Author Archives: Justin McMahan

Jawbone UP Review – Two months wearing a fitness tracker

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For the last two months I’ve been wearing the Jawbone UP, a fitness tracker. Let’s see what this experience can tell us about using the Apple Watch. The dawn of the Apple Watch is upon us. It remains to be seen if Apple’s latest new product will redefine the industry like the Mac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad did. That said, I’m looking forward to trying out the Apple Watch for myself and will be part of the dedicated (and/or crazy) crowd of people that stay up late and pre-order the watch on April 10th. It will be interesting to see Continue Reading →

Apple’s Spring Forward Event – An Overview

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On Monday, March 9th, Apple hosted its Spring product launch keynote at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Of course, Apple Watch took center stage at this event, but they also revealed a lot more including a new super-thin cutting edge MacBook. Here’s an overview of what Apple announced! Apple TV & HBO Now – The first announcement of the day involved Apple TV. Unfortunately, the aging set-top box – which was last updated in 2012 – didn’t see a hardware refresh. Rather, Apple announced that HBO Now, a new subscription service from HBO that allows cord-cutters Continue Reading →

1Password adds new features for iOS 8 and Mac OS X Yosemite

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1Password, the best password manager for your Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, just got even better! In this post, check out 1Password’s new features on iOS 8 and Mac OS X Yosemite.   I’ve always been pretty confident that the passwords that I use to log in online were pretty secure. Until recently. Lately it seems like companies and websites are being hacked more and more frequently. With this apparent increase in malicious attacks, the system I’ve always used to secure myself online began to seem pretty flimsy to me. I realized that, though I used different passwords for Continue Reading →

How to use Apple Pay in the real world [Video]

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In this video post, we travel to our local Whole Foods Market to test out Apple Pay in an actual store. Check out the video to see how it works! Before watching, you should be aware that Apple Pay only works in physical stores using the iPhone 6 or 6 Plus. As you can see, Apple Pay is incredibly convenient, and much easier than going through the process of swiping a physical credit or debit card. All you need to do is put your phone near the point of sale system and place your finger on the Touch ID. That’s Continue Reading →

iPhone 6 Plus Review – A month with Apple’s biggest phone

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This is a review of my experience with the iPhone 6 Plus. What has it been like using Apple’s biggest iPhone for the last month? Check out this post to find out. Almost exactly a month ago, I was sitting at home on a Friday waiting for UPS to arrive at my door with the iPhone 6 Plus. My experience preordering the device a week earlier, which involved staying up until around 2am waiting for Apple’s store to finally come online, had done nothing to temper my excitement. Finally at around 5pm, after my patience was thoroughly tested, the doorbell Continue Reading →

Apple’s iPhone 6 Event – Everything you need to know

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Last Tuesday, Apple launched their fall products for 2014 at a keynote event in Cuptertino, California. This event was the biggest Apple product launch in recent memory. Here’s everything you need to know about what they announced! iPhone 6 & iPhone 6 Plus – This is the second year in a row that Apple has released two distinct iPhone models at its fall keynote address. Last year they released the brand new iPhone 5s alongside a repackaged and recolored version of the iPhone 5 – the 5c. This year, though, was quite a bit different than last year. For the first Continue Reading →

New Features in iOS 8 – What to Expect

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Apple has announced iOS 8, the next version of its mobile operating system which will be released in the fall. In this post we’ll talk about what to expect. A few weeks back, Apple gave the public a preview of iOS 8 at its World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC). There are a ton of new features that will be coming this fall to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch near you. In this post, we’ll run down and explain the most exciting new features that you can expect to see in iOS 8.   New Stock Keyboard with QuickType – Compared Continue Reading →

Notifyr Review – Receive notifications from iOS devices on your Mac

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Notifyr is a helpful app that allows you to receive notifications from your iPhone, iPad (Mini, Air), or iPod Touch on your Mac.     I’ve become a big fan of apps that allow my iOS devices to interact with my Mac. A while back, I reviewed an app called Knock that allows you to unlock your Mac simply by knocking twice on your iPhone. Recently, an app called Notifyr was released that lives in the same vein. This app (which actually consists of a pair of apps, one for iOS and one for Mac) lets you receive any and Continue Reading →

Microsoft Office for iPad Review – Edit Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote documents on iPad

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Microsoft Office is finally available for iPad! This post reviews the Office apps for iPad and covers Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote. It’s been a long time coming, but Microsoft has finally brought a fully featured version of its productivity suite to iOS, and more specifically to the larger screen of the iPad. While it’s true that Microsoft Office has been available on the iPhone since June of 2013, the iPhone version is only able to view documents and can’t edit them. The iPad versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote are a completely different story and rival the desktop Continue Reading →

Knock Review – Unlock your Mac using your iPhone

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Knock lets you unlock your Mac by knocking on your iPhone, just like knocking on a door! Using it makes unlocking your Mac quick, easy, and fun. I use a pretty complex and long password to secure my Mac computers. While it’s true that entering my password is almost a reflex, I certainly don’t look forward to typing it in. Using Knock, though, makes unlocking my Mac a lot easier and more elegant. Let’s see how it works! Set Up – Knock consists of two different apps: one that runs on your iPhone and one that runs on your Mac. Both Continue Reading →