Thanks to @kevwright and @gavcuk on Twitter for tweeting this amazing video on a guy cycling across a city’s rooftops using a bicycle and a GoPro Hero. When it gets to the end, there is more. You’ll see what I mean when you get there.
Truly amazing skill and application of technology to record such a feat.
A bit of fun on the weekend.
Who can come up with a great caption or one line 🙂
What you see in the above tweet from myself is all coming in for review shortly. Fingers crossed it all works as advertised!
First up is a new product from Shoulderpod, the R1 Pro which is a versatile tripod rig allowing up to 3 items to be attached. I will be looking at using the R1 Pro with the Manfrotto Lumie and Rode VideoMic Go. I am hoping the R1 Pro and Manfrotto Lumie will help with portrait and macro photography and the Rode VideoMic Go will improve the video recordings. Finally, the Shoulderpod S1 is the smartphone tripod mount which I already own and have used intensively already.
Going forward I intend to use the Shoulderpod R1 Pro with up to 3 Shoulderpod S1’s attached to carry out 3 way camera shootouts.
Of course, apart from the Shoulderpod S1 which I have used for ages, the other products are an unknown so may not be as to the task. So stay tuned over the upcoming weeks when I will be reviewing these items and more phones and gadgets as usual.
If you have any questions that you would like answered, please let me know in the comments or on my social media accounts.
Photo source – Shoulderpod
More info on the Shouderpod S1 Grip and Tripod Mount
More info on the Manfrotto Lumie Range
More info on the RØDE VideoMic GO On Camera Microphone
The LG G4 was a master craft piece of phone tech and loved mine especially the stunning still photos produced from its 16mp rear camera along with manual controls.
Then LG released the V10 which was slightly bigger and included other neat tricks including a Sabre DAC, manual controls on video as well as photos and a secondary screen.
The LG G5 is rumoured to have a snapdragon 820, its own secondary display, LG Pay, 21 mp camera, a 5.6 inch display and other goodies.
The new G5 is certainly shaping up to be a splendid phone.
So according to Engadget the Apple TV now has 2,600 apps. 50% are games and the balance are predominately in the entertainment sector.
So did Tim Cook get it right when he said the future of TV is all about apps? Maybe.
Currently, I own an Amazon Fire TV, a Google Chromecast and the new Apple TV. My TV, despite its age has WiFi via a dongle and has smart TV services. So I have plenty of choice for obtaining films, apps or TV shows over the internet.
I have stopped using the chromecast. With the Apple TV and Fire TV it offers no benefits at the moment. It also helps that I am using an iPhone instead of an android phone, although my android phone is a Huawei G8. When Amazon provides an app for the new Apple TV and BBC iPlayer arrives, that will be enough for me to unplug the Fire TV as that won’t be needed anymore.
Now to my updated thoughts on the Apple TV. A new firmware arrived a few days ago. It plugged some bugs but more importantly allowed the iOS remote app to work with it. This should have worked from Day 1. Games are plentiful and there are some good ones. Problem remains that the implementation by the developers on supporting a game controller and or the Siri Remote are inconsistent and a PITA to guess which option will work best.
I absolutely hate the Siri Remote. I keep accidentally catching the trackpad and end up skipping or jumping to another part of the film. Finding anything using the Siri Remote and the iOS app is also a PITA. Another issue is how difficult it is to watch the next episode of a TV show. Nothing works like it did on the old layout. Twice the Siri remote didn’t work as it had gone flat. And prior to the firmware update, I was unable to use the Apple TV until I had charged the remote for a short time. Now at least I can use my iPhone to operate the Apple TV via the iOS remote app.
Talking about apps, the discovering process needs to improve. It is getting harder and harder to find new and decent apps or games. The settings option’s menus have been moved and I haven’t got used to all the changes yet.
The neat stuff. During the Walking Dead, someone whispers something. I couldn’t hear. I use the Siri remote, and said “what did he say”. The TV show go back 10 second and sub titles appear temporarily to help reveal what was said. There is an audio setting that allows you to remove loud noises e.g. bangs and level off the sound. This makes it easier to here spoken words and a preferred listening mode for me. You can turn this on per film etc by swiping down on the show or film whilst its playing to reveal this option, or turn it off or on in the main settings. I also like that you can be logged in to several different iTunes accounts, even with one from the UK and another from the US.
So its ok. It needs a further update and some great apps like Amazon and BBC iPlayer.
Mashable caught up with Apple’s CEO Tim Cook who attended one of Apple’s Hour of Code events in New York yesterday.
“Tim Cook said he was aware of the comments people were making about the case. “You know, I probably wouldn’t call it ‘the hump,'” Cook said. Tim Cook then pointed out that the issue with cases, like those from Mophie, are that they are so rigid it takes considerable strength and patience to put them on and take them off.
“If you make this solid all the way across,” said Cook, indicating the spots where the Apple case’s embedded battery stops and you just have the soft fluoroelastomer casing, “in order to get it on, you’d find it very difficult to get it on and off.” “So the guys had this great insight to put the bend in along with making it a smart case,” Cook explained.
Cook also commented on the viewpoint that the case is an admission the iPhone 6s battery is too small, saying most people who charge their iPhones every day won’t need the case. “But if you’re out hiking and you go on overnight trips… it’s kind of nice to have,” he said.”
So there you have it. The case is a design masterpiece. It is better than the design of the Mophie case and actually those that have genuinely bought the case to use it and not mock it deliberately, actually really like it!
Apple released loads of updates last night for iPhones, iPads, Apple TV, Macs and the Apple Watch. iOS 9.2 was the firmware for iPads, iPhones and iPods. Below is a note of all the changes and fixes –
Apple Music improvements
–See which songs have been downloaded with the new download indicator next to each song in My Music and Playlists
–See works, composers, and performers while browsing Classical music in the Apple Music catalog
–You can now create a new playlist when adding a song to a playlist
–Your most recently changed playlist is now listed at the top when adding songs to playlists
–Download albums or playlists from your iCloud Music Library by tapping the iCloud download button
Apple News
– A new Top Stories section in News so you can stay up to date with the most important news of the day
– Mail Drop in Mail for sending large attachments
iBooks
– iBooks now supports 3D Touch to peek and pop pages from the table of contents, your notes and bookmarks, or from search results inside a book
– iBooks now supports listening to an audiobook while you browse your library, read other books, or explore the iBooks Store
iPhone
– iPhone support for the USB Camera Adapter to import photos and videos
– Improved stability of Safari
– Improved stability of Podcasts
– Fixing an issue that caused mail attachments to be inaccessible for some users with POP email accounts
– Resolving an issue for some users that caused attachments to overlap text in mail
– Fixing an issue where Live Photos could have turned off after restoring from a previous iCloud backup
– Addressing an issue that could cause search in Contacts to display no results
– Resolving an issue that could have prevented Calendar from displaying all seven days in week view
– Fixing an issue where Camera screen on iPad could be black when attempting to capture video
– Addressing an issue that could cause instability in the Activity app when viewing the day of Daylight Savings Time transition
– Fixing an issue that could prevent data from appearing in Health
– Fixing an issue that could prevent Wallet updates and Lock screen alerts from displaying
– Addressing an issue where updating iOS could prevent an alarm from going off
– Fixing an issue where some users were unable to login to Find my iPhone
– Fixing an issue that prevented some manual iCloud Backups from completing
– Addressing an issue where using the iPad keyboard could unintentionally trigger text selection mode
– Improved keyboard responsiveness when using Quick Reply
– Improved punctuation input on the 10-key Chinese (Pinyin & Stroke) keyboards with new expanded view of punctuation symbols and better predictions
– Fixing an issue on Cyrillic keyboards where caps lock would be enabled when typing in URL or email fields
– Siri support for Arabic (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates)
Accessibility
–Fixing issues with VoiceOver when using Camera face detection
–Adding support for VoiceOver to wake up the screen
–Adding support for VoiceOver to invoke app switcher with 3D Touch gesture
–Fixing an issue with Guided Access when trying to end phone calls
–Improved functionality for Switch Control users when using 3D Touch
–Fixing an issue with speech rate of Speak Screen
Seriously what is going on at Apple. They’ve just released this super sexy battery case and for a reasonable price.
It’s so smooth and beautifully made I’ve rushed out and bought all the stock as I don’t want anyone to witness this design masterpiece for themselves. Call me selfish for buying all the stock but I don’t care 🙂
Joking aside its not that bad. How else can you hide an extra battery ? Unlike other battery cases, it uses a lightning cable not micro usb. The battery level reveals itself in the iPhone notification centre. And to ensure you don’t lose signal strength it has cell boosting built in. So actually it’s not so bad after all!
Of course a slightly thicker iPhone would be the proper solution!
Or has Apple lost the plot this year?
https://twitter.com/gilroyneil/status/674251180797796354
Yesterday started like normal except about one hour into to the morning I realised that my wallet was not in my pocket.
Two swear words later and I realised I had left it at home. A year ago based on the day ahead I would have had to have driven home to pick up my wallet.
But with the ability to use Apple Pay on my iPhone and along with other mobile and banking apps I was decided to see if I could manage to survive the day without my wallet?
During the day I went to specific places that had contactless credit card machines, which meant I could use Apple Pay accordingly. Whilst Apple Pay is accepted in a number of places it is not widespread enough yet but it is getting better. For example I bought some groceries in Tesco’s which accepted Apple Pay. However, some other Tesco stores I have visited do not accept Apple Pay.
I think once Samsung and Android Pay arrive in the UK, the adoption by retailer for contactless payment will accelerate, so I do hope we see these services asap.
I was not sure everywhere I was travelling too would accept Apple Pay, so for a backup I used my banking app at a cash machine, and withdrew some cash. You can’t beat hard cold cash!
Fortunately, I had enough credit on my Starbucks app to purchase an expresso and a piece of cake.
So throughout the day I managed quite well with just my phone and mobile apps. Then came the low fuel warning on the car so off to the nearest petrol station. Before I fuelled up I went and asked the cashier if they accepted contactless payments.
They didn’t.
So this was the time I had to use the cash I had withdrawn using my mobile banking app.
So by the time I got home, I had managed without my wallet. I reckon in another 12-18 months time carrying a wallet will not be necessary at all.
Finally the 25,000 song limit for iTunes Match and Apple Music has been raised from 25,000 to 100,000.
Personally I would like Apple to have an option to stream your music at a higher bitrate than 256 AAC.
I also have not had much success using iTunes Match so will give it another go next year.
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