“It’s been a big week in drone safety,” a headline straight out of bad dystopian science fiction. But it’s true: welcome to 2016.

Cleveland Indians’ star pitcher Trevor Bauer had to miss game 2 of the American League Championship Series (ALCS) against the Toronto Blue Jays due to an unelaborated “finger injury.” He started game 3 yesterday with the injury still present and barely patched up. His pinkie started dripping like a leaky faucet within the first inning. Turns out that Bauer is a drone enthusiast, and while doing a repair on his device, the rotors turned on. OUCH! Indians’ management pulled him off the pitch, and although they went on to win, Bauer has been blasted on social media for potentially endangering his team’s chances. Maybe he should’ve found a company providing reliable drone repair instead. The wound doesn’t seem too bad, but the picture is pretty gory. Hope you’re not eating anything.

Drone Safety!

We’ll be conducting our own test with some dollar-store hot dogs. Keep an eye out for the results.

Speaking of tests…on the other side of the Atlantic, drones rules the skies. Commercial airline pilots are concerned over what might happen should one strike a drone in mid-air during takeoff or landing. British ministers in the Department of Transport have decided to answer the question the old-school way: by doing. In a landmark study employing 7th-grade-science-fair hypothesis-testing, the British government has contracted a company to fly a drone into the path of a moving commercial airliner.

Drone vs Airplane

Hopefully it’s not as bad as assumed. There have been several close calls over the past few years as lax regulation (compared to the US) has seen unmanned aerial vehicles being used in a wide variety of British industries, such as safety inspections for industrial chimneys & railways and aerial surveillance for wildlife control. Even then, it’ll take some time to match the number of collisions between aircraft and the original unmanned aerial vehicles: birds. Don’t worry, we don’t have a picture for that.

Accessories

Three Wireless Earbud Alternatives to Apple AirPods, plus One to Avoid

October 14, 2016 Staff Leave a comment

With the Apple AirPods dropping sometime this month (no firm release date yet), we can begin to anticipate a few things. The jokes that started at their first announcement will be reheated, yes. But Apple has rarely erred when it comes to audio devices, so we expect positive reviews and several jokesters to be won over by the truly wireless earbuds. Apple has been promising improved functionality thanks to what they call “proprietary technology” but has been shown to be a W1 chip, a form of low-power Bluetooth that allows for a strong, fast connection with long battery life. Just hold the buds near any compatible device (iOS 10, Watch OS 3, MacOS Sierra) and they automatically sync. Cool and all, but what other options are out there? We looked at other corded wireless earbuds and focused on sound and battery life, durability being secondary when the Apple alternative is at risk of falling out of your ear and down a storm drain.

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Beats Electronic’s new BeatsX headphones are arguably the best bet for iPhone 7 owners. Thanks to Apple’s $3 billion buyout of the company, the in-ear style buds feature the same mysterious W1 chip. Unlike the AirPods, however, the BeatsX feature a lightweight cord connecting each ear bud, preferred by many who worry about losing one or both. Sound quality is great; the company seems to have rid themselves of the overbearing bass levels of previous models and embraced the fact that people buy sports-style earbuds to listen to a wide range of music outside of hip-hop. 8 hours of battery life place these in the upper-mid range overall (the best are the bulky neckband-style family) and the integrated Lightning port allows for fast-charging: 2 hours of life in 5 minutes. At $150, BeatsX are $10 cheaper than the AirPods and, thanks to the cord, 50% harder to lose.

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For those who don’t need fancy proprietary technology, either due to not owning an iPhone 7 or simply never really having issues with regular Bluetooth connections, this year’s Bose SoundSport Wireless earbuds are a great option for the same price as BeatsX. Utilizing near-field connectivity (NFC), the SoundSport line connects just as quickly and easily to featured devices (most smartphones, including iPhones) as W1-enabled devices. Sound quality is excellent with clear bass even at higher volumes, and although the battery life of 6 hours isn’t great, it’s not terrible, either. A free app, Bose Connect, allows users to manage pairing lists, download future firmware updates, and fuss with settings (such as auto-off times). The cord features a small clip for attaching to the back of a t-shirt, great for runners. There was an issue at first release regarding sound quality suffering due to excessive moisture, but Bose handled it like champs, providing free replacements with the flaw fixed plus a wired set to use in the meantime. With the BeatsX and AirPods being released next month, these are easily the best wireless earbuds on the market right now.

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Well, best at that price range. For $100 more, you can pick up Bang & Olufsen’s Beoplay H5 earbuds. The Danish company, beloved by audiophiles and designophiles alike, carries on its luxury vision with a sleek, shiny-on-black appearance for this range. The connecting cord is a high-quality soft textile braid. The tech underneath is a little underwhelming compared to the others; just Bluetooth 4.2 and some basic codecs, but the 6.2mm drivers sound surprisingly clear. The Beoplay app is simple and effective: drag a dot between four zones to get the right balance for what you’re jamming out to (an equalizer is only a tap away for more precise tuning). beoplay-app

Seven sets of ear tips, four silicone and three of a memory-foam material, allow users to find the exact fit. But for $250, you’d hope the Beoplay H5’s fit you perfectly. Really, for that price, everything needs to be perfect. The battery life is dismal, advertised at 5 hours but realistically closer to 4, and although the charger is gorgeous (a small box with recesses to fit each bud; the magnetic dots also act as contact points) there is no other way to charge the earbuds, requiring you to carry it with you. Having a small port for micro-USB would make owning these a lot more convenient.

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There are, of course, other companies marketing truly-wireless earbuds, but no one has seemed to take the time to perfect the tech. Samsung released the $190 Gear IconX this week and, honestly, we were excited. The buds have touch-sensitive controls on the outside, an optical heart-rate monitor, a carrying case that doubles as a battery pack, 1,000-song MP3 storage, and more. In execution, it’s awful. The battery life is absolutely dismal, averaging about an hour, and the charging case doesn’t exactly help much when you’re in the middle of a workout. Sound quality is terrible, the lack of an AptX Bluetooth codec resulting in a very compressed sound. It’s a little bit better with stored music, as is battery life, but it is 2016; we don’t download MP3s anymore. This iteration of the Gear IconX might be just a bit too ambitious for Samsung, but hopefully they fix these issues. For now: stay away.

News, Software

iOS 10 Offers Some Welcome Updates

October 14, 2016 Staff Leave a comment

With all the hubbub surrounding Apple in the past month (RIP headphone jack) it’s possible that you might be feeling uneasy about what they might do next. Fortunately, iOS 10 is a smooth dose of comfort after the fear of having to buy tiny, white wireless headphones in bulk. The update, which hits phones as far back as the iPhone 5 (a dinosaur!), shows what could be a new outlook from the Cupertino tech giant, emphasizing ease-of-use and a variety of options instead of mandatory apps with confusing interfaces. If you haven’t upgraded yet, we recommend doing so; no bad news here.

The biggest change is in how you’ll wake your iPhone. Taking a cue from the Apple Watch “flick to wake” feature, iOS 10 allows you to wake your phone by simply raising it off the table or your lap. It’ll take some getting used to (you might spend cumulative hours sitting there with your finger on the home button) but you no longer have to speed-read your notifications in two microseconds. After you “raise to wake” you unlock the phone by pressing the home button…if you want to. Lockscreen notifications are now “rich,” meaning they show you more than just a one-line summary of which app is doing what. 3D-Touch (essentially just a hard press on the notification bubble) lets you access a range of features. Hard-press a text to reply, or hard-press a calendar invite to accept or decline it. This works for some third-party apps as well, with more on the way; currently, Uber will show you where your driver is on a little map. Too many notifications? You no longer have to feel like Zorro swiping them all away. Just tap the little X and poof!

Really, “decluttering” seems to be the overall theme of iOS 10. Apple is notorious for forcing its first-party applications onto its users but, for the first time ever, they can be “deactivated.” Goodbye, iBooks! Control Center, which has been getting bogged down with buttons since iOS 9, has been simplified and divided into three pages: utility widgets (flashlight, stopwatch, etc.), Apple Home, and music playback settings. On the home screen, hard-pressing tiles enables you to “peek” at certain apps without opening them. Keeping track of a football game? “Peeking” the ESPN app shows you the score and shortcuts to watch or listen in. Our favorite? The FXNOW app can play a random Simpsons episode from its peek-menu.

It wouldn’t be a proper iOS update without some features being so smart it’ll freak you out. Siri is now omnipresent and all-knowing, even invading your text messages. Someone asks you, “Hey, do you have Roger’s e-mail?” and Siri will look through your address book for people named Roger and suggest them to you. See the right Roger? Tap it and the address is ready to send. The ubiquitous “Where are you?” text can be responded to, again with one tap, with a miniature map and a pin-drop, taking all difficulty out of finding your friends (while making it significantly more difficult to be dishonest…). Siri also gets to play with your photo albums, utilizing some impressive recognition algorithms to arrange your photos by the people, places, and things within.
There are sundry other changes, mostly streamlining, simplifying, and decluttering popular apps such as Music and Maps. Messages adds a lot of toys that let you have fun while chatting and add life to your conversations. The camera can now shoot RAW with third-party apps, so your #foodporn will be all the more gratuitous. And you can now read a transcript of your voicemail, for the rare times that you get one of those. Really, it’s rare that an OS update on any platform is so overwhelmingly…good. Apple seems to be listening to its consumers for once, easing its dominance over its users and even taking a harmless peek at what its competitors’ users are enjoying with their devices. We think it looks like a step in the right direction for the tech giant…but, at iFixYouri, we’re too busy buffing scratches out of glossy black iPhone 7s.

Apps, News

Amazon Music Unlimited, and a Lesson on Playlists

October 13, 2016 Staff Leave a comment

Amazon’s new music service, Music Unlimited, drops today, ready to take on heavyweights Spotify and Apple Music. The service is separate from the music-streaming component included with an Amazon Prime subscription, and is vastly greater: tens of millions of songs versus about a million. Of course, we’re curious as to how it stack up to its competitors, so we downloaded it and pumped up the jam.

Amazon Music Unlimited’s price point is exactly the same as its competitors: $9.99 per month. There are, of course, discounts. If you have Amazon Prime, you get a two-buck discount to $7.99, which is not exactly the best deal since Prime costs $99 a year (making this more of a “courtesy” to those already signed up). Prime members can also save by signing up for a year for $79 ($6.58 a month). A $3.99 option is available to those with an Amazon Echo home speaker, but the service can only be played through that device…and we mean only that device. If you have several Echo devices (which isn’t that absurd with the cheaper Tap and Dot models), four dollars a month will only get you music through one device at a time. All three services offer a family plan, with up to six accounts, for $14.99 per month.

There is no direct student discount, which arguably helped make Spotify Premium and Apple Music so popular by cutting the monthly fee in half. Signing up for Prime for Students is $50 a year, so combining that with the Prime discount means students can get access to Music Unlimited and Prime for $10.75 a month, with all the other Prime goodies. It’s essentially like getting Spotify Premium or Apple Music, plus Amazon Prime for an extra $0.75. A great deal, but how does the app match up?

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The Music Unlimited app seems to be a hybrid between Pandora’s algorithm-built playlists (data-driven artists-like-this) and Spotify’s curated playlists. It launches quickly and takes you to a homescreen showing you recommended music and new releases. Tapping for options next to a song or album gives you a “Customers Also Listened To” option, which is interesting; file that under “somewhat curated.” It’s neat in theory, but for smaller niche artists, that tab just shows you more songs by the same artist. Hopefully that feature will grow as more people use it.

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The curated playlists are, to be frank, pretty weak. For jazzheads like me, the majority seem to be either “Best of [ARTIST]” or lame “Jazz for [ACTIVITY]” lists. How much different can “Jazz for Reading,” “Jazz for Studying,” and “Jazz for Writing” be? There’s also very little modern jazz except for the the “Fun Jazz Fusion” playlist, which is also the only jazz fusion playlist, fun or otherwise. Genre playlists are depressingly generic, sounding more like best-of lists. Anything with “punk” in the name will have “Search & Destroy” by The Stooges, “Blitzkrieg Bop” by The Ramones, and more tracks from Punk 101. It’s rare to find a deep cut in any of the curated playlists, and that’s supposed to be one of the perks of that versus algorithm-generated playlists.

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The mood and holiday playlists are downright cringe-inducing. A Groundhog Day playlist is 20 songs with the word “shadow” or “sun” in the name, the Halloween playlist is a mix of old theme songs (The Twilight Zone, Ghostbusters) “spooky” song titles (“Werewolves of London” and “Ghost Town”) and, oddly, Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor,” presumably just for the “creepy” organ intro but there’s an extra 8 minutes after that that are decidedly not creepy. “Fantasy Draft Party” is a blend of success-themed songs from such a shocking range of genres, I don’t recommend actually playing it in public: DJ Khaled, Queen, The Rolling Stones, Rage Against The Machine, ABBA, Ludacris…I can keep going but it gets worse.

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Really, most of the party-theme playlists seem to have been curated by people don’t go to parties, or at least never paid attention to a DJ or well-done personal playlist. A great party playlist should flow from song to song, creating a balanced ebb and flow of volume and energy. You can skip around genres and tempos as long as such changes are gradually worked up to. Most popular Spotify playlists are great with that; you can hit play as people arrive to the party, set it and forget it. On Amazon Music Unlimited, a ’90s alternative rock playlist transitioned from the smooth, breezy chords of Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You” directly into the brain-crunching opening guitar slam of Rage Against the Machine’s “Bulls on Parade,” causing me to rip my headphones off my head.

Another major criticism (that might be more widely agreed with) is the lack of any sort of equalizer or sound control within the Music Unlimited app. The fancy seven-band EQ that comes with Spotify Premium is great, but I’d settle for the same bass-treble-mid option that was present in your dad’s first car. Nope, nothing. Even the most casual audiophile prefers to have a little bit of control over the tone of their music, and it’s a little ridiculous to not have this feature for $10 a month. There’s also no option to normalize volume, or set the same volume level for all tracks, which would have helped in the ’90s incident mentioned above, and any other time a playlist jump all over the century. Amazon, however, does include a sleep timer that I’m rather jealous of (I like to doze off to Icelandic dream pop). Another cue to take from Spotify is to make a song, when selected, play in the background without bringing up its own page with album art. Maybe in some exotic language there is a word for “deal-breakingly annoying design feature” but for now, we’ll have to translate it piecemeal.

The verdict? If you have to throw $10 somewhere, we suggest sticking with Spotify Premium or Apple Music for now. It takes a company a while to build up a library of music, and even longer to figure out how to present it to users. Amazon will have to rework the way it suggests music to you through the app, but Spotify faced the same issue all those years ago. A good start will be getting rid of those awful curated playlists. They’re the equivalent of politely asking your Amazon Echo, “Alexa, bring this party to a screeching halt.”

Employees, iFixYouri in Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Locations

Employee Spotlight: Amy

October 12, 2016 Staff Leave a comment

Today, we kick off our weekly employee spotlight with Amy! She’s been with iFixYouri for 4 years and is our South Florida regional manager and warehouse manager.

Hailing from: Slidell, LA

Phone: iPhone 6

Listens to: Nirvana, grunge

Roots for: LSU Tigers and New Orleans Saints

Hobbies: Spending time with her family

Keep an eye out for iFixYouri employee spotlights every Wednesday, and come hear Amy’s laugh in person at one of our Palm Beach County locations!

News

Samsung Ending Production of Note 7; Replacement Phones Also Combusting

October 10, 2016 Staff Leave a comment

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South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics is officially stopping the manufacture of its troubled Note 7 phone. The news comes days after major networks, such as AT&T and T-Mobile, announced they would stop issuing replacement devices to customers. Reportedly, five Note 7’s that were received by customers as replacements for the faulty, flammable phones have caught fire…in one week. It seems to be a more complicated issue than initially thought, and swapping out the battery is not the definite fix. A Samsung rep told the BBC that they’re putting the manufacturing on hold to “[adjust] the production schedule to ensure quality and safety matters.” This has been an ongoing nightmare for Samsung, with over 100 reports of catastrophic battery failure in the devices in the US alone since its release in mid-August and at least a dozen people receiving burns or other injuries.

UPDATE 10/11: Samsung has decided to permanently cease production of the Note 7 and is warning all users to power down the devices and bring them in to a retailer immediately for an exchange.

If you currently own a Galaxy Note 7, we recommend contacting your mobile provider to see what your replacement options are. AT&T and T-Mobile are offering other devices in exchange (including the Galaxy S7) with credit to make up the cash difference. Of course, iFixYouri is here to fix any problems that your new phone might give you…and hopefully those problems are a little less severe than an outright explosion.

wifi

New Google Product Breakdown

October 5, 2016 Staff Leave a comment

Yeah, so yesterday’s post on Google’s #madebygoogle summit was a little lengthy. Today we bring you a breakdown of each new Google product, including its price. Most products are available (at least for pre-order) as of October 4th.

Google Pixel

5.0” screen, 5.6” total height
Gorilla Glass screen
FHD screen with 441ppi
Battery: up to 13 hours of video playback
Fast charging: 7 hours of battery life in 15 minutes
Aluminum body with Gorilla Glass covering half of back
Colors: Quite Black, Very Silver, Really Blue
Pixel Imprint: back-mounted fingerprint sensor
32GB or 128GB storage (unlimited cloud storage for photo and video)
4GB RAM
Rear camera: 12.3MP, 1.55μm, f/2.0 (highest rated smartphone camera on DxOMark.com)
Front camera: 8MP, 1.4µm, f/2.4
Video: 1080p @ up to 120fps (slo-mo). 720p @ up to 240fps (super slo-mo). 4K @ 30fps
USB Type-C and 3.0. Single SIM slot. 3.5mm headphone jack.
$649 for 32GB (or $27.04/month for 24 months with Google Store Financing)
$749 for 128GB (or $31.21/month for 24 months with Google Store Financing)
Free Daydream View VR headset with pre-order

Google Pixel XL

5.5” screen, 6.0” total height
Gorilla Glass screen
QHD screen with 534ppi
Battery: up to 14 hours of video playback
Fast charging: 7 hours of battery life in 15 minutes
Aluminum body with Gorilla Glass covering half of back
Colors: Quite Black, Very Silver, Really Blue
Pixel Imprint: back-mounted fingerprint sensor
32GB or 128GB storage (unlimited cloud storage for photo and video)
4GB RAM
Rear camera: 12.3MP, 1.55μm, f/2.0 (highest rated smartphone camera on DxOMark.com)
Front camera: 8MP, 1.4µm, f/2.4
Video: 1080p @ up to 120fps (slo-mo). 720p @ up to 240fps (super slo-mo). 4K @ 30fps
USB Type-C and 3.0. Single SIM slot. 3.5mm headphone jack.
$769 for 32GB (or $32.04/month for 24 months with Google Store Financing)
$869 for 128GB (or $36.21/month for 24 months with Google Store Financing)
Free Daydream View VR headset with pre-order

Google Home

Home audio device with Google Assistant integration
5.6” tall, 3.8” diameter
Speakers: 2” driver and dual 2” passive radiators
Supports Android and iOS
$129
Comes with slate-colored metal base. Additional bases are $20 each.

Daydream View

Virtual reality headset
220g, constructed of lightweight, breathable foam and fabric.
Controller has 9-axis IMUs for precision tracking
Requires Daydream-ready phone (Pixel)
$79, or free with Pixel or Pixel XL preorder

Google WiFi

Modular wifi routers. Plug one in and the others act as signal repeaters.
4.2” diameter, 2.7” high
Simultaneous dual-band WiFi (2.4GHz / 5GHz) supporting IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac.
WPA2-PSK with automatic security updates
Network Assist: Optimizes speed between devices, and assists in placing routers for best coverage.
Google WiFi App allows full control over device access.
$129 for one device, $299 for set of three.

Chromecast Ultra

Media streaming dongle for TV
4K HD and HDR support
HDMI output
Ethernet port for hard-wire connection
Supports Android, iOS, Windows, and MacOS
$69

News

#madebygoogle News: Pixel Phone, Virtual Reality, and More!

October 4, 2016 Staff Leave a comment

So it’s finally October 4th! The long-awaited #madebygoogle summit is today, and iFixYouri finally received all of the news that Google said we’ll be talking about for the next 8 years. Will we, though? Is 8 months more accurate? Or 8 decades? It’s tough to decide, since the Google Pixel got leaked yesterday (oops) and we had to pretend to be surprised. Let’s go over what happened in the two-hour long presentation.

Things started out light, with a short clip featuring Bertram and Dinesh from Silicon Valley. Bertram says he’s been getting Google products in beta tests and also an invite to a wild afterparty with Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Dinesh is jealous and so are we.

Sundar Pichai comes out to deliver the keynote, just past his one-year anniversary as CEO of Google. He gives a brief history of the connectivity…

…and states Google’s goal (of this press conference, at least): an “AI-first world.” Pichai talks about Google Assistant, which we covered in our article on Google Allo, and how it’ll work as an interface to your own “personal Google.” Security was mentioned, with personal information staying on your device, and given some interesting examples of use. We liked the idea of having it remember the combination to your bicycle lock; just say “Remember my bicycle lock combination” and recite it, Assistant does the rest. Simple, but cool.

Pichai also mentioned Google’s database of 70 billion facts on human interaction and how they’re using it, from advances in their translation program (something called neural machine software giving more realistic translations) to text-to-speech software giving context and emotion to responses. Also, their machine-learning tools can finally determine what bears are doing in photos.

It sounds silly, but identifying rocks in a photo (essentially gray-brown blobs) is a huge step. Rick Osterloh, former president of Motorola and Google’s hardware chief, stepped up next, and could barely contain his excitement.

After a brief talk about keeping up with the demands people have for their personal tech (including a great line: it should “just work for you”), he unveils the Google Pixel, their latest contender in the smartphone market, and brings Product VP Brian Rakowski up to demo it.

Pixel is a very attractive smartphone, with a polished aluminum body and a half-glass back where the fingerprint sensor lies. Colors include…erm…Quite Black, Very Silver, and the stunning Really Blue. Its operating system is Android but sleek, similar to Chrome OS, and designed around Assistant. The most important feature of this integration is that Assistant is great at reading contextual clues. Long-pressing the home button brings up Assistant, and swiping up shows you information related to what you’re currently looking at. Or if a friend texts you asking if you want to visit her in New York, you can just bring up Assistant and ask “How much are flights?” and you’ll get a quick list showing you travel options to JFK or LaGuardia. We’re curious how it will know whether or not to look for context clues, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Another feature that previously didn’t get any hype is the Pixel’s camera. Citing a rating of 89 by DxOMark.com, the highest of any smartphone camera (the iPhone 7 got an 86), the 12.3MP f/2.0 camera is seriously the best smartphone camera out there. Just take a look.

All that with no camera bump! Other camera features include 4K video, a Smart Burst mode (that takes several photos in quick succession and automatically chooses the best one) and HDR Plus, a high-quality pixel-by-pixel dynamic range setting. Also: zero shutter lag and the shortest capture time of any phone tested. A redesigned stabilization feature uses the Pixel’s internal gyroscope 200 times per second to deliver smooth video without the wobbly effect of digital methods. With a subtle jab to Apple, Brian announced that all Pixels offer unlimited photo and video storage on the cloud, even with 4K video.

And while we’re on the subject of subtlety:

Sabrina Ellis, director of Product Management, came out next to announce some hardware features. Without stating the battery life of the Pixel (which may actually say a lot) she did mention a fast charger, similar to that in newer Samsung Galaxy models, capable of charging 7 hours of battery life in just 15 minutes, hopefully without anything blowing up. The phones will ship with Nougat, the newest Android software version, and new updates will automatically download in the background and kick in at the next restart, taking a cue from Google’s Chromebook laptops.

The devices will also come with a “quick switch adapter” for transferring contacts, messages, photos, etc., from your old phone directly to your new Pixel, no other hardware needed. Any difficulty with all this new? Every Pixel has 24/7 live customer care with a screen-sharing option, making it great for older folks.

Now for some not-so-good news. The only US carrier currently offering the Pixel is Verizon. The phone can also be purchased unlocked, but its price is causing some gripes: $649 for the 5” Pixel and $769 for the 5.5” Pixel XL. Fortunately, a cell-carrier-esque payment plan is available through the Google Store, starting at $29 a month. I will also remind readers that the iPhone 7 was released on the exact same price point.

On to more hardware! The VR team head, Clay Bavor, comes out to discuss the Daydream virtual-reality headset. It’s here we get to see the typical Google outside-the-box innovation: the headset is mostly made of lightweight foam and fabric. Even the viewing box is encased in what seems to be a textured microfiber sweatshirt.

Very odd, but Clay explains that, as the headset is something you wear, it should look like something you’d wear. That actually makes sense! Daydream works similar to Samsung Gear VR or Google’s own Cardboard, in that you need a compatible smartphone (the Pixel, for now, but other manufacturers are working on it) to act as the screen. A small controller, with two buttons, a touchpad, and full gyroscopic detection, hides snugly inside the viewing box when not in use. Extremely low latency (by enabling the VR software to access more processing power when inside the Daydream) increases immersion and reduces motion sickness. More demos followed, including a Harry Potter game, an interactive star chart, and curated StreetView tours, including…uh…SheepView.

Mario Quieroz from Product Management talks about Google WiFi, a revamping of their OnHub devices. It’s simply a modular wifi system; plug one into the Ethernet, and the others act as additional transmitters giving strong, overlapping coverage to the whole house. It also actively manages networks, seamlessly switching routers as a user travels throughout their home to whichever connection is strongest. We think this is very cool, and useful for large households with several devices in each room.

The Chromecast Ultra was also unveiled, featuring faster processing and better picture with 4K support. Mario mentioned that Google Play Movies & TV will get 4K in November.

Rishi Chandra came out next, very likable but also extremely long-winded. His topic is the Google Home device, Google’s competitor to the Amazon Echo.

Google Home, about the size of a Yankee Candle and featuring three powerful speakers, talks to you using the aforementioned Google Assistant, and Rishi went on and on using several examples, not all of them thrilling. “Ok Google, play me that Shakira song from Zootopia” and, lo and behold, Assistant finds it for you and starts playing! More interesting is Assistant’s integration and personalization across all of your devices; tell your Home device to add pasta and tomatoes to your shopping list then, at the grocery store, ask Assistant to show you said shopping list and bam!

When you get home, put your pasta in boiling water and tell Home to set a timer for 11 minutes. Tell it “Good morning” and it gives you info on the weather, your commute, appointments you’ve set, and more while you sip your coffee; Rishi calls this MyDay and compares it to the presidential daily briefing. It seems like the neatest features of Assistant are its most basic, and that’s important for achieving the type of integration into day-to-day life that Google wants.

The last speaker, Scott Huffman, talked about the nerdier side of Assistant and how Google will work with developers to utilize it. A devkit, Google SDK, will be launched to help programmers and companies work with the new software.

After the rudest ending ever to a press release (“I’d like to say thank you, and goodbye to everyone on the livestrea-” followed by a LIVESTREAM HAS CLOSED placard), we think that was a fairly satisfying expo, though not as groundbreaking as Google made it out to be. Of course, we’re excited about the Pixel phone. Google’s current Nexus line of smartphones are of very high quality and extremely well-reviewed. We’ve played around with Assistant and, although we do like to poke fun, it is groundbreaking and it’s easy to agree with Rick Osterloh about AI being the link between software and hardware. Google WiFi isn’t breaking new ground but it’s a great, affordable solution (better than purchasing routers separately and linking them together manually) to a common issue. The potential success of Google Home is up in the air if the dozens of people who bought an Amazon Echo are any indicator (we kid, we kid). I guess we’ll find out in 8 years. Ok Google, set a reminder for October 4, 2024.

Our technicians are already doing their homework and eagerly anticipating the first Pixel test devices, so go ahead and order one if you’re interested; if anything breaks, you can send it to iFixYouri and we’ll get it back to you good as new.

iFixYouri Blog

When Drones Attack: On the Field and in the Air