dpkform

SOMEBODY PLEASE... THINK OF THE CHILDREN !!!!

The imminent cancellation of the iPad mini for the very reasons stated in this particle, has been predicted by "Apple Insiders" since the iPhone 6 Plus was first confirmed.

My 4 year old daughter has been using an iPad mini since she was 18 months old.  She currently has the Mini 4 which is the ideal size device for her.  The 9.7 inch mini, even my 9.7 pro is too big for her.  An iPhone plus obviously makes no sense for a 4 year old, and is triple the price.

The Apple mini is the obvious "gateway drug" for creating new Apple users right from a very young age.

If you have a young child you get this.  For this very reason I would actually be VERY surprised if Apple ever cancels the mini, without brining in a similar inexpensive device suitable for young children. Sure an iPad mini does not need yearly updates like iPads targeted at more advanced users. But its place in the Apple lineup is very clear to me.

Companies typically fall all over themselves to lock new users into their brand as early as possible. The iPad mini IMO serves this function for Apple.

It’s absurd, infuriating, and miseading that Phillips on their colour temperature adjustable white lights continues to display the “works with HomeKit” certification from Apple.

For years the Hue user community has been  frustrated by the inability of Siri voice commands to controll the flagship feature of this product. That’s right, Siri can not alter the colour temperature of these lights.  

Siri has no problem changing the colours of multi colour Hue bulbs, but it’s completely impotent when it comes to changing colour temperatures of these “HomeKit compatible” lights.

Phillips support site continues to recommend creating a scene in the Phillips app, then exporting that scene to HomeKit, and then telling Siri to use that scene.  Two or three years ago when this product first came out that might have been an acceptable short term work around.

The fact that it is still necessary years later is inexcusable.   Setting a scene requires changing  multiple parameters of a light including its brightness setting.

So while a colour bulb can be told to change colour and keep other parameters such as its brightness level the same, telling Siri to implement a scene will change the light’s colour temperature and its brightness to a predefined setting.

Plus an individual scene is required for each and every group of bulbs multiplied by each and every possible desired setting. A ridiculous amount of work for a home full of lights, and impossible to remember so many individual scene names.

A credible review of adjustable colour temperature lights that claim to be HomeKit compatible should put a great deal of focus on answering the following questions.

Why does Phillips continue to label this product as HomeKit compatible when its flagship feature, after years of existing is still not controllable through Siri in HomeKit?

In a technical  sense this product may meet basic HomeKit certification equirements.

From a consumer point of view is the HomeKit compatible certification credible?

What about Apple’s role in this? It gives HomeKit certification to a product whose flagship feature is not fully HomeKit compatible.  Does this certification not by definition degrade the credibility of Apple’s HomeKit certification program?

At the end of the day whether the problem lies with Phillips, Apple, or both, it has been years since the flagship feature of this flagship HomeKit product has been so  dramatically limited.

Just fix it already!