If you’re like me, you love the great outdoors, and even if you’re planning to camp and hike in really out of the way places, your iPhone can be a great travelling companion provided you are well-prepared. I’m not just talking about the joy of keeping in touch by text and phone call (if you really want to) or taking holiday snaps and posting your photos of the flora and fauna on social media (if that’s what you enjoy doing), having an iPhone to hand can literally be a life-saver. Continue reading →

This is the second part of a blog that will look at ways to make the photos you take with your iPhone better, whether you are taking snaps of your holidays or recording a special occasion with family and friends. Your iPhone camera is a marvel of technology, and it’s easy to take it for granted, but with a little thought and some practice, you will be able to achieve photos to be proud of. Continue reading →

We all love taking photos of memorable events and holidays, but the resulting photos can sometimes be disappointing if not downright awful. The problem is partly due to not understanding the basic rules of photography, partly that the cameras in our iPhone are just so handy, we snap away at anything and everything without giving a thought to lighting and composition, and the rest is that we just don’t understand how to use our iPhone cameras properly. In this blog, I would like to talk about some of the ways you can take photos that really capture the moment and act as lasting reminders of the times we really want to remember. These are only the basics, there are more to come in Part 2. Continue reading →

Your iPad is a great device for watching films, especially if you have one with the Retina display which makes everything look clear and vibrant. The good news is that there are films that are both free and legal to download, so watching films on your iPad doesn’t leave you either out of pocket or liable for prosecution for downloading content illegally. Naturally, there are services that charge either a monthly fee or for each download such as Blinkbox and Netflix, and there is no reason why you shouldn’t subscribe to them if you wish to, but there are also services out there that you can use to stream films to your iPad at no charge, so let’s take a look at some of your options. Continue reading →

When iOS 8 was launched, along with it came developments in the capability of your iPhone to track your exact location and also to send that information to other devices. This is a great feature when used in conjunction with apps such as Find My iPhone which can help you to locate a lost or stolen iOS device, and to protect the data that it contains, but you need to be careful how you share your location information, as you may be telling people more about your actions than you really intended to. Thankfully, iOS 8 has built-in options to allow iPhone users to control what information they share, when they share it and who they share it with. Here is an overview of some aspects of location sharing: Continue reading →

In an ideal world, everyone would be able to own the latest and fastest model of Apple iPhone, but in reality, many of us still use older model iPhones with iOS 6 or iOS 7 as well as iOS 8. Does your iPhone 3gs seem to be running more slowly than it used to? Maybe the apps on your iPhone 4s or iPhone 4 seem to take ages to load up. Perhaps you have purchased an iPhone 5c or iPhone 5s as a budget alternative to an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus and you would like it to be a bit more speedy to operate. Slow performance can be attributed to a whole range of causes, some of which are fairly easy to fix, so let’s look at some of the simple steps you can take to speed up your trusty iPhone and get it running to the best of its’ capabilities. Continue reading →

How annoying – you come to use your Apple Mac, and you find that the keyboard isn’t responding, so how do you repair a malfunctioning or broken Mac keyboard? The good news is that these keyboards are pretty resilient, and if the keyboard isn’t responding, the problem is more likely to be with the OS X settings, the keyboard power or the keyboard’s connection to the Mac than an actual broken keyboard. If the entire keyboard isn’t working, start at 1. below. If it’s only the number keys that aren’t working, go to 6. below. Continue reading →

Any good company encourages its customers to feed back to it on products and services, and a complaint is just as valuable as a compliment when it comes to making improvements. This is why when you have encountered a problem such as a Safari crash or a hardware or software fault, and you are asked to send in an error report, you should do so. Apple have deliberately made it easy for users to feed back on problems, and it is in both their and your interests to use their Product Feedback site, after all, you want their products and services to be the best they can be, just like they do.

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Remember when your iPhone, iPad, iPod or Apple Mac first came out of the box? It was pristine and clean, with a screen that sparkled. Look at it now after a few months of use – does it still sparkle? Chances are that it doesn’t for the simple reason that these devices have screens that are made to be touched with our fingers, and the natural oils from our skin inevitably leave smears and marks in the most frequently touched areas (the problem is magnified if you use hand cream). The finger-marks, combined with the dust and debris that accumulates with everyday use, can quickly leave your Apple device looking grubby and uncared-for. Continue reading →

It’s so annoying – you notice your Apple MacBook battery is low, so you put it on charge. You check on it later and it hasn’t charged, or it appears to have charged but the battery goes flat straight away when you use it – what do you do? A laptop that you can’t unplug from the mains and use in a remote location is no use at all; you may as well have a desktop machine, so you need to sort out the problem and quickly. Continue reading →

Having always owned standard Windows computers, when I got my new iPad Air 2, I was thrilled with the speed with which it operated (even though I live in a rural, slow internet zone) and with the utter brilliance of the Retina display. What I couldn’t get used to was how tricky it seemed to be to find files, especially when I was used to having an ‘explore’ function and a folder structure that I could see on the screen. I would create and rename a spreadsheet for example, and it would seem to disappear. Continue reading →

Introducing one of the newest recruits to the iTechnician team – Bertram Wilberforce Woofster. Known to his many friends as Bertie, he is a 13 year old black and tan terrier cross dog, living in North Wales with Sue, an iTechnician member. Bertie has sustained several severe leg injuries in the last couple of years, and has been undergoing physiotherapy treatment at the ChesterGates Referral Hospital in Chester under the expert care of Veterinary Physiotherapist Suzanne Cottriall.

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If you’re having problems charging your Apple device, and looking at Apple user message boards and forums, lots of people are, don’t just put your iPhone or iPad in for a battery replacement. The problem may very well lie with your Lightning port or your Lightning Charger cable and connector. Continue reading →

This is the time of year when we start to think seriously about getting ready for our holidays, especially when we plan to have a holiday abroad. One of the things owners of multiple Apple devices need to think carefully about is which device to take away with you, what preparations are needed before you go, and how you can safeguard it while you’re away. After all, in these connected times you may have a MacBook, an iPad, an iPod and an iPhone – you don’t really want to fill your luggage with all of these devices, and it’s not wise to take them all to a foreign destination in case the worst happens and they get damaged or stolen. Continue reading →

Whichever model of iPod you own; iPod Touch, iPod Nano or iPod Classic, there are a number of common problems that you may encounter. These problems include that your iPod won’t turn on, or your iPod won’t turn off. Thankfully these types of problems are usually solvable by a few simple actions, provided they are not hardware related. Continue reading →

It is so annoying – you’re part way through something on your iPad and it suddenly becomes unresponsive, leaving you unable to continue. With some iPads, freezing is a one-off, and with others it can be a regular occurrence, and it’s often caused when there are several apps open, and they have somehow come into conflict with each other, or an app has not closed properly, leaving corrupted memory behind. Continue reading →

The Home Button on your iPad, iPhone or iPod is crucial to enable you to navigate around your Apple device, and to access certain features. Because it is used so often, sad to say, oil and grease (or other less salubrious substances) from your fingers can cause the button to become sticky. The location of the Home Button at the outside edge of the device also leaves it open to contamination from dust and dirt while charging, and while in day to day use by people who have less than perfectly clean work environments (such as outdoor workers, builders, roofers etc). Continue reading →

With data security a constant worry, you don’t want to make it easy for anyone to steal your private and valuable information. As an Apple user you will know that your iDevice is not damaged by viruses like ordinary computers or smartphones, so theft of the device is the biggest threat to your security, and setting up a passcode for your iPhone is a simple but effective way of keeping your data private. There is more than one way to set up a passcode, so let’s look at what you need to do. Continue reading →

Your iPhone, iPad or iPod has a built-in general passcode feature, which gives vital protection to your data should a third party get their hands on your device and decide to either read your information or sell it on to someone else. We all know that we should set a strong passcode (not 1234, 9999 or 0000), memorise it and never write it down. Trouble is, we’re only human, so what happens if you suddenly realise that you can’t remember the code? Don’t despair; there is a method of bypassing that passcode if you’re feeling brave. Continue reading →

Six months ago, Tim Cook the Chief Executive of Apple announced ‘one more thing’ at the end of an iPhone launch event, and that was the first official announcement of Apple Watch. There were rumours for a long time that Apple’s first wearable was going to be called the iWatch, but you take nothing for granted with Apple, and that rumour has now been dispelled. Continue reading →

If you were listening to BBC Radio Nottingham today at 2:15 pm, you would have heard a very interesting interview by radio presenter Verity Cowley in support of Women’s Week. She has been carrying out a series of interviews of women who had changed their careers and the motivation behind those changes, and this interview was of iTechnician Charlotte Rodgers, who runs an Apple iPhone repair business “Swell” in Southwell, Nottinghamshire. Continue reading →

If you’re unlucky enough to drop your iPhone, or clumsy enough to run over it with your bike (don’t laugh, my brother did that very thing only last week), your display glass is the most likely part of the iPhone to sustain damage.

If the glass screen has cracked or broken, it’s important to do some damage limitation, so as soon as you can, put some clear sticky tape in overlapping strips right across the glass until the whole display is covered. This will stop bits of glass from dropping inside the iPhone or cutting your hands. It will also reinforce the glass and keep it fairly rigid which is crucial as you will need to prise it off to replace it. Continue reading →

iTechnician is delighted to have been instrumental in helping an ex-Military man to grow his technology repairs business after he underwent life-changing experiences in the Army.

Adam Smith was always interested in technology, and gained useful experience in a local electronics repair shop. Aged 19, he decided to make a change, and enrolled in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and was soon in the thick of things, going to Cyprus in 2007 for 2 years on his initial military tour. Following this tour, he was transferred to Afghanistan where he saw service in Helmand Province. In 2011, and having completed 3 tours of duty he was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and given a discharge from the Army. Continue reading →

Apple Macs are great machines, but the OS X operating system sometimes refuses to allow the machine to shut down, and this can be really frustrating. In an ideal world, you go to the menu option Apple -> Shut Down, and click on Shut Down. All the apps close off, and your Mac closes itself down. Well, that’s how it’s supposed to go, but in reality, problems can occur in Mac OS X that prevent a clean shut down, so here’s how to handle the situation. Continue reading →

The iPhone 6 Plus and the iPad mini are so close in size, many users are starting to wonder if size really matters so much, and whether it’s worth toting 2 gadgets around when one can do the trick. Continue reading →