Best tech gifts that aren’t gimmicks

My favorite holiday tech gift requires no batteries or software updates. It is not a gimmick, although it was made using technology.

Can you guess what it is?

A few years ago, my wife tried an iPad and a digital pen to make digital illustrations. with help childbearingA drawing app, she uploaded a picture of our beloved species, Max, for tracing reference before decorating the picture with a polka dot tie and a long cartoon tongue. I loved it so much that I chose a background color to complement our home and uploaded the illustration to the app SouvenirA printing service that collects your photos in a beautiful frame before it’s delivered to your door.

A large framed picture of Max now hangs as the centerpiece of our living room in all its two-dimensional splendor. It makes me smile and is always a talking point when we have guests. That’s more than I can say about other tech gifts I’ve received over the years, such as video games and smart speakers, that have brought only short-lived pleasure.

This kind of exercise giveaway — tech-adjacent giveaways that don’t involve ill-conceived devices or Best Buy gift cards — could be especially welcome this year. This is because we live in an era of pandemic scarcity due to global chip shortages and supply chain disruptions that have made it difficult to buy traditional gifts. (Anyone trying to buy a gaming console in the past year or so understands that pain.)

Here is a list of tech gift ideas that we can give without buying tech, from gifts you can create to experiences that will last a lifetime.

repair gift

I told a friend last week that I have a special gift for her: I will fix her iPhone problem.

She complained to me about her five-year-old iPhone SE. The device can no longer take pictures or install software updates because nearly all of the device’s data storage space is used up.

So before you leave for Thanksgiving vacation, I meet her for lunch and walk her through the process of backing up photos to an external drive before removing all the photos from the device. Then I connected his phone to a computer to back up all his data before installing the new OS.

She was glad to solve this problem before her flight. She can now take a lot of pictures on vacation. In addition, the new Apple software update contains a tool for Add a digital vaccine card to the iPhone wallet app, making vacation travel less stressful during the pandemic.