What’s next for smartphones?
I think we can all agree that excitement is dead for the smartphone market. Except, of course, for the occasional exploding Galaxy Note 7 joke. From personal experience, iPhone users tend to upgrade every other year. For Android users it seems to be even less frequent, except for users like me who buy a new phone…
Managing Kids’ Apple Devices: Why Notifications Don’t Always Go to the Same iPhone or iPad
As parents, we often find ourselves juggling multiple Apple devices in the household—especially when our kids have both iPhones and iPads. Managing screen time, app access, and notifications can quickly become a challenge. One of the most confusing issues is why notifications (like text messages, FaceTime calls, or app alerts) don’t always show up consistently…
It is a total mystery how to select the default Windows Hello device
I find the Windows Hello login very useful. It is quick and generally very accurate. There is one complaint I have that is really a bit of a mystery — how the heck to you pick the camera that you want to use for Windows Hello? There does not seem to be a way to…
New favorite podcast application/website.
I am a big fan of podcasts and a longtime user. I, like many, started with iTunes in my podcast listening, but quickly grew tired of how it handled feeds that I didn’t listen to in a while. For many years as an Android user, I used BeyondPod for listening to podcasts and in general,…
Why Can’t We Use Custom Faces on the Apple Watch?
If there’s one thing that frustrates me about owning an Apple Watch, it’s the lack of freedom to create and use truly custom watch faces. Apple has built one of the most advanced smartwatches in the world, but at the same time, it has locked down one of the most personal aspects of the device:…
Android Auto
The other day I was notified of an update to Android Auto on my phone. I had seen some online news that a new version would be released that would allow the app to be used without a compatible in dash head unit. My first thought was “why did this take so long?”, but I…
If the power goes out, so does your local network if you use Eero.
The big Nor’easter hit Connecticut the other day and we lost our power for a few hours. We also lost out cable too: phone, internet and TV. This was and is annoying, but I can understand how much work is involved to fix these things. One new think I learned is that you lose your…
Is the iPhone Alarm Snooze Function Still Really Limited to 9 Minutes in 2025?
If you’ve ever used the default iPhone alarm clock, you’ve probably noticed something strange: the snooze button is locked to 9 minutes. No matter how you set your alarm, if you hit snooze, you get precisely nine more minutes of sleep—never ten, never fifteen. It’s a quirk that most people just accept, but why does…
Comments on Ring Doorbell
With all the hysteria in the media about Internet of Things (IOT) recently I thought it might be a good idea to initiate some discussion on some of the higher end items as the media seems to only focus on routers and items that no one has ever heard of. On to my comments on…
Why Won’t Apple Let Me Use an iPad for CarPlay?
If you’re an Apple user like me, you probably love the idea of seamless integration between your devices. iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch—they all talk to each other in Apple’s “walled garden.” But there’s one glaring hole in that ecosystem that has been bugging me for years: CarPlay only works with iPhones—not iPads. And honestly,…