All Apple All Day

Is the sun setting on the Golden Age of Apple? Apple is famous for their secrecy. We don't KNOW their long-term strategy.  Or even their short-term strategy, most of the time. 

We finally did it - the AAAD household are now cord-cutters. And so far, so good. The impetus for this change? Sony's PlayStation Vue service is now available on AppleTV. Here are our (very early) thoughts....

Mac Mini: 2005-2014? The Mac Keynote was, as expected, all about the new MacBook Pro.

I've been waiting to pick up a Mac Mini.  Before I make any decisions, though, I'm waiting a week.

We have quite a few internet devices in the AAAD household. We also have a 10-year old, and it's difficult to limit screen time, or monitor what he sees when he IS on the internet. Circle with Disney should help. We've had it for 2 weeks - here are my initial impressions.

We signed up for HP Instant Ink last summer. It's been 14 months, which gives us enough time to look at our printer usage and billing, and determine whether this was a good deal or not.  

Yesterday was iOS 10 day. And for several iPhone owners, that led to some problems. For me, it meant that Messages became unusable, crashing on startup. It was so bad that checking the settings for Messages would crash Settings! Now, everything seems to be working fine. Here's how I did it.

As I'm typing this post, it's a little after noon, Central Time, on September 13, and my iPhone 6 is updating to iOS 10. I could have waited. I'll be picking up an iPhone 7 Plus on Friday, and that will definitely have iOS 10 installed. But who can wait for that? iOS 10 means HomeKit. And HomeKit is the reason AAAD exists. Let's go.

After literally years of waiting, HomeKit got a bit more than lip service today.  Tim Cook discussed the new Home app as one of iOS 10's key new features.  Home will provide centralized control for all of our HomeKit-compatible devices. So far, most of us don't have any of those devices.  But that will change!

We know we're getting a new iPhone next week. We don't know what it will be called.

Losing your car keys used to be annoying.  That said, it wasn't financially crippling. If you dropped your key into a sewer grate, you could get new keys made for a few dollars.  But, time marches on. Today's "smart keys" cost hundreds of dollars to replace.  Which is why you should invest in a Tile. 

We've been huge fans of DirecTV and its Genie product. Our original review - back in 2012 - was an unqualified rave. At the time, DirecTV was offering the only HD interface, and the only whole-home DVR. We could store a massive amount of programming on the internal hard drive, and access it from every room. But next month, we're moving on entirely.

Sorry for the long absence! We just finished up our summer vacation, visiting my sister in London, with side trips to Paris, Wales, and Dublin. We traveled by air, land and sea - with a 10 year old, and a 2 year old. It wasn't easy. But traveling with iOS devices makes things a lot easier. Here are our Top Five iOS tips for traveling abroad, with kids.

This is a weird post to write. Because I really like the iPhone Leather Case. But these days, I can barely stand touching it. I'm actively repulsed by it.

We're still here - sorry for the lack of updates, but there hasn't been a whole lot going on in the world of AAPL or AAAD. We're almost-but-not-quite finished with our basement renovation, so I haven't been able to pull the trigger on the final "Going Underground" update, either.