Links
Picking the Better of Two Bad Things
Joe Cieplinski on why he doesn’t care if Siri is behind Alexa:
We reached the “good” threshold for speakers decades ago. The subcategory of affordable bookshelf speakers got there sometime in the past few years.
But we’re nowhere near “good” yet when it comes to digital assistants.
While I disagree, his argument is
iphone
Pixel 2’s New “A.I. Powered Zoom” Still Can’t Beat the iPhone
View this post on the largest screen you can to really see the differences in quality.
I’ll keep this one short and sweet because a few pictures speak a thousand words. Google rolled out Android 8.1 and a few smaller updates, including a new ability to use “A.I.” to enhance photos that
Links
Grime in Your AirPod Case
https://twitter.com/mattbirchler/status/966301987259277312
Yesterday I asked Twitter to give me something I never thought I'd ask for: pictures of their earwax.
Well, not quite. I asked for anyone who had wireless headphones if they would send me a picture of their headphones, the case they live in, where they carry
review
Cinema Time Review: Tracking Movies in Style
I’ve long used Television Time as my TV tracking app, and I jumped for joy when I heard that my friend, Maximilian Litteral, was releasing a sister app for movies. The app is called Cinema Time and it’s on the App Store today.
You’ve likely used a movie tracking app before, and
Links
Being Forced into the iPad Only Lifestyle
Life on an iPad | The Overspill: when there's more that I want to say
That was, as I say, a couple of weeks ago. Since then I’ve been doing everything I’ve done on this iPad – a 12in iPad Pro, with Smart Keyboard. That means email, writing articles for papers, editing chapters
podcast
The BirchTree Podcast #54: Desks, how do they work?
Does anyone know what they're doing with their desk? I feel like I'm always just winging it and have no grand plan to "optimize my work flow" or anything like that. Either there is something I'm missing, or we're all just guessing our way through.
Links
Swype Keyboard is Dead
Swype keyboards for Android & iOS discontinued as company focuses on business market | 9to5Google
Nuance will no longer be updating the Swype+Dragon keyboard for Android. We’re sorry to leave the direct-to-consumer keyboard business, but this change is necessary to allow us to concentrate on developing our AI solutions for sale directly
Inoreader: My New Favorite RSS Service
The demise of Google Reader in 2013 was a scary time for RSS fiends like myself. How will I subscribe to the content I love?! Well, the demise of Google’s popular service may not have been great for everyone, but it birthed tons of new feed syncing services since then:
* Feedbin
* Feedly
* NewsBlur
* FeedHQ
feature
HomePod: The BirchTree Review
Introduction
The HomePod is an interesting product from Apple. It’s a smart speaker that Apple is going out of
review
BeatsX (Mini) Review
Don’t ask me why, but I picked up a pair of BeatsX headphones last week and have been using them instead of my AirPods since then. I wanted to get a better idea for what the wireless headphone experience was outside of Apple’s flagship offering. This is not a full review, but I
Android
Why Can’t a Flagship Phone that Costs Over $700 Stay Fast?
When a great, fast phone starts to lose its zip after a few months:
Roughly three months into using my [########] it became unbearably slow and only a factory reset would fix it. Curiously (not really), I had the exact same issue three months into my [########] use. The second time around my [########] has lasted longer before
Leaning into the Apple Lock In
Depending on your computing preferences, this article is either going to make you cheer Apple’s brilliance or jeer their lock in. I’m prepared for both responses, and I personally feel both can be completely justified.
Back in 2015 I bought the Apple Watch, a smart watch that works only with iPhones. Android users
podcast
The BirchTree Podcast #53: HomePod, HomePod, HomePod
HomePod is here and I've been using mine for a couple days now. It's a very good speaker with some challenges when it comes to other aspects. If you literally just want something that sounds good, then this likely will fit the bill for you. But if you want a little
homepod
The Smart Speaker Market IS the Speaker Market (or why no one buys iPods anymore)
One of the defenses I’ve seen for the HomePod’s lack of certain voice features that Alexa and Google Assistant alreayd have is that these are distinct product categories: it is perfectly reasonable to expect someone to own a HomePod for music and an Amazon Echo for smart speaker stuff. Or at least, that’
homepod
Searching for that AirPods Feeling
One year ago I got AirPods, and they blew me away. Right from the first time I opened the packaging to the last time I put them back in their wonderful case1, they have wowed me. The Nintendo Switch is really the only competitor as far as favorite tech purchases of 2017 for me.
So
