Apple

Just splashed out on a 42mm Gold Edition Apple Watch at a cool £8,000? Happy? Well, you could have had an even bigger golden beast, a monstrous 55mm of it, for a mere twenty quid. In fact, you could have 400 of them.  Enter the RoHS Gold Edition direct from China. A friend in Greece ordered this at a cost of €29 plus €3 shipping. What a bargain.

Twice in the past few months I’ve written about Apple Notes. First, I recounted how I had successful transferred all my Evernote files over to Notes and that all had gone well. Well, it went downhill from there. First I noticed some slowness in Notes. Then I realised that every time I opened the application on the iPhone there would be a delay of over a minute before I could start a new note or search for an existing item.

I'VE ALWAYS hated the locking of mobile phones to one carrier. Sure, in many countries, particularly the UK, locked phones supplied under a contract can be extremely cheap. And unlocking of the average phone is simple and costs peanuts; so there are some arguments in favour of locking.

But with the iPhone we have the worst of all worlds in many countries, including the USA and UK. The locked phone is supplied at a discount, as you would expect when signing a 12, 18 or even 24-month contract. Unlike other phones, though, the iPhone cannot be unlocked--unless it is jailbroken, which is not for everyone. More annoyingly, Apple have one chosen partner in every country. While I have been very happy with my O2 contract in Britain and with Vodafone in Greece, I would have liked a choice of carrier. Many would-be iPhone users are put off because they want to stay with their current supplier.

Since last week’s announcement of the new iPad Pro and the 4in-screen iPhone SE I have been entertaining treasonous thoughts. Should I sideline the iPhone 6 Plus (which is sometimes a tight fit in my pocket) and move over to a smaller phone and then combine it with an iPad?

After spending months vacillating between the tiny new MacBook and the more traditional and speedy 13in MacBook Pro with retina screen, I have reached a conclusion. Last week I bought the MacBook for test purposes, confident that if I didn't like it I could return it for cash or part exchange.

By Fergus MacOldie

JUST ENDED a mini-excursion to visit some old haunts in the south of the island of Crete, the southernmost tip of Europe. There, in the remote mountain village of Zaros, in the foothills of Zeus' birthplace, Mount Idi, lives my old friend Hebe and her veteran 1999 G3 iMac, complete with pink highlights (the Mac, that is). I was summoned to discover why Skype wouldn't run, but I found more than I bargained for. The venerable iMac had been bought in 2000 for the enormous sum of one million drachmae (over 2,500 euros by present reckoning) but it has been hardly a bad investment. With its 10 GB drive, 266MHz processor and 512MB of memory, this old girl has been soldiering on without attention for ten years. 

For a year or so Mike has been sitting at the side of the road watching the Apple bandwagon trundle by. But when to jump aboard? At last he has made a decision on a new Mac….

My new iPad Air 2 has been rather neglected, so much do I cleave to the remarkable iPhone 6 Plus. I have been carrying the iPhone around for the past five months and enjoying treating it as a mini tablet. As a result, I haven't been moved to take up the Air 2. Last week, however, I took Big Brother on train to Wigan Pier with the intention of doing some creative writing.