We need more cancel culture. But only in the sense of streaming TV services. As I write for Stuff, my ultimate TV streaming services hack is now to cancel everything and start from scratch.

Google hates the open web. We kind of knew that anyway. But much like I (and others) predicted a year ago, Google has made the move to go AI-first with its search engine. As Tracy King said on Bluesky, “Google is trying to build an agentic wall around the entire internet with the ultimate goal of users paying to access it and data owners paying to contribute to it.”

I find the ongoing rush towards AI deeply problematic. Governments are now actively supporting mass copyright infringement, because they think they’ll be left behind by the AI boom. Companies are using AI interfaces as the gateway to the internet, thereby stripping sources of traffic and credit. And with LLMs basically ‘remixing’ such sources for their answers, that leaves us in a strange place where the sources will gradually be eradicated and the AI will end up eating itself.

Still, at least a tiny handful of already rich people will make a load of cash out of this, eh?

Want to get away? Not just from AI, but to somewhere where you can relax? If so, use these iPhone apps to help.

Don’t watch a terrible movie twice. Track everything – and more besides – on Letterboxd. My guide shows how.

Support indie journalism! Every dollar, euro, pound or, um, other currency, counts. Our iPhone/iPad mag Swipe has a free trial. Tips & Tricks is $3/£3 to start. These are what allow us to keep the lights on over at TapSmart, where everything is freely available.

Play some games! Specifically two games on your iPhone: Chess Peace and Nova Drift, which are now part of my best iPhone games round-up for Stuff.

Take a breath. Because Google wants you to. And it’s also a good idea. For my Stuff column, I argue Apple should steal this feature that Google stole from someone else. (The feature in question being Pause Point.)

You’re going to die. Hopefully not soon. But you will one day, so I wrote about how to give loved ones access to your data after you pass.

Liquid Glass still sucks. Here’s how I think Apple can fix it in iOS 27.

Inbox hero? Maybe you can get there with my Gmail tips. (And, you know, maybe I’ll actually do all of these things myself and get to inbox zero before the heat death of the universe…)

The iPhone Action button finally clicked for me. It’s all about creating menus. I dig into how to do so in my article for TapSmart.

Make a noise! My latest GarageBand tutorial gets you started and walks you through making a jingle.

June + Lego = argh. At least if you’re trying to save money. Anyway, sorry if you are 1) trying to save and 2) a big Lego fan, because I updated my upcoming Lego sets feature.

Also, if you like Lego, you should be using these iPhone apps.

Jamie Smart is great. He won the inaugural graphic novel award at the British Book Awards. And his acceptance speech was a love letter to the entire British comics industry. His work appears every week in The Phoenix and there are loads of Bunny vs Monkey collections available, which are fantastic for kids and adults alike.

Will Apple increase the MacBook Neo’s price? I’m invoking Betteridge’s Law in my piece for Stuff. My take: much of the attraction of the MacBook Neo is its low price. Getting rid of that would be a massive risk and a very bad idea, unless Apple has no alternative.

Blind bags and boxes are awful. Lego sells minifigs in blind boxes, which is awful. What’s not awful: Lego minifig scanner apps that let you see what’s inside. (Speaking of Lego, I also wrote 10 of the best sets you can buy today.)

Want new Apple Watch apps? I updated my Apple Watch apps and games roundup, which now includes the shiny new Pedometer++.

Kenny Who? Is the subject of the latest 2000 AD podcast. It uses as a launchpad a Dredd story that was satirical sci-fi pushback on exploitative publishing but that now feels like an on-the-nose critique on GenAI. It then goes deep into morals, practicalities and concerns surrounding GenAI in creative industries.

Comics are great. So I was very happy to see The Times writing positively about the success of The Phoenix, which has now overtaken The Beano in terms of subscribers. However, the numbers themselves are a far cry from the heyday of comics. Moreover, the two comics I mention are the only two British anthology weeklies for kids left in the UK. (2000 AD also soldiers on, but is very much teen+ these days.)

It’s a shame. Weeklies let publishers try new things and take way more risks. And comics in general are pretty awesome for a whole range of reasons. They are imaginative. They can be good for reluctant readers (but should not be considered ONLY a stepping stone to ‘proper’ books). They can encourage creativity. Graphic novels and manga remain popular, but it seems relatively few parents buy a subscription to a weekly for their kids. In part, that’s down to changing habits and cost. But awareness also plays a part. As Jamie Smart says: “We’ve always held on, pig-headedly, to the belief that children love comics. But they need to know they exist.”

So if you’re in the UK and in the position of having a youngling with no comics and the means to buy them some, do consider a Phoenix sub (first 6 issues for a ridiculously cheap £1) and/or The Beano (first 5 issues for £5). And if you’re an adult… read some comics too.

I want more control over my smart heating. Which might sound odd when you learn I’ve got a Tado system, which provides granular control of each individual room. But you only get one schedule. And this doesn’t work well as you come out of winter and 21°C feels very different from how it did a few months back. Tado is big on automation and AI and reckons that’s enough to cope. It isn’t. My argument: give me extra manual controls.

What does a new Apple CEO mean for iPhone? After writing for Stuff about what I want to see from Apple’s new CEO, I’ve penned a piece for TapSmart about how his leadership might impact iPhone.

The C64 and Spectrum are reborn as handhelds. I honestly didn’t see this coming, but a collab between HyperMegaTech and Retro Games Ltd has resulted in a couple of DS-like clamshells. Each one looks the part, echoing its 8-bit forebear. The screen aspect ratio is odd, although you can often successfully crop borders out of games to have them fit more optimally. I like the bundled games, though, which mix old and new. And there’s a microSD slot for adding more.

Drop7 is still amazing. And it’s now joined my iPhone classics series. I really wish Zynga would bring this game back, but it’d probably stick out in their catalogue for not being infested with exploitative IAPs.

Bacon in Zane is bonkers. Having invited players to flip bacon onto everything (including Francis Bacon) in Bacon – the Game, Philipp Stollenmayer has created a follow-up. This one-thumb iPhone effort has you nudge a piece of bacon through a medically implausible human body. It’s strange and a lot of fun – and now part of my best free iPhone games roundup.

Apple has a new CEO. Selected, at least. In September, John Ternus will take over from Tim Cook. Over at Stuff, I say what I’d like to see from Apple’s new CEO.

Over at his blog, Daryl Baxter also explores how the new CEO might shake things up, adding that he wants to see the return of Apple’s fun side at events. It’s a good point. Apple keynotes feel rigid. Even attempts to manufacture fun through skits and Hair Force One come across as forced. They’re not natural. I’ve no idea what Ternus will do with announcements, but making them more human and charismatic would be a start.

Apple loves ads. Which is one of the things I note in the Stuff piece I hope Ternus dials down. Over at TapSmart, I outline why.

SSD pricing has gone bonkers. I didn’t realise quite how bonkers until I started researching pricing for a piece on backups. I tend to buy 1TB Samsung T7s and found a receipt from 2023: £137. The current cheapest price I could find: £159. That surprised me, in a good way – until I realised the 2023 price was for two of those drives…

Labour wants a nationwide school smartphone ban. Last year, my daughter’s secondary school announced a phased ban, which was due to start this September. I wrote for Stuff about why the reasoning and mitigation suggestions were deeply flawed. But now Labour’s stomped in, doing what Labour loves, arguing for a nationwide ban. Despite 90% of secondary schools already having restricted-use policies. Note that what is being argued for is not a ban on use within schools – it’s about banning them entirely from the premises. Fun times for kids who rely on digital payments for buses, use apps for homework, need a phone for security and anxiety issues, and so on. 

MusicHarbor is fab. I wrote about how it means I never miss albums from my favourite bands.

Also fab: Longplay. This album-centric music player joins my best Mac apps roundup. 

AAA games on a phone. Not a new thing, but also – generally – not a great thing, given how much space they take up. A better bet is to stream games, Netflix-style. My roundup suggests several great options for iPhone, but they work just as well on Android.

Task management. This is an area in which I’ve bounced between countless apps. None stuck. Reminders has. For now, at least. So over at TapSmart, I figured it’d be useful to write about some of the best Reminders features.

Moleskine and AI, sitting up a tree. Apparently. Cheryl-Jean Leo’s blog post digs into Moleskine’s GenAI shenanigans with its Lord of the Rings collection. After reading, I found it impossible to tell precisely what AI had been used on (bar the dreadful social media posts), which was down to Moleskine being disingenuous and inconsistent at best. As Leo notes, Moleskine’s manifesto talks about the “timeless power of handwriting” and how you can “put pen to paper [and] unleash your unique voice”. So: all for creativity – if they’re words.

Again, anyone being pro-human creativity and/or against GenAI scratch-creating content cannot just defend their turf. It’s all or nothing. I hope this flub from Moleskine gives the company a kick in the bank account. Experience suggests it probably won’t.

Coyote vs. ACME looks great. The trailer had me grinning. The digs at Warner Bros were amusing. The whole thing just looks like so much fun. And to think this entire movie was going to be deleted so that a corporation could claim a tax break.