Ra_

The only two posts I've ever made here under any name, so far as I recall, were in the last couple days pointing out to all the people commenting about them not removing the audio jack that the optical functionality was an often forgotten about important (arguably, or at least neat) feature of the macs... le sigh. I'll miss it if it is true that it is removed. I used it for connecting to my 5.1 digital input pc speakers, as well as on rare occasions other devices.

Those talking about the headphone jack are also missing the fact that the audio jack on the MacBook Pro has been a combo jack that also has multichannel optical for years. Losing it would mean not just losing a tip-ring-sleeve type electrical connection, but also the more advanced functionality that is less common to have good wireless solutions. Given the extra functionality, and that there was room available, and that they didn't have the same water resistance issues (though a water resistant MacBook would have been pretty cool…), I think it was a great call to keep the port.

I bought the safe and sound based on the promise of airplay2 support “soon” via update. My mistake. The AirPlay 2 functionality still hasn’t shipped and I can find no update as to when or if (beyond the old claim of “soon”).

 Alexa mishears and thinks we are talking to her many, many times more often than we’ve ever had Siri ‘butt in”, but if you turn off the microphone, then the nightlight glows murder red rather than whatever color/level you’ve set it to and won’t change back as long as Alexa is turned off. Odd thing is first time I disabled the mic it momentarily showed a red glow to indicate mic was off, then went back to normal.

The app or firmware seem a little flaky. I also get errors polling some of the device details, even though I can set and change other things about the device, access the speaker, etc. Essentially I bought the 2x the price, same functionality (potentially more flaky though) plus a marginal quality manual Bluetooth speaker and a overly active microphone. Not sure I’d buy again, or even extend with the new model. I liked the concept.