Welcome to my technology blog!
2020 has sucked for the most part. There’s no other way to say it. However, I feel that better days are on the horizon. With that said, people look to me for holiday gadget recommendations, and quite frankly I haven’t really been in the mood to flaunt gear with so many people out of work and struggling due to the pandemic. So this year, I’m going to keep the list short and relatively low cost.
Continue reading “The Ultimate 2020 Stocking Stuffer”
Apple’s AirPower was supposed to be the only wireless charger you would need. One charging mat that lets you charge an iPhone (or Android), Apple Watch and AirPods. Apple decided to cancel the AirPower before it ever shipped. They sited quality/technical difficulties. I can only imagine that this was because you would have been able to put your phone, watch or AirPods anywhere on the mat. Since the Apple Watch doesn’t use a standard Qi charger I’m sure it was hard to make it work when placed anywhere on the mat.
There are lots of Qi wireless chargers on the market. Some are designed just to charge a phone while other bigger mats are designed to charge two to three devices. I originally went with the Nomad Wireless Charger as it was one of the first to have an integrated Apple Watch charger. The Nomad solution works fine, but what I didn’t like about it was that it was one configuration. You lay your phone on it either vertically or horizontally and you put your watch on the dedicated spot. If you want to charge a third device then you put the phone vertically in the middle. What I don’t like about this is that you have to put the phone on it just right (not to far forward and not too far towards the front) or it won’t be on one of the three charging coils and therefore it won’t charge. I have woke up on occasion only to realize that my phone didn’t charge because it wasn’t sitting on it just right.
Continue reading “SliceCharge Pro – the wireless charger you’ve been waiting for”
Often when you choose a case for for your smartphone you usually choose between a nice thick case that offers more protection for drops and other mishaps or you choose a case that is thin and protects against scratches. I tend to go for thinner cases as I rarely drop my iPhone. I would go without a case at all if they were scratch proof or less slippery. The thin iPhone X case
Continue reading “The Thinnest iPhone X Case I’ve Ever Seen”
Now that I have an iPhone that supports wireless charging I wanted that same convenience in my car. Putting my favorite wireless charger in my house is a piece of cake. I really like the Anker Wireless Charging Pad for my desk and nightstand. However, in the car i had been using a magnetic vent mount that I really like. Here’s one that I like and used with my iPhone 7 Plus from Arkon
Continue reading “I Found a Magnetic Wireless iPhone X Charging Mount for my Car”
It’s that time a year again and I know I’m late to the iPhone X (pronounced 10 as in Roman Numeral X) review party. This is the first iPhone in 10 years that I didn’t receive on release day. I did place my iPhone X 256GB Black order just after midnight Pacific Time on Friday October 27th, but my ship date was immediately given as November 17th – November 24th (2 weeks after the first shipment). I did receive it a few days early last week on November 14th. With that out of the way let’s get on to the review.
Wow! Hard to believe it’s been 10 years since the first iPhone. I have done a review every year and it’s fun to go back through the years and see how much has changed. If you’re feeling nostalgic, you can see my first iPhone review here. A lot has changed since 2007 and while many iPhone versions (like the “s” models) have been evolutionary, the iPhone X does feel like a brand new iPhone. It’s the first iPhone in 10 years to ditch the home button and this may surprise you, but…
Apple will release the highly anticipated iOS 11 update tomorrow Tuesday, September 19th 2017. However, unlike previous iOS updates this one is likely to leave some of your apps behind.
P.S.A.: Before I go any further, don’t even think of installing iOS 11 without having backed up your iOS device first! Now on to the topic at hand:
With every operating system update since the beginning of time there have always been incompatibilities with 3rd party applications. In most cases the applications have small glitches and sometimes the more severe incompatibilities cause the applications to crash upon launching. However, this time you may have some applications that will never work again!
Continue reading “Before you upgrade your iPhone or iPad to iOS 11…”
If you use an iPhone, iPad or iPod then chances are you’ve worn out the supplied Apple Lightning cable. They usually wear out around the connectors, exposing wires or simply failing to work anymore. I stopped buying Apple branded cables for this reason. I tried other brands, but they all seem to fail at one point or another. Some wouldn’t even give error messages indicating that the cables weren’t completely compatible. Sigh.
I would say that probably 99% of the smartphone users I know have their devices in a case. Usually your case choice (or lack there of) says a lot about you. You’ll see cases that are thick and protective, decorative and pretty and very thin offering basic scratch protection.
Continue reading “My New PITAKA Minimalist iPhone 7 Plus Case Excites me and Scares me”
Last year I standardized on Anker for all my mobile device charging needs. Their products are top notch and so far their Lightning cables have outlasted all other brands I’ve tried. I’ve used several of their backup batteries, but this new one is a great idea! Normally you’d carry a phone charger when you travel so that you could charge your phone at night or when you’re going to be in one spot for a while. You’d probably carry a backup battery too. This way you could charge your smartphone ore tablet on the go when you’re not near a plug. Now imagine if you could have one portable charger that served both purposes.
Continue reading “A Wall Charger and Backup Battery in One – Anker PowerCore Fusion 5000 Review”
When it comes to home security cameras I have pretty much standardized on Google’s Nest Cams. However, the one thing that is not likely to appear in any Nest products is HomeKit support. HomeKit is the standard that Apple created for home automation and is supported in iOS, Siri, Apple TV, and the Home App that’s now built-in to iOS 10. So that means that you either buy accessories that work with HomeKit or competing platforms. Since until now there were no shipping HomeKit enabled security cameras, it really didn’t matter which platform you went with. However, that has just changed now that D-Link has shipped the Omna 180 Cam.
Continue reading “The 1st HomeKit Enabled Security Camera has Shipped! D-Link Omna 180 Review”