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.

The iPhone Duo is here. Well, not here here. I don’t have one. But I did write about it for Stuff, saying what I want to do with the iPhone Duo (hint: not a spreadsheet next to my inbox) and griping that while its software is hugely ambitious, it’s also not ambitious enough. I also wrote about the new AirPods 5 becoming more like AirPods Pro.

Siri Recap is creepy. I write about why it – and the Apple Watch rewind feature – could be Apple’s biggest mis-step in years.

Apple’s event was weirdly dull. Maybe I’m just getting jaded and cynical, but there was little excitement as I dutifully sat down to watch Apple’s iPhone Duo event and then smash out words about it. That wasn’t always the case. And a lot of it, for me, is down to the format. Or, rather, how Apple’s desire for control has led to it turning live events into sterile videos. More on that here.

The JVC HR-3300 is 50. Which is mildly terrifying, on the basis that I grew up with the UK version of this in the family living room. It was a beast of a machine. Check out my piece about the VHS deck that changed home entertainment forever.

I own far too many retro handhelds. Helpfully, then, Retroid announced the Pocket Duo and then kicked off its usual days-long drip-feed of information. I covered the initial reveal and what might make me buy the dual-screen handheld and then added updates when more actual facts were known.

Is AI about to kill us all? Sorry, Ian. But at least the rest of my headline was “The answer might surprise you – but, well, probably won’t”. Because it probably won’t. That’s my take on the panic that erupted last week after an AI researcher claimed there was a 10% chance AI will wipe out humanity within the next decade.

Brett C is done with AI. In fact, he was done with it last month, when he wrote about why. But I only read his post this week. It’s pretty great, not least for “I really like what Cal Newport encourages in his book Slow Productivity: work at a natural pace.” Today, everyone is obsessed with immediacy. That’s not good.

‘Xbox everywhere’ is dead. I somehow missed the news that Xbox Cloud Gaming’s most expensive tier now limits you to 15 hours of cloud streaming per month. That’s not a typo. 15 hours per month. I’d been using it now and again on smartphones. Now? No chance.

Disney are a bunch of muppets. Alas, according to Deadline, this has had a major impact on the actual Muppets, on the basis that Disney, The Muppets Studio and Point Grey Pictures are finding it difficult to land on a series premise they can agree on. Amazing. They did the special. People liked the special. Just do… more of that?

Was Lego better in the old days? Spoiler: no. My longer thoughts: here.

Spoiler: no.

Slightly longer version…

I like Lego, despite long having been a fully grown adult human. I’m now ‘don’t give a flying fuck about what other people think about what I enjoy’ years old. If people sneer that I like faffing about with plastic bricks and piecing together buildings, cars and miniature blocky takes on characters from Pixar movies, I don’t care.

What I do find strange, though, is a kind of ongoing grumble about how Lego was always better in the old days. Around the time I was updating my best upcoming Lego sets 2026 roundup for Stuff, I spotted a Bluesky post from someone torn about how Lego is a great antithesis for kids on screen and helps people be creative, yet generates “an absolute shit-ton of unnecessary plastic”. That inevitably led to people complaining that Lego isn’t creative anymore, because people just buy massive and expensive display sets rather than huge boxes of bricks.

I’m (fortunately) not old enough to remember the dawn of Lego, but I do have fond memories of growing up with it during the 1980s. And here’s the thing: I and most other people I knew started with sets for building specific things, rather than massive piles of bricks. But I’d often dismantle my sets and make whatever I fancied with the pile of plastic rubble I’d made. And that’s pretty much the case today. It’s just bollocks to argue that no one builds creatively with Lego anymore. My kid did for years. Plenty of adults do too, as anyone who’s ever visited a Lego show will know.

Sure, there’s a tendency towards display sets when people age. But that’s also… OK? I don’t think it’s any worse to spend £100 on a dust catcher for a shelf that you put together yourself rather than a roughly equivalent pre-made ornament. Moreover, that Lego is still Lego. It will last for decades and – if the current owner feels like it – can at any time be turned into something new. (And if your response to that is something something specialist parts, maybe take a look at how the inventive folks at Lego reuse even the most seemingly specific of parts.)

That’s not to say Lego (the brand) is perfect. Nor is Lego the toy. But I do suspect an awful lot of adults banging on about how Lego isn’t as good as it was back in their day are parping their nostalgia horn rather than being objective about how a toy is used by the bulk of its target market and the sheer quality and range of sets available today.