~Fanboy~

I got my first iPod in my second year at the university. It was the all new iPod Touch and not many people on campus had one. I remember not having enough money to get one and I knew I couldn’t ask my dad because he’d ask me if it was an asset or a liability and have me tell him the real importance of the iPod. So I turned to someone who wouldn’t ask me any question as to why I wanted to acquire a shiny overpriced (in retrospect) piece of shiny metal music pocket computer gadget device – my mom. She sent me money. I added it to what I already had, gave the money to Ebenezer (Shot), got my first piece of Apple hardware. This here is the origin story of an undeniable fanboyism.

~When Elephants Fight…~

My first music streaming experience started with Pandora many years ago. It was nice to be able to log into a computer and stream music I didn’t have stored locally in the computer. It wasn’t until I discovered Songza however, that I truly enjoyed the streaming experience. 

It was a free service with a beautiful, simple UI and some really interesting approach to song selection and playlists. Besides the really well thought out user interface and experience, Songza initially didn’t require VPN for me to stream in Nigeria.

Time came for Apple to go into streaming, Google was going in as well and Spotify were already miles ahead of the competition. Google acquired Songza and pretty much ruined it. Google Play Music wouldn’t stream in HD without being choppy at the time (I haven’t tried it in a while), and  even though the key Songza features were ported over the experience with Google Music was far from exhilarating.

~It just works~

As far as free streaming options go, Pandora and Amazon Music have been my go to. Even though unlike Spotify, Pandora doesn’t allow album streaming, I’m still unbothered. I personally find the album shuffle on Spotify irritating so I stay away from it altogether. Once a while, I try out Spotify again until a public service announcement for ad free music come on and I’m reminded that I do not remotely appreciate this type of advertising and then I uninstall again. Amazon Music is one of the very many perks of a Prime membership and I must admit, it is a really good streaming option. I am yet to try out Deezer even though I have heard some interesting things about it. And then finally I have the default music app on my phone which occasionally advertises music plans to me. Thanks Apple.

The entire plethora of music options and the segmented nature of ‘my ecosystem versus yours’ has left many consumers with way too many tentacles of apps and services especially with Music considering Apple and Google have music streaming services. I purchase most of my music on Apple Music except for the records I get from the Jazz Hole, Amazon and Barnes and Noble — of which most of the records from the latter two come with an ‘autorip’ feature which includes digital copies of the music.

It really won’t hurt Apple much to have a free tier of Apple Music for iPhone owners. Apple have some of the most loyal customers in the world and this option will not only keep them in the ecosystem, it will also be a very good incentive for people looking to migrate from other ecosystems/devices. Being one of the few one of the few offering Apple has in the Android-verse, Apple Music is on the rise and it seems it will continue to be despite stiff competition all around.Users could have fewer access to catalogs and playlist management and even ads can be included! Just being able to make the Music app useful and default again for a lot of customers will be a welcome return to the basics.

Replies — There are many times personal or group chats where there’s a need to reply to or emphasize a message. In WhatsApp this is seamless. Messages can be swiped right (iOS) and just commented underneath. This is a nifty feature that could enhance the iMessage experience.

Favorites — The favorites feature is a very powerful but underrated one. On WhatsApp you long press a message and there’s an option to fave it. This message can eventually be found under favorites section of the chat options. This is very useful for directions or menus or anything really that can be easily buried away in the conversation.

Search — Searching on iMessage is terrible. One would expect it to sort results by conversations and time but it doesn’t. It just struggles to find instances of the search query and it does a pretty terrible job still. The search on WhatsApp feels like deep search and it really digs deep with an endless supply of results for as long the search query exists. It even goes one step further and allows you search individual chats and the results are highlighted as you would expect in say a web browser.

Pin Messages — Like many people, I’m guilty of leaving a ton of messages unread. In WhatsApp, to avoid infinitely scrolling to catch up with those closest to me, I pin their messages to the top of the pile. This allows me to always have them in view whenever the app is launched. I don’t have as many conversations going on iMessage but I’m pretty certain there’s a few people that could use this feature because of how often they use their iMessage.

Format Styles — Bold, Italicize, Strikethrough and maybe Underline. The ability to format text like this already exists in the notes app on iOS (except strikethrough). Its impact in a conversation can turn a boring text into a lively, thought out one. It could also serve as a means to properly format movie titles and book titles etc for those who OCD like that.

Export — iMessage takes a ton of space especially for users who include gifs, bitmoji and recently animoji. An option to export messages and clear chat history to make room on the phone isn’t a bad idea. This is a really nifty WhatsApp feature that lets the user recreate space on their device time and time again.

Archive — Swipe to archive works for me like the opposite of message pinning. Some conversations need to be tucked away without necessarily being deleted. This is where archiving comes in. They’re kept out of the message timeline safely away from the rest of the conversation. The longer they stay there, the greater the reason to probably delete them for good since they’re just taking space anyway.

Mark as unread — Often times I glance at a message and feel the need to mark is as unread especially when I can’t get back to the sender and need to keep the blue dot in place to remind me I have an unread message. This is really helpful and is entirely nonexistent in iMessage even though one can as easily mark messages unread in the default mail app.

In all, WhatsApp seems like an all round better messenger than Apple’s default. And for everything WhatsApp seems to lack in sending messages with effects, hearting messages or liking them, it more than makes up for in functionality.

Xcode: Simple – every Mac owner who’s a developer should have Xcode. It is your gateway into the AppStore. Besides its humongous file size, it is a necessary IDE which feels right at home in the OS. Sure there are other IDEs you can install depending on what languages you write in and what environment you’re familiar with.

Firefox: Safari comes installed, and everybody loves Chrome. But Firefox is the unsung hero in their midst. This browser is plug-in heaven. It is my preferred choice when it come to extending the capability of the browser itself.

WhatsApp: After being in beta for the longest minute, the world’s most popular messenger is now a permanent resident on the Mac. Pretty much anything – except making calls – that can be done on mobile can be done on the desktop version.

TweetDeck: TweetDeck has come a long way from being the hardcore user’s favorite twitter client to a dumbed down annoying app with many many columns. Make no mistake, Twitter’s efforts in dumbing this app down after purchasing it only hurt a little. One can no longer post to 3rd party like Facebook and Google+ (yes, some people still post to Google+). That said, the columns, searches, scheduled tweets, and the ability to create collections in the app are some advance features that still make it a winner.

VLC: No need to talk much about this. Throw any video or audio format at it watch it just handle business.

Olive Tree Bible Study: This is my preferred Bible Study app on macOS. It replicates the mobile version in most, if not all ways. Side by side comparisons, multiple versions, an intuitive search and the ability to log in and have your purchases/books transferred.

Pocket: Fact – some people till this day don’t know what Pocket is and this is a damn shame. Not only is this the best way to procrastinate on reading your favorite articles, it’s a good way to actually save it for later and read when you can. The user can save links and articles with tags and read them later on any device either on the app on their device or the Pocket site.

FileZilla: A platform agnostic FTP client. If you are a dev or you just manage your own website, please hop on this. You’re welcome.

iBooks Author: While I’m yet to publish my first book, I recommend this to Mac owners because I believe it is a good application to begin learning authoring. The free app comes with very easy inviting features which make it easy to dive in and begin writing. This is recommended to anyone who’s every dreamed of writing a book.

iTunes Producer: After writing said book, how do you publish it? This is where Producer comes in. It is free as well and has resources online to guide you as you activate it and begin to attempt your publishing.

Google Keep: For many android users, this is the equivalent of the Notes app on iOS. Everything lives here. Luckily for you, the macOS app syncs effectively and lets you continue from where  you left off every time. This is just comfortable and makes many users who are heavily vested in Google for example have a respite if you may in switching between platforms.

GarageBand: This application has gone through the same revamp Final Cut Pro. It has also been dumbed down. That doesn’t stop it from being a powerful tool for recording and editing and even podcasting.

Are there any apps you’d recommend that are missing? You can add them in the comments below.

First, Cloud. 
The 16GB iPhone has always been the entry level/most affordable option. Its the ‘let me try out the iPhone with this little money I have and see if it’s a good choice‘ iPhone. For so long only a few have mastered the art of deleting photos and creating enough room for OTA (over the air) firmware updates. Others will always complain and gripe every time they get a Storage almost full message on their device.
Well, Apple is trying to make life easier for you. With the crashing of the pricing for iCloud storage, you can now get 50GB for only $0.99/mo. That’s about ₦200 right now. I know a lot of people who won’t mind shelling out ₦2,400 a year for all that storage space. It could be a lot bigger obviously, but its way better than having to delete those new live photos you’re about to be obsessed with.

Second, Apple TV.
Now this is interesting. A lot of people out here in Naija with an Apple TV seem to just have it for show. They could almost not use it to its max capacity. That’s about to change.
With the new Apple TV you can have pretty much all games catered to iOS on your TV. Imagine the possibilities.

Image courtesy of Apple

The AppStore already has significantly more titles than what’s on offer on the Xbox One, PS4 and Wii U combined. From simple games like Crossy Bird which was demoed to even more graphic intensive ones like the Asphalt racers we’re used to and other action packed games, there’s a lot on offer.
Even better is sports! MLB was demoed at the event but there was no BPL. At some point, it seem the Premiership could end up on Apple TV. With the dual view feature you can watch Stoke City play against Chelsea while Garry Monk’s Swansea continue to school LVG’s boys on the other half.
Local multiplayer is also making a comeback. What was seemingly being phased out by the current gen’s console makers’ obsession with “everybody has to be online and play against each other” mindset is being – in a weird way – being challenged here by Apple. Be honest, wouldn’t you love to play Split Screen Angry Birds Go with your friends?

3D Touch.

Image courtesy of Apple

I hear a lot of people saying that this will cause a lot of confusion. ‘How many milliseconds do I hold it down for before it does what?‘. No, it shouldn’t be a problem. As a matter of fact, it will be a big miss for Apple if its a problem. The Apple Watch 1.0 was the test bed. It will not be wise to say they’ve perfected it but it will definitely pan out to be a smooth experience that becomes intuitive the more the user interacts with the device.
So, keep calm and 3D Touch already!

iPad Pro, 
Don’t even go there. This one doesn’t concern you. Except your company is willing to shell out all that cash to get you a Pro and an accompanying Pencil, leave it.

iPhone Upgrade Program
Don’t bother. You need a valid US personal credit card. Unless you have that, just act like you didn’t hear that part of the announcement.

Screen grab from the Apple Website

In the end, 3D Touch seems to be the only new tech from Apple. Everything else had been done before by a lot of their competition but its just ‘way cooler’ now because well…its Apple. The new upgrade program too is a nice touch. I see a lot of other OEMs trying to imitate and probably not do it as well.

The camera icon from the lock screen doesn’t turn of the flashlight like it used to, and some other pesky stuff like an app just refusing to scroll like it used to. A noticeable one is the iPhone screen just freezing. All I see is a semitransparent look of my wallpaper. Say if the wallpaper was purple, I’d see a purple screen that I can’t get out of. The lock button on the top of the phone doesn’t help and neither does the home button. Once you press the lock button, the screen goes black and the home button seems not to function. You press the lock button again and you’re back to where you were and you can’t do much.

What I used to do was hold down the power button until a ‘slide to power off’ comes on, and then I restart. I’ve encountered this more than once – usually with Flight Mode on because I don’t have any mobile network.

Recently the same thing happened and luckily for me I was back in town and was connected to a WiFi network. Soon as I noticed the screen was hanging as usual, I tried the power button and the home button but it was the same issue. No help here; moving on…

Then I just decided to try out Siri and it worked. I told Siri to ‘open settings’ and it did. And that’s how I broke free. Siri’s ability to open apps helped me get out of Limbo. I didn’t have to reboot the phone to gain access to it anymore.

I wish Siri could do really offline stuff like open apps even when one is not connected to a data service. This can help in times like this.

Oh and when you tell Siri your phone is hanging, it just opens your dialer. Because you said ‘phone’.

So you’re in front of your laptop or with your tablet and you open four or five different tabs on your Chrome browser including YNaija, Bella Naija, Naij and maybe 360nobs. You’re switching back and forth between tabs and scrolling endlessly to get your latest gist. This might not seem tedious at first but after a lengthy period of scrolling and clicking and shuffling you might get exhausted.

How about you get all that info aggregated in one place? This is the awesomeness of the Amebo app.

1. It is FREE
What more can you ask for? An app that charges you zero to deliver all of your favorite content in one place is being doled out like jollof rice at an Owambe. All you have to do is find the corresponding app store and download it for free. There’s almost no excuse for not downloading this app if you like your Naija gist delivered to you daily on a platter.

2. Neat and hassle free
The designers at TexSoft who created this app have been able to design a clean and intuitive user interface for an otherwise rowdy, heavy traffic gist lane. It feels very rewarding just scrolling through to catch the headlines or tapping for the full info. The user experience is comparable to many other high profile apps out there.

3. Offline Mode
What if you’ll be away from network signals for a few days or a week or even more? No worries! The application saves all the data you have loaded from the last time you used the app so you can read anywhere. That includes in the jungle or even far out in the ocean.

4. Minimal Data Consumption
This app barely takes a toll on your data subscription for those who are wary about how many kilobytes they consume per second, per app, per day. Even those who don’t care will stay not caring because they will barely notice the data taking a hit.

The official site fo the app is at amebo.ng. The app is available on the Google Play Store, Blackberry Appworld, Nokia Ovi Store and the Windows Phone Store. iOS users will have to wait. I don’t think these guys own a Mac…yet.

Have you been using the app? Do you like it? Would you rather go back to browsing the websites instead? Leave your thoughts down below.

The prices for most of the items listed here were taken from an online store on February 27 at about 1000hrs. The prices may have changed at the time you are reading this article.

Links have been provided below for some of the products/services listed in the infographic.

I love taking photos. I also don’t believe these photos should just sit on my hard drive so I love sharing my photos. It could be on facebook, instagram or on a blog. It’s not everytime you take photos that you have access to a PC. Other times you love to share directly from your mobile device. What do all these have to do with drag and drop? Let me explain.

Imagine you want to add a folder of photos to your phone so you can share some of these photos whenever you feel like. But your phone doesn’t let you add these files until you launch a music player. This is my issue with the iPhone.

iPhone 5 Image courtesy of Apple.com

The only reason the iPhone wouldn’t be top of my list as my favorite phone is because I can’t simply drag photos onto it. I mean why is it so hard?! I just want to drag photos to my phone so I can share whenever. Other phones from other ecosystems (Android, Windows Phone, even Blackberry) let you seamlessly drag files across. This is the most basic of operations.

On iTunes, there is manual syncing for music; which means you can drag and drop audio files that may or may not be legally downloaded to your Apple device. So why is it so hard to drag photos that you have taken with your own hands in your own time to your own phone?

In the not so far future, Apple may tout this as a feature in one of their press conferences: “Introducing Drag and Drop!!!” – and make it a big deal. Until then, it just sucks that such an elegant device can be missing such a basic feature.

Google Maps Logo Image courtesy of thedroidguy.com

How do you create an app of one of your most important services for your rival, making the app good enough to leave all the competition in the dust and at the same time not good enough to veer them away from your platform completely? This is what Google has to do with its upcoming Maps app for iOS.

Ever since the launch of iOS6, besides the regular bugs here and there, the greatest talking point has been the lacklustre Maps application. It has been nicer to some people in more popular cities like Newyork and London but if you live in Nigeria and you relied heavily on Google Maps on iOS for knowing your way around, now you’re screwed.

Google now has the challenge of remedying Apple’s Maps debacle by releasing its own app for its customers. This app has to be better than the alternatives offered in the AppStore while at the same time not better than or even as good as Google Maps on Android.

Screenshots of the Maps App in iOS 6.0

Without a doubt, Google has the best Maps service in the world. If you’re not convinced, Google it. *straight face*. And in the past year the Android platform has seen a decent growth over iOS in the Smartphone market and Google looks to keep the momentum going. Slipping up by blessing Apple with the best Maps service on one of the best mobile Operating Systems is not an option.

Nokia Lumia 920 Image courtesy of phonearena.com

Microsoft unveiled Windows 8 last month and so far it has had relatively good reviews. I have always been a fan of the OS even though I haven’t had a chance to use it for a lengthy period. I am looking forward to owning one soon and in the meantime, I have come up with 3 reasons why you too should get a Windows Phone:

1. It is Different: Blackberries, iPhones and Android devices (even though they don’t function entirely alike) look the same from the OS perspective. There are icons on your screen that you tap to launch applications. Some apps have icon badges for notification (in iOS), others don’t. They are just familiar across the board.
Windows Phone on the other hand is different. It is innovative. You have tiles that update with notifications based on the application. It is a refreshing look and feel when compared to other platforms.
Now that Jony Ive is the Chief of User Interface over at Apple, we may be seeing something new in the future of iOS. Until then, Windows Phone nails this department.

2. Synergy: I am assuming majority of the people reading this article are in front of a Windows PC. If you are, there’s already a good enough reason for you to own a Windows Phone. When the operating system on you PC and your phone are made by the same people, (e.g iPhones and the Mac), you tend to feel at home and find comfort in knowing that you can synchronize data across the platforms with ease. From office documents to Outlook mail, you will notice seamless integration which makes taking work on the go a breeze. Not to mention the uniformity of the user interface with the release of Windows 8.

Windows Phone 8 UI Screenshots Image courtesy of techradar.com

3. It Will Make You Look Cool: Let’s face it, most of your friends own Blackberries or iPhones or some Android device. You crashing the party with a Nokia Lumia 920 or a HTC 8X will make people ask questions. Make them want to caress your phone (be careful though, before they swipe it). The Windows 8 devices are few and are beautifully designed. They are bound to turn heads and gather attention. Get one already you vain person, you!

There are many other reasons like ‘Kids Corner’. A feature that allows you create a guest account for your kids and grant them access only to apps that you want. But in the mean time, think on these three. Enjoy.