Apple’s WWDC took place last week, and whilst the keynote speech that kicks the event off was interesting for its new developments introduced, it wasn’t my favourite part of the week. Apple have done a great job upping their game in terms of providing coverage of the conference for those who can’t make the trip. They stream all the sessions live, and record them all for later watching on demand.

I’ve been wondering why I’ve felt quite tired recently, and then I realised. It’s because I’ve suddenly started focusing on my health and fitness again, ramping up the amount of exercise I actually do. Three years of concentrating on exams can have a detrimental effect on the time available for little things like: joining a gym, going for a walk, dancing around the kitchen, that kind of thing. That’s all done and dusted (for now at least!) so I’m focusing on fitness which, for me, begins with the Apple Watch and it’s pesky three-ring strategy. Stand goals are relatively easy, but it took a considerable effort to get Stand, Move and Exercise maxed out every day. First I did it for a week, then that turned into two weeks, and then I thought, can I? Could I possibly? Will I be able to keep this up for a whole calendar month?

I haven’t really used iTunes for its intended purpose in a long time. It’s very handy for adding id3 tags to things and it’s a nice way of perusing the store for all its many digital wonders, but in terms of syncing devices and storing my stuff, the iCloud has been far more useful. One of the problems with this strategy, however, is that it meant I couldn’t get my hands on any audiobooks that I’d bought from the iTunes store. Up until now, they have been locked away on the desktop, with no means of getting them onto a phone or other device without using a cable. Whereas with most items, you can look through the iTunes store and see whether you already own it thanks to that little “cloud with an arrow” symbol, audiobooks had no such luxury.

Apple have increasingly upped the comedy in their ads, as well as bringing more and more celebrities on board to cameo. Their latest effort also raises the amount of cuteness and awesome to almost unacceptable levels. Potentially, the best ad ever.

In the previous post I wrote about third-party games on the Apple TV, I talked of how brilliant it was that Just Dance can be played without having to dash about the shops in a fruitless search for the correct controller for the job. That’s not the full story though. Whilst the Apple TV remote can be used for all the games that are available, it’s not always the ideal tool for the task at hand. The swiping motion is a step up from most remotes, although it takes some getting used to. However, for more involved games, the ubiquitous Playstation-style controller is ideal.

The long-awaited update to the Apple TV that allowed third-party apps has been a mixed blessing. On the one hand, there are lots of new apps to play with and some of them are fan-flippin-tastic! On the other hand, usability and simplicity has taken a big knock, and there were some pretty serious niggles that are, thankfully, gradually being ironed out. Better to dwell on the good, though, and I’ve found the apps to be a breath of fresh air. The Apple TV has always been a pretty big part of our TV/film watching experience, but now it’s added a whole new level with games. There are two easy comparisons to make with the new gaming functionality, and that’s to put it up against the Wii (casual gaming, less of a focus on graphics) and the Playstation (top of the range graphics, more expensive games).

I’ve fully embraced the world of Apple Music, far more than I have any other streaming product. It’s not perfect, but considering how many Apple shaped gadgets I have, it fits into my life better than other streaming services do. It’s had quite a big impact on my listening habits, which is perhaps a story for another day, but the bottom line is I’m listening to a lot more music than I used to.

I so wanted Newsstand to be the answer. The concept is perfect: digital copies of magazines delivered to my device without me having to a) leave the house/rely on the postal service or b) find space for physical paper. Unfortunately, it’s just not that simple. I started my digital magazine explorations with Zinio, and then moved on to Newsstand when Apple kicked off their version of digital newspaper and magazines. Both do very similar things, allowing you to subscribe to a magazine, or download individual editions, read them on your device and then continue to access them later.

The connected life. Wearable tech. Automated homes. The internet of things. All these names cover the next wave of technological interest and advancement, and whilst they may all be less than desirable monikers, the actual concepts and gadgets that are being created are absolutely fascinating. I’ve been a keen gadget hunter for a long time, particularly over the last few years, and having barely scratched the surface of research regarding wearable technology and digital home products, I think the next few will be particularly expensive!

I don’t know if you noticed, but this week, Apple announced a new product - their take on the wearable tech phenomenon. Initially, I wasn’t that interested in the watch. That’s partly because the stream of Tim Cook’s keynote address was so bad that I gave up following halfway through and missed all the announcements. It’s also because I wasn’t too keen on the big, square, bulky look.

The Verge posted a hands on video of the new CarPlay interface from Apple - Siri in your car, basically. It looks good. Well, no, it looks rubbish. But compared to what my current car does (which is nothing) and what other cars look like (which is awful), it’s not a bad step up.

Apple are celebrating thirty years of putting technology at people’s fingertips, and they’ve come out with a beautifully creative video showing off their gadgets in glorious surroundings or being put to fantastic use. Thankfully, they’ve toned down the emotion and the smug for this video, and what comes across is just how useful mobile technology can be and what a difference it is making, and will make, to the world.

One of the things I miss most about running is playing about with Zombies Run. Making exercise fun is a key thing for me, and the game aspect of it helped keep my going when otherwise I would probably have stopped early. I’ve been keeping an eye on apps and things that made moving about fun, and spotted the new Zumba Dance app. Now, I’ve never done Zumba - my understanding is that doing it in the class is the best way, everyone all having fun and not worrying about how good you are. I’m not sure how good it actually is for fitness, but moving is always better than not moving. I’m not particularly good at dancing, but I was intrigued by the motion tracking aspect of this app.

Last year, the iTunes Festival was the awesome tail-end of what had been a fantastic year of sport and general greatness. Mr C watched every single available minute of it, and found a whole host of new acts to like. I even liked some of it, and wrote about my findings. This year, we were excited for the month of September music, although a little disappointed in the line-up when it was announced. Free music, available to stream online, for thirty days, though. Nothing to complain about.

One of the appeals of writing books exclusively in a digital format is that if you need to update your book, it should be simple. Whether it be for a mistake, or additional information, or simply a bigger and better second edition, ebooks are perfect for updating. Rather than printing a huge batch of paperback or hard copy books then realising you’ve made an error, it should be easy to fix and avoid that heart-sinking moment of discovery.

The month of September was filled with a nightly music extravaganza courtesy of the iTunes Festival 2012. Each evening, one or more warm-up acts introduced a bigger name, and it was all streamed live on the internet, available as a catchup replay afterwards as well. Mr C watched all of them, I saw some of the main ones, and these are some of my findings. There were a variety of different genres throughout the 30 days, and most musical tastes were covered in some capacity. My personal favourite of the lot was Pink. She hadn’t performed for two or three years, and was rusty - forgetting some words here and there. That made the show a little bit more personal. She was chatty, cared about the fans (particularly one who fainted), and did lots of songs that I had forgotten I like and own. Many plus points for Pink. I was also suitably impressed with Alicia Keys, who I thought was going to be a great performer but a bit aloof with the audience. She warmed to it, I think. Now, I’ve always taken a bit of a shine to Noel Gallagher, particularly when compared to his brother, but I’ve not really had any reason one way or the other. I’ve heard him in a few interviews and he’s funny and articulate. However, in his set, he was just a joy to watch. He must have incredible hearing because he was holding conversations with people in the front row, to the exclusion of everyone else. It was weird to see just one side of a conversation but also completely compelling. There was also the Liam-Liam chanting moment, that I quite enjoyed, wherein he bemoaned his own one-syllable name being hard to chant, and a certain sibling’s name being slightly better. On the flip side, I had expected to like Ed Sheeran’s set a lot more than I did. He expected far too much of the crowd, and told lengthy stories that didn’t seem to have much to do with anything. He also went on far too long with “you need me but I don’t need you” to the point where I thought I was being brainwashed. The duet with Gary Snow Patrol was awesome, though. Jessie J was another one who I thought would be better. I’m not her biggest fan, but I like a couple of the songs and she belts them out. Unfortunately, she changed her shoes to big red clumpy things so that she looked like a clown, talked endlessly about how grateful she was, and broke the momentum of the gig to sit down and read an extract from her book. I don’t go to (m)any gigs but this seemed odd, and I gave up watching halfway through.

The iTunes Festival is currently in full swing - 30 days of live music, held at the Camden Roundhouse in London and streamed across the globe via iTunes and its many apps. There’s a variety of acts available, with warm up artists appearing before more established names, and the diversity is amazing. So far we’ve already heard from the pop name that is Olly Murs, through the more acoustic Ed Sheeran to the dub stepping Plan B.

I recently wrote about the cyclical nature of my feelings towards podcasting and how I am currently losing interest in many of the subscriptions I used to listen to. (As an aside, after years of listening to Leo Laporte talk about it, I finally signed up to Audible. The new-member special of £3.99 a month is great but when that goes away and it heads up to £7.95, I’m going to be less enthusiastic, I think.)

I’ve had my iPhone for almost two weeks now, and I love it. All those hideous and disgusting phrases like “it just works” and “it makes me want to do more with it” are all true. I’ve got posts in the pipeline (by that I mean in my mind) regarding the highs and lows of life with Siri and what a revelation the camera is, but a quick summary is… it’s great.

After my posts just over a month ago, wherein I decided to give my Android phone one last chance to convince me to replace it with another similar model, I had some fantastic suggestions of apps to use. Dolphin Browser and Fast Reboot were a revelation to me, and made for some more interesting minutes spent browsing. However, the irritations are still there, and after six weeks, I finally made the decision and ordered my upgrade - the iPhone 4S. I can’t say I’m 100% looking forward to it, I like the variation of having a non-Apple device, but having said that, not having to carry a phone and an iPod separately is also appealing.

For the last eighteen months, I’ve been using the HTC Desire as my mobile method of contacting the outside world, but my contract is due to expire soon and that leaves me with something of a dilemma. These mobile phone contracts are so long that choosing the next device is quite an important decision. At the moment, it leaves me scratching my head. Just a hunch The iPhone has never really done it for me and I’ve never been able to explain why. I’m a happy iPod and iPad user, never really taking it for granted how much they brighten up my day, but the iPhone doesn’t grab my attention the way I might have imagined. Recent updates to the camera, and the great stuff that iOS 5 brings to the table make it a much more interesting prospect, but I’m still not 100% convinced.

Or, Why I Want My Leopard Back When Apple released the latest edition of their operating software, Mr C declared we needed a beta tester. Seeing as he was working on some quite finicky pieces of software, and I was more into browsers and word processors, the honour fell to me. I wrote a post about my initial thoughts moving from Snow Leopard to Lion, and now I’m updating that with reasons I wish I hadn’t.

The new Apple operating system, Lion, was released last week and I volunteered to be the test pilot for our house. At first, I wasn’t that fussed about it but gradually, the more I use it, the more I notice, and there are some bits and bobs that have caught my attention. Here are five of them: Natural scrolling. I turned off the natural scrolling straight away. They can call it natural all they like, but it doesn’t feel natural to me. Thankfully, this is something they give you a preference option for, so it was easy to switch back. Missing buttons. I was busy editing a podcast and thought I was going crazy when I kept moving my mouse in search of some left and right buttons on the scrollbar and they weren’t there. After too many muscle memory moments, I checked with Mr C and he quickly ascertained that I wasn’t mad, they were gone. I hadn’t even updated the software but lo and behold, something had been changed without telling me. Apparently, the idea is that everything in Lion is geared towards gestures on the trackpad, so who needs buttons when you can swipe two fingers left or right? I can’t stand the trackpad. Autosave. At first, I was mildly concerned about the concept of autosaving. It’s been gradually more prevalent in software, but usually with the control still ultimately resting with the user to save. The way it has been done in Lion seems interesting, and it’s not that often I need to go back on a version anyway, so I can’t see it being a huge problem. It does annoy me that sometimes a document can be a bit sticky as it’s working out where it is in terms of saving, and I opened up something that said it was locked because I hadn’t used it for two weeks. Like it’s my operating software’s business how often I open my files. Launchpad. I do love the new little Launchpad icon. It’s like a Windows Start button but for my Mac. That is something I’ve missed since switching, and having it right back is excellent. Accessing the Applications folder at the click of a button is brillo, although it may take me a while to organise the stuff within it into groups I like. Little upgrades. There are nice little features tucked away that don’t get shouted about, like the way folders unfurl when you open them within finder, or the preview that appears when you search for something in Spotlight. Any way of making Spotlight more useful is good in my book. Plenty more still to learn, I’m sure, and I envisage getting angry and being pleasantly surprised in equal measures as I continue to uncover new stuff. For now, it’s a pretty smooth transition to Lion, but I do think the heavy emphasis on gestures is going to get annoying.

One of Mr C’s biggest complaints with the iPod and iPad stems from the idea of touching the screen and your big thumbs getting in the way. Particularly when you are playing games, controlling whatever is on screen with your not-particularly-see-through-hands can be tricky. It’s a valid complaint, although I always argue that the ease of the iPad far outweighs a technical little issue like that. We were perusing some iPad accessories and stumbled across the AluPen from Just Mobile. I’m not very knowledgeable in the world of styluses… styli… style… pen type things, and this does just seem to be a regular point and touch device with no bells and whistles.

The iPad 2 Smart Cover is all kinds of genius, yes. The hidden magnets allow it to snap automatically onto the side of the device. How on earth it does that waking up when you lift just one tiny bit, I don’t know. It’s a cover, that is smart. However, as the owner of one, I realised a pretty serious flaw. You cover the iPad, and then roll back the cover to become a stand.

With a reformatted Mac comes the opportunity to start things over, to organise better. I decided that I would try out iPhoto in all it’s proper glory - as in attempting to use it as a photo library, instead of as just a way to get pictures out of the iPod. I’ve sorted everything out into Events, which was pretty dull, and then I took a look at the face recognition part of it.

This weekend, Mr C and I ventured into the outside world, and not only did we escape from the office but we also decided to go to shops. Actual brick and mortar retail establishments. This was never a big pastime for us, and particularly not now the internets is so useful. However, a day away from the screens called, and we headed to Currys. (As an aside, did I ever tell you about the time I went to PC World - ugh - looking for a particular piece of Mac equipment. I wouldn’t normally, you understand, but it was a late night, last ditch effort. The man shrugged. I went next door to Currys, owned by the same people, and the man said they had sold out but pointed me to the nearest Mac place (which was shut but he wasn’t to know I was in a rush) and gave me a card for out-of-hours supplier type people. Amazing the difference. PC World. Ugh.)

I’ve been epically busy this week but Apple don’t seem to care very much about that. First they released the latest version of their mobile software which meant a dozen gadgets needed updating. The very next day, just as I thought I was going to be getting something done, Garageband became available on the iPad. Productivity = out the window. For an entire evening, I was all about the music.

In the midst of our studio sort-out, we uncovered this little gem. This is the G3 Lombard from 1999. This was the first gadget that I stole from Mr C, in the early days of our relationship. It was also the first Mac I ever used, and it was a good one. Lovely keyboard, beautiful curviness, and little flaps to cover up all the ports and holes. Plus I do love black gadgets.

I know I am late to the complaining party regarding the latest iOS upgrade on the iPad, but I have to get my rant down in black and white, otherwise it will just swirl around in my head forever more. The iPad used to enjoy the luxury of a volume switch on the side, alongside an on/off toggle that would lock the orientation of the screen. If you’re swinging the iPad around a bit, it would stop the screen switching direction like a mad thing. As I primarily use the iPad for reading books and watching TV which are best not flailing around, that switch was very useful.

Before today, I had brought my iPad to work with me three times, ready to read some books over lunch. I’ve been reading the Kindle App on my phone which is great, but it suddenly occurred to me that to other people, it probably looked as though I was staring at my phone for an hour every day. I was torn between being the type of person who stares at their phone for an hour, or the type of person who brings in their gadgety gadgets to show off.

Recently, we found ourselves meeting up with some F1 fans - families of weary parents and gadget-hungry children - and we managed to sell several iPads to them. The kids just loved the iPad, whereas the parents were keen on the F1 Timing App - and it is pretty revolutionary. Selling the iPad is actually really easy to do. My mother is a notorious technophobe, but I left her alone with an iPad for five minutes, and she loved it.

Mr C bought an iPad pretty much the moment he could, and we had fun for a while playing around on it. Mostly, it was in his custody though, and about a week ago, I noticed he really wasn’t getting the most out of it. So, I commandeered it. I have an iPad now! I’m still playing around with it, learning things, figuring out how I’ll use it and where, but here are five awesome things I have noticed so far:

I’ve always been an iPod Nano person. I had the first gen Nano, a long, blocky, black thing, with a small and grainy screen, and enormous body. I skipped the second generation in preference for the third, although I was initially wary of the squat little thing. From a taller, more elegant solution, the third gen was a bit of a handful. It’s no surprise to me that they returned to the elongated shape for version four.

I would like to draw attention to this unusually serious but still excellent episode of The Buzz Report from CNET. I particularly find the conversation about Steve Jobs interesting. Naturally, all anyone wants is for Mr Jobs to get well soon, but it does raise some issues. The medical centre were very, very quick to clarify that Mr Jobs didn’t get any preferential treatment and was at the top of the liver transplant list because he was the most needy person on there. Which in turn puts some of Apple’s earlier claims into doubt. Will they be in trouble with the shareholders for suggesting things were not particularly serious?

The first time I saw the MagSafe idea in action, I was impressed. The magnet is fun to play around with, and heaven knows I can be clumsy, so having a safeguard in place can only be a good thing. Mr C has the MacBook with the funky power lead, but unfortunately, the laptop is on the way out. First it needed a new battery. The existing one didn’t work. It relied on mains power.

Top five reasons the Mac is winning me over Installing things is too easy. Flickr Uploader is a thousand times better than on a PC. The Mac has approved software lists. I’m starting to get used to (and like) the fact that things are open without having an actual window open. It took a long time, but now I’m adjusted, it’s a plus. I can make enhanced podcasts. Top five reasons it isn’t Office 2008 isn’t all it’s cracked up to be on the Mac. The @ key is in a different place. I don’t care who is right or wrong, but some standards wouldn’t go amiss. Switching from Mac to PC is a real pain. There’s no hash key (why the hell not?) I have to reformat my iPod. I can’t find any decent personal finance software. I’m sticking with what I’ve got on the PC.

You can now buy or rent films on iTunes in the UK, and there’s quite a lot to choose from. Considering how few TV shows there were when that was first introduced on the UK store, I’m quite impressed. There are some questionable decisions on the part of Apple, when you look at the HD side of things. You can’t buy an HD film and you can only rent one if you have an Apple TV. At the moment, we don’t have an HD TV so it doesn’t really matter anyway, but that does seem an unusual tactic from Apple. I know they like to keep you using Apple products, but what harm would it do to allow users to download to their Macs?

I was mega happy this afternoon after watching Tim Henman win his match - it had everything you could ever want, a Brit, some diving and some swearing, and a sulky Delta Goodrem, she’s famous you know! There was also a little bit of tennis going on as well… Now, I will talk to you about iTunes. I want to recommend it to each and every one of you. I scoffed when he first couldn’t sit still for the excitement about it, but now I couldn’t agree more. It’s fast, it’s easy and it’s relatively cheap (providing you don’t go mad). The selection leaves a lot to be desired but I think it has the scope to be massive.

I thought it’d just be a sore throat, a bit of a cold but no… has to turn into a full blown bout of flu or something. Today I’ve been ordered to stay in bed and for once, I’m not actually complaining about that. Right now, we’re watching Steve Jobs, the guy from Apple that ‘booms’ and ‘poofs’ telling us about the new iTunes stuff, Apple are great! Mr C is a little excited about it.