Posts in Linked

AppStories, Episode 211 – Apple at Home→

This week on AppStories, we scrutinize Apple’s home strategy from its discontinued Airport routers and HomePod to the Apple TV, HomePod mini, HomeKit routers, the Home app, and more, plus ongoing browser and calendar experiments, and the hunt for an elusive keyboard continues.

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Spotify Updating Home Hub with Recently Played Section, Deeper Podcast Integration→

As announced by Spotify last week, the company is rolling out a refreshed home hub in its mobile app featuring a new Recently Played section, an easier way to stream new releases from your favorite artists, and shortcuts to play and resume podcast episodes with one tap:

About a year ago, we reworked the Spotify mobile experience to refresh our Home interface. Since then, Spotify users have been able to access the content they love more quickly and easily—and maybe even discover something new straight from their home screen. But the ease and discovery don’t stop there. This month, we’re announcing a series of updates that will make the Home experience even more personalized for each and every listener.

We’re constantly working on ways to improve our user experience. Through this latest update, we’ll be rolling out several advancements on the mobile Home hub designed to make finding the audio you love easier and more intuitive. These will roll out to users globally on iOS and Android this month.

The redesigned home hub is the latest announcement in a series of recent product updates, including genre and mood filters for liked songs, real-time lyrics, and the upcoming lossless tier.

In my tests with Spotify this year, I’ve been positively impressed by the company’s pace of updates. What I find particularly intriguing in the refreshed home hub design is the integration with podcasts: I was very skeptical of blending music and podcasts in the same app when I switched to Spotify at the end of last year, but the more I use it, the more I understand why podcast listening in Spotify is growing rapidly. There’s something about making both kinds of audio content accessible in one place that works well for removing friction from having to choose what I want to listen to. I’m curious to see how Spotify will balance music and podcast episodes in new home hub (which I don’t have in my Spotify app yet).

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The Pleasures of Conversing via Voice Text→

Fun story by Rachel Syme, writing for The New Yorker last week, on rediscovering the simple pleasure of sending audio messages (voice texts) to friends during the pandemic:

Voice texts (also called audio messages), by contrast, are text messages with a pulse, phone calls with none of the pressure; they are fizzy zaps of connection that demand little of the recipient except that she listen and enjoy before they’re gone. They are not a new feature—on iPhones, they launched as part of the iOS8 update, way back in 2014 (and users of WhatsApp have long communicated with a similar service). But voice texting has gained obvious new appeal during the past year of isolation. At the site nofilter, the reporter Kate Lindsay wrote that she had been prepared to dismiss voice texting as “a Gen Z (or, rather, z-lennial) fad. Then the pandemic hit, and before I knew it all my text message conversations were replaced with disappearing audio snippets.”

Audio messages have been the default communication method among my friends and family for the past several years (primarily via WhatsApp; no one I know here in Italy uses iMessage’s voice text UI since it’s, frankly, quite clunky). During the pandemic and through our various stages of lockdown, however, I’ve also rediscovered the joy of sending audio messages, which strike a nice balance between the immediacy of a text and the additional context of a phone call.

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AppStories, Episode 209 – Can Apps Still Surprise Us?→

This week on AppStories, we consider why surprising apps seem increasingly rare and share some of the apps that have surprised us the most over the past year.

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Apple’s Perplexing Home Strategy→

Zac Hall, writing for 9to5Mac, explains why Apple’s move to discontinue the original HomePod last Friday raises a number of questions about its home strategy and is cause for concern that extends beyond the HomePod itself:

Apple discontinuing HomePod isn’t impossible to understand, but the move does leave me with a number of questions for Apple. What’s the threshold for success for home products? What does Apple hope to achieve with home products? Why should customers trust Apple believes in its home products when it doesn’t lead the market? Why not just invest in Amazon, Sonos, and other smart home solutions that feel less like a hobby?

Hall puts his finger on something that’s been bothering me since news of the HomePod’s demise broke. In January, I reviewed the HomePod mini, and I love it; not because it’s the best-sounding speaker I’ve used, but because it fills a role that the larger, more expensive HomePod couldn’t fill in my home. However, the mini isn’t a replacement for the original HomePod. The smaller speaker can’t fill larger spaces like my living room the way the original HomePod can. Nor can the mini play the same role in my home entertainment setup.

As long as Apple continues to support the original HomePod, my multi-room audio and TV setup will be fine, but it’s also undeniably a dead end. It’s not as if I don’t have other options. There are plenty of good AirPlay 2 speakers available that I can eventually swap in, as Hall points out. However, coupled with the expensive, long-in-the-tooth Apple TV, I don’t have the confidence I once had in Apple’s home strategy, especially when it comes to audio and video entertainment, which feels especially strange to say when Apple Music and TV+ are so clearly important parts of the company’s service strategy. All of which led me to nod as I read Hall’s conclusion:

Remember when Mac users had similar concerns about pro machines in Apple’s lineup? Apple rightfully held a roundtable event with a small group of press to communicate its commitment to professional customers with the pending release of an iMac Pro and development on a next-generation Mac Pro.

That strategy was very effective at taking a step toward earning back the trust that was lost over time with Apple’s pro customers. Apple’s Friday night statement that it’s happy with the response to HomePod mini and no longer producing the original HomePod needs a lot of follow up.

Perhaps a spring media event will clear up some of the questions raised by the elimination of the HomePod. For now, though, Apple’s home strategy is more perplexing than ever.

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Apple Has Discontinued the Original HomePod→

Matthew Panzarino at TechCrunch broke the news late Friday that Apple has discontinued the original HomePod. In a statement to TechCrunch Apple said:

HomePod mini has been a hit since its debut last fall, offering customers amazing sound, an intelligent assistant, and smart home control all for just $99. We are focusing our efforts on HomePod mini. We are discontinuing the original HomePod, it will continue to be available while supplies last through the Apple Online Store, Apple Retail Stores, and Apple Authorized Resellers. Apple will provide HomePod customers with software updates and service and support through Apple Care.

Already, the Space Gray HomePod is unavailable for delivery from Apple in the US, although you may be able to find one for pickup at your local Apple retail location.

The HomePod mini.

The HomePod mini.

As much as I’ve enjoyed my HomePod minis, and recognize the benefits of having more of them distributed throughout my home than I could afford to do with the original HomePod, I’ll miss it a lot. The mini is fundamentally more versatile than the original HomePod because of its size. However, despite sounding great for such a small speaker, its audio fidelity is no match for the larger model.

I hope this isn’t the end of Apple’s efforts in the high-end speaker market. Between the HomePod and the AirPods Max, the company has proven that it has the technical expertise to create superior speakers and headphones. This feels a lot like Apple is clearing the decks in advance of an event. Perhaps we’ll see an Apple soundbar paired with a new Apple TV or some other audio product before the end of the month.

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Men’s Health Goes Behind-the-Scenes at Apple’s Fitness+ Studio→

Men’s Health was given a behind-the-scenes tour of Apple’s 23,000 square foot Fitness+ studio in Santa Monica, California. The publication also interviewed Jay Blahnik, Apple’s senior director of fitness for health technologies, and COO Jeff Williams for the story.

From the story’s photographs and description of the studio, it’s clear that Apple has put a lot of effort and money behind the Fitness+ classes:

“We want these workouts to be magical. We’re creating a piece of art, a piece of inspiration, a piece of motivation,” says Blahnik. “Many people might not think about the importance of lighting a cycling class differently than a yoga class, but we think it makes a difference.” Blahnik’s worked in fitness for more than 30 years. He developed fitness devices and apps at Nike in the mid-2000s, and he’s also a rowing instructor. “Fitness+ creates incredible workout experiences that are also beautiful.”

Classes are shot with a sophisticated setup that allows Apple to create videos tailored to each type of workout:

Seven cameras and three trainers might seem like overkill, but there’s a method to this muscle-building moviemaking. Apple shoots with high-end Super 35–format cinema cameras, in high definition. Mounting the cameras on robotic arms enables smooth movement, creating an elegant and intimate feel. “We built the studio in a way that would allow shooting all the angles to make the right choices to show just the right angle at just the right time,” says Blahnik.

There are a lot of interesting insights about how the classes are created by Apple’s team of instructors and fitness experts, too, so be sure to check out the full article.

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Apple Clarifies Ability to ‘Set Default’ Audio Apps in iOS 14.5→

Earlier today, Apple provided TechCrunch with a fascinating clarification regarding the ability in iOS and iPadOS 14.5 to pick “default” audio apps for music, podcast, and audiobook playback.

From Sarah Perez’s article:

Apple has clarified that the iOS 14.5 beta is not actually allowing users to select a new default music service, as has been reported. Following the beta’s release back in February, a number of beta testers noticed that Siri would now ask what music service they would like to use when they asked Siri to play music. But Apple doesn’t consider this feature the equivalent to “setting a default” — an option it more recently began to allow for email and browser apps.

Instead, the feature is Siri intelligence-based, meaning it can improve and even change over time as Siri learns to better understand your listening habits.

For example, if you tell Siri to play a song, album or artist, it may ask you which service you want to use to listen to this sort of content. However, your response to Siri is not making that particular service your “default,” Apple says. In fact, Siri may ask you again at some point — a request that could confuse users if they thought their preferences had already been set.

On the surface, it appears as if Apple’s argument boils down to semantics. Because iOS 14.5 will not offer a proper page in Settings to configure “default” audio apps (like you can for browsers and email clients, as I argued on yesterday’s episode of Connected), then it’s not correct to say you’ll be able to change the default music app on your iPhone or iPad. We could debate why Apple is not building a page in Settings for this but still allowing Siri to integrate with third-party streaming services and apps (competitive advantages vs. antitrust concerns?), but that’s besides the point. What I find more interesting is that Apple explains this feature is actually doing more than just sticking to a default option:

The audio choice feature, of course, doesn’t prevent users from requesting a particular service by name, even if it’s not their usual preference.

For instance, you can still say something like “play smooth jazz radio on Pandora” to launch that app instead. However, if you continued to request Pandora by name for music requests — even though you had initially specified Apple Music or Spotify or some other service when Siri had first prompted you — then the next time you asked Siri to play music without specifically a service, the assistant may ask you again to choose a service.

From this perspective, given the dynamic nature of this functionality, I understand why Apple may be uncomfortable comparing it to the ability to switch default browser and email apps. At the same time, I want to mention how I’ve been using iOS 14.5 for the past month, and after an initial configuration, Siri continued to default to Spotify and never prompted me to pick another one again. I’m giving Apple’s explanation the benefit of the doubt, but I’m curious to see how this feature will work in the final release of iOS 14.5.

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