iPad – Unrelated Posts

App check

22 September 2026 by Himself

With another round of OS updates from Apple it is time to test some apps to check they still work. Inevitably there will be some that fail for some reason. This can be tolerable from individual developers; their life/career move on and their old apps become abandoned and eventually fail. But apps that have been purchased from major corporations should not be abandoned so readily. The TNR-i app, based on the original Tenori-on instrument from Yamaha, is one such. It was abandoned and withdrawn from the App Store in 2020; they warned “However, future iOS updates may cause TNR-i and TNR-e not to work.” The good news: it is still working…

Some research found that listening to stuff was helpful for older people. This may not have been what they had in mind.

Our phones are not your computers

6 October 2025 by Himself

It is common to find software developers who imagine that everyone shares their understanding of, and enthusiasm for, computers. This is not the case. Most people merely tolerate computers:

This leads them to assume that we would like to have our phones transformed into something akin to a computer from the 1990s. This also is not the case. For example Brent Simmons argues that iPhones and iPads should be able to download software from anywhere just like computers because “those devices are computers“. No. They are not computers.

Certainly a phone has all the internal gubbins just like a computer. But my TV comes with a screen, a processor, an operating system, a web browser and is connected to the Internet. It is not a computer. Refrigerators come with processors and screens and an Internet connection. They are not computers. Motor cars come with processors, screens, web browsers and an Internet connection. They are not computers.

Apple sells far more phones than they do computers because phones are not computers. People who want a computer buy a computer. People who do not want a computer buy a phone. Nobody calls their phone their pocket computer… because they are not computers.

I use the splendid NetNewsWire (as mentioned here in 2008) which is available from the App Store for devices that are not computers but, alas, only from the website for Mac computers.

Apple’s Classical Music App 🤬

28 March 2023 by Himself

I think I actually blushed on opening Apple’s Classical Music app. It is an iPhone app but the App Store assured me it works on my iPad. I have lots of iPhone apps on my iPad. They all work fine.

Who would not think it a good idea to have the text mingling with the Play and Browse buttons?

And is Ludwig van Beethoven really On This Album?

And did Frank Zappa write Bolero?

And is the third section not iii or III rather than Iii? At least they managed to get Elaine Radigue right…

….oh cancel that! Why is there no simple way to report such errors like there is on Apple Maps?

Let’s hope version 2 is not too far away and it makes some improvements… but I am not holding my breath.

Connecting iPad/iPhone to GarageBand on a Mac – Wireless

27 January 2023 by Himself

There is an old post, from 2011, that is regularly visited (I assume it is linked on a forum somewhere) and so it is probably time to do an updated version expanded into several posts covering all the options available today.

To connect using a WiFi network:

Open Audio MIDI Setup which you will find in the Utilities folder within the Applications folder – or hit the Command and Space keys and type Audio MIDI into the Spotlight search box.

From the Window menu select Show MIDI Studio.

Menu selection in Audio Midi SetUp