The perfect retro gaming controller? It doesn’t exist. But, as I write for Stuff, companies came close at CES 2026. If only GameSir and Hyperkin had taken their new collab a couple of steps further…

Keep your iPhone photos safe. Most people don’t. But not a month goes by without someone desperately hoping I’ll be able to magic up images from a lost or irreparably damaged device. My guide for Amateur Photography outlines various ways to make copies of your iPhone snaps. 

Apple’s reported iPhone 18 delay might be good for Apple but not for you. At least, that’s my take, over at TapSmart.

INKS brought paints to a pinball party. Find out about this excellent game, which joins my classics series.

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Animated album art in Apple Music isn’t new, but I received an unwelcome reminder of its existence from Daniel Benneworth-Gray’s post about a dire Blade Runner OST animation. If you have Reduce Motion on, you’ll never see this stuff. If you don’t use Reduce Motion, you can also turn off this garbage in Settings > Apps > Music > Animated Art > Kill It With Fire.

Back to the Future Lego! Avoid zooming it across the table at 88mph.

It’s 2026. Hello. Things are already looking rocky, but let’s all hope that improves. In the meantime, here’s some writing from me.

Tech resolutions: I do this every year. I should probably stop. But here are 5 tech and gadget New Year’s resolutions I will fail to keep in 2026.

Want to sort your own resolutions? Here are 25 iPhone apps that can help.

2026 will be an interesting year for Apple. Here’s my annual piece for Stuff, mixing up expectation, rumour, analysis, wishful thinking, barely suppressed impatience and, mercifully, no turkey.

But what of 2025? Following my Stuff Apple overview, the good, the bad and the sock thing, I wrote about my 7 favourite Apple moments from 2025 for TapSmart.

Get more from your Apple Watch with my essential tips and tricks.

And while you’re at it, try Gentler Streak. My guide has all you need to get started.

What is reality? Sorry to spring that doozy on you near the end of this weeknote. But it’s something photographers have long grappled with. I explore the subject in my latest Amateur Photography piece, I want my iPhone to capture reality, not an AI fever dream.

Speaking of fever dreams, I wrote about the Apple Vision Pro of 2033 for Stuff a while back, and the site bumped it over the holidays. Is this future dystopian? Utopian? Horrific? Alluring? Yes.

Handmade Pac-Man? I have one now, courtesy of my 11yo. She also crafted a suitably terrified-looking blue ghost! Amazing!

There is no Screen Time Wrapped. Which is a surprise, given that seemingly every other app and service has been determined to hurl stats my way about how ‘well’ I’ve done this year. Still, it’s probably just as well, as I explain in my latest column for Stuff, Why you don’t want an Apple Screen Time Wrapped year in review.

How was Apple’s 2025? Mixed. I dig into what it got right and wrong in my end-of-year review, this time entitled Apple in 2025: the good, the bad and the sock thing. Because my editor at Stuff wouldn’t let me use ‘sockly’. Tsk.

Christmas happened. You may have noticed. And so one of my favourite ever columns got another airing: On the tech days of Christmas, my gadgets gave to me…

I watched The Muppet Christmas Carol. At the cinema! My 11yo surprisingly agreed to come and we had a great time. It’s such a great adaptation. Michael Caine is perfect. Even better, we saw the full cut, rather than the one that daftly lops off When Love Is Gone.

Thank you! If you read my output here and elsewhere, I hugely appreciate the support. See you on the other side, in 2026!

The new Pebble wearable is designed as e-waste. I’m getting fed up of this kind of thing. Hence my latest Stuff column: I want more eco-friendly tech, not gadgets that will die in two years.

The best iPhone apps and games of 2025 – at least as I see it. The rules: new apps only and available for iPhone. The results: best apps and best games.

Snap happy: My latest columns for Amateur Photographer explore why I use an iPhone and not a ‘real’ camera and why I’d never buy an iPhone Air.

Need a last-second packable present? Check out my quiz for BA High Life. Or just check it out anyway, because it’s quite fun and it took me ages.

Apple is ‘forcing’ iOS 26 upgrades. Jason Snell writes on Six Colors about this latest Apple wheeze. Typically, Apple has offered security updates for older systems. Now it won’t if a device is capable of running iOS 26. Far be it from me to suggest this is down to uptake being lower than Apple would like and the OS being a shitshow. It’s still littered with major bugs and accessibility problems. Making iOS 18.7.3 more widely available is the least Apple could do.

Dr Paris Buttfield-Addison got their Apple account back. So at least Apple did something right. Although if you’re not someone that enough of the heavy hitters in the tech industry would fight for, good luck getting a similar result.

Hackers are extorting Pornhub. This is going to be fun when the UK’s verification laws end up caught in this, and a pro-Online Safety Act MP’s entire porn search history gets leaked.

Remembering Commodore’s C64GS at 35 – because someone had to. My piece for Stuff, including six great games for the system (and non-rubbish C64s too).

Tetris is fab! So is this piece interviewing its creator, written by Daryl Baxter.

Mutant demon Haribo!

Er, and with that: happy holidays!

The Xperia Play has returned! Sort of. The Ayaneo Pocket Play is a modern take on a smartphone that has slide-out controls that turn it into a handheld console. Again, sort of. As someone who’s loved smartphone gaming since the iPhone 3G, I ask myself over at Stuff why the Ayaneo Pocket Play doesn’t make me more excited.

Premium apps for iPhone? There are plenty of good ones, and my selection of the best is here, now including Fastbackward.

Love Lego? My final Lego update of the year for Stuff explores the best sets of 2025 and what’s coming up in early 2026, including a minifig-scale DeLorean.

Phones away for Christmas Day? Mostly. But there are times when an iPhone comes in handy, as outlined in my apps for Christmas Day feature.

Apple has nuked an Apple Account. Again. And this time, it’s owned by someone who literally wrote the book on Apple development and who runs the longest-running Apple dev event not run by Apple. If the company can obliterate Dr Paris Buttfield-Addison’s account for no good reason, no one’s is safe. Again, make sure you have local backups of EVERYTHING.

Robin Ince has quit the Infinite Monkey Cage. He outlines why on Bluesky, and his final moments on the show were captured too. This makes me deeply sad for Robin, the audience and approachable science as a whole. Infinite Monkey Cage was my favourite show. And I quite deliberately say that in past tense, because I won’t be listening without Ince, whose input to the show was irreplaceable. The BBC desperately needs a rethink when it forces out people who have the audacity to be decent human beings, while allowing those spouting all kinds of nasty views to remain in post.

Today is Adam Banks Day. For those of us who were fortunate enough to be in his orbit, he was an inspiration. The man was a giant in publishing and a fantastic, kind human being. I miss him deeply and he was taken from us far too soon. Wherever you are, Adam, I’m sure you’re spotting typos that no mere mortal could possibly have seen. (See also: Christopher Phin’s wonderful and heartfelt tribute on YouTube.)