What a 5 Inch iPhone Would Look Like

February 21, 2013 | Comment

There are all sorts of rumours swirling around at the moment about whether Apple is going to create a larger version of the iPhone. By which I don’t mean just a stretched version (yeah iPhone 5 I am looking at you) but a properly proportioned version.

The suggestion is that later this year Apple is going to release and iPhone with a 5 inch screen. Why that size? Because its dimensions would mean that they could do so without having to change the user interface. Which is exactly what they did for the iPad Mini only in reverse. Marco Arment … Read the rest

Slingshot

January 10, 2013 | 1 comment

At the end of last year a friend give me an early Christmas present in the form of a SlingShot.

As the picture left ably demonstrates the SlingShot is a device to hold your phone to aid stability. Hidden in the hand there is also a kickstand that additionally allows it to work as a mini tripod too.

As the name suggests SlingShot looks like a catapult but rather than firing your precious phone off into the distance it holds it securely. The SlingShot works with many phones due to its flexible design. It will even work if you … Read the rest

Acoustic Speaker for iPhone

December 27, 2012 | Comment

Just a quick update with an interesting gadget received this Christmas, the odd looking object shown on the left. When I asked my Facebook friends what they thought it might be I received a few responses that I cannot reproduce here.

It is, however, an acoustic speaker for an iPhone or an unpowered speaker booster, if you prefer. As you can see from the picture below you shove your iPhone into the slot at the top and all sound get amplified as it is redirected out of the large hole in the front.

I can confirm that it works well … Read the rest

Forcing the Upgrade to iOS6

October 21, 2012 | Comment

I have Bento, the Apple produced database app, on both my iMac and my iPad and it is pretty good for what I need – it’s no SQL Server but then it’s not intended for such heavy duty querying. I decided that it would be useful if to also have Bento on my iPhone so that I could update date a database that I often need access to and when I tried to purchase it the message to the left is what I saw.

I haven’t upgrade to iOS 6 yet for a couple of reasons: my iPad is jailbroken… Read the rest

Apple’s iPhone 5

September 24, 2012 | Comment

So I have just tried out an iPhone 5 and I can confirm that it is indeed taller, thinner and lighter. There is also new design detailing. Its new anodised back made it feel plasticky to hold partly, I think, because I was expecting to feel that cold, smooth feeling you normally get with metal. Something else that I wasn’t expecting was just how light it felt compared to the iPhone 4S, so much so that it felt insubstantial, almost toy like.

One real surprise was just how readily available it was. Every carrier and the Apple store itself all … Read the rest

But what if I don’t want to upgrade?

September 19, 2012 | Comment

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

£25? That’s Taking the Piss

September 13, 2012 | Comment

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

A Holiday with Only an iPad

July 25, 2012 | Comment

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

iSub Mobile Client for Subsonic

July 10, 2012 | Comment

One of the great things about the move to music downloads is that music on the go has really become much more practical. iPods and other such devices (I can’t think of anything other than iPods but I’m sure that they must exist) mean that you can carry around with you so much more than when having a Walkman meant carrying tapes and swapping them around. However, my music collection is too large even for an iPod Classic so being able to stream my music from a hosted server with a large capacity hard drive is ideal. I could have … Read the rest

Google Chrome on iOS

June 29, 2012 | 3 comments

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