Chicago Sun-Times: All posts by Andy Ihnatko2015-11-02T14:30:00-06:00https://chicago.suntimes.com/authors/andy-ihnatko/rss2015-11-02T14:30:00-06:002019-04-17T21:20:56-05:00Apple’s Magic Keyboard: Who asked for flatter keys, anyway?
<p>The new Magic Keyboard is just baffling to me.</p><p>Is it designed for mobile devices as well, like iPads? Surely not. It pairs with an iPad just fine. But there are no amenities for totability (like a snap-on cover) or convenience (such as being able to switch the pairing to other devices and back again with ease). So why on <i>earth</i> does this desktop keyboard make so many sacrifices in the name of thinness and lightness?</p><p>To be fair, if that was Apple’s goal in this keyboard’s design — well-done. It is <i>indeed</i> a very thin and very light keyboard. As a static object, the Magic Keyboard is beautiful on my desk. It photographs well. Put that keyboard on the cover of the annual report, definitely.</p><p>But would I use it to <i>write</i> that annual report or tackle any other big project you’d handle at your desk? No.</p><h2>Sacrifices In Vain</h2><p>The keys are noticeably flatter than what I’m used to. The mechanical keyswitches feel like they’re high-quality components, but it also feels as if there’s less travel and the tactile feedback is a little weird. I wrote about 12,000 words with it over the course of a week. I got used to the feel, but only grudgingly. It never felt “good,” like a desktop keyboard should.</p><p>The keyboard is <i>so</i> flat, and the bezel surrounding the keyfield is so…”not even there,” that moving it to another part of my desk is clumsy. Have you ever tried to pick up a quarter off a tile floor right after you trimmed your nails? The experience is only <i>slightly</i> like that. But it’s still way too similar.</p><p>It goes without saying that the Magic Keyboard has none of the additional keys and comforts of a wide desktop keyboard. No keypad, no dedicated page navigation buttons, and the arrow keys are all cramped into a corner.</p><p>But here’s the most surprising disappointment of all: the Magic Keyboard is so light and thin that it feels downright cheap. Especially when compared to every other Apple product I’ve tried in the past 10 years. Though it’s stable on the desktop, I can flex it in my hands with small effort. If I were foolish enough to throw it in a bag and travel with it, I’m certain that the metal frame would bend into permanent wobbliness and I’d have to throw it away.</p><p>Is the Magic Keyboard a <i>terrible</i> keyboard? Naw. But it suffers in comparison to pretty much every desktop keyboard with which I’m familiar. Even compact ones. Even when I compare it to the keyboard in my MacBook Pro, the phrase that comes to mind is “disappointing.” I would never guess that this keyboard costs $99 and is intended to be used with an iMac or Mac Pro.</p><p>My difficulty with the Magic Keyboard is that it demands that I make <i>every</i> sacrifice – size, convenience, keyfeel – associated with a notebook keyboard, without delivering so much as a single benefit in return. When I reviewed the 2015 MacBook, I certainly noted the odd feel of its unprecedented flat keys. But I gave that a pass; its keyboard makes sense for the product that Apple was designing. It types great for what it is, and people who want the thinnest MacBook ever made are expecting tradeoffs.</p><p>Whereas the Magic Keyboard flat-out makes no sense to me at all. Obviously, these are all subjective opinions, but look, friends, that’s what I get paid for. Try out a Magic Keyboard at an Apple Store before buying one. If you don’t agree with my assessment, you’ll find some nifty features.</p><p>It has an internal battery that charges off of a Lightning port discreetly mounted at the back. Apple gives you a cable in the box. Pairing it with a Mac (or even an iPad) is easy. And just plugging it into a Mac’s USB port pairs it. Apple says the battery lasts a month or more after a two-hour charge, and that plugging it in for just a couple of minutes will put enough time on the clock to get a credible amount of work done.</p><h2>Better And Cheaper Alternatives</h2><p>I can’t recommend the Magic Keyboard because there are so many better full-sized compact Bluetooth keyboards out there.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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<img class="Image" alt="<small><strong> The $39 Logitech K380 (bottom) is a much better choice than the Magic Keyboard. The Anker Ultra Compact Bluetooth Keyboard (top) is even less expensive, at $26.</strong></small>" srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/2de51be/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1637x919+0+297/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FTe6_XZ8t8fbIvewAayHK9JywWF4%3D%2F0x0%3A1637x1512%2F1637x1512%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28818x756%3A819x757%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16148319%2Fcst_other_keyboards.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/9962792/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1637x919+0+297/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FTe6_XZ8t8fbIvewAayHK9JywWF4%3D%2F0x0%3A1637x1512%2F1637x1512%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28818x756%3A819x757%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16148319%2Fcst_other_keyboards.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p><small><strong> The $39 Logitech K380 (bottom) is a much better choice than the Magic Keyboard. The Anker Ultra Compact Bluetooth Keyboard (top) is even less expensive, at $26.</strong></small></p></figcaption></div>
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</div><p>I’m writing this column on <a class="Link" href="http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/multi-device-keyboard-k380" target="_blank" >Logitech’s new K380 Compact Multi-Device Bluetooth Keyboard</a>. Its keys feel a little better than the ones on the Magic Keyboard. I wish its keycaps were square instead of round, and I sure wish its Command key were larger (the Magic Keyboard got that one right). But after just a couple of thousand words, I’m already used to those quirks. It’s more than sturdy enough for travel, and I can switch between my MacBook, my Android phone, and my iPad by tapping one of three yellow keys.</p><p>It’s barely thicker than the Magic Keyboard, including wide rubber feet that grip the desktop better than the Apple keyboard’s tiny nubbins. It’s a lot heavier (423 grams versus 231) but the Logitech delivers nine metaphorical pounds of features for that extra two-fifths of a pound of actual weight. It runs on two AAA batteries for (let me do a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation here) …”roughly forever.” In exchange for helping him kill the planet with disposable cells, Satan’s design lets you put a full charge into your keyboard in 10 seconds instead of two hours.</p><p>And it’s just $39. Too expensive? How about <a class="Link" href="http://www.ianker.com/product/A7721121" target="_blank" >Anker’s Ultra Compact Bluetooth Keyboard (A7721)</a>? It only pairs with one device, but it has a rechargeable battery that lasts at least as long as Apple’s. I’ve had one for months and, despite its $26 price on Amazon, I find its deeper keys more comfortable than the Magic Keyboard’s.</p><p>I don’t own the <a class="Link" href="http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/bluetooth-illuminated-keyboard-k810" target="_blank" >Logitech Bluetooth Easy-Switch Keyboard K810</a> (the Mac version is the K811) but I’ve used it. It costs as much as the $99 Magic Keyboard, but gives you way more: backlit keys, three-device pairing, and (as I recall) better keyfeel. It’s <a class="Link" href="http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/the-best-bluetooth-keyboard/" target="_blank" >Wirecutter’s recommendation among Bluetooth keyboards</a>. I just went back to the site for the URL of the review, and discovered that they also like the same two K380 and Anker keyboards that I just told you about.</p><p>(For the record, the sentence “… and in general, Wirecutter picks should command your full attention” was in my mental typing buffer before I even alt-tabbed over to my web browser. Now it just seems like cheap self-aggrandizement. Well, surely you people are used to that from me by now.)</p><p>Apple still makes their excellent extended USB keyboard, replete with a numeric keypad and other niceties. <a class="Link" href="http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MB110LL/B/apple-keyboard-with-numeric-keypad-english-usa" target="_blank" >It’s a snip at $49</a>. Other companies make desktop keyboards that are even <i>more</i> aggressively comfortable and convenient.</p><h2>Hitting The Wall</h2><p>I know, I’ve been ragging on the Magic Keyboard pretty hard. I don’t believe its designers are idiots. It’s a very careful and thoughtful design, optimized toward goals that I happen to disagree with, and it’s focused on the desires of a kind of user whom I don’t recognize among the general population.</p><p>(I also appreciate that most people are more used to the feel of a flat notebook keyboard than the sort of beasts we did battle with in the Eighties and Nineties. I’m too lazy to look up how big a giraffe’s molars are but if asked, I plan to say “Each is about the size of an individual keyswitch from the keyboard that came with the IBM PC/AT.” I can’t possibly be far off.)</p><p>I think I understand Apple’s attitude here. <i>Lots</i> of companies make keyboards that work with Macs. So Apple chooses to make the sort of keyboard that <i>only</i> <i>Apple</i> can make: stylish, sexy … like I said, the Magic Keyboard is a lovely design, when regarded as a static object.</p><p>Nonetheless, Apple’s attitude toward the mechanical human/Mac interface, as demonstrated by the keyboards they’re shipping (and don’t get me started on Apple’s history with mouses), is still frustrating. This is the keyboard they include with the new iMacs, and it’s mediocre at best.</p><p>Apple’s one of those companies that can do anything. More than that, it’s in that uppermost echelon of companies that are capable of making the <i>very best</i> version of something that’s ever existed. This is why, when I looked at my long-in-the-tooth Apple Wireless Keyboard a few months ago, it was exciting to imagine how Apple could improve a compact Bluetooth keyboard. <i>Particularly</i> for a world that would soon have an iPad Pro in it.</p><p>But when I think Apple’s laid an egg, it’s almost always because their brakes locked up and they skid straight through Thoughtful, Valuable, User-Focused Design and crashed into the wall of mere Design Woo-Woo. The same purple cloud of violent absurdity that drifted onto the Apple campus a few years ago and convinced everyone to put the iMac’s SD card slot in a spot where the user can’t possibly reach it returned to One Infinite Loop, and it planted the thought “Our users are <i>begging</i> us for a flatter desktop keyboard” in their heads.</p><p>Yes, I know that the Magic Keyboard’s designers are way smarter than I am about these things, and they put way way <i>way</i> more research and thought into it than I have. I can only tell you what I sincerely think about the device in front of me after using it for a week. And I think the Magic Keyboard is a big disappointment. An example of Design Woo-Woo.</p><p>I <i>know</i> that Apple could blow my socks off with the greatest wireless keyboard ever made. I hope they do.<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2015/11/2/18455039/apple-s-magic-keyboard-who-asked-for-flatter-keys-anywayAndy Ihnatko2015-11-02T08:57:27-06:002019-05-09T11:40:53-05:00Apple's Magic Keyboard: Who asked for flatter keys, anyway?
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>Apple’s new Magic Keyboard’s thinner design brings too many compromises. | Andy Ihnatko</p></figcaption></div>
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<p>The new Magic Keyboard is just baffling to me.</p><p>Is it designed for mobile devices as well, like iPads? Surely not. It pairs with an iPad just fine. But there are no amenities for totability (like a snap-on cover) or convenience (such as being able to switch the pairing to other devices and back again with ease). So why on <i>earth</i> does this desktop keyboard make so many sacrifices in the name of thinness and lightness?</p><p>To be fair, if that was Apple’s goal in this keyboard’s design — well-done. It is <i>indeed</i> a very thin and very light keyboard. As a static object, the Magic Keyboard is beautiful on my desk. It photographs well. Put that keyboard on the cover of the annual report, definitely.</p><p>But would I use it to <i>write</i> that annual report or tackle any other big project you’d handle at your desk? No.</p><h2>Sacrifices In Vain</h2><p>The keys are noticeably flatter than what I’m used to. The mechanical keyswitches feel like they’re high-quality components, but it also feels as if there’s less travel and the tactile feedback is a little weird. I wrote about 12,000 words with it over the course of a week. I got used to the feel, but only grudgingly. It never felt “good,” like a desktop keyboard should.</p><p>The keyboard is <i>so</i> flat, and the bezel surrounding the keyfield is so…”not even there,” that moving it to another part of my desk is clumsy. Have you ever tried to pick up a quarter off a tile floor right after you trimmed your nails? The experience is only <i>slightly</i> like that. But it’s still way too similar.</p><p>It goes without saying that the Magic Keyboard has none of the additional keys and comforts of a wide desktop keyboard. No keypad, no dedicated page navigation buttons, and the arrow keys are all cramped into a corner.</p><p>But here’s the most surprising disappointment of all: the Magic Keyboard is so light and thin that it feels downright cheap. Especially when compared to every other Apple product I’ve tried in the past 10 years. Though it’s stable on the desktop, I can flex it in my hands with small effort. If I were foolish enough to throw it in a bag and travel with it, I’m certain that the metal frame would bend into permanent wobbliness and I’d have to throw it away.</p><p>Is the Magic Keyboard a <i>terrible</i> keyboard? Naw. But it suffers in comparison to pretty much every desktop keyboard with which I’m familiar. Even compact ones. Even when I compare it to the keyboard in my MacBook Pro, the phrase that comes to mind is “disappointing.” I would never guess that this keyboard costs $99 and is intended to be used with an iMac or Mac Pro.</p><p>My difficulty with the Magic Keyboard is that it demands that I make <i>every</i> sacrifice – size, convenience, keyfeel – associated with a notebook keyboard, without delivering so much as a single benefit in return. When I reviewed the 2015 MacBook, I certainly noted the odd feel of its unprecedented flat keys. But I gave that a pass; its keyboard makes sense for the product that Apple was designing. It types great for what it is, and people who want the thinnest MacBook ever made are expecting tradeoffs.</p><p>Whereas the Magic Keyboard flat-out makes no sense to me at all. Obviously, these are all subjective opinions, but look, friends, that’s what I get paid for. Try out a Magic Keyboard at an Apple Store before buying one. If you don’t agree with my assessment, you’ll find some nifty features.</p><p>It has an internal battery that charges off of a Lightning port discreetly mounted at the back. Apple gives you a cable in the box. Pairing it with a Mac (or even an iPad) is easy. And just plugging it into a Mac’s USB port pairs it. Apple says the battery lasts a month or more after a two-hour charge, and that plugging it in for just a couple of minutes will put enough time on the clock to get a credible amount of work done.</p><h2>Better And Cheaper Alternatives</h2><p>I can’t recommend the Magic Keyboard because there are so many better full-sized compact Bluetooth keyboards out there.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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<img class="Image" alt="CST_Other_Keyboards_600x554.jpg" srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/aac98cc/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1637x919+0+297/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FDlojBa24rcA-oaWHf-yQ_cxa4zE%3D%2F0x0%3A1637x1512%2F1637x1512%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28818x756%3A819x757%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16232093%2FCST_Other_Keyboards_600x554.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/d9768cd/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1637x919+0+297/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FDlojBa24rcA-oaWHf-yQ_cxa4zE%3D%2F0x0%3A1637x1512%2F1637x1512%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28818x756%3A819x757%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16232093%2FCST_Other_Keyboards_600x554.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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</div><p><small><b> The $39 Logitech K380 (bottom) is a much better choice than the Magic Keyboard. The Anker Ultra Compact Bluetooth Keyboard (top) is even less expensive, at $26.</b></small></p><p>I’m writing this column on <a class="Link" href="http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/multi-device-keyboard-k380" target="_blank" >Logitech’s new K380 Compact Multi-Device Bluetooth Keyboard</a>. Its keys feel a little better than the ones on the Magic Keyboard. I wish its keycaps were square instead of round, and I sure wish its Command key were larger (the Magic Keyboard got that one right). But after just a couple of thousand words, I’m already used to those quirks. It’s more than sturdy enough for travel, and I can switch between my MacBook, my Android phone, and my iPad by tapping one of three yellow keys.</p><p>It’s barely thicker than the Magic Keyboard, including wide rubber feet that grip the desktop better than the Apple keyboard’s tiny nubbins. It’s a lot heavier (423 grams versus 231) but the Logitech delivers nine metaphorical pounds of features for that extra two-fifths of a pound of actual weight. It runs on two AAA batteries for (let me do a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation here) …”roughly forever.” In exchange for helping him kill the planet with disposable cells, Satan’s design lets you put a full charge into your keyboard in 10 seconds instead of two hours.</p><p>And it’s just $39. Too expensive? How about <a class="Link" href="http://www.ianker.com/product/A7721121" target="_blank" >Anker’s Ultra Compact Bluetooth Keyboard (A7721)</a>? It only pairs with one device, but it has a rechargeable battery that lasts at least as long as Apple’s. I’ve had one for months and, despite its $26 price on Amazon, I find its deeper keys more comfortable than the Magic Keyboard’s.</p><p>I don’t own the <a class="Link" href="http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/bluetooth-illuminated-keyboard-k810" target="_blank" >Logitech Bluetooth Easy-Switch Keyboard K810</a> (the Mac version is the K811) but I’ve used it. It costs as much as the $99 Magic Keyboard, but gives you way more: backlit keys, three-device pairing, and (as I recall) better keyfeel. It’s <a class="Link" href="http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/the-best-bluetooth-keyboard/" target="_blank" >Wirecutter’s recommendation among Bluetooth keyboards</a>. I just went back to the site for the URL of the review, and discovered that they also like the same two K380 and Anker keyboards that I just told you about.</p><p>(For the record, the sentence “… and in general, Wirecutter picks should command your full attention” was in my mental typing buffer before I even alt-tabbed over to my web browser. Now it just seems like cheap self-aggrandizement. Well, surely you people are used to that from me by now.)</p><p>Apple still makes their excellent extended USB keyboard, replete with a numeric keypad and other niceties. <a class="Link" href="http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MB110LL/B/apple-keyboard-with-numeric-keypad-english-usa" target="_blank" >It’s a snip at $49</a>. Other companies make desktop keyboards that are even <i>more</i> aggressively comfortable and convenient.</p><h2>Hitting The Wall</h2><p>I know, I’ve been ragging on the Magic Keyboard pretty hard. I don’t believe its designers are idiots. It’s a very careful and thoughtful design, optimized toward goals that I happen to disagree with, and it’s focused on the desires of a kind of user whom I don’t recognize among the general population.</p><p>(I also appreciate that most people are more used to the feel of a flat notebook keyboard than the sort of beasts we did battle with in the Eighties and Nineties. I’m too lazy to look up how big a giraffe’s molars are but if asked, I plan to say “Each is about the size of an individual keyswitch from the keyboard that came with the IBM PC/AT.” I can’t possibly be far off.)</p><p>I think I understand Apple’s attitude here. <i>Lots</i> of companies make keyboards that work with Macs. So Apple chooses to make the sort of keyboard that <i>only</i> <i>Apple</i> can make: stylish, sexy … like I said, the Magic Keyboard is a lovely design, when regarded as a static object.</p><p>Nonetheless, Apple’s attitude toward the mechanical human/Mac interface, as demonstrated by the keyboards they’re shipping (and don’t get me started on Apple’s history with mouses), is still frustrating. This is the keyboard they include with the new iMacs, and it’s mediocre at best.</p><p>Apple’s one of those companies that can do anything. More than that, it’s in that uppermost echelon of companies that are capable of making the <i>very best</i> version of something that’s ever existed. This is why, when I looked at my long-in-the-tooth Apple Wireless Keyboard a few months ago, it was exciting to imagine how Apple could improve a compact Bluetooth keyboard. <i>Particularly</i> for a world that would soon have an iPad Pro in it.</p><p>But when I think Apple’s laid an egg, it’s almost always because their brakes locked up and they skid straight through Thoughtful, Valuable, User-Focused Design and crashed into the wall of mere Design Woo-Woo. The same purple cloud of violent absurdity that drifted onto the Apple campus a few years ago and convinced everyone to put the iMac’s SD card slot in a spot where the user can’t possibly reach it returned to One Infinite Loop, and it planted the thought “Our users are <i>begging</i> us for a flatter desktop keyboard” in their heads.</p><p>Yes, I know that the Magic Keyboard’s designers are way smarter than I am about these things, and they put way way <i>way</i> more research and thought into it than I have. I can only tell you what I sincerely think about the device in front of me after using it for a week. And I think the Magic Keyboard is a big disappointment. An example of Design Woo-Woo.</p><p>I <i>know</i> that Apple could blow my socks off with the greatest wireless keyboard ever made. I hope they do.<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/business/2015/11/2/18560258/apple-s-magic-keyboard-who-asked-for-flatter-keys-anywayAndy Ihnatko2015-10-13T13:22:59-05:002019-04-17T19:19:34-05:00Ihnatko: Avoiding counterfeit tech
<p>The drive to Yosemite National Park from Fresno International Airport takes about two hours. I was being driven there by the organizer of the conference at which I’d be speaking. My digital amusement of choice (OK, go ahead and call it a security blanket) was therefore my camera instead of a phone or an iPad or anything else that would reduce my social interaction to a series of grunts and grimaces.</p><p>It’s not like I took <i>hundreds</i> of photos through the car window during the first half of the journey, but sure, I took a bunch. My battery was fully charged and I had enough card storage for thousands of images, so why not?</p><p>The scenery only started getting good once we neared the park. Swooping roads took us alongside tree-lined valleys before we entered the Wawona Tunnel, its rough-hewn edges so beautiful that I shot a couple of minutes of video. Again, why not?</p><p>Here’s why not: the Wawona Tunnel exits to a rest area and a <i>devastatingly</i> stunning vista, immortalized by no less than Ansel Adams himself. I’m not dissing Mr. Adams, but it’s one of those spots where all you need to do is aim your camera at the correct side of the planet and you’ll get a brilliant photo.</p><p>Here’s the picture I took. I got it with my iPhone, because the battery of my Really Nice Compact System Camera With The Terrific Lenses died in the tunnel.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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</div><p>I was not happy. I’d owned this Olympus OM-D E-M1 long enough to instinctively know how much I could get out of a single battery and this was by no means the first time I’d been caught way, way short.</p><p>I examined my gear after we reached the lodge. The battery I pulled out of the camera looked different from the other two I owned:</p><p>Ugh. OK. I had bought it from a third-party Amazon seller. It had been sold to me as an authentic Olympus battery, it had arrived in an Olympus box and had the Olympus logo on it, and it <i>claimed</i> to be a 1220 mAh battery, like an authentic Olympus battery but it was clearly a counterfeit. I’d bought it from Amazon awhile back and, as I recall, it was a fair bit cheaper than many of the other listings.</p><p>It wouldn’t be my first tussle with counterfeit Amazon items.</p><p>I’m off on a kick of searching for off-brand, no-name tech that costs a lot less than the fancy-schmancy alternatives but which nonetheless does the job well. I bought a set of no-name Bluetooth headphones for a song:</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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</div><p>These aren’t the actual ones I bought, but they’re identical and sell for about the same price ($10). I liked ‘em a lot. The sound quality wasn’t awesome, but I wasn’t going to use them for music. I wanted wireless headphones for the podcasts and audiobooks I listen to.</p><p>Why wasn’t I aware that these were <i>obvious</i> knockoffs of the popular <a class="Link" href="http://www.lg.com/us/bluetooth-headsets-headphones/lg-HBS750" target="_blank" >LG HBS-750</a>? Because I don’t work out in gyms (where, I’m told, they’re as ubiquitous as passive-aggressive notes about wiping down weight benches) and I get <i>so</i> many press releases for bluetooth audio things that my brain screens them out.</p><p>My knockoffs were sold and bought honestly. Still, I felt guilty, so I determined to buy the real things.</p><p>But the Amazon search results for “LG HBS-750” were weird. Most of the listings were from independent sellers: shipped <i>by</i> Amazon but not sold by them. The prices? All over the map. The ratings were often dismal, complaining of lousy sound quality and cheap packaging.</p><p>Yup: the Amazon marketplace had been poisoned by outfits selling these knockoffs as the real thing. It got me so mad that I grabbed my coat and my car keys at 4:30 p.m. on a Sunday to buy them from the closest Best Buy that same day.</p><p>It’s a bad situation. Customers get ripped off, <i>and</i> the reputation of the genuine product is sullied by bad reviews read by shoppers who don’t know they’re not reading about the actual LG-750.</p><p>Here’s the lesson: be supremely careful whenever you buy tech-related items on Amazon or eBay that seem to be easily counterfeited. Consumables such as phone batteries and printer cartridges — expensive and frequently replaced — are particularly worrisome.</p><p>On Amazon, there are ways to reduce the chances that you’re about to buy fake merch. If I’d made sure that “Olympus” was listed as the highlighted, linked manufacturer under the product name, and that the product “ships from and is sold by Amazon.com,” I probably would have received the real McCoy.</p><p>Otherwise, be suspicious of independent sellers who only sell a few products. And find out what the manufacturer’s retail price is. Genuine products all come from the same source. If someone’s selling something for 40 percent less than anybody else, it’s assuredly <i>not</i> because “Captain Bodacious Tech Co LLC” cunningly negotiated a better wholesale price from Apple on genuine MacBook Air chargers than anybody else.</p><p>Also: search for “(name of product) knockoff counterfeit.” <a class="Link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8GD611B0FU" target="_blank" >If people are getting burned, they’re probably already complaining about it</a>.</p><p>What if you wind up with counterfeit merchandise? If you bought it from an independent online store — well, good luck to you. Emailing the seller is useful in the same sense that writing a letter to your dead brother finally forgiving him for breaking your Coleco Electronic Football game when you were kids. You’ll get catharsis, but probably not a refund.</p><p>If you bought the item on <a class="Link" href="https://www.paypal.com/selfhelp/topic/FRAUD" target="_blank" >eBay</a>, or paid for it with <a class="Link" href="http://ocsnext.ebay.com/ocs/sc" target="_blank" >PayPal</a>, you’ve got a chance at receiving a refund but it’s going to take some effort. Both of those companies have policies against the sale of counterfeit merchandise and they accept fraud claims against sellers (follow the above links). But their role is as an intermediary.</p><p>Amazon offers a magic wand. Purchases are covered by the company’s “A to Z Guarantee,” which (broadly) says that if you didn’t get what you ordered, then it becomes Amazon’s problem instead of yours. The policy applies to stuff sold by third-party sellers as well as “sold by Amazon.” Just <a class="Link" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=201166010" target="_blank" >report the issue</a> and they’ll issue you a free return label and an immediate credit.</p><p>Alas, I didn’t figure out the problem with my Olympus battery until long after I bought it. I filed it in the “sadder but wiser” box, and when I got home from Yosemite, I chucked the knockoff battery in a battery recycling bin so it couldn’t let me down ever again.</p><p>And when it came time to leave Yosemite, I asked the conference organizer to please stop the van again at Tunnel View. I made sure the battery in my camera didn’t have any Kanji characters on it.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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https://chicago.suntimes.com/2015/10/13/18429433/ihnatko-avoiding-counterfeit-techAndy Ihnatko2015-10-13T08:22:59-05:002019-05-10T15:24:01-05:00Ihnatko: Avoiding counterfeit tech
<p>The drive to Yosemite National Park from Fresno International Airport takes about two hours. I was being driven there by the organizer of the conference at which I’d be speaking. My digital amusement of choice (OK, go ahead and call it a security blanket) was therefore my camera instead of a phone or an iPad or anything else that would reduce my social interaction to a series of grunts and grimaces.</p><p>It’s not like I took <i>hundreds</i> of photos through the car window during the first half of the journey, but sure, I took a bunch. My battery was fully charged and I had enough card storage for thousands of images, so why not?</p><p>The scenery only started getting good once we neared the park. Swooping roads took us alongside tree-lined valleys before we entered the Wawona Tunnel, its rough-hewn edges so beautiful that I shot a couple of minutes of video. Again, why not?</p><p>Here’s why not: the Wawona Tunnel exits to a rest area and a <i>devastatingly</i> stunning vista, immortalized by no less than Ansel Adams himself. I’m not dissing Mr. Adams, but it’s one of those spots where all you need to do is aim your camera at the correct side of the planet and you’ll get a brilliant photo.</p><p>Here’s the picture I took. I got it with my iPhone, because the battery of my Really Nice Compact System Camera With The Terrific Lenses died in the tunnel.</p><p>I was not happy. I’d owned this Olympus OM-D E-M1 long enough to instinctively know how much I could get out of a single battery and this was by no means the first time I’d been caught way, way short.</p><p>I examined my gear after we reached the lodge. The battery I pulled out of the camera looked different from the other two I owned:</p><p>Ugh. OK. I had bought it from a third-party Amazon seller. It had been sold to me as an authentic Olympus battery, it had arrived in an Olympus box and had the Olympus logo on it, and it <i>claimed</i> to be a 1220 mAh battery, like an authentic Olympus battery but it was clearly a counterfeit. I’d bought it from Amazon awhile back and, as I recall, it was a fair bit cheaper than many of the other listings.</p><p>It wouldn’t be my first tussle with counterfeit Amazon items.</p><p>I’m off on a kick of searching for off-brand, no-name tech that costs a lot less than the fancy-schmancy alternatives but which nonetheless does the job well. I bought a set of no-name Bluetooth headphones for a song:</p><p>These aren’t the actual ones I bought, but they’re identical and sell for about the same price ($10). I liked ’em a lot. The sound quality wasn’t awesome, but I wasn’t going to use them for music. I wanted wireless headphones for the podcasts and audiobooks I listen to.</p><p>Why wasn’t I aware that these were <i>obvious</i> knockoffs of the popular <a class="Link" href="http://www.lg.com/us/bluetooth-headsets-headphones/lg-HBS750" target="_blank" >LG HBS-750</a>? Because I don’t work out in gyms (where, I’m told, they’re as ubiquitous as passive-aggressive notes about wiping down weight benches) and I get <i>so</i> many press releases for bluetooth audio things that my brain screens them out.</p><p>My knockoffs were sold and bought honestly. Still, I felt guilty, so I determined to buy the real things.</p><p>But the Amazon search results for “LG HBS-750” were weird. Most of the listings were from independent sellers: shipped <i>by</i> Amazon but not sold by them. The prices? All over the map. The ratings were often dismal, complaining of lousy sound quality and cheap packaging.</p><p>Yup: the Amazon marketplace had been poisoned by outfits selling these knockoffs as the real thing. It got me so mad that I grabbed my coat and my car keys at 4:30 p.m. on a Sunday to buy them from the closest Best Buy that same day.</p><p>It’s a bad situation. Customers get ripped off, <i>and</i> the reputation of the genuine product is sullied by bad reviews read by shoppers who don’t know they’re not reading about the actual LG-750.</p><p>Here’s the lesson: be supremely careful whenever you buy tech-related items on Amazon or eBay that seem to be easily counterfeited. Consumables such as phone batteries and printer cartridges — expensive and frequently replaced — are particularly worrisome.</p><p>On Amazon, there are ways to reduce the chances that you’re about to buy fake merch. If I’d made sure that “Olympus” was listed as the highlighted, linked manufacturer under the product name, and that the product “ships from and is sold by Amazon.com,” I probably would have received the real McCoy.</p><p>Otherwise, be suspicious of independent sellers who only sell a few products. And find out what the manufacturer’s retail price is. Genuine products all come from the same source. If someone’s selling something for 40 percent less than anybody else, it’s assuredly <i>not</i> because “Captain Bodacious Tech Co LLC” cunningly negotiated a better wholesale price from Apple on genuine MacBook Air chargers than anybody else.</p><p>Also: search for “(name of product) knockoff counterfeit.” <a class="Link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8GD611B0FU" target="_blank" >If people are getting burned, they’re probably already complaining about it</a>.</p><p>What if you wind up with counterfeit merchandise? If you bought it from an independent online store — well, good luck to you. Emailing the seller is useful in the same sense that writing a letter to your dead brother finally forgiving him for breaking your Coleco Electronic Football game when you were kids. You’ll get catharsis, but probably not a refund.</p><p>If you bought the item on <a class="Link" href="https://www.paypal.com/selfhelp/topic/FRAUD" target="_blank" >eBay</a>, or paid for it with <a class="Link" href="http://ocsnext.ebay.com/ocs/sc" target="_blank" >PayPal</a>, you’ve got a chance at receiving a refund but it’s going to take some effort. Both of those companies have policies against the sale of counterfeit merchandise and they accept fraud claims against sellers (follow the above links). But their role is as an intermediary.</p><p>Amazon offers a magic wand. Purchases are covered by the company’s “A to Z Guarantee,” which (broadly) says that if you didn’t get what you ordered, then it becomes Amazon’s problem instead of yours. The policy applies to stuff sold by third-party sellers as well as “sold by Amazon.” Just <a class="Link" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=201166010" target="_blank" >report the issue</a> and they’ll issue you a free return label and an immediate credit.</p><p>Alas, I didn’t figure out the problem with my Olympus battery until long after I bought it. I filed it in the “sadder but wiser” box, and when I got home from Yosemite, I chucked the knockoff battery in a battery recycling bin so it couldn’t let me down ever again.</p><p>And when it came time to leave Yosemite, I asked the conference organizer to please stop the van again at Tunnel View. I made sure the battery in my camera didn’t have any Kanji characters on it.<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/business/2015/10/13/18565602/ihnatko-avoiding-counterfeit-techAndy Ihnatko2015-10-07T13:46:12-05:002019-04-17T20:00:34-05:00Ihnatko: New Microsoft products show what’s possible
<p>There are plenty of nicely designed Windows devices on the market. But because Windows and Office are the gears and the grease that keeps the machinery of international personal computing running, Dell, HP, Lenovo and other makers are motivated to make “fleet”-style computers. They’re powerful, affordable, and even have a certain amount of panache, but this kind of hardware can’t help Microsoft achieve its stated goal of transforming Windows into something people <i>love.</i></p><p>Hence, the phones, wearables, tablet, and laptop that the company showed off in New York on Tuesday. To one degree or another, they all show off what’s possible in the Windows world when the device maker is motivated to go beyond providing hardware that current consumers know that they want.</p><p><b>HoloLens and Microsoft Band</b></p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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<img class="Image" alt="<small><strong> HoloLens demos tend to be big on spectacle, short on firm details. But no trip to NYC would be complete without seeing a stranger swat at mechanical monsters that only he can see. | Andy Ihnatko</strong></small>" srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/adf057e/2147483647/strip/true/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FpN5pacdCSjBZHkKvCJRn2-f66es%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140918%2Fimg_0679.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/3d1fdc7/2147483647/strip/true/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FpN5pacdCSjBZHkKvCJRn2-f66es%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140918%2Fimg_0679.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p><small><strong> HoloLens demos tend to be big on spectacle, short on firm details. But no trip to NYC would be complete without seeing a stranger swat at mechanical monsters that only he can see. | Andy Ihnatko</strong></small></p></figcaption></div>
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</div><p>If all HoloLens ever achieved was the assurance of at least one kickass gaming demo per Microsoft media event, it’d probably justify its development costs.</p><p>Hopefully I’ll have more to think about in early 2016, as Microsoft begins to ship $3,000 developer editions of the HoloLens, and people outside of Microsoft are free to find new sources of awesome in this self-contained augmented reality PC.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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<img class="Image" alt="<small><strong> The updated Microsoft Band is thinner, softer and faster.</strong></small>" srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/fba5e30/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+97/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FXRX94yZOBUy9rSQntS1kDhDHN60%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140919%2Fimg_0843.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/2350d55/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+97/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FXRX94yZOBUy9rSQntS1kDhDHN60%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140919%2Fimg_0843.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p><small><strong> The updated Microsoft Band is thinner, softer and faster.</strong></small></p></figcaption></div>
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</div><p>The second-generation of <a class="Link" href="http://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-band/" target="_blank" >Microsoft Band</a> is as real as a heartbeat. They’ve turned last year’s chunky, stiff bangle bracelet into a more flat and supple (if still a little thick) health wearable. The screen itself is curved, which helps the whole package to blend in with your wrist. I found it much more comfy.</p><p>The interface, with its larger screen and improved internals, seemed much zippier. There’s a new 11th sensor that adds barometric pressure info, so it can sense changes in elevation.</p><p>Though the demo never targeted Apple Watch directly, it was hard not to compare it to Apple’s scattershot messaging. In September, Apple demoed a Watch app that’s useful only to on-call doctors, and released a <i>second</i> crazy-expensive luxury edition that nobody needs. Microsoft emphatically stated Tuesday and underscored the message that Band is there to enhance, extend and improve all of the activities you perform from casual movement to the sort of focused, purposeful, data-driven athletic training that remains an Achilles’ heel of Apple Watch.</p><p>Case in point: a new golf app that can automatically keep score. Band has so many sensors that it can tell when you’re hitting balls on the course’s driving range as opposed to the course, and can even sense when you’ve taken a practice swing as opposed to one that ends with contact with a physical object.</p><p>(Here’s hoping for a Judge Smails mode. “Don’t count that one … ‘<i>winter rules’</i>.”)</p><p>Band is available for pre-order today from the Microsoft Store ($250) and it’ll ship at the end of the month.</p><p><b>New Lumia phones</b></p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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<img class="Image" alt="<small><strong> The new Lumia phones.</strong></small>" srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/915c1b6/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+97/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FxugURxRirwrv1NVH-f0RtVD0qfg%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140921%2Fimg_0832.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/1c40ac7/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+97/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FxugURxRirwrv1NVH-f0RtVD0qfg%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140921%2Fimg_0832.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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</picture>
<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p><small><strong> The new Lumia phones.</strong></small></p></figcaption></div>
</figure>
</div>
</div><p>For the past few years, Microsoft has had everything I want to see in a phone business except (oh dear) for developers and users. They’ve delivered beautiful, well-made hardware with desirable features and a unique UI language that feels totally relevant to the role that a smartphone plays in daily life. And, bonus: it shatters the iOS/Android mold.</p><p>Microsoft introduced three new phones but the almost exclusive focus was on the flagships: <a class="Link" href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/mobile/phone/lumia950-xl/" target="_blank" >the 5.2-inch 950 and 5.7-inch 950XL</a>, starting at $550 and $650, respectively, and shipping in November.</p><p>Both of them look, and feel, like premium devices. They spec out the same way, with a complete list of top-tier features.</p><p>Microsoft has decided to fly or fall based on a simple leap: Windows 10 runs on <i>everything.</i> Your phone doesn’t just get your data and your services, but also your Windows 10 apps and the W10 interface. Every iOS, Android, and Windows phone has mobile versions of desktop apps, such as Office. That’s nothing. When you connect a Lumia 950 or XL to a screen (via Miracast or the new Display Dock), your phone becomes a Windows 10 desktop PC, for all visible and performance purposes. A keyboard and mouse (Bluetooth, or use one of the dock’s USB ports) complete the illusion.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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<img class="Image" alt="<small><strong> Microsoft’s Display Dock gives Lumia phones USB, HDMI and DisplayPort connectors, and lets you use the phone like a desktop.</strong></small>" srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/c222f44/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+97/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FW04xV71adb4BftaTS9YZv_LGGiA%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140923%2Fimg_0850.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/15f59e0/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+97/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FW04xV71adb4BftaTS9YZv_LGGiA%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140923%2Fimg_0850.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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>
</picture>
<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p><small><strong> Microsoft’s Display Dock gives Lumia phones USB, HDMI and DisplayPort connectors, and lets you use the phone like a desktop.</strong></small></p></figcaption></div>
</figure>
</div>
</div><p>You’re limited to fullscreen Modern apps but there’s nothing mobile about the experience. Create, collaborate and present from the phone. The Lumia itself remains a smartphone, with its own display and personality.</p><p>I have a lot of affection for this approach. I keep wondering if this is what anybody <i>wants,</i> though. I’m a mobile warrior myself. If I were planning to carry all of the gear required in order to use a phone like a notebook, why wouldn’t I just take a notebook? Or a little tablet with a keyboard case? But there are many aspects of working in a huge office that I only understand in the abstract.</p><p>Well. The 950 and 950XL include the head-of-the-class Pureview cameras and Zeiss badging I’ve loved in previous Lumias. I’m eager to take some pictures with these.</p><p><b>Resurfacing</b></p><p>As Apple and Google release new hardware and add new OS features to make iOS and Android tablets behave more like notebooks, it feels as if Surface’s time has come and that the forward thinking of the first Surface has been unequivocally validated.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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<img class="Image" alt="<small><strong> Same everything, only better: thinner, lighter, faster, same physical footprint but somehow with a larger active screen area.</strong></small>" srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/200c881/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+97/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FXxMbGsDTkhDhu-I6Zac2Xq5_aos%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140924%2Fimg_0791.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/700d132/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+97/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FXxMbGsDTkhDhu-I6Zac2Xq5_aos%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140924%2Fimg_0791.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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>
</picture>
<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p><small><strong> Same everything, only better: thinner, lighter, faster, same physical footprint but somehow with a larger active screen area.</strong></small></p></figcaption></div>
</figure>
</div>
</div><p><a class="Link" href="https://www.microsoft.com/surface/" target="_blank" >Surface Pro 4</a> looks and feels as well-designed and built as any iPad. Its footprint is identical to that of the Surface Pro 3, <i>but</i> its screen has a larger active area and more pixels. It’s noticeably thinner and lighter, <i>but</i> they didn’t take away any of the Surface Pro 3’s ports or power. It’s available with up to a terabyte of storage, which is double that of the Pro 3.</p><p>And of course it’s faster (30 percent, Microsoft says) and more responsive. I felt it, particularly when I used the pen (which still has 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity).</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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<img class="Image" alt="<small><strong> The Surface Pro 4′s new keyboard cover reflects how much real works gets done with them: it’s a true laptop-style keyboard.</strong></small>" srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/69fb5c8/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+97/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2F_EFna9AiIGWTxgogD6OKCzp3W8Y%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140925%2Fimg_0793.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/833e308/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+97/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2F_EFna9AiIGWTxgogD6OKCzp3W8Y%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140925%2Fimg_0793.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
data-src="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/69fb5c8/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+97/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2F_EFna9AiIGWTxgogD6OKCzp3W8Y%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140925%2Fimg_0793.jpg" data-lazy-load="true" src="data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHZlcnNpb249IjEuMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIyNzVweCIgd2lkdGg9IjQ5MHB4Ij48L3N2Zz4="
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</picture>
<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p><small><strong> The Surface Pro 4′s new keyboard cover reflects how much real works gets done with them: it’s a true laptop-style keyboard.</strong></small></p></figcaption></div>
</figure>
</div>
</div><p>But it’s not just a tablet; it’s supposed to be a workhorse, like a notebook. Microsoft introduced an updated flat keyboard cover that’s impressed me as much as the new tablet. It has a larger, glass multitouch trackpad and backlit keyswitches that are so good that it was hard to recall a difference between them and the ones on the MacBook Pro I’d was taking notes with all afternoon. No question: I could spend all day writing on this keyboard.</p><p>The new keyboard includes a Windows Hello-compatible fingerprint sensor, and it works with the Surface 3 as well. So does the new Surface dock, which adds a constellation of ports (USB, DisplayPort, and Ethernet).</p><p>Finally, Microsoft unveiled its very first notebook, a 13-inch model. It’s a Surface, and it’s a doozy.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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<img class="Image" alt="<small><strong> Microsoft’s new Surface Book convertible notebook sits on top of a 13″ MacBook Air.</strong></small>" srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/20a44be/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+97/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FsXhijO2AjDaDMb_L0gW2kAl39Y8%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140926%2Ffullsizerender_12_1.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/67ac60e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+97/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FsXhijO2AjDaDMb_L0gW2kAl39Y8%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140926%2Ffullsizerender_12_1.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p><small><strong> Microsoft’s new Surface Book convertible notebook sits on top of a 13″ MacBook Air.</strong></small></p></figcaption></div>
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</div><p><a class="Link" href="https://www.microsoft.com/surface/" target="_blank" >Surface Book</a> inspired the opening of this column. Only Microsoft has the freedom to design something that’s <i>this</i> beautiful as a static object.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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<img class="Image" alt="<small><strong> Check out the hinge on the Surface Book. It’s a graceful, keystoned curve.</strong></small>" srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/5f334d2/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+97/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2Fhuecpwa1zXBJeULpbKI2vw4zu_M%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140930%2Fimg_0816.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/53dc248/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+97/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2Fhuecpwa1zXBJeULpbKI2vw4zu_M%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140930%2Fimg_0816.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p><small><strong> Check out the hinge on the Surface Book. It’s a graceful, keystoned curve.</strong></small></p></figcaption></div>
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</div><p>The hinge between the screen and keyboard is a case in point. The simple hinges on other notebooks work great and they’re inexpensive. Surface Book’s hinge is made of three superwide keystone-shaped links, like a watchband. It makes Surface Book look like a flat sheet of clay that’s been gently folded over. The rounded thickness makes it feel <i>terrific</i> when you’re carrying it. It elevates the design immensely and helps justifies its $1,500 starting price, as does its full array of ports, its rock-solid all-metal construction, and its performance.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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<img class="Image" alt="<small><strong> When detached from the keyboard, the Surface Book’s screen becomes an even slimmer version of Surface Pro 4.</strong></small>" srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/bfee3ce/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+97/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FBERmr7wQeQxAuR9j0GJ6qDcjh3U%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140932%2Fimg_0823_1.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/a851837/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+97/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FBERmr7wQeQxAuR9j0GJ6qDcjh3U%3D%2F0x0%3A1024x768%2F1024x768%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28512x384%3A513x385%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16140932%2Fimg_0823_1.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p><small><strong> When detached from the keyboard, the Surface Book’s screen becomes an even slimmer version of Surface Pro 4.</strong></small></p></figcaption></div>
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</div><p>Pressing a button on the keyboard unlocks a few finger latches and allows you to separate the screen. The keyboard base contains all of the ports you’d expect on a laptop, plus an additional battery and graphics processor unit. The latter two extend the life of the Book to 12 hours, and delivers the power-hungry number crunching that high-end graphics apps and games require.</p><p>Undocked, the screen becomes in essence a Surface Pro 4 (pen included). Except it’s even thinner, because it left its thick ports behind.</p><p><i>I’m way too heavily invested in the Mac platform to consider switching to Windows.</i></p><p>This thought kept going through my mind as I tried and held Surface Book, in much the same way that the sight of an athlete jogging past you in the park on a hot summer day in the right lighting can make the phrase “I love my wife/husband dearly, and I would <i>never</i> cheat on them” pop into your head all of a sudden. If Surface Book were part of the MacBook line, I’d be preparing a grateful essay about Apple finally breaking free of its stoic design language and its dogmatic stance against Macs with multitouch screens. And as a consumer, there’d be <i>zero</i> chance I would consider buying a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air instead.</p><p>Even the Surface 4 is solid enough to make me rethink my decision to get an iPad Pro, which felt like it was already bought and in the bag. Now? Well, the cheapest Surface Pro 4 has 128 gigs of storage and it’s $899. The iPad Pro starts at $799, but only has 32G, which seems inadequate for the role I have in mind for it; $949 buys me 128 gigs, which is the only other option.</p><p>Add in the Apple Pencil and we’re at $1,100, or roughly the price of Surface 4 (free pen) plus the added keyboard cover that I liked so much. God help me.</p><p>Preorders on Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book begin now, for shipment at the end of October.</p><p><b>Windows Everywhere</b></p><p>There was a time in Windows’ development (and my own emotional development) when “Windows Everywhere” would have conjured comparisons to air pollution.</p><p>We’ve both matured considerably since those days. Windows 10 just keeps on flying. I saw the same OS running on a phone, a tablet and on a laptop that converts to a tablet, all without any visible compromises or clumsiness; each time, it seemed ideally suited to its host device.</p><p>Dare I say that Microsoft seems to have located its source of joy in its work? It sure seems that way, based on the hardware I saw on Tuesday.<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2015/10/7/18438124/ihnatko-new-microsoft-products-show-what-s-possibleAndy Ihnatko2015-10-07T08:46:12-05:002019-05-11T11:32:42-05:00Ihnatko: New Microsoft products show what's possible
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>When detached from the keyboard, the Surface Book’s screen becomes an even slimmer version of Surface Pro 4. | Andy Ihnatko</p></figcaption></div>
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<p>There are plenty of nicely designed Windows devices on the market. But because Windows and Office are the gears and the grease that keeps the machinery of international personal computing running, Dell, HP, Lenovo and other makers are motivated to make “fleet”-style computers. They’re powerful, affordable, and even have a certain amount of panache, but this kind of hardware can’t help Microsoft achieve its stated goal of transforming Windows into something people <i>love.</i></p><p>Hence, the phones, wearables, tablet, and laptop that the company showed off in New York on Tuesday. To one degree or another, they all show off what’s possible in the Windows world when the device maker is motivated to go beyond providing hardware that current consumers know that they want.</p><p><b>HoloLens and Microsoft Band</b></p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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</div><p><small><b> HoloLens demos tend to be big on spectacle, short on firm details. But no trip to NYC would be complete without seeing a stranger swat at mechanical monsters that only he can see. | Andy Ihnatko</b></small></p><p>If all HoloLens ever achieved was the assurance of at least one kickass gaming demo per Microsoft media event, it’d probably justify its development costs.</p><p>Hopefully I’ll have more to think about in early 2016, as Microsoft begins to ship $3,000 developer editions of the HoloLens, and people outside of Microsoft are free to find new sources of awesome in this self-contained augmented reality PC.</p><p><small><b> The updated Microsoft Band is thinner, softer and faster.</b></small></p><p>The second-generation of <a class="Link" href="http://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-band/" target="_blank" >Microsoft Band</a> is as real as a heartbeat. They’ve turned last year’s chunky, stiff bangle bracelet into a more flat and supple (if still a little thick) health wearable. The screen itself is curved, which helps the whole package to blend in with your wrist. I found it much more comfy.</p><p>The interface, with its larger screen and improved internals, seemed much zippier. There’s a new 11th sensor that adds barometric pressure info, so it can sense changes in elevation.</p><p>Though the demo never targeted Apple Watch directly, it was hard not to compare it to Apple’s scattershot messaging. In September, Apple demoed a Watch app that’s useful only to on-call doctors, and released a <i>second</i> crazy-expensive luxury edition that nobody needs. Microsoft emphatically stated Tuesday and underscored the message that Band is there to enhance, extend and improve all of the activities you perform from casual movement to the sort of focused, purposeful, data-driven athletic training that remains an Achilles’ heel of Apple Watch.</p><p>Case in point: a new golf app that can automatically keep score. Band has so many sensors that it can tell when you’re hitting balls on the course’s driving range as opposed to the course, and can even sense when you’ve taken a practice swing as opposed to one that ends with contact with a physical object.</p><p>(Here’s hoping for a Judge Smails mode. “Don’t count that one … ‘<i>winter rules’</i>.”)</p><p>Band is available for pre-order today from the Microsoft Store ($250) and it’ll ship at the end of the month.</p><p><b>New Lumia phones</b></p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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</div><p><small><b> The new Lumia phones.</b></small></p><p>For the past few years, Microsoft has had everything I want to see in a phone business except (oh dear) for developers and users. They’ve delivered beautiful, well-made hardware with desirable features and a unique UI language that feels totally relevant to the role that a smartphone plays in daily life. And, bonus: it shatters the iOS/Android mold.</p><p>Microsoft introduced three new phones but the almost exclusive focus was on the flagships: <a class="Link" href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/mobile/phone/lumia950-xl/" target="_blank" >the 5.2-inch 950 and 5.7-inch 950XL</a>, starting at $550 and $650, respectively, and shipping in November.</p><p>Both of them look, and feel, like premium devices. They spec out the same way, with a complete list of top-tier features.</p><p>Microsoft has decided to fly or fall based on a simple leap: Windows 10 runs on <i>everything.</i> Your phone doesn’t just get your data and your services, but also your Windows 10 apps and the W10 interface. Every iOS, Android, and Windows phone has mobile versions of desktop apps, such as Office. That’s nothing. When you connect a Lumia 950 or XL to a screen (via Miracast or the new Display Dock), your phone becomes a Windows 10 desktop PC, for all visible and performance purposes. A keyboard and mouse (Bluetooth, or use one of the dock’s USB ports) complete the illusion.</p><p><small><b> Microsoft’s Display Dock gives Lumia phones USB, HDMI and DisplayPort connectors, and lets you use the phone like a desktop.</b></small></p><p>You’re limited to fullscreen Modern apps but there’s nothing mobile about the experience. Create, collaborate and present from the phone. The Lumia itself remains a smartphone, with its own display and personality.</p><p>I have a lot of affection for this approach. I keep wondering if this is what anybody <i>wants,</i> though. I’m a mobile warrior myself. If I were planning to carry all of the gear required in order to use a phone like a notebook, why wouldn’t I just take a notebook? Or a little tablet with a keyboard case? But there are many aspects of working in a huge office that I only understand in the abstract.</p><p>Well. The 950 and 950XL include the head-of-the-class Pureview cameras and Zeiss badging I’ve loved in previous Lumias. I’m eager to take some pictures with these.</p><p><b>Resurfacing</b></p><p>As Apple and Google release new hardware and add new OS features to make iOS and Android tablets behave more like notebooks, it feels as if Surface’s time has come and that the forward thinking of the first Surface has been unequivocally validated.</p><p><small><b> Same everything, only better: thinner, lighter, faster, same physical footprint but somehow with a larger active screen area.</b></small></p><p><a class="Link" href="https://www.microsoft.com/surface/" target="_blank" >Surface Pro 4</a> looks and feels as well-designed and built as any iPad. Its footprint is identical to that of the Surface Pro 3, <i>but</i> its screen has a larger active area and more pixels. It’s noticeably thinner and lighter, <i>but</i> they didn’t take away any of the Surface Pro 3’s ports or power. It’s available with up to a terabyte of storage, which is double that of the Pro 3.</p><p>And of course it’s faster (30 percent, Microsoft says) and more responsive. I felt it, particularly when I used the pen (which still has 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity).</p><p><small><b> The Surface Pro 4’s new keyboard cover reflects how much real works gets done with them: it’s a true laptop-style keyboard.</b></small></p><p>But it’s not just a tablet; it’s supposed to be a workhorse, like a notebook. Microsoft introduced an updated flat keyboard cover that’s impressed me as much as the new tablet. It has a larger, glass multitouch trackpad and backlit keyswitches that are so good that it was hard to recall a difference between them and the ones on the MacBook Pro I’d was taking notes with all afternoon. No question: I could spend all day writing on this keyboard.</p><p>The new keyboard includes a Windows Hello-compatible fingerprint sensor, and it works with the Surface 3 as well. So does the new Surface dock, which adds a constellation of ports (USB, DisplayPort, and Ethernet).</p><p>Finally, Microsoft unveiled its very first notebook, a 13-inch model. It’s a Surface, and it’s a doozy.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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</div><p><small><b> Microsoft’s new Surface Book convertible notebook sits on top of a 13″ MacBook Air.</b></small></p><p><a class="Link" href="https://www.microsoft.com/surface/" target="_blank" >Surface Book</a> inspired the opening of this column. Only Microsoft has the freedom to design something that’s <i>this</i> beautiful as a static object.</p><p><small><b> Check out the hinge on the Surface Book. It’s a graceful, keystoned curve.</b></small></p><p>The hinge between the screen and keyboard is a case in point. The simple hinges on other notebooks work great and they’re inexpensive. Surface Book’s hinge is made of three superwide keystone-shaped links, like a watchband. It makes Surface Book look like a flat sheet of clay that’s been gently folded over. The rounded thickness makes it feel <i>terrific</i> when you’re carrying it. It elevates the design immensely and helps justifies its $1,500 starting price, as does its full array of ports, its rock-solid all-metal construction, and its performance.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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</div><p><small><b> When detached from the keyboard, the Surface Book’s screen becomes an even slimmer version of Surface Pro 4.</b></small></p><p>Pressing a button on the keyboard unlocks a few finger latches and allows you to separate the screen. The keyboard base contains all of the ports you’d expect on a laptop, plus an additional battery and graphics processor unit. The latter two extend the life of the Book to 12 hours, and delivers the power-hungry number crunching that high-end graphics apps and games require.</p><p>Undocked, the screen becomes in essence a Surface Pro 4 (pen included). Except it’s even thinner, because it left its thick ports behind.</p><p><i>I’m way too heavily invested in the Mac platform to consider switching to Windows.</i></p><p>This thought kept going through my mind as I tried and held Surface Book, in much the same way that the sight of an athlete jogging past you in the park on a hot summer day in the right lighting can make the phrase “I love my wife/husband dearly, and I would <i>never</i> cheat on them” pop into your head all of a sudden. If Surface Book were part of the MacBook line, I’d be preparing a grateful essay about Apple finally breaking free of its stoic design language and its dogmatic stance against Macs with multitouch screens. And as a consumer, there’d be <i>zero</i> chance I would consider buying a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air instead.</p><p>Even the Surface 4 is solid enough to make me rethink my decision to get an iPad Pro, which felt like it was already bought and in the bag. Now? Well, the cheapest Surface Pro 4 has 128 gigs of storage and it’s $899. The iPad Pro starts at $799, but only has 32G, which seems inadequate for the role I have in mind for it; $949 buys me 128 gigs, which is the only other option.</p><p>Add in the Apple Pencil and we’re at $1,100, or roughly the price of Surface 4 (free pen) plus the added keyboard cover that I liked so much. God help me.</p><p>Preorders on Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book begin now, for shipment at the end of October.</p><p><b>Windows Everywhere</b></p><p>There was a time in Windows’ development (and my own emotional development) when “Windows Everywhere” would have conjured comparisons to air pollution.</p><p>We’ve both matured considerably since those days. Windows 10 just keeps on flying. I saw the same OS running on a phone, a tablet and on a laptop that converts to a tablet, all without any visible compromises or clumsiness; each time, it seemed ideally suited to its host device.</p><p>Dare I say that Microsoft seems to have located its source of joy in its work? It sure seems that way, based on the hardware I saw on Tuesday.<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/business/2015/10/7/18612909/ihnatko-new-microsoft-products-show-what-s-possibleAndy Ihnatko2015-09-30T12:31:02-05:002019-04-17T19:21:37-05:00Ihnatko: What you should know about Google’s new hardware
<p>If you watched the livestream of Google’s September hardware announcement, you <i>might</i> have gotten the impression that the company’s hardware news was less exciting than Apple’s. Like, by an order of magnitude or an order of “Were the stage microphones even working?” The crowd at Apple’s event a couple of weeks ago screamed like rock fans; the crowd at Google’s behaved like rock critics.</p><p>But there’s a good reason for that: Apple held their event <i>inside an actual rock arena</i> and they filled well over a thousand seats (1,500, an unofficial source told me), most of whom were heavily invested Apple fans. Google was presenting to a small group consisting almost exclusively of press and analysts. Most of them had their hands busy pressing buttons on keyboards and cameras instead of applauding, which they shouldn’t have been doing anyway.</p><p>So, do keep that in mind.</p><p>Another reason for audience reticence: Google showed off five new hardware products in three different categories and, OK, all of them <i>combined</i> were maybe as exciting as the iPad Pro.</p><p>It wasn’t supposed to be that kind of event, anyway. As the sole makers of iOS hardware, everything Apple announces reflects a fundamental change to the platform as a whole. Google, despite being the most popular mobile OS by far, can only show off new hardware that reflects the company’s intentions for the directions of Android. Then, they cross their fingers and hope that hardware makers will listen, and not get too <i>terribly</i> upset that Google is competing with them at all, even at such low stakes.</p><p>Google unveiled two updates to the Nexus line of phones; updates to its low-cost Chromecast streaming devices; and took the wraps off of a tablet that looks like a Chromebook, that has the <i>name</i> of a Chromebook, and has a keyboard, but it runs Android.</p><p>I admit that I’m still kind of digesting that one.</p><p><b>New Nexus 6P, 5X Phones</b></p><p>My default answer to the “Which Android phone should I buy?” is “Anything with the Nexus name on it.” These devices are the only ones that receive OS updates directly from Google. During Tuesday’s event, Google announced that Android 6 (“Marshmallow”) will be released next week. If you own a Nexus phone or tablet, you’ll get it almost immediately. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait for the device manufacturer to bake its own version of Marshmallow for that device, and then maybe even wait for your phone carrier to bake <i>that</i> version of Marshmallow into an AT&T-specific build.</p><p>It can take <i>months,</i> and it’s the single intractable bummer about Android. Google has improved the situation by breaking many features out of the main OS code base and releasing them as Google Play apps that can be updated and downloaded directly. But updates are still a big pain point and a good reason to consider a Nexus-branded device.</p><p>Google designs Nexus phones in conjunction with leading Android phone makers. Last year’s Nexus 6, for example, had the same look, feel, and camera limitations you would expect from all Motorola Android devices. They’ve broken with tradition by putting two phones out on the field this year. 2014′s Nexus 5 — my daily carry, beloved by many, though I suppose I shouldn’t describe it as “the Volkswagen of phones” any more — is now the 5X, and is still being made by LG. The 4.95-inch screen is now a bit larger (5.2 inches) but it’s still the pocketable Nexus.</p><p>Because the other one is still a Pop-Tart: the 6P (made by Huawei) has a 5.7-inch 1440 x 2560 pixels. I’ll save you the math: that’s a whopping 518 pixels per inch, which sails past “retina-quality” and coasts into “oh my god” range.</p><p>The 6P is faster, it’s made from aluminum instead of plastic, has more RAM for running apps, and it has room for a larger battery. But the 5X has a bigger battery too, thank God, because low battery warnings on my Nexus 5 are why I take His name in vain at around 3 p.m. every day.</p><p>These two phones share three key features.</p><p>They both sport a new USB-C connector for data and storage. This means faster charging, video, and inclusion of a wider range of USB accessories, but for most people it just means “never having to guess which side of the plug is up.”</p><p>Both phones have the same fingerprint sensor, which Google is calling “Nexus Imprint.” Apple and Samsung placed their sensors on the Home button. Nexus Imprint is on the back of the devices, roughly where your finger would naturally fall as you’re holding them. Google has added fingerprint ID to the new edition of Android. It can unlock the phone, authorize Play Store purchases, it works with Android Pay, and it also available to third-party apps.</p><p>But the biggest, and most welcome, surprise was the fact that they both use the exact same main camera. They use a 12 megapixel Sony sensor with larger sensor pixels, compared to other phones (Google specifically called out the iPhone 6S Plus). This is such a beefy image sensor that it’s responsible for the big blister on the back of the 5X and the horizontal hump on the 6P.</p><p>If it creates better pictures, though, I’m all for blisters and humps. <i>In theory,</i> bigger sensor pixels are cause for optimism; you would expect them to capture better photos in low light, while delivering greater dynamic range and less signal noise. But there’s a lot of alchemy involved in camera design. As usual when I’m at a press event and someone is explaining all of the technology that makes their phone camera better, I nod, I write down the numbers they are dictating to me…and then discard it all until I get to spend a few days shooting with this thing for real.</p><p>Google tried to make the case that gosh, with these big sensor pixels the 6P doesn’t even <i>need</i> optical image stabilization. I was hoping they were following this with “…but it has it anyway, to ensure the greatest low-light performance in any phone ever made.” Alas, no. I’m skeptical. Every time I’ve done my side-by-side comparisons, cameras that can compensate for camera shake during long exposures beat the pants off of the cameras that can’t. But only an hour inside the Boston Public Library with these new phones will tell the tale.</p><p>The two phones’ selfie cameras are different: 5 megapixels on the 5X opposed to 8 megapixels on the 6P. Based solely on the specs, I’d say that the key differential between these two phones (apart from the size, obviously) will be the available storage. The 5X comes in 16 gig and 32 gig capacities, for $379 and $429. The 6P is available in 32, 64, and 128 gigs for $499 to $649. Personally, I like small phones with huge storage (so I never run out of room for music, podcast downloads and photos), so the lack of a 64 gig 5X is kind of a bummer.</p><p>The 5X and 6P are available for pre-order from the <a class="Link" href="https://store.google.com" target="_blank" >Google Store</a>. They’ll ship sometime in October.</p><p><b>Chromecasts Redux</b></p><p>Google made a few oblique jabs against Apple. They saved the direct comments for the introduction of the new Chromecast streaming devices. Google would like to remind the world that Chromecast is a tiny dongle that disappears behind your TV without leaving an ugly box for you to deal with, and because the streams are chosen and controlled through the same apps you use on your phone instead of through an onscreen user interface and remote, it costs just $35.</p><p>Noted. I like the fact that a house can have a Chromecast on every TV for the same cost as just one $150 2015 Apple TV. That said, I have a Chromecast <i>and</i> a Roku on my living room screen and I’m still in the habit of picking up the Roku remote instead of my phone. Maybe it’s just because this basic precursor to flopping down on the sofa has soothed me since I was a little kid.</p><p>Google offered a new Chromecast shaped like a little UFO. It’s a lovely bit of flair with a practical side: because the HDMI connector is now attached by a short strap of cable, it’ll fit into close-quarter HDMI ports better than the old design. It’s also designed for easy totability: when disconnected, the connector clicks onto the body via an internal magnet. It’s also got a new multiple antenna system to help it find a Wi-Fi signal, and upgraded radios for greater speed and agility.</p><p>Not much else to write about there, except for a greatly-improved Chromecast app that helps you discover what’s on, without having to flip through seven or eight different apps on your phone. I liked the demo: search for “Bob’s Burgers” and it’ll find options for watching the show on Hulu, Netflix, and the Play Store, and third-party developers (such as your cable company) are free to make their own content visible to this search too.</p><p>The search includes YouTube. Google’s demo used “interviews and behind-the-scenes material” as examples of content that would turn up in that part of the search. I have to wonder if the app is smart enough to weed out bootleg recordings as well.</p><p>“Chromecast Audio” is an addition to the hardware lineup. It’s for audio streams only but it works (and looks) like Chromecast: plug it into anything that has an audio input (a set of powered speakers, your home theater amp — conceivably your car stereo would work, too) and it’ll wirelessly stream audio programming from your Android device or a compatible browser, from any app that supports Chromecasting. As with the video Chromecast, it also needs a source of USB power.</p><p>I like the idea of this new Chromecast. Most houses seem to have a decent set of powered speakers in a closet and Chromecast Audio provides a cheap way to turn ‘em into a modern streaming sound solution. If it works as well as the video Chromecast, connecting will be much quicker and intuitive than a Bluetooth speaker, too. Both Chromecasts sell for $35 and can be ordered from the <a class="Link" href="https://store.google.com" target="_blank" >Google Store</a>.</p><p><b>When Is A Tablet Not A Tablet?</b></p><p>Microsoft might have missed the bus when it comes to the phone market. But give them credit for releasing the Surface Pro long before Apple introduced the iPad Pro and Google announced the Pixel C.</p><p>These two September devices carry forward the same realization that Microsoft had: people love tablets, <i>but</i> they also want to get stuff done with them. Therefore, premium tablets should be designed with keyboards as an integral part of the experience and not treat them like a begrudging afterthought solely of interest to the weirdos at the margins.</p><p>Both the iPad Pro and the Pixel C break with Microsoft’s notion of a strictly convertible notebook. The Pixel C is an aluminum-bodied Android tablet with a 10.2-inch screen and the same aspect ratio as a sheet of A4 paper. The wide shape is to accommodate a wider keyboard. The Pixel C’s keyboard (also aluminum) has conventional mechanical keyswitches and the A-Z 0-1 area is the same size as a conventional keyboard. It attaches to the tablet magnetically, either as a cover or as a laptop-type stand with adjustable viewing angles.</p><p>Unlike the iPad Pro and the Surface, which communicate with their keyboards via mechanical contacts, the Pixel C’s keyboard’s digital connection is Bluetooth. Bluetooth works great on my current iPad. Still, it requires a measure of either initial uncertainty or tapping through Settings, or both before it’s confirmed that my two devices are talking to each other. I’d be happier with mechanical contacts.</p><p>I wonder why Google didn’t use the Nexus label on this one, like they’ve done with their other tablets. It takes its unmistakable style cues from Google’s Pixel Chromebook, down to the neato rainbow bar of LEDs on the outside that shows battery status when tapped. A bank of four directional microphones supposedly lets you use voice commands even with the device on the other side of the room. A nice touch.</p><p>I think more people would give up ultralight notebooks for tablets if they looked at high-end models running the latest OS and saw just how agile and powerful they can be. My 13-inch MacBook Pro has been staying at home ever since I got iOS 9 running on my iPad.</p><p>And the Pixel C <i>could</i> be even more comfortable for notebook users than an iPad. Android supports Bluetooth pointing devices and the UI that Google introduced with Android L is as well-suited to a mouse and keyboard as it is to strictly multitouch usage. It’s kind of brilliant that way. Also, Android’s open file system does away with the demi-nightmare of moving files into and out of the iPad and between its apps. The Pixel C’s USB-C port implies that it’ll work with any USB storage device.</p><p>But although Android and iOS have practically the same catalog of phone apps, the collection of Android tablet apps is merely endurable. For the iPad, the selection is downright effervescent.</p><p>They got the price right, at least: the Pixel C starts at $499 (plus $150 for the keyboard cover). This makes it competitive with the iPad while not losing the premium feel and features that will attract people who might be considering a Windows 10 convertible. It’ll be available from the Google Store by the end of the year.</p><p>The message that Google seems to be sending with the Pixel C: “Built like a premium Windows 10 convertible, but it’s smaller and costs hundreds of dollars less; offers the trouble-free operation and long battery life of a tablet that runs a mobile OS instead of a desktop one; but with enough desktop-style features that make it a better laptop than an iPad with an external keyboard.”</p><p>I just wish the Google Play Store could deliver an app catalog for the Pixel C that’s even half as robust as what’s available for iOS and Windows tablets.</p><p>But maybe that’s another goal of the Pixel. Device fragmentation is a major source of pain for Android app developers. Android M is packed with protein-enriched features, but what assurance does a developer have that a user’s phone has a fingerprint sensor, or the NFC chip required for mobile payments? They can’t even assume that a user is even running a version of Android that’s less than two years old.</p><p>Google’s hardware is also a beacon of hope, then. Developers can take some comfort from the fact that there is a class of devices out there that are capable of delivering the Android experience at its full bloom. Who knows if any of those users actually pay for apps, but it’s nice to have hope.<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2015/9/30/18429858/ihnatko-what-you-should-know-about-google-s-new-hardwareAndy Ihnatko2015-09-30T11:28:29-05:002019-05-11T08:20:44-05:00Ihnatko: What you should know about Google's new hardware
<p>If you watched the livestream of Google’s September hardware announcement, you <i>might</i> have gotten the impression that the company’s hardware news was less exciting than Apple’s. Like, by an order of magnitude or an order of “Were the stage microphones even working?” The crowd at Apple’s event a couple of weeks ago screamed like rock fans; the crowd at Google’s behaved like rock critics.</p><p>But there’s a good reason for that: Apple held their event <i>inside an actual rock arena</i> and they filled well over a thousand seats (1,500, an unofficial source told me), most of whom were heavily invested Apple fans. Google was presenting to a small group consisting almost exclusively of press and analysts. Most of them had their hands busy pressing buttons on keyboards and cameras instead of applauding, which they shouldn’t have been doing anyway.</p><p>So, do keep that in mind.</p><p>Another reason for audience reticence: Google showed off five new hardware products in three different categories and, OK, all of them <i>combined</i> were maybe as exciting as the iPad Pro.</p><p>It wasn’t supposed to be that kind of event, anyway. As the sole makers of iOS hardware, everything Apple announces reflects a fundamental change to the platform as a whole. Google, despite being the most popular mobile OS by far, can only show off new hardware that reflects the company’s intentions for the directions of Android. Then, they cross their fingers and hope that hardware makers will listen, and not get too <i>terribly</i> upset that Google is competing with them at all, even at such low stakes.</p><p>Google unveiled two updates to the Nexus line of phones; updates to its low-cost Chromecast streaming devices; and took the wraps off of a tablet that looks like a Chromebook, that has the <i>name</i> of a Chromebook, and has a keyboard, but it runs Android.</p><p>I admit that I’m still kind of digesting that one.</p><p><b>New Nexus 6P, 5X Phones</b></p><p>My default answer to the “Which Android phone should I buy?” is “Anything with the Nexus name on it.” These devices are the only ones that receive OS updates directly from Google. During Tuesday’s event, Google announced that Android 6 (“Marshmallow”) will be released next week. If you own a Nexus phone or tablet, you’ll get it almost immediately. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait for the device manufacturer to bake its own version of Marshmallow for that device, and then maybe even wait for your phone carrier to bake <i>that</i> version of Marshmallow into an AT&T-specific build.</p><p>It can take <i>months,</i> and it’s the single intractable bummer about Android. Google has improved the situation by breaking many features out of the main OS code base and releasing them as Google Play apps that can be updated and downloaded directly. But updates are still a big pain point and a good reason to consider a Nexus-branded device.</p><p>Google designs Nexus phones in conjunction with leading Android phone makers. Last year’s Nexus 6, for example, had the same look, feel, and camera limitations you would expect from all Motorola Android devices. They’ve broken with tradition by putting two phones out on the field this year. 2014’s Nexus 5 — my daily carry, beloved by many, though I suppose I shouldn’t describe it as “the Volkswagen of phones” any more — is now the 5X, and is still being made by LG. The 4.95-inch screen is now a bit larger (5.2 inches) but it’s still the pocketable Nexus.</p><p>Because the other one is still a Pop-Tart: the 6P (made by Huawei) has a 5.7-inch 1440 x 2560 pixels. I’ll save you the math: that’s a whopping 518 pixels per inch, which sails past “retina-quality” and coasts into “oh my god” range.</p><p>The 6P is faster, it’s made from aluminum instead of plastic, has more RAM for running apps, and it has room for a larger battery. But the 5X has a bigger battery too, thank God, because low battery warnings on my Nexus 5 are why I take His name in vain at around 3 p.m. every day.</p><p>These two phones share three key features.</p><p>They both sport a new USB-C connector for data and storage. This means faster charging, video, and inclusion of a wider range of USB accessories, but for most people it just means “never having to guess which side of the plug is up.”</p><p>Both phones have the same fingerprint sensor, which Google is calling “Nexus Imprint.” Apple and Samsung placed their sensors on the Home button. Nexus Imprint is on the back of the devices, roughly where your finger would naturally fall as you’re holding them. Google has added fingerprint ID to the new edition of Android. It can unlock the phone, authorize Play Store purchases, it works with Android Pay, and it also available to third-party apps.</p><p>But the biggest, and most welcome, surprise was the fact that they both use the exact same main camera. They use a 12 megapixel Sony sensor with larger sensor pixels, compared to other phones (Google specifically called out the iPhone 6S Plus). This is such a beefy image sensor that it’s responsible for the big blister on the back of the 5X and the horizontal hump on the 6P.</p><p>If it creates better pictures, though, I’m all for blisters and humps. <i>In theory,</i> bigger sensor pixels are cause for optimism; you would expect them to capture better photos in low light, while delivering greater dynamic range and less signal noise. But there’s a lot of alchemy involved in camera design. As usual when I’m at a press event and someone is explaining all of the technology that makes their phone camera better, I nod, I write down the numbers they are dictating to me…and then discard it all until I get to spend a few days shooting with this thing for real.</p><p>Google tried to make the case that gosh, with these big sensor pixels the 6P doesn’t even <i>need</i> optical image stabilization. I was hoping they were following this with “…but it has it anyway, to ensure the greatest low-light performance in any phone ever made.” Alas, no. I’m skeptical. Every time I’ve done my side-by-side comparisons, cameras that can compensate for camera shake during long exposures beat the pants off of the cameras that can’t. But only an hour inside the Boston Public Library with these new phones will tell the tale.</p><p>The two phones’ selfie cameras are different: 5 megapixels on the 5X opposed to 8 megapixels on the 6P. Based solely on the specs, I’d say that the key differential between these two phones (apart from the size, obviously) will be the available storage. The 5X comes in 16 gig and 32 gig capacities, for $379 and $429. The 6P is available in 32, 64, and 128 gigs for $499 to $649. Personally, I like small phones with huge storage (so I never run out of room for music, podcast downloads and photos), so the lack of a 64 gig 5X is kind of a bummer.</p><p>The 5X and 6P are available for pre-order from the <a class="Link" href="https://store.google.com" target="_blank" >Google Store</a>. They’ll ship sometime in October.</p><p><b>Chromecasts Redux</b></p><p>Google made a few oblique jabs against Apple. They saved the direct comments for the introduction of the new Chromecast streaming devices. Google would like to remind the world that Chromecast is a tiny dongle that disappears behind your TV without leaving an ugly box for you to deal with, and because the streams are chosen and controlled through the same apps you use on your phone instead of through an onscreen user interface and remote, it costs just $35.</p><p>Noted. I like the fact that a house can have a Chromecast on every TV for the same cost as just one $150 2015 Apple TV. That said, I have a Chromecast <i>and</i> a Roku on my living room screen and I’m still in the habit of picking up the Roku remote instead of my phone. Maybe it’s just because this basic precursor to flopping down on the sofa has soothed me since I was a little kid.</p><p>Google offered a new Chromecast shaped like a little UFO. It’s a lovely bit of flair with a practical side: because the HDMI connector is now attached by a short strap of cable, it’ll fit into close-quarter HDMI ports better than the old design. It’s also designed for easy totability: when disconnected, the connector clicks onto the body via an internal magnet. It’s also got a new multiple antenna system to help it find a Wi-Fi signal, and upgraded radios for greater speed and agility.</p><p>Not much else to write about there, except for a greatly-improved Chromecast app that helps you discover what’s on, without having to flip through seven or eight different apps on your phone. I liked the demo: search for “Bob’s Burgers” and it’ll find options for watching the show on Hulu, Netflix, and the Play Store, and third-party developers (such as your cable company) are free to make their own content visible to this search too.</p><p>The search includes YouTube. Google’s demo used “interviews and behind-the-scenes material” as examples of content that would turn up in that part of the search. I have to wonder if the app is smart enough to weed out bootleg recordings as well.</p><p>“Chromecast Audio” is an addition to the hardware lineup. It’s for audio streams only but it works (and looks) like Chromecast: plug it into anything that has an audio input (a set of powered speakers, your home theater amp — conceivably your car stereo would work, too) and it’ll wirelessly stream audio programming from your Android device or a compatible browser, from any app that supports Chromecasting. As with the video Chromecast, it also needs a source of USB power.</p><p>I like the idea of this new Chromecast. Most houses seem to have a decent set of powered speakers in a closet and Chromecast Audio provides a cheap way to turn ’em into a modern streaming sound solution. If it works as well as the video Chromecast, connecting will be much quicker and intuitive than a Bluetooth speaker, too. Both Chromecasts sell for $35 and can be ordered from the <a class="Link" href="https://store.google.com" target="_blank" >Google Store</a>.</p><p><b>When Is A Tablet Not A Tablet?</b></p><p>Microsoft might have missed the bus when it comes to the phone market. But give them credit for releasing the Surface Pro long before Apple introduced the iPad Pro and Google announced the Pixel C.</p><p>These two September devices carry forward the same realization that Microsoft had: people love tablets, <i>but</i> they also want to get stuff done with them. Therefore, premium tablets should be designed with keyboards as an integral part of the experience and not treat them like a begrudging afterthought solely of interest to the weirdos at the margins.</p><p>Both the iPad Pro and the Pixel C break with Microsoft’s notion of a strictly convertible notebook. The Pixel C is an aluminum-bodied Android tablet with a 10.2-inch screen and the same aspect ratio as a sheet of A4 paper. The wide shape is to accommodate a wider keyboard. The Pixel C’s keyboard (also aluminum) has conventional mechanical keyswitches and the A-Z 0-1 area is the same size as a conventional keyboard. It attaches to the tablet magnetically, either as a cover or as a laptop-type stand with adjustable viewing angles.</p><p>Unlike the iPad Pro and the Surface, which communicate with their keyboards via mechanical contacts, the Pixel C’s keyboard’s digital connection is Bluetooth. Bluetooth works great on my current iPad. Still, it requires a measure of either initial uncertainty or tapping through Settings, or both before it’s confirmed that my two devices are talking to each other. I’d be happier with mechanical contacts.</p><p>I wonder why Google didn’t use the Nexus label on this one, like they’ve done with their other tablets. It takes its unmistakable style cues from Google’s Pixel Chromebook, down to the neato rainbow bar of LEDs on the outside that shows battery status when tapped. A bank of four directional microphones supposedly lets you use voice commands even with the device on the other side of the room. A nice touch.</p><p>I think more people would give up ultralight notebooks for tablets if they looked at high-end models running the latest OS and saw just how agile and powerful they can be. My 13-inch MacBook Pro has been staying at home ever since I got iOS 9 running on my iPad.</p><p>And the Pixel C <i>could</i> be even more comfortable for notebook users than an iPad. Android supports Bluetooth pointing devices and the UI that Google introduced with Android L is as well-suited to a mouse and keyboard as it is to strictly multitouch usage. It’s kind of brilliant that way. Also, Android’s open file system does away with the demi-nightmare of moving files into and out of the iPad and between its apps. The Pixel C’s USB-C port implies that it’ll work with any USB storage device.</p><p>But although Android and iOS have practically the same catalog of phone apps, the collection of Android tablet apps is merely endurable. For the iPad, the selection is downright effervescent.</p><p>They got the price right, at least: the Pixel C starts at $499 (plus $150 for the keyboard cover). This makes it competitive with the iPad while not losing the premium feel and features that will attract people who might be considering a Windows 10 convertible. It’ll be available from the Google Store by the end of the year.</p><p>The message that Google seems to be sending with the Pixel C: “Built like a premium Windows 10 convertible, but it’s smaller and costs hundreds of dollars less; offers the trouble-free operation and long battery life of a tablet that runs a mobile OS instead of a desktop one; but with enough desktop-style features that make it a better laptop than an iPad with an external keyboard.”</p><p>I just wish the Google Play Store could deliver an app catalog for the Pixel C that’s even half as robust as what’s available for iOS and Windows tablets.</p><p>But maybe that’s another goal of the Pixel. Device fragmentation is a major source of pain for Android app developers. Android M is packed with protein-enriched features, but what assurance does a developer have that a user’s phone has a fingerprint sensor, or the NFC chip required for mobile payments? They can’t even assume that a user is even running a version of Android that’s less than two years old.</p><p>Google’s hardware is also a beacon of hope, then. Developers can take some comfort from the fact that there is a class of devices out there that are capable of delivering the Android experience at its full bloom. Who knows if any of those users actually pay for apps, but it’s nice to have hope.<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/business/2015/9/30/18577364/ihnatko-what-you-should-know-about-google-s-new-hardwareAndy Ihnatko2015-09-27T07:07:39-05:002019-05-09T10:35:55-05:00New Pebble Time Round cuts corners, and that's a good thing
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>Andy Ihnatko says that despite some backlash, the availability of round smartwatches is growing. | Pebble photo</p></figcaption></div>
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<p>An interesting product announcement from Pebble today.</p><p>In <a class="Link" href="https://pebble.com" target="_blank" >Pebble Time Round</a>, Pebble seems to have found a productive reason to exist in a world full of increasingly sophisticated wearables: “Let’s just make a normal-looking wristwatch.”</p><p>“Normalcy” it’s a daring idea. It’s way more wild than <a class="Link" href="http://www.lexus-int.com/amazinginmotion/slide/" target="_blank" >Lexus’ hoverboard</a>, and if the product video represents Pebble Time Round accurately, it also seems to consume a lot less dry ice.</p><p>Nobody’s achieved that in a device that checks off everything on the expected list of smartwatch features. Almost all Android Wear watches are too big for people who lack a thick, man’s wrist and a certain amount of derring-do when it comes to style. The 38mm Apple Watch looks fine on slender wrists, <i>but</i> its design still calls attention to itself as a gadget. And tiny fitness bands that receive phone app notifications don’t do the cool stuff that makes Android Wear and Apple Watch so attractive.</p><p>Meanwhile, despite the talent and resources available to Apple and Google, <i>neither</i> of those two companies have nailed down a great answer to the question: “What will this do for me beyond phone notifications and fitness monitoring?” Which isn’t to say that those are the only features that Google and Apple devices are delivering, but I think they’re the only truly successful and universally compelling ones so far. So while it’s true that Pebble’s app library is merely “pretty good” compared to Apple’s and Google’s, hey, that <i>might</i> be good enough for Pebble to compete.</p><p>But Pebble Time Round <i>starts</i> at $249, thus giving up Pebble’s price advantage. It’s what you might expect to pay for Android Wear devices and not terribly far away from the $349 entry point of the 38mm Apple Watch. So, hmm.</p><p>It’s still something fresh and welcome. Time Round is a thin (7.5mm) and small (38.5mm) smartwatch with a color display, a stainless-steel case, two days of battery life, and real smartwatch features. It works with both Android and iPhone and it isn’t (I use this term gently and with love) inherently sexist, like all of the clunky smartwatches out there.</p><p>The round watchface is another interesting data point. Almost all of the new Android Wear watches that have been released or announced recently have round faces. At this point, the jeers of people who insist (and demand!) that round screens are inherently bad designs for devices that display data are being drowned out by the sheer volume of round devices. There’s so much momentum behind this form that just this week, the consortium that develops and approves standards for the Web published a <a class="Link" href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-css-round-display-1-20150922/" target="_blank" >First Public Working Draft of a set of standards for detecting round screens and laying out content inside them</a>.</p><p>I love round smartwatches. I don’t think they’re inherently superior to square ones, but the round displays of Android Wear devices frustrate any app developer who thinks of a smartwatch interface as just a smaller phone screen. “Round” forces a user interface design that’s simpler and more intentional. After wearing these devices daily for well over a year, I’ve come to appreciate that both of those things are important in a watch app.</p><p>I find round screens just more fun. Also, a square gadget on your wrist screams out to your cousin “I was checking the Cubs score <i>all through</i> your wedding service” as you deliver your congratulations and a $50 Outback gift card during the reception.</p><p><a class="Link" href="https://pebble.com/buy-pebble-time-round-smartwatch" target="_blank" >Preorders for Pebble Time Round are live</a> now at Pebble.com and they’ll ship sometime in November.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center><div class="Enhancement-item">
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https://chicago.suntimes.com/business/2015/9/27/18549704/new-pebble-time-round-cuts-corners-and-that-s-a-good-thingAndy Ihnatko2015-09-23T14:40:12-05:002019-04-15T23:11:18-05:00New Pebble Time Round cuts corners, and that’s a good thing
<p>An interesting product announcement from Pebble today.</p><p>In <a class="Link" href="https://pebble.com" target="_blank" >Pebble Time Round</a>, Pebble seems to have found a productive reason to exist in a world full of increasingly sophisticated wearables: “Let’s just make a normal-looking wristwatch.”</p><p>“Normalcy” it’s a daring idea. It’s way more wild than <a class="Link" href="http://www.lexus-int.com/amazinginmotion/slide/" target="_blank" >Lexus’ hoverboard</a>, and if the product video represents Pebble Time Round accurately, it also seems to consume a lot less dry ice.</p><p>Nobody’s achieved that in a device that checks off everything on the expected list of smartwatch features. Almost all Android Wear watches are too big for people who lack a thick, man’s wrist and a certain amount of derring-do when it comes to style. The 38mm Apple Watch looks fine on slender wrists, <i>but</i> its design still calls attention to itself as a gadget. And tiny fitness bands that receive phone app notifications don’t do the cool stuff that makes Android Wear and Apple Watch so attractive.</p><p>Meanwhile, despite the talent and resources available to Apple and Google, <i>neither</i> of those two companies have nailed down a great answer to the question: “What will this do for me beyond phone notifications and fitness monitoring?” Which isn’t to say that those are the only features that Google and Apple devices are delivering, but I think they’re the only truly successful and universally compelling ones so far. So while it’s true that Pebble’s app library is merely “pretty good” compared to Apple’s and Google’s, hey, that <i>might</i> be good enough for Pebble to compete.</p><p>But Pebble Time Round <i>starts</i> at $249, thus giving up Pebble’s price advantage. It’s what you might expect to pay for Android Wear devices and not terribly far away from the $349 entry point of the 38mm Apple Watch. So, hmm.</p><p>It’s still something fresh and welcome. Time Round is a thin (7.5mm) and small (38.5mm) smartwatch with a color display, a stainless-steel case, two days of battery life, and real smartwatch features. It works with both Android and iPhone and it isn’t (I use this term gently and with love) inherently sexist, like all of the clunky smartwatches out there.</p><p>The round watchface is another interesting data point. Almost all of the new Android Wear watches that have been released or announced recently have round faces. At this point, the jeers of people who insist (and demand!) that round screens are inherently bad designs for devices that display data are being drowned out by the sheer volume of round devices. There’s so much momentum behind this form that just this week, the consortium that develops and approves standards for the Web published a <a class="Link" href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-css-round-display-1-20150922/" target="_blank" >First Public Working Draft of a set of standards for detecting round screens and laying out content inside them</a>.</p><p>I love round smartwatches. I don’t think they’re inherently superior to square ones, but the round displays of Android Wear devices frustrate any app developer who thinks of a smartwatch interface as just a smaller phone screen. “Round” forces a user interface design that’s simpler and more intentional. After wearing these devices daily for well over a year, I’ve come to appreciate that both of those things are important in a watch app.</p><p>I find round screens just more fun. Also, a square gadget on your wrist screams out to your cousin ”I was checking the Cubs score <i>all through</i> your wedding service” as you deliver your congratulations and a $50 Outback gift card during the reception.</p><p><a class="Link" href="https://pebble.com/buy-pebble-time-round-smartwatch" target="_blank" >Preorders for Pebble Time Round are live</a> now at Pebble.com and they’ll ship sometime in November.<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2015/9/23/18347617/new-pebble-time-round-cuts-corners-and-that-s-a-good-thingAndy Ihnatko