Jonathan Markevich

Category: Apple

  • Back It Up.

    Oh man. I use so many different backup programs. But I have a favorite right now…

  • TuneFab Support

    I wrote about TuneFab m4v converter a while back, mostly to get a discount.  Bottom line, it worked quite well, though the UI was a bit janky. Well, I’ve been using it a bit since then, and yup the UI is still a bit janky.  No change there.  However, I have had a few occasions…

  • iOS 13 + Regular Game Controllers

    I have hated the MFi program for game controllers for a long time now.  Cheap and expensive controllers for a handful of games.  There was no valid tech reason for Apple to restrict their OS to their own protocol for this!  It was a blatant cash grab. Thankfully, that has changed in iOS 13.  Now…

  • iTunes Without the iTunes Part

    I have been archiving all of my purchased media for quite some time now, I like the flexibility of a digital copy, but also flexibility to view it how and where I choose (i.e. Plex).  That usually means a lot of disc ripping, and I have set up a decent system and workflow to do…

  • Clown Sized Phone

    Despite my earlier misgivings, I got a biggie size phone – the iPhone 8 Plus.  After lots of research and analysis, I realized an error in my previous logic.  I said: It loses the magic of convenience that is so important to me in the iPhone. That seems now to be a matter of perspective.…

  • The Best eBook Reader, Again

    I came to the realization a few years ago that the eBook reader Marvin was hands down, the best ePub reader for me.  Very flexible, configurable and some (still) unique features made it well worth the price. That was, as I mentioned, a few years ago and I started to get a little frustrated with…

  • AppleTV Updated

    Finally, Apple decided to update the AppleTV – and promote it to the product menu bar on the main site!  This common, and popular, device had been overlooked for four years! The changes are exactly what I was wishing for… but somehow not enough.  The main thing I wanted was apps.  It seemed kinda dumb…

  • Swype and iOS keyboards

    I have experimented with replacement keyboards on Android from time to time.  Though I had SwiftKey installed for a year, I mostly used it as a regular keyboard. So it wasn’t a real thrill for me when Apple announced third-party keyboards on iOS 8.   I found the iOS keyboard quite good, the design was really…

  • Freemium Free

    It began with an outright refusal to pay extra to play more of a game. Freemium games are now dead to me. I should define more early what I mean. In this context I don’t mean a full game or app with add-ins, like extra levels or “pro” functionality. I figure each level is very…

  • Apple Pay

    The third punch in the Apple show was the biggest, in my opinion.  Again, on the surface it appears to be catch-up but this is much more significant. The competition liked to throw in an NFC antenna and then claim it was a feature, but without deep integration all it is is more hardware.  Yes…