Apple sued by DOJ on antitrust charges

The world loves Apple products. They’re some of the best designed consumer devices ever produced. They look great, work great, and are easier to use than the alternatives. Their customers also love Apple’s support system that makes it easy to get help by phone or in one of their stores, and get products quickly serviced. […]

A cautionary tale for travelers

I received an email from my brother Andrew this week from Cape Town, South Africa, his first stop of a two-week vacation, telling me his iPhone was stolen. He was pickpocketed in downtown Cape Town. It was the second day of his visit to the city, so he was accustomed to people coming up to […]

Kara Swisher’s Burn Book

Kara Swisher has covered consumer technology as a journalist for decades and has developed a reputation of being tough but fair, and usually smarter than the tech executives she covers. I’ve followed and admired her work for a few decades, ever since she reported on consumer tech for the Wall St. Journal, along with her […]

Apple kills their EV

This week Apple killed their Titan electric car project. It was effort that began ten years ago and became the biggest development project in the history of the company, measured both by the investment and size of the organization: billions of dollars spent and two thousand employees hired. When they began, the EV market was […]

Phones can’t go to POT(s) anymore!

With the outage of AT&T’s cellular service across a sizeable part of the country, we may reminisce about our old landline service, often called POTS (plain old telephone service). But it’s gone and will never come back. POTS was based on a pair of low voltage copper wires coming into our homes. When we experienced […]

First impressions of the Apple Vision Pro

I just tried out the new Apple Vision Pro. It’s easy for anyone to do – just sign up for a demo at your Apple Store on apple.com. The demo lasts about 30 minutes, including time to customize to your eyesight and head size. I sat at a table with an Apple employee at my […]

The future of search

Google search has become a real pain to use. What was once a stellar product is now a polluted mess. It takes too long to get your answers, requires too many clicks, makes us sort through ads and misleading results, and often leads us to a dead end. It’s the singular fault of Google and […]

Medicine gets a tech boost

The quality of medical care in this country has many faults, but it’s finally taking advantage of technology to bring some new benefits to us. But it’s been a long time coming. While email has been around for almost thirty years, trying to reach a doctor often required calling and anxiously waiting for a call […]

Should you buy an EV or PHEV?

The debate about which EV to buy has become a simplistic discussion just about range. Most reviewers seem to focus only on how many miles you can drive between charging, as if that’s all that matters or is more important than anything else. What’s missing in all of these reviews is that we don’t all […]

Thank technology for making travel a bit better

While airline service has deteriorated over the years with tighter seats, new fees, lost bags, higher prices, and unexpected cancelations, technology has helped make traveling a bit better or at least a little less bad. There’s an array of electronic gadgets and products that we now take for granted, but help offset the pains of […]

New CES products for the traveler

I’ve attended the CES show, the annual showcase of consumer electronic products from around the world, for over 30 years. But I gave it up a few years ago when I tired of the terrible traffic jams, the miles of walking each day, and the inefficiency of back-to-back meetings held in different hotels miles apart. […]

Hertz unloads its Teslas

Hertz announced today that they’re selling 20,000 Tesla EVs from their fleet and replacing them with internal-combustion engine vehicles, taking a $245 million loss. As noted in my earlier column, Hertz’s original decision to purchase 100,000 Tesla’s was a really idiotic move that was never clearly thought through: ….Owning an EV as a personal car […]

Dissecting the UAG Monarch iPhone case

I’ve used the Urban Armor Gear Monarch iPhone case on my last several phones. I’ve liked its ruggedness, design language, and feel in my hand. The details and finish are impressive, even the screws on the four corners that look like they could be used to bolt the case together. I especially like the layer […]

Time to review your subscriptions

This is a good time to review your digital subscriptions and recurring monthly charges. It’s likely to save a sizable amount of money, especially if you subscribe to a number of digital publication. In a space of a few hours I was able to save about $400 by making a couple of phone calls and […]

Favorite tech stuff of 2023

As the year closes I look back at some of my favorite discoveries of new products and services ffor 2023. iPhone cases iPhone cases are now a billion dollar plus business with an enormous selection of all types -from clear to leather to wallets to waterproof. Amazon alone offers more than 2000 models! But my […]

A bargain airfare. What could go wrong?

I cringed when my friend Larry told me that he was flying from San Francisco to Newark during the holidays. Then I shuddered when he said he was flying Frontier Airlines to Phoenix connecting to a Spirit Airlines flight to Newark. I jokingly told him to take good notes because this could make for an […]

An update on EVs

For those still thinking about buying an electric vehicle, the landscape has changed considerably over the past year. Yet deciding what to buy has become even more complex. A Tesla was always a safe bet, offering the best range and a broad charging network, with car prices lower than ever. But with Musk supporting and […]

Best travel products of 2023

Here are some of the best tech products, gadgets and services that made my traveling easier in 2023. INUI MagSafe Battery Pack – The INUI MagSafe battery snaps onto the back of an any iPhone (models 12 and newer) and recharges it from near empty to full in less than an hour. It can also […]

The Magic of Amazon

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday just over, I’m marveling at how Amazon has changed our buying habits. Not just becoming a substitute for driving to a store, but so much more. First, you cannot find many of the items on Amazon in other stores, certainly not the depth of choices. Whether it’s a motorized […]

Ai Pin: A new product attracting attention and ridicule

A new tech gadget that’s soon going on sale is receiving a huge amount of attention from the tech community. It debuted at Paris Fashion Week on the lapel of supermodel Naomi Campbell, it was featured in a TED talk watched by tens of thousands, and it’s received $230 million in funding from Silicon Valley insiders. Rarely […]