Apple released updates for all iOS devices back to the iPhone 5s, that phone is more than 12 years old and is still getting security updates.

I’m on the iPhone X and trying to buy European for my next phone, especially with Tim Apple sucking up to Trump, but 12 years of security updates is impressive commitment.

In the UK a 14-Day cooling off period applies where you have the right to cancel most online, phone, or mail order purchases of goods and services.

With this in mind I’d like to cancel my subscription to 2026, and revert to an earlier version. I hoped the new version would come with improvements over 2025, but the same problems seem to exist and the price of the optional extras have just gone up.

I think you will find I am still within the 14 day window, thank you for your attention to this matter.

If I switched on the news tomorrow and the headline is “The USA has bombed…”, any country or continent could be at the end of that sentence and my surprise (or lack of) would be the same.

The USA is being run with no guard rails by a deranged dictator, backed up by white supremacists and corporate robber barons. Any country is fair game including NATO members, in response the UK should switch to a war economy.

I’ve been talking to people about this for a while, and I’ve had very little disagreement but I wanted to put this out into the world outside of my social circle.

Companies are buying homes in massive numbers as investment vehicles, who then have shareholders who require increased profit year on year, allowing a tiny proportion of the profits to be paid as corporation tax.

Companies should not own homes, when a house is built it should be marketed for a maximum of 1 year at which point it must be auctioned with no reserve and must be sold to a private individual. The same when a bank takes possession of a home due to mortgage default.

Private individuals would need to have a cap on the number of homes they are allowed to own, starting at 10 homes with a view to reducing that number over time, but all rental income is taxed at the highest rate. This would allow private property investors to reduce their portfolio over time, with no more tax dodging by having a company earn the money and taking out loans to show a neutral balance sheet.

Councils can own/operate as many homes as they need to fulfil the rental needs of the area.

This should lower rental costs, and house prices while increasing tax revenue. What do the UK Leftists think? I’ve not heard anyone propose this exact restriction before.

Just got the AirPod Pro 3 and just like a previous poster said they sound like shit, I mainly listen to podcasts and unlike my 1st gen APPs it sounds like someone speaking into a badly setup microphone, rather than just someone speaking to you.

I tried to update the firmware from 8A357 to 8B25 but found out that for some reason they need iOS 26 for the firmware update to work, so me with my iPX with the latest available iOS 16 is just SOL.

Why when all AirPods need to update firmware via an iOS/MacOS device do they need the latest version? Planned obsolescence is the only logical conclusion.

The icons in the quick look charge indicator don’t tell you which is the Left, Right or even the case!!! (Picture)

Finally when I walk more than 3m away from my laptop the pods screech in my ear as lose Bluetooth connection and refuse to reconnect automatically. I’m sure all of these issues are fixed in firmware updates but apparently I need to spend 4 hours traveling to and waiting for a Genius Bar appointment to update the firmware.

Looks like these are going back and I’ll be looking for a different option for earphones, and maybe it’s time to move away from iPhone too.

This will kill EV adoption, just to put it into perspective this is the equivalent of an average ICE car (38.6MPG) having 25.5p added per litre of fuel, in a single budget.

The even more ridiculous thing is plug in hybrids are 1.5p per mile, so people with 80+ miles of range in their Golfs etc. will pay half price, even though they are needlessly dragging around an internal combustion engine for 99% of their journeys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSWDgNWeVjk

Really good discussion that reveals how Hydrogen might be “ok” for the economy, as long as you are ok with it being the worst type of hydrogen made from oil and gas by the fossil fuel industry.

Should I wait for 22.2 or just install 22.1? I think I’m going to go for the cinnamon desktop and install using a Rufus USB on my ~ 9 year old Dell XPS 13 9350.

I’ve been waiting a while as I thought the next version would be out by now, are there any resources for finding out how close the next version is?

Is it easy to upgrade between .x versions?

https://youtube.com/shorts/JzD1MUJU7qg

In 2017 my employer gave me £1150 to buy my own iPhone X for work. I knew I would not be working there forever and decided to start saving £10 per month in monthly saver accounts, 2 years later I left the company and they didn’t want the phone back as it was too old. Yay!

I continued saving every month in accounts ranging from ~4-8% interest and my most recent monthly saver just matured and my fund has reached £1121.64

I’ve also been really savvy with my mobile plans over the last 5 years, my current monthly charge is £6 but has been as low as £3, and has absolutely been less than £5 on average. So my mobile phone costs have been on average £15pm.

The iPhoneX is not getting software/security updates anymore, but there is nothing really worth having in this years upgrade:

• 120hz vs. 120hz with ProMotion
• MagSafe - meh!
• 12MP vs. 48MP camera with better low light
• 4G vs. 5G - but HD video streaming works perfectly on 4G.

Do I keep saving and ignore the upgrade again? Or am I silly for running a phone with no security updates because I’m not that interested in a better camera?

Either way I thought my little-by-little saving to get something nice and a little extravagant was worth sharing. The number of people with £50-£60 phone contracts is crazy.

Just look at her, you know she was planning something.

This is honestly just a bit of a rant as my Dyson V10 has broken again…. This is what has broken in the last year:

• trigger guard snapped
• battery died
• head pivot broken
• empty-mechanism snapped
• filter showing clogged after cleaning, needed a new filter.

Every replacement is exorbitantly expensive, and requires as complicated replacement procedure as possible. A battery that consists of seven 18650 cells which should cost ~£20 to replace is £90! You can’t replace the cells as the unit is plastic welded together.

You know what isn’t broken and has never broken; my 40 year old Sebo which is now been promoted from ‘upstairs vacuum’ to ‘primary vacuum’

I was under the assumption that Raspberry Pi was a US based company, but I just found out they are European and almost all made in Wales.

It’s probably the most European computer you can buy, with a massive following of enthusiastic developers creating alternatives for all the cloud services we are trying to stop using.

This has confirmed my choice to try and replace the US based cloud services my family and I are currently using.

My one vice is diet caffeine free coke, I’m so rock and roll. Trying to find a UK/EU alternative I keep finding almost all drink brands are owned by Coke or Pepsi. These companies which originated in the USA have entities in the EU, which complicates the decision. Can anyone recommend a wholly UK(ideally) or EU alternative that’s reasonably priced?

While many people may have had Tesla orders with non-refundable deposits before the salute incident, there is no excuse for buying a Tesla now and supporting an actual Nazi.

I’m hoping I don’t see any Teslas with the new ‘25’ plate, but if I do I may have to mention something to the driver about what it now symbolises.

This is just a rant… maybe a discussion starter

Margins on 2nd hand and new electric cars are thin, gone are the days where you could get 25% off a new car, and thin margins mean lower commission.

Servicing costs are minimal so no kickbacks for selling the servicing plans.

People are wise to paint protection and alloy wheel cover that cost more than a refurb.

EV buyers tend to make better decisions and are more likely to be cash buyers or finance elsewhere, so no kickback for selling a finance plan.

Manufacturers still selling higher margin hybrid and ICE vehicles mean they are the real target for salespeople.

Manufacturers also want to shift their ICE inventories and new products so they are still pushing the FUD on electric, and myths like “EVs will be obsolete once Hydrogen cars come out, you may as well get an ICE car in the meantime.”

I’ve had a really bad customer experiences at Toyota, Honda and now Kia dealerships.

I know people will suggest the Tesla online sales model, but Musk is just ruining the brand to the point where I can’t buy or recommend one.

So now I’m going to do all my own research, find the exact car I want, and contact the dealer/seller directly while avoiding as much interaction as possible.

Anyone else so used to being gaslit by the government they started to read this thinking ‘Great! Let’s find out how I’m a “failed citizen”, who had rubbish plans during the pandemic’

I’m finding this transition a little difficult, I’m hopeful but I’m still half expecting the Home Secretary to announce concrete shoes at low tide for all immigrants or something.

As a Thames Water “customer” (given the complete lack of competition maybe “hostage” is a better term) who will have a £20 rise per year, and as someone with no money I’m fine with paying an extra £1.65 a month for water, but not to Thames Water who will inevitably use that money to pay shareholders dividends.

If it stops us from dumping raw sewage into the rivers and oceans I’ll happily pay ten times as much, but it’s clear that Thames Water is just corrupt, and cannot be trusted with any extra money.

James Dyson who famously championed Brexit then moved his company’s head office to Singapore, and finally lost a libel case when papers pointed he was a massive hypocrite, has now announced he is cutting 1/4 of the UK workforce.

All this while parliament is busy swearing in all the new members.

In case you needed another reason to avoid his crap vacuum cleaners other than the horrible repairability and quality of failure prone components.