Ben Lovejoy, writing for 9To5Mac:

It’s not unusual for celebrities paid to promote Android brands to be caught using an iPhone. In many cases, they have been caught out on Twitter – like Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot.

But Samsung appears to take the matter more seriously than most: they are suing their own Russian brand ambassador for using an iPhone X for a massive $1.6M …

Reality TV show host and politician Ksenia Sobchak is the face of Samsung in Russia, and is required by contract to use a Samsung smartphone. But the Mirror reports that she was seen on a television interview using an iPhone X.

I don’t blame them. Who would, given the option, use a Samsung phone 😜.

However, you’d probably either make a better effort to hide it, or just not become a Brand Ambassador.

I just received some good news in an email from Apple. They’re finally reopening their Covent Garden store on the 26th October.

Come and see our brand-new space. Explore a wide range of inspiring Today at Apple sessions taking place every day. And learn new skills in everything from photography to design, music and more.

Join us to see just how far your creativity can take you.

They’ve got some interesting events already lined up:

• Photo Walk: Capturing Covent Garden
• Performance: Joncan Kavlakoglu
• Kids Hour: Draw Along with the Moomins
• Business Exclusive: Perfect Your Creative Pitch with Hubbub

Maybe I’ll have to start looking at going to some of them. I haven’t been to any events at an Apple store yet.

Apple – Covent Garden Creative Series

From an EU Press Release:

Single-use plastic items such as plates, cutlery, straws, balloon sticks or cotton buds, will be banned in the EU under plans adopted on Wednesday.

These products, which make up over 70% of marine litter, will be banned from the EU market from 2021, under draft plans approved by Parliament.

MEPs added to this list of plastics banned from the EU market from 2021: products made of oxo-degradable plastics, such as bags or packaging and fast-food containers made of expanded polystyrene.

Another step in the right direction.

I visited the British Museum about 10 days ago, and my iPhone XS was super fresh in my hands, so I decided to take a bit more effort into the photos I took while I was there.

Well, after looking back at them, the three photos that I like the best have nothing to do with what the museum actually holds inside. But instead, people, and the inner architecture of the museum.

Also, you’ll noticed that all of them are black and white. I nearly always shoot in black and white, and if not I’ll usually apply the Noir filter afterwards. I just find everything looks a bit better without the distraction of colour.

Nilay Patel, writing for The Verge:

Essentially, Smart HDR was choosing the wrong base frame for HDR processing when you took a selfie. Instead of choosing a frame with a short shutter speed to freeze motion and preserve detail, it would sometimes choose a frame with longer shutter speed. The front camera also does not have optical image stabilization, so it takes blurrier shots at the same shutter speed as the rear, stabilized camera. The result is a loss of detail that looks like smoothing on the front camera.

I knew it was something to do with Smart HDR, but it’s interesting to know the exact detail of why it was happening. 



Maybe one of the main benefits of computational photography, is that it can be continuously improved, and sent out in regular software updates. It’s intriguing to think what the difference in the camera will be in a years time, compared to how good it is now, even with no hardware change.

This really looks incredible. Pep is one of, and could be the greatest football managers ever. He doesn’t just create success, but he does it with style.

His Barcelona team played the best football.

Eurogamer recently had an interview with two people from Game Freak, the main developers of Pokémon games. Junichi Masuda (executive director and head of game development) and Kensaku Nabana (designer). It’s a really interesting read, especially with all the changes they had to make when adapting the game to a different style of playing.

Two decades on from Pokémon Red and Blue’s arrival here in the west, we’re going back to Kanto once again.

Pokémon Let’s Go have made big changes – some proving more popular than others in the lead up to its release – but there’s still a lingering sense that, with just the first generation of Pokémon available, in the first region, we’ve seen it all before.

A couple of weeks ago, alongside an extended hands-on preview of Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee, we talked to Junichi Masuda, executive director and head of game development at Pokémon’s main studio Game Freak, as well as fellow designer Kensaku Nabana, about some of the nitty gritty details fans are always after, including how that whole Meltan reveal came about, HMs, and those perpetual questions of difficulty, open worlds, and the series’ future.

It ends with a answer from Junichi Masuda, which is quite reassuring about their idea of how the main series of Pokémon games will be played:

I know that a lot of people and fans have spent a lot of time hatching eggs, they’ve hatched… a lot of eggs, but we want them to kind of discover new ways to enjoy Pokémon games, you know I’d be really sad to think that for them, Pokémon is hatching eggs, so with this one we’re trying to show them a different side of the game.

Pokémon GO is super popular, and I still play it quite a lot, but I wouldn’t want the main games to be simplified to match. So this is good news!

Read the full interview at Eurogamer.net

Juli Clover, writing for MacRumors:

At its annual Adobe Max conference, Adobe announced plans to bring a complete version of Photoshop to the iPad in 2019.

Photoshop CC for iPad will feature a revamped interface designed specifically for a touch experience, but it will bring the power and functionality people are accustomed to on the desktop.

I’m interested to see how Photoshop will actually work on the iPad. They do say it’s the full version, but will it include the automation that was available on the desktop, and how will it fit into the iOS environment? For example, will it have support for Siri Shortcuts, support for a Photo Editing Extension, and how are the toolbars going to be translated into iOS UI?

Then there’s the price. Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo are both priced at £19.99, Pixelmator is only £1.99, and there are apps like Polarr that are free. I’m guessing they’ll extend their Creative Cloud subscription to include the iOS version, but I think a cheaper solution is needed to be competitive on this platform. £9.98 per month is their cheapest individual plan in the UK, and that will deter a lot of people.

Another recent announcement of theirs, Project Gemini, is something that’s probably more suited to my uses. As that is a lot simpler, and focuses on drawing and illustrating.

Another update to Text Case has just hit the store!



Just a small one this time though, to tie up a few things, before anything big can be planned or worked on. In fact it can be boiled down to three things:

• A new text format, this time it’s KebabCase. And as usual it was requested, so I added it! There’s no chance that I can come up with every format possible, so if you want one added then please just let me know.
• About section added (website links, App Store link, app version…)
• And I’ve fixed a bug in the Action Extension. As the UI used to inherit some of the styles from the encompassing app, but it wouldn’t always look correct. I’ve fixed this by keeping it matching with the rest of the app, along with the chosen accent colour.

It’s not an extravagant update, but then again, they can’t all be.

Find Text Case on the App Store.

I happened to stumble upon two super old articles of mine today, and then I discovered that I’d never moved the content to this blog.

They’re both extremely different, but it shows that the types of writing I

From Ideas To End Users This was published 3 years and 1 day ago (11th October 2015), and it’s about my experience with developing a game, and what it’s like to witness other people experience your creations.

The Heart of a Black Hole This was was even earlier, I published it on the 16th December 2013! From reading it back, I can tell it was inspired by a BBC special, The Science of Doctor Who, which actually featured Brian Cox. I still don’t understand why I decided to try and explain to everyone what a black hole is, how an event horizon works, the effects of time dilation, and also what’s at the heart of a black hole. All I can say, is that I’m pretty weird.