From The Verge:
In a sign of how far Apple is willing to go to continue raising the profile of Apple TV Plus, the company has worked out a deal with Roku that will give the streaming video service its own shortcut button. This is the first time a branded Apple TV Plus button has appeared on any remote control.
I’ve been a Roku user for years, dating back to when their devices were basically shitty under-powered little pieces of cheap plastic with a laggy interface (the current models in comparison are good, decently smooth-going, and get the job done).
A rant on Ars Technica:
I wanted to love the Apple TV remote. It was sleek and futuristic. Plus, it had an accelerometer and its own little trackpad. Besides which, I didn’t think I’d really need the remote, anyway, since I could simply tell the TV what I wanted to watch. What wasn’t to love? Turns out, pretty much everything.
I largely agree. After Apple added 3rd party app support on the Apple TV, I considered it for a bit (I don’t care about the iTunes eco-system, I’m mostly a Plex + Netflix kind of guy, but I’m interested in getting AirPlay/mirroring working between my iPad and the TV).
I’ve seen quite a few Apple bloggers link to this piece from Adam Geitgey about the new MacBook Pro, and how it’s supposedly “kind of great for hackers”. All because you can plug a lot of different things thanks to USB-C ports1.
Huh… OK?
Well first, it’s great to see Apple users realize the benefits of standard ports – and based on how Adam seems to easily use lots of peripherals without any apparent problem, it’s good to know that some concerns about the compatibility landmine of USB-C may be overblown.
It’s been an interesting week. Apple announced some new Macbook Pros and everybody’s unhappy in the Apple blogosphere – something I wasn’t sure could happen anymore. Just look at Michael Tsai’ roundup and be amazed. All those people unhappy because they finally realized Apple doesn’t care about “pro” users. Apple effectively made a new version of the MacBook Air, but called it “Pro” and that’s obviously not a great move.
It’s September 2016, and Apple showed once again some pretty cool hardware: dual cameras, clever asymmetrical core design, water resistance, blah blah. I’m not interested since I already have the very recent 6S (I’m not that rich or desperate) but it’s a very nice piece of technology.
The change that will create the most ripples on the rest of the market however is the removal of the headphone jack, I think.
Gruber, about Apple probably removing the jack and maybe shipping wireless earbuds by default with the next iPhone:
[…]not that one port is better than another, but that wireless is better than wired.
It’s not that wireless is better than wired – it’s that Bluetooth (as it’s widely speculated that Apple would still stick to that technology) is a far better alternative than something proprietary like the Lightning port.
The “Apple removing the headphone jack plug” story is warming up again.
The 2 best arguments against removing the jack plug in favor of a digital port, in my opinion, have been put forward by Patel and Streza in the previously linked articles:
Opportunities for audio DRM. Necessity to move the DAC and amp into the headphones – which will most probably sound worse than before on average, or raise the price of headphones in general.
I recently got an iPad (more on this later), and with it I got the much hyped smart cover.
I loved the simplicity of it, and how quickly you can take it off and put it back on again… However, I quickly realized that I probably had more dust on the screen while using that thing than if I didn’t have any cover at all. Among the problems I had the infamous “dust lines” – those three lines you get on the screen at exactly the same spot as the cover’s folds.
Apple is company whose boss is a guy named Steve who is, by reputation, quite charismatic but also a real asshole when it comes to working with him and using his intellectual property. Their main product gives them only a small fraction of the market, and its core of devoted fans can be loyal up to a rather fanatical point. This product is always set against the more popular product, which is seen as outdated, inferior, over-marketed, and riddled with product updates that break compatibility with silly new features.