Wired headphones are making a comeback. Apparently. This isn’t a ‘year of the Linux desktop’ thing either, because an increasing number of people are embracing the cable once again. I’ve never stopped, and so I wrote about why for Stuff: I love my AirPods but I’m glad wired headphones are making a comeback – here’s why.

Apple and gaming, sitting in a tree. At least, that’s how the company would have it, having made yet another push for gaming last week. I thought this effort was more laudable than most, since it was Apple’s (first? only?) Indie Games Week, highlighting a bunch of new titles. I covered the event for Stuff, including an interview with Hello Games MD Sean Murray, in No Man’s Sky finally prepares to land on iPhone.

There are 299 reasons to not buy the new Apple TV 4K. That’s the main thrust of my column about Apple’s revamped black box. The price hike this device has seen over the past year has been eye-watering, and the updates aren’t nearly enough. Still, if you do grab one, here are the 25 best Apple TV apps you’ll actually use.

Apple HomeView left me baffled. I quite like the idea of it but have barely any meaningful use for one. So I mulled that Apple’s smart display looking like the lovechild of my favourite Mac and an Apple Watch isn’t nearly enough for me to buy one while also grumbling that Apple’s wall-mounted HomeView costs the same as the regular one, despite missing its bottom half.

There are now many, many iPhones. Because my editor made me, I updated my list of every iPhone ranked in order of greatness, which has never been controversial at all, along with my roundup of the current best iPhones.

Fed up with iPhone photos not syncing? Missed the chance to do a syncing feeling pun? No worries. Check out my latest for Amateur Photographer, which explores the annoying reason why your iPhone photos don’t always sync – and how to fix it (for a while, at least).

AI is making mush of people’s brains. At the very least, there’s a compelling argument that people are starting to lose their critical thinking capabilities. From The Guardian’s Companies rushed in on AI. Now some are pulling back by Taylor Telford:

At Microsoft, which rolled out AI widely internally, executive vice-president Ryan Roslansky recently publicly lamented the prevalence of AI slop in his day-to-day work. After receiving “what was clearly an AI-generated doc” from a co-worker, he used his AI to summarize it and came away with no new thinking about the idea, he said. He warned his followers against falling into this potential “doom loop”, where AI does the reading and writing and leaves behind an “ocean of sameness”.

I had to read that more than once, because it’s such an amazing and staggering paragraph. I love the bit where it says the Microsoft guy used AI to summarise AI slop (thereby creating, what, slopception?) and – shock! – got no new ideas (having not used his own brain) and was terribly angry about the whole thing. His conclusion is about right. His actions were the problem.

I am ‘the enemy’. At least according to King Trump of the USA. Why? Because I refuse to call Artificial Intelligence ‘Super Intelligence’ until it’s actually super. Read my column for Stuff on why.

The iPhone 18 Pro Max is a really great phone. Shocker, eh? Still, it’s been a while since I’ve had Apple’s big-o-phone to review and so it was interesting comparing it to my iPhone 16 Pro.

The Evercade Nexus is imminent. I was sent a sample for review. My take: it’s pretty good, the screen is a lot better than I expected, the dual sticks work very nicely for some games, but the whole thing might be a big chunky if you’re not blessed with big mitts. Read my thoughts over on Stuff.

I interviewed Laura ‘Penfriend’ Kidd. It’s always a slight concern when chatting with people you admire, but I had a delightful time interviewing Laura, who was very open about everything from why she first got into music to thoughts on the music industry and AI. 

Another retro home micro is on the way. This time, it’s the Atari 800, being reborn as THE 800XL. Weird name aside, I wrote about why I was always jealous of this system as a kid. 

Blocknado gives us a new spin on Tetris. Rather literally. It’s now joined my best free Android games roundup.

There’s a new iMac coming. I wrote about 5 things I want from Apple’s upcoming iMac M6 – and what I’ll actually get. Includes the phrases “WHOOOMM WHOMMMMMMMM”, “moving up-and-downing” and “all-in-one-desktopience” because I know how to rite wurds.

I tried the iPhone’s new AI photo tools. For science! It certainly wasn’t for the good of my health. Because, as my Amateur Photographer piece points out, these tools can give you deeply weird results. That’s not to say they can’t help you be creative and have fun. But they do merrily obliterate authenticity and reality.

Stuff magazine is (almost) 30. So my feature that covers 30 ground-breaking tech events during its lifetime is getting another airing. What ones do you remember?

I reviewed the GamerCard. TL;DR: don’t buy one. I explain why in my piece for Time Extension, which appears to be an outlier opinion. At least two other writers gave the GamerCard 8/10.

It’s always strange when this happens. You wonder if you missed something. But no. I spent ages with GamerCard, giving it every chance. Other reviewers offer similar conclusions to mine, yet sweep away the negatives. I won’t – can’t – do that.

A games console where the controls and ergonomics make gaming borderline unplayable makes no sense. And while I appreciate the passion Grant Sinclair has – and how he sandwiched a Pi into such a skinny form factor – that doesn’t make up for the poor experience. Not least when there are loads of other handhelds that do a far better job at letting you play Pico-8 – or even turning a Pi Zero into a handheld.

Anyway, on a cheerier note, here’s a ‘meet the family’ pic.

Speaking of retro handhelds, I’ve suddenly seen a surprising number of people griping that 16:9 content looks small on their shiny new Retroid Pocket Nova. Yes, you bought a 4:3 handheld. What did you expect? Do you not know how… shapes work? I’ve been using my Nova a whole lot and still reckon it’s an end-game retro handheld. But if you’re into widescreen games, get something like the Retroid Pocket 6.

Tempest 2000 is fab. You know what’s also fab? Tempest 2000 on Pico-8. I do love firing up splore – the online Pico-8 games directory – and finding new stuff. But I never thought I’d find a version of Jeff Minter’s classic shooter, and especially one that plays just as well as the Jaguar original.

POLITICS KLAXON! Sorry, but here in the UK, something shocking happened last week: we had a Prime Minster give a speech that was… really good. Also: surprisingly brave. Natch, loads of folks have since put the boot in, but the Quiet Riot podcast deftly explained the realities of proposed changes to the UK pensions triple lock, how major reform takes time, and how progressives should learn to say “yes” rather than instinctively pick a fight with other progressives when one checks almost every item off of their wish list.

Download Tapotron. It’s a superb… iPhone game? Music app? Fidget toy? Probably all three. It takes top spot in my ‘fastest conversion from pitch email to me deciding to cover something’ league table, and this weekend joined my top free iPhone games roundup. The app is delightful and spread a grin across my face as I started tapping away. You might disagree; although if you do, you’re dead inside.

I’m still using a six-year-old Apple MacBook Air M1. So I wrote about that for Stuff. This ageing laptop is not perfect. It has the odd wobble and makes its limited storage known. But that I can still run my favourite DAW (Korg Gadget) and do some of my writing on a basically silent Mac that’s never caused any major trouble is quite something. I imagine Apple will ditch support for the M1 chip sooner or later and render all those first-gen Apple Silicon Macs redundant. That will be a sad day.

The latest Stuff is out. Issue 340 (November 2026) has my interview with Laura Kidd/Penfriend and, excitingly, my Stuff column in print for the first time, along with my overview of the best tips for Apple’s latest operating systems.

I’m back in MacFormat too. Actually, I have been for a while. Anyway, MF435 includes a feature by me on repurposing Intel Macs, tutorials on DockDoor and Wakeout, and reviews of Soulver 4 and BBEdit 16. So, er, buy a copy.

Facebook has gone bonkers. I mean, even more than usual. My feed has long been crap, but the site is now desperately demanding I use its GenAI to convert seemingly random images into seemingly random styles. Also, it suggested I create a ‘celebration’ post because something I posted got over 10 reactions. I’m no expert on social media, but I’m thinking reaching double figures for a post isn’t exactly news.

Nutcases have remade OutRun in C64 PETSCII. This is totally and utterly mad. Still, a nice tribute as OutRun hits 40 (more on that here) and Sega seems pretty relaxed about this sort of thing. Want more PETSCII goodness? Check out these C64 games and – arguably even more impressive – these PET homebrew titles.

Yes, yes, it’s late this week. But if it wasn’t, a feature would have been late instead and an editor would have taken my knees. And I like my knees. Anyway…

I hate letting gear and games die. So I wrote about how iMazing and an APK extractor have let me breathe new life into old iPods while also ensuring my favourite mobile games of old can be brought back from the dead.

Is Apple making a games controller? Maybe. We’ve all heard this rumour a bunch of times before. So rather than squee about yet another one, I wrote about what Apple/Beats would have to do to make me part with my cash.

OutRun is 40. Sega’s classic arcade game is getting on. And – *whisper* – I never really liked it that much. Sure, it was a technical marvel and Magical Sound Shower lodged in my brain forever. But the gameplay never entirely clicked with me. OutRun 2, though? That’s the best racing game ever made. Agree? Disagree? Either way, read my piece about the entire OutRun series.

Apple upgraded all the things. iOS 27! iPadOS 27! macOS 27! hardware-Apple-Barely-Remembers-ExistsOS 27! I dutifully wrote tips on Liquid Glass, Siri AI, Photos and a bunch of other stuff. 

Speaking of iOS 27 and photos, I also wrote a piece for Amateur Photographer on the 15 best new iOS 27 Camera and Photos tips for iPhone photographers.

The Portal app is rather lovely. And now it’s reached version 4, which brings a bunch of updates and an interface refresh. I wrote about it for TapSmart, which, alas, will be my final contribution to the publication. It was a good almost 14 years…

I switched to Feedbin. This wasn’t entirely by choice. But I’ve been testing (and getting really into) a Boox tablet, and I wanted to get as much of my digital reading onto it as possible. That meant RSS. The tiny snag: most Android RSS clients are bloody awful. Capy Reader is not. In fact, I’d say it’s just as good as my iOS favourite, NetNewsWire. The one snag? It only supports Feedbin, hence the switch. Still, it turns out Feedbin is rather fab. I should have switched years ago.

Minecraft went splat. In spectacular fashion. Mini-G showed me the game on her iPad. Various things were glitching. Most of the interface was invisible. I assumed it was either her iPad or just that model of iPad. Nope. It was basically all iPads, along with quite a few iPhones and a bunch of Nintendo Switch consoles too. And, yes, I did wonder if some AI shenanigans had been at play.

Retroid is having a sale. I wouldn’t usually mention that kind of thing here, but the Pocket Classic at $99 is stupidly cheap. I bought a yellow one a while back (for $149) and it’s fab.

I won’t go back to X. I’m seeing an ongoing push to encourage people back to Elon Musk’s heaving bosom. Quite a few folks in the Apple and tech space are arguing everyone should return, and many political commentators never stopped. Thing is, even if I ignored everything else about the site – and there’s a lot – it’s run by someone hurling millions of bucks at extremists in my country, demanding they push for insurrection over entirely imagined events. “But you might have more reach,” they say. Yeah, I burned that bridge long ago, when I quit the site. I took a significant hit in terms of work and connections. But it was the right thing to do. It still is.