iPad on Tour

July 24, 2010 | Comment

So I am away on annual leave in beautiful Tuscany but the big question before we left was what tech to bring? In the recent past I have always taken a laptop of some description but this time I decided to go with the iPad alone. That meant also taking Apple’s camera kit in order to get my pictures off my camera in order to do anything with them.

The camera kit is interesting as the name suggests it is for connecting cameras, which it is. However, I was also able to successfully attach both a USB headset and a … Read the rest

iPad Backing up – please wait.

July 20, 2010 | 1 comment

Is your iPad taking forever to backup? Mine is. After several aborted attempts I finally got a full backup done taking a massive three hours and that was after I had deleted off some large apps. Three hours for a device that is less than half full.

Feeling that there had to be a solution to this once again took me to the net and I quickly discovered that I was not the only one with an issue, but nobody had an answer. There is, however, what I consider to be a workaround and that is turning off backups altogether. … Read the rest

Killing an App in iOS4

July 2, 2010 | Comment

Oh there are so many problems with iOS4 but I won’t repeat them here but my biggest problem with it (after the horrendous battery life) is the multitasking. In particular the way that now when you close down an app it goes to the background. This is fine for the most part but for some apps they continue to process (yes I know that’s what multitasking means but not in Apples universe.) An app that is sent to the background saves its state and sleeps. So i have a radio app that when you close it down it continues … Read the rest

The Shocking Price of eBooks

June 30, 2010 | 1 comment

So it seems that content producers still haven’t learnt the lessons from the music industry’s move from physical product to electronic equivalent. Below is a great example of how they just don’t get it.

Juliet Naked is the latest novel by Nick Hornby. I’ve read it (in paperback format) and it’s a good book and a return to form for Hornby in my opinion. However, I would rather have read it on my Sony Reader but is it really worth £11.10 to have it in an electronic format? I think not. More to the point does it cost the content … Read the rest

Call that Multi-tasking?

June 29, 2010 | Comment

Maybe it’s me but I just don’t get iOS4’s “multi-tasking”. Multi-tasking is supposed to be a time saver not a confusing pain in the arse.

With the introduction of iOS4 you get (limited) support for apps running in the background. Correction! You get support for certain features running in the background, such as streaming music or uploading a file. For anything else the app is put into suspended animation. These apps are put into, well what can only be described as a system tray. Double clicking the home button now brings up a display of all your running apps.

After … Read the rest

iOS4, We Have a Problem

June 25, 2010 | Comment

Last Monday, like many others, I sat in front of iTunes repeatedly pressing the check for updates button willing iOS4 to be available so I could upgrade my iPhone. Unlike many others it went very smoothly for me taking hardly any time at all to backup the device and then carry out the install. In fact the slowest part was the download itself.

As you can see from the screenshot left one of the first things I did was to change the wallpaper. I then had a play with the folders and a general explore of the more obvious new … Read the rest

Subsonic vs. Spotify

May 30, 2010 | Comment

I wrote in my previous post about the really rather wonderful Subsonic and how it was part of my armoury in the battle to rid myself of iTunes. Well I discovered today that it is rapidly becoming a complete replacement for Spotify too.

In my short(ish) life I have seen a number of changes in the music world as it transitioned from records to cassettes to CDs and lately to MP3s. Now there is a new revolution in town – streaming. Up to now you have always owned what you played, or perhaps to be more strictly accurate, you have … Read the rest

Hands on with the iPad

April 23, 2010 | 1 comment

So, yes, I know that the web has been full of this over the last few weeks (with only a minor diversion for the next iPhone) and I am late to the game but I only got my first opportunity to get my hands on an iPad today. To be fair there aren’t that many of them in the UK at present. So here it is – my thoughts and pictures of my next gadget.

On seeing it it really does look like an overgrown iPhone. The two are almost identical in design and anyone that has an iPhone … Read the rest

Upgrading a Three mifi

April 19, 2010 | Comment

Since getting my mifi device last October it has become an indispensible device going everywhere with me. It also recently kept my son connected on a three hour car journey, so is worth the small amount I paid for it for that alone.

But one of the things that has always puzzled me about it is the software that is supplied and the relative lack of options available with it. Actually, I guess I am not that puzzled. Three are taking the sensible approach that in order to keep down the number of support calls the device should be as … Read the rest

Sony Reader

February 15, 2010 | 2 comments

So I have joined the ranks of people that are ebook readers only in my case not Amazon’s Kindle but Sony’s Pocket Reader – you can see it in the picture on the left on the top of the pile showing MacBook, Netbook, eBook (can you see what I have done there?).

Anyway rather than give yet another review of the device (which I love) I thought that I would put down some of the things that I have discovered since getting the device at then end of last year. Some of these will be obvious, others not so, I … Read the rest