New Year, New Audio Setup: SoundSource 6 from Rogue Amoeba
Hello again. The Connected trio have just wrapped up watching Apple’s Mac event and are here to talk about the news and share some first impressions.
In the latest episode of Connected, Myke and Stephen discuss today’s announcements from Apple’s ‘Hello Again’ event while I listen and quietly wish for a Touch Bar on the iPad Pro’s Smart Keyboard. You can listen here.
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Earlier this week, Logitech announced support for a new Alexa skill that lets Echo owners control their Harmony hubs and associated devices and services.
Today Logitech announced a new Amazon Alexa skill that enables voice control of your entire living room entertainment experience using a Logitech Harmony Hub with Alexa-enabled devices such as the Amazon Echo or Echo Dot.
When the skill is enabled on Amazon Echo or Amazon Echo Dot, you can start and stop Harmony Activities, control your entertainment devices, or even turn directly to your favorite channels, hands free, using only your voice. Harmony users can simply say “Alexa, turn on the TV,” or “Alexa, turn on Netflix” to control the TV as well as other entertainment and smart home devices, and Harmony makes it happen.
As those who listen to Connected may know, I’ve spent the past few months building a home automation setup based on the Amazon Echo and Alexa (more on this in the future). Connecting my TV to voice commands was the missing piece.
Here’s Dan Moren, writing for Six Colors:
I set up a similar system a while back, using a combination of other services like IFTTT and Yonomi, but Logitech’s first-party integration definitely puts it in the reach of anybody with an Echo and a Harmony Hub who doesn’t want to muck around with nitty-gritty technical details.
Logitech’s integration mostly delivers what I could already do with those other services, but there are a couple of nice additions. For one thing, it gets rid of the “trigger” nomenclature imposed by IFTTT. Additionally, it lets you declare “friendly names” for your devices, so even if your Harmony Activity is “Watch Apple TV” you can just say “turn on Apple TV”, or you can use “turn on game console” or “turn on Xbox.” Other smart home devices that work with the Harmony Hub, like Hue lights, can also be triggered, though of course the Echo already has built-in control for those devices as well.
This sounds great. I ordered a Harmony hub + remote yesterday, and it’s coming next week.
Earlier today, from the Vine company blog:
Since 2013, millions of people have turned to Vine to laugh at loops and see creativity unfold. Today, we are sharing the news that in the coming months we’ll be discontinuing the mobile app.
Nothing is happening to the apps, website or your Vines today. We value you, your Vines, and are going to do this the right way. You’ll be able to access and download your Vines. We’ll be keeping the website online because we think it’s important to still be able to watch all the incredible Vines that have been made. You will be notified before we make any changes to the app or website.
Vine had the best seconds-to-laughs ratio of any modern social network. Its constraints bred a unique form of creativity I’m sad to see go away.
See also, this story by Brian Feldman:
Most important, the engines of this creativity were groups poorly served by, and often shut out from, mainstream cultural creation and consumption. Vine wasn’t just dominated by teenagers — it was dominated by teenagers of color. Especially black teens, who created a disproportionate number of popular Vines and used the social network to demonstrate wit, intelligence, creativity, and comic timing that was rarely given a spotlight elsewhere. That included dance trends like the yeet.
Apple announced a new line of MacBook Pros today that replace the function keys with a Touch Bar, a touch sensitive strip that includes customizable software buttons and Touch ID functionality. CNET, in an exclusive 90-minute briefing with Phil Schiller, Craig Federighi, and Jony Ive, discussed the new MacBook Pros and explored the relevancy of the Mac in a mobile era.
That the new MacBook Pros are thinner, lighter, faster, and brighter is not unexpected for a laptop that hasn’t been updated for a while. What’s special about the new MacBook Pros is the Touch Bar. In a typically understated fashion, a reticent Jony Ive described the Touch Bar to CNET as:
’the beginning of a very interesting direction’ that combines ‘touch and display-based inputs with a mechanical keyboard.’
Phil Schiller was a little more forthcoming about what Apple hopes its new laptops will mean to users:
’We didn’t want to just create a speed bump on the MacBook Pro,’ he says. ‘In our view this is a big, big step forward. It is a new system architecture, and it allows us to then create many things to come, things that we can’t envision yet.’
The Touch Bar is a fascinating blend of ideas from iOS, such as touch tools for straightening photos, and existing macOS toolbars moved to the keyboard. Regardless of how you feel about how long it’s taken Apple to refresh the MacBook Pro, I’m optimistic about this new approach to the MacBook Pro and the possibilities it opens up to third-party developers.
In a statement to TechCrunch, Apple said that it is delaying the introduction of AirPods:
The early response to AirPods has been incredible. We don’t believe in shipping a product before it’s ready, and we need a little more time before AirPods are ready for our customers.
Beyond the statement to TechCrunch, Apple has given no indication of the reason for the delay. Perhaps we will hear more during the Apple event tomorrow.
Interesting announcement from Pocket today: the company has launched an open Explore section to browse and search for the best content saved on Pocket:
For the first time, we are opening up Pocket’s understanding of what’s good and worthwhile on the Internet, and making it easy for anyone to search and discover the best of the best on any topic. No Pocket account necessary.
[…]
When you first visit Pocket Explore, you’ll be greeted with a question: What interests you?While Google is great at helping to answer a question, and Pinterest is a great place to search around an idea or thing to do, never before has there been a specific and intentional place to go when you want to satisfy a curiosity or surface the best content around a specific topic you care about.
I switched to Pocket late last year, and their recommendations have been, by far, the best article recommendations I’ve ever been given by a read-later service of this kind. There’s no shortage of great articles and longform stories nowadays, but being able to browse the best options in a single place seems convenient. Potentially, this could also become a better research tool than Google for specific topics.
Brian L.W. Moore on iOS 10.1’s Portrait mode:
While a lot is super good, there are a couple areas where the Portrait Mode just ain’t gonna cut it. Complicated foreground and background combinations seemingly overwhelm it and the blur edges get confused throughout the photo.
Portrait Mode doesn’t even begin to successfully work with translucent or shiny objects. Though this is pretty understandable considering the hardware — attempting to detect depth on objects like these is probably difficult. Not sure if Apple will ever be able to get over this one unless their machine learning becomes near-perfect.
He concludes:
People have asked me what camera I used to take these photos, which is I’d call a good sign. I like how they look, and this is a camera I can keep in my pocket all day as I walk all over a beautiful country. That’s a win for me.
Check out his examples here and here. They’re not technically perfect, but I think they’re beautiful, and they were made on a portable computer. Impressive.
After months of speculation, Nintendo’s next big console has been unveiled and named. This week on Remaster, we discuss whether the Nintendo Switch is shaping up to be what we always wanted.
On the latest episode of Remaster, we talked about our first impressions of the Nintendo Switch and what a hybrid console means for the future of Nintendo games. You can listen here.
On September 7, 2016, Apple and Nike announced a Nike-branded version of the Apple Watch called the Apple Watch Nike+. Nike’s version of the Apple Watch did not debut with the Apple Watch Series 2, which became available on September 16th. Instead, Apple Watch Nike+ will go on sale October 28. 2016.
The Apple Watch Nike+ features a custom watch face and four distinct bands. As we reported after the September 7th event:
The new Nike-branded Apple Watch consists of a custom watch face available only to buyers of the watch, and a custom band. The band is basically a standard Sport band in construction, but includes distinctive holes throughout the surface, the interiors of which are a different color than the surrounding area. The result stands out, and I actually quite like it.
The band is available in four different colors, which vary the scheme between light and dark gray and a neon yellow-green (Nike calls the color “Volt”). The watch face mirrors these colors, and is available in several different styles, all which incorporate Nike’s distinctive font and logo. The Apple Watch Nike+ also includes a permanent complication along the bottom of the display for the Nike+ Run Club app, which I assume comes preinstalled on the devices since the Complication can’t be removed.
Earlier this month, Apple updated its website with a teaser that said the Apple Watch Nike+ would debut on October 28, 2016. That was confirmed by Apple today with a press release. According to Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer:
Running is one of the world’s most popular activities for staying in shape and being healthy, and with Apple Watch Nike+, runners will be even more motivated to achieve their performance goals…. The response so far has been incredible and we’re thrilled to get Apple Watch Nike+ onto customers’ wrists starting Friday.
The Apple Watch Nike+ comes in an aluminum finish and is priced the same as the Apple Watch Series 2. The watch will be available on Friday in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Columbia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Russia, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, the UK, and the US, with other countries being added shortly thereafter.
