Category: Apple

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iPhone X Review

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…

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The Find My iPhone App Saved Me Twice in One Week

BlackPods AirPods
You can get your AirPods painted black at blackpods.store
I’m usually very good at keeping up with my gear. To date I’ve never lost a phone, iPod, camera or other portable electronic piece of gear. However, last week I had a couple of close calls and both were quickly solved with the free Find my iPhone app by Apple. Don’t let the name fool you. “Find my iPhone” isn’t just limited to finding lost/stolen iPhones. It can find just about any piece of Apple gear that’s equipped with WiFi, Bluetooth or Cellular.

I almost lost an AirPod

I remember when I got my AirPods at the beginning of the year, the number one question/concern people asked me was “aren’t you afraid of losing them?” I wasn’t afraid of losing them at all. They fit snuggly enough in my ears not to fall out on their own and whenever I’m not using them I return them to the charging case. However, I almost lost one last week in a weird way:

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Before you upgrade your iPhone or iPad to iOS 11…

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!

Apple is dropping support for 32bit applications in iOS 11

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The Best Lightning Cables for the Money – Anker Powerline II Dura Review

On the left is an Apple Lightning cable, in the middle is the new Anker Powerline II Dura and on the right is a NewerTech Lightning cable.

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.

Anker makes the BEST Lightning cables for the money! Continue reading “The Best Lightning Cables for the Money – Anker Powerline II Dura Review”

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My New PITAKA Minimalist iPhone 7 Plus Case Excites me and Scares me

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.

What’s the point of having a super thin phone if you’re going to put it a thick heavy case?

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A Wall Charger and Backup Battery in One – Anker PowerCore Fusion 5000 Review

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.

The NEW Anker PowerCore Fusion 5000 replaces two things in my backpack

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The 1st HomeKit Enabled Security Camera has Shipped! D-Link Omna 180 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.

Viewing the Live feed from the Omna 180 cam in the iOS 10 Home App.

The 1st shipping HomeKit enabled security cam is lacking features that other cams have…

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I love my Apple AirPods

Usually I write reviews after only a few hours/days of using a new product. I can usually tell by then if I’ll love or hate a product. However, I waited to write this one because I wanted some more real-world time with them. I also wanted to travel with them and use them on a plane. I’ve had and used my AirPods everyday since I received them on January 4th. In a nutshell I can’t imagine life without them. Are they perfect?

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If You Have an iPhone 7 You Need This Adapter

Although I don’t generally miss the headphone jack on my iPhone 7 Plus, there is one scenario that I do miss it. With only having the Lightning port this means that you have to decide to either charge or use a wired headset. Like I said, this generally isn’t a problem because I’m either using a wireless headset or I’m sitting at my desk and my iPhone 7 Plus is sitting in a iPhone dock which also has a wired headset attached to it. However, for those times when I want to plug in a headset and charge at the same time I’ve found the Belkin Lightning Audio + Charge Rockstar adapter. This adapter give you TWO Lightning ports instead of one.

It works great as long as you know the limitations…

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