Microsoft will release Visual Studio for the Mac
If you needed any further proof that Microsoft is welcoming cross-platform development with open arms, you just got it. In a prematurely revealed blog post, the company has revealed that it’s working on Visual Studio for Mac — yes, one of the mainstays of the Windows world is headed Apple’s way. This isn’t really intended for Windows development (you’d need Boot Camp or a virtual machine to run your creations), but you can write Android, iOS and Mac apps (thanks to Xamarin) as well as server software through .NET Core. And importantly, Mac and Windows users can share projects. You won’t have to convert your work just to make sure that everyone in your team can use it.
You’ll get to download a preview edition of Visual Studio for Mac sometime during Microsoft’s Connect() conference, which kicks off November 16th. It’s not certain when you’ll see a finished version, but the timing of the preview likely puts the polished release sometime in 2017.
The Mac version may seem odd at first blush. Wouldn’t this discourage developers from writing on or for Windows? However, it’s more logical in the context of Microsoft’s “mobile first, cloud first” strategy. If you’re already building apps on a Mac, you might as well build them in a tool that makes porting to Windows easier — and Microsoft would rather you write for its cloud platform on a Mac than risk losing you to a rival offering. The Redmond crew no longer benefits greatly from making you buy a Windows PC to write code, and the new Visual Studio reflects that reality.
Via: The Verge
Source: Microsoft (cached)
Moto Z Play review: Buy it for the battery life
You should’ve seen this one coming. Of course Motorola wasn’t going to just release two versions of the Moto Z and call it a year. While the first two — the Moto Z and Moto Z Force — had to bear the weight of flagship expectations and justify the lack of a headphone jack, the Moto Z Play merely had to be inexpensive and not terrible. Well, mission accomplished … mostly. At $449, the Z Play isn’t the cheapest mid-range phone out there, but it clears the “not terrible” bar with more room than I imagined.
All right, all right, there’s no point in being coy. The Moto Z Play is actually pretty great.
Hardware
Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way: The Moto Z Play looks almost identical to the Moto Z Force, the hardy modular flagship I tested earlier this year. That’s a good thing. From its dimensions to its fingerprint sensor to the signature camera hump around the back, the Moto Z Play looks and feels like a phone that costs almost $300 more.
The phone’s familiar design also means the return of certain annoying design quirks, like the fingerprint sensor that looks, but doesn’t act, like a home button. (I can’t complain about that too much, though, since the sensor actually works very well.) Even stranger, the so-called Moto Mods that magnetically connect to the Z Play’s back don’t feel quite as seamless as when they’re connected to other Moto Z’s. That said, most people probably won’t know the difference.
These kinds of missteps are offset by a general feeling of sturdiness, thanks in large part to the phone’s solid metal rim. My colleague Aaron rightfully gave last year’s Moto X Play some grief because Motorola didn’t pay close attention to the fine details. That’s true here too, but the caliber of construction here still elevates this mid-range phone into more premium territory. While devices like the Moto G series always felt a little chintzy compared with the more premium Moto X line, that sort of quality gap doesn’t really exist here. That doesn’t mean you can treat the Z Play as harshly as you could a Z Force, though — there’s no ShatterShield display, and the Play’s back is made not of metal, but of easily scratched glass.
The differences don’t end there. The Z Play packs a 16-megapixel camera and a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED screen running at 1080p; the regular Z and Z Force both feature Quad HD displays. That dip in screen resolution was inevitable given the Z Play’s price, but who cares — this thing has a headphone jack sitting next to its USB Type-C port. Motorola is still convinced that a single socket for power, audio and everything else is the way of the future, and its bet was vindicated when Apple did the same with the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. So what gives? Motorola’s rationale is simple: The design of the Z Play’s logic board had room for the port. The mixed message is a little confusing, but hey: No dongles necessary this time.
You wouldn’t know just by looking at it, but the Moto Z Play sits lower on the performance totem pole than either of the Moto Z’s that came before it. There’s an octacore Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset inside, an Adreno 506 GPU and 3GB of RAM, all of which last for a very long time when paired with the Z Play’s 3,510mAh battery.
Remember: The Moto Z Play is modular (as evidenced by the multi-pin connector on its back), so you could strap on a magnetic battery mod for even more battery life. If only Motorola were as generous with the storage options: There’s 32GB of room on board, and only 24GB is available to you from the get-go. At least the micro-SIM tray has a spot for a microSD card with support for up to 2TB of additional space.
This isn’t my first time taking the Moto Z Play for a spin, but this version is different. It’s a fully unlocked GSM model, ready for action on AT&T and T-Mobile in the United States. If you’re a Verizon customer and don’t see yourself switching anytime soon, there’s also a version of the phone just for you — it’s physically identical but packs all of Big Red’s usual bloatware. (More on that later.)
Display and sound
It used to be that buying anything less than a flagship phone meant you got stuck with a lousy screen. Oh, how times have changed. Case in point: The Moto Z Play packs a 5.5-inch AMOLED panel offering respectable viewing angles and great clarity; I never missed the extra resolution on the Moto Z and Z Force. This screen does seem a little dim compared with the Z and Z Force displays, but you’d be hard-pressed to spot the difference when you’re just sitting around inside. Taking the phones outside is a different story, though: The Z Play’s screen is merely passable under bright sunlight, while the Z and Z Force can dial up the brightness quite a bit further. Guess Motorola had to cut corners somewhere.
I’m also fond of how the Z Play renders colors right out of the box: Sunsets and close-ups of wood seem suitably deep, as do the blues and greens that always pop up in landscape photos. If slightly oversaturated colors aren’t your thing, though, you can change things with a trip to the settings (the phone’s display mode is set to “vivid” by default). Toggling the feature to standard mode results in visuals that, while probably a little more accurate, are a lot less fun.
Speaking of things that aren’t much fun, the sound setup here leaves a lot to be desired. Then again, who didn’t see this coming? Motorola used the same lackluster system in the more premium Moto Z and Z Force, with an earpiece that doubles as the main speaker driver when you crank up the volume. Listening to music on a vanilla Z Play is passable at best -– vocals and mids can sound crisp -– and muddled at worst. I wish the Z Play’s speaker was a little louder too, but considering the sort of quality we’re working with, Motorola might have been doing us a kindness by capping the volume.
Thankfully, we have options. First, you can plug in a pair of headphones –- once more, without a dongle! -– and bypass that speaker entirely. Motorola, meanwhile, would much prefer you use that sweet, sweet Moto Mod connector around the back to magnetically lash a completely new set of speakers onto the phone. JBL’s $79 external speaker is the most useful of the multimedia mods available, and while it still focuses on mids and highs, there’s enough heaviness and clarity to its sound that most people I’ve shown it to have enjoyed the experience. You certainly don’t need Moto Mods to use the Z Play, but they are handy.
Software
I’m pleased to report that there isn’t a whole lot to say about the Moto Z Play’s software. Yes, that’s a good thing: It’s fast, familiar and free of the bloatware that comes loaded on the Verizon-branded Z Play. If you’ve used a modern Motorola device, you could probably just leave it at that and move on. If not, well, here’s a little more.
The Motorola that’s endured so much change these past few years still prefers stock Android (in this case, 6.0.1 Marshmallow), leaving us with a software stack that’s largely untouched. That shouldn’t really surprise anyone: Motorola wasn’t going to blaze new software trails on a mid-range version of its flagship device. The look, the app launcher, the underlying functionality — it’s all just Marshmallow.
Motorola’s additions are as subtle as ever, and exist mostly in the form of smart gestures. Waving your hands over the Z Play’s face like a Jedi makes the screen light up, proffering the time and your notifications. Double-twisting your wrist launches the camera, and a relatively new double karate chop fires up the flashlight. (Pro tip: Don’t use your whole arm.)
Relatively new to the mix is a one-handed mode that’s invoked by swiping up from the bottom of the display. Motorola’s implementation isn’t perfect — you can’t resize or move the shrunken window — but it’s really useful if the 5.5-inch screen is a little too big to use with one hand. Perhaps the biggest issue with the feature is that it can be too easy to activate accidentally, which probably explains why it’s not on by default: You’ll have to dive into the included Moto app to enable it. Then there are Motorola’s voice commands, which have steadily gotten more precise since they debuted on the original Moto X three years ago. They’re nice enough to have and work as well as they always did — just don’t expect the same sort of conversational fluidity you’d get from something like the new Google Assistant.
And that’s really it. As a brief aside, this is the first time I’ve used an unlocked version of the Moto Z, and I can’t stress how much nicer it feels to use without all that carrier-mandated bloatware. Android device manufacturers now realize that cleanliness, while not that close to godliness, is a virtue worth exploring when it comes to interfaces. To date, few phone makers match Motorola in its devotion to pure Android, and I’ll keep doling out the kudos as long as the company keeps at it.
Camera
The Moto Z Play’s main camera is a mixed bag, but not for the reasons you’d expect. In terms of pure resolution, the 16-megapixel sensor here sits somewhere between the Moto Z’s 13-megapixel camera and the Z Force’s much better 21-megapixel shooter. Not bad, right? Well, hold on: The Z Play camera works with an f/2.0 aperture, as compared with the f/1.8 apertures used by both of its predecessors. In other words, the Z Play is technically capable of capturing a little more photographic nuance than the bog-standard Moto Z, but lags behind it when it comes to low-light performance. The Z Play’s camera also lacks optical image stabilization, making it slightly more susceptible to blurry edges and obscured faces, especially when it’s dark.
So yes, your poorly lit bar photos won’t turn out great. Even so, the Z Play doesn’t completely drop the ball, and — perhaps more important — it’s capable of producing some really attractive shots when the lights come back up. Colors seem accurately represented (though you might sometimes see whites turn a little blue), and there was often plenty of detail to gawk at. The very act of snapping photos is quick too, with basically zero lag before taking a new shot.
I’ve tested plenty of faster, all-around better smartphone cameras this year, but the Moto Z Play’s is nonetheless remarkable in two ways. First, it’s a little more than half the price of those photographically superior phones. More important, the gap between the camera in this mid-range phone and the cameras in the flagship Moto Z’s can be surprisingly small. The Moto Z Force’s more advanced setup has the clear edge, but under the right conditions it’s easy to get similar results out of all three Z phones.
Meanwhile, the 5-megapixel front-facing camera is perfectly adequate, packing a wide-angle lens for squeezing more friends into selfies, and video footage came out clean, if a little unremarkable. All told, Motorola has a potent little photographic package here, though sticklers for premium quality will want to look elsewhere. And hey, if the camera really doesn’t do it for you, Motorola sure would love if you went out and bought one of those $250 Hasselblad camera mods — it’ll replace that default shooter with a 12-megapixel sensor developed in part by people known for their crazy-expensive cameras.
Performance and battery life
All right, quick recap: The Moto Z Play has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset, 3GB of RAM and an Adreno 506 GPU ticking away inside it. I can already tell some people’s eyes are glazing over because that chipset’s model number doesn’t start with an “8,” but I’m here to tell you the 625 is a capable little slab of silicon. When it comes to thumbing through open apps, swiping through menus and the rest of the day-to-day actions one doesn’t pay that much attention to, the Z Play moves like a flagship phone: quickly and with a minimum of fuss.
For people who ultimately don’t ask much of their smartphones, the Moto Z Play has more than enough power to keep everything moving at a more than reasonable pace. Things can change pretty quickly when you fire up some graphically intensive games, though. That’s when the occasional sluggishness can set in. Again, that’s not a shocker or anything: Mid-range phones are getting better all the time, but most of the not-quite-high-end phones we’ve played with this year act the same way.
OnePlus 3
Moto G4 Plus
AndEBench Pro
8,347
16,678
13,841
16,159
Vellamo 3.0
3,314
5,613
5,202
2,819
3DMark IS Unlimited
13,514
29,117
30,058
9,851
GFXBench 3.0 1080p Manhattan Offscreen (fps)
9.8
49
48
6.6
CF-Bench
94,061
45,803
41,653
60,998
SunSpider 1.0.2: Android devices tested in Chrome; lower scores are better.
There is, however, one big upside to this merely average performance: The Moto Z Play’s battery life is absolutely killer. Motorola claims that the phone can run for up to 50 hours on a single charge, and I’ll be damned if that wasn’t my experience over two weeks of testing. Consider my usual workflow: There’s a lot of Slack messages and emails flying around, not to mention a spot of gaming and some podcasts here and there. On typical days the Moto Z Play would stick around for about 45 full hours before needing a recharge.
That’s not two workdays, but nearly two full rotations of the earth. Hell, with Wi-Fi on and connected, I saw the Z Play creep just a little past the advertised 50 hours over a quiet weekend. Obviously, those figures would tank if I spent more than a little time playing Hearthstone or bingeing on YouTube videos, but there’s a certain sort of liberation to be found when you don’t have to constantly fret about your phone living or dying.
The competition
You probably don’t need me to tell you this, but you can get a lot of phone for not much money. The Moto Z Play is a remarkably polished package for $449, but don’t forget to check out these other options too.
The upstarts behind the OnePlus 3 should be proud: They’ve built a flagship-level device that costs only $399. As such, it’s perhaps the best alternate for a device like the Moto Z Play — it packs an incredibly fast Snapdragon 820 chipset, a superior camera and a barely modified version of Android into a sleek metal body. And if you’re on the hunt for even better value, you might want to consider Motorola’s Moto G4 Plus. It’s not as handsome or as long-lasting as the Z Play, but it costs a full $200 less and provides ample power for people who don’t need a full-on flagship.
Ah, but the Z Play has an edge … or least, it’ll appear that way to some people. The Moto Z Play works (and works well) with the full range of Motorola’s Moto Mods, so the functionality you get out of the box is far from the functionality you’ll have in six months, or a year. If this appeals to you, know that there’s very little else out there that can satisfy this modular itch. LG’s G5 was the first major flagship phone that leaned into the idea of a modular body, and it certainly deserves props for its chutzpah. While its ecosystem of “Friendly” accessories is broader than what the Moto Z’s have access to, these add-ons are undeniably less elegant. The extra horsepower afforded by the Snapdragon 820 chipset is nice, but Motorola’s approach to modular design is by far the best.
Wrap-up
It can be hard to get worked up about devices that don’t aspire to be the greatest thing you’ll ever slide into a pocket, but even so: The Moto Z Play won me over. Its occasional lack of horsepower can be frustrating (especially if you’re into gaming), but Motorola deserves credit for building a phone that feels like so much more than the sum of its parts. It’s not perfect, it’s not waterproof and it’s not flashy. What it is, however, is “there for you” because of its tremendous battery life. Between that and the flexibility afforded by a slew of Moto Mods, we have a smartphone that almost redefines what it means to be mid-range.
New MacBook Pro Reviews Mixed as Touch Bar Called Everything From ‘Useful’ to ‘Gimmick’
Apple has started shipping its new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar to customers just as reviews of the all-new 13-inch and 15-inch notebooks are hitting the web. The reviews provide a closer look at the Touch Bar and whether or not the new MacBook Pro is a suitable upgrade for those with older models.
The new MacBook Pro’s headline feature is the Touch Bar (Image: The Verge)
Andrew Cunningham at Ars Technica said he “liked the Touch Bar a lot,” calling it “more convenient to use” than a traditional row of function keys. However, he noted the Touch Bar’s usefulness depends entirely on the apps you use and, to a lesser extent, how you use your computer.
If you primarily use the MacBook Pro with a Thunderbolt Display and keyboard, for example, he said the Touch Bar will “do nothing for you.”
If it’s being used as a desktop with an external keyboard a significant amount of the time, the Touch Bar does nothing for you. When I went out of my way to use Apple’s apps, I liked the Touch Bar a lot. It just takes one or two useful buttons—creating a new tab in Safari, looking up a main page in Terminal, changing font sizes or creating checklists in Notes—to make you glad the Touch Bar is there. However, a typical day for me is spent mostly in Word, Outlook, Slack, Tweetbot, and Chrome. Microsoft is bringing Touch Bar support to Office, but if other app makers don’t start adding in support, a big chunk of that bar is going to end up sitting empty most of the time.
Cunningham noted the Touch Bar’s display dims after 60 seconds and turns off completely after 85 seconds to preserve battery life. You can tap the Touch Bar, the keyboard, or the trackpad to wake it back up. He said there is no option to change this behavior in System Preferences.
Confirming our report last month, Cunningham said the Touch Bar displays a standard row of function keys when running Windows through Boot Camp. When running Linux, however, he said the basic function keys available in Windows don’t appear until the Boot Camp installer has installed all the necessary drivers.
Cunningham believes the new MacBook Pro is “just about worth the wait” for those with an older model from 2012 or earlier, but conversely said there is “very little reason to consider” upgrading if you have a model from 2013 or later, given Intel processor improvements that “barely push performance forward.”
He criticized the Touch Bar-equipped MacBook Pro lineup as being “expensive, even for Macs,” with significantly cheaper premium PCs available.
The main problem at this point isn’t that the Touch Bar is a bad idea, but that these laptops cost a whole bunch of money. Great, premium PC laptops are available for half this price, even if Apple still maintains an edge when it comes to graphics and SSD speeds. It really feels like the Touch Bar needs to be included in the $1,499 model, and that versions of the new designs without Touch Bars should be the entry level systems—right now, Apple’s entry-level Mac laptops were all released in mid 2015, and that’s only going to get more embarrassing as time moves on.
Dana Wollman at Engadget said the Touch Bar is “occasionally useful” for tasks such as switching between open tabs in Safari. However, she noted common system controls such as volume and brightness are now buried within menus, a change that is “less efficient” than dedicated function keys on older MacBook Pro models.
What’s annoying about this whole setup is that either way, some of the most important system controls are now buried in Touch Bar menus. Want to lower the volume? You can either hit the volume icon and hit the slider, or hit the arrow key and tap the volume up or down key. That’s less efficient than just pressing a dedicated volume button in the function row. It’s inconvenient enough that I eventually started using my mouse to do things like pause Spotify or raise the volume on a track. Apple made me change my way of doing things, and not necessarily for the better. That pisses me off.
Not all reviews of the Touch Bar have been favorable. Christina Warren at Gizmodo said the feature is a “gimmick” that’s “not worth the money” yet.
In the end, real story with the MacBook Pro is the Touch Bar. It’s somewhat useful, but it’s still so undersupported for apps beyond Apple’s that, at least for right now, the Touch Bar is not reason enough to get a new MacBook Pro. Particularly if you’re already satisfied with the performance of your existing machine. If you need a new MacBook Pro and you can’t wait for the Kaby Lake refreshes already rumored, the benefits of the internal specs matched with the cool-factor of the Touch Bar make this a good Mac. For everyone else this is a gimmick on a very good, way too expensive laptop.
Most other reviews generally recommend the new MacBook Pro, but reflect upon a series of compromises that customers may have to deal with, such as a lack of ports and a new keyboard with slimmer key travel. For those committed to the Mac that can justify the price tag, the new MacBook Pro is a mostly worthwhile upgrade.
Other Reviews: TechCrunch, Mashable, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, SlashGear, The Verge, CNET, USA Today and Fast Company
Related Roundup: MacBook Pro
Tag: reviews
Buyer’s Guide: MacBook Pro (Buy Now)
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Samsung Buying Automobile Accessory Company Harman for $8 Billion
Samsung Electronics has announced that it will spend $8 billion to purchase Harman International Industries Inc, a company which designs and manufactures connected automobile infotainment systems. The buyout of Harman is Samsung’s “largest ever overseas acquisition” and sets up the company to become the “go-to supplier” for automobile accessories and systems (via Bloomberg).
Harman’s customers, including BMW, Volkswagen, and General Motors Co., will now become clients of Samsung following the acquisition, placing the South Korean company in the “top ranks of auto technology suppliers.” Harman is a major home audio company as well, with products under brands like JBL, Infinity, Harman/Kardon, and more.
The announcement comes a few days after Jay Y. Lee officially became the vice chairman on Samsung’s board. According to analyst Park Kang-ho, the acquisition is the first of many moves that solidifies Samsung’s “life after smartphones,” which Kang-ho believes to be electric vehicles.
“This is the first deal cut after Jay Y. joined the board and shows his management style is different from his father. He is an aggressive deal maker,” said Park Kang-ho, an analyst with Daishin Securities Co. “In the longer term, Samsung is thinking that life after smartphones is electric vehicles.”
Samsung previously purchased a stake in Chinese electric-car maker BYD Co., but its automotive aspirations appear to momentarily focus solely on continuing its history as a components manufacturer, rather than entering the market with its own vehicle. With Harman, Samsung could produce new products for internet-connected cars with attention focused on navigation, multimedia entertainment, security systems and analytics tools.
“Harman perfectly complements Samsung in terms of technologies, products and solutions, and joining forces is a natural extension of the automotive strategy we have been pursuing for some time,” Vice Chairman Kwon Oh-hyun said in the statement. “Harman immediately establishes a strong foundation for Samsung to grow our automotive platform.”
Besides expanding the scope of Samsung’s future, the Harman acquisition could also help the company find its “next leg of growth” and move away from a reliance on smartphone sales, made worse this year by the Galaxy Note 7 recall. In total, market research firm IDC estimated that Samsung shipped 72.5 million smartphones in Q3 2016, which was down 13.5% compared to the estimated 83.8 million smartphones it shipped in the same quarter in 2015.
Tag: Samsung
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iPhone 7 Demand Has ‘Peaked’ as Shipments Forecasted to Decline Significantly Over Next Two Months
Just two months after the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus launched, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes demand for the smartphones has “peaked” in line with a significant monthly shipment decline starting in November.
Kuo predicted Apple’s overseas suppliers will revise down their iPhone shipments by 5-15% in November-December due to lower-than-expected demand stemming from a lack of significant improvements.
As the 4.7-inch iPhone 7, which accounts for a higher share of iPhone shipments, is in stock in the main global markets, we believe overall iPhone shipments have peaked. We think iPhone shipment forecasts will be revised down due to: (1) lower-than-expected demand due to a lack of spec surprises in the 4.7-inch iPhone 7; and (2) shorter times for delivering online orders of 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus, which implies slowing demand. We note that the out-of-stock phenomenon also results from fixed capacity, and is not only due to robust demand.
In a research note obtained by MacRumors, Kuo noted that the out-of-stock phenomenon that typically follows a new iPhone launch results from fixed capacity, and is not only due to robust demand. Kuo reiterated his forecast of a possible year-over-year iPhone shipment decline in the first quarter of 2017 due to the lower-than-expected demand and fierce competition in China.
Related Roundup: iPhone 7
Tags: KGI Securities, Ming-Chi Kuo
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Nintendo Switch could cost £200 when it arrives in the UK
LetsPlayVideoGames.com has reported the Nintendo Switch games console will be sold by Game for £199.99 when it goes on sale in the UK in March 2017. The website cites reliable sources for providing the information and does point out that the price just refers to Game’s pricing strategy.
- Nintendo Switch: Release date, specs and everything you need to know
Nintendo has previously said it won’t sell the console at a loss, although we think a penny shy of £200 seems rather low for a console of the Switch’s supposed capabilities.
LetPlayVideoGames also says Game will sell a bundle of the console and one game for £249.99, the site also says it believes it knows what game will come with the console, but doesn’t want to say anything as there’s only one source for now.
The sources also say extra Switch JoyCon controllers will cost £39.99 and that prices around the world should be on par with one another when converted.
That last bit coincides nicely with a leak from Toys R Us Canada, which has listed the Nintendo Switch on its site for pre-order for CAD$330 which when converted at the current rate is £195.
- Nintendo Switch specs and feature reveal set for 13 January
- Nintendo Switch: Is this the NX console we hoped for?
Of course, these prices should be taken with a pinch of salt until Nintendo announces pricing details itself, which should be at an event on 13 January. We’ve found with pricing leaks for previous products that retailers will list a random price, either because it doesn’t know or it’s not allowed to disclose official information, just to get a listing on Google. The price then changes when the product is released.
However, if the pricing is true, then consider us even more excited than we were before.
MacBook Pro review (2016): A step forward and a step back
The last time Engadget reviewed a brand-new MacBook Pro design was in June of 2012. It weighed 4.46 pounds (a heavyweight by today’s standards) and it ushered in some newfangled thing called the Retina display. Though Apple has occasionally refreshed the processors (the last time being all the way back in early 2015), that design from 2012 is virtually the same one we’ve been reviewing all these years.
Thanks to that stale design and often neglected internals, many Mac fans out there have delayed upgrading — surely a new model was just around the corner, right? Though we’re not sure you all were able to hold off until now, Apple has finally updated its MacBook Pro line, and it’s not just a processor refresh either. Both of the new 13- and 15-inch Pros are thinner, lighter and more compact than their predecessors, with faster graphics and disk performance, a brighter, more colorful screen, Touch ID fingerprint sensor and louder, clearer audio.
Most notably, they mark the debut of yet another newfangled thing: the “Touch Bar,” an OLED strip above the keyboard that replaces the age-old Function bar with touch-sensitive controls that change depending on the app you’re using. Factor in a narrower selection of ports (almost guaranteeing you’ll need a dongle) and the MacBook Pro isn’t just a thinner or different-looking Mac; it’s one you’re meant to use differently. That’s not necessarily a good thing.
Hardware
The new MacBook Pro is a clear departure from the previous generation, but it does look an awful lot like the more recent 12-inch MacBook. Like its stablemate, the new Pro has a unibody aluminum chassis, available in silver and space gray — a first for the Pro series. As on the smaller MacBook, there’s a metal logo on the lid where the glowing Apple used to be. (I don’t miss it, to be honest.) The keyboard has the same flat buttons as on the smaller MacBook, and the glass Force Touch trackpad is exactly what you’re used to, just a lot bigger this time.
Also familiar is the Retina display, whose 13.3-inch size and 2,560 x 1,600 resolution haven’t changed from last year’s MacBook Pro. (Ditto for the 15.4-inch screen, with a resolution of 2,880 x 1,800.) What has changed is the quality of the screen: It’s 67 percent brighter this year, with a max brightness rating of 500 nits. (Notebook displays don’t get much brighter than that.) Apple also promises a higher contrast ratio and a 25 percent wider color gamut that now includes the P3 color space — an important spec for photographers, videographers and other creative professionals.
As I said in my review of the current iMac, which also supports the P3 color gamut, you might not notice the difference in color on your own, but once someone points it out for you, it can be hard to un-see. In particular, you’ll notice the biggest difference with reds and greens, or even colors that occupy a similar spot on the spectrum, like orange.
There’s also a second display, if you will: the so-called Touch Bar sitting above the keyboard where the Function buttons used to be. I’ll spend a lot of time later explaining what the Touch Bar does and how it works, but for now, all you need to know is that this 2,170 x 60 touch strip offers a changing set of controls, depending on what app you’re using. There’s also a Touch ID fingerprint sensor built into the power button on the far-right side, which consistently delivered fast, accurate results in my tests. I much prefer it to entering a password or even logging in with an Apple Watch.
Again, I’ll have much more to say about the Touch Bar in just a moment, but suffice to say, as far as both design and features go, this is the single most obvious thing setting the new MacBook Pro apart from its predecessor. That’s especially true when the machine is powered on — the OLED strip displays millions of colors, the likes of which we’re not used to seeing emanating from a Mac keyboard.
Another noticeable change: The MacBook Pro is considerably thinner and lighter than before. The 13-inch model weighs just 3.02 pounds — a hair more than the 2.96-pound Air, and half a pound less than the last-gen MacBook Pro 13. It’s also 18 percent thinner, at 14.9mm thick, and has a 23 percent smaller footprint. Meanwhile, the 15-inch Pro comes in at 15.5mm thick, a 14 percent slim-down. It weighs four pounds, or about half a pound less than before, and takes up 20 percent less space.
Regardless of which size you choose, the port selection will be the same. Which is to say, less than on last year’s models. If you buy a MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar, you’ll get four Thunderbolt 3 ports, which use the USB Type-C standard. If you go with the entry-level MacBook 13, which does not have the Touch Bar, you’ll have to make do with two Thunderbolt connections.
Either way, it’s through one of those Thunderbolt ports that you’ll charge the laptop. That’s right, the ol’ MagSafe power connector is a thing of the past. I admit, I’ve been enjoying being able to charge my Mac on either side, depending on where the nearest power outlet happens to be. At the same time, this move to USB-C means there’s a greater risk of either breaking the cable or someone tripping over the cord and pulling your laptop to the ground.
Other than that, you just get a headphone jack. No SD slot, no HDMI output and no DisplayPort. You’ll need an adapter (sold separately, of course) to plug in just about any peripheral you already own. And given the MacBook Pro’s supposed demographic, I’m sure many people do indeed work with external monitors or backup drives attached. Photographers in particular like their memory card readers — heck, I needed one to produce this very review you’re reading.
I get why Apple went with USB-C — that standard is the future, and offers some real benefits like transfer speeds of up to 40Gbps and support for two external monitors up to 5K each. Right now, though, in the year 2016, I would have preferred a mix of USB-C and full-size USB sockets.
Apple must realize this new setup will be a pain for some: It temporarily slashed the prices of its adapters to as low as $9 for a USB-C-to-USB dongle. Take advantage of that soon, though, as Apple only plans to keep these prices in effect through the end of the year. Even if you do already own Thunderbolt 3 accessories, though, you might be disappointed to find that they don’t always work. We’ve already seen at least one report about the new MacBook Pros not playing nice with some existing peripherals.
It would be easy in our hardware tour to gloss over the small speaker grilles flanking the keyboard. As it happens, though, Apple retooled the audio setup within, adding stereo speakers offering twice the dynamic range and 58 percent more volume. The result is some of the clearest sound I’ve heard yet from a notebook. Everyone from Dolly Parton to Peggy Lee to Bob Dylan sounded more … present. With no discernible distortion crackling through the speakers, all my favorite artists sounded more than ever like they were in the room with me. Audiophiles might dispute my use of the phrase “studio quality,” but if nothing else, I think we can agree that, although laptop audio is usually unremarkable, this is actually pretty good.
Keyboard and trackpad
I was almost as pleasantly surprised by the keyboard. I did always love the cushy keyboard on the older MacBook Pro, and so I was wary when Apple announced it was moving to the same shallow keyboard used on the 12-inch MacBook. The buttons here use the second generation of Apple’s “butterfly” button design, offering four times more key stability than before. They also offer the same travel as on that smaller notebook: just 0.5 millimeters.
Indeed, though I’ve used the smaller MacBook, I still encountered something of a learning curve here. Particularly tricky were the sorts of long, complex passwords required by my company’s IT department. Though Apple claims the butterfly mechanism allows for more even button presses, my key strikes would sometimes fail to register, leading me to make typos and forcing me to go back and reenter my long password a second or even third time.
By now, though, after some two-odd weeks of testing, I’m typing at a faster clip. I still sometimes screw up my passwords, but my emails and first drafts (including this review!) are mostly clean. I’ve gone from merely tolerating the new keyboard to actually appreciating it.
Sitting beneath the keyboard, of course, is the touchpad, which is 46 percent larger than on the previous 13-inch model. On the 15-incher, it’s twice as big as before. And it’s ridiculous. Just look at it!
Whatever antipathy I used to have for Apple’s Force Touch trackpads has faded with time, as they’re now the standard on the company’s newer laptops. Apple has by now fooled me into believing that I’m still clicking a button, when really I’m bearing down on a fixed, unmoving piece of glass with a vibrating haptic engine underneath. It’s partly thanks to trackpads like this that Apple is able to make its notebooks as thin as they are.
Personally, I still don’t make much use of the various pressure-sensitive Force Touch gestures available to me. I could bear down to fast-forward through an iTunes movie or peek at a file in Finder, but it never occurs to me to do so. I sometimes open a dictionary preview for a word in an article I’m reading, but I pretty much do it only by accident. The thing that makes Force Touch most special, then, remains lost on me. But at least the touchpad is spacious and does well at the basics: tap-to-click, single-finger tracking, two-finger scrolls and pinch-to-zoom.
Touch Bar
Apple sees the Touch Bar as an extension of the mouse and keyboard. That means that, although it’s technically a second display, you won’t see it used as such. You won’t see a moving stock ticker, for instance. No Facebook notifications. You can only use the Touch Bar in situations where you already use a Mac (or iOS!) keyboard. As it turns out, that mostly includes function buttons, word suggestions, emoji and a whole lot of sliders.
By default, when you boot up your Mac and aren’t in any particular app yet, you’ll see the Escape key at the far left of the Touch Bar (where it belongs) and a handful of icons over on the right. From right to left, that includes Siri, the mute button and volume and brightness shortcuts. Those Touch Bar shortcuts are all programmable, with options to add, remove and reorder shortcuts. You do this not in the System Settings, where you might expect, but from the View menu on the desktop.
In addition to those four default Touch Bar shortcuts, you’ll also notice an arrow sign, which allows you to expand that short list of icons to fill out the entire touch strip. Though that full list might initially seem cluttered, I like it because it’s more similar to the setup I’m used to. For instance, with the shortcuts fully expanded, you get separate buttons for increasing and decreasing the brightness. Ditto for volume: You’ll see separate keys for volume up and down. Unfortunately, though, that expanded view fades away after a few seconds of idle time; there’s no way to just lock in that function row so that you see it there every time you look down at the keyboard.
In addition to expanding the Touch Bar menu, you can tap the volume or brightness icons to bring up a slider. What’s annoying about this whole setup is that either way, some of the most important system controls are now buried in Touch Bar menus. Want to lower the volume? You can either hit the volume icon and hit the slider, or hit the arrow key and tap the volume up or down key. That’s less efficient than just pressing a dedicated volume button in the function row. It’s inconvenient enough that I eventually started using my mouse to do things like pause Spotify or raise the volume on a track. Apple made me change my way of doing things, and not necessarily for the better. That pisses me off.
Another thing: I too often end up hitting the Touch Bar when I mean to strike the Delete key. By default, it’s Siri sitting in that spot above the backspace button, which means I’ve more than once summoned Apple’s virtual assistant when I didn’t mean to. I did use the settings menu to move Siri over to the left, but that just means something else will then be sitting above the Delete key, and you will accidentally hit that too. I’m frankly not sure what Apple should do about that. Maybe issue a software update that pushes those four shortcuts slightly left? Think on it, guys.
The Touch Bar works throughout the rest of macOS too, and occasionally it’s actually useful. In Safari, for instance, you can tap or slide to switch between open tabs. Also, when you put your cursor in the search field, your favorite websites will automatically pop up. In Mail you’ll see predictive text, formatting options (bold, italics, etc.) and even suggestions for where you should archive highlighted messages.
The Messages app also has Quick Type word suggestions, along with emoji and “Tapback” responses. In Calendar, you can select a day, month or year from the Touch Bar. Notes gives you checklists, formatting tools and, once again, predictive text. Rounding out the list, in Photos you’ll see a slider to scrub through your photos, along with buttons for cropping, favoriting, rotating pictures, or adding filters to them.
I think the reason some of these use cases work is that many of the things I just mentioned — picking emoji, accepting spellcheck suggestions — are things we’re already used to doing on touchscreens. Using iPhones for as long as nine years has prepared loyal Apple fans well for this moment. At the same time, I can understand why Apple didn’t go all in with a full touchscreen: macOS simply wasn’t designed to be finger friendly. Still, that didn’t stop me from poking the screen in vain several times, with the expectation that the Mac would behave the same as any Windows laptop I’ve tested recently.
In addition to those apps I mentioned, the Touch Bar works in other Apple programs like Pages, Numbers, Keynote and Final Cut Pro X. The company has also released an API for developers, and indeed, we’ve already seen previews of upcoming apps that take advantage of the Touch Bar, like Photoshop and Microsoft Office. For now, though, as this is only the first day that the Touch Bar MacBook Pros are on sale, the feature is mostly limited to first-party apps.
Performance and battery life
For its newest MacBook Pros, Apple went with sixth-, not seventh-generation Intel Core CPUs. Which makes sense, because the particular seventh-gen, or “Kaby Lake,” processors that Apple would need for the MacBook Pro series aren’t even available yet.
That said, even with the currently available Intel chips, Apple is claiming some big performance claims — up to 130 percent faster graphics on the 15-inch model, and up to 103 percent faster integrated graphics on the 13-inch model. The SSDs here are said to be up to 100 percent faster, with sequential read speeds of up to 3.1 gigabytes per second and sequential write speeds of up to 2.1 GB/s on the 13-inch model and up to 2.2 GB/s on the 15-incher.
| MacBook Pro 2016 (15-inch, 2.7GHz Core i7, 16GB RAM, 2GB Radeon Pro 455) | 4,309/13,367 | 558.81 |
| MacBook Pro 2016 (13-inch, 2.9GHz Core i5, 8GB RAM, Intel Iris Graphics 550) | 3,876/7,504 | 476.36 |
| MacBook Pro 2016 (13-inch, 2GHz Core i5, 8GB RAM, Intel Iris Graphics 540) | 3,756/7,268 | 473.65 |
| Surface Book 2016 (2.6GHz Core i7-6600U, 16GB RAM, 2GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M) | 3,824/7,189 | N/A |
As for disk speeds, the Blackmagic test showed average write speeds of 1.36 GB/s on the 13-inch Pro. (Blackmagic capped all read speeds at 2 GB/s — an error suggesting the test can’t handle disks this fast.) In a separate experiment, I duplicated a 6.02GB folder. This took as little as 8.2 seconds on the 15-inch model and a similar 8.44 seconds on the 13-incher.
Obviously, you’re not going to see maximum read or write speeds in a scenario like that, since both are happening at the same time. That said, speeds of 734 MB/s (or 713 MB/s on the 13-incher) are none too shabby. An eight-second transfer time is pretty brisk, considering how many photos, videos and other files I had in that six-gigabyte folder.
Boot-up took around 15 seconds to the login screen on the entry-level 13-inch model, though I logged a faster 10-second startup on my higher-specced 13-incher. In any case, this is on par with how last year’s models performed. This might be a good time to mention, by the way, that Apple has done away with its long-standing startup chime. I’ve been hearing some people say they miss it, but personally, I’ve been enjoying my silent boot-ups.
Though the MacBook Pro wasn’t intended for gaming, per se, for this kind of money it had better be able to do a passable job when pros feel like taking a break from work. For the purposes of this review, I installed Tomb Raider and used its built-in benchmark to measure frame rates. (Yes, I observed actual gameplay too.)
At the game’s native resolution (1,440 x 900 on the 13-inch Pro), I saw an average of 40.5 frames per second on the entry-level model, with frame rates ranging from 48.8 all the way down to a sluggish 18.8 at one point. On a more souped-up 13-inch Pro (one with a Touch Bar), the frame rate average rose to 47.4, with a range of 21.3 to 58.1 in my tests. Whichever configuration you get, the gameplay will net out to playable frame rates at default settings, though I can’t guarantee you won’t see any slowdowns.
As you’d expect, things improve a bit on the 15-inch model, which comes standard with discrete graphics. The Radeon Pro 455 GPU in my unit delivered average frame rates of 53 frames per second in Tomb Raider, with the default screen resolution of 1,650 x 1,050. Even the lowest frame rates were more playable here, with the fps rating ranging from 31.4 to 60.5.
| Surface Book with Performance Base (2016) | 16:15 |
| Surface Book (Core i5, integrated graphics) | 13:54 / 3:20 (tablet only) |
| Surface Book (Core i7, discrete graphics) | 11:31 / 3:02 (tablet only) |
| Apple MacBook Pro with Retina display (13-inch, 2015) | 11:23 |
| HP Spectre x360 15t | 10:17 |
| HP Spectre x360 (13-inch, 2016) | 10:03 |
| ASUS ZenBook 3 | 9:45 |
| Apple MacBook (2016) | 8:45 |
| Samsung Notebook 9 | 8:16 |
| Microsoft Surface Pro 4 | 7:15 |
| HP Spectre 13 | 7:07 |
| Dell XPS 15 (2016) | 5:25 (7:40 with the mobile charger) |
This would be a good time to talk about operating temperatures. The 15-inch model in particular adds a split-blade fan design that promises more efficient cooling. Both models got hot on the bottom after just a few minutes of gaming, but in regular use they were more tolerable to keep in my lap — they sometimes got warm after a while, but never uncomfortably hot with more mundane use.
Apple rates both the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro for up to 10 hours of battery life, and that’s either with web surfing or iTunes movie playback. Even after half a dozen battery tests, I’m still noticing some inconsistencies in my results: 13-inch battery life is sometimes in the seven- to eight-hour range, with some tests hinting at a ten-and-a-half-hour capacity. Testing on the 15-inch model has also been inconclusive. I’ve generally seen between nine and 10 hours of video playback, but in one instance I exceeded the 13-hour mark by lowering the brightness slightly. I’ll be conducting more tests and updating this review with final battery life results.
Either way, it’s worth noting that earlier-gen MacBook Pros lasted longer on a charge. In particular, the 13-inch MacBook Pro I tested a year ago was rated for 12 hours of iTunes playback, and logged nearly 11 and a half hours in the same test I used this time. That’s an hour longer than even the best time I’ve gotten so far on this year’s 13-incher.
And then you have to consider what other computer makers are doing. Microsoft’s updated Surface Book, which just began shipping yesterday, is rated for up to 16 hours, and I actually got slightly more than that in my video rundown test (and that was with a Core i7 processor and discrete graphics, mind you). And while the Surface Book admittedly achieves that runtime with a heftier, 3.68-pound design, the same can’t be said of the 13-inch HP Spectre x360 — it lasted 10 hours in our video test with a Core i7 processor and a 2.85-pound design that weighs less than either of Apple’s MacBook Pros.
Taking all that into consideration, I’d be even happier with the battery life on the 13-inch model if Apple had been able to accomplish the same thing with a lighter design à la HP, or if it had accepted a slightly heavier build in the name of better endurance.
Configuration options
The 13-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1,299 without the controversial Touch Bar. For the money, you get a 2.0GHz dual-core Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 128GB solid-state drive, integrated Intel Iris 6100 graphics and just two USB-C ports. The non–Touch Bar machine is also available with a bigger 256GB drive, a different 2GHz Core i5 processor and Intel Iris 540 graphics for $1,499.
The Touch Bar models start at $1,799, and it’s at this tier, too, that you step up from two USB-C ports to four. At that price you get a 2.9GHz dual-core Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and Intel Iris 550 graphics. The top-end model has a 512GB drive, bringing the total to $1,999.
Well, assuming you don’t buy any add-ons. You can purchase a 3.1GHz Core i5 processor for $100 or a 3.3GHz dual-core Core i7 CPU for $300. Doubling the RAM to 16GB costs $200. A 1TB SSD, meanwhile, costs an extra $400. This means the most tricked-out 13-inch Pro will set you back $2,899. Price of dongles not included.
If it’s the 15-inch version you’re after, that starts at $2,399 with a 2.6GHz quad-core Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and a 2GB AMD Radeon Pro 450 graphics card. An even pricier $2,799 configuration nets you double the storage (512GB), a slightly faster 2.7GHz quad-core Core i7 CPU and an incrementally better Radeon Pro 455 GPU.
From there, too, you have upgrade options. There’s one more CPU tier — a 2.9GHz quad-core Core i7 chip for $200. You can bump the disk capacity to 1TB ($400) or 2TB for a mighty $1,200 — the first time the 15-inch Pro has offered that storage option at all. Lastly, there’s one more GPU option: a 4GB Radeon Pro 460 chip, available for an extra $100. All told, the most expensive 15-inch Pro you could get costs a stinging $4,299,
The competition
I can think of a handful of machines I’d suggest you add to your short list, and as it happens I’ve reviewed all of them recently, or am in the middle of testing them now. The most obvious might be Microsoft’s updated Surface Book, which went on sale late last week and was met with positive reviews, including from Engadget. To recap my own review, its biggest drawbacks are that it’s fairly heavy, at 3.68 pounds, and it’s expensive. (Though last year’s model is still around for $1,499 and up, you’ll have to pay $2,399 and up for the newest configurations.)
If you can stomach the weight and price, though, you’ll be rewarded with long battery life, a comfortable keyboard, ample ports, fast performance and a versatile design that allows you to detach the screen and use it as a pen-enabled tablet. (It’s a very lightweight tablet too, I might add.)
People considering the 13-inch Pro would also be smart to consider HP’s newly updated Spectre x360 ($1,050-plus), which packs seventh-generation Intel processors and sports a more compact design. You also get a choice of 8GB or 16GB of RAM and between 256GB and 1TB of storage. The graphics performance can’t quite match the MacBook Pro, but it’s otherwise fast, with a lighter design and longer battery life, not to mention a more versatile design. Keep in mind, though, that the screen resolution tops out at 1080p, making it less pixel-dense than a Retina display.
Lenovo’s new 13.9-inch Yoga 910 ($1,050 and up; review coming soon) fits a similar profile: 3.04 pounds with up to a Core i7 processor, Intel HD 620 graphics, 16 GB of RAM and up to a 1TB SSD. Unlike on the similar HP Spectre 360, though, there’s a higher-res 3,840 x 2,160 screen option to rival the Retina display. You might even consider the 14-inch Razer Blade ($1,800 and up). Though it looks the part of a gaming laptop with its green logo and colorful keyboard backlighting, its portable design and specs (chiefly an NVIDIA GTX 1060 GPU) qualify it as a MacBook Pro competitor.
Lastly, don’t count out Dell’s XPS line. I recommend the 15-inch model in particular here because it’s one of the few other 15-inch laptops thin and powerful enough to rival the larger MacBook Pro. (The smaller XPS 13 is one of my favorite general-purpose laptops, but it doesn’t pack the graphics power to compete with the MBP.) The XPS 15, which starts at $1,000, weighs under four pounds, making it about as light as Apple’s machine, and can be configured with a 4K display, quad-core Core i7 CPU, a 2GB NVIDIA 960M GPU, up to 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. That top configuration costs $2,600.
Wrap-up
I’m one of many Mac owners out there who has been waiting for Apple to upgrade the MacBook Pro line. Now that it finally has, I find the new laptop isn’t quite what I wanted. For me, the ideal MacBook Pro is actually a mashup between this and last year’s model. Let me keep my full-size USB ports, and my function keys, and my longer battery life, but stick with this thinner and lighter design. Stick with this improved display, Touch ID sensor, fast disk performance and more robust audio quality. For me, this is both a step forward and a step backward.
I’m sure Apple disagrees, and not just because its job is to sell lots of computers. Apple seems to earnestly believe it knows how people should be getting work done — so much so that it has the chutzpah to ask loyal customers to unlearn old habits. Get used to using dongles to attach your existing accessories. Say goodbye to your memory card slot, creatives. Resign yourself to adjusting the brightness or volume with two taps, instead of one button press. Accept the risk that your existing Thunderbolt 3 peripherals might not work.
As I said, there’s ultimately a lot to like about the new MacBook Pro. But it’s designed for someone who I’m not sure exists outside Apple’s fantasies of how professionals use computers. The MacBook Pro I want to see is built around real people’s work habits. I still recommend it, and I imagine many of you who have been waiting patiently will indeed buy this. But I’d enjoy it more if it were designed for people like us.
Chinese media: Trump’s trade war will hurt Apple and Boeing
If the next president starts imposing trade tariffs on China, then he’s going to be harming America’s own companies. That’s the line from China’s Global Times, which has published an editorial theorizing potential responses to any future trade war. For instance, should the US follow through on promises on the campaign trail and block sales of Chinese products, the nation will retaliate in kind. For instance, China would ditch Boeing orders in favor of those from Airbus, or ban sales of Apple’s iPhone in the country where it’s manufactured.
It’s important to note, however, that while Global Times is a state-run outfit, it’s hardly the best venue for saber-rattling. If China really wanted to drop some not-so subtle warnings about international relations, it’d use Global Times’ parent the People’s Daily, or Xinhua News. This byline-free editorial is more of a rebuke to the accusation that China is a currency manipulator. The stuff about blocking the iPhone and Boeing seem to be baseless conjecture than anything else. Although, given how far baseless conjecture can get you these days, maybe we should worry.
Via: The Verge, The Guardian
Source: Global Times, (Chinese)
STYR’s smart water bottle is here to sell you some supplements
The old adage of “drink 8 ounces of water 8 times a day” is an easy mnemonic to remember but glugging those 1.9 liters of fluid isn’t exactly doctor-approved advice. In fact, the National Academy of Medicine recommends that men consume 50 percent more than the colloquial knowledge implies — roughly 3 liters of liquid every day — while women should drink at least 2.2 liters. You’re a busy person and keeping track of how much you drink throughout the day can be tricky.
STYR Lab’s new smart water bottle, however, not only tells you exactly how much you’ve consumed so far but also calculates how much you’ll need based on your activity level. Heck, it’ll even recommend a personalized electrolyte regimen to keep you in tip top shape.
The Smart Water Bottle costs $60 and holds 500 mL. It tracks your consumption with a tiny sonar-like system that blasts sound waves to measure the amount of air left in the bottle to measure how much liquid is left after each swig. The cap then pairs wirelessly with the STYR mobile app via a Bluetooth connection and syncs that data with the STYR app, which is available for both iOS and Android. Your daily and monthly totals update by syncing with the bottle or manually inputting the number of ounces. The app can also calculate how many additional sips you’ll need to take in order to remain at peak hydration given your upcoming activity.
Taking a 30-minute jog outdoors on a 75-degree day and running a consistent 10-minute mile over that span, for example, would tack on around 20 ounces to your necessary total. What’s more, the app incorporates a geo-fencing feature that recognizes when you’re in one of 55,000 gyms around the country and will send push notifications reminding you to hydrate after you get done working out.
The app will also recommend a customized electrolyte mix for users based on a variety of factors including their activity level, general health, diet and vice habits like drinking and smoking. My personalized recommendation, for example, include Vitamin C, Riboflavin, Calcium, Magnesium, Sodium and Potassium in concentrations from .5 to 435 mg. And, given your relative activity level, it recommends you suck down as many as four packets a day, though the company’s reps put that figure closer to once or twice a week after vigorous exercise. Purchasing these supplements is completely voluntary and in no way impacts the function of the bottle itself.
However, I for the life of me can’t understand how someone is expected to choke down four of these a day. The pineapple flavor that I received in the starter kit tasted horrible — like weak Tang cut with extra salt. What’s more, maintaining a steady supply of supplements is quite costly. 12 packets of electrolytes will set you back $24. Your wallet would be better off if you just bought some Gatorade and ate more salad.
The bottle is the third accessory in STYR Lab’s fitness tracking ecosystem, joining a step tracker and smart scale. Much like the bottle, the step tracker hawks vitamin mix while the scale pushes protein powder. And these supplements just as pricey as the electrolytes. A 30-day supply of vitamins run $68 (the same price as the tracker itself), protein costs $28 per 1-pound bag. “We consider ourselves a nutritional technology company,” STYR Lab founder Sergio Radovcic wrote to me recently, which would explain why the company is so adamant about selling its customers supplements.
In the end, this smart water bottle is really just a fancy canteen. Now, if you already use the STYR system and are training in earnest, this purchase makes sense. But if you’re just looking for a vessel to store your liquids in, you can do the same for far less by just buying a regular water bottle and keeping track of your drinking habits manually.
Tesla’s entry-level Model S gets a $2,000 price hike
Tesla has told customers via its monthly newsletter that it will hike the base Model S 60 price by $2,000 on November 22nd. The new $68,000 price is still luxury car money, so we doubt the increase will dissuade many potential buyers. However, it gives them even less of a reason to choose the 60 kWh, 215-mile-range Model S, since the 75 kWh Model S 75 is just $6,500 more and has 259 miles of range.
Tesla re-launched the Model S 60 and 60D to boost sales by giving buyers a lower-priced option. The move no doubt had an impact, as Tesla made a profit for the first time in two years last quarter and increased sales by 59 percent over last quarter.
While the lower-priced model may be helping drive sales, another recent Tesla move has likely increased costs. Each vehicle, including the upcoming Model 3, will be manufactured with the eight cameras and 12 sensors needed for fully autonomous self-driving capability. (Prior to that, customers had to order the feature or the hardware wouldn’t be installed.) If buyers don’t pay up to $8,000 to activate autonomous features, the hardware will just sit there doing nothing.
Bloomberg via Getty Images
Interestingly, Tesla also does a similar trick with the 60 kWh battery capacity on the Model S 60 and 60D. Those vehicles actually come with a 75 kWh battery, but the extra capacity is locked off by software. To “upgrade,” you just need to pay a $9,000 fee, and upon confirmation, “the over-the-air process will be initiated and the upgrade will occur during a vehicle sleep cycle over the next 1-2 days,” according to Tesla’s online store. Your local dealer will even change the badge afterwards.
In other words, Tesla is installing feature in its vehicles and hoping that customers who initially opt-out will eventually upgrade. Using the same pieces in all cars will no doubt make its production process more efficient, but it may have needed to make up the shortfall in costs with the price increase. It’s also cutting the free supercharging perk for cars sold after December 31st, 2016, which will also save it some money. On an unrelated note (we think), Tesla shareholders will vote on the Tesla and SolarCity merger on Thursday, November 17th.
Via: Autoblog
Source: Inside EVs
AIVAnet 