Author: Stuff writer

Listen up, pop pickers: Stuff is here to help you find songs you like, manage your library, share your playlists with friends and even (if you really must) sing along. Once we’re through with you, you’ll be an Apple Music genius. Let us mould you… shape you into the musical aficionado you were always meant to be. THE BASICS Make it personal Apple Music needs training. Tap-hold to ‘favourite’ tracks, albums and playlists you like – or ‘Suggest less’ for what you don’t. This will affect regularly updated personal mixes and stations in Listen Now. To base an entire station…

We get it. You’ve got Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Ultra. Until the South Korean company comes up with a new entry in the series, this is as good as it gets. Or is it? Turns out you can improve upon even the very pinnacle of premium. There’s always someone willing to take it one step further and they’ll help you to do the same if you’re willing to part with enough money. You’ve already dropped thirty grand or so on your smartphone, what’s another R25,000? Or, if you’ve spent enough, we’ve got a selection of upgrades you can do that will…

Ah, the flip-phone champion. But whatever happened to the Razr V1 and V2? No idea. Perhaps they lurk to this day in a dusty, long-abandoned Motorola lab, waiting to take off a future archaeologist’s fingers. Or maybe they were just the ones that didn’t make it – including a reported super-skinny prototype that had the benefit of being as thin as four credit cards… and the snag of conking out after 20 minutes. But the V3 lasted for hours – especially if you spent ages gushing over the lovely design before you got around to actually using it. Well, it…

Cost-of-living crisis or not, are you really going to talk about cardboard tech? Not all of Google Cardboard was cardboard. The original kit included lenses, magnets, Velcro and a rubber band! And on its debut at the 2014 Google I/O conference, this DIY slot-in-your-own-smartphone headset grabbed all the headlines. This was Google making a play for the future, saying VR didn’t need specialised hardware beyond your phone: it could be accessible to everyone, encouraging developers to build a new generation of immersive digital experiences. Like a VR stationery store so you could buy more tape when your headset fell apart?…

Buying gifts for the gaming geek in your life can be confusing, especially if you’re not a gamer yourself. If you’re in that position right now, you’ll know it can be difficult to find out what they want without making it obvious you’re trying to gather intel. A good starting point is to find out what kind of gamer they are (if you don’t know already). The age-old ‘PlayStation or Xbox’ debate could be a safe avenue for finding out their preferred platform. Don’t worry, bringing up that argument will still work if they’re a PC gamer, they’ll make that…

If you missed Stuff’s Black Friday sale, which ended a little earlier this week, don’t fret. There’s still an opportunity to get South Africa’s best technology magazine — in its digital form — for less than you would at any other time this year. Okay, fine, Black Friday was an exceptional discount at the time but a lot has happened since *checks calendar* 9 December. For starters, it’s moderately more expensive to get your hands on the magazine. When you look at it this way, the festive season discount is just as good. Stuff to read If you’re hankering after…

Folks with a passion for audio are generally hard to buy for. Not because there are no options but because there are too many. A target-rich environment is only a good thing if all targets are equal and audio kit… isn’t created equal. If you’re after a solid set of audio presents, you’ll find a stonking collection in Stuff’s current print issue. If there’s nothing that’ll tickle an audiophile fancy there (and there is, we made sure of that) you’ll find a handful of other options right here. No matter what you pick, as long as your target doesn’t already…

There’s always that one person who is really into fitness and is therefore impossible to buy gifts for at the end of the year. Well, not this year. If you’ve already been through the fitness freak section of Stuff’s annual print wish list and nothing’s jumping out at you, we’ve got a few other options. If you can’t find something excellent here… well, that’s probably a skill issue. Fitness is a skill, after all. So is choosing an excellent gift. We may not be excellent at the first of these but we’re pretty decent at the second one. All you…

Ever wonder what pure air smells like? So do we. So we just had to get the 204 Air Purifier from Solenco out of its box and huff some of its air. It features a five-stage filtration system to make sure that you’re only breathing in the good kind of particles with your air. Those five stages include a pre-filter, an activated carbon filter, an antiviral filter, a medical-grade H13 HEPA filter, and it uses UV-C light to destroy harmful microorganisms. Plus, like most useful devices these days, it can be paired with and controlled by an app. Learn more…

As countless parents have heard over the years, “Everyone else is doing it.” Stuff isn’t immune to providing improved prices during November for the collective hallucination known as Black Friday. For a little over two weeks, you can score a one-year subscription to Stuff for the discount sum of just R120. That’s down from the usual price of R200/year but there are a few small (but important) conditions. Stuff to do This special only applies to the annual, six-issue digital subscription to South Africa’s best technology magazine available directly on this website. The digital version from Zinio is… okay. It’s…