elehcdn

rockit99 said:

It's been puzzling reading this thread. I'm in the UK and we don't have to register a new device to use with a service. And I can't see why you need to. Forgetting the 'dozens of devices' comment earlier, surely, you have a phone contract with a data package. All your devices ( if you choose) go through that package, you're not using up extra bandwidth. I bought my partner an AW recently and just paired it with her iPhone. She uses either/or with no problem (be kind of tricky to use both together I guess!).

I know it works a bit differently in the US (our phones work anywhere/everywhere no matter the provider) but wtf?

If your device isn’t registered you aren’t going to get on a cellular network. It is one of the most basic things about cellular. 
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/phones-imei-makeuseof-explains/

Your partners AW is connecting through your current cellular connection just like any devices you might tether through your phone. The AW3 connects directly to the cell towers. 

StrangeDays said:

Ed789 said:

Only one hour talk time! 

Talk time doesnt matter. Its not designed to be a phone replacement. The thing is like 1/6th the size of my phone so I don't mind that the battery doesn't match what a phone's does.

I have a kid in high school and 1 in college and our family does more texting than anything else . Even at work, we use texting more than calls. With voice calls, immediate responses are short and I don't plan to have long conversations until I get back to a desk.

Even with the AW2, I have answered calls on my watch when my phone was at the other end of the house. It's a lot easier to give a quick answer to a question either by vox or text than have to explain how come I missed a call.

I think the thing that most detractors are failing to notice in the article is that the HomePod is designed by a hardware company that was designed for people who want to buy speakers whereas the Google and Amazon products are simply loss leaders designed to drive services. It's pretty funny to see people here complain about the HomePod only being useful for people in the Apple eco-system when both Google and Amazon products are built to do nothing more than to bring people into their ecosystem.

Apple's competition is the Sonos and the article points out that they are outselling them even though they are recent in the market. Plus the added value they have with the HomePod is the voice assistant.

It also says a lot about the lack of technical knowledge that critics have when trying to compare the HomePod to other speakers simply based on the external shape. There is a huge amount of engineering inside the HomePod (using beam forming, bass management and digital signal processing) that maximizes the acoustical environment when there is just a single speaker. As the article points out, there is a huge misunderstanding of the how the speaker was designed to work when reviewers immediately trot out the need to buy 2 HomePods to get "stereo" when the speaker has mics and processing to adapt itself to produce its room filling acoustic environment.

I have been a huge believer in the smaller iPad Pro due to portability, but with the M1, I am now considering the bigger iPad Pro if I decide to upgrade. I just bought an M1 Mac Mini and that thing flies even with multiple applications open. It is so powerful, I much prefer it to trying to edit in FCP on my MBA 2018. I am wondering if the M1 will bring similar performance to the iPad Pro. Also a large part of the consideration will be if iOS does a better job of windowing multiple apps. Split view and Slide over are ok for short term things, but I would like to see the implementation of different sized windows. PnP is a big deal for me though and the extra space on the 12.9 would allow me to keep an open video feed running while I work. I can see vid conferencing and possibly even video editing / recording (a Filmic window of my iPhone recording) making PnP even more useful. Also hoping that the TB4 port will open up FCP for the iPad and even with a lower feature set, being able to move projects off the desktop and do some rudimentary video editing on the iPad Pro.

Soli said:

rogifan_new said:

The whole point of the program is to be able to get a new phone after 12 months, not 14 or 15.

You seriously thought the point of the program was to magically make components appear out of thin air because you signed a contract? Did Dumbledore send this agreement to you via owl?

The point is that the program is actually a 2 year deal ... you get to trade in after a year and your contract restarts for another 2 years. That means that you slowly creep up to stretching the exchange period past the 2 year deal ... if you can't get an upgrade until 15 months, they have you on the hook for 2 years and 3 months.