Table of contents for 157 in iPad & iPhone User

Apple CEO Tim Cook has released an open letter to address the current unrest due to the killing of George Floyd. A link to the letter, titled ‘Speaking up on racism’, has been added to the Apple.com home page – see fave.co/3f6Mc1y. The letter acknowledges the “senseless killing of George Floyd” but is primarily concerned with the longer history of racism and the way it is, in Cook’s words, “still present today – not only in the form of violence, but in the everyday experience of deeply rooted discrimination”. Cook’s statement comes on the heels of many such letters from corporate brands and their leaders. Compared to most of them, the statement from the CEO of the most valuable company in the US is modest (it certainly lacks the verve…

Anew report from Bloomberg claims that Apple is changing up its strategy for the Apple TV+ streaming service. Until now, Apple has pitched the service as only for original content you can’t find anywhere else. Now, according to the report, the company will bolster its original series and movies with a bit of licensed content. On page 82, you can see a six-month check-in with the service, which launched on November 1, 2019. After watching nearly everything Apple TV+ offers, we concluded that the overall quality is fine, and the price is competitive (£4.99 per month and a year free with most new Apple device purchases), but the volume of content makes it hard to justify. Competitors, from Netflix to Amazon to Disney+, make their name on original content but…

Price: £349 from fave.co/2YQiLMi Apple’s keyboard cases for the iPad tend to emphasize protection. The keyboard itself often feels like an afterthought. Even in the best cases, it comes off as a grudging concession to those of us who really don’t want to use the digital keyboard for long typing sessions. But Apple’s new Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro is the first one that actually feels as though you were meant to work on it. The backlit keys have great key travel, and they’re wide enough to recall the ones you’ll find on a MacBook. These features would have been impressive on their own, but Apple went a step further and included a trackpad and a dedicated charging port that greatly enriches the experience. Taken together, these are signs that…

When comparing phones, you generally want them to be in the same league. These days that might mean there’s a few hundred pounds separating the models – like the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, or the Galaxy S20+ and the OnePlus 8 Pro – but it’s basically a waste of time to pit the £1,199 Galaxy S20 Ultra against the £329 Galaxy A51. But Apple’s new iPhone SE is a horse of a different colour. Yes, it’s Apple’s budget phone and costs £700 less than the highest-end Galaxy S20, but it also has a bunch of Apple’s latest tech. And, you know, it’s an iPhone. I did the unthinkable and compared it to the three of the top Android phones available today: Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra (£1,199), Google Pixel…

In the argument between people who embrace the iPad to get work done and people who stick to their Macs, I’m Team Both. For a few years now, I’ve used an iMac at my desk and an iPad Pro everywhere else. Committing to the iPad to get work done has always involved some compromise. There are moments when I’m working away on my iPad and I realize that there’s something I need to do that would be done far more easily on my Mac. Those moments are a lot less frequent they were even a couple of years ago, but they do exist. What’s funny is that in the past year or so, I’ve noticed an increasing number of incidents when I find myself sitting at my desk, staring at…

Apple has released a small but important update to all its operating systems. The notes for version iOS and iPadOS 13.5.1, watchOS 6.2.6, tvOS 13.4.6 and macOS 10.15.5 are practically non-existent: “This update provides important security updates and is recommended for all users.” The iOS update also includes 13.4.6 for HomePod. Typically, when Apple is so vague about a security patch, it is trying to make sure users have a change to update without tipping off hackers. This latest patch is probably related to a new jailbreaking tool that apparently works even on newer hardware running iOS 13.5. We can get a little more information by looking at Apple’s security updates page. The security update details for all these operating systems is exactly the same: “Arbitrary code with kernel privileges”…

Apple has been granted a patent by the USPTO for “generating synthetic group selfies”. A patent is not a product, but if the software worked as described therein, it would allow multiple users who are not physically near each other to each take a photo with their own devices and have them combined into a single group selfie. According to the patent, the group selfie would be an artificial composition of individual selfies, and the individual selfies can be “still images, stored video images, or live streaming images”. As most patents are, it is written to be slightly vague and broad – a patent needs to be specific in order to be granted, but companies want them to cover as much potential ground as possible. It describes what this group…

Price: £419 from fave.co/2MGH8Fc If you love playing games on your iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple TV, you’ve probably noticed that some of hottest titles really are meant to be played with a game controller. The new Nimbus+ from SteelSeries is our pick for the best all-around MFi game controller – an officially certified and licensed controller that seamlessly works with all your Apple devices. The only thing is, you don’t really need an MFi controller the way you used to. With the introduction of iOS 13, you can use an Xbox One or PS4 DualShock 4 controller with your iOS devices and Apple TV. With those great controllers available to iPhone, iPad and Apple TV users (which also work on PC or Mac and their respective consoles), why pay…

In the spring of 2019, Apple officially took the wraps off the service we all knew was coming: Apple TV+. It clearly had designs on competing with Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, and the rest of an increasingly crowded market. The first handful of shows were available on 1 November 2019, and a new show or movie has been released every few weeks since then. So how is Apple doing? Half a year in, is Apple TV+ a must-have streaming service, or can you ignore it without missing much? So far, Apple has landed somewhere in-between. If we were giving Apple a letter grade, it would get a ‘C’ with a special teacher’s note: ‘shows potential’. Apple is doing as well with overall content quality as any of its competitors, has expanded…

Hot on the heels of the launch of the new iPad Pro and Magic keyboard, Apple is reportedly readying new iPads models at the low-end of the spectrum as well. A report by oft-accurate analyst Ming-Chi Kup of TFT Securities says Apple will be launching two new sizes of iPad later this year: a 10.8in iPad and an 8.5-to-9in iPad mini. Both of those sizes are bigger than Apple’s current line-up, which includes the 10.2in iPad, 10.5in iPad Air, and 7.9in iPad mini. Kuo says the iPads “will follow iPhone SE’s product strategy, and selling points will be the affordable price tag and the adoption of fast chips”. The iPad Air and iPad mini both use Apple’s A12 Bionic chip, while the 10.2in iPad is powered by the older A10…

Price: £419 from fave.co/3dDiG2X The new iPhone SE is tricky to review not because it incorporates a lot of interesting new technology to test and explain, but because it does the opposite. Literally nothing here is new. One could write a comprehensive and accurate review in a single short sentence: Apple took and iPhone 8, gave it the iPhone 11’s processor, and is charging only £419 for it. And yet it’s that last part, the affordable price, that makes it so interesting. For many millions of potential of customers, a brand-new iPhone has remained out of reach. For so many others, their years-old iPhone is overdue for an upgrade but the new iPhones give them sticker shock. This phone offers nothing at all to anyone who has an iPhone released…

If you want to get the most bang for your buck on an iPhone, you have a healthy number of options. Apple sells no fewer than three iPhones for less than £730 (not including refurbished models), and deciding between them can be tricky. But as someone who’s used all three phone extensively, I’ve broken it down for you to help you decide how to spend your money wisely. Let’s start with how much of your money you’re going to need to spend. We usually talk about cost at the end of these comparisons, but since price will directly dictate the decision-making process here, you should know what they cost up-front. iPhone SE: £419 iPhone XR: £629 iPhone 11: £729 Each of these phones starts at 64GB of base storage, which…