Craig Grannell

Craig Grannell is a gaming and technology specialist whose work links retro games with the devices, operating systems and creative tools that shape how people play and make them. He is a regular contributor to Stuff magazine and the Stuff website, writing across apps, games, Apple hardware, Android devices, Lego and other offbeat corners of consumer tech. His coverage stands out for its mix of practical guidance, critical evaluations and nostalgic deep dives, with a consistent focus on usability, longevity and design across platforms.

Gaming and retro technology

Grannell treats gaming as part of a broader relationship with technology, often anchoring his pieces in the history and afterlife of older systems and titles. His retrospective on Nintendo’s N64 at 30, including a curated set of games that still merit attention today, shows a clear interest in how classic titles hold up and why they continue to matter for contemporary players. He carries that concern for longevity into broader work on preserving older mobile games and keeping legacy devices in use, such as his feature on refusing to let old iPods, iPads and mobile games die and finding ways to bring them back from the “digital dead”. Retro gaming is also singled out as one of his core areas of expertise, aligning his beat with the wider culture and hardware that support it rather than just new releases.

Apple ecosystem, hardware and software

A large share of Grannell’s output sits inside the Apple ecosystem, covering everything from streaming boxes to laptops, headphones and displays. He writes about upcoming Apple TV 4K hardware with a focus on what the new box “needs to do” to justify an upgrade, blending expectations around performance with practical features and use cases. His coverage of AirPods 5 examines how the line is becoming more like AirPods Pro as Apple brings over key features, with attention to concrete changes that matter to everyday listeners.

On the Mac side, he assesses products such as MacBook Neo as the budget Apple laptop people wanted but with a major flaw, highlighting trade-offs between price, design and real‑world usability.

Grannell also provides service journalism around system updates and maintenance, including round‑ups of the best iOS 27, iPadOS 27 and macOS 27 tips users might have missed.

He writes step‑by‑step pieces on how to back up a Mac before installing new macOS releases, framing backup and data protection as essential parts of the upgrade process. His feature on Apple’s new Studio Displays looks at how Apple may have fixed important flaws, while noting the cost implications and whether the improvements justify the price. Across these articles, hardware is always treated in context: the software it runs, the tasks it enables and the experience it delivers for people who play games, create content or use their machines daily.

Apps, creative tools and digital work

Beyond hardware, Grannell writes extensively about apps and creative software, including long‑standing tools that define digital work. His piece marking Adobe Photoshop at 35 explores how the app changed photo editing, showing a grasp of both its historical impact and present‑day role in visual culture. He covers Apple’s Pages, Numbers and Keynote with a deliberately opinionated stance, detailing “everything” he hates about the apps and dissecting their design and workflow shortcomings.

These articles sit alongside practical tip features on iOS, iPadOS and macOS, which highlight specific settings and functions that help people get more from their devices.

Mobile apps and games appear repeatedly in his stated areas of expertise, reinforcing that his interest in software is not limited to desktop environments.

He writes about Apple Intelligence and Siri AI tips across iOS 27, iPadOS 27 and macOS 27, connecting emerging AI features to everyday tasks rather than abstract potential. In other pieces, he focuses on how people shape older tools to fit current needs, such as turning an iPod Shuffle into a “perfect” music player through careful configuration and accessory choices. Taken together, this body of work presents apps and creative tools as living instruments that need to be understood, critiqued and tuned in line with how people really use them.

Formats: guides, opinion and experiments

Grannell’s reporting uses a tight set of formats: lists and guides, critical reviews, opinion essays and hands‑on experiments. His “best tips” and “how to” pieces on Apple operating systems and Mac backup provide clear, actionable instructions and recommendations, positioning him as a practical explainer of complex features. Product‑focused stories such as his MacBook Neo and Studio Display coverage mix evaluation of specifications with frank discussion of flaws and compromises, making clear where devices succeed and where they fall short.

He also regularly writes in the first person when the subject benefits from a more immersive approach, as in his accounts of reviving old iPods and mobile games or rebuilding an iPod Shuffle into an ideal music player. These experimental narratives show him working through constraints and solutions step by step, which in turn generates concrete guidance for readers facing similar challenges. His strongly worded take on Apple’s productivity apps and his focus on accessibility in opinion pieces underline a willingness to challenge design choices and corporate assumptions when they fail real users. Across gaming and tech stories, his signature is a blend of service journalism and argument: explaining how to do things, while also arguing for how devices and software should work.