Google Chrome on iOS

June 29, 2012 | 3 comments

So my favourite browser has finally made it on to my favourite mobile operating system as last night Google Chrome for iOS was released.

I have downloaded it onto both my iPad and iPhone and I’ve been immediately impressed with just how much it looks like its desktop siblings, which shouldn’t be a great surprise, especially on the iPad.

There are a number of great things that have been brought over from the dekstop versions including the omnibar that allows you to enter either a web address or a search term and Chrome is intelligent enough to work out what … Read the rest

The One Thing I Want From iOS 6

June 9, 2012 | 2 comments

So Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference begins on Monday and as ever the blogsphere is all aglow with just exactly what will be announced. So far this seems to include a refresh of every MacBook and iMac model, iOS 6 and, of course, the long awaited TV which just has to be called iTV. Most of that leaves me cold for now but given I have both an iPhone and an iPad any improvements that are made to the operating system are going to have a pretty direct impact on me.

Lots of other blogs have been drawing up long … Read the rest

iLapse iPhoneography

June 7, 2012 | Comment

Occasionally I stumble upon an interesting iPhone app that I think is worthy of keeping. Today, as part of AppAdvice‘s daily Apps Gone Free feature, an app called iLapse caught my eye. This, as the name suggests, allows you to record time lapse videos on your iPhone. The options are pretty simple, choose how often you want an image to be captured from half a second to every 20 seconds and the output frame rate. Stick your iPhone on a tripod and, if you are going to be recoding for any length of time, put it on charge too … Read the rest

Why Does my iPad Still Make Notification Sounds When the Volume is Down?

May 31, 2012 | Comment

One of the things that has really niggled me about my iPad is that it continues to be bloody noisy even if you have the volume turned right down. While any music is silenced notification noises, bleeps and bings continue to come through at full volume – not good when you are trying to sleep.

It seems that because, as daft as it seems, notification noises are not controlled by the volume control. Notifications are either off or on.

All is not lost though as there are two ways (at least) of turning off notification noises – the first is … Read the rest

Pebble Watch for iPhone Passes $10M on Kickstarter

May 10, 2012 | 1 comment

Already the most funded project ever on Kickstarter the Pebble Watch for iPhone and Android has now passed the $10 million mark – 100 times the amount it was aiming to raise. Kickstarter is a great platform and I have backed a number of projects on it and will continue to look out for innovative things I can be an early part of.

Looking forward to receiving my watch too – glad I got my backing in early!… Read the rest

PDair iPad Leather Case

March 23, 2012 | Comment

The nice people over at Gearzap, knowing my love of gadgets and iPads in particular, have sent me over a new iPad cover to review. I was particularly excited to see that it was a case from PDair, a brand that I am familiar with having first bought one of their cases for my Dell Axim 50 many years ago.

For those not familiar with PDair they concentrate on making quality cases for a variety of gadgets with distinctive white stiching. This one for the iPad is no different using a high quality leather and has a really nice … Read the rest

iOS 5.1 Disturbing my Sleep

March 12, 2012 | Comment

Released at the same time as the new iPad was an update to the devices operating system, iOS 5.1. I don’t always update the OS on my devices but a number of the apps that I use would only continue to work if I upgraded, so I did.

One of the things listed as being included in this release was better battery life, although since upgrading I haven’t noticed any improvement and if anything it is slightly worse. However, I have been slightly taken aback by something that wasn’t listed in the release notes. It seems that since doing the … Read the rest

iPad 3

March 8, 2012 | Comment

So the all new iPad was announced yesterday. Not called the iPad 3 at all, as the title suggests, but back to plain old iPad.

Irrespective of the naming convention I just cannot find myself getting excited about what the latest iteration has to offer. Which seems to amount to putting a higher definition screen into the same body. This gives the same “retina” display that the iPhone 4 has.

Now I have an iPhone 4S and maybe it’s my age and that my eyesight is going but I cannot see a great deal of difference between that and the … Read the rest

iPhone Tripod Adaptor

December 14, 2011 | Comment

Everyone’s talking about iphonography – taking pictures with your iphone rather than a standard camera. As the now well worn phrase goes “The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You”.

The iPhone camera is pretty good for a phone, particularly on the 4S, and it is always in my pocket so available in a way that my “other” camera isn’t. That said there are times when I just want to do things other than point and shoot and that is where this little gadget comes in.

It’s serves two purposes as you can see from the pictures below. Firstly … Read the rest

Build an app by all means, but please remember to support it

November 14, 2011 | Comment

Everyone is building mobile apps these days. They are the must have accessory for every company that wants to be seen to be leading edge and that includes my own company.

Apple seem to have managed to succeeded where I singularly failed a few years ago in persuading people that mobiles where it’s at. And that’s great, I really “get” mobile and applaud anyone who wants to be seen in the hands of every user. But, but, writing the app is only half the story.

Let me explain with a practical example.

On my iPad I have a great … Read the rest