Agreed, but I'd argue that the only "improvement" 2048 made over Threes! was its pricetag.

I disagree - I can't stand the look of Threes, or the inconsistency in the first couple of stages of arithmetic.

But that's what makes Threes superior, for me - the needing to add 1 and 2, and the fact that they don't match each other makes for a more difficult game that requires much more thought. The fact that you can make matches with the basic tile that has the highest percentage of popping on the board every moves means that there are less consequences to not making the optimal move each turn.

That's just my opinion of course, but 2048 seems annoyingly easy - so much so that the up right down left repeat strategy is very valid to score a somewhat decent score when compared to some players.

Except this version of 2048 was made with no knowledge of 3s.

The original web 2048, true. And I've got no qualms with that version. OP took some open source code, modified the stylesheet, and added some animations. It caught on - cool, whatever.

However, the "official" mobile version of 2048 - which this blog post is specifically promoting - was created with full knowledge of Threes!.