Foldable Wireless Keyboard for iPad

March 11, 2026 | Comment

I’m always looking for ways to reduce the amount of technology I take away with me and have long wondered whether I could manage with just my iPad rather than taking along a laptop. When I saw this foldable keyboard on AliExpress I thought that it would be great to give it a go.

Unboxing

Looking at it you might be forgiven for thinking that this is an Apple product, cut from a block of aluminium, but sadly not. It’s cut from plastic and I t’s lightweight, although the latter does make it easier to carry.

The device consists is … Read the rest

Find My Phone

March 4, 2026 | Comment

I don’t know who thought of this but I will forever be grateful.

If you have an Apple Watch and iPhone for as long as I can remember you have been able to press a button on the watch and have the phone “beep” to help you find it – providing it is within range of course.

Now, however, not only do you get audible feedback but the watch shows you how far away you are from the phone. As you get closer the distance updates and the colour changes. It’s like playing with the children’s “you’re getting hotter” game!… Read the rest

Apple Pencil vs Metapen Pencil A8

December 13, 2025 | Comment

I’ve recently bought a new iPad A16 to use for watching films, reading magazines and for help with my family history research. My existing iPad, an M1 iPad Mini, has served me well and I will continue to use it as a Kindle but I wanted something with a larger screen.

When I bought the iPad Mini I also bought an Apple Pencil to go with it which I used along with the Goodnotes app to jot notes for both professional and home use cases. It wasn’t something that I used often but was useful occasionally. I decided that … Read the rest

AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation Review

November 8, 2024 | Comment

It’s been a while since I have reviewed any hardware but upgrading my AirPods to the latest version gives me the opportunity to rectify that.

There are now four different variants of the AirPods – two for the standard edition and two for the Pros. I have decided to go for the more expensive of the standard editions, the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, which is what I am reviewing here.

In (and out) of Use

Everything about these new AirPods is small: the box, the charging case and the headphones themselves. Gone is the old toothbrush design to … Read the rest

Object Identification on iOS

August 5, 2024 | Comment

I belong to a walking group called “Walking with Cameras” which is pretty good in not being too sniffy about what camera you bring. This means there are quite a few iPhones, a smattering of Android devices along with some compacts and DSLRs.

We reached an open area where several varieties of wildflowers were growing and the discussion turned first to what they were and then to how there were dedicated apps that would identify them (which nobody had installed!).

I whipped out my iPhone snapped a few pictures of the flowers and then opened the Photos app. If you … Read the rest

Leaving the MacBook at Home

October 13, 2023 | Comment

I’ve recently returned from holiday and for the first time in a while, I travelled without a laptop. I wanted to return to the question of whether it was possible to do a trip without one. My requirements while I am away are pretty light: blogging and editing photos to go with the posts – not too much to ask surely?

Heading Out

I left my MacBook Pro at home and in its place I took my iPad Mini, a Bluetooth keyboard with the same footprint as the iPad and a Magic Mouse.

The immediate advantage of this was a … Read the rest

Why Silence Unknown Callers is the Best Feature in iOS13

November 8, 2019 | Comment

I’ve had a bit of a love/hate relationship with the latest iteration of Apple’s mobile operating system with some pretty irritating bugs (although nowhere near as bad as the awful macOS Catalina release). However, there is one feature that I do love – Silence Unknown Callers (SUC).

The feature does pretty much what it says on the tin and at first seems something of a blunt instrument especially as it appears to only be on or off. There is, however, quite a bit of subtlety behind this toggle switch.

Why would you want to turn on SUC? Simply to reduce … Read the rest

Laptop Stickers

August 2, 2019 | Comment

What is it with developers and laptop stickers? It seems that in every coffee shop there will be individuals scattered around hunched over their (usually) Apple Macs and the lid will be covered in stickers. And you know what? I’m exactly the same!

The laptop above is my old trusty Macbook Air along with its accompanying stickers. In fact since that picture was taken it has gained even more. It has stickers covering all my areas of interest:

development (including the “Cutting and pasting from Stack Overflow” classic)
music (from Real World records)
Evernote
Star Wars (from here)

Many … Read the rest

Mouse support in iPadOS/iOS13 Public Beta 3

July 19, 2019 | Comment

The latest beta version of iOS13/iPadOS was released yesterday evening and I gave it a quick test this morning to see how the mouse support was coming along.

I know form comments made elsewhere that mouse support is not for everyone and some don’t understand why it is even necessary. For me it is a useful tool for when working away from my desk as I find it speeds up my work and make it a more pleasant experience. I still don’t think I could ever use the iPad as a permanent desktop replacement but it is a lot more … Read the rest

iPad Pro, iOS13 and USB-c Dongles

July 5, 2019 | Comment

Each year, regular as clockwork, Apple releases a new version of their operating system for mobile devices – iOS. This years version, iOS13, has recently been release for public beta and I took the plunge and installed it on my iPad Pro so you don’t have to!

Can’t we all run the beta?

Before we get too much into the new features of iOS here are a couple of reasons why you might not want to be installing it on your main device just yet. Beta software by definition is not fully baked and still has a number of bugs … Read the rest