Tech

After praising the little Fuji X-E1 with Leica lenses back in November, I returned with new enthusiasm to my Leica M9 and...

Siri is Jon Briggs, one of Britain’s foremost voice-over artists who is perhaps best known for “you are the weakest link”. Clearly he is now one of the strongest links and is destined for stardom among Apple aficionados.

A saga of headphones: I lose my beloved Bose phones and confirm finally that I can’t get on with the Etymotic custom buds.

A new app for the iPad is Guinness World Records at Your Fingertips, according to MacWorld. The free Lite version (the paid version is due soon) includes over 140 records with 25 videos and 150-plus photographs. Are there categories, we wonder, for such contests as "Most-hyped Computer iProduct of All Time" or "Most Expensive Tablet Without Multi-tasking"? Perhaps not, but Apple must be hoping to get in there somewhere before we get to iPad V2. Another pint of stout, Steve?

Visit a cafe a couple of years ago and you would have found Dongle Dell. Seemingly every laptop had a 3G modem poking out...

Author: Michael Evans

The iPhone has a useful safety feature that prevents expensive 3G data connections if there is a known wifi network available. For the most part, this works well, but it is now beginning to be a problem. It's a problem that has been highlighted by the UK's main hotspot network, BT Openzone, and the arrangement O2 have with BT and The Cloud for free wifi at "selected hotspots". The trouble is, once you've registered your phone, the connection becomes automatic whenever a hotspot is available. But not all BT or The Cloud spots are linked with the O2 scheme. Often, when the internet has disappeared, I have realised that the wireless is locked on to a hotspot that is not allowed--but the phone still thinks it is connected and doesn't revert to cellular 3G.

When this happens the only solution is to go to Settings and switch off wifi. Then, of course, you forget to switch it on again when it's needed. Recently, the annoyance has been exacerbated by the expansion of British Telecom's BT FON system whereby subscribers to BT's ADSL broadband can offer limited public wifi access. I find that my iPhone, because of the O2 BT Openzone limited subscription, locks on to these local networks. No wifi signal is received because I'm not authorised, but the phone doesn't know this and I suddenly realise nothing is happening. 

Frustratingly, one of my neighbours offers BT FON and I frequently find my phone connecting (fruitlessly) to this signal in certain parts of the house, presumably because it is stronger than my own network signal. I now question the wisdom of continuing to pay O2 £35 a month for an iPhone service that includes BT Openzone only in selected locations, mainly coffee shops such as Caffe Nero. 

For £20 I can now get exactly the same service from O2 but without BT and without visual voicemail, for which I have no use. I could then spend £10 a month on a full-service BT Open Zone subscription. Result: A saving of £5 a month and a much more extensive and usable network of wifi spots. 

Has anyone else had similar problems and have any solutions been thought out?

According to this report in today's Telegraph, Apple will announce wifi AirPlay streaming on September 12, at the same time as the introduction of...

There is tremendous angst in the blogosphere about the MacBook Air versus the new retina-display MacBook Pro. It isn’t a question of cost, it’s...

Writing in Forbes Magazine, Darcy Travlos maintains that the iPad is set to be the most distruptive consumer product since the iPod: The...

The Kindle Fire has clearly been a huge success in terms of numbers, with independent estimates of up to six million units moved. But it is also evident that development costs have seriously dented profits. The Fire is a loss-leader, costing more to make than the selling price.