Category Archives: Apple

Apple iCloud – It Really Doesn’t Work – Editorial

Apple, Tech News,

I had a vision, one vision, a clear and concise vision. Buy the latest iPhone, integrate everything into the Apple iCloud for that perfect seamless Apple eco experience.

So what could possibly go wrong? Read on….

The first step in this conquest for pure Apple cloud nirvana was making sure all my PIM data was updated on Apple iCloud. This was achieved by copying by Google contacts and PIM data into the iCloud equivalents. This worked rather well.

Next was to turn on iCloud Photo library from my mac and have a full copy of my photos up in the Apple Cloud. This didn’t work initally. This was solved only by visiting an Apple store and using their wifi to upload. It also took ages.

The iCloud Photo experience hasn’t improved. I have now had to turn this feature off on my iPhone 6S Plus and just use photostream. The problem is caused by my upload speed being too slow versus the constant flow of new photos. I also manually connect my iPhone 6S and sync photos. I still have a copy of my photos with Apple iCloud and will continue to do so as I like the structured folders and overall integration. This isn’t working though. Duplicates are appearing all over the place. And some can’t be removed.

So next job was to subscribe to iTunes Match and Apple Music. This has been a total disaster beyond belief. Whilst Apple has been offering accessible support, it has left me in a position of 10% of my iTunes library ruined. Apple support left me after several support calls in a greater disaster.I now had around 41 drm protected tracks which were not drm in the first place, and still 10% of my music library lost by using Apple’s Cloud services. If it was not for my quick thinking, the number of DRM protected tracks would have increased 5 times. I would stress, these issues were not caused by my human hands but Apple and or their iCloud services.

So my issues are far from over. Apple are continuing to see what they can do to recover my music library.

To be continued…..

So 36 hours later since first writing this post, and it was worded somewhat stronger in version 1.

Mossy, from Apple Senior support, last night via remote access and some pure genius, salvaged all my iTunes music and video library and that now syncs perfectly with my iPhone 6S Plus. Local backups on Time Machine!

Except now Photos on my MacBook still does not tally with Photos on my iPhone. Grrrr. Another call later and this is the position.

I have duplicate photos on my iPhone, not on my MacBook. I am running iOS 9.02 and El Capitan on my MacBook.I now have turned off iCloud Photo library as I don’t trust what its doing to my devices. I might turn on My Photostream, but its off for the moment. I have several unresolved issues that will take another evening to get sorted or maybe not.

BUT I have a question that I hope somebody can answer. I want to understand the behaviour of the iPhone and MacBook syncing via lightning cable. It seems that if I take a lovely photo of say 4mb or a panorama of 18mb in file size, after syncing back to my iPhone its only just over 1.4mb. Is this normal behaviour? Can the option for full resolution photo synced be left on? Or do I have a fault somewhere?

THEN if I went back and used iCloud Photo library cloud services, it appears you can have the whole full resolution photo downloaded on to your iPhone or a lower resolution. This also means having to pay Apple for a higher cloud storage. But using your own lightning cable and MacBook it appears you cannot do this.

In my opinion this does not appear right unless I am missing a setting somewhere.

Update 2 – I have decided to turn on iCloud Photos again on all devices, and give it another shot. I really need this to work, as it turns out this will be the key way to ensure I get the high res versions on my selected devices.

Apple iPhone 6S Plus – My Time Lapse Test

Apple, Reviews, Tech News, ,

Below is a video produced from 3 separate time lapse clips recorded on the iPhone 6S Plus. It is worth noting that my tripod was shaking in the strong wind whilst recording the first clip. The optical image stabilisation was working overtime!

There are 3 clips in total merged together on the iPhone 6S Plus using iMovie iPhone app.

The middle clip is my favourite. Watch the boat appear and seemingly swerve at high speed. The first time lapse clip is filmed with a 360 degree rotating device mounted on the tripod.

Let me know what you think. The highest quality setting is 1080p.

More photos from the Apple iPhone 6S Plus and views

Apple, Reviews, Tech News,

Below are some photos I snapped recently with the Apple iPhone 6S Plus. I am really loving the phone and with a bit of experimentation getting some really good photos, even in low light. Really low light is its weakness. But that’s when you need a flash.

I am also experiencing a major disaster with Apple’s iCloud service, iTunes Match, but more on that tomorrow, with hopefully some good news.

Right 4 photos, all random and all first shots. To see full size, just click on photo and select original size.

Cross the Line

Tiggy hides in the Grass, Dartmoor

Sunset over Princetown

Apple news and low light camera results

Apple, Reviews, Tech News,

So Apple announces that it sold a record 13m iPhones over the launch weekend up by 3m from last year. So it’s only natural that Wall Street responds with disapproval and disappointment and causes Apple’s share price to drop. Sometimes I do wonder if morons run Wall Street! 

At a time when Samsung and other phone companies are struggling to sell their phones, Apple had no problem whatsoever in shifting a record breaking number. I do suspect China played a big part in the sales figures. Also worth noting that the iPhone will go on sale in another 40 countries on 10th October. 

This year was the first year that Apple made buying the new iPhone a much easier process and in turn reduced the queue sizes. 

Now back to the camera and low light photos. Apparently for low light shots you get much better results if you switch off the live photo mode. I have not had time to test this thoroughly but will over the coming weeks. Also there are a number of third party apps that specialise in low light photography including Slow Shutter Cam and Nightcap Pro and I will see what difference these apps make. 

In the meantime, taken at dusk yesterday is the photo below. Unedited. Seems ok to me. 

  

More Photos from the iPhone 6S Plus – plus opinions on the camera quality vs LG G4 and Samsung Galaxy S6

Apple, Reviews, Tech News, ,

Well I have used the iPhone 6S Plus over the weekend and taken a number of photos now. Bit by bit I am beginning to see the strengths and weaknesses.

First the photos. Remember, clicking on each photo will bring you to my Flickr account. There you can view the full size.

Around the bottom of Cox Tor, Dartmoor

Goliath - The huge tors on Dartmoor

George and a Tor - scale, Dartmoor #iPhone6SPlus

Follow my leader - Cool waters on Dartmoor

The Chase - Tiggy & Fury dash through the water on Dartmoor

Stunning Panorama over Dartmoor #iPhone6SPlus

These all look amazing, except there are some limitations that I spotted. Despite near perfect weather, unless I got closer to my dogs, which in these shots I was unable, they are not as crystal clear, and cropping in closer does not help matters. The LG G4 would have nailed a shot like this and allowed me to crop in too without losing too much picture quality. However, the overall balance and picture reproduction is stunning. The panoramic shots are really impressive. The shutter speed of the 6S is super fast and even allows a burst of 999 shots. 4K video is better IMO than the LG G4 and just ahead of the S6. Lower light goes to the G4 and S6. The front selfie screen flash works very well. Live photos are superb. Just love the extra motion as I browse through the shots. Brings the moment back to life. The other aspect of the iPhone is reliability. It is so great at getting the shot correct first time every time.

Before I got this phone, IMO, the LG G4 had the best camera for stills. And I still believe it does with all the built in manual controls, RAW and its overall ability to find the light with its f/1.8 vs the iPhone 6S Plus f/2.2. However, the G4 loses out to video quality and other some other shots like panoramic. Of course, a phone is not always just about the camera!

The Apple iPhone 6S Plus – Day 1 experience – Photos and views on Rose Gold and Apple Watch

Apple, Reviews, ,

I was the unlucky one, my new iPhone 6S Plus did not arrive until the end of the day on Friday. And as I write this it is still no way near setup fully.

My plan is to remove Google from the iPhone and use all of Apple’s cloud services. This is not going as smoothly as I hoped yet. I have iCloud Photo enabled and and iTunes Match. All my photos are in the iCloud but not yet on my iPhone. That part of the sync has not finished. iTunes Match. My music has been matched successfully for 40% of my collection and is still trying to upload the rest. Except I have cloud error messages next to 50% of my music that failed to upload. Once the process has finished I will go into the settings and run an option to sort of repair the music library to see if that helps.

The main issue is the demand on the internet. I have uploads and downloads galore and without fibre speeds I am suffering. I might have to visit an Apple store one weekend and complete iTunes Match with a fast upload. My Apple Watch got turned on for the first time, but that needed a 515mb download. The Apple Watch is a complex beast compared to android wear but so far ahead of the curve.

Apple Pay. Both my Apple Watch and iPhone have been setup. This was the fastest part of everything.

I have already been asked how good is the camera. I do know the answer but I want to test it more across a number of situations. The main part to note is the rear camera has a f/2.2 versus say the LG G4 at f/1.8. The extra light the G4 allows at f/1.8 does make a difference for starters. However, the camera on the 6S Plus is lightning fast and the image processing is phenomenal. The front selfie camera is much better too. I have tested the front retina screen flash in different lighting and it really does adjust its tones dependant on the subject. Needless to say the 6S Plus camera is very good. Now is it better than the S6 or Note 5 or LG G4? I will answer that soon.
   
   
After this post goes live, I will upload some photos from the iPhone 6S Plus so do head back if you cannot see any snaps.

So far due to the late arrival on my iPhone and Apple Watch I have only added 3 home screens worth of apps. These are the ones that all needed passwords and or 2 step authentication so took longer to setup. I now have to go through my 2,000 or so apps and decide which ones to add to the phone. A lot of these are games and I have realised what great games I have missed playing while I have been stuck on android.

3D Touch. I have used it or I should say tried to use it but need more time to pass judgement.

So I am still in a setting up stage / discovery. I need to see what new apps have arrived both for the iPhone and Watch that I have not got and start to fine tune everything.

However, my overall takeaway despite being at an early stage is the user experience. OMG the screens and swiping down long lists just glide beautifully in any app. Even the official twitter app is leagues better on iOS because of this smoothness. Apps have integrated Touch ID and therefore offer a better experience and features. Touch ID is super fast now. And finally the 6S Plus battery is fantastic.

Rose Gold – my wife got a 6S in rose gold. It is a lovely colour and under different lighting looks beige sometimes, pinkish and shades of rose gold. However, I prefer the silver finish of my 6S Plus. In terms of size the 6S is a really good phone size phone but I wanted the 6S Plus for the better screen and optical image stabilization in the camera.

The Features of iOS 9 Battery and Low Power Saving Mode

Apple, Tech News, ,

If you have an iPhone or iPad, I hope you have updated to the new iOS 9 as Apple has delivered on a number of improvements to battery performance and added a low power saving mode.

In my time with the iPhone 6 Plus, the one aspect that stood out was stunning standby time. Now with iOS 9 you get the following improvements.

– Apple have indicated that just by updating to iOS 9, you should get up to an extra one hour’s worth of battery. That’s really impressive if true.

– One way the battery is saved in iOS 9 is stopping the screen from turning on when notifications arrive. This is achieved by using the light and proximity sensors to determine the device is face down.

Now there is a Low Power Saving mode in the settings app. This should have been available a long time ago, but better late than never. This mode offers the following benefits –

– Limiting network activity
– Background downloads are stopped
– App background refreshes are stopped
– Animations are reduced
– Email is no longer fetched automatically
– Screen brightness is reduced

To ensure all of these new options are easier to find the settings app is now more visible instead of being in a sub menu where the battery details previously resided. The battery stats are now able to show battery stats in far shorter time frames instead of the previous last 23 hours.

All of these changes are a positive improvement and I look forward to testing the battery improvements and low power saving mode when I get the iPhone 6S Plus.

iOS 9 and OS X integration – my next steps and feelings

Apple, Tech News

So Apple released iOS 9 last night at 6pm UK time, and after a few glitches trying to download, iOS 9 had installed on my work iPad Air.

I then upgraded on my MacBook my iCloud storage plan and moved to the £0.79 per month 50gb capacity option. I am hoping this is enough, otherwise it will rise to £2.49 for the 200gb plan.

I had imported photos in to the Photos app going back from Feb 2015, around 400 shots in total. I now had around 4,000 photos and a selection of videos in my Photos app on my MacBook. I had gone through the collection and deleted several older shots or near duplicates to free up space.

So now I switched on iCloud Drive, iCloud Photos with Photostream and iCloud Photos being backed up and then all the other iCloud options. When I switched on the iCloud Photo option, I got a message saying referenced photos would not be uploaded, and these needed to be consolidated first.

WTF.

I had no idea what this meant, but a quick Google and my answer was found. These were all my new photos from this year that I had imported into the Photos app, but not into the Photos database. Make sense? So how do you discover all the photos that are referenced. Well, the Photos app now has smart albums, so simply create a smart album showing all referenced photos. I then highlighted the whole lot, went file, consolidate and 5 mins later the job was done.

I now have to see how long it takes for my photos to upload to iCloud. Once this is completed, I will have nearly everything in the iCloud.

And then my LG G4 shows I have a notification from Google Photos. A new story had been created of my trip to Berlin, completely automatically, adding full names of the places I visited and more. The story is so well put together, I could not have done it better myself. At IFA, Google Photos even identified which hall I was on when a photo was taken. Genius.

Someone tell me why I am moving to Apple again?

Updated – Well since 11pm (its now 6.07am) only 37 photos and 2 video clips have uploaded. Not even a dent on the 4,000 photos/videos needed to be uploaded!