Category: Gear

  • Reality Bites: DOJ takes down Apple, publishers ebook defenses

    Since the Department of Justice stood up for fans of digital books a few months ago and sued the major publishers and Apple over their 2010 conspiracy to raise prices, the amount of whining, spin and flat out lies emanating from some of the publishers and Apple has been both impressive and depressing. That so…

  • It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times: Tough to buy a new Mac

    I wandered into a local Apple store this week to check out the latest goodies. Afraid that my resolve might be even weaker than my bank account, I left my wallet in the car. But I needn’t have worried. We’ve arrived at a point in time for Apple users where the shear number of ongoing…

  • Hot stuff, cold crap – shopping for your nerd gear in 2012

    I’d planned to spend a couple of hours watching my son at the first Little League clinic of the season today, but turned out it wasn’t that kind of clinic — dads begone. Like all good gadgetistas, though, I had a few niggling unmet accessory needs to fill. So sprung for a couple of hours of…

  • Teenage wasteland? Defending the iPhone, dissing the Droid

    (As promised, here’s my teenage daughter’s rebuttal to my iPhone 4S whining. Added bonus: she threw in a rant against her brother’s Droid 4) iPhone world Listen to your favorite new song by that British boy band you and your friends have become recently obsessed with stream out of your pocket. Fumble around in your…

  • A Day in the Life: iPhone versus Nexus

    (People are wondering should I get the iPhone 4S or is the Galaxy Nexus better. Am I a man or am I a muppet, smartphone style. Everyone’s got their own needs and wants from their gadgets. Turns out, mine are best met by the Galaxy Nexus phone. The iPhone 4S? Tried it for a few…

  • Phone to Desktop Computing, Nexus style

    I got a little excited by some recent experiments of folks hooking their Galaxy Nexus phones to desktop computer set-ups: big monitor, speakers, full keyboard and track pad. Pretty sure that within a few years, we’ll have just one computing device in a phone form factor that can hook up to different size screens and…

  • A true marketplace for privacy in mobile apps

    A huge controversy erupted the other day when a savvy programmer discovered that an app on the iPhone called Path was secretly uploading the entire contents of users’ address books to Path’s own servers. Then stories spread that many apps on the iPhone uploaded the contents of the address book. Turned out Apple had left the barn door…

  • Without Siri, the iPhone reminder app stinks

    One of the cool new features of the iPhone 4S — and the most hyped in Apple’s advertisements — is using the digital assistant Siri to set reminders. When you use Siri, you can usually speak as if  you were talking to another person and Siri will figure out what you mean. Tell Siri “Make…

  • Review: First 24 hours with the Amazon Kindle Fire

    It costs less than half what an iPad costs but it does more than half of what an iPad does. That’s the bottom line. The new Amazon Kindle Fire is no iPad but it is a slick little gadget that is frequently delightful and worth $199. Sure, the Fire has a smaller screen, slower processor…

  • Using an iPhone 4S without iTunes – ever!

    For reasons that shall be dealt with later, I’m the owner of a new iPhone 4S. Having had more than my fill of iTunes annoyances, delays and freezes, I’m trying to go without ever syncing my new iPhone to my Mac. In the first few days, it’s mostly gone smoothly. Email/Contacts/Calendars I’m using both Apple’s…