Archive for category Hardware
Apple Magic Trackpad
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Apple, Hardware on January 6, 2012
Ok I admit it, I’m late to the party once again. The Magic Trackpad hit the market way back in 2010 but only now do I have one in my hands to test it. I have been wanting one for some time, but when Lion arrived it was given a significant shove further up the shopping list. You see, Lion introduced many new multi-touch improvements as it did its level best to shoehorn the iOS experience onto the Mac. Some of these changes – Launchpad for example – seem a little pointless, but a few of the new gestures have so far proved quite useful.
Running PC Pro on tablets
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Android, Apple, Hardware, Internet on January 6, 2012
UK PC magazine PC Pro recently tried to do a days work using nothing but iPads, Galaxy Tab’s and all manner of other tablet devices. They came a little unstuck using the WordPress app for iOS and Android, but it sounds like it was reasonably successful… You can read all about it here. I do [...]
Apple TV Revisited
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Apple, Hardware on December 27, 2011
When I blogged about the Apple TV back in September the Apple landscape was a slightly different place. There was no iCloud, there was no iTunes Match and there were no TV programmes available to view on the Apple TV without first downloading them on your PC or Mac and streaming them. Whilst this worked fine, it was not an ideal solution. It was a workaround and a bit of a pain to keep the computer on, subdue the power-saving functions and hope that your programme found its way to your TV.
Merry Christmas from Siri
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Apple, iOS on December 23, 2011
Cool advert from Apple with a play on their Siri voice assistant. Apparently it’s the most effective ad of the season. That said, adverts aren’t exactly setting the bar high these days.
Selling a Used iOS Device
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Apple, Hardware on December 20, 2011
As you’ll probably have picked up from the other posts on this blog this week, I have recently changed my phone. Now that I have a perfectly serviceable 3GS sat lying around, it would make sense to try and get some money for it. The mobile operators all offer recycling schemes that suggest the old [...]
iPhone 4S Thoughts
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Apple, Hardware, iOS on December 18, 2011
The iPhone 3GS was a bit of a landmark for me. Two years ago I acquired a 16GB 3GS from an O2 shop in the stunning city of Bath. My wife and I were effectively killing time before we could fly out on our honeymoon. We had married a day or two before, spent a [...]
iPhone 4S – Taking Screenshots
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Apple, Hardware, iOS on December 18, 2011
I’ve recently upgraded to an iPhone 4S after a happy two years with my 3GS, however this isn’t what this post is about – that’s something for another post. What I do want to talk about is taking screenshots. For this site I take quite a few screen grabs to brighten my iOS app posts. [...]
This Computer is Already Associated with an Apple ID
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Apple, Mac OSX on December 16, 2011
If you are one of those people eager to sign up to iTunes Match, you may run into problems if you share your Mac or PC with another person in your home. We have one Mac and a number of iOS devices, including an Apple TV (gen 2). Unfortunately, you can only use one Apple ID every 90 days with iTunes in the Cloud. So, if my wife downloads a few of her past purchases on our mac using her Apple ID I have to wait 90 days before I can do the same.
WebOS to be Open Sourced!
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Hardware, Linux, UNIX & Open Source, News on December 9, 2011
Good news everyone! After much deliberation and procrastination, HP has decided that the best course of action for its promising but ultimately unsuccessful tablet OS is to open it up to Open Sorcerers the world over. It’s not a straightforward process and because WebOS has some proprietary components, it’ll take some time to fill in [...]
iBooks 1.5
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Apple, iOS, Utilities on December 7, 2011
iBooks has received a nice little update including new fonts, a new “night” theme (white text on black background) plus a full screen view, which removes everything but the text. I’m no font-boffin, but most of the new fonts seem to resemble Times New Roman. That said, they’re still quite pleasant. I’m not a fan [...]
Carrier IQ
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Android, Hardware, News on December 1, 2011
It looks like some major players in the Android world have been caught with their pants down. It appears that a large number of Android devices – with the exception of Google’s own Nexus line and the Motorola Xoom – have been found with some decidedly unsavoury tracking software on board. Fast forward to this [...]
Samsung Galaxy S2 Advert Mocks Apple Fans
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Android, Hardware on November 23, 2011
Samsung has gone on the offensive and has taken to mocking the sort of Apple fan that likes to queue up outside the Apple store to get their hands on the next iPhone. Whilst I’ve never had the desire to queue for umm…anything, I am acutely aware that people do queue for Apple product launches. [...]
Some thoughts on Android
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Android, Hardware, Linux, UNIX & Open Source, Thoughts on November 19, 2011
Amusing post here from Macworld’s Macalope. It could be argued that it is a little petty in places, but it does make a few interesting points about the current (and regrettable) state of Android. But man, AT&T’s notion of Android is a lot different from Google’s. Android as Google ships is it really quite good. [...]
Android “face unlock” feature
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Android, Hardware on November 13, 2011
One of the new features included in the new Android release dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich is a “face unlock” option. This allows you to use your face to unlock your phone, instead of the traditional pin code or pattern. Unfortunately it hasn’t taken long for people to notice the obvious drawback with such a feature [...]
iOS 5.0.1 Released
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Apple, Hardware, iOS, Utilities on November 10, 2011
Good news everyone! iOS 5.0.1 has finally been pushed out and is waiting for download. This is the much awaited update that promises to fix the rather inconvenient battery drain we’ve been seeing since the 5.0 update came out. It also fixes some bugs with “Documents in the cloud” and voice recognition issues with Australian [...]
iPad 2 HD video and WordPress HTML5 test combined!
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Apple, Hardware, iOS, Utilities on October 30, 2011
Your browser does not support the video tag If you can see this, it probably works ok…
iPad 2 & iOS 5 rotation lock bug
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Apple, Hardware, iOS on October 29, 2011
Here’s a curious little bug I’ve just run into on my iPad. The slider switch on the side of the iPad can be set to either mute sound or lock the screen orientation. Some people may want to read an eBook on their side, so they don’t really want the screen flipping around as they [...]
Android Orphans
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Android, Hardware on October 28, 2011
Some interesting commentary from Barry Collins at PC Pro here. News broke this week that yet another Android handset – the Nexus One was effectively “cut loose”, doomed to live out the remainder of its life on an old version of the OS. The problem is illustrated brilliantly by this page here. The Motorola Devour [...]
Nokia jumps from one burning platform to another
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Communications, Hardware, News on October 27, 2011
Nokia is about to launch its first new Windows Phone 7 devices, the Lumia 800 range this coming November. They will hit shops in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the UK, but will anyone buy them? When Nokia announced the deal with MS — unsurprisingly following the placement of their new CEO Stephen [...]
iPhone 4S Pre-orders top 1 Million in 24 Hours
Posted by Gavin Lewis in Apple, Hardware, News on October 10, 2011
Appetite for new iPhones appears to be as strong as ever, with many sites reporting that pre-orders have topped 1 million in 24 hours. This is rather odd when you consider that the general feeling amongst pundits was of disappointment that it wasn’t actually called an iPhone 5 – presumably because they’d have to amend the article they had written in advance.
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