Angry Birds Star Wars Review

There is a new Angry Birds app out! It is called Angry Birds Star Wars. This game features angry birds in the shape of Luke, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Obi Wan and more. I really like Chewbacca in this app because he smashes things. The stages go in order of the movies. Darth Vader comes in half way through the second stage. I highly recommend this for those who have played Angry Birds and those who have not. For the iPad, the price is $US 2.99.  For the iPhone, the price is $US 0.99.

Apple EarPods Review

Do earbuds fall out of your ears? I have found that EarPods made by Apple do better staying in my ear canal than most others. Apple has spent time studying the average shape of ears and has modified their design. These also do great with sound quality like the bass. They work with all Apple devices and a few other non-Apple devices. They come with the iPhone 5, the latest iPod touch and the iPod nano. The ones that come with the iPhone 5 have a volume adjust / pause/ play button on the headset cord. It also has a microphone. They come with the case shown below. Cost as a separate accessory is US$29.

iTunes Match review

Do you have a lot of ripped CDs in your iTunes library and you want to put the music on iCloud to access from your iDevices?  If so, you will love iTunes Match.  iTunes Match is a service from Apple that scans your library of music and looks in the iTunes for the same music and gets a high bit rate AAC quality file to push to your cloud.  If iTunes does not have a match it uploads your copy to the cloud.  Once you have matched and uploaded your ripped music to the cloud, you set up iTunes Match on your iDevice by going to 'Settings', then 'Music', then flip the switch for iTunes Match.  You can now go to the Music App on your iDevice and stream the music if you have iOS 6.  This is a great improvement over iOS 5 which did not stream well.  iTunes Match is a great way to access your music without taking up space on your iDevice.  However, if you want a few songs or even a playlist when you do not have access to cellular or Wi-Fi, you will need to download the songs.  You can do this by tapping on the cloud symbol by the song.

One thing to watch out for is 'ineligible' songs.  To fix this, try the Menu item called 'Advanced'.  In Advanced, click for an AAC version.   Hopefully this fixes the problem.

This service costs $25 per year.  It will store 20,000 ripped songs for you.  If you rip a new CD or song, it will automatically upload or match to iCloud.  If you do not see the upload of the CD, you can manually perform this action by going to 'Store' and updating iTunes Match.