So at 6pm this evening iOS 6 went live and no doubt plenty of people raced to upgrade. Not me though as I had already decided that there wasn’t anything in it for me. Flyover view in the new Maps app would be fine if I have a helicopter but I am at ground level and find street view useful so Google Maps is a must. Also I have Siri switched off so there is no need to upgrade for that. So all in all there’s not much there for me.
I went to update my apps this evening and … Read the rest
So yesterday was the big iPhone 5 launch day, somewhat of an anti-climax due to the fact that just about every aspect of the device and it’s accompanying accessories had been leaked in advance. What hadn’t been announced, however, were the prices.
As part of the “updates” to the iPhone Apple introduced a new connector to replace the existing 30-pin version that has been around nine years. While the rest of the industry has standardised on the microUSB connector Apple has introduced a new proprietary standard.  Recognising that there are millions of existing cables and accessories that have the existing … Read the rest
I’ve just returned from a five day break in Spain. On past holidays I have taken a whole array of kit with me including various laptops. This time I left it all behind bringing only my iPad with me. To supplement this I also brought along my keyboard case, camera connector kit and chargers.
While this was supposed to be a holiday there was a possibility that I might be needed for any support issues that might arise at work. I was fairly certain that the iPad would be able to cope but I couldn’t be certain until I put … Read the rest
So my favourite browser has finally made it on to my favourite mobile operating system as last night Google Chrome for iOS was released.
I have downloaded it onto both my iPad and iPhone and I’ve been immediately impressed with just how much it looks like its desktop siblings, which shouldn’t be a great surprise, especially on the iPad.
There are a number of great things that have been brought over from the dekstop versions including the omnibar that allows you to enter either a web address or a search term and Chrome is intelligent enough to work out what … Read the rest
So Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference begins on Monday and as ever the blogsphere is all aglow with just exactly what will be announced. So far this seems to include a refresh of every MacBook and iMac model, iOS 6 and, of course, the long awaited TV which just has to be called iTV. Most of that leaves me cold for now but given I have both an iPhone and an iPad any improvements that are made to the operating system are going to have a pretty direct impact on me.
Lots of other blogs have been drawing up long … Read the rest
Occasionally I stumble upon an interesting iPhone app that I think is worthy of keeping. Today, as part of AppAdvice‘s daily Apps Gone Free feature, an app called iLapse caught my eye. This, as the name suggests, allows you to record time lapse videos on your iPhone. The options are pretty simple, choose how often you want an image to be captured from half a second to every 20 seconds and the output frame rate. Stick your iPhone on a tripod and, if you are going to be recoding for any length of time, put it on charge too … Read the rest
One of the things that has really niggled me about my iPad is that it continues to be bloody noisy even if you have the volume turned right down. While any music is silenced notification noises, bleeps and bings continue to come through at full volume – not good when you are trying to sleep.
It seems that because, as daft as it seems, notification noises are not controlled by the volume control. Notifications are either off or on.
All is not lost though as there are two ways (at least) of turning off notification noises – the first is … Read the rest
Already the most funded project ever on Kickstarter the Pebble Watch for iPhone and Android has now passed the $10 million mark – 100 times the amount it was aiming to raise. Kickstarter is a great platform and I have backed a number of projects on it and will continue to look out for innovative things I can be an early part of.
Looking forward to receiving my watch too – glad I got my backing in early!… Read the rest
The nice people over at Gearzap, knowing my love of gadgets and iPads in particular, have sent me over a new iPad cover to review. I was particularly excited to see that it was a case from PDair, a brand that I am familiar with having first bought one of their cases for my Dell Axim 50 many years ago.
For those not familiar with PDair they concentrate on making quality cases for a variety of gadgets with distinctive white stiching. This one for the iPad is no different using a high quality leather and has a really nice … Read the rest
Released at the same time as the new iPad was an update to the devices operating system, iOS 5.1. I don’t always update the OS on my devices but a number of the apps that I use would only continue to work if I upgraded, so I did.
One of the things listed as being included in this release was better battery life, although since upgrading I haven’t noticed any improvement and if anything it is slightly worse. However, I have been slightly taken aback by something that wasn’t listed in the release notes. It seems that since doing the … Read the rest