Firstly, these are my thoughts as someone that is not an expert in the field of headphones and sound quality, but as an average user that wants to be able to listen to Podcasts and Albums on the way to work and also be able to answer calls without having to get the handset out of my pocket.

As mentioned earlier, the Beats Tour headphones come with multiple ear bud variations to choose from in the box. You will also receive a kidney shaped carry case for the headphones with a clip to keep the cable in one position should you require it.

Siri Activation & Calls

If you spent over £100 on headphones, the last thing you will care about is how well it answers calls or utilises the Apple iPod or music player shortcuts, but i thought i would cover it anyway as i personally was interested in how well this worked as a third party bit of equipment. The answer is that it works perfectly fine with skipping tracks, answering calls and activating Siri.

The button on the headphone cable seems sturdy and has good ‘click feedback’. The microphone however does weigh the ribbon cable down so you may have to use the provided mic clip to keep the cable from pulling your ear buds out (depending on how securely they fit into your ears).

The volume of speech whilst on a call seems to be acceptable although it doesn’t seem any louder than the standard iPhone hands free cable / headphones that you are provided with.

Call clarity seems to be average but this comes down more to the noise cancelling abilities rather than the actual headphones in my opinion (which will differ depending on how well the ear buds you have selected fit your ears).

 Also, the hands free button works fine with Spotify and other Apps as expected

Sound Quality using the Spotify and iPod App

When using the spotify app i had my playlists synced in ‘extreme quality’ mode and also tried the standard streaming mode over 3G. Before anyone tells me i should have tested them with a different App or  different hardware that outputs better quality, again, i’m no expert and i am just writing my experiences as the average user, for the average user.

After using the Beats Tour headphones for a few days in a number of ways (Different genres and different volumes) I found that for the most part the low end bass was very good picking up a lot more than the Apple headphones (as you would expect).

Across Metal, Punk, Pop and Rap they seemed to perform well with the ear buds i have selected that fit my ears well. I found that in some tracks (Metalcore), there was a lot of high end which meant i couldn’t listen to the track at a high volume without feeling like there was a sharp high end sound. This may have been because of the production of the particular album i was listening to, but it wasn’t anything that was too troublesome as the mid and low ranges were still distinguishable.

Overall Impressions

Although these headphones seem to do everything you’d expect, I can’t help but feel that you could get more for your money with an alternative product. With that being said, if you have the money and have your sights set on picking these up, you shouldn’t be disappointed. For more on these headphones, check the the video below:

 You can buy these over at amazon.co.uk.

A lot of people are somewhat let down by the official Apple Podcast App because of the recent changes in a software update. I have started using Downcast which allows users to set up custom playlist and categories ideal for users that have a lot of subscriptions. Other features include iCloud synchronising of episodes and settings in addition to a ton of other settings.

As described in the video below, you can set custom locations so that when you leave or arrive at those locations the app will automatically check and/or download any new Podcasts that you are subscribed to taking the hassle away from the process of searching for new episodes. 

The app also has a built in search function which will allow you to search for Podcasts by category, which is ideal for users looking for new Podcasts for certain subjects. You can choose whether to allow the app to automatically delete Podcasts once a new episode is out which is ideal for users trying to save space on their device. 

Check out the video below for more info:

Planetside 2 is a free to play, MMO first person shooter that has three factions - The Terran Republic, The New Conglomerate and the Vanu Sovereignty. This beta is invite only but you can purchase the ‘alpha-squad’ package with comes with instant access and $40 worth of in-game currency once the game is released (before the end of December 2012)

The game is set in a persistent world, where territory can change over hours and battles can last literally days or even weeks to secure different areas of the map. I thought it would be useful to some people if i put together a video showing some gameplay of how this game performs on the Retina Macbook Pro under bootcamp as a lot of users across all machines are having a hard time running this beta.

A video below shows how this game looks and runs. In my opinion, it looks and plays fantastic and can’t wait until final release.

My settings in this video are 1920 x1080 and I am using a 42 inch LCD through HDMI. My settings are a mix of medium and high and I get around 40fps (frames per second) whilst the recorder isn’t running.

I have always been a desktop PC gamer, the thought of running PC games on a laptop usually resulted in me laughing at the thought of being able to boot up a DX11 title and even have it load on a laptop, let alone run at a good frame rate and look half decent. After getting the MacBook Pro Retina, (or rMBP) I was eager to see how the most recent games ran on this machine. I previously had a 2011 MacBook Air, which only had a HD3000 on-board graphics solution so it’s safe to say that it wasn’t really an ideal machine for gaming, and it doesn’t try to be as its purpose was mainly for portable office work and web browsing.

After installing Bootcamp and windows, I installed all of the latest windows x64 service pack and checked for any nvidia updates for the card. Before I talk about performance, i regularly see comments on youtube such as ‘Which idiot would pay £1,800 for a Mac for gaming? Mac’s suck for gaming’. Firstly, I would agree for the most part as machines with Mac OS installed have limited options when it comes to gaming, so if you want to game, you can get a system that has windows installed and hardware that is built for that purpose. However, the new retina MacBook Pro has some good hardware that can be used for a great gaming experience for people on the move. Lets look at it this way, you can purchase a windows desktop with a quad core CPU, DDR3 RAM, and a GT650M (or better) and run your games on this very well. Because of this, the argument of ‘Macs suck for gaming’ is no longer valid because once you install Bootcamp and install windows, there is no difference between the Mac and a windows machine you have purchased as, for the most part, they have the same hardware.

How Does the rMBP Perform as a Gaming Laptop?

In short, very well. For the most part, you will want to be running games in 1080p resolution instead of the crazy resolution of 2880 x 1800 as this will slow down the frame rate significantly. The games I have tried so far are (with frame rates on highest settings. Keep in mind this is achieved with the default nvidia GPU drivers. performance may increase with newer driver software)

1. Just Cause 2 on rMBP -  60+ FPS – 1080p
2. Counter Strike Source on rMBP (settings maxed) – 180+ FPS (Through Video Stress Test) – 1080p
3. Arma 2 / DayZ on rMBP – 60+/- FPS – (Dayz waiting on patches for performance) – 1080p
4. Deus Ex – Human Revolution on rMBP – 60+ FPS 1080p (DX11 enabled)
5. Crysis 2 on rMBP – (Gamer settings) 60+FPS – 1080p

Here is a video found of a user testing Crysis 2 on the Retina Macbook Pro.

Stock is currently low from apple, over at amazon you can pick up a Retina Macbook Pro with little delay.

As you can see, the retina MacBook Pro is definitely a very good machine for gaming. There is no doubt that you can get a better specification more taylored for gamers for a better price, but that doesn’t take away the fact that this machine can run a lot of modern games on high settings at a good resolution and a good frame rate.

There isnt a huge amount to say about this tweak other than it changes the way you unlock your device by adding a peel effect. You can choose to peel from the left or right, disable the camera button or choose custom text to replace the normal ‘Slide to Unlock’

Here is a video of it in action:

When I say ‘best’ I take into consideration price and what you get for the money you have spent. The Booq MacBook Air Hard Case cost me around £40 and I have to say that I am very impressed with what you get for the money spent. The exterior is tough yet very slightly flexible which is ideal for when you want to fit into into your backpack or bag. You have enough space to securely hold the MacBook Air in place as well as your iPad (Which is in it’s own seperate sleeve within the case).

The build quality is great as is the material used. One of the concerns i had before buying my case was that zippers would be problematic as a lot of other products suffer from this problem i found after reading other product reviews.

You can see a video review below and buy the product over at Amazon where you can check out other positive reviews. 

Quasar from Cydia allows you to have multiple windows open at one time. You can watch a video on one part of your screen and browse the web on another part of your screen like you would on a PC or Mac.

This works with the new 5.1.1 untethered Jailbreak on the iPad 1,2 and the new iPad (iPad 3).

Quasar – BigBoss Repo – $9.99 /£6.99

A video below shows it in action:

Ever since the iPhone 4S has been released, users outside of America have been disappointed with the lack of location based Siri functionality. Users outside of the USA have been unable to use Siri to search for things like the nearest hotel or petrol station.

That is changing now that ‘International Locations’ has been released in Cydia allowing users outside of America to use Siri to perform searches based on what is in their area.

Below is a video of how it works:

It has been (yet again) quiet for Cydia releases but the last few weeks have been better with the release of these tweaks. The best from the list in my opinion would be Dashboard X as it allows widgets to be usable and visible from the main ‘desktop’ screen rather than having to activate notification centre. 

1 – Fusion (updated) $2 – BigBoss Repo – Post to multiple social networks at once
2 – Dashboard X – $1.99 Modmyi Repo – Have interactive widgets on your home screen
3- Chip -$1.99 BigBoss Repo –  Customize your banner notifications

Find below a video of the Cydia releases in action

For this to work you must have your iPad connected to the same network as your laptop or desktop that you are extending the desktop from. There seems to be a few small issues such as slight lag and things aren’t as smooth as they would be by connecting a real monitor via VGA, DVI or HDMI but it’s pretty close!

This is ideal for watching Movies or browsing content Online giving you the option of controlling the screen via touch or by mouse and keyboard or your laptop or desktop.

Air Display is priced at £6.99 in the App Store and is ideal for anyone looking to use their iPad as a second display.

Currently supports HiDPI for Mac with a Windows Retina update on the way.

Below is a video of the software in action. The Air Display software for mac and windows is free and located here.