Pixelmator for iPhone and iPad today received another big update with several milestone features for the mobile image editor. Perhaps most importantly, Pixelmator for iOS now fully integrates with iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil. This includes highly responsive brushes taking advantage of the Apple Pencil’s low latency drawing as well as palm rejection support. The Apple Pencil brushes adapt to pressure and tilt of the Apple Pencil accessory.

For the iPhone app, Pixelmator has added 3D Touch support throughout the application …

Pixelmator has added 3D Touch pressure sensitive for brush painting, although how much painting you want to do on the small iPhone screen with your finger is questionable. Arguably more useful is the fact that Pixelmator has also added 3D Touch features to the application in general.

This means you can Peek and Pop into documents to preview photos from the Gallery screen. There are also home screen Quick Actions to quickly create a new image or import from the Photos library.

Naturally, these 3D Touch features require an iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus. However, alongside Apple Pencil and 3D Touch support, Pixelmator 2.2 includes several other enhancements that benefit all iOS users. There is now an auto-straighten feature to correctly orient the horizon line in one tap, larger font sizes up to 1000 pixels, and snapping cropping lines to precisely align your trimmed images. The update also adds a set of Basic brushes, including pixel-level brush for making 8-bit imagery. As expected, there are also a host of performance and bug fixes in tow.

Download Pixelmator for iPhone and iPad ($4.99) from the App Store. You can also download Pixelmator for Mac ($29.99) from the Mac App Store, with iCloud syncing of all your documents across the iOS and Mac app.

Filed under: Apps, iOS, iOS Devices Tagged: app, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Pixelmator

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Since the launch of Apple Pay, retail giant Walmart has refused to accept the mobile payment option, saying instead that it only matters that consumers have a payment option that is widely accepted. Today, however, Walmart has announced its own mobile payment solution called Walmart Pay.

Walmart Pay will exist inside Walmart’s existing mobile application, which the company says has more than 22 million active monthly users. Much like the recently announced Chase Pay service, Walmart Pay is based on QR codes, not the tap-and-pay NFC technology like Apple Pay.

To use Walmart Pay, you have to be in a Walmart checkout lane. Then, open up the Walmart app on your phone, choose the Walmart Pay option, scan then QR code displayed on the checkout terminal, and wait for the employee to finish scanning your items. It’s a cumbersome process compared the simplicity of Apple Pay.

”The Walmart app was built to make shopping faster and easier,” said Neil Ashe, president and CEO of Walmart Global eCommerce. “Walmart Pay is the latest example – and a powerful addition – of how we are transforming the shopping experience by seamlessly connecting online, mobile and stores for the 140 million customers who shop with us weekly.”

Walmart has long supported the MCX coalition of retailers, but the MCX app CurrentC has yet to become readily available, leading many companies to abandon the platform in favor of their own solutions or Apple Pay. Regarding its commitment to MCX, Walmart senior vice president of services Daniel Eckert said the company is still very much committed to the platform, but noted that CurrentC and Walmart Pay are really different solutions.

This late in the game it’s a weird move on Walmart’s part to launch its own Walmart Pay solution instead of accepting Apple Pay and Android Pay. For the longest time, Walmart has argued that its reasoning for not supporting Apple Pay and Android Pay is to create a more centralized solution to mobile payments, but instead of doing that, it created yet another service and another app for users to worry about using when checking out.

The full press release for Walmart Pay is below:

Filed under: Apple Pay Tagged: Apple pay, mobile payments, QR, Walmart, Walmart Pay

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Following his RFK award acceptance speech last night, Tim Cook this evening made a surprise appearance at Apple’s new Upper East Side retail store in New York. Apple is set to kick off its Hour of Code program in all of its retail stores tomorrow, but the Upper East Side store held its first session today.

Speaking to Mashable at the Apple Store, Tim Cook talked about education and how he believes the education system in America needs to be reinvented. For one, Cook believes that coding should be a required course in schools. ” I want to see coding be a required course like social studies, English, and mathematics in every public school curriculum,” Cook said. Asked whether or not Apple has voiced that opinion to public school system around the country, Cook said it had:

“Sure, I think there is lots of interest. Sometimes education doesn’t move as fast as any of us would like, but I think there are a lot of great teachers out there and a lot of great people out there who really want to improve the quality of education.”

Cook explained that the Hour of Code sessions produce engagement that you rarely ever see in classrooms. But Cook explained that the issue is keeping that engagement and inspiration alive when students leave the Apple Store and go home and go to school.

“Ultimately, the public school system and the parent has to provide,” Cook says. “What we’re trying to do is facilitate that… we selected 120 schools around the U.S. that are the most-needy schools. The bar that we drew was 97% of the students on free or reduced lunch [programs] and we’re working personally with them not just to bring in products, but bring in our people there, as well, to help teachers.”

Speaking to BuzzFeed News, Cook expressed his goal of wanting students, schools, and teachers alike to focus on learning, not on tests. Cook said that Chromebooks, which have recently been invading the education market in the Untied States, are nothing more than “test machines.”

Cook echoed this sentiment to Mashable, saying he’s not a fan of teaching to the test, but rather a fan of creativity, inspired learning, and learning how to express yourself.

“I’m not a fan of teaching to the test,” said Cook, “I think creativity is so important. Training the mind how to think is so important. Teaching to the test, to me, is too much about memorization. In a word where you’ve got all the information you’ve got right here,” Cook gestured to my iPhone, “your ability to memorize what year a war was won and all this kind of stuff isn’t very relevant. The classroom of the future is problem-solving and creating and learning how to express yourself.”

Last night, Cook again spoke on education while accepting the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights 2015 Ripple of Hope award. Cook explained of how many children are denied access to a quality education because of the zip code in which they live.

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Chromebooks, Education, Google, Tim Cook

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When Apple released the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus with 3D Touch, developers quickly started to realize that 3D Touch could be used for much more than what Apple had originally revealed. It was revealed that the 3D Touch display technology can be used to create a real digital scale app, allowing users to place items on the screen of their iPhone and discover how much they weighed.

The first attempt at releasing a digital scale app onto the App Store, however, failed thanks to Apple rejecting it due to it not being “appropriate” for the App Store. There are several reasons one can speculate as to why Apple feels a digital scale app is not appropriate, but now one developer has gotten around Apple’s ban on the scale apps.

Developer Asaf Avidan Antonir has announced a new app called Steady Square for iPhone. On the surface, Steady Scale is a neat Flappy Bird-like game, but instead of tapping to advance forward and navigate the interface, you change how hard you’re pressing on the screen using 3D Touch.

But that’s just the surface of the app. If you go into the “Training” mode in Steady Square, you can do exactly what Apple doesn’t want you to do with your 3D Touch-capable iPhone: weigh things. Unfortunately, it’s not as straightforward as you may think, but it does in fact work.

In an effort to get around Apple’s blocking of scale apps, Antonir has employed a 0-1,000 force number system as opposed to displaying actual grams. If you’re weighing very light things, you’ll need to place a spoon on the display first to see how much it weighs. After placing the spoon on the display, remember its force number. Now place whatever you actually want to weigh on the spoon.  You should see a number between 0 and 1,000 appear. Subtract the spoon’s force number from the force number displayed with your goods placed on the spoon, then divide that number by 1,000 to get the force ratio. Then, multiply it by 385, which is the maximum number of grams that can be recorded by 3D Touch.

It’s not an entirely straightforward process and easier solutions do exist, but not on the App Store. For instance, there’s this Java script-based solution that simply tells you the weight in grams. No math required.

Nevertheless, Steady Square is available now on the App Store for free. You can view a video demonstrating the app here. It remains to be seen how long Apple allows the app to remain on the App Store, so if you’re interested, download it sooner rather than later.

Filed under: iOS Tagged: 3D Touch, app, App Store, Apple, iOS, steady square

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It’s no secret that I love the designs of Apple products. The anodized aluminum look and feel are perhaps my favorite things about my iPhone, iPad Pro, and MacBook, especially when so many other companies on the market tend to lean towards lower-end materials that just don’t look as sleek. For this reason I’ve never been a huge fan of putting cases on my devices, often sacrificing the long-term condition of them in favor of using the design that Apple intended everyone to use when it designed the products.

With my latest trio of Apple products, however, I’ve decided to take a new approach in protecting them. I’ve been keeping my iPhone 6s Plus, 12-inch MacBook, and iPad Pro in handmade leather sleeves from Joli. Based in Holland, Joli Originals is an independent company that imports leather from Italy and performs the entire production process from start to finish. Sleeves for each device are available in a trio of waxed leather colors with the wool on the inside available in additional colors, as well. How good of a job do they do at protecting your devices? Read on…

Using sleeves as opposed to cases offers a different form of protection. Cases are designed to protect your devices at all times, while sleeves are largely used to protect your devices when they are not in use. With this in mind, I’ve been placing my MacBook, iPad Pro, and iPhone 6s Plus in Joli’s leather sleeves whenever I’m not using them and especially when I’m transporting them from home to school, home to coffee shops, and more.

The high-quality feel of the Joli sleeves starts before you even get to the sleeves themselves. The sleeves came wrapped like a holiday present almost and each one was accompanied by a handwritten note saying, “handmade for Chance.” The level of personalization throughout the process is an incredibly nice touch.

The design of the Joli sleeves are truly beautiful. I got the same grey color leather with red wool lining on the inside for all three devices and the colors go together nearly perfectly. You can see the stitching lines on the leather around the sides and bottom edges of the front and back of the sleeves, while the each side is lined with red trim. The sleeves are free from branding aside from a from subtle cursive Joli embezzlement in the lower right corner of the iPad Pro and MacBook sleeves and upper-center on the iPhone 6s Plus sleeve. You can really tell that a lot of effort went into the designing and production of each sleeve.

In terms of durability, all three sleeves have held up well so far. The iPad Pro sleeve, which I’ve likely used and abused the most, has a few marks on it here and there, but they’re nothing that at all detract from the overall appearance of the sleeve.

Joli’s sleeves are designed to fit tight at the beginning and slightly loosen up as time progresses. Joli says that it does this to prevent the sleeves from becoming so loose that your device falls out after you’ve used it for a while. At first, it’s definitely a tight squeeze to fit the devices into their sleeves, but over time they’ve gradually loosened and it has become easy to remove and insert the devices.

The iPad Pro Sleeve

It goes without saying that the iPad Pro is a massive device. With its 12.9-inch display, it’s big enough on its own that putting any sort of case on it for extended periods of time makes it almost too big to use. This is the primary reason that I wanted to use Joli’s leather sleeve. I’ve tried putting my iPad Pro in Logitech’s CREATE case and Apple’s own Smart Case, both of which seriously detract from the design and portability of the device. Joli’s sleeve, however, is a different story.

Joli makes three versions of its leather sleeve for iPad Pro. One for the naked iPad Pro, one for the iPad Pro paired with a Smart Cover, and one for the iPad Pro paired with a Smart Keyboard. Making one that is compatible with the Smart Keyboard is a really smart move on the company’s part as to not force users to choose between the sleeve and the added productivity that the keyboard provides.

Using the Joli leather sleeve with my iPad Pro allows me to preserve the slim and sleek design of the iPad Pro, while also keeping it protected during travel and transport. Obviously the sleeve doesn’t do much good when you’re actually using the device, but that’s the point. When I’m using the iPad Pro, I want the slimmest and most lightweight feel possible, which is naked and case-less.

The MacBook Sleeve

Yesterday I wrote about how the 12-inch MacBook is the device that really gives me hope for Apple’s future during a time when many have been skeptical of the company’s design choices. With that in mind, it’d be a crime to cover up the beautiful and ultra-thin build of the device with an unattractive third-party case. For this reason, I’ve really enjoyed using the Joli leather sleeve to protect my MacBook taking it too and from classes. I simply slide the MacBook into the sleeve and put it into my backpack, and vice versa when it’s time to use the device.

The MacBook fits into the sleeve like a glove. The gray and red color combination of the sleeve really goes perfectly with the space gray color of the MacBook, as well. The gray of the sleeve is slightly darker than the space gray MacBook and it’s a nice contrasting setup.

The iPhone Sleeve

On my iPhone, I generally use the official Apple leather case because it provides enough protection while not comprising too much of the iPhone 6s Plus design. When I’m going to be in adverse conditions, I throw on the LifeProof Fre case. With the Joli sleeve, however, you have to use the iPhone naked and without a case.

In my usage, the iPhone 6s sleeve seems to be the least practical out of the three Joli sleeves I received. I simply take my iPhone in and out my pocket and backpack too many times for it to be realistic to slide it in and out a sleeve each time. However, when traveling or going extended periods of time without using my iPhone, the Joli sleeve provides a great way to protect all aspects of the device. In day-to-day use, though, it’s not practical.

I will say, however, that the Italian leather that Joli uses for its sleeves is a much higher quality than the “leather” Apple uses for its official cases. Joli’s sleeves make Apple’s cases feel like $5 toy products.

Wrap Up

Overall, I’m incredibly pleased with the Joli Original leather sleeves for iPad Pro and MacBook. The Joli sleeves offer a beautiful way to protect your beloved Apple products without having to compromise the design during actual use. It’s a shame that so many people cover their Apple devices with hideous aftermarket cases and Joli sleeves really do prevent you from ever having to do that.

The iPhone sleeve is less practical in day-to-day use, but for travel and transport, it’s still a great way to ensure your iPhone remains just as pristine as the day you got it.

Joli’s iPhone, iPad Pro, and MacBook sleeves can be found on its website. The iPhone 6s Plus sleeve costs €57.85 ($73.75 USD), the iPad Pro sleeve runs €90.08 ($99.24 USD), and the MacBook sleeve will cost you €81.82 ($90.14 USD). If you’re looking to gift a Joli sleeve this holiday season, you have until December 18th to place an order from Europe, Canada, and the United States and until December 14th from Australia, New Zealand, and Asia.

While I reviewed Joli’s “Smooth collection,” the company offers a “Textured collection” and “Limited collection,” as well.

Filed under: iOS Devices, Mac, Reviews Tagged: iPad Pro, iphone 6s plus, Joli, Leather, MacBook, review

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There’s been no shortage of controversy surrounding the new iPhone 6/s battery case released yesterday. Most complaints were around the capacity which is at the low end, the shape, or its actual existence which would seem to indicate that Apple made the iPhone 6 with too small a battery.

Tim Cook, in discussing with Mashable the new accessory, had an alternate take on its use:

“if you’re charging your phone every day, you probably don’t need this at all. But if you’re out hiking and you go on overnight trips… it’s kind of nice to have.”

Cook expanded on some of the nuances of the battery pack design:

“As you probably know from being a user of this now,” said Cook as he grabbed my iPhone 6, which was sporting the new case, “one of the real insights here is, have you ever used other cases and tried to get them on?” If you make this solid all the way across,” said Cook, indicating the spots where the Apple case’s embedded battery stops and you just have the soft fluoroelastomer casing, “in order to get it on, you’d find it very difficult to get it on and off. So the guys had this great insight to put the bend in along with making it a smart case,” Cook explained.

Oh and about that “hump”...

“You know, I probably wouldn’t call it ‘the hump,’” said Cook, who added he was aware of the comments surrounding the Smart Battery Case.

Perhaps the best way to describe the new product was given by Apple’s VP of software engineering Cheryl Thomas who distilled it down to a catch phrase:  “When you need it, you need it.”

image via bbsody

Filed under: iOS Devices

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To say Apple’s launch of its first wearable has been out-of-character for the usually steady company would be an understatement. From a convoluted rollout to messy software updates, it was a bumpy first few months for Apple Watch. Now we’re coming up on the 3rd quarter of its availability and although inventory levels have settled and most early bugs have been squashed, Best Buy has just hit it with a massive $100 price drop across the board.

That’s the first full $100 price drop we’ve seen though both Target and B&H offer $100 in combined discounts and gift cards. For the smaller 38mm Sport model, that’s a discount of nearly 30%. In years’ past Apple products were almost never discounted at all, let alone a relatively new, hotly-anticipated gadget like Apple Watch. One outlier is the original iPhone that received a swift $200 price cut.

Apple most certainly has a say as to whether or not a major retailer like Best Buy can discount Apple Watch. So what gives? Is this Apple acknowledging that it overpriced Apple Watch for the market? Is Apple feeling the heat from low-cost alternatives, especially since Android Wear is now compatible with iOS? Or maybe demand has been sagging and this is Apple’s way of trying to jumpstart sales? Perhaps Apple would like to clear out inventory now that a new model is expected in March.

There’s no way to know for sure, but it’s certainly an interesting turn of events. There’s no doubt Apple has loosened its typically tight grip on pricing, but if relatively slow growth is any indication, there may be more to it than that for Apple Watch.

Big discounts haven’t been limited to just Apple Watch this holiday season either. Over at 9to5Toys we’ve seen the brand new Apple TV with Siri go 25% off, iPad Air 2 regularly available for $100+ below retail, and even iPhone 6s has received several substantial promotions. It’s possible that this pricing strategy is part of Apple’s plan to outsource discounting to authorized resellers. No matter the reason for more frequent Apple product discounts, it’s a win for consumers and a welcome relief for holiday shoppers

Filed under: Apple Watch Tagged: 9to5Toys, apple deals, Apple watch, Apple Watch deals, Best Buy, Black Friday, Holiday Shopping

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There’s a lot happening around the new Apple TV in the news this week. Just yesterday Apple released the first feature update to the tvOS software with version 9.1, adding Siri support for Apple Music plus Apple’s Remote app now works for both navigating and text input. But recent reports claim Apple’s rumored web TV package has been stalled during the deal-making process between Apple and the content providers. And while the expected content bundle seems further off than what was previously expected, new content including Pandora Radio is continuing to launch on the new Apple TV…

Following yesterday’s tvOS 9.1 release, Apple issued a small update to its Remote app for iPhone and iPad that highlights the newly added support for the 4th-gen Apple TV. The update does not yet optimize resolution for the new iPad Pro and multitasking isn’t supported, but it may resolve lingering bugs that were experienced yesterday.

Apple’s Eddy Cue shared earlier today that the company is developing a new version of the Remote app that includes features from the new Apple TV’s Siri Remote, which will be due out in the first half of next year.

Be sure to update your iPhone or iPad to iOS 9.2 and Apple TV to tvOS 9.1 to ensure compatibility, and update your Apple Watch to watchOS 2.1 to ensure its included Remote app works with the new Apple TV. If you don’t yet have the Remote app for iPhone or iPad, you can grab the latest version for free from the App Store.

Also new to the Apple TV 4 is Pandora Radio (pictured above). Yesterday the iOS app updated on iPhones and iPads and highlighted bug fixes relating to music discovery as the changes, and the new version also included a dedicated Apple TV app for the new tvOS platform, bringing the Internet radio service to the big screen.

Pandora Radio for Apple TV can be found through search on the Apple TV App Store, or through the Purchased section if you’ve previously downloaded it on iPhone or iPad. Pandora Radio also recently updated to include CarPlay support (followed by Deezer) and already featured an Apple Watch app, so the service is available on several of Apple’s platforms now.

Finally, word began to spread that Apple TV’s expected streaming content package wasn’t making much progress toward getting off the ground and into living rooms. CBS CEO Les Moonves started the message by openly chatting about Apple’s stalled plans for such a service to include CBS content for about $35/month.

While it was possible Moonves was pushed out of the loop in recent negotiations due to his habit of openly referencing the unannounced service, a second report surfaced yesterday claiming the whole plan to launch a streaming package on Apple TV has been suspended.

Today Recode adds that it was a push for a so called “skinny” bundle for $30 that turned off industry leaders and resulted in Apple walking away from negotiations for now. The idea seems that networks can sell their own streaming content at higher monthly rates like the CBS All-Access price at $6/month, and bundling a dozen or so channels for about $30/month would devalue the appeal individual of each network’s individual plans. The report adds that deciding which dozen channels get included is also not appealing to the networks as Apple’s offering would be much more limited to traditional cable packages.

That’s disappointing for Apple TV owners hoping to add a single comprehensive streaming package that replaces cable subscriptions. The current state of even new Apple TV apps is that most require authenticating with traditional cable subscriptions to fully access content, and individual service subscriptions to Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Showtime, and CBS can approach cable costs while losing access to live content. Hopefully 2016 will include more standalone content packages for cable cutters, services like Sling TV come to Apple TV, and Apple continues to negotiate a deal for its own service.

Filed under: Apple TV, Apps Tagged: Apple TV, Pandora Radio, tvOS

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In my last gift guide, I did a themed roundup of the best HomeKit gear to deck out your home this holiday season. This post is about my personal favorite items and accessories across all of iOS and Mac ecosystems, most of these products I use every day for work and for fun. My picks include the Gorillapod tripod, the Philips Hue HomeKit lights, Rock Jaw earbuds, MH30 earphones, MarsBox Bluetooth speaker, the latest Apple TV, an MFI game controller, some Elgato smart home gear and an iPad Pro. I love technology but I consciously refrain from buying too much stuff and have a relatively slim personal gadget portfolio, so these products are carefully chosen.

Read on after the break to see why I selected these ten items specifically …

I have varied my picks but ultimately they revolve around my interests and things that enhance iPhone and iOS features. This incorporates several audio picks, some smart home accessories and more. The first product helps you take dramatically better photos. The iPhone camera is great, but coupled with a flexible stand, you can open a whole new world of possible shots and vantage points.

JOBY GripTight GorillaPod Stand

Do you ever find yourself using your iPhone to record a scene and need an extra pair of hands? This is where the Gorillapod comes in ($28.37). It’s a malleable tripod that can be configured to stand on tables, desks, windows and much more. Each of the three arms is independently articulated which makes it significantly more flexible and adaptable than most. The iPhone 6s camera is great in good lighting but still struggles in dusk or otherwise-dark scenes. A Gorillapod improves the quality of night photos substantially: the stabilization allows the phone to take longer ISO exposure shots without blurriness due to the lessened camera shake.

Philips Hue White And Color Ambience Lights

HomeKit lights are slowly becoming more common, but remain somewhat pricey. Their novelty means they make great gifts. The leading choice for iOS smart home lights is the Philips Hue range. Philips’ ecosystem gives you a bunch of bulb options: standard lumen white, multicoloured lights, strip lights, mood lights and more. Setup of the lights is reasonable simple — it’s mostly plug and play. Setting up all your HomeKit room modes is more annoying but once setup is over, you get a lot of fun stuff to play about with. Using services like IFTTT, you can have your lights respond to incoming notifications or automatically dim as the day turns to night. The best party trick? Siri. Asking your phone to turn the lights blue and instantly watching the walls wash with cyan tones is an experience that never gets old. You can pick up a Philips Hue bridge with 3 lights for $199.

Rock Jaw Alfa Genus V2 Headphones

I’ve become more invested in music gear across 2015 which has affected what devices I use to enjoy music. The Rock Jaw Alfa Genus Headphones ($49.90) are my new daily drivers. I picked this up earlier in the year and love them to pieces. It’s as simple as this: they are great sounding earbuds. Earbuds are great because they are small and lightweight — you can chuck them in a bag or pocket and get on with your day. The Rock Jaw’s are understated, modern and inexpensive. The gimmick is that these come with three interchangeable tuning filters. You can swap them out for more bass, more treble or neutral sound profile. They also come with four ear cup sizes and a leather carrying pouch. That being said, I found that I ended up choosing one filter and sticking to it. You don’t need to mess about and select the tuning filters that harmonize with what you are listening to. They sound great without any of that fussiness. Read my full review of the Rock Jaw Alfa Genus earbuds from earlier in the year for more information.

Master & Dynamic MH30 Headphones

The Rock Jaws are perfect for people looking for replacement EarPods with better sound reproduction. For music enthusiasts, you will always get better sound with full size cans. My pick here is the Master and Dynamic MH30 headphones ($329). I think its hard to describe headphone sound in writing but rest assured these are fantastic with subtle mids, heavy bass where appropriate and strong treble. The music experience is engrossing, you feel like you have left the world when you put these on as they have some natural noise cancelling. They go very loud without distorting. Let’s be honest — headphones are as much about aesthetics as audio quality nowadays and this pair does not disappoint in that area. They are beautiful in the Gunmetal black finish, featuring aluminium housing and a leather band. Even the packaging box for these headphones feels incredibly premium. They are very premium and justify their $329 price point if you are looking for quality full-sized headphones.

Inateck Marsbox Bluetooth Speaker

Closing out my gift picks for music/audio is the obligatory Bluetooth speaker recommendation. Whilst at home I rely on AirPort Express AirPlay connections for stationary speakers, it’s also handy to have a portable speaker that can move around and travel. 9to5Mac’s roundup from earlier in the year chose the UE Mini, so check that out for a second opinion. My personal favorite is the Inateck Marsbox ($42.99). It’s housed in plasticky rubber and is very resilient to bangs and knocks. Sound is good with strong bass. Appearance-wise, it employs a funky slanted design that could appeal to children, teenagers and adults. It’s well suited for the family room enabling a shared communal music experience. Battery life is solid — it will last two days on a single charge.

Apple TV

The new fourth generation Apple TV has flaws, but I love it enough to warrant inclusion on my best picks list. Especially if you never owned an Apple TV before, the fourth generation box is a great device with access to iTunes movies and TV shows via Siri, Netflix, HBO Now and many other services. As I live in the UK, I use Apple TV in conjunction with a Now TV Entertainment Pass subscription to supplant my cable box: I get 13 premium live channels as well as catchup video on demand. The new Apple TV Siri Remote touchpad is a cool new way to browse content and media — tapping an arrow key five times to move across the screen feels archaic after using the touchpad. I also enjoy using the Apple TV for some casual games — check out my best apps and games roundup from earlier in the year. This leads nicely into my next production recommendation …

SteelSeries Stratus MFI Game Controller

MFI Game controllers have universal appeal for anyone with an iOS device or Apple TV. The SteelSeries Stratus ($69.99) is my pick as the best of the bunch. MFI controllers let you play a selection of great iOS games with a real physical gamepad emulating traditional games consoles. You get tactile feedback because you are using real clickable buttons and your fingers no longer obscure the screen content, so you can become more immersed in the game. On Apple TV, pairing a game controller will actually change up game mechanics to add more depth to titles. For example, with the Siri Remote, Rayman Legends is an autoscrolling jump game. With an MFI controller like the Stratus, the game transforms into a fully-fledged platformer. Cool stuff.

Elgato Eve Room

The Elgato Eve Room is both boring and cool. It’s a cool gift idea ($78) for four reasons: it’s inexpensive, you are unlikely to already own it, it has genuine utility and who can ignore the novelty of an iPhone-controlled thermometer. The Eve Room uses a variety of sensors to measure temperature, humidity and air quality data every ten minutes. You can check these readings using the iPhone app. This has replaced my living room sensor because it is very practical and it is hard to find standard sensors that include air quality readings, let alone ones that work with iOS. The Eve Room also fully integrates with HomeKit so you can ask Siri what the temperature is at home and she’ll diligently read it back to you.

Elgato Avea Flare

You could argue the Eve Room is a boring gift. I think it’s cool, even as a stocking stuffer, but Elgato sells another product that is more ‘fun’. It’s an iPhone-controlled moodlight called the Avea Flare ($94.09). Sadly, it isn’t compatible with HomeKit — instead using Bluetooth combined with the Avea’s proprietary iPhone and Apple Watch apps as controllers. You can choose from ten solid colors and a handful of preset moods: like the starry blues of the Northern Lights or the red/yellow tones of a hot fire. ‘Candyland’ mode is perfect for parties — it rotates between every color in the rainbow in quick succession. Buy two Flares and they will both change color in unison. Christmas is a great excuse to pick up fun home accessories like this one.

iPad Pro

And finally, I have to mention the iPad Pro (from $799). This has some uses for work but for me, I bought it primarily as an entertainment device. A multitouch 12.9″ screen is as fun as it sounds for gaming, browsing the web and watching videos. The screen is crisper and more beautiful than any other Apple display I own (including the one on my 15″ Retina MacBook Pro) — I can’t put it in words, it just is nicer. Doing some sketching with Apple Pencil unlocks a whole new avenue of potential too, even though I’m not a great artist. If you know someone who has an iPad Pro, pick up a Pencil for Christmas and it will make their day. Even standalone, the iPad Pro is the best toy ever which makes it my top, albeit expensive, 2015 gift. We’ve spoken about the iPad Pro at length on the Happy Hour podcast and in 9to5 reviews, so check our previous coverage if you want more details.

2015 has been a pretty good year for tech, with some cool hardware announcements from Apple as well as new stuff from the accessory ecosystem. Check out our other gift guides for more picks in iPhone, iPad, Mac, photography, entertainment, audio, hot tech, stocking stuffers, and HomeKit. Happy Holidays!

Filed under: Buying Guides Tagged: Apple TV, aves flare, Elgato, Gift, gift guide, holiday, homekit, inateck marsbox, iPad Pro, mh30 headphones, Philips hue, presents, rock jaw headphones

For more news on Apple TV, iPad Pro, and homekit continue reading at 9to5Mac.

What do you think? Discuss “9to5Mac Holiday Gift Guide: Benjamin’s favorite iPhone and iPad accessories and gift picks” with our community.

This week we’ll get into the finale of our iPad Pro saga, talk about Dropbox’s decision to kill Mailbox, and why Apple has open-sourced Swift. The Happy Hour podcast is available for download on iTunes and through our dedicated RSS feed. Thanks to Audible.com, get your free 30 day trial at http://ift.tt/1RU1qVJ.

New episodes of Happy Hour are available every Wednesday. As mentioned, you can download this podcast via iTunes or plug in our RSS feed link into your favorite podcasting app. Send an email to listenermail@9to5mac.com (or click here) and your question/comment may be featured in an upcoming episode of Happy Hour.

Note: iTunes (web interface and app) may still be propagating the new episode which could take up to 24 hours. Subscribing to the podcast feed will guarantee the latest episode is downloaded.

Hosts:

• Zac Hall
• Benjamin Mayo

Here’s what we discussed in this episode:

• Dropbox shutting down popular Mailbox email client and Carousel photo app
• Facebook removes Slingshot, Rooms, and Riff apps from App Store, closes Creative Labs
• Apple’s Swift programming language is now open source
• Apple retracts comment that it was first major open source company after criticism
• Supply chain report suggests new ‘dramatically faster’ Apple TV 5 will go into production in early 2016
• Latest iPhone 6c rumor repeats metal casing claims, claims launching in Jan, on sale in Feb

If you missed our 43rd episode last week, you can subscribe and find every episode or start off from the previous episode here. This episode was recorded on Monday, so expect our conversation about all the news from Tuesday (Apple Watch 2 event/iPhone 6s Smart Battery Case/Apple TV Remote fix!) next week.

Remember: Subscribe on iTunes to catch all of the episodes as they go live and send in your questions/comments to listenermail@9to5mac.com.

Filed under: Happy Hour Tagged: Apple, Happy Hour, iPad Pro, Mailbox, Open source, Podcast, Swift

For more news on Apple, iPad Pro, and Podcast continue reading at 9to5Mac.

What do you think? Discuss “Happy Hour Podcast 044 | Mailbox’s demise + why open source Swift matters” with our community.