Reviews

Apple Watch 7 review

The Apple Watch Series 7 isn’t the upgrade I’d been hoping for, but I bought it anyway. Let me explain. In spring of 2021, as Apple rumors began picking up, we saw renders of a completely redesigned smartwatch. It was going to have sleek flat edges reminiscent of the latest iPhones and iPads. It would house a blood glucose monitor, and, by some accounts, a sensor that measured stress levels. This was going to be a massive upgrade. But as September drew near, the forecast changed. Apple analysts broke it to us that we’d have to wait a whole year to see any of these upgrades!

Smart Speaker Showdown

In October of 2021, Apple unveiled the new HomePod mini, a thoughtful update on the cult favorite HomePod (which is now discontinued). But how does the HomePod mini stack up to the competition at the same price point? I’ll break down the advantages and drawbacks of the HomePod mini compared to the Google Nest Audio and the fourth-generation Amazon Echo.

Top 3 Best Garden Planner Apps

Whether you enjoy growing flowers, herbs, fruit, vegetables, or all of the above, seed starting is an important skill to master. Growing plants from seed won’t save you money the first season. After all, you’ll need trays, lights, and even shelves if you’re starting more than a few flats. But in subsequent seasons, you’ll reap the financial rewards, germinating dozens of starts for the cost of a single seedling from a greenhouse. Growing seedlings at home also allows you to fill your garden with plant varieties not generally found on the market. You’ll have literally thousands of options readily available from seed catalogs. Here are three seed-starting apps that will help you through the intricate and rewarding process of germinating seeds and growing starts indoors or directly in the garden.

iPhone 13 Pro Review

By Amy Spitzfaden Both

iPhone 13 Pro review

I’ve never gotten a Pro iPhone before, because I never felt like I needed it. Yes, I’d enviously eye the remarkable pictures my friends would post on social media that they claimed to take on their Pro or Pro Max, but I’ve always been happy to stick to the budget models, and my wallet has been, too. This year, however, I got the opportunity to try out the iPhone 13 Pro.

5 Best iPhone Apps Developed by Women

March is Women’s History Month, where we honor and celebrate women and their many accomplishments and contributions to the world. According to the job search site Zippia, women make up 17.6% of the app developing industry. While the percentage is small, it plays a huge role in the importance of highlighting apps that are developed by women. In that way, it will inspire women and girls to consider a career in the field of technology, especially in app development. We would like to celebrate Women’s History Month by giving you a roundup of five best iOS apps created by women.

For Christmas last year, I decided to splurge on myself by buying the Apple Watch. This was long before we even knew when an Apple Watch series 2 would make its debut, and I wasn’t willing to wait. I got it and quickly fell in love with all (well, most) of its features. Sure, apps loaded far too slowly, but I rarely used it for third-party apps. Having directions on my wrist when driving, skipping songs in two taps from the watch, and easily tracking activity throughout my day were the features I used and loved the most. But I got really tired of constantly being in touch. Honestly, I don’t need half the functions the Apple Watch has and I always feel slightly weird wearing one in public, “Walking Apple nerd, coming through.” So this Christmas, I decided to simplify. With a desire to improve my fitness in the coming year, I looked for a wearable that focused more on health tracking and less on everything else. I set a budget of a hundred dollars and required the wearable also be waterproof. Hello, Fitbit Flex 2 ($99.95). Here’s my five reasons I’m replacing my Apple Watch with a Fitbit Flex 2 this year.

These days, anyone can be a weather nerd. There is so much information from so many good sources that we can plan our vacations and outings with greater confidence than ever before. Using our iPhone weather apps, we know when the sun will rise and set, we can see the paths of impending storms, and we can even see whether lightning is striking the ground or vice versa. What we love about having access to all of this information is that there is a weather app for everyone. Between free weather apps and paid weather apps, there is no limit on the information available for the casual user or the full-on weather enthusiast. So here are our picks for each category.

Protecting Privacy with Password Managers

Creating and monitoring unique passwords for different websites used to be a major hassle. Writing down confidential account information on sticky notes, paper notebooks, or unprotected spreadsheets used to be the norm. However, as the world has become more sophisticated and bad-actor hacking efforts have raised the vigilance bar, using a password manager not only makes security sense but is practically a requirement. With that in mind, I’ve broken down the best password managers available for the Apple platform to help find which ones best suit your digital security needs.

Now you can print photos directly from your iPhone, either wirelessly or by docking your iPhone on the PD-480 Photo Printer Dock PD-480 ($139.99) from Kodak. The dock can even charge your iPhone as well. Kodak also sells an Android version, although the iPhone version has a microUSB to Lightning adapter, so that may be the only difference.

Who says you can't print videos? The folks at Lifeprint sent me the Harry Potter Magic Photo Video Printer ($149.99) to review, probably because they know I'm a fan of Harry Potter, but they didn't know that I've been using ZINK photo printers and instant cameras for years. In fact, I've been using Polaroid cameras since they came out decades ago, and this new device brings back some of the magic, literally, from those early days of instant cameras.

I can’t say enough good things about the new line of iPhone cases and case accessories and mounts from Hitcase. They have truly raised the bar when it comes to creating rugged, durable, waterproof cases, which in and of itself would be noteworthy. However, Hitcase has taken things a step further by crafting an extensive lineup of custom-made accessories that perfectly fit its iPhone cases. These accessories include a selection of top-quality photo lenses, as well as a selfie stick, a chest mount, and a handlebar mount, to name a few.

With the incredible video-processing technology embedded in Apple's latest iPhones, the optics and 4K video capture make them highly capable video cameras. Unfortunately, the most significant limitation of the iPhone's portability is the reliance on its embedded iPhone microphone to capture audio. AmpRidge has addressed this constraint head-on with two external microphones for iPhones. Let's take a closer look at what each iPhone mic has to offer iOS videographers.

As entertainment and mass communication redefine themselves in the age of social distancing, the tools to create your own professional-level content have never been more affordable. Anyone who has decided to finally start that podcast or livestream will be faced with a bewildering number of choices. Setting up a mixing board with high-end mics and cameras like those of successful professional podcasters and streamers will cost thousands of dollars. Until your podcast or stream attracts the same listeners and viewers as those top tier shows, it's hard to justify the initial cost to match those studios. At the same time, if your audio sounds like it was recorded on a cheap USB headset mic, listeners won't tolerate your content for very long. Elgato, a company that has reinvented itself as a digital broadcast equipment company, has, in my opinion, created one of the best microphones for aspiring podcasters and streamers without costing a fortune. Read on to discover why I'm giving Elgato's Wave:3 Microphone ($159.99) premium microphone and digital mixing solution a five star rating.

For everyday uses, the iPhone has a decent built-in microphone. But if you want to get any level of professional sound, whether it be to film a movie, record a song, or conduct an interview, you’re going to need an external mic for quality sound. There’s a wide variety of options, but it’s definitely the type of product where you get what you pay for.

Valentine’s Day is nearly here. Sure, you could buy your sweetheart the traditional flowers and chocolate but the best gifts are either handmade or personally selected. If your love happens to be a tech lover as well, why not get them a gift they’ll both use and adore? For him and her, we’ve got a list of awesome V-day gifts for the tech lover in your life from the Keyboard Waffle Maker to a coffee pot you can start from anywhere.

Before the recently enhanced Apple TV was introduced, rumor sites speculated that Apple might actually make large-screen television sets and embed its Apple TV intelligence into them. I was never a fan of that strategy. TV sets are fragile and bulky, and Apple doesn't need to get into that business. For several years, I have relied on an Epson projector connected to an Apple TV for my home entertainment. I've never looked back since I set up the home theater system. My screen is as large as my wall, which is far bigger than any TV set at Best Buy. I mounted the Epson projector to my wall and painted the screen-side of the wall with a special paint to make the image even better.

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