Over the years, they have developed an exceptional team of architects from around the world. PK’s clients and staff are committed to experimentation and the quest for exciting architectural experiences. Each of PK’s projects is designed to inspire a new sense of place through its clarity of design and unexpected details. Some of PK Arkitektar’s most prominent projects include: Árborg, Selfoss, Iceland Frístundahús, Brekkuskógur, Iceland Turninn, Reykjavík, Iceland BHM, Brekkuskógur, South, Iceland B25, Garðabær, Iceland The following statistics helped PK Arkitektar achieve 1st place in the 10 Best Architecture Firms in Iceland: A+Awards Winner 1 A+Awards Finalist 2 Featured Projects 3 Total Projects 5 Why Should I Trust Architizer’s Ranking? With more than 30,000 architecture firms and over 130,000 projects within its database, Architizer is proud to host the world’s largest online community of architects and building product manufacturers. Its celebrated A+Awards program is also the largest celebration of architecture and building products, with more than 400 jurors and hundreds of thousands of public votes helping to recognize the world’s best architecture each year. Architizer also powers firm directories for a number of AIA (American Institute of Architects) Chapters nationwide, including the official directory of architecture firms for AIA New York. An example of a project page on Architizer with Project Award Badges highlighted A Guide to Project Awards The blue “+” badge denotes that a project has won a prestigious A+Award as described above. Hovering over the badge reveals details of the award, including award category, year, and whether the project won the jury or popular choice award. The orange Project of the Day and yellow Featured Project badges are awarded by Architizer’s Editorial team, and are selected based on a number of factors. The following factors increase a project’s likelihood of being featured or awarded Project of the Day status: Project completed within the last 3 years A well written, concise project description of at least 3 paragraphs Architectural design with a high level of both functional and aesthetic value High quality, in focus photographs At least 8 photographs of both the interior and exterior of the building Inclusion of architectural drawings and renderings Inclusion of construction photographs There are 7 Projects of the Day each week and a further 31 Featured Projects. Each Project of the Day is published on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram Stories, while each Featured Project is published on Facebook. Each Project of the Day also features in Architizer’s Weekly Projects Newsletter and shared with 170,000 subscribers.     We’re constantly look for the world’s best architects to join our community. If you would like to understand more about this ranking list and learn how your firm can achieve a presence on it, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at editorial@architizer.com. The post 10 Best Architecture and Design Firms in Iceland appeared first on Journal.

Whichever way you cut it, mix it or remaster it, the Eurovision Song Contest is a deeply weird thing. Not weird in the sense of outlandish outfits, incomprehensible lyrics or fever-dream choreography (although that’s all there if you want it). Nor weird in the sense that a 69-year-old pan-European singing competition has become one of the few remaining water cooler events that pull people outside of their own bubbles and into a shared frame of reference.. But weird on a more fundamental level. An event, and a brand, that is unbelievably hard to pin down. On the one hand, it’s the Euros for people who don’t like football – big, bombastic, slick, chock-full of mini flag icons and low-level national biases. And on the other, it’s this gloriously bizarre exercise in high camp, a joyful gathering of relatively unknown musical acts in such a way that makes the music almost an afterthought. Basically, an excuse for one big, mad, everyone’s-welcome party. In an era where every European country has long-established talent shows; when the music industry is dominated by a handful of transnational mega-stars; when even the notion of “Europe” is itself under strain, it’s hard to understand quite why it still exists. Never mind that it reaches a global audience of 163 million. Its genius lies in how seriously it takes itself. And perhaps it offers a little insight into a much overlooked aspect of brand identity – self-perception. Make no mistake, Eurovision is a serious brand. From visual identity to marketing to international television rights to the experience itself, it’s very aware of the power it wields. It’s the world’s biggest live music event for a reason. But crucially, Eurovision is a brand that feels in on the game it’s playing. It comes brilliantly close to acknowledging how preposterous the whole thing is. Whether that’s including Australia, for the simple fact that it’s really popular 9,000 miles from Europe, or whether it’s the brooding figure of executive supervisor Martin Österdahl, smouldering and saying nothing as he helps count votes. Even the presenters (both on-stage and on our screens) feel in on the joke. Always seemingly one step away from breaking out into an unrecoverable fit of giggles. “Crucially, Eurovision is a brand that feels in on the game it’s playing.” This is exceptional, serious branding. It’s branding that creates just enough space to offer a wry wink at its audience. To say, “We get it. In the grand scheme of things, none of this truly matters, but you might as well enjoy it.” It’s a glint of mischief that simultaneously acknowledges that it’s a confection being broadcast to an audience of consumers, while drawing that same audience sincerely closer, warmer to the brand than before.Eurovision might be an extreme example, but great brands are masters at the glint of mischief. IKEA famously talks about their “twinkle in the eye” – a little dose of irreverence that manages to make the proposition of affordable, self-assembly furniture and aspirational style hold together against the odds. As a consumer, you can’t help but like them, even when the category conventions are pushing you to think the opposite. Method have harnessed the glint through packaging design. Just no-frills and minimalist enough to winkingly call bullshit on the garish, overhyped claims of the cleaning products category; never quite no-frills or minimalist enough to become either a self-parody or budget bleach. Even Ryanair, with its unrepentant take on budget customer service, employs the glint of mischief to make people dislike them that little bit less. How a brand views itself translates to how others view it. And if you view yourself with genuine self-awareness – you understand, however implicitly, that you are a brand, built to sell help sell things, and not a pioneering force for positive change, a cultural disruptor, or an essential part of a lifestyle identity – you can connect with an audience who themselves know, deep down, they are being sold to. A glint of mischief, a twinkle in the eye, a little touch of human self-awareness in a world of extreme creative and strategic self-seriousness. Eurovision gets this better than anyone – perhaps the most serious practitioners in the art of unseriousness out there. For a continent that feels deathly serious most of the time – economically, politically, socially – it might just offer a little dose of genuine mischief we can all relate to. Josh Dickins is head of consulting at Modern Citizens, a modular agency built to solve modern brand problems.

Let's see how they stack up. Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable Apple recently made its grand (re)entrance to the mid-range smartphone market with the iPhone 16e, replacing the older iPhone SE variant. Of course, now the only thing to do is see how it compares to one of the best mid-range smartphones around, the newly released Google Pixel 9a.Both phones provide a lot of value for those looking for a flagship-like experience for a much lower price, but there are benefits and drawbacks to each. Let's get into it.Google Pixel 9a vs. iPhone 16eTwo phones enter, but only one can fit in your pocket. Which will it be? You May Also Like Price and specs The Pixel 9a is a great value. Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable When it comes to price, there is a clearly superior option here. The Pixel 9a starts at $499, while the iPhone 16e starts at $599. While $100 isn't the biggest difference in the world of flagships, it's a large number for anyone in the market for a budget phone.Here's what you get in the Pixel 9a for that price:6.3-inch display with 120Hz refresh rateGoogle Tensor G4 processor8GB RAM128GB storage5,100mAh batteryAnd for $100 more, this is what the iPhone 16e gets you:6.1-inch display with 60Hz refresh rateApple A18 chip8GB RAM128GB/256GB/512GB storage4,005mAh batteryWe'll get into display and performance analysis later, but Google is easily winning the value game so far. You get a bigger and (in some ways) better display and a bigger battery for less money. Apple, to its credit, offers more storage options, but those will only make the phone even more expensive; the 512GB iPhone 16e is $899, which makes it not even really a budget phone anymore. Design Apple kept it simple. Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable Neither of these phones are on the cutting edge of smartphone design, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The iPhone 16e, for its part, looks like a slightly older iPhone model. It doesn't have the standalone Dynamic Island cutout at the top of the display like you'd see in a recent flagship iPhone, instead going for the classic notch look. There's no home button, which differentiates it from the old iPhone SE models, but there isn't one on the Pixel 9a, either. Unfortunately, it only comes in two very boring colors: black and white.Google's mid-range phone is slightly bolder in its design. Namely, Google went and removed the horizontal rear camera bar that had become such an iconic part of the Google Pixel look over the past few years. Now, the rear camera is barely noticeable, lacking even a bump to make it stand out. That's pretty nice if you like your phone to lie completely flat on a table, but it does make the Pixel 9a look like a generic phone prop in a TV show. Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up! That said, the Pixel 9a offers four colors, twice as many as the iPhone 16e. There are black and white options, as well as one called "Iris" and a gorgeous pink colorway that should be the only one anyone buys, in my humble opinion.Display Google's display is superior. Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable In my eyes, there's a pretty definitive winner in the display category.Pixel 9a's display is not only slightly bigger (though that can actually be problematic for folks with smaller hands), but its refresh rate is twice as high. Not everyone values this as much as I do, but smooth scrolling is very nice to have on a smartphone, and it's a little wild that Apple is still so behind the times on this issue in everything other than iPhone Pro models. You also get up to 2,700 nits of peak brightness, which makes it great for outdoor use.Apple's panel isn't bad, by any means. Its 2532x1170 resolution is slightly higher than what Pixel 9a offers (2424x1080), and it is an OLED screen with HDR support. However, with just 1,200 nits of peak brightness, it likely won't look as good under sunlight as the Pixel 9a.Performance Apple went with USB-C for this one, which is nice. Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable When it comes to performance, there really isn't a losing choice here.Both phones are excellent in terms of day-to-day use. Apps load quickly and neither phone slows down too much when there are too many open. I did notice the Pixel 9a getting a little warm to the touch after prolonged use, but a case could easily alleviate that. If you want to put it in numbers and technically choose a winner, it would be Apple. The iPhone 16e's Geekbench benchmarking metrics are better than Pixel 9a's, with Apple netting a 7,423 multi-core score and Google coming in at just 4,358. However, on a practical level, either phone will do just fine for you.Battery life Both phones have good battery life. Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable Battery life is another area where you can only win.In my testing, the Pixel 9a was more or less a 24-hour device between charges, and could probably last longer if you turned the refresh rate down to 60Hz or took other power-saving measures. I never directly tested the iPhone 16e myself, but our reviewer Stan Schroeder noted that he was able to go about two days between charges on what he described as "heavy use." It's possible, then, that the extra cash you pay for the iPhone 16e is getting you a better battery than what is available on Pixel 9a. However, I wouldn't describe the Pixel 9a's battery as "bad" by any means. It's just less good.Camera The iPhone 16e takes nice nighttime shots. Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable Both the iPhone 16e and Pixel 9a have identical (in terms of megapixels) 48MP main shooters on the rear side. However, Apple only included the one camera lens on the phone's backside, while the Pixel 9a also has an additional 13MP ultra-wide lens. Since these are both budget phones, cameras are where the biggest compromises are to be expected. That said, you can definitely get nice-looking shots on either the Pixel 9a or iPhone 16e. One nice bonus that the Pixel 9a has over the Pixel 8a is the addition of Macro Focus, which lets you get up real close to tiny objects and capture them in great detail. Unfortunately, the iPhone 16e doesn't have this feature at all, due to the lack of an ultra-wide lens.Given that Google's phone has that extra lens and at least one feature the iPhone 16e can't claim, I'm inclined to think the Pixel 9a has a better camera system. Google Pixel 9a $499 at Google Store Apple iPhone 16e $599 at Apple.com Topics Google iPhone

The first time I encountered someone listening to their phone out loud in public, it was on a city bus and I was taken aback for two reasons. First, the volume level on the phone wasn’t just audible to the person sitting next to them; our entire section of the bus could hear it. Second, it was a FaceTime call, and neither the person on the bus, nor their caller seemed to be the slightest bit hesitant to carry on their conversation in public. In fact, they appeared completely oblivious. That was a few years ago. Since then, the problem of listening out loud has gotten much worse. I’ve encountered it in grocery stores, airport lounges, coffee shops, and even when just walking on the sidewalk. And it’s not just phone calls/FaceTime. Music, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram — you name it. If it’s got an audio track, I’ve heard it blaring from the speaker of someone’s phone. During a recent episode of the New York Times’ excellent tech podcast, Hard Fork, a listener referred to the problem as an epidemic, and I don’t think that’s hyperbole. Recommended Videos We all know the solution: just use a set of wired or wireless headphones or earbuds. It’s that simple. Except, maybe it’s not. I’ll give these folks the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they’ve fallen victim to misinformation — myths about headphones and earbuds — and that’s the reason they do what they do. With that in mind, allow me to dispel a few of the more common misunderstandings about headphones and earbuds. They’re too expensive In 2016, when Apple launched the first-gen AirPods, wireless earbuds were indeed pricey gadgets. That was almost a decade ago, and since then, the market for wireless earbuds and headphones has become heavily commoditized. Yes, the biggest brands still sell their best products for hundreds of dollars, but there’s also an ocean of less expensive alternatives that can be had for as little as $20. The affordable products aren’t worth buying Simon Cohen / Digital Trends Five or six years ago, I’d have strongly agreed with that statement. Today, it’s no longer true. Take Moondrop’s Space Travel earbuds as an example. I’ve been using these $30 wireless earbuds for a month and they’re shockingly good for the basics. They’re comfy, they sound great, and they even provide a small amount of active noise cancellation (ANC). They’re also fine for calls, as long as it’s not too windy or noisy. Sure, they’re missing lots of the extras you’ll find on more expensive buds, like wireless charging, Multipoint, and wear sensors. Their battery life is similarly basic at just four hours per charge (12 total when you include their funky, transparent block of a charging case). But the point is, they do what we need every set of earbuds to do and they cost less than an average meal for a family of four at McDonalds. Even if you spend less than $30, the odds are good that they’ll at least sound decent. They may not blow you away, but the days of truly awful sound are behind us. Here’s a list of the best wireless earbuds and headphones under $100. I have an iPhone so I need AirPods Simon Cohen / Digital Trends I’m sure Apple would love it if this were true, but nope. Any set of Bluetooth earbuds or headphones will work with any iPhone. I’ve tested hundreds of these products and I’ve still never found one that wouldn’t connect to my iPhone. I’ve heard it said — even by those who should know better — that if you’re an iPhone owner, you should use AirPods because the connection is more reliable. I don’t know of any studies that demonstrate this and my own experience doesn’t back that belief up. However, it is true that when connection problems occur, they’re more often related to the design and engineering of the earbuds/headphones rather than the phone. And since Apple’s AirPods are — whether you like them or not — very well engineered for connection quality, they may be more reliable than lesser products. I can’t wear earbuds; they’re painful or they just fall out Simon Cohen / Digital Trends Now this is not a myth. A lot of people find it hard or impossible to keep earbuds in their ears simply because of how their anatomy is shaped. The good news is, there are now more options than ever, including the newest category of earbuds known as open-ear earbuds. Typically, earbuds are semi-open, which means they sit in front of your ear canal (but don’t seal it with silicone tips) — think AirPods 4 — or, closed, which do seal the ear canal opening (e.g. AirPods Pro). Both types rely on contact with your ear’s concha to stay put. If you’ve got a tiny concha, or an irregularly shaped concha, these types of earbuds just won’t fit correctly, no matter what you do. However, open-ear earbuds are different. They come in two main styles: earhook and ear clip. Both position their speakers just outside of the ear canal, which eliminates any discomfort associated with having an object up against that area. Earhooks, as the name suggest, wrap around the top of your ear (and provide a very secure fit), while ear clips wrap around the side. If you’ve ever struggled to get a good fit with traditional wireless earbuds, open-ears are a superb alternative. Check out our list of the best open-ear earbuds for some suggested models. Just keep in mind, open-ears are, well, open: they can’t block any external sounds. This can be helpful for staying aware of your surroundings, having conversations with others, and they’re excellent for phone calls because you can hear your own voice naturally. But there will be times where those external noises are annoyingly intrusive — it’s just the nature of the beast. Alternatively, most people find wireless headphones very comfortable. I prefer wired earbuds/headphones but my phone doesn’t have a headphone jack Simon Cohen / Digital Trends It’s true. You’ll be hard pressed to find smartphones with headphone jacks unless you go for a niche product like the Sony Xperia 1 VII or the Moondrop MIAD01, which has not one, but two jacks. But that doesn’t mean you can’t connect a set of wired earbuds or headphones. In fact, you have several options. By far the easiest and most affordable way to go is with a USB-C-to-3.5mm adapter. These tiny and inexpensive accessories plug into your phone’s charging port and turn them into headphone jacks. Inside, each of these adapters has a digital-to-analog converter (DAC), which does the all of the heavy lifting of turning your phone’s digital music into something your headphones can reproduce as sound. These DACs are often basic, rarely exceeding 24-bit/48kHz, but for most folks, that’s more than enough quality. If you’re still rocking an iPhone with a Lightning port, don’t worry — there are plenty of adapters for your phone too. Apple makes one that’s just $10. The only thing to double-check when you go to buy, is whether or not the adapter supports two-way audio, so you can continue using your earbuds’ or headphones’ inline mic for voice calls. A step up from simple adapter is a dedicated external DAC/amp. These devices are aimed at folks who care a great deal about audio quality and can range in price from $50 to $450 and up. Their biggest advantage is that they can process hi-res audio at the highest levels (typically up to 24-bit/192kHz or higher) and many of them are designed to work with audiophile-grade earbuds and headphones, which often require more voltage to sound their best (that’s the amp part). It’s rare for these devices to support two-way audio, so check the specs if that’s important. If you don’t already own a set of wired earbuds or headphones, you may want to look for some that come with a USB-C plug. These are becoming increasingly popular, and they basically stick a DAC with a USB-C plug at the end of their wire. Other than that one feature, they’re the same wired products that we’ve had access to for years, and they frequently include an inline mic and remote buttons. I wish I could say I’m confident that this round of myth-busting will convince all those who listen out loud to change their ways — I suspect that’s unlikely. What I can do is share this brilliant scene from 1986’s Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home as a reminder that this is not a new problem.

33 Immortals is back for Xbox Insiders with a fourth playtest starting Tuesday, May 20, 8am PT (11am ET). The playtest will be available for 6 days and end on Monday, May 26, 8am PT (11am ET). Thunder Lotus incorporated more updates and is notably making the game available to players on Xbox One consoles for the first time. The developer is excited for Xbox Insiders to try the update and to get your feedback. Limited space is available so be ready to join on May 20th to experience this co-op action-roguelike for 33 players. About the Game: Play a damned soul and rebel against God’s final judgment. Dive straight into epic 33-player co-op battles with instant “pick-up and raid” matchmaking. Cooperate with your allies to survive against hordes of monsters and massive, challenging bosses. Expand your arsenal and equip powerful new relics to permanently upgrade your soul. Face the Wrath of God in a fight for your eternal life. If you want to learn more, please sign up on the 33 Immortals Website! Updates and Fixes: Control rebinding has been added to the game! Sword of Justice has been balanced following player input. Staff of Sloth has been balanced following player input. Bow of Hope has been balanced. Daggers of Greed have been balanced. Some Feats that were posing problems have been fixed. For more information on updates, please see our full list of patch notes here. Playtest Times: Start: Tuesday, May 20th, 8am PT (11am ET)  End: Monday, May 26th, 8am PT (11am ET)  How to Participate: On Tuesday, May 20th, 8am PT (11am ET): Sign in on your Xbox console or Windows PC and launch the Xbox Insider Hub app (or install the Xbox Insider Hub from the Store first if necessary) Navigate to Previews > 33 Immortals Select Join Wait for the registration to complete and be directed to the Store and install 33 Immortals Beta NOTE: Limited space is available and offered first-come first-served. NOTE: This playtest is now available on Xbox One consoles in addition to Xbox Series X|S consoles and Windows PC. How to Provide Feedback: If you experience any issues while playing 33 Immortals Beta, don’t forget to use “Report a problem” so we can investigate: Hold down the home button on your Xbox controller. Select Report a problem. Select the Games category and 33 Immortals Beta subcategory. Fill out the form with the appropriate details to help our investigation. Other resources: Get the Xbox Insider Hub app Xbox Insider FAQ How to provide feedback as an Xbox Insider For more information: follow us on X/Twitter at @XboxInsider and this blog for announcements and more. And feel free to interact with the community on the Xbox Insider SubReddit. The post 33 Immortals: Try Out New Features in the Fourth Playtest from May 20 appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Max may be adding the "HBO" back into its name, but don't let that fool you into thinking that streaming is getting any better for classic film fans in 2025—great movies older than a few decades are still hard to come by on popular subscription services like Hulu and Netflix. Sure, you could sign up for The Criterion Channel, the streaming service from the boutique media label dedicated to highlighting the best in classic and contemporary films (if you are any kind of film history geek, it's practically a moral imperative). But you actually don't need to pay anything at all to enjoy a substantial library of Criterion-approved gems: As spotted on Reddit (and possibly inspired by a Redditor and Letterboxd user who goes by the handle "Geekstache"), Tubi now has a category page collecting all the movies in the Criterion Collection that you can watch for free on the ad-supported service. "For the Cinephiles"Of course, Tubi can't come right out and say it has curated its own little Criterion corner (Criterion would probably take issue with that; plus, it's not like it's the blessing from Criterion that makes a movie great). Instead, it classifies these 150+ films—from old Hollywood screwball farces like Bringing Up Baby, to imported epics like Akira Kurasowa's Ran, to recent indie darlings like Greta Gerwig's Frances Ha—as being "For the Cinephiles." (I'm sure it is just a coincidence all of them have been released on Blu-ray and DVD in fancy Criterion editions.) The category includes a ton of movies I've long been meaning to see—and you too, probably. There are even a few I own on Criterion DVD that I haven't gotten around to actually watching yet (It Happened One Night, All That Jazz). Of course, streaming on Tubi isn't exactly equivalent to watching in high definition on a feature-packed disc, or even on The Criterion Channel itself—you'll have to sit through commercial breaks, for one thing, and its unlikely Tubi will be offering up the same pristine restored prints. But you also won't be paying for the privilege, and you can save yourself the time you'd otherwise spend endlessly scrolling for something good to watch.

This article contains full spoilers for every Final Destination movie, INCLUDING Bloodlines. For more than a decade, we thought we’d finally made it. It’s been 14 years since the last Final Destination film, the last time Death started killing off those who escaped its plan in exceedingly gruesome fashion. We thought we were free to go to theaters in safety once more. But as the mortician William Bludworth, played by the late great Tony Todd, has taught us, there’s no escaping Death. The franchise is back with one of its best entries: Final Destination Bloodlines, written and directed by newcomers to the franchise Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein. Bloodlines has a shinier look and a different approach, focusing on a family instead a group of random teens. But it follows the well-established principles of a Final Destination movie, especially in its incredible kills. In celebration of Bloodlines bringing Final Destination back to screens, we’re ranking all of Death’s achievements across the franchise. Because Final Destination movies are ultimately about good, gory fun, we’re ranking them from the most boring to the most enjoyably incredible. Like Death itself, we do have a few rules here. We aren’t counting any deaths in the premonitions that open each movie, nor the mass casualties that occur in the actual events, which means that you won’t see the infamous pile-up from Final Destination 2 or the incredible tower sequence that opens Bloodlines. Also we’re focusing on Death’s kills, so kills done by human beings don’t count. Even with those restrictions, Final Destination gives us plenty of memorable kills, as Death always makes a show of getting even. 40. Alex Browning’s Off-Screen Demise (Final Destination 2) Is it a mark of respect that the first movie’s protagonist Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) doesn’t die on screen? Or is it the ultimate insult that we learn via newspaper clipping in Final Destination 2 that he was knocked in the head with a brick? Interpretations may vary, but no one can disagree that Alex’s death deserves the bottom spot. Played by comedy great David Koechner, paper plant boss Dennis Lapman of Final Destination 5 has one of the gnarliest premonition deaths. Dangling off a collapsing bridge, Dennis almost pulls himself back up when he’s doused with hot tar, burning alive as he lets go and drops to the water. That incredible end makes his actual expiration all the worse, as he goes out when a loose wrench on a shop floor gets hurled into his head, no real setup involved. 38. Wendy Cristensen, Julie Cristensen, and Kevin Fischer Crash Off-Screen (Final Destination 3) With the exception of the original Final Destination, the protagonists end their films thinking they’ve beaten Death only to realize that the Grim Reaper has one more trick up his sleeve, and the movies end with shocking cuts. The worst of them comes in Final Destination 3, one of the weaker entries overall, in which Wendy Cristensen (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), her sister Julie (Amanda Crew), and pal Kevin Fischer (Ryan Merriman) all perish in a train crash. Technically we see them meet their end in impressive carnage, but that all happens in a premonition, which this list rules out. So we have to go with the death that happens onscreen—well, on soundtrack, as the movie cuts to black with the sound of the crash. 37. Janet Cunningham, Lori Milligan, Nick O’Bannon Death By X-Ray Truck (The Final Destination) Easily the worst of the series, the fourth entry The Final Destination also ends with a sudden attack on the protagonists. In this case, Nick O’Bannon (Bobby Campo), his love interest Lori Milligan (Shantel VanSanten), and her friend Janet Cunningham (Haley Webb) meet in a coffee shop to celebrate life, only for a truck to crash into the building. It’s a lot like the third movie’s ending, but at least this movie gives us neat x-rays to look at and imagine what horrible things happened to our heroes. 36. George Lanter and the Very Quiet Ambulance (The Final Destination) Played by the great Mykelti Williamson, George Lantner is the only character who acts like a human being in The Final Destination. So it’s a bit lame that the movie kills him off with a gag when he steps onto the road and gets flattened by an oncoming ambulance. He mentions “deja vu” right before it happens because his end is a callback to a similar one from the first film, which will be talked about shortly. It’s an unimaginative death and a mean joke at the expense of a likable character, which lands it toward the bottom of the list. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! 35. Nadia Monroy Makes Nick’s Dream a Reality (The Final Destination) For the most part, this list is ignoring both the premonitions and the mass casualties that occur after a premonition. The one exception comes with Nadia Monroy (Stephanie Honoré) of The Final Destination, who dies in the immediate aftermath of a premonition. After Nick has a vision of a massive Nascar wreck, he panics, which gets a group of people kicked out of the race just as the accident begins. As the survivors try to make sense of what happened, a tire flies out of the stadium and through Nadia’s head, replicating her death from the vision. 34. Perry Malinowski Salutes the Flag (Final Destination 3) Final Destination loves its out-of-nowhere surprise kills. A character thinks they’re safe, they make some ironic statement and, bam, they’re immediately dead. Usually, these kills aren’t nearly as funny or clever as the movies think they are, especially compared to the elaborate sequences that have become the franchise’s calling card. One of the worst comes when Perry Malinowski (Maggie Ma) gets unceremoniously offed when a loose horse breaks of a flagpole that goes through her chest, a forgettable death for a forgettable character. Horse looks cool though. 33. Darlene Campbell Stays at the Cabin (Final Destination Bloodlines) Although not as meta as, say, a Scream movie, the characters in Final Destination: Bloodlines know how Final Destination movies work. To the filmamkers’ credit, the knowledge adds tension to the movie, underscoring how knowledge doesn’t give them power to evade Death. Nowhere is that more clear than at the climax of Bloodlines when Darlene Campbell (Rya Kihlstedt)—a mother who has estranged herself from her children—decides to hide in her own mother’s bunker, thereby stalling Death’s hit list and saving her children. Noble though the sentiment may be, Darlene’s proclamation of love for her children distracts her, and she gets smashed by a falling pole, rendering her heroism moot. 32. Carter Horton Finally Sees the Sign (Final Destination) Played by Kerr Smith, Carter Horton is the onscreen antagonist of the first film, an annoying preppie who bullies Alex and the others and somehow gets to survive. So while we don’t actually see Carter get killed before the screen cuts to closing credits, his demise does rank above those from the third and fourth movies just because we wanted to see this guy get it for so long. 31. Samantha Lane Has Her Eye on a Stone (The Final Destination) The overwhelming majority of Final Destination victims are obnoxious, good-looking teens who mostly deserve to die. Wife and mother Samantha Lane (Krista Lane) certainly isn’t a saint but she doesn’t irritate us like every other jerk in The Final Destination. So we’re a bit annoyed that she gets such a cruel death when a lawn mower kicks up a rock that flies through her eyes while her young kids watch in horror. The kill does get a few extra points, however, for all of the playfulness before it actually happens, as Death sets up a few options to off Sarah before finally picking the rock. 30. Ian McKinley Splits the Fair (Final Destination 3) The franchise has never done great with its human antagonists, the regular guys who get tired of all the dying and take things into their own hands by killing the other characters. Ian McKinley (Kris Lemche) stands out a little bit more than the others. Instead of showing all the things that could off him, the camera simply follows Ian through a crowd while he rants about his immortality. That’s a bit dull, but it pays off when a firework shoots by him, apparently sparing him, only for the explosion to knock over a cherry picker that splits him in half. That extra beat is enough to make his sudden surprise kill a bit more satisfying. 29. Stefani and Charlie Reyes in a Logjam (Final Destination Bloodlines) Although a bit glossier and a bit kinder with its characters, Final Destination Bloodlines follows the beats of most entries in the franchise. In fact, its final moment, in which protagonists Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) and Charlie Reyes (Teo Briones) realize that they did not, in fact, stop Death and are about to die, feels like a callback to the infamous log premonition in Final Destination 2. However, Bloodlines ups the stakes with a lucky penny leading to a train derailment. The amazing shot of Stefani and Charlie goes bigger than any of the other movies’ shock ending, undone some by the cheap effects when two logs from the train car come loose and flatten our heroes. 28. Sam Lawton and Emma Bell Die in a Callback (Final Destination 5) Final Destination 5 has the best ending of the series, in which protagonists Sam Lawton (Nicholas D’Agosto) and Emma Bell (Molly Harper) survive the ordeal and board a plane to celebrate. It’s only then that we realize that the movie has taken place in 2000 and that they’re boarding Flight 180, the one that explodes at the start of the first movie. Thus we have to watch as the characters who have gone through so much die, but we also get to see the original disaster that started it all. Emily splatters when she gets sucked out of the plane and sliced by the wing, but Sam’s death isn’t that spectacular outside of the fact that he burns up in the same manner as Alex did in his vision. 27. Tod Waggner Hung Out to Dry (Final Destination) The first “real” death of the series, Tod Waggner’s (Chad E. Donella) end feels like a first draft to the spectacular kills to come. When water leaks from a toilet, Todd slips into the tub and gets a laundry cord wrapped around his neck. Todd’s desperate attempts to stand up and save himself, frustrated by the slick tub floor, give the death a level of pathos rarely seen in the series, but outside of that, it’s a fairly rote kill for the overall franchise. 26. Iris Campbell Gets to the Point (Final Destination Bloodlines) Bloodlines gives Tony Todd a glorious final scene as Bloodworth, but it’s the elderly Iris Campbell (Gabrielle Rose) who tells her granddaughter Stefani the rules of Death’s design. Throughout the exposition dump, the camera points to various classic setups, but Iris catches them all. So when Death does finally take her, using a flying fire extinguisher to send a weathervane point through her face, it’s because Iris wants to show Stefani how Death operates. That intentionality makes Iris’ end stand out, even if it isn’t the most elaborate on this list. 25. Rory Peters Goes Fencing (Final Destination 2) Final Destination 2 has the best premonition in the series, an incredible accident and pile-up filled with ghastly incidents. Toward the climax of the movie, that road destruction gets sort of recreated when a series of events launched by a car crash suddenly kill off other characters. It’s mostly fun, and wide shots let us see Death’s composition, but it’s hard to get too excited when stoner Rory Peters (Jonathan Cherry) gets split into thirds by flying fencing. 24. Clear Rivers and Eugene Dix Go Up in Flames (Final Destination 2) It was a nice reveal to show Clear Rivers (Ali Larter) had survived even the post-credit carnage of the first Final Destination to provide information to the victims of the second film. But that surprise was completely undercut by the film then killing Clear in a sudden hospital explosion, taking teacher Eugene (T.C. Carson), one of the more compelling characters in the movie, out along with her. Multi-victim kills always feel like a bit of a cheat, but at least this one had a nice build-up. 23. Carter Daniels’ Hate Crime Backfires (The Final Destination) The Final Destination‘s unlikable cast goes to the extreme when white supremacist Carter (Justin Welborn) singles out George Latner as the cause of his wife’s demise. So it’s especially satisfying when Carter, in the midst of burning a cross on George’s lawn, gets dragged behind his truck and burned alive. Carter may not get the most creative of kills, but rarely do we see such an awful person get their full and just reward like that. 22. Isaac Palmer Meets the Buddha (Final Destination 5) Unlike most entries, Final Destination 5 limited its nastiness to one character, and even then, actor P. J. Byrne knows how to find light notes in his depiction of smarmy exec Isaac Palmer. Byrne sleezes it up as Isaac steals a spa coupon from recently-deceased co-worker, leers at spa workers, and then condescend to the worker who performs upon him. From then on, it’s a classic Final Destination sequence, as a fallen candle ignites spilled oil to send Isaac pin-first onto the ground, crawling away until he inadvertently pulls a Buddha statue on his head, his karma fully earned. 21. Kat Jennings and the Jaws of Death (Final Destination 2) Nervous wreck Kat Jennings (Keegan Connor Tracy) gets one of the better sudden deaths in the series, largely because Death puts all the pieces in place for a symphony of chaos and then sets it off suddenly. Kat initially survives the car crash, avoiding the pointy pipe that ran through her back window and continues to stick out behind her head. When firefighters use the jaws of life to pry open her car door, however, the impact is enough to set off the airbags, slamming Kat’s head into the spike and setting off more carnage. 20. Lewis Romero Loses Weight in the Gym (Final Destination 3) A lot of the kills on this list are preceded by a character declaring their immortality, but few do it with as much apblomb as Final Destination 3‘s aggro jock Lewis Romero (Texas Battle). Like many Lewis responds to Death’s machinations by asserting his own free will… loudly. At the end, he does it while pumping iron in the gym, and his protestations shake the walls, knocking free swords used as part of his team’s decor. The swords cut the bands of his machine as they fall, freeing the weights to smash his head. Given that it was his actions that made the swords drop, Lewis did kind of control his own fate. 19. Nora Carpenter and the Creepy Hook Hand (Final Destination 2) Of all the kills on this list, the death of nervous mom Nora Carpenter (Lynda Boyd) seems the easiest to avoid. Well, at first anyway, when she rushes into an elevator and gets her hair caught on a hook, part of the prosthetic limbs that a creepy guy holds in a box. If Nora just settled down for a moment, or if the creepy guy would put as much effort into untangling her as he does smelling her hair, then she probably could have wrestled free before the elevator decapitated her. All that aside, it’s a pretty amazing and gory kill, one that has enough shock value to overcome any logistical leaps. The Final Destination movies are big on dying, but not so big on suffering, which is a good thing. We don’t want to think of these people as human beings, because that would ruin the fun of watching them go out. Erin Ulmer’s (Alexz Johnson) end in Final Destination 3 veers a bit too much toward suffering, as the camera holds on her as she moans in her last moments. Up until that point, though, the scene has fun with misdirection, making us think that we’re about to see Ian McKinley get crushed by boards until Erin gets knocked into a nail gun, which perforates the back of her head. 17. Jonathan Groves Takes a Bath (The Final Destination) On one hand, Jonathan Groves (Jackson Walker) feels like he was added to The Final Destination late in production because the producers found out the movie’s running a bit too short. Groves does show up in the opening crash scene, but we lose track of him and assume he’s dead until Nick sees him on the news. But we can forgive the shoehorning for the purely absurd way that Groves goes out, with an overfilled bathtub from the hospital floor above crashing down onto his bed. 16. Nathan Sears and Flight 180’s Landing (Final Destination 5) In addition to its fantastic kills Final Destination 5 also has the most well-rounded characters in the series, characters like junior executive Nathan Sears (Arlen Escarpeta). Nathan is fundamentally a nice guy but he gets caught up in a dispute with an older union leader, a dispute that ends when the leader accidentally dies during a fight. Thinking that was Death coming for him, Nathan comes to the leader’s wake to pay respects, secure in the belief that Death has skipped him. That assumption adds some pathos to the moment with gear from Flight 180 falls from the sky and crushes him, taking both good people and bad people. 15. Frankie Cheeks Trapped in the Drive Thru (Final Destination 3) Frankie Cheeks (Sam Easton) is one of the most unlikable characters in the franchise (which is saying something) and we don’t even know that he’s dead until after it happens. So why does it rank relatively high on this list? Because of the way it’s set up, looking very much like protagonists Wendy and Kevin are going to get killed in an unbelievable but well-orchestrated drive-through accident. While our heroes escape in time, a collision still occurs, sending a huge engine fan into the back of Frankie’s head. At first it seems like the duo passed their death onto an innocent bystander until we see a bloody necklace in the shape of a naked lady, and we all breathe a sigh of relief that Frankie Cheeks walks the Earth no more. 14. Tim Carpenter Gets Squished By Glass (Final Destination 2) Tim Carpenter may be the weirdest character in the entire series. The script says he’s 15, and actor James Kirk sometimes plays him as a teen and sometimes as an eight-year-old, which ends up feeling like he’s the MadTV character Stuart. That childlike nature leads to Tim’s end when, like a dumb kid, he just decides to chase after some pigeons because… they were there? The pigeons take flight, knocking a giant pane of glass off of a crane and sending the glass on top of Tim, smooshing the little weirdo. 13. Andy Kewzer Goes Through a Chain Link Fence… in Tiny Pieces (The Final Destination) The biggest problem with The Final Destination is its reliance on CG blood, a scourge of 2000s horror. Still, sometimes the kills are so outrageous that we can forgive the poor effects. Such is the case when mechanic Andy Kewzer (Andrew Fiscella) gets blown into a chain link fence. It looks silly when his body collapses into goopy chunks, but the setup is satisfying, as is the sight of him getting blasted out of his garage into the instrument of his doom. 12. Terry Chaney Hit By a Silent Bus (Final Destination) For the first viewers of Final Destination, Terry Chaney (Amanda Detmer) had the standout death. Freaked out by Alex’s talk of Death coming for them all, Terry tells her friends to drop dead, steps into the street and gets splattered by a bus. It’s a funny moment, as long as you don’t think about it for a second (none of her friends have peripheral vision? The bus driver doesn’t see the gesticulating lady backing into the street?), and it got cheers in the theater. Over time, however, the sudden shock death has become a series trope, dulling the impact (pun intended) of Terry’s end. 11. Howard Campbell Gets a Trim (Final Destination Bloodlines) Patriarch Howard Campbell (Alex Zahara) gets the first classic-style death in Bloodlines, and what a glorious one it is. Occurring after the film has clearly laid out Death’s rules and process, the filmmakers luxuriate in the setup, taking time to highlight all of the things that could kill someone in Campbell’s well-appointed suburban backyard: a rake under a ripping trampoline, a shard of glass in an iced drink, a hose about to explode. After several minutes of anticipation, all of those things come together to set-off something we never saw coming, an electric self-propelled lawnmower, which runs over the face of the prone Howard. Iconic as it may be, Terry’s isn’t the best sudden shock death in the first Final Destination movie. That honor belongs to New York Rangers superfan Billy Hitchcock (Seann William Scott), who also dies without much obvious setup from Death. Billy goes after he and Alex confront the ever-jerky Carter, who decides to defy Death by parking on train tracks. Carter survives, but Billy can’t take it and starts having an angry meltdown, a meltdown cut short when the train kicks up a piece of shrapnel and sends it flying through Billy’s neck. Tod may be the first death in the Final Destination series, but Valerie Lewton (Kristen Cloke) gets the first great death of the franchise. Still shaken up over the explosion of Flight 180, teacher Mrs. Lewton spills some alcohol on the ground while making dinner. When her cooking goes awry, the alcohol ignites, setting her house ablaze. But it’s not the fire that kills her. Rather she dies when she accidentally pulls a knife down from the counter, which embeds itself in her chest. 8. Evan Lewis Slips on Spaghetti (Final Destination 2) Sometimes Death orchestrates events in such an improbable manner that we can almost see a physical hand onscreen, manipulating events. Sometimes dumb people do dumb things and pay for it. It’s the latter event that brings down lottery-winning bro Evan Lewis (David Paetkau) in Final Destination 2, who just tosses a pot of spaghetti out the window. That decision proves disastrous when Death’s meddling leads to a fire in Evan’s apartment. Evan climbs out to make an escape, but he slips on his own spaghetti, which leaves him vulnerable to the falling ladder that pierces his eye. 7. Brian Gibbons BBQ Bomb (Final Destination 2) Although it’s a sudden kill with little setup, the death of Brian Gibbons (Noel Fisher) ranks so high because of how funny it is. At the end of the movie, survivors Kimberly Corman (A.J. Cook) and Thomas Burke (Michael Landes) join the Gibbons family at a BBQ where they all let off a bit of steam. No sooner does Brian joke about his and his father’s near-death experience than the grill he’s using explodes, sending his severed arm flying through the air. The arm lands on his mother’s plate, a darkly funny beat that makes it one step better than the average out-of-nowhere kills in the series. 6. Erik and Bobby Campbell Bond in the Hospital (Final Destination Bloodlines) Erik Campbell (Richard Harmon) is truly a unique character in the Final Destination franchise. First of all, he seems to survive his own elaborate death, a hilarious incident in a tattoo parlor (featured heavily in teasers). Secondly he and his brother Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner) actually like each other, which makes their end so poignant. Off of Bludworth’s information, Erik decides to send the highly allergic Bobby into anaphylaxis so he can revive him, thus satisfying Death. But Erik gets too cute with his plan, and his action accidentally turns on and revs up an MRI machine in the room where the brothers are working. The intensified magnification first pulls in and crushes Erik, with his piercings in front and a wheelchair in back, and then snags a coil from a vending machine, sending it through Bobby’s head. 5. Olivia Castle’s Laser-Guided Fall (Final Destination 5) Okay, technically Olivia Castle (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) dies when she falls out of a window. But that’s not the part that sticks out in our mind. Instead we remember everything before that moment when Olivia gets laser eye surgery. As if torn from the worst thoughts of anyone about to get the surgery, we watch as Death shorts out the laser while the tech is out of the room and starts burning out Kimberly’s eye. No sooner does she escape than she slips on her beloved teddy bear and falls through the window, a somehow merciful end to the suffering. 3. Ashley Freund & Ashlyn Halperin’s Tanning Session Gone Wrong (Final Destination 3) As this list shows, great Final Destination deaths fall into one of three categories: memorably mean, patently absurd, or impeccably designed. Ashley Fruend (Chelan Simmons) and Ashlyn Halperin (Crystal Lowe) are the prime examples of the first category. A pair of stock mean mall girls, Ashley and Ashlyn go to their favorite tanning spa, giant-size sodas in hand. Death ups the condensation on the drinks, which creates enough water to short out the beds, which turns up the heat, while a fallen shelf keeps them trapped inside. The sight of them burning alive is nasty enough, but the real kicker is the match cut at the end, which replaces two tanning beds with two coffins. 3. Julia Campbell Takes Out the Trash (Final Destination Bloodlines) Final Destination movies love a good fake-out and Bloodlines has the best one yet. Armed with knowledge from Iris, Stefani walks down a suburban street with a skeptical Erik, Death’s next probable victim. As the two walk, Stefani points out all of the things that could kill him: leaves from a blower, a soccer ball kicked by kids, a trash compactor. But to Erik’s mocking glee, nothing happens. Nothing, that is, until Erik’s sister Julia (Anna Lore) goes for a run. In the background. And out of focus, all of those things come together to knock Julia into a roadside dumpster, which is then emptied into the garbage truck where Julia is compacted while Stefani watches. 2. Hunt Wynorski’s Guts in a Pool Pump (The Final Destination) The best patently absurd kill in the entire franchise occurs to obnoxious bro Hunt Wynorski (Nick Zano). After getting into an altercation with a little kid at a public pool, Hunt sits down to catch some rays when he hears his lucky coin fall into the water. Hunt dives in after it, just as Death starts messing with the equipment, causing the pump to malfunction and raise the pressure. The pump traps Hunt at the bottom and he gestures wildly for help, but no one sees him. Instead of drowning, Hunt gets his guts sucked out through his butt, a kill so wonderful that we don’t even care about the CGI viscera that caps off the scene. 1. Candace Hooper Doesn’t Stick the Landing (Final Destination 5) Easily the most glorious and well-composed kill of the entire franchise occurs early in Final Destination 5, when a standard routine for gymnast Candice Hooper (Ellen Wroe) goes horribly wrong. Director Steven Quale takes the time to show viewers the tools and space in which Death works, highlighting dripping water, a shaking girder, spilled dust, and other elements, before bringing them together as Candice goes through her flips. As a result, we understand every step in the system of catastrophes that leads to a ghastly end, with Candice’s crumpled body shuttering on the gym floor.

In this blog, we will cover five key workflows in the new Memory Profiler package that you can use to diagnose and examine memory-related issues in your game. These are:Monitoring your application’s memory pressureSeeing the distribution of Unity ObjectsDetecting poorly configured assetsLocating unintentional duplicate objectsComparing memory captures to validate optimizationsFor an introduction to the Memory Profiler, please see the recent blog, Everything you need to know about Memory Profiler 1.0.0.This first workflow monitors how demanding your application is on a device’s memory resources. This process is critical to determining whether or not your application is at risk of performance problems, or even being evicted and terminated by the operating system, due to consuming too much memory.To begin, we have a build of an example game running on the target device. Naturally, it is essential that we take a memory capture of the game, running on the actual hardware, to see how it uses the devices' available memory resources. Furthermore, memory does not behave in the same way in the Unity Editor as it does in the Unity runtime, so taking a memory capture of the Editor in Play Mode is not a good representation of how a game’s memory will look on a device. (Taking a memory capture of the Editor is appropriate when developing tools for the Editor, such as custom Editor windows.)After navigating to the stage in our game where we want to analyze the memory usage, we attach the Memory Profiler to our device using the dropdown in the Memory Profiler. We can then take a memory capture, as shown below.After opening this capture, the Memory Profiler displays our application’s memory footprint at the top of the Summary page as “Memory Usage On Device”.Here we can see that our application’s memory footprint is 492.5 MB, out of an available 3.50 GB. We need to use our best judgment next as to whether we believe that is a sensible proportion of the device’s physical memory (RAM) to be using at the time of capture. Remember that a device’s physical memory is shared by all running processes.You’ll notice that this visual indicator is showing you total resident memory. Total resident memory refers to how much of your application’s memory resides in the device’s physical memory hardware (RAM). This is the clearest indicator of how demanding your application’s current memory usage is on the target device for two reasons. First, this is because as your application’s total resident memory usage increases, so does the likelihood of incurring frequent page faults, where the operating system has to page virtual memory in and out of the device’s physical memory. Frequent page faults will cause significant performance degradation of your application. And second, this is because many operating systems use your application’s resident memory usage to determine its current memory footprint. If your application’s memory footprint gets too high, the operating system will evict your application and terminate it, causing a crash for your players.Therefore, you can use the Memory Usage On Device visual indicator in the Memory Profiler to infer if an application might be at risk of performance issues or being terminated by the operating system, due to an overuse of memory at the time of capture.This contrasts with Allocated Memory, sometimes referred to as Committed Memory, which you might notice is displayed in various graphics below this indicator, and is currently the default option shown by all other views, such as Unity Objects. Allocated Memory refers to all memory that your application currently has allocated, regardless of whether it has been made resident in physical memory or not, and therefore it matches your application’s view of memory more closely. As such, this can be useful for exploring all of your application’s currently allocated memory, whilst resident memory usage is key to understanding the memory pressure your application is placing on the hardware at any moment in time.The Memory Profiler’s Unity Objects tab provides you with an overview of your application’s memory from the perspective of Unity Objects; that’s your application’s textures, shaders, meshes, materials, and so on. This is a great place to begin exploration in the Memory Profiler because Unity Objects will be inherently familiar to so many Unity users, as it is what the majority of us work with directly in the Unity Editor. Not only does this provide a familiar entry point to understanding our application’s memory, but it can also help to diagnose and fix a range of potential issues by providing this Unity-specific context.To see the Unity Objects view, simply select the Unity Objects tab at the top of the Memory Profiler after opening a memory capture, as shown above.You can see how the Unity Objects view quickly gives us an understanding of the distribution of Unity Object types in our application. This allows us to both gain a high-level understanding of what types were consuming the most memory at the time of capture, as well as to reason about this, such as whether it is expected that a particular scene is heavy on AudioClip objects, for example. Expanding each type also enables us to view every Unity Object that is currently allocated, individually, as shown below.It’s important to remember that Unity Objects make up a proportion of our application’s total allocated memory. You can see exactly how much in the indicator above the table, highlighted below.Here, you can see that our total allocated memory size, “Total Memory In Snapshot”, is 4.64GB and that our Unity Objects account for 2.37GB of that. Furthermore, if we filter the table – for example, by using the search feature – you’ll notice that this bar updates to reflect our search results. In other words, it displays the size of all the memory currently shown in the table. This helps you to maintain perspective of exactly how much memory you are inspecting as a proportion of the whole capture and can help to inform where to invest optimization efforts.In version 1.0 of Memory Profiler, the Unity Objects table shows you Allocated Memory, or, put another way, it shows you all Unity Objects that are alive in your application. We are exploring adding Resident Memory visibility to these views in an upcoming release, which would enable you to see exactly which of your Unity Objects are currently resident in physical memory, and therefore see exactly which are directly contributing to your application’s current memory footprint. You can use the All Of Memory tab to inspect the remainder of your application’s memory at the time of capture, which will include memory outside of Unity Objects, such as various Unity subsystems, managed-only (C#) memory, and DLLs and executables.The Unity Objects view can help us to diagnose a range of potential issues. One such issue is detecting assets that have been badly configured, causing them to consume more memory than is necessary.In the capture below, you can see that a substantial portion of our Unity Objects are textures. The capture is from a project with high graphical fidelity that uses the High Definition Render Pipeline and makes heavy use of visual effects. So, with this context in mind, we expect to see heavy use of textures, which we do.However, upon expanding our second large category, Texture2D, we can notice that two textures appear much bigger than the others. Using our understanding of our project, we are surprised that these textures are bigger than comparable textures, like HoloTable_Normal or HoloTable_Mask, as we expected them to be similar in size.So, we select one of these textures in the table to learn more details about it, and to begin investigating what might be the cause for this. Here, in the Details view we find our explanation – our texture is writable, or “Read/Write Enabled.”This is a common problem that we see across many user projects: accidentally making a texture writable when it’s not needed by checking the “Read/Write” setting on the texture’s import settings. When a texture has this flag enabled, it will double its size in memory. This is because a second copy of the texture data is required so that it can be accessed on the CPU. A tell-tale sign of this is that the Total Size of a texture is twice the size of what you expected, or twice the size of similar textures.After disabling the “Read/Write” flag on both of these textures and taking a second capture, we can see both of these textures have halved in size.We are exploring adding a column for graphics (GPU) memory to the Unity Objects table in a future release to make locating cases where a Unity Object has allocated graphics memory, such as in this example, easier.A common mistake that we see in Unity projects is unintentionally creating duplicate Unity Objects. For example, it is very easy to accidentally create a duplicate Material by accessing a MeshRenderer’s material property. Not only does this add up quickly in this case – if, for example, it is done on every instance of a particular MeshRenderer – but, furthermore, these dynamically created materials must be explicitly destroyed.To help with locating this type of issue, the Unity Objects table provides a quick filter to show you potential duplicate Unity Objects only. This view will filter the table to show only Unity Objects that have multiple instances with both an identical name and size. It is important to note that many potential duplicates will be expected and not a cause for concern at all. For example, multiple instances of a prefab might have identically named and sized Transform components, and these would be expected duplicates. It is only discovering unintentional duplicates that we are interested in, which we will illustrate in this workflow following example.The capture below was taken in a simple scene with two instances of a Door prefab, and we have enabled the Show Potential Duplicates Only filter located underneath the Unity Objects table. This has filtered the table to show us only Unity Objects that have multiple instances with the same name and size.Because we have two instances of a Door prefab in our scene, we also have, as expected, two instances of all the relevant objects: MeshRenderer, Transform, GameObject, and so on. However, we also have two instances of the “Door” Material in our capture above. These Door instances look the same in our scene, so it is expected that they would share a Material. This is, therefore, an unintentional duplicate, and in this particular example was caused by accessing the MeshRenderer’s material property in the prefab. Removing this property access and taking a second capture shows the duplicate material is no longer present in the Unity Objects table.It’s important to remember that this filter is simply showing you all Unity Objects that have multiple instances with the same name and size. It requires your knowledge of your project to interpret whether the potential duplicates you see are expected, or are, in fact, unintentional and cause for investigation. We recommend paying attention to the Total Memory In Table bar at the top, which gives you a visual indication of what proportion of your application’s allocated memory you are seeing in the table. This can help you to maintain perspective of where to invest your optimization efforts.The Memory Profiler also provides functionality to compare two memory captures. This allows us to make changes to our project, for example to address an issue we might have found, and subsequently test if our changes have indeed had the desired outcome. It is important to always test that your hypothesis is correct and your changes have had the desired outcome on the actual hardware. Here, let’s explore an example of this comparison workflow.Below is a capture of our mobile game taken during the first level. We can see that the biggest category of Unity Objects is Texture2D. After opening this category to check what our biggest textures are, we can see there are a few UI textures that are quite large in relation to the rest of our game – megabytes each. This raises a suspicion for us: Why are these textures so much larger than the others and do they need to be? To discover why, we can first locate the source texture asset in our project by selecting the texture in the Memory Profiler and using the “Select In Editor” button, which will highlight the source texture asset in our Project window.Using the Inspector window, we can see that all of our offending large UI textures are not being compressed due to their dimensions not being a power-of-two, as shown by the “NPOT” (non-power-of-two) text.This explains these large texture sizes. We can now use our knowledge of our project to reduce this memory usage. We know that three of these textures (the help controls) are always displayed together in the UI, as well as the other three textures (the creatures). Therefore, we can hypothesize with high confidence that creating two Sprite Atlases for each set of three textures will reduce our allocated memory usage, because it will enable them to be compressed without increasing the number of textures in memory.To compare two snapshots, begin by opening the first snapshot. This is the “base” against which we want to compare. Now above the open snapshot, select the “Compare Snapshots” tab and choose the second snapshot. The Memory Profiler will now present a summary comparing the two snapshots, as shown below.To see the effect of our change and verify that it did, in fact, reduce the size of our application’s allocated memory for the Texture2D category, we can select the Unity Objects tab. Here, we are presented with a comparison table that shows the Unity Object types that have changed, as well as how they have changed between the captures (shown below).We can see our Texture2D type as a whole has reduced in size by 3.6MB and has four less textures than before. Expanding this category, we can see the removal of our individual, uncompressed Sprite textures, and the addition of our two Sprite Atlas textures, resulting in a net reduction of 3.6MB and 4 Texture2D objects.So this was a success – we have confirmed that our hypothesis was correct using the comparison functionality, and we have reduced the size of these textures in allocated memory.From reading this blog, you should now have a better understanding of five key workflows in the new Memory Profiler package. These workflows are designed for diagnosing and examining memory-related issues in ayour game. We hope the Memory Profiler package released in Unity 2022.2 helps you to better monitor, examine, and understand your game’s memory footprint. Please feel free to reach out to the team to share your feedback on how we can improve performance profiling tools via our forum page –, or share your suggestions through our roadmap page, where you can also see some of the features that are being worked on.If you’re interested in more details on this topic, we will be publishing another blog in the coming weeks that will dive deeper into how an application’s memory footprint is calculated, covering topics such as resident and allocated memory in more detail.

Whether summer days are approaching or you’re a self-proclaimed hot sleeper, the best cooling pillows are the bedding essentials you need for a soothing night’s rest. Unlike standard bed pillows, these options boast airflow and breathability like no others. Plus, they’ll help keep you refreshed without having to invest in a whole cooling mattress or new A/C. But we’re not just going to talk about the accolades of a cooling pillow, we’re sharing our honest reviews about everything from gel-infused memory foam to moisture-wicking latex pillows after months—and even years—of use. We even sprinkled in some budget-friendly cooling pillows you can find on Amazon, complete with different firmness levels, that’ll help make night sweats a thing of the past.Our Top Picks for the Best Cooling Pillows:Best Overall Cooling Pillow: Purple Harmony Pillow, $199 $179A Refreshing Memory Foam Pick: My Sheets Rock The Cooler Memory Foam Pillow, $129Best for Side Sleepers: Naturepedic Organic Side Sleeper Pillow, $139 $111A Luxe Latex Pillow: Saatva Latex Pillow, $165Best Down Alternative: Casper Original Pillow, $65 $58The Budget Option: Buffy Cloud Pillow, $50 $40For consistency, all prices in this story reflect standard sizes.Browse by CategoryThe best cooling pillow, overallKelsey BorivinskyPurple Harmony PillowUpsidesSupportive designMade of natural latexDurable to maintain its shapeDownsidesPriceySpecsFill: Honeycomb GelFlex Grid, Talalay LatexCare: Machine-wash the cover separately on cold and air-dry. Spot clean the core.Sizes: Standard, kingThanks to premier cooling properties, this Purple pillow is a game changer for hot sleepers. Just take it from contributor Kelsey Borovinsky. This bedding accessory was her first foray into latex pillows, and after sleeping on it extensively, she says it was not only breathable but it also held its shape for supportive sleep. “If you like a Tempur-Pedic type of pillow that is really solid and supportive or in the market for one to support other parts of your body, this would be a great option,” she says.A refreshing memory foam pickPhoto: Nashia BakerPhoto: Nashia BakerMy Sheets Rock Cooler Memory Foam PillowUpsidesStructured pillowDense designDoesn’t flatten over timeDownsidesMight feel too firm for traditional down pillow usersSpecsFill: Bamboo rayon, memory foam, and cooling gelCare: N/ASizes: Standard, kingCombination sleepers, listen up. Senior commerce editor Nashia Baker considers herself a side and stomach sleeper and attests that she feels refreshed and comfortable no matter her sleep position with this memory foam pillow. “It has a structured build and feels slightly firm to the touch, but it shapes to my head when I lay down for a soft, cradling feel as I sleep,” she says, adding that its support helps keep neck pain at bay. “Another perk that caught me by surprise was its cooling gel pad that actually feels refreshing. It’s been a go-to when the weather heats up so I can comfortably doze off.” If you aren’t sure which side is doing the cooling, you can identify it by its “ocean blue” color. Baker adds that the pillow is responsive and needs a lot of force to even make it sink in, and she hasn’t noticed any flattening over the last year she’s used it.Best for side sleepersRachel FletcherNaturepedic Organic Latex Side Sleeper PillowUpsidesIdeal for tall peopleDoesn’t bunchComes with extra fill to customize the firmnessDownsidesOn the larger sideSpecsFill: Shredded latex fillingCare: Machine-wash the outer casing on cold and dry on medium. Spot clean the insert.Sizes: Standard/queenFor those who sleep on their sides, like commerce director Rachel Fletcher, you’ll find this Naturepedic pillow supportive and comforting. It has a shoulder cut-out designed to prevent pillow-bunching or spine-contorting. Fletcher says that it leans softer and longer than other side pillows in her bedding arsenal, plus more. “[It’s] perfect for a taller person (I’m five-two, so most people are taller than me) as well as for someone who doesn’t like a super-firm pillow,” she says. “That said, it does come with extra fill in case you want to stuff it up a bit and increase the firmness.”A luxe latex pillowSaatva Latex PillowUpsidesOrganicHotel-inspired qualityGreat head and neck supportDownsidesExpensiveSpecsFill: Microdenier fiber fill, shredded natural latex coreCare: Machine wash the cover and outer fill layer only. Tumble dry the fill layer on medium heat and hang the cotton cover to dry.Sizes: Standard/queen, kingAccording to the Saatva site, their latex pillow offers “ultimate head and neck support,” and contributor Sydney Gore backs up these claims from her sleep experience. “I have some serious back issues and was surprised to wake up feeling more rested after the many nights I spent snoozing on such a luxurious pillow,” she says. Even though it’s steeper in price, she notes that these high-quality pillows are truly comfortable when put to the test. The organic latex material is naturally breathable to help regulate body temperature too.Best down alternativeCasper Sleep Original PillowUpsidesAffordableSoft yet medium-firmCooling percale weaveDownsidesNot customizable or available in different firmness levels like some other options in this listSpecsFill: Polyester microfiberCare: Unzip the outer pillow and remove the inner pillow. Zip the outer pillow back up. Place both in the washing machine. Wash with cool water and a mild detergent on the gentle cycle. Run the rinse cycle twice. Tumble dry low with dryer balls (or clean tennis balls).Sizes: Standard, kingThis down alternative pillow is such a favorite of contributor Madeleine Luckel and her boyfriend’s that she tries to “steal it all the time” just for herself. “The Original pillow is really nice. Somehow the pillow stays pretty cool and it really is at some indescribable sweet spot in terms of its firmness,” she says. “But the real key is that the pillow is thick enough to work perfectly as a stand-alone sleep piece.” Luckel adds that she usually sleeps with two pillows, so that’s really saying something.The budget optionBuffy Cloud PillowUpsidesComes in three firmness levelsMade of recycled materialsDownsidesSome customers say it can feel flatter than others on the marketSpecsFill: 100% GRS-certified, BPA-free, recycled PET fillCare: Spot clean or dry clean.Sizes: Standard, kingRachel Wallace, senior entertainment editor, recommends this Buffy pillow to “anyone who is a fellow side sleeper, or anyone who likes a soft feel but craves support.” Made of natural materials like eucalyptus, the brand describes it as being incredibly breathable and even softer than down. When it arrived, Wallace thought it would feel too thin and plush for her taste, but she can confirm that it lives up to the hype. “I feel like my head is sinking into it and yet somehow my head remains supported,” she says. “My neck has been feeling great.” And for the affordable price, it’s an all-around win for a good night’s sleep.More AD-approved cooling pillowsTuft & Needle Premium PillowUpsidesDoesn’t flatten or lose cushion over timePowerful infused graphite and gel cooling comboCertiPUR-US and Greenguard Gold CertifiedDownsidesSome customers find it too soft for strong neck supportSpecsFill: FoamCare: The pillow cover is washable, but the pillow itself is not. To wash your pillow cover, simply unzip it to remove and wash the cover in cold water with light colors. Be sure not to bleach it. Hang to dry.Sizes: Standard, kingCooling technology from graphite-infused gel leaves digital features editor Katherine McLaughlin impressed and refreshed. This bedding accessory is designed to feel soft and supportive, even more so than traditional memory foam. McLaughlin has had this pillow for over a year and says “it’s held up great—hasn’t gotten thinner or lost any of its plushness.” The high-quality Amazon pillow is often on sale for an even more affordable price too.Pillow Cube Side CubeUpsidesHelps soothe shoulder painBreathable coverCooling coreDownsidesMemory foam can soften over timeSpecsFill: Memory foamCare: Machine-wash on gentle cycle, tumble dry on low heat.Sizes: Standard-size cubeMemory foam—including that used in some of the best mattresses we’ve tested—unfairly gets a bad rap lacking temperature regulation. While some pillows can trap heat, this one is here to debunk the myth. This one gets its cooling effect from its breathable machine washable cover and patented Aero Foam Core. It’s also just as cozy. Calling it a “tiny bed,” commerce editor Audrey Lee says it helps relieve her shoulder and neck pain. “The Pillowcube is one of the longest (and most fruitful) relationships I've had with a pillow,” she says. “I'm notoriously picky when it comes to cushions (or rather my neck is) and I've never had a disappointing night's rest with this one. The memory foam has softened just a touch over the years and it's made it all the more comfortable (especially if you're a side sleeper like me).”Lauren ArzbaecherCoop Home Goods Original Loft PillowUpsidesStrong motion isolationKeeps its shape over timePlush feelDownsidesNot made of natural materials like some others on our listSpecsFill: Cross-Cut Memory Foam & Microfiber Blend (76% Visco Polyurethane Foam, 24% Polyester Gel Fiber)Care: Machine wash in cold water on the gentle cycle. Do not use fabric softener or bleach. Tumble dry low. Ensure the cover is completely dry before use. Secure the zipper closed with a safety pin to ensure the inner pillow does not open or spill fill during wash.Sizes: QueenWith a makeup of memory foam and microfiber, you can consider this a hybrid pillow of sorts. Two AD staffers have this adjustable pillow from Coop Sleep Goods and love that it keeps its shape over time since you can add or remove the fill for just the right feel. Associate commerce director Lori Keong likes how customizable and “plushy they are to snooze on in all sleep positions,” while commerce producer Lauren Arzbaecher adds that they are “life-changing” for side and stomach sleepers like herself. “The memory foam and microfiber combo has helped with movement isolation so I don’t wake up with a stiff neck anymore, plus it just feels luxurious,” Arzbaecher adds.Nest Bedding Easy Breather PillowUpsidesCustomizable firmnessHelps alleviate neck painComes in three sizes including for side sleepersDownsidesSome customers feel like the fill is a bit stiffSpecsFill: 80% Non-Toxic CertiPUR-US® Certified Virgin Foam Blend of Memory Foam and High-Response Foam, 20% Smooth Polyester FiberCare: Remove the outer cover from the pillow. Wash the cover in cold water on a delicate cycle. Do not use fabric softener or bleach. Dry on low heat until the cover is dry. Do not dry on high heat; the cover may warp and shrink.Sizes: Standard/queen, side sleeper, kingSince AD PRO senior editor Mel Studach is pretty choosy when it comes to her bedding, the customization of this adjustable pillow immediately caught her attention. “I keep my shredded memory foam pillow pretty firm, and I’m so happy with the level of support and cooling comfort that it’s provided,” she says. “In comparison to other pillows I’ve had in the past, this one stands out not only for its customization, but also the fact that I have yet to have an uncomfortable night’s sleep or to wake up to soreness in my neck thanks to the firm support.”How we testedWe tested all the best cooling pillows just like everything else across the sleep category here at AD Shopping by, well, actually resting on them. Our editors slept on these pillows for at least a month to see how their sleep was transformed, paying special attention to the factors below.Cooling Technology: Special features like gel-infused pads make several of these pillows feel cool to the touch, while others feature add-ons like moisture-wicking covers. Otherwise, organic materials like latex are a great way to go since they are naturally breathable.Material: Most of the picks on this list are made of memory foam, latex, or a blend of down alternative fills like foam and microfiber. All of the above are known for being cozy to snuggle up with at night, however, we paid close attention to options with machine washable covers, too, for easy maintenance.Sleep Positions: Whether you’re a stomach sleeper or side sleeper, you’ll want to keep your sleep position in mind to make sure you don’t wake up with aches and pains. Like our Naturepedic pick, some pillows have a U-shape that contours around the body for side sleepers. We’ve included adjustable pillows in our list, too, so you can customize the fill and firmness level to meet your needs, no matter your sleep position.FAQsAre cooling pillows really worth it?If you ask us, we say a unanimous yes. The key to finding one that actually feels cooling is to look out for phase change materials, which essentially means there’s a combo between a breathable design—like natural fabrics such as latex—and a moisture-wicking cover to help keep you from overheating.Should you use a pillowcase on a cooling pillow?If your pillow has a machine-washable cover, you technically don’t have to use a pillowcase. However, if you want added coverage for your pillow, opting for a cooling pillowcase made of a crisp material like percale can make it feel even more comfortable.