Tag Archives: Apple

Switching to Apple Music from Spotify

AppleMusicLogo It may seem fairly logical to use Apple Music if you’re already an iPhone or Mac user, but truth be told I had been using Spotify since before I had an iPhone or since others in my family were using either.

Pricing for family plans for both are very similarly priced, but realistically it’s a no brainer if more than one of your family use an iPhone or Mac as with Family Sharing you can share one subscription with up to 6 family members — but what makes this worth while is that Apple Music is just one of the subscription services that you can share.

If you have Apple TV+ or additional iCloud storage you want to share, you can do so, as well as others.

As well as music being of the highest streaming quality compared with others (Lossless 320kbps), the music catalogue is growing day by day and even some abstract smaller bands that I follow are now on there too.

To conclude, Spotify is great and I’ve used it for years. I was going to say if you’re on Android, you may as well continue to use it BUT you can get Apple Music for Android too!

Apple TV Review

Apple TV

I’ve now been using my Apple TV for four months. And so far it has been an absolute pleasure. I have previously used the “smart” feature of my Samsung Bluray player. This was okay, but not great and clunky and probably coded using Java or something else clunky.

Apple know how to do UI really well, and at the end of the day, you just want a nice and smooth and easy to use interface when watching TV. I get really grumpy when I see bad UI and for something you use to access and view catch-up TV and other video on demand such as YouTube, it’s all about the apps, number and availability of apps and quality of the apps and since tvOS has been released the Apple TV now has access to that too.

I’m a big Apple fan (if you hadn’t noticed), and to quote their UK site – https://www.apple.com/uk/tvos/ – “Apple TV keeps getting better and better“. And in my opinion it really does. It’s just great, really great.

Yes you can buy cheaper, but like all things, sometimes cheaper isn’t always better.

So far I have found a nice app called SlimLibrary which integrates nicely with Logitech Media Server (see HiFi) but I need to do a little bit more work to get that working.

The only negative I can think of at the top of my head is the fact it doesn’t have a dedicated audio out, an optical out, or co-ax so I can connect it and have a separate input for playing audio on my amp (me getting finicky). (Edit: in the time I wrote this I did a Google and found the following courtesy of iMore: http://www.imore.com/how-hook-fourth-generation-apple-tv-optical-audio-speakers)

Apple TV remote

This isn’t an extensive review, but you can find those elsewhere… this is more along the lines of I like it, I think it’s really cool, the remote lasts for 3 months on a single charge and uses the Lightning connector to recharge, and you should get one if you are considering a set top box!

Talking about the remote, the Siri function works really well for selecting what you want and is a really good substitute when typing passwords if you don’t mind saying them out loud. You can also use your iPhone or iPad as a remote which is neat.

Dedications:

Thanks to my girlfriend for this great gift 🙂

The day I ran home from the bus stop…

Steve Jobs

The day, 11 years ago, when I ran home from the bus stop because my parent’s had bought a new iMac.

To many people that may sound ridiculous. Not as ridiculous as queuing up overnight for a new video game or trying to be first in line to pick up the new iPhone 5 maybe…. (I bought mine in a civilised fashion, from the store a month later)…

It’s something I wanted to talk about as it’s something clearly etched on my memory. Something that, on the anniversary of Steve Jobs’ death, is something worth talking about.

That occasion filled me with so much excitement and joy as an 11 year old boy and was something that continued to enthuse me and interest me so much every day and continues to do so.

That of course wasn’t the first time I’d come in contact with Mac – my Dad used them before that at his work and we had an LC 475 if I remember. We used to play Spectre on that – great little game.

As I type this up on my 2006 MacBook which is still going strong (just about) I’d like to thank Steve for what he did with Apple, and ultimately for getting me excited about computers in the first place and I guess if this hadn’t all happened I wouldn’t be where I am now… working for a successful IT company.

Long may it last.

RIP Steve. Thank you.