Eek! Nearly late!

Published stuff

My column for Stuff this week: I want a new iPod Touch for my kid. The world wants her to have a phone instead. When Apple killed its iPhone without the phone bit, it left no good solution for people who want an affordable and small access point to Apple’s mobile ecosystem.

I also wrote a bonus column about the new Apple Pencil: Why the new Apple Pencil suggests huge confusion at the heart of the iPad lineup. It’s perhaps summed up by its original title: Apple Pencil joins the Apple Pencil line-up alongside Apple Pencil and Apple Pencil.

Finally, I reviewed the HyperMegaTech Super Pocket, which I referred to as “Taito and Capcom retro gaming arcades in your trousers”. TL;DR: the Taito one’s the better buy, but both are solid options for an affordable and immediate slice of retro fun.

Meanwhile, over at TapSmart, I wrote about Apple’s upcoming spatial video: Why the iPhone 15 Pro’s spatial video capture is more than a gimmick. This aligns with a piece I filed last week for Stuff, which talks about capturing memories. In short, do so in the best format available to you, because otherwise one day you’ll look back on what you have and wish you had more.

Other stuff

I don’t have a great deal of time right now, and so am not thrilled when it’s wasted. So congratulations, HomeKit, for sitting at the very top of the I HATE YOU list for at least the entirety of 2023. Actually, it’s not specially HomeKit that’s the problem – it’s iCloud. Again. This time, it resolutely refuses to share Home details among my family, which makes me especially glad I spent quite a lot of money to swap out our Amazon Echo for a HomePod. And also that Apple’s advice is, apparently, to wipe my device and my wife’s device and start them from scratch. How about, you know, not making iCloud an opaque and broken garbage service?

And breathe.