Category: apple

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A deluge of new products

Over the last two weeks, Apple have released a range of new products.

I mentioned the new Apple TV last week. Alongside that release, Apple brought out the HomeView and new HomePod mini smart speakers.

Though many of my Apple purchases are because I am embedded into the Apple ecosystem, one reason I have an Apple TV, I never bought the Homepod. I think the core reason was that it was E319 when it was launched. The Amazon Echo was just £150, much cheaper. I also didn’t subscribe to Apple Music, and Prime Music from Amazon was included with my Prime subscription. I had gone with the Echo as my smart speaker. I still have and use that speaker.

The HomeView looks interesting, but not sure if I would find a use for it.

Then Apple released a new iPad mini with an 8.5-Inch OLED Display and A20 Pro Chip. I’ve never had an iPad mini, but I do quite like the form factor. As I mentioned in a previous blog post – I think even if I had a persuasive use case for the iPhone Duo I am probably more likely to keep my current iPhone and get an iPad mini to use alongside my phone.

They also released an updated iMac. Still has the 24” screen, I wonder if they will ever do a bigger 27” iMac like they use to. I might then be tempted. I really did like my 27” iMac computer and was disappointed when it became obsolete. I do like the form factor of the new 24” iMac, It’s just that I would prefer a 27” screen.

Their latest new item was an OLED MacBook Pro With Touch Display.  That is probably worth a whole blog post to itself, however at the    price Apple are charging, it’s not in my ballpark.

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Hands on with the iPhone Duo

I stopped by the Apple Store to try out the iPhone Duo.

This is Apple’s new foldable iPhone. Phones that fold are not new, they have been around for a while, but this is the first one from Apple.

It is a totally different form factor to the iPhone have now and the ones I have had over nearly twenty years.

The design is elegant, and the process of unfolding and folding is nice. I suspect you will get use to it, and what now makes it special will become normal. I liked the form factor and it’s a nice phone. I like the inner bigger screen, but then I do like big phones. It feels slightly unwieldy to use as an actual phone, but I suspect Apple will be saying you can use AirPods. It does have what sounds like a decent camera, but there is no zoom, there is no Fusion Telephoto

One reason I got the iPhone 17 Pro Max was the camera, and the camera which comes with the iPhone Duo is good, but not iPhone 17 Pro Max good.

I like it, but at £1999 (and then some) I am not sure I like it £1999 much. 

I think even if I had a persuasive use case for the iPhone Duo I am probably more likely to keep my current iPhone and get an iPad mini to use alongside my phone.

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New Apple TV

I bought my first Apple TV in 2010. This was the second generation device.

I updated to the HD Apple TV in 2015.

This worked for many years. I eventually went with the third generation 4K in 2024.

I’ve always liked the Apple TV interface and even though my Sony TV has similar features (through the Google TV interface) I prefer using the Apple TV to utilise different streaming services. I would though prefer if the user experience across different apps was the same or very similar. Is it really too much to ask to have the same process for using a video streaming interface.

Another feature I like about the Apple TV is the integration with the Apple ecosystem, main use case for me is viewing my photographs from my phone on the TV.

This month Apple announced a new Apple TV. I knew it had been rumoured for a while. I did think that I might get one and push the existing model to another one. Then I found out about the price. The new model was £299.

When I bought my current model in 2024 it was £149. Recently it had gone up in price to £199, which I believe was down to the price of RAM shooting up.

I don’t know I was kind of expecting a similar price for the new model. So, seeing it was £299, I did wonder what new features it had compared to my existing model.

The main new features appear to be surround sound with four HomePod speakers (another £600) and an enhanced Siri experience. 

I did hear one rumour that a lower priced model may be available in the future. However, at £299, I won’t be getting the new Apple TV.

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Apple at 50 and the iPhone

iPhone
Image by Jan Vašek from Pixabay

Apple started back in 1976, though I am old enough to remember 1976, my personal history with Apple begins half way through their fifty year history in 2001.

I have already written about my computing for personal and professional reasons, the iPad, and the iPod; this post is about the iPhone.

I have used a range of iPhones over the years, some through work and those that I bought for personal use.

I now have an iPhone 17 Pro Max and the main use case I got for this was the photographic capabilities which have made dramatic improvements over the years.

I have also used the iPhone 13. It’s interesting that in the early iterations of the iPhone there was often very good reasons for upgrading, with the more recent versions, the improvements have been marginal at best. You notice the improvements when jumping from something like the 13 to the 17.

I didn’t buy the first version of the iPhone, mainly as it didn’t have 3G, which I felt was important for how I was using a phone.

I did get the iPhone 3GS. I liked it, but it was a secondary phone and I kept the Google Nexus One going for a few years.

Through work I then got an iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 is what the iPhone should have been from day one. Finally, the iPhone came of age. It is one of the best phones I have ever used. The camera was better than ever before, and the phone also came with a front facing camera. At the time the iPhone 4 was one of the best phones I had ever used, and I was really pleased with it.

My next iPhone was the iPhone 5S. I also had a work phone in the iPhone 6 Plus for a while, and I replaced my dependable Google Nexus One with an iPhone 6S Plus. Later in a different job I had the iPhone 8, but the iPhone 6S Plus kept me going for a few years.

I then had an iPhone 13 for a few years, but now I have the iPhone 17 Pro Max, which I am hoping will last a few years.

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Apple at 50 and the iPod

Apple started back in 1976, though I am old enough to remember 1976, my personal history with Apple begins half way through their fifty year history in 2001.

I have already written about my computing for personal and professional reasons, this post is about the iPod.

Apple launched the iPod back in 2001. The first iPod was, when you think about it, not really going to be a success. It was expensive, it was Mac only, it needed Firewire and there was no where to buy music, you needed to use iTunes to rip your CDS to mp3 and then transfer them across. No wonder at the time lots of people were sceptical and thought the iPod was doomed to fail.

I didn’t get one, partly as it was very expensive, I didn’t really use Macs at that point and I had a CD player!

I didn’t get an iPod until the fourth generation in 2004 (that’s me a late adopter) this was the version that could show photographs. It wasn’t until iTunes added podcasting support in 2005 that my iPod became essential. I used it extensively for podcasts as well as music.

I did use various iPods as part of the MoLeNET projects back in the 2000s including the iPod nano and the iPod touch. I also used a 6th iPod Classic, on this I could add images and video, as well as music.

Since getting an iPhone though and the advent of various streaming services I no longer use an iPod. Sometimes I think I would like to have one back.

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Apple at 50 and the Mac

Apple started back in 1976, though I am old enough to remember 1976, my personal history with Apple begins half way through their fifty year history in 2001.

In my computing for personal and professional reasons I was a Windows user. I was aware of Apple computers in the 1990s and was impressed with the new G3 iMac in 1998 and liked the different colours. However, I was ensconced in a Windows ecosystem so why would I use a Mac?

In 2001 that reason came to ahead when I was working for a consortium of colleges supporting them with online learning, and one of those colleges said we use Macs, specifically G4 PowerMac computers so we had to get a Mac. Looking over the Apple range, I saw that the “cheapest” G4 Mac was a G4 PowerBook. I recall saying to myself, well if I am going to need to support users of Macs, then I better familiarise myself with the Mac. I got the second generation 550MHz G4 Titanium PowerBook.

It was a couple of weeks, and I was a convert to the Mac. I remember getting the PowerBook an Airport card so that I could have Wi-Fi.

Over the next few years, I upgraded the PowerBook to a 1.5GHz G4 Aluminium PowerBook with integrated Airport Extreme.

In 2003 when the Power Mac G5 was released I got one of those to use, a Dual 2GHz model.

The next Mac I got was something of a disappointment. Apple moved over to Intel, and I got an Intel iMac. I think the issue was the lack of RAM more than anything, it came with 1GB of RAM.

It wasn’t that long before I upgraded my computer to a 27” iMac with more RAM. The screen was amazing.

At this time, I was working for an FE college and with the funding I was successful in bidding for I was able to almost get a new MacBook every year, well every time a new model was released. The replaced models were then redeployed in the college.

When I changed jobs, I did have an 11” MacBook Air for a while which was perfect for working whilst travelling. I also tried out the cylindrical Mac Pro for a while which was very fast (at the time).

My next home device was the 27” Retina iMac. This was a great computer except one feature which was the fusion drive. It failed twice on my iMac, resulting in a replacement at the Apple Store.

I did use this computer for many years, but eventually it was used less and eventually was no longer supported by Apple.

Today (after a few laptops) my main Apple device is an M4 Mac mini which is certainly up to the job. I did once use a G4 Mac mini which I always thought was an amazingly small computer for what it could do. Likewise, I also liked the compact, thinner unibody aluminium version as well. The smaller footprint of the current version takes that concept of a tiny computer one step further.

Despite the fusion drive issues, if I was to say which of the Apple computers I have used was my favourite, it would be the 27” Retina iMac. Though the 11” MacBook Air and the Power Mac G5 are very close runners up.

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Problems with Prime Video App on the Apple TV

Apple TV

One of the apps I use regularly on my Apple TV is the Amazon Prime Video app.

I have recently updated my Apple TV to tvOS 26 and since then I have been having a few issues with the Prime Video App on the Apple TV.

The main issue is that when I open the app, it stalls. I have to exit (swipe up) the app and open the app again.

When streaming content, I have had some buffering issues. I am playing a video and then I get a whirling circle of death. Sometimes I can get away with restarting the app, other times I have to actually restart the Apple TV.

I did do a Google search to no avail, well nothing relevant to the current version of the Apple TV tvOS. 

I hope it will be fixed with an update to the OS or the app.

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Updated the Apple TV

Having updated my other Apple devices to the latest operating system, I took the plunge and updated the Apple TV to tvOS 26, which was released on the 15th September.

It adds the new Liquid Glass interface, now I am not so sure I am a fan of this new look. However the familiarity was that it was inspired by the Aqua interface, which was released twenty five years ago by Apple.

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Mapping it badly no more

Last year I blogged about some mapping issues I was having with Apple CarPlay on the Ora Funky Cat.

I have noticed a glitch with Apple Maps on CarPlay on the Ora Funky Cat ever since I upgraded to iOS 18. Starting CarPlay, opening Apple Maps I am in completely the wrong location.

Over the next few months I would have the same glitch with Waze and Google Maps. I would start the car, CarPlay would start and though I knew where I was as far as the car was concerned I was about 100 miles to the east.

Usually within a few minutes the error would correct itself and I would find that Waze would place me in the right location. It certainly was annoying, also when I actually needed the sat nav to work it was quite frustrating. One solution was to disable CarPlay and either use the built-in navigation (which worked fine) or use the phone separately and balance it on the dashboard.

This also impacted on Google Maps timeline, which would often show me having travelled a hundred miles in just a few minutes!

I kind of just lived with it.

I have noticed over the last few months that the glitch seems to have resolved itself. I’ve not updated the car, so it must have been an iPhone update. Whatever, now I have a sat nav works just fine, which is nice.

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Apple’s Image Playground

One of the new features for the Mac is Apple Intelligence. I was curious about Image Playground and how that would work.

Produce fun, original images in seconds with the Image Playground experience right in your apps. Create an entirely new image based on a description, suggested concepts, and even a person from your Photos library.

Having tried it, I would say it is nothing special. Yes the images are nice, but you can tell they are AI generated. It also doesn’t do photorealistic images.

As a tool to create some fun images to share with friends, yes it’s fine, so use it for that.