New Apple iPad (2017) vs iPad Pro 9.7: What’s the difference?

Apple announced a new 9.7-inch iPad at its March 2017 event, replacing the iPad Air 2, but ditching the Air name. The Apple iPad (2017) is the cheapest way to get your hands on an Apple tablet, but how does it compare to the rest of the iPad family?

We’ve put it up against the iPad Air 2 in a separate feature, and you can also read our entire iPad round up if you want to see how it fits in on the whole. Here we are specifically comparing it to the iPad Pro 9.7.

• New Apple iPad (2017) review
• Apple iPad Pro 9.7 review

New Apple iPad 2017 vs iPad Pro 9.7: Design

• Similar designs, but iPad Pro is lighter and slimmer
• Smart Connector and raised rear camera lens on iPad Pro
• iPad Pro comes in additional rose gold colour option

The new Apple iPad 2017 and the iPad Pro 9.7 feature a very similar design with only a few slight differences on the surface. They are both distinctly iPad, offering slim, premium metal constructions with rounded edges and corners and the Touch ID home button on the front beneath the screen.

On the rear, the Apple logo is positioned in the middle, as usual, while the rear camera lens sits in the top left corner. The iPad Pro 9.7 has a raised rear camera lens and a flash module beneath it, while the new iPad has a flat rear camera lens and no flash. Both have a centralised Lightning port at the bottom in between grilles but the iPad Pro has Smart Connector ports on one of its sides, distinguishing it from the new model in terms of design.

These two slabs offer identical measurements in terms of width and height, at 240 x 169.5mm, but the iPad Pro 9.7 is slimmer at 6.1mm compared to 7.5mm. The Pro is also lighter at 437g or 444g compared to the new model’s 469g or 478g weight, depending on the whether you opt for Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi and Cellular.

The new Apple iPad 2017 and the iPad Pro 9.7 both come in silver, space grey and gold colour options, but the iPad Pro is also available in rose gold and it is the only iPad in the family that comes in this colour.

• New Apple iPad 9.7 vs iPad Air 2: What’s the difference?

New Apple iPad 2017 vs iPad Pro 9.7: Display

• Both 9.7-inch displays, 2048 x 1538 resolutions (264ppi)
• iPad Pro has fully laminated display with anti-reflective coating
• iPad Pro also has wider colour gamut and True Tone technology 

The new Apple iPad 2017 and the iPad Pro 9.7 both offer 9.7-inch Retina displays, which means LED-backlit LCD screens with 2048 x 1536 resolutions for pixel densities of 264ppi. They also both have a fingerprint resistance oleophobic coating, but this is where their similarities conclude.

The iPad Pro 9.7 has a fully laminated display with an anti-reflective coating, while the new iPad doesn’t, meaning there is a small gap between the surface glass and the display panel of the new iPad and the reason for the increased thickness. In reality, it doesn’t actually make a great deal of difference other than content isn’t as close to the surface, but the colours of the new iPad are still vibrant and natural so the experience is still a great one.

The iPad Pro 9.7 also offers a P3 wide colour gamut and Apple’s True Tone technology, the latter of which adjusts the white balance based on ambient lighting conditions and is the most obvious difference between the screens of these two devices. The new iPad does have iOS Night Shift however, which like the iPhones, reduces the blue light emitted from the screen to help relax your eyes when you’re off to bed.

• What is Apple’s True Tone display?

New Apple iPad 2017 vs iPad Pro 9.7: Camera

• iPad Pro has 12MP rear, 5MP front cameras
• New iPad has 8MP rear, 1.2MP front cameras
• iPad Pro has rear True Tone Flash, front Retina Flash, 4K video recording and Live Photo feature 

The new Apple iPad 2017 has an 8-megapixel rear camera with a f/2.4 aperture and 1080p video recording capabilities, while the front-facing camera resolution sits at 1.2-megapixels. There is no flash on either camera.

The iPad Pro 9.7 on the other hand, has a 12-megapixel rear camera with a f/2.2 aperture and 4K video recording, along with a 5-megapixel front-facing snapper. It also offers Live Photos, wide colour photo capture, a True Tone on its rear camera and a Retina Flash on its front snapper.

Other camera features are the same across both devices though, with both offering Auto HDR photos, exposure control, face detection, burst mode, timer mode and photo geotagging, all of which are also offered on the company’s iPhones.

• Which iPad is best for you?

New Apple iPad 2017 vs iPad Pro 9.7: Hardware

• iPad Pro has faster chip, but both have 10-hour battery life
• iPad Pro comes in 256GB storage option
• iPad Pro compatible with Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil

The new Apple iPad 2017 comes with the A9 chip and embedded M9 coprocessor, which is said offer 1.6x faster CPU and 1.8x faster GPU compared to the A8 chip, used in the Apple iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 4. The iPad Pro 9.7 has a slightly more advanced A9X chip with embedded M9 coprocessor though, said to have a 1.85x faster CPU and 2.7x faster GPU to the A8.

The iPad Pro 9.7 also offers Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard compatibility, which the new iPad doesn’t making it less of a working-on-the-go tablet compared to the Pro device. There is also four-speaker audio on the iPad Pro, compared to two-speaker audio on the new iPad, though pretty much everything else is the same in terms of hardware.

Both the iPad Pro 9.7 and the new iPad are said to offer up to 10 hours battery life, which in our experience is fairly accurate, and they both come in 32GB and 128GB storage options. The iPad Pro is also available in a 256GB option, which the new iPad is not. 

New Apple iPad 2017 vs iPad Pro 9.7: Software

• Both run on iOS 10

Both the new Apple iPad 2017 and the iPad Pro 9.7 run on iOS 10, meaning you’ll get an almost identical experience across both devices, aside from a few extra features on the iPad Pro.

You will however get functions such as split-screen multi-tasking, the new Home app for any HomeKit-enabled devices you might have, iMessages and of course the richness of the App Store ecosystem.

• Apple iOS 10 tips and tricks

New Apple iPad 2017 vs iPad Pro 9.7: Price

• iPad (2017) starting price is £210 cheaper

The new Apple iPad 2017 starts at £339 for the 32GB Wi-Fi only option, stretching up to £559 for the 128GB Wi-Fi and Cellular model. 

The Apple iPad Pro 9.7 starts at £549 for the 32GB Wi-Fi only option, while the 256GB Wi-Fi and Cellular option will cost you £849.

New Apple iPad 2017 vs iPad Pro 9.7: Which should you buy?

The decision between the new Apple iPad 2017 and the iPad Pro 9.7 will come down to what you want your new iPad for, as well as what you’re willing, or what you have, to spend on it. 

The iPad Pro 9.7 offers a better screen, more advanced chipset, the option of more storage, better cameras and it is also compatible with the Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil, both of which mean it is a great tablet for working-on-the-go, whether sketching or typing. The iPad Pro also offers better audio.

The new iPad 2017 is significantly cheaper though and although it doesn’t match the iPad Pro in terms of specs, it’s still a brilliant tablet that offers a solid, consistent performance. It will be more than enough for some, while others will want the extra functionality that comes with the iPad Pro. The question you really have to ask yourself is, are those extra functions worth £200 to you?

The Morning After: Monday, April 10th 2017

Still haven’t cut the cord from your cable TV package? YouTube might get you there. In more outlandish weekend news, international scientists plan to drill deep into the Earth, and are searching for the ideal chunk of oceanic crust to get things started. We also explain why Ghost In The Shell’s remake underwhelms and ransomware that demands a high score.

Live baseball games and unlimited DVR helped seal the deal.YouTube TV made this baseball fan finally cut the cord

Senior Editor Nicole Lee doesn’t watch a lot of TV. Instead of Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, she watches YouTube videos and on-demand shows from Hulu or Netflix. She’s arguably the perfect candidate to cut the cord. But until recently, one thing held her back: baseball. With YouTube TV (and a few other services), she’s finally managed to cut her cable TV cord.

Journey to the not-quite center of the Earth.Scientists aim to reach the Earth’s mantle with an undersea drill

We’d know a lot more about what’s under the Earth’s crust if Jules Verne’s Icelandic volcano weren’t but a figment of his imagination. Japan’s Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology’s (JAMSTEC) largest drilling ship called “Chikyu” is very real, though, and a group of international researchers plan to use it to drill into the Earth’s mantle for the first time.

The JAMSTEC-led team will conduct a two-week preliminary study in the waters off Hawaii this September to determine if that’s where their Chikyu should drill. If the location doesn’t work, they’ll look at their other choices in the waters off Costa Rica and off Mexico.

Your files are locked until you’ve reached the high score demanded.

Gag ransomware forces you to play an anime shooter game.

A typical ransomware takes your files hostage in exchange for money, but “Rensenware” asks for something else. It forces you to play an anime-type shooter game called Touhou Seirensen (Undefined Fantastic Object) and score 0.2 billion points in Lunatic mode. Based on what we’ve seen of the gameplay, some of you might wish your computers were infected with ransomware that ask for a reasonable amount of cash instead. Rensenware, which was first spotted by the Malware Hunter Team, was created as a joke.

The opposite of ‘Rogue One’.Carrie Fisher will be in ‘Star Wars: Episode IX’ without using CG

Lucasfilm swore that it wouldn’t create a digital version of the late, great Carrie Fisher for future Star Wars movies, but that doesn’t mean she’ll be cut out entirely. Her brother Todd has revealed that Disney still wants to include Carrie in Episode IX, but that it plans to use recent footage of the actress instead of relying on a computer generated facsimile. Both Todd and Carrie’s daughter, Billie Lourd, have granted permission to use the shots.

But wait, there’s more…

• ‘Ghost in the Shell’ is more cyberposeur than cyberpunk
• Tesla sleek solar panel roof goes on top of your existing one
• Leaf veins may lead to longer battery life

Google’s AI will take on the world’s top Go player next month

It’s been a busy year for Google Deepmind. You might remember AlphaGo resoundingly beating Go grandmaster Lee Sedol by four games to one and secretly schooling some of the world’s best Go players online, but the team has also found time to help Britain’s national health service treat patients and arm its computer with new tricks to help it learn faster and “remember” previous knowledge.

AlphaGo can now justifiably be considered one of the world’s best Go players, but the Deepmind team can’t make a bonafide claim until its AI has beaten the world number one: 19-year-old Korean Ke Jie. Deepmind co-founder and CEO Demis Hassabis has now confirmed that after months of speculation, the match is on.

At the Future of Go Summit between May 23rd to May 27th, Google and the China Go Association (with help from the Chinese government) will bring together AlphaGo and some of the world’s best Go players and AI experts to “explore the mysteries” of the ancient board game.

There will be a variety of games on offer including Pair Go, where Chinese professionals will face off against each other but alternate moves with an AlphaGo teammate. The Team Go match, on the other hand, will see AlphaGo battle a five-player team of Chinese pros in a bid to test “creativity and adaptability.” Ke Jie vs AlphaGo will, of course, be the main focus. It’ll be a best of three match that Deepmind hopes will push AlphaGo to its absolute limit.

The event makes for an interesting spectacle, especially considering Ke once said he didn’t want to sit down with AlphaGo because it would learn his playing style. However, when Deepmind convincingly beat Lee Sedol, the 9th dan professional quickly changed his tune.

“Instead of diminishing the game, as some feared, artificial intelligence (A.I.) has actually made human players stronger and more creative,” said Hassabis. “It’s humbling to see how pros and amateurs alike, who have pored over every detail of AlphaGo’s innovative game play, have actually learned new knowledge and strategies about perhaps the most studied and contemplated game in history.”

Source: Deepmind

Nokia 9 flagship to launch in Q3 for €749

Nokia Power User has received more information relating to HMD’s Nokia 9 flagship, this time focusing on the release date and price. The information has come from the same source that recently reported the 9 would come with an iris scanner, QHD OLED display and OZO Audio. 

• Nokia 8 flagship: Release date, rumours and specs

The source, which is still unnamed so can’t be fully authenticated, has once again used the Nokia 9 name, and claims it will launch in Q3 of 2017 with an asking price of €749/$699. It’s likely the €749 refers to the 64GB storage option, but there will reportedly be a 128GB storage option too, which will demand a higher premium.

The source says the phone will be unveiled in July or maybe even early August, and will then hit store shelves later in the year. It should therefore be released before the Apple iPhone 8, which according to latest rumours won’t be out until October or November due to issues with OLED panels. 

As per the same source’s previous leak, the Nokia 9 will feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor which has featured in some other 2017 flagships, and a Quad HD 2560 x 1440 OLED display. The processor will allegedly be backed up by 6GB of RAM, while the rear camera will be 22-megapixels and the front 12MP. 

It’s also possible the Nokia 9 will be VR-enabled due to OZO Audio implementation. OZO is the name of Nokia’s VR headset, and OZO Audio has 3D audio recording and playback capabilities. 

Homemade thrill ride speeds up if you’re not scared enough

Roller coasters don’t care how scared you are, they always follow their pre-programmed circuit to a “T.” That gave Dutch artist Daniel de Bruin an idea: What if a ride could measure your fear and amp up the thrills based on that? Since he’s also a designer, he decided to find out by building the Neurotransmitter 3000, a 7-meter (23 foot) high steampunk-looking ride that speeds up or slows down depending on your heart rate, body temperature and muscle tension.

To start the ride, de Bruin straps himself in the machine with three locking systems for safety (we’re not sure anyone else is allowed to risk it). Three sensors are then placed on his arm, wrist and ear that measure muscular tension, heart rate and temperature. He also also has control over the chair’s rotational speed with a handbrake.

The ride starts slowly but increases depending on de Bruin’s comfort level. It will stop altogether if your heart rate hits 130 beats per minute (bpm) or muscle tension reaches a certain threshold, but can go as fast as one rotation per second if you’re cool with it all.

In other words, it’s a continuous feedback loop — the ride will speed up if you’re not scared, but if the increased motion is too exciting, your vital signs will force the ride to slow down again. “The desire to be part of the things that I make has driven me to build the Neurotransmitter 3000,” de Bruin told Fontanel last year. “It will respond to my body and my body to it.”

de Bruin started the project as part of his graduate work at HKU University in Utrecht, Netherlands, and finished it in collaboration with the STRP.nl Biennial 2017, a week long exhibition of interactive installations. To see just how insane this thing is, check out the Fontanel post that features photos of it under construction.

Via: PSFK

Source: Daniel de Bruin

Tough water-repellent coating could lead to faster ships

You’ve no doubt seen footage of water-repellent coatings that seemingly defy the laws of nature. However, they have a catch: they’re often too fragile to be useful in situations where they’re likely to face a lot of abuse, whether it’s the clothes on your back or a ship on the ocean. Researchers may finally have a solution that’s tough enough to survive these conditions, however. They’ve developed a coating whose combination of fluorinated polyurethane elastomer and a complex, extremely hydrophobic molecule can self-heal “hundreds” of times despite phenomenal levels of abuse. It’ll recover from direct strikes, burns, chemical attacks and even ultrasonic blasts.

The key is the shape at the microscopic level. Previous water-repellent coatings rely on a very specialized but often inflexible geometry that prevents water droplets from seeping in. All it takes is a little damage to ruin that characteristic and leave an object soaking wet. The new material is more flexible and theoretically worse, but it’s less likely to break and can restore itself. You can fine-tune its composition, too, so you can get the best results for a given surface.

There are concrete plans to put this into production. The scientists have formed a company, HygraTek, that aims to commercialize the tech. If it does, the potential uses are far-reaching. Ships could travel faster by reducing their water resistance, and you could waterproof clothes, cars and many other things that go through a lot of punishment. In short: the days of ruined jackets and perpetually dirty windshields might just come to an end.

Source: University of Michigan, ACS

Leaf veins may lead to longer battery life

There have been many, many discoveries that promise longer battery life, but one of the latest is rare in taking its inspiration from one of the most common structures in nature: the leaf vein. Scientists have crafted a porous material that mimics the highly optimized flow of nutrients in plant leaves. The team used an evaporation-based process to arrange zinc oxide nanoparticles into networks with pores of various sizes that behave like you’d expect in a leaf, maximizing the transfer of material while minimizing the necessary energy.

In lithium battery electrodes, the leaf-like technique not only improved the charging and discharging processes that affect battery life, but reduced the stress on the electrodes themselves. Your battery would both wring more out of a charge (up to 25 times more capacity), charge faster and have a longer usable lifespan. The same approach boosted the performance of a gas sensor and a photocatalysis process that broke down a dye using light.

As with most battery-related breakthroughs, there’s one overriding question: how to translate this to a shipping product. Zinc oxide isn’t an exotic substance, but you’d still need a way to mass-produce nanoparticle networks. The technology holds a lot of promise, but it could be a long while before your phone is a longevity champion.

Via: EurekAlert

Source: University of Cambridge, Nature

Sleepless nights for new parents may be over thanks to the Max Motor Dreams

Why it matters to you

What wouldn’t new parents give for a full night’s rest? Relief may be in sight if Ford ever puts its prototype Max Motor Dreams into production.

When baby is screaming yet again at 3 a.m., there’s little a parent won’t do for some shuteye — both for themselves and for their bundle of joy. Unfortunately, one of the most dependable solutions isn’t always the safest in the wee hours of the morning; that is , taking your newborn out for a spin in your car isn’t a sustainable way to put him or her to bed. Luckily, Ford may have a solution. Meet the Max Motor Dreams, a crib that simulates the gentle hum and vibrations of a moving car, without the need for a driver or any gas.

As Ford noted in a press release around the novel new crib, new parents can expect the lose the equivalent of 44 days of sleep in the first year of their child’s life alone. A night-time drive, however, can keep a baby quiet, and keep you in bed for a bit longer. As such, Ford has debuted a prototype that will simulate the motion, engine noise, and yes, even the street lighting of those late-night rendezvous. The crib looks much like a normal baby bed, but thanks to a companion smartphone app, it’s capable of much more.

More: A born-again Ford Bronco is coming to soothe your ’90s nostalgia

“After many years of talking to mums and dads, we know that parents of newborns are often desperate for just one good night’s sleep, said Max Motor Dreams designer Alejandro López Bravo, who helped create the design. “But while a quick drive in the family car can work wonders in getting baby off to sleep, the poor old parents still have to be awake and alert at the wheel. The Max Motor Dreams could make the everyday lives of a lot of people a little bit better.”

A speaker in the bed plays engine sounds, while the base of the crib rocks gently, recreating the sensation of a moving vehicle. And the crib is lined with blinking LED lights to mimic streetlights. While the Max Motor Dreams is currently nothing more than a one-off pilot, Ford says that it’s seriously considering making this available to the public. So rejoice, parents. There may be rest for you in sight.

A computer hack set off all 156 sirens in Dallas in the wee hours of the morning

Why it matters to you

Emergency alert system are meant to keep us safe, but when they’re compromised, it can be both dangerous and a serious nuisance

In what may have been the loudest cyberattack ever, a data breach resulted in an hour-and-a-half of blaring sirens in Dallas. The Texas city has a total of 156 sirens meant to sound the alarm for danger, which were themselves a nuisance when the entire warning system was breached late Friday night and into Saturday morning.

“At this point, we can tell you with a good deal of confidence that this was somebody outside of our system that got in there and activated our sirens,” city Emergency Management Director Rocky Vaz told reporters. The hack is believed to have been carried out by someone in the area, city spokeswoman Sana Syed revealed in an email statement.

More: WikiLeaks releases Vault7 info on CIA’s ‘Grasshopper” custom hacking toolkit

Given that the hack is said to be the largest ever with regard to emergency sirens, experts are on high alert. “This is a very, very rare event,” Vaz said. While most hacks only manage to trigger a couple sirens at most, this most recent breach was significantly more extensive.

As it stands, city engineers are resetting the alert system, and are slated to complete their work by the end of the weekend. But for now, that means that Dallas residents (all 1.6 million of them), will have to resort to local media, emergency 911 phone calls, and a federal radio alert system should any serious situation arise. This attack goes far beyond an annoying prank.

More: Apple patches vulnerability that led to cyberattacks on 911 call centers

This isn’t the first time an emergency system has been compromised. Indeed, cybersecurity officials have previously expressed concern over the entire 911 system, which has also proven vulnerable. Currently, the Dallas hack is being examined by system engineers. While the Federal Communications Commission has been contacted, police have not yet been called in.

Make Google Play Music — or almost any music app — your alarm clock!

Forget alarms.

Who wants to wake up to some horrible ringing, buzzing, or other panic-inducing noise? Waking up to a klaxon?? STOP IT! NO! BAD! Why start your day in a bleary adrenaline rush? We don’t have to do that to ourselves anymore. We have the technology to wake up better ways.

True, some alarm apps allow you to set a favorite song as your morning alarm, but the problem here is that no matter how much you love a song, if you wake up to the song every day, that love will eventually turn to hate. Remember ‘I got you, babe’ in Groundhog Day? Yeah, we don’t need that. What if you could just pick up with your Google Play Music queue where you left off the night before, like those old iPod alarm clocks we all used in the early 2000’s?

Unfortunately, most music apps lack a built-in alarm clock, but through some true Android magic — namely Tasker — we can wake up to just about any music app you’ve got.

Now, before we get started, I’m going to warn you: this is gonna get nitty-gritty, it’s gonna take experimentation and testing to make sure that your alarm will actually trigger, and at the end of the day, depending on your phone’s software and your music app of choice, it might not work. That’s the nature of the beast when it comes to Android automation apps like Tasker, but once you get this up and running, it will improve your mornings and your life. I shed a few tears when I first got this working four years ago…

Now, this is also going to deviate from my normal how-to steps because there are some steps that not everyone is going to need, and I want to explain most of my steps and methodology here. There are a couple of different ways to get to our end alarm clock and I intend to explain why I use my particular path. Before we get cooking, we need to download the ingredients:

• Tasker ($2.99) is one of the many automation apps in the Android ecosystem. It’s been around for a long time, and while it’s had its highs and lows, Tasker has always pulled through for me when I’ve needed it. Like root, it’s become less necessary as it once was as the rest of Android has improved, but so long as it wakes me up every morning, it still more than deserves its place on my phone, and probably on yours, too.
• AutoShare (Free, $1.49) is a Tasker plugin that enables us to use a far more precise media command than the standard media play command that comes with Tasker, ensuring that when we hit play in the morning it goes to the proper app. We’ll also need to download some intents for these, but we’ll go through that in a minute.
• Bluetooth Auto Connect (Free) is free but optional. We’ll only use this to connect to our Bluetooth to our bedroom speaker, and if you don’t have one of those, then you can ignore that part when we get to it. There is a version of this built into Tasker, but Bluetooth Auto Connect works better for me, and I hope it’ll work better for you.
• Your favorite music app is the whole reason we’re doing this. I can’t guarantee that this will work with every single app on the market, but I have personally used it with Google Play Music for four years and the AutoShare Intercept we’ll be using says that Spotify, Pandora, and even Apple Music are compatible.

AutoShare is a unique plugin in that in addition to downloading the plugin itself, we need to download AutoShare Intents to use in your desired task. The developer of AutoShare — and the entire AutoApps suite — has a handy website where he details and offers download for many AutoShare intents, and here’s how we’re going to download them. Once AutoShare is taken care of, we’ll get into making the actual alarm.

Open AutoShare.
Allow AutoShare to access your device’s storage. We’ll need this in order for the app to save and access the AutoShare intents we’re about to download.

Tap Browse Intents.

Tap the browser of your choice, but tap Just once instead of Always.
Scroll down to Media Control. Before listing the intents we’re going to use, AutoShare tells us how they have to be used, and this is important because media controls in AutoShare can be more precise and more accurate, but they have to be set up properly.

Tap Play Down.

In the app picking window that pops up, AutoShare Intent Import should already be selected, so all we need to tap is Just once.
We need to use both a down intent then an up intent in order to hit play in the morning, so we’ll tap Play Up. (If you were kicked back to AutoShare, tap Browse intents to get back to the list.)

In the app picking window, we’ll once again tap Just once with AutoShare Intent Import selected.

We’re technically good to go, but I recommend downloading the other Media Control intents so that you can develop more media control tasks further down the road. Now, time to build the actual alarm.

Open Tasker.
In the Profiles tab, tap the + icon in the bottom right corner to create a new Profile.

A list of contexts for your profile will pop up, and as an alarm clock profile, this will be triggered by Time.

Set your In time to your desired alarm time by swiping the numbers up and down as desired.
Set your Out time to sometime after your In time, but not too far after your In time. This time shouldn’t matter in theory, but I try to put it at the next hour after my alarm time.

Tap the Tasker logo with the little back arrow next to it to move on to the next phase of our alarm-making.

We need to assign a task to trigger when our alarm clock goes off. Since we haven’t made that task yet, we’ll tap New Task.
Name your task. Make it something easy to recognize and/or understand, like “Morning Alarm” or “Play My Music”.

When you’re satisfied with your task name, tap the checkmark next to your new name.

Tap the + icon in the bottom center of your screen to add an action to your task.
We’re going to start by connecting to our Bluetooth speaker. If you don’t need this, skip ahead to Step 23. Tap Plugin.

Tap Bluetooth Auto Connect.

Tap the pencil icon next to Configuration to configure the action.
Uncheck Global Settings. We don’t want those here, since we want to connect to a specific device.

Tap Profiles.

Tap Media Audio to connect the audio profile of your phone that plays music and other media to your speaker.
Tap the back button.

Tap Devices.

Uncheck all but the Bluetooth speaker you want to connect to and drag that Bluetooth speaker up to the top of the list.
Tap the back button.

Profile action should already read Connect. If it doesn’t, tap Profile Action and then tap Connect.

Tap the back button twice.
Tap the + icon in the bottom center of your screen to add an action to your task.

Tap Task.

Tap Wait.
Set Seconds to somewhere in the 5-10 second range. We want to give our Bluetooth step time to actually connect to our Bluetooth speaker before the music starts playing, and that’s what this action is for. If you’re not using Bluetooth, keep this step anyway, we’re gonna use this action to help test our profile at the end.

Tap the Tasker logo with the little back arrow next to it to move on to the next step of our alarm-making.

Tap the + icon in the bottom center of your screen to add an action to your task.
Tap Alert.

Tap Popup. I’ve had trouble on some devices over the years with this profile not turning on the music properly when the screen is off. By using a popup, we kick the screen on just long enough for our music to kick on. Think of this as insurance against device variances.

Under Text, tap the spacebar a few times. We need something in the Popup for the app to display, but we don’t care what it says because unless you wake up before your alarm, we’re never going to see this popup.
Tap the Tasker logo with the little back arrow next to it to move on to the next step of our alarm-making.

Tap the + icon in the bottom center of your screen to add an action to your task.

Tap Plugin.
Tap AutoShare.

Tap AutoShare from the menu that pops up.

Tap the pencil icon next to Configuration to configure the action.
Tap App.

Tap Media. There’s going to be a pop-up window that reminds you how to use a meda intent in AutoShare. Yes, the developer wants us about how these work a lot, and that’s just because it’s worth saying it as many times as it takes to get us to use it properly.

Tap Action.
Tap Press Play Key Down. You’re gonna see another popup, same as before.

Tap Find Compatible apps.

Scroll down and tap your desired music app. If you don’t see your music app listed here (and I’d be kinda shocked if you don’t, because even a lot of non-media apps end up in this list), then this alarm method isn’t going to work for you.
Tap the checkmark icon in the top right corner of the screen.

Tap the Tasker logo with the little back arrow next to it to move on to the next step of our alarm-making.

Tap the + icon in the bottom center of your screen to add an action to your task.
Tap Plugin.

Tap AutoShare.

Tap AutoShare from the menu that pops up.
Tap the pencil icon next to Configuration to configure the action.

Tap App.

Tap Media.
Tap Action.

Tap Press Play Key Up. You’re gonna see another popup, same as before.

Tap Find Compatible apps.
Scroll down and tap your desired music app.

Tap the checkmark icon in the top right corner of the screen.

Our profile is done, just back out of your intent and back to the takse so we can test it. We start by tapping the play button in the bottom left corner. Tasker will execute the task and in a few second, music will start playing. Pause your music, then hit play in Tasker again, immediately turning the screen off again. If your screen comes on and music plays, your task should wake you up in the morning.

If you can’t quite get your screen off, or if you really want to be sure, tap your Wait action and up the wait by a few minutes. Then, hit play on the task, turn your screen off, and wait. When the music comes on, you know it’ll work come morning. If it doesn’t, try upping the Timeout in each of your AutoShare actions.

Once you’ve got your alarm working, this isn’t quite as set-and-forget as that plain-jane system alarm clock. There’s a few things you need to keep in mind:

• Your alarm clock task is essentially just hitting play on your current app. That means if you didn’t have a playlist or queue already going, your app could do one of several things: it could start back up the last playlist you were playing, it could start up a shuffle of ALL your music (this is what Google Play Music usually does), it could play a random playlist, or play nothing at all. This means that before bed you need to make sure there is an active playlist in your music app. I always check my playlist before just before bed just because I know that waking up to the wrong song is just as bad to waking up to a klaxon — or worse, as some songs won’t wake me up at all.
• Turning your alarm off and on is a matter of going back into Tasker and turning the profile off and on, and because there is no status bar icon like traditional alarm apps, you often have no clue if your alarm is off unless you open the app or remember turning it off.
• Also, if you want to change the times, you need to make sure that when you change the In time and the Out time isn’t in front of it. Not only will it usually cause your music to kick on right then and there (because the alarm profile will be considered on), it means that your alarm probably won’t trigger properly the next morning.
• Like most automations, things can get broken every now and again, and when this is something you’re relying on to start your day (and collect your pay) on-time, a broken alarm clock can ruin a lot more than just your mornings. I myself don’t report for my shift until roughly 6 hours after I wake up, but on the rare days that I have an early flight/drive/meeting/pre-order window, I have a backup alarm set to go off fifteen minutes after Tasker, just in case. 99% of the time, Tasker wakes me up and I dismiss the coming old-fashioned alarm, but you can never be too careful when it comes to something with this many working parts.

There are risks here, but in this music-loving girl’s mind, they are more than worth it. Is this a lot of work just to wake up to Google Play Music? You bet your ass, it is. Wouldn’t it just be easier for music apps to integrate alarms the same way they do sleep timers? Or for proper alarm apps to tie into more music apps. Absolutely, but until the music apps or the alarm apps pick up the slack, I’m just glad Tasker’s here to bring back my favorite way to wake up: singing along to Disney Parks music!