As many of you know I’ve been a fan of Apple’s products for years. Usually I’m attracted by the style, integration, and ease of use. Yesterday, I was left scratching my head like many of you. Apple all of a sudden decided to get into the iPhone backup battery game. That in and of itself surprises me. What it says for the first time is that we admit that our iPhone batteries don’t last long enough for some people so we’re gonna sell you a battery to make it last longer. Just not a move that I expected from Apple.
The Best Keyboard for iPad Pro
For whatever reason Apple didn’t have the Apple branded iPad Pro accessories widely available on day one. Although you could walk into an Apple Store and pick up the iPad Pro of your choice you had to wait for Apple Pencil and the Smart Keyboard for iPad Pro. Although I had preordered all 3 items together, the iPad Pro arrived two days later, but the Apple Pencil and Apple Smart Keyboard for iPad Pro didn’t arrive till several days later. I had already sourced another Apple Pencil from the Apple Store in Michigan (thanks Linda) and I gave up waiting for the Apple Smart Keyboard to arrive. Instead I drove to my local Best Buy and picked up the Logitech Create Keyboard for iPad Pro. I’m so glad I went this route instead. Had the Apple keyboard arrived on time I may have never looked at the Logitech Create. I would have been missing out!
Here’s why the Logitech Create Keyboard for iPad Pro is sooooo much better…
This is an AWESOME Keyboard for Your Computer AND Your Mobile Devices
This Logitech keyboard rocks! When I received my iPad Pro last week one of things that was missing from the order was the New Apple Smart Cover Keyboard for the iPad Pro. It’s backordered and while I hope to get it this week or next, I kinda wanted to use a keyboard in the meantime. My good friend Larry Becker, turned me on to this Logitech keyboard and I couldn’t be happier with it. This Logitech keyboard has a feature that I hadn’t seen on other wireless keyboard before…
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iPad Pro first impressions
I received my work iPad Pro this past Friday and while I will do a more extensive review once the Apple Pencil and Apple iPad Pro keyboard arrives, I wanted to give you a quick update. As with any new major piece of tech that I get my hands on people want to know what I think about it? Is it worth it? Do I like it? Is it for me? Those are all good questions, but some of them are hard to impossible to answer when it comes to questions like “is it worth it?” That’s because it depends on YOU. I can’t answer if it’s a good fit for you or not. All I can do is tell you my experiences and you can go from there.
So let’s get to it…
A Perfect Use Case for Photoshop Fix and Mobile Apps
Adobe makes mobile apps for your iOS and Android mobile devices. Now that the iPad Pro is available people asking me more questions about running Photoshop or Lightroom or Illustrator on this big new FAST tablet? What’s the workflow? Why would I want to use an iPad instead of my desktop/laptop computer? Can I shoot tethered to it? How do I get my RAW files into it? How do I color calibrate it? Many of these questions are the same questions that people asked when the iPad was first introduced back in 2010 (yes it’s been 5 years already).
There’s a lot of excitement about the prospect of just carrying around this small, lightweight tablet and leaving your computer behind. While the iPad and now the iPad Pro are GREAT mobile devices, they were never designed to or intended to replace your desktop computers. First off let’s talk about RAM. Apple usually never shows the RAM of the iPad as a spec. I’m not talking about storage (16GB, 32GB, 64GB, 128GB), I’m talking about the RAM that the Apps run in. Rumor has it that for the most part the iPads have had 1-2GBs of RAM. The NEW iPad Pro is rumored to have 4GB’s of RAM. Now pause and take that in for a minute. When was the last time you bought a desktop/notebook PC that you wanted to do production level work with only 2-4GB’s of RAM? How well would an App like Photoshop CC run in only 2GBs of RAM? We also don’t know how much iOS itself uses. Instead of trying to cram desktop apps into the much smaller footprint of an iPad or Android tablet/smartphone, Adobe has done the next best thing by taking the tasks that people do the most and making FREE apps to do those tasks.
A perfect use case for Photoshop Fix
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Improve your smartphone video recording with the BEST 3 axis gimbal
A good video has great light and good sound. A great video is short, great content, good light, good sound AND STEADY. A shaky unstabilized video may cause your viewers to stop watching for fear of getting motion sickness. While smartphones can capture great video quality these days, the small form factor is hard to hold steady if you are moving or walking. The iPhone 6s Plus can shoot stabilized video and I can stabilize it in post with Adobe Premiere Pro CC. However, if you’re walking your video may be so shaky that the stabilization methods above may not be enough. That’s where a gimbal comes in…
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Apple TV 4th Generation Review
I’ve been an Apple TV user since the first model and have owned each one. The 3rd generation (1080p) model definitely became one of my favorite gadgets of all time. I not only used it for iTunes movie rentals and TV shows, but also largely to stream my own content from my own movie library. Apple TV is also great to be able to stream just about anything from your iPhone or iPad. I mirror my iPhone often to watch things like Periscope broadcasts on the big screen. It has been rumored for a long time that Apple was coming out with a “TV” and I never put a lot of faith in those rumors because I simply didn’t see what Apple could bring to the table that would make consumers want to take their existing TV’s off the wall and put up an Apple TV. It’s much smarter to make a box that connects to the TV of your choice and get all that Apple has to offer that way. The 3rd generation Apple TV was getting long in the tooth, but via all the software updates along the way it has really become a nice little full-featured box. So what could Apple do with the 4th Generation Apple TV?
My initial setup didn’t go as smoothly as I thought it would
Professional Level Retouching on Your iPad or iPhone is Here with Photoshop Fix
You’ve seen the sneaks and you’ve heard the rumors about a NEW professional level retouching App for your iPad or iPhone, well the wait is over. Adobe Photoshop Fix is here! Rather than tell you about it I’d rather show it to you in action:
Photoshop Fix is exactly the kind of App that I’ve been hoping for and it was a pleasure working with the team and providing feedback during the development.
You can get Adobe Photoshop Fix here from the:
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iPhone 6s Plus Review
It’s that time of year again. Once a year at least one new iPhone model comes out and I upgrade to the new model. Ever since the iPhone 3GS Apple has done an incremental update to the iPhone before the next major update. So we’ve had the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4s, iPhone 5s and now iPhone 6s. Sure we can probably expect and iPhone 7 next year, but the question becomes do you wait or do you upgrade to the 6s or 6s Plus. As usual it really depends on what you have now. If you’re on an older model such as the iPhone 5s or older then the iPhone 6s is a monumental upgrade. If you upgraded to the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus last year and you’re under a contract then you can probably sit this one out.
What’s New and What’s Cool?
It’s funny when I read comments online proclaiming the iPhone 6s to be EXACTLY the same as the iPhone 6. In other words they claim that there are NO DIFFERENCES. Really? I’m not sure if these are just haters or really uninformed people. While the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus look pretty much identical to last year’s models, there are significant changes under the hood. Like I said above Apple typically doesn’t change form factor for two models. Look back at the iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, iPhone 5 and iPhone 6. Each one was a significant change in form factor. The “s” models are usual changes all on the inside. The iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are no different. While they look just like last years models there are some great changes on the inside. Here are a few:
Follow me on Twitter and you Could Win a NEW Anker Backup Battery
I am a fan of Anker’s battery backup products and cables. I worked out a giveaway with them that will allow me to giveaway their NEW PowerCore+ 10050 battery backup for your mobile devices. To enter all you have to do is follow me on Twitter here and retweet this tweet. On Sunday, September 20th 2015 I will pick a US or UK based follower that retweeted the tweet.
You can check out the PowerCore+ 10050 here