I am Ashley Elsdon

someone who's doing some things

Tag: Apple

They make nice tech.

An update to thoughts on the HomePod mini

Posted by on in TechLeave a comment

I posted about this a while back and since then I have found a couple of additional uses that are vaguely helpful. Or at least they are vaguely helpful for me.

Alarms

I use a lot of alarms. A lot of things to remind of what I need to. Being able to have them on multiple devices might be useful. So far I’m not entirely how useful this might be, but I’ll try it out.

Timers

This is also a potentially useful feature, but again I’ll have to spend more time seeing just how useful it might be.

Like so many bits of technology that I have, I struggle to make them actually useful to me. These two features of the HomePod Mini might be useful, or at least it is a possibility, and one that I’ll try. I’d actually like the HomePod to do more, but so far I haven’t found any other uses.

Of course I do make use of it as a speaker, which is of course its primary purpose. In terms of that it works just fine.

A few initial thoughts about the HomePod Mini

Posted by on in TechLeave a comment

I like technology, although in recent years my relationship with technology has changed in a lot of ways. For a start a rarely buy new technology unless I have a real reason for it and a real use for it. In fact I have sold off a lot of technology. Mainly music technology, but a lot of other stuff too.

However, at times I end up with a piece of technology that I really don’t know what to do with. The HomePod Mini is one such piece of technology. Don’t get me wrong. It is a nice thing in itself. It works well. It does what it’s supposed to do. I Just wish it would do some more.

I’ve had speakers before. I had an amazon echo and really had no use for that at all. The HomePod is better, but aside from using it as a speaker it does very little for me. Perhaps I just need to try harder.

Thank you Apple

Posted by on in TechLeave a comment

I have had an iPhone 8 for a few years now, and, as with these kind of devices, the battery fades away over time. I decided that I would rather keep this device, as, for the most part, I have little or no need for anything more right now. So I thought I would try to get the battery replaced. I got booked in to the Apple store at Covent Garden and took it in. The staff told me that it would take about an hour.

I went off and got a drink and wandered back to the Apple store to pick it up. Sadly though, Apple had managed to break the phone whilst trying to replace the battery. I was a bit shocked to be honest. They had said when I left it that they might end up wiping the device, but not that they could break it.

However, to make up for this, they have replaced it entirely. Not with a newer device, but with a new iPhone 8. Which is nice. Of course this meant restoring everything to the new device, and that takes time.

Overall this was a good experience, although for the most part a little annoying as I am still restoring things to the new phone, but for the price of a new battery I got a new phone. Not bad really.

iCloud troubles

Posted by on in TechLeave a comment

I love how Apple always tells you how much all their products and services make life easier. Well not always! Over the last couple of weeks I’ve had terrible trouble with iCloud. To the extent that it’s deleted all of my calendars, forced me to change passwords all over the place too.

Not much fun at all. Not in any way. Thanks so much Apple.

Happy (belated) Birthday Apple

Posted by on in Stuff, TechLeave a comment

So Apple is 40 now, or at least a few days ago anyway. It’s somewhat amazing to think they’ve been around that long. However, it’s great to know that 40 can be quite so cool. That makes me feel good anyway. I hope that they keep making cool stuff. Of late I’ve found that their stuff hasn’t been quite as reliable as it used to be. I’d like to think that they’ll continue to be innovative. I think it’s been hard to innovate in the mobile space for a while, but that’s what they need to do, that’s what the market needs.

So I saw an Apple Watch …

Posted by on in Tech, Wearable ComputingLeave a comment

And after all that it just wasn’t as amazing as I thought it would be. It was also thicker than I thought it might be. I’m just not sure that it is for me right now. I also think that the price for a reasonable model is too high right now. It might come down, it might not, and I’m not sure that Apple will want to replicate the same update cycle as their other hardware. People just don’t replace and update their watches with the same frequency. Or maybe Apple wants to change that too.

Anyway, for now I’m going to see how things pan out with my Pebble Time.

Considering the Apple Watch

Posted by on in Wearable ComputingLeave a comment

I’m somewhat sceptical about the new Apple Watch. Part of me wants one, but part of me thinks it’s going to be better to wait for the next iteration, just as with the iPhone and the iPad. The first version is ok, but it’s a starting block, something for Apple to build on.

Also, as I’ve backed the Pebble Time I think it’s best that I wait this out. See what comes next. Of course, the one thing that’ll change my mind is a really amazing app or use case for the device. I’m half expecting that to arrive much sooner than I’d like, but we’ll see.

Thoughts about the iPad 3

Posted by on in Stuff, Tech

So I’ve had my iPad 3 for a few days now, and of course it is lovely and all that. So what’s great about it? Well, for me, the best thing about it is that it isn’t broken. My iPad 2 had a smashed screen which meant it was almost completely unusable for the last 2 and a half months. The iPad 3 is lovely from that perspective.

Aside from that it feels very similar. The screen is better, there’s no doubt about that, and whilst that’s great to have it adds little in terms of functionality for any music app, which is one of my main uses of the device. The camera is better so I’m told, but as I never really used the camera it doesn’t make much difference to me either.

So, whilst I’m glad to have a functioning iPad again I can’t say that the 3rd generation unit has overwhelmed me really. I think there was more that Apple could have done to make this an innovative device, but perhaps they’re saving that for another time.

So, the iPad 3 arrives, but it isn’t the iPad 3

Posted by on in TechLeave a comment

In many ways I’m pleased. It is after all, just a speed bump. They’ve upgraded a bunch of stuff, it’s faster, more memory etc etc. Nice. But nothing revolutionary in this iteration, and that’s fine with me. I think it is like the 3GS was to the 3G. The next iPad will be a significant upgrade. I hope to anyway. For now, I’ll try to order this one if I can even get onto the Apple store.