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.

Now it is the beginning of a fantastic story!

Published stuff

For Stuff’s 300th issue, I wrote a gargantuan feature that covered the best gadgets released during the magazine’s long life. It’s now online, with our picks from 1996 to the present day.

I also wrote about Lego Animal Crossing (or, given my age, what looks like The Revenge of Fabuland), and the mobile gaming revolution that wasn’t – the N-Gage.

This week’s column: I’ve had it with new streaming tiers. ‘Good enough’ subs are the way forward for me. Which goes a bit Black Mirror in several different ways.

Over at TapSmart, Blackbar is added to my classic apps series, and I take a look at the best interactive widgets for iOS 17.

Upcoming stuff

Aside from my regular features for the next issue of Stuff, I’m immersed in yet more mini-console shenanigans. This time, I’m digging into two Super Pocket units. These are essentially mini Evercades with a bunch of built-in games – either Taito or Capcom.

They’ve proven divisive among the Evercade community, which I understand. Evercade creators Blaze went big on physical media, and yet now has two consoles out with built-in games. (The Capcom titles are also bundled with the EXP). But I see the Super Pockets as perfect gift fodder for people keen on a bit of retro, with the cart slots being a bonus for anyone who fancies exploring further afield than the dozen or so titles that come with the handheld.

Still, more as and when I’ve put them through rather more rigorous testing than firing up and cooing at Bubble Bobble and Puzzle Bobble.

Other stuff

Before smashing out these words, I was supposed to be working on articles and sorting taxes. So naturally I spent half an hour arranging a loop that’s been sitting around forever (with the catchy title ‘chiangmai 48 – in-between track to work on — edit’) into a full track. It turned out really well. That made me feel… relaxed. Happy. Whole. Clearly, I need to be doing more of this music thing again…

Hello. And welcome to Jazz Club.

Published stuff

Reviews week! Over at Stuff, I reviewed the iPhone 15 Pro Max, during which I spent far too much time having fun with the USB-C port. I plugged the phone into SSD drives, my TV, a clunky PC keyboard I found in a drawer, and more. And, er, I checked out some other things too.

Helpfully, the device also got an OS update to deal with its overheating problem a couple of days after my review went live. Tsk! Anyway, it’s a great phone – the best of Apple. And the overheating fix meant I got to write about that too.

I also reviewed the Apple Watch Series 9. This was less exciting, primarily because its biggest user-facing feature didn’t join it for the launch. I’m also not thrilled about Apple having messed around with all the gestures. Sure, stop folks being able to swipe between watch faces by default, but not allowing people to bring that feature back via a setting is maddening.

Finally, my column this week is I think Apple should steal these killer Google Pixel 8 Pro features for the iPhone 16. I select four things from Google’s recent keynote that struck me as needing to be mashed into the iPhone with a fork. Features cameo appearances from phone snark, a Ford Fiesta, a terrifying dystopia, and the heat death of the universe, as is perfectly normal for a tech gadgets column.

Over on TapSmart, I’m more serious, mulling over why Dynamic Island won’t be another Touch Bar and looking at the best apps, accessories and tips for iPhone bookworms.

Upcoming stuff

I’m still wading through a pile of iOS 17 interactive widgets for an upcoming piece. Thanks to all the app creators who pitched their products. This initial selection likely won’t be the end, but I had to cut it down to an initial 17.

Spoiler alert: my favourites of all of them are from Longplay. If you’ve not used this app, it presents your music collection as a scrolling feed of cover art and emphasises playing albums rather than tracks. The main interactive widget is like a streamlined version of the app itself. It’s remarkable. And then there’s a second widget for firing off a random album. I wish Apple Music had that. Thinking about it, I now need to try seeing whether Longplay will talk to the Mac version of Music…

Other stuff

Speaking of Home Screen widgets, I find them very weird on both Android and iOS. Android had the lead and then, as far as I can tell, did almost nothing with it. Current widgets on that platform are a mess and woefully inconsistent from a design and interaction standpoint.

Apple, meanwhile, upended the entire system fairly recently, atomising interactivity. And now it’s brought interactivity back. So that’s good. But the system itself has never worked for me reliably.

I can install the same apps on a bunch of devices. The widgets system will then seemingly randomly decide whether or not to allow access to widgets from said apps. Even when they are listed, they might appear as blanks. Sometimes, a device restart fixes this. Or an uninstall/reinstall dance. But this has been going on since the revamped widgets first appeared and, judging by online grumbles elsewhere, it seems like a common problem.

Like everything else, it’s another case where the closed nature of the system makes it impossible for you to figure out any potential solution. The same’s true for iCloud, which when it breaks leaves you with no means to fix it. Worse, devs often can’t do anything either. Just this week, Dan Moren outlined an iCloud issue that should never happen. And back in August, it was doing weird things for me.

Apple is increasingly dependent on services revenue. It forces people to increasingly rely on iCloud. It should be rock solid rather than unreliable and flaky. We should be able to trust it. Right now, I half the time feel like I can trust iCloud as far as I could throw an iCloud server. (Which might have fixed Dan’s problems and my own. Perhaps I should suggest this cunning plan to Apple tech support. It’d be cathartic for them if nothing else.)

So. Very. Tired.

Published stuff

Presumably reasoning that I’m getting on a bit, an editor at TechRadar asked me to dig into Life before Google: 7 retro services that helped us survive, from Altavista to Hotmail. This went down very well on Mastodon and Facebook, probably saying more about the audiences/my followings there than anything. Nostalgia, eh? That said, I still do have and use some of those ‘retro’ services, and am attempting to wean myself off of Google, because, well, Google.

For Stuff, I wrote about the Raspberry Pi 5, massive Lego kits to make your bank account scream, and playing the phone upgrade lottery, where your new phone resembles the old one, but has things that are temporarily or permanently missing. Tsk.

The latest issue of the print mag is out too. Within, you’ll find words from me on the Atari 2600+, weather alert apps, Android 14, and the very first version of Microsoft Word.

Over at TapSmart, I wrote about essential apps for a new iPhone and a new Apple Watch, along with asking whether the death of the iPhone mini signals the end of small iOS devices.

Finally, for this blog, I wrote Apple, Reduce Motion and the battle for vestibular accessibility. This celebrates ten years since I wrote a piece for The Guardian that spread far and wide and helped more people (and Apple) better understand issues relating to vestibular disorders. Honestly, it’s not often in tech journalism that I feel I’ve written something truly meaningful. This was an exception. That piece mattered. I know it made a difference, potentially to an awful lot of people. That felt really good.

Upcoming stuff

I’m mostly immersed in hardware right now, putting the iPhone 15 Pro Max and Apple Watch Series 9 through their paces. I’ll admit that while I was sceptical about the new zoom on the Pro Max, a trip to our local pond yesterday left me converted, with me capturing some shots I’d otherwise have missed when using Apple hardware.

Other stuff

I’ve mostly been knackered this past week, as some kind of bug swept through our household. As our kid’s class WhatsApp exploded with notifications about covid, we hoped it wasn’t that. Fortunately, it wasn’t, but we’ve still had a rough few days.

Covid itself is back on my mind as well. Last winter was miserable as we mostly avoided going out, not least given that almost everyone in the UK has ditched masks and decided covid no longer exists. I feel quite envious of friends overseas who are getting boosters, since the UK government has decided only folks over 65 can have one this year, unless you’ve an immune disorder or another condition on a very short list. And school policy remains ludicrous, forcing children back after three days, even when still testing positive, unless they have a high fever. It’s all deeply weird.

On a more positive note, we’ve been digging into Welcome to Wrexham, which is back on Disney+. I can take or leave football, but thought this show might be mildly amusing. I wasn’t prepared for a show that would have so many powerful stories and so much humanity at its core. The second series continues in this light, getting you right in the feels in the many moments between the manager swearing at his team and goals hitting the back of the net. Top of the table stuff.

How many digits do you have to have turn to icicles before it’s acceptable to turn the heating back on? Asking for a friend.

Published stuff

For Stuff, I ask: How will Apple respond to Google’s ten-year Chromebook update pledge? Apple is better than most in mobile, but now lags Google on desktop. And both companies are struggling with a desire to be (or at least appear to be) green while immersed in a marketplace that demands infinite growth. Top tip, everyone: we don’t have infinite resources. My take: devices have to last longer. And I mean that in a meaningful manner.

Over at iMore, I ask: Apple pitched the iPhone 15 Pro as the ultimate gaming handheld – but can Apple really take it to the next level? This is kind of a spiritual successor to my Wired piece last year about whether the M2 MacBook Air is any good for games. TL;DR for both: it’s not about the tech so much as the culture.

Over at TapSmart, Streaks Workout is added to my classic apps hall of fame, and I look at Apple’s balancing act – how a desire for profits impacts features and prices.

And in this here blog, I write about using Spoken Content to have your Mac or iPad read words back to you. I use this feature daily for proofing text. In fact, I’ll shortly use it to proof this text.

Upcoming stuff

I’ve got a shiny new iPhone here for review and so will be putting that through its paces soon. And given that I wrote about every other new Apple operating system, a tips feature will shortly rock up about watchOS 10.

I’m also mulling over how to pitch and write a new piece on accessibility. Speaking of, this coming week it’ll be ten years since I broke Why iOS 7 is making some users sick for The Guardian. So I’ll be writing up something about that too.

Other stuff

Updates to recent Apple kit have resulted in tech writers doing some entertainingly bonkers things. You might have seen that Federico Viticci over at MacStories used a Game Boy camera for FaceTime. And now Dan Seifert at The Verge put Samsung Dev on an iPad screen.

Apple’s probably removing Seifert from all Christmas card lists as I write. Mind you, his terrifying concoction did again make me think that my ideal iPhone would be the one device to rule them all. Now we’ve a USB-C capable phone that can play AAA games and run high-end apps, why not have it optimally output to any display? Apple’s answer: because money. My retort: but what of resources and sustainability?