Apple "Spring Forward" Event Reactions

My immediate reactions to the news of the Apple event that happened today, 3/9 happened over on Twitter, because that's where I was getting the news from (I had class during the event). I compiled them here for your perusing, including links to the tweets. Be sure to check out my full Twitter feed for all of my retweets as well.

Apple Watch is going to be important for the future of #Apple, smartwatches, and tech in general. #SpringForward
— Erik Peterman (@InternetOfErik) March 9, 2015

In typical fashion, Apple's defining a category: "Brands had no interest in smartwatch apps until the Apple Watch" http://t.co/A3mF6xsf0g
— Erik Peterman (@InternetOfErik) March 9, 2015

Apple Pay is spreading to Coca-Cola vending machines, and that's awesome: http://t.co/gRqmNnITpX
— Erik Peterman (@InternetOfErik) March 9, 2015

The new MacBook looks awesome and I want one in space grey: http://t.co/1V4BErFmSa
— Erik Peterman (@InternetOfErik) March 9, 2015

RT @sokane1: "TIL lots of people didn’t read this: "What the Tech World Doesn't Understand About Fashion” http://t.co/6DgdNMctkM"
— Erik Peterman (@InternetOfErik) March 9, 2015

The MacBook port fiasco strikes me as the same chirps we heard about the missing optical drive on the original Air. Who uses disks now?
— Erik Peterman (@InternetOfErik) March 9, 2015

To be fair, Apple's past dropping of I/O's have come earlier than others, but in every case they have been right in predicting market trends
— Erik Peterman (@InternetOfErik) March 9, 2015

We're 1, maybe 2 years away from basically only needing physical I/O for power. In the meantime, it's still very much a power user feature.
— Erik Peterman (@InternetOfErik) March 9, 2015

Let's not forget that Apple sells a laptop for people who *need* a portable notebook with more power and more ports - the 13" MacBook Pro
— Erik Peterman (@InternetOfErik) March 9, 2015

Even if you don't like Apple, you have to admit that ResearchKit is bold, innovative, and incredible. http://t.co/7j37fo8wCI
— Erik Peterman (@InternetOfErik) March 9, 2015

In case anyone cares, my Apple Watch will be the Sport variety and have a neon green band.
— Erik Peterman (@InternetOfErik) March 9, 2015

It's not that I think the others are too expensive, I just prefer my watches to have a matte finish, and I like the fluoroelastomer band.
— Erik Peterman (@InternetOfErik) March 9, 2015

I don't like the look of yellow of rose gold on myself. But I definitely see Edition being worth it to people who can afford it & like gold
— Erik Peterman (@InternetOfErik) March 9, 2015

I'm totally digging the drop in Apple TV pricing. Wonder whether it means a future update or if it's to better compete with Roku/Chromecast
— Erik Peterman (@InternetOfErik) March 9, 2015

Either way, Apple TV is now an even more compelling offer if you own even 1 Apple device. Or if you want HBO without a cable subscription.
— Erik Peterman (@InternetOfErik) March 9, 2015

Let me know what you thought of the event in the comments. Also, let me know if you like this kind of post, or if I should go back to longform writing.

Also, I will leave you with this:

Hashtag can’t innovate anymore, my ass
— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) March 9, 2015

Samsung Galaxy S6 Reactions

I just published this story on Medium. Please check it out. There are all sorts of photos and cool formatting things on the original post, which is why I've just chosen to embed it, rather than copy the content over.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Reactions

Let me know what you think in the comments, and please leave a recommendation on the Medium post if you liked it.

iTunes-Beats Music

Streaming is undoubtedly the future of music, and I think Apple knows this. That's why they bought Beats Music, and that's why we keep hearing rumors about it being included in iTunes soon.

I just don't think they understand why streaming is so popular.

Spotify has 30 million active users, which definitely indicates interest in streaming. But only 10 million are paying users. That means 2/3 of Spotify users are only utilizing the free, as supported version.

Along the same lines, Pandora is the most popular music streaming service (although they legally count as a radio service when it comes to paying musicians…), and this is due to the free nature of it as well.

But the rumors for Apple's Beats Music integration in iTunes have it pegged at being $7.99 a month.

I have two issues with this. One, it's not going to gain much increased traction at that price, because people stream mostly because they dislike paying for music. I get that they want to (need to) make sure that artists are getting fairly compensated for their music, and they don't want to bleed music like Spotify, but I'm just not sure it's going to work. Two, I can still get Spotify Premium on education pricing for $4.99 a month. Is Apple going to have a $3.99 education discount? It's doubtful.

The only solution I could see working for a paid subscription that would actually be relatively popular is having the cost of entry be $7.99/month or purchase of an album on iTunes per month. This method then appeals to users because they get an album even after they stop having a subscription to the service. This keeps iTunes afloat, download numbers up, music rights holders happy, and users satisfied in their expenditure.

Let me know what you think in the comments. 

Thoughts on Galaxy S6 Rumors

Rumors are finally rampant regarding Samsung's next flagship phone. The three main rumors are that it will have (some varying degree of) a special, curved display, cleaner software, and a housebuilt processor. Here are my thoughts about it.

Lots of people are pointing to the Galaxy S6 coming in an edge variant, not unlike the Note Edge that was released in the fall. Some suggest that the main S6 will have two curves on it, covering both the left and right sides. Others, however, are suggesting that Samsung will look to mimic YotaPhone and put a screen on the back of the phone as well as a curve on the side.

If Samsung decides to put curved displays on the Galaxy S6, I will not be terribly impressed. It'd be yet another use impaired gimmick from the king of gimmicks, which is exactly what they don't need right now. But, if they do decide to go the way of the YotaPhone, they could create a really compelling success. The dual screen display could be useful, if implemented well, and Samsung is probably the only major company that could actually succeed in the implementation of this idea.

Will Samsung drop TouchWiz in the Galaxy S6? If so, would their phone be compelling? There is certainly a huge market for stock Android on more phones, particularly Samsung phones, but I'm not sure that I believe Samsung would be willing to do this. Also, most mainstream users actually like Samsung's TouchWiz, so I'm not entirely sure that it's a good idea to get rid of it.

Samsung is rumored to be using a home brewed processor instead of a Snapdragon. This would essentially knock us back to the pre-2013 Android roots of a dysfunctional app store where nothing was universal. This is a bad thing. Snapdragon is the reason for so much success in Android recently.

I remember the days when Android apps weren't universal in any definition of the term. Trying to download anything was a nightmare, because it was almost always guaranteed to not support my processor. The beauty of the dominance of Snapdragon processors is that recently, apps have run basically universally on all ~2013 and later devices. This is one of the biggest advantages of competing platforms: if you can download it, it runs. Dividing the ecosystem is a bad move, even if Samsung has the biggest market share in US Android.

In the end, I think the Galaxy S6 is going to be a really telling device for Android going forward. It may start a trend, and change the entire mobile industry, or it may create division within Android, rotting away the ecosystem, or it could totally flop and kill Samsung. We'll see what happens.

Apple needs to overhaul Apple TV in 2015

Here it goes - I'm calling it:

This year, 2015, we have to see an update to Apple TV. This update must be both in hardware and in software. 

The hardware can come either in the form of an updated set top box, or our can be the long rumored full-on Apple Television we've been hoping for. What it looks like essentially doesn't matter. What matters is that it will have an A8 system on a chip and 1-2 GB of RAM minimum. The A8X from iPad Air 2 wouldn't be a bad thing, though. 

The software could definitely use a more modern face-lift, but that's not the most important thing for now. What we absolutely need to see is an App Store so that developers can take advantage of the space. What makes any product, but Apple products in particular, great is what they enable you to do with them. An app ecosystem open to developers is vital to this, and is the biggest reason we've seen iOS and Android take off in recent years. And yes, this App Store likely means games on Apple TV (because it certainly means the potential for games: and where there's potential, there are apps taking advantage of that potential). 

The only way around these upgrades is for Apple to do something like they are doing with CarPlay, where the device responsible for AirPlay-ing to Apple TV handles the processing, and Apple TV just acts as a wireless display adapter. Or, Apple could come up with some other crazy, Apple-style optimizations and blow our minds. Essentially, the hardware needs to get more powerful, the OS needs to get easier to run, or our iPhones/iPads/Macs need to be offloading the computing from the device.

But of course, it's possible none of these update will happen. The consequence for these updates not happening is that Apple TV will fail to remain relevant in the streaming/set-top-box world. Playing the AirPlay card to justify Apple TV's superiority has worked so far, but Android 5.0 has achieved this ability with Chromecast, so it's not as cut and dry of an argument as before. 

So, I'm calling it: we will see a major update to Apple TV this year, or it will fade into obscurity. Apple TV can no longer afford to be Apple's hobby device.

Do you think we'll see an Apple TV update this year? How will that manifest? Do you even care about Apple TV anymore? Do you even care about set-top boxes or streaming devices anymore? Let me know in the comments. 

Quick charge vs wireless charging

There seems to be this move towards quick charging in the Android OEM world, and almost to the complete sacrifice of wireless charging. This misses the point of why wireless charging is great, though.

I will refer to quick charging as such, but also fast charging, and it goes by turbo charging as well. It's a Qualcomm technology, but every Android OEM that implements it has their own name for the tech. Know it's the same thing.

Don't get me wrong, quick charge is actually really cool. It's also not any worse for the battery than wireless charging, or so says Qualcomm, maker of the technology.

The real advantage of quick charge surfaces for the people that don't charge their phone every night. In my experience, there's a siginificant group of people who drain a battery near dead, and then charge it whenever that ~10% or lower battery occurs, and stop charging when they have to move from the power source. Alternatively, there are the super power users that simply have to charge their phone whenever possible, because they burn 30% battery an hour. In either case, though, they want to spend as little time tethered to the wall as possible, but they still want/need to get as much battery as they can. Especially with today's ~2900 mAh average flagship battery capacity, we need fast charging. Even Apple supports fast charging on their new iPhones by using an iPad charging brick.

So quick charging is great, and definitely has its purpose. But so does wireless charging.

Yes, wireless charging is a little bit slower than charging with a 1A charger. But it's a brilliant technology for the people that do charge their phones overnight. For example, the Nexus 6, with its 3200 mAh battery, takes around 4-5 hours to fully wireless charge from 0-100%. But that's not a problem for overnight. The advantage of wireless charging, then, is that it doesn't require plugging anything in. Especially with non-reversible USB connections in Android phones, this can be a challenge in the dark at night at the bedside. Wireless charging just requires the placing of the device on a pad. Done.

So, why aren't more OEM's supporting it? Well, there are still two major competing methods, those being qi and powermat. Qi is by far the most popular, but it isn't the industry standard, by any means. Also, carriers generally force manufacturers to not include wireless charging out of the box on US models, so that consumers have to buy accessories to support the feature. And consumers don't really know it exists, let alone that they should buy certain cases for it. Also, Apple hasn't chosen to support it on iPhone, yet, which is how most technology goes mainstream now-a-days.

And the biggest problem facing wireless charging right now is that it's still finicky if done poorly (which is likely why Apple hasn't decided to mess with it yet). It is incredibly convenient when done well, and I love it. But it's incredibly frustrating when it doens't work. The Nexus 6 is a perfect example of wireless charging done poorly. It starts with poor advertising of the feature, certainly. But it extends beyond that; the curve of the phone causes it to not sit well on many flat qi chargers, which happens to be the most common form that they take. This leads to it being hard for the coils to line up for the charging to occur, It's far too finnicky. It's especially surprising being that the Nexus 6 is the successor to the Nexus 5, which had a brilliant magnetic system with its OEM made charging pad that made lining up the charging coils fool proof. To be fair, the Nexus 6 charges great with the Tylt Vu wireless charging stand, but that's an expensive charger that not everyone will want.

Consumers just don't care about wireless charging enough for manufacturers to bother trying to include it. They'd rather focus on charging features that every consumer can understand and use as they always have. That's why we're seeing the quick charge push.