Apple’s October 27th event is reportedly all about laptops
We hope you weren’t expecting a new iMac or Mac Pro at Apple’s “Hello Again” event… you might be disappointed. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (who has a mostly good track record for Apple rumors) now expects that the October 27th media gathering will focus solely on MacBooks. The highlight would be a long-rumored MacBook Pro redesign with USB-C ports and OLED touch strips. They would use Intel’s Skylake-based processors, he says (what, no Kaby Lake?), but they’d get longer battery life, up to a 2TB solid-state drive and a possible “MagSafe-like” power adapter from either Apple or a third party.
And those rumors of a refreshed MacBook Air? They’re on the right track, if you ask Kuo, but it’s not clear that you’ll get the same ultraportable with a few tweaks. He simply says that there will be a “13-inch MacBook” — it could be a slightly larger, hopefully more capable version of the 12-inch MacBook you’ve known since 2015. While there could be a spruced-up Air (particularly if Apple wants to court the sub-$1,000 crowd), it seems unlikely that Apple would reserve stage time for an update minor enough that it could be covered by a press release.
Everyone else would have to be patient. Kuo believes that new iMacs and a stand-alone 5K display are in the cards, but not until closer to the middle of 2017. There’s no mention of Mac mini or Mac Pro updates, either, although those could conceivably arrive without taking up any event time. Whatever happens, the absence of desktops would make sense. Intel isn’t releasing desktop Kaby Lake processors until January — Apple can’t use chips that aren’t ready yet. If MacBooks are all you see, though, it’ll still show that Apple hasn’t forgotten its original business.
Source: MacRumors
The best smart hub
By Jon Chase
This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. When readers choose to buy The Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, they may earn affiliate commissions that support their work. Read the full article here.
After researching more than 20 smart hubs—the brains that let all of your smart-home devices work together—and living with a half-dozen of them for a few months while putting them through their paces with an array of smart locks, thermostats, room sensors, switches, lights, and more, we think that the Samsung SmartThings Hub is the best hub for most people who want to buy right now. It’s competitively priced, is compatible with a large number of third-party devices, and supports most of the major wireless protocols relied on by smart devices.
We think it’s important to note, however, that we struggle to fully throw our support behind any one model without substantial reservations. The SmartThings hub is the most evolved among a number of well-rounded products out already. Still, to date, we don’t believe that any one smart hub is an unqualified, home-run purchase that would satisfy most people—our baseline standard.
Who this is for
A smart hub is essential for anyone who wants to use a single centralized app to control their wirelessly connected lights, thermostats, smoke alarms, motion detectors, sound systems, or any other smart-home devices and appliances. A smart hub acts as the middleman in a system, facilitating communications between all your various devices and enabling control of them too. It can also automate your devices so they work with each other without any interaction from you. You can easily set up simple scenarios such as having the system automatically turn on the lights whenever you unlock your front door; a more complex system and a little work can let you set up the hub to use inputs from various sensors and switches and adjust devices in your house accordingly. The DIY hubs we tested for our guide are a fraction of the cost of the top-shelf home-automation systems that are custom-installed by the pros, though to get anywhere near the same level of functionality and polish takes a little effort.
Setting up and using a smart hub requires a functional level of tech know-how, at a minimum the ability to use a smartphone or tablet and apps, as well as familiarity with pairing Bluetooth devices and/or logging your various devices onto your Wi-Fi network. Complicated setups may require a bit of patience, a few hours of perusing online help forums, or a call or two to tech support.
How we picked and tested
Because connected products have so many different competing technologies among them, we searched for hubs that offered compatibility with as many products and standards as reasonably possible, yet remained easy to set up and use. We also nixed hubs that required buying into a very expensive ecosystem to get started or require custom or professional installation. After cutting down our list, we consulted veterans in the field, including representatives from Apple, Nest, Insteon, Lutron, and the Z-Wave Alliance, as well as a number of editorial resources and customer testimonials.
To discover what these hubs are capable of, we pulled together a collection of test smart devices (from several manufacturers) that we think would be desirable for a typical household, including light bulbs, outlet switches, thermostats, door and window sensors, cameras, water sensors, and door locks. Our test regimen for each hub included downloading, installing, and registering an app, connecting the hub to our home network, going through the setup procedure, and then pairing each hub with as many devices as possible among our range of test accessories.
When performing our tests, we paid close attention to how friendly and intuitive the setup process was when setting up the hub and, in particular, when linking devices together to create scenes or macro actions. Compatibility with wireless protocols was a key concern, as well as whether a hub needed to be directly connected to our home router or could be located remotely—a major issue if you have a large home or one with spotty wireless issues. Almost as important as the physical components of a hub is the companion app you use to control it, so we spent most of our time using apps to set up devices, link them together, create scenes, and tweak notifications settings, wherever possible.
Our pick
Our winner, the Samsung SmartThings Hub. Photo: Jon Chase
The Samsung SmartThings Hub is the most evolved among a number of well-rounded products already on the market. It’s competitively priced, is compatible with a wide range of third-party devices, and supports most of the major smart-home wireless protocols, including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, ZigBee and Z-Wave. The companion controller app can be confounding, but within its many submenus and sections is a wealth of capability and, with some planning, the right smart accessories and devices, and patience—lots of patience—you can create a rich home-automation scheme that can hum along without requiring you to monitor it constantly. In the right hands, the SmartThings hub can steer the ship of a comprehensive DIY smart-home setup.
Setting up the SmartThings hub is straightforward, as it was with most of the hubs we tested. The SmartThings companion app, which is required for setting up and controlling the hub, takes a lot more work to understand. Compared with more streamlined app offerings, the SmartThings app is positively full of icons, buttons, submenus, and subsections. Though you could certainly get by using only a fraction of the functions offered, we recommend digging in a bit to get an idea of what SmartThings is capable of—and also why it may be a little too much for some potential users.
Runner-up
The Wink hub supports most of the popular wireless protocols and doesn’t need to be plugged into a router. Photo: Jon Chase
The Wink Hub supports most popular wireless protocols, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Lutron Clear Connect, ZigBee, and Z-Wave Plus. For individual control of a device or even a few, it’s a great bargain, but for automation of several devices we believe the SmartThings hub remains a better option. The Wink does have a few advantages though. You can connect it to your home network via Wi-Fi instead of a cable, allowing you to place the hub anywhere in your home you like, which is especially helpful if reception is an issue. And the ability to pair some devices by scanning a barcode is far easier than the SmartThings hub’s often multistep approach.
In our tests we had no trouble pairing the Wink hub with a few smart locks (in fact, it was our test hub for our smart locks guide), as well as a Connected Cree LED bulb, a Nest thermostat, a Nest Cam, and an Amazon Echo. Controlling any of them and setting up notifications is straightforward via the Wink’s companion app, which is far easier to decode and use than the SmartThings app. One foible though is the method for creating automation schemes, dubbed “robots.” It’s an obtuse system of creating logic schemes for actions that tips the Wink into more-advanced-user territory. We also found that the Wink tended to suffer a greater lag time between when we triggered an action to when it occurred, which is a common complaint.
An updated Wink hub, which the company is calling Wink Hub 2, will launch at the end of October. It does everything the original Wink does, but adds Ethernet, Bluetooth Low Energy (BTE), a faster processor, and support for locally controlled automation routines.
HomeKit, Nest, and Echo
Amazon, Apple, and Google have each staked a claim in the smart home as well. Google snapped up smart-thermostat pioneer Nest a few years ago, and later acquired Dropcam. Despite ending support for Nest’s own hub, the Revolv, Google remains involved in (and hopefully committed to) home products, and maintains a Works with Nest program that provides standards for third-party products to maintain compatibility with the Nest. Apple has its Works with Apple HomeKit program for products that meet hardware and software standards and that will, in theory, interact with other enabled devices as well as Apple devices seamlessly, including voice control via Apple’s Siri. And Amazon moved strongly into smart-home voice control with its Internet-connected Echo speaker and its newer variants, the Tap and Dot.
For more about the options for HomeKit, Echo, and Nest and what to look forward to in smart-home technology, check out our full guide.
This guide may have been updated by The Wirecutter. To see the current recommendation, please go here.
Note from The Sweethome: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.
The Engadget Podcast Ep 11: Everybody Hurts
Managing editor Dana Wollman and senior editor Mona Lalwani join host Terrence O’Brien to talk Macbook rumors, Amazon ISP ambitions and Julian Assange. Then they’ll talk about all the work that went into Engadget’s five part series covering the world’s first cyborg games, Superhumans and look at VR’s ability generate empathy.
The Flame Wars Leaderboard
Wins
Loses
Winning %
Mona Lalwani
3
1
.750
Christopher Trout
2
1
.666
Dana Wollman
8
5
.615
Devindra Hardawar
9
7
.563
Chris Velazco
3
3
.500
Cherlynn Low
6
7
.461
Nathan Ingraham
4
6
.400
Michael Gorman
1
2
.333
Relevant links:
- Apple could bring E Ink keyboards to MacBooks in 2018
- Amazon wants to sell internet service in Europe
- Ecuador confirms it cut Assange’s internet for US election interference
- Superhumans: Inside the world’s first cyborg games – Episode 1
- Superhumans: Inside the world’s first cyborg games – Episode 2
- Superhumans: Inside the world’s first cyborg games – Episode 3
- Superhumans: Inside the world’s first cyborg games – Episode 4
- Superhumans: Inside the world’s first cyborg games – Episode 5
- VR helped me grasp the life of a transgender wheelchair user
- The New York Times VR app launches with portraits of refugee children
- The United Nations is turning VR into a tool for social change
- The Godmother of Virtual Reality: Nonny de la Peña
- ‘That Dragon, Cancer’ forced me to confront my past
You can check out every episode on The Engadget Podcast page in audio, video and text form for the hearing impaired.
Watch on YouTube
Watch on Facebook
Subscribe on Google Play Music
Subscribe on iTunes
Subscribe on Stitcher
Subscribe on Pocket Casts
There’s an inactive one-handed keyboard hidden inside iOS code
In these days of big iPhones, smaller-handed individuals have trouble typing up a storm on their iOS devices. However, since iOS 8 (at least), Apple has toyed with an edge-swipe activated one-hand keyboard. To keep characters closer to your thumb, it squishes character keys and expands copy and paste buttons, keeping the word prediction rail above the keys. Alas, it still remains unfinished and inaccessible, hidden away in the iPhone’s Xcode.
Developer Steve Troughton-Smith spotted the code inside Apple’s iOS simulator, noting that the code for it has likely existed for several years, even if it hasn’t surfaced in iPhones yet. Big Android phone makers like Samsung and LG have offered truncated and even floating keyboard windows after the companies moved into smartphones larger than four inches. Android’s native keyboard also has a one-handed option if you need it.
Troughton-Smith even released the code chunk for jail-breakers to make a reality… if you jailbreak your iPhone. And here it is in action, albeit steered with a mouse:
Video or it didn’t happen: (very hard to engage in the Simulator with a mouse cursor) pic.twitter.com/vw2wpCgiLJ
— Steve T-S (@stroughtonsmith) October 19, 2016
Via: Apple Insider
Source: Twitter (@stroughtonsmith)
Apple lawsuit reveals most chargers sold on Amazon are fake
Apple has filed a lawsuit against Mobile Star LLC for manufacturing fake Apple chargers and cables and passing them off on Amazon as authentic goods. According to the details of the lawsuit posted by Patently Apple, Cupertino bought and tested over 100 Lightning cables and chargers marked “Fulfilled by Amazon” over the past nine months. The result? Around 90 percent of the chargers were fake. Now, we all know there’s an abundance of counterfeit Apple goods out there, but people tend to trust listings sold by Amazon itself. And in this case, Amazon clearly stated that the items were “original.” Check out one example below the fold to see what we mean.
When Apple got in touch with Amazon about the issue, the website told the former that it got most of its chargers from Mobile Star LLC. The iPhone-maker stressed that since counterfeit cables and chargers don’t go through consumer safety testing and could be poorly designed, they’re prone to overheating and catching fire. They might even electrocute users. Tim Cook and co. are now asking the court to issue an injunction against the defendant. They also want the court to order the seizure and destruction of all the fake chargers in addition to asking for damages.
As for Amazon, it told 9to5mac that it “has zero tolerance for the sale of counterfeits on [its] site” and the the company “work[s] closely with manufacturers and brands, and pursue wrongdoers aggressively.”
[Image credit: Patently Apple]
Via: 9to5mac, ABC News
Source: Patently Apple
The Wirecutter’s best deals: Save $50 on an iPad Air 2
This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. Read their continuously updated list of deals atTheWirecutter.com.
You may have already seen Engadget posting reviews from our friends atThe Wirecutter. Now, from time to time, we’ll also be publishing their recommended deals on some of their top picks. Read on, and strike while the iron is hot—some of these sales could expire mighty soon.
iPad Air 2 Wi-Fi 128GB
Street price: $475; MSRP: $500; Deal price: $425
September’s Apple event brought with it news of lowered iPad pricing, at $425, this Best Buy deal is the lowest price we’ve found for the 128gb iPad Air 2, our pick for the best tablet. It’s available in Silver, Gold, and Space Gray colors with free shipping.
Dan Frakes writes, “Though it hasn’t seen a significant update since late 2014, the iPad Air 2 (with 128 GB of storage, though 32 GB will be enough for some people) is still the best overall tablet for most people. Despite the recent release of two iPad Pro models and a big update to the iPad mini in late 2015, the Air 2 continues to provide the best combination of speed, features, screen size, ecosystem, and price.”
Samsung SmartThings Hub
Street price: $100; MSRP: $100; Deal price: $75
A new low on a great smart hub. It’s only $4 less than our previous deals, but since this sale also includes discounts on a variety of other Samsung SmartThings devices, you can build up your smart home at a nicely discounted price.
The Samsung SmartThings Hub is our pick for the best smart hub. Jon Chase wrote, “The Samsung SmartThings Hub is a polished, powerful option for tech-savvy DIYers who have a desire for an integrated smart home but lack the budget for or interest in a professionally installed system. It’s easy to set up on your home network, and pairing it with other smart devices is largely seamless.”
He went on to say, “We did extensive research on hubs in general and the SmartThings hub in particular, and believe our experience is consistent with the reviews and findings of most other outlets: Namely, of all the hubs on the market, the Samsung SmartThings Hub is the most powerful and promising, but is best suited to devout tinkerers and those willing to spend a fair amount of time tweaking and refining their smart-home system.”
Refurbished Nikon D7200 DX DSLR w/ Lens Bundle
Street price: $1,250 (new); MSRP: $1,450 (new); Deal price: $850
We’ve featured this deal at this price before, and it’s still a great purchase. While we’ve seen the camera body alone for $80 less, this deal comes with 2 lenses (18-55mm and 55-200mm) that are good practice lenses, or at very least lenses that you can sell to recoup part of the cost of the bundle. Beach Camera is an authorized Nikon retailer, and Nikon is offering a 90 day warranty on the camera.
The Nikon D7200 is our pick for the best midrange DSLR. Amadou Diallo wrote, “The D7200 is considerably more expensive than a beginner DSLR—but the extra expense will buy you a 24-megapixel APS-C camera that takes clean, detailed photos at high ISOs, as well as a professional-grade autofocus system that works in near darkness. You also get dual SD card slots, so you’ll never have to worry about running out of storage space. After dozens of research hours poring over reviews and test results for 12 different cameras, and real-world shooting with the top contenders, we’ve determined that the Nikon D7200 is the one we would buy.”
Refurbished Apple Airport Extreme Wireless Base Station
Street price: $180 (new); MSRP: $200 (new); Deal price: $100
At $100 refurbished, this is the lowest price we’ve seen on the Apple Airport Extreme Wireless Base Station, which runs $200 new. This router is GeekSquad refurbished and includes a 90 day warranty. It includes free shipping.
The Apple Airport Extreme was highlighted as our also great pick for best wifi router (for most people), with the caveat that it was recommended only for all-Apple households. David Murphy writes, “The Apple AirPort Extreme is the easiest router to set up in an all-Apple household, but its performance at longer ranges doesn’t match that of our top pick, and it lacks features found in other, cheaper routers….Whether you’re using iOS or macOS, you can easily get started with Apple’s router and use it as your primary router or as a new access point in your Apple network. Basic features such as Time Machine backups and remote connections to USB storage (using Apple’s “Back to My Mac” feature) work great with Apple devices…”
Deals change all the time, and some of these may have expired. To see an updated list of current deals, please go to The Wirecutter.com.
Kanye: Apple and Tidal ‘bullshit’ caused Drake rift
Kanye West says that he and Jay Z didn’t appear on the final “Pop Style” track of Drake’s Apple Music exclusive Views album because of Apple’s rivalry with Tidal. “Y’all didn’t get, what y’all were supposed to get with me and Drake on this song because of some Tidal/Apple bullshit,” he said in a Saint Pablo tour video spotted by The Fader (below). He added that Jay Z pulled his own vocal “out of respect to Meek Mill,” presumably over the infamous Mill and Drake Twitter tiff.
Kanye performed the song, which he co-wrote, explaining to the crowd that his vocal was supposed to be the only one on the track. “I start freestyling to it. Jay thought of a couple of lines. I said, ‘Just go ahead, throw that on there. [Drake will] be so surprised, he probably won’t expect you to be on there.’”
ye talking about Watch The Throne 2 & Apple/Tidal problems @TeamKanyeDaily #SAINTPABLO pic.twitter.com/kXZNZuvTfP
— ike®☄ (@IkerLopez27) October 20, 2016
The track initially came out with Jay Z and Kanye (aka The Throne), but West said that Drake later balked. “We sent it back to him and he was like, ‘Oh shit, The Throne is on this shit.’ Then Jay thought about it, and out of respect to Meek Mill he didn’t want to be on the track,” said Kanye. He added that he wanted to “let people have this song” with all three artists, “but then it went into some political shit, some shit about percentages about a song.”
Kanye bears some of the blame for driving a wedge between Apple and Tidal, as he launched his Life of Pablo album as a Tidal exclusive. Lately, however, he’s been calling the race for exclusives a”dick-swinging contest,” and suggested a sit-down between the factions. Ideally Yeezy wants Apple to buy Tidal, but Apple Music head Jimmy Iovine recently said that’s not going to happen.
Via: The Fader
Source: @IkerLopez27 (Twitter)
Apple will finally update its Mac lineup on October 27th
It’s been a very, very long time since Apple has updated its Mac lineup — the new Macbook is the only computer that Apple has seen fit to upgrade in 2016. That should all change next week, though: We just received an invite to an event in Cupertino on Thursday, October 27th. With the yearly iPhone refresh in the rearview mirror and macOS Sierra out in the wild, it’s time — well past time, in fact — for some new Mac computers. The event’s tagline — “Hello again” — is a pretty clear nod to the Mac, which debuted with a big old “hello” on its screen way back in 1984.
Headlining the event should be a totally redesigned MacBook Pro, which has existed in its current form for a good four years now. Rumors point to a touch-capable OLED strip on the keyboard above the number row that can adapt to whatever app you’re using. Touch ID might be making its way to the Mac for the first time, as well. Of course, the computers will likely be thinner and lighter and will probably see many of the innovations Apple first rolled out in the MacBook in 2015. The butterfly keyboard mechanism, tiered battery design and reliance on USB-C all seem likely to come on board at this point. We’re hoping the MacBook Pro will be available in a variety of colors for the first time, too.
Beyond that, spec bumps for the iMac and MacBook Air seem like good bets, as does the inclusion of USB-C on those models as well. Looking beyond the Mac line, it’s also possible the iPad will get some love. The iPad Air 2, while still a very capable tablet, is now two years old. And the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is just about a year old and lags behind the smaller iPad Pro in a few key ways. It wouldn’t surprise us to see both of those devices get some updates.
Whatever Apple has to show off, we’ll be there live to bring you all the news as it happens when the event starts at 10AM PT.
Source: Apple
Automakers are beating Silicon Valley at its own game
When Google unveiled its self-driving car and rumors surfaced that Apple was also working on a car, it looked like the future of driving belonged to Silicon Valley. Turns out, automakers were up to the challenge, and the “hobbies” of tech giants are going to be left behind.
While Apple reportedly scales back its EV/autonomous car project, called Titan, and Google continues to send out monthly updates about how many times other drivers run into their vehicles, companies like Ford, GM, Audi, Mercedes, Honda, BMW and Tesla (the closest thing to a tech company that makes cars) have already introduced vehicles with semi-autonomous features. Research is great, but shipping a product is the end goal. Automakers are shipping.
Not only are the automakers actually putting vehicles on the road; they’re iterating faster than they used to. The accepted timetable from design to showroom for a new car has traditionally been five years. GM’s upcoming long-range EV, the Bolt, will go from concept to retail within about three years.
Meanwhile, Google has noted that it wants to partner with an automaker, while Apple is reportedly hoping to do the same thing. The big question is: Do the car companies need them?
Most automakers have established Silicon Valley offices to recruit the talent needed to build their own autonomous system. Plus, while Google and Apple are mum on the future of their side projects, carmakers are making very public plans. Currently GM has a huge investment in Lyft, and the pair are already testing that company’s system on San Francisco streets. Recently Ford said it’ll have ride-sharing autonomous vehicles on the road in five years. And Tesla has one of the best semi-autonomous systems on the road. Even ride-sharing juggernaut Uber seems to have bested Google and Apple by putting customers in its autonomous cars in Pittsburgh.
It’s commendable that large companies like Apple and Google want to make the streets of the world safer with autonomous vehicles. In fact, their movements into the space might have forced automakers to move quicker. But the reality is that building an autonomous car — actually, any car — is more difficult than producing a phone, computer or operating system. Also, a company needs to be willing to spend the money. In 2015, Google’s Moonshot division — which the car is part of — spent $3.6 billion on R&D. That sounds impressive until you realize that VW spent $15.3 billion that same year.
Building a car can’t be a hobby or a side project. It needs to be the focus of an entire company if it’s going to become a reality. Just ask Tesla — it took nine years before it had a vehicle people actually wanted.
The next stage of driving (or not driving, as the case may be) is exciting. But right now and for the foreseeable future, it’s going to be automakers, not tech giants, pushing the technology forward.
Tech giants outspend banks in US lobbying
It won’t shock you to hear that tech companies are trying to cozy up to politicians, but they may have more influence than you think. Bloomberg has determined that the five largest tech firms in the US (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft) spent more than twice as much on lobbying in 2015 as the five largest banks — $49 million versus $19.7 million. Facebook and Google argue that the money is necessary to both explain their operations and defend an open internet, but there are mounting concerns that they may have too much sway.
For instance, New America Foundation’s Barry Lynn warns that these companies are terrified of “competition policy” that could restrict their businesses, such as a repeat of the federal anti-monopoly case against Microsoft. Google may not have dismissed the FTC’s antitrust probe due to lobbying, but there is a concern that companies could have officials look the other way. And it’s safe to say that they’re not fond of measure that would force them to repatriate cash stored overseas and pay taxes.
At the same time, it may be difficult for the feds to completely reject tech industry overtures. The government needs to cooperate closely with these companies for everything from fighting terrorist propaganda to modernizing data. The future administration will likely have to walk a fine line between listening to what tech has to say and preventing it from dictating policies that hurt both your market choices and the country’s bottom line.
Source: Bloomberg
AIVAnet 