In the leadup to Apple’s services event on Monday, there are fresh reports that they have been working with developers on a subscription gaming service. I think this sounds like a good idea for the company that will bolster an area that is still a strong point for them. However, I have been skeptical that it might be coming soon based on how few reports there have been from trustworthy Apple sources, especially in comparison to how many we have for subscription video and news.
Are you sick of waiting on an Apple solution to wireless charging? If so, you definitely aren’t alone. Now that we finally have a way to wirelessly charge our AirPods, the absence of the AirPower seems even crazier. However, if you are tired of waiting and want to save some money, you can get a 3-in-1 charging pad that will take care of your later-model iPhones, Apple Watch and now your new AirPods.
Apple has been on a hardware hot streak this week, releasing new iPads, updated iMacs and new AirPods. However, they dialed things down a bit today and quietly released their annual Spring refresh for iPhone cases and Apple Watch bands.
Do you need to keep a lot of gear powered up while you are on the go? If so, then you need a battery pack that has plenty of capacity, plenty of ports, and that can fast charge.
If you haven’t read one of the MANY times I have written about this over the last few months, I managed to lose my original AirPods last August. I used them to listen to music every night as I went to sleep so I could charge my iPhone overnight. They would inevitably fall out before morning, but I got in the habit of tracking them down as soon as I woke up.
While I was complimentary of Apple’s new iPad Pro and iPad Mini when they released Monday, I certainly wouldn’t call them Earth-shattering new devices. They weren’t meant to be. They are the middle-tier of the lineup and that’s not something you usually get very excited about. However, if we use the 5th Gen iPad as a guide, sometimes mundane but reasonably priced sells very well with everyday consumers.
I am a huge overall sports fan. I love football, basketball, soccer and others. I even enjoy a nice day spent out at the diamond watching the old national pastime. While I enjoy pro sports, especially my local Memphis Grizzlies of the NBA, I absolutely LOVE college athletics. I will watch just about anything that my alma mater LSU and my hometown team Memphis compete in. And there is no greater competition that sums up the story lines, rivalries and fun of college sports as the NCAA’s College Basketball Tournament. The upsets and insanity of the first two rounds make this event live up to its nickname- March Madness.
Ever since the first iPad Pro was released, Apple’s tablet lineup have been kind of a jumbled up mess. You had models that were too close together in price and specs, like the iPad Air 2 and original iPad Pro. You had the iPad Air 2 on closeout while Apple was selling the new 9.7″ iPad Pro. The two tablets looked exactly the same and were only separated by Pencil support and a few other specs.
We all knew it was coming. There was reason to be skeptical last year, because we iPad fans have heard the Mini would be refreshed before, only to be left disappointed. There have even been convincing arguments made that the Mini was a death’s door and that Apple would kill it off after releasing larger screen iPhones. There was a time when I believed it was a dead device fading off into obscurity like the Classic iPod did.
However, when the rumors of a new version of the Mini continued and they actually started coming out of the supply chain, things started looking good. Today, long-suffering iPad Mini fans FINALLY got a device worth waiting for.
There are few surprises in the tech world today, but we got a small one today. Apple’s online store went down in the early AM, and low and behold, we have new iPads ahead of Apple’s event one week from today! Apple threw us another change-up by going back to the name it seemingly left behind a few years ago, releasing a new iPad Air.
I remember hearing about the new HyperDrive from HYPER when it hit Kickstarter last December, after the iPad Pro came out. I wrote about it after backing it, but by the time I had, the Kickstarter had ended and they moved over to an Indigogo campaign that is still going. While pretty much any USB-C hub will work with Apple’s new high-end tablet, this was the first one specifically designed for the new hardware. That made it worth checking out to me.