escargot

christopher126 said:

I agree w/ your assessment the three biggest annoyances w/ my current TV/AppleTV setup is the multiple remotes needed and having to use the TV remote only to switch the TV on and off.

The need to have a sound bar (w/ another remote) b/c the speakers on the TV are so 'tinny' sounding. I don't mind having a sound bar, in of itself. I realize the sound quality of very thin speakers inside a very thin TV is problematic. I just wish the speaker would come on automatically.

I guess I would just like everything to work from my AppleTV remote!

Best.

P.S. I was hoping I could wait for Apple to solve all this with the next release of the AppleTV. But it looks as though their solution is AirPlay two, an AppleTV and two HomePods. Hmmmm. A bit on the expensive side.

I’m not sure what you mean as everything you are describing is already possible with the AppleTV 4. That’s what HDMI-CEC is for. On my Vizio TV and Samsung soundbar, when I press a button on my AppleTV remote, the tv and soundbar turn on, the tv input switches to AppleTV, and the volume buttons on the AppleTV remote control the volume of the soundbar. When I use the AppleTV remote to put it to sleep, it also turns off the TV and soundbar. The same thing happens with my PS4.

I do keep the dedicated remotes around because sometimes I might want to do more advanced stuff like change advanced picture settings etc. But if we are talking about turning the tv and soundbar on and off, adjusting the volume, and switching inputs, that is all already possible with the AppleTV 4 and later and its Siri remote. 

RobinCravey said:

Incredible.  More than 20 years after Steve killed the Newton, Apple is still afraid to try handwriting recognition.  Innovation?  Not so much.

The Apple notes app has handwriting recognition. Hand written notes are scanned and indexed, and will show up in search.  Maybe not what you were hoping for, but clearly they are not “afraid” of it. 

ihatescreennames said:

aegean said:

I will still stick to series 3 Hermes. First of all, I am all Hermes watch faces. So if/when I am gonna get it, it will always be Hermes edition. I love the new faces but paying another almost 2K is a bit a lot for something that will be obsolete in 11 months time.

I’m curious, how do the Hermes watches hold up for resale? My Series 0 Stainless Steel Space Black with Link Bracelet is only good for about $25. That’s on a watch that just 3 1/2 years ago retailed for $1100 (I think, maybe it was a little more). I like it and will continue to use it until it’s no longer useful. I mostly only wear it when I’m going out to dinner or somewhere that requires nicer attire. It still looks good but now that it isn’t getting OS upgrades and the battery life is shortening I’m not sure how much longer it will last...

$25?  Just your link bracelet you could sell for at least a couple hundred. Are you talking about trade in value at a store?  Because that is a rip-off and not the same as resale value. I recently sold my series 0 ALUMINUM watch with sport band for $250 in Canada.  So surely you could get more for a stainless steel with link bracelet (just the link bracelet alone is $500-$600 or so and also works completely fine with all the new models. I’m not sure where you are getting this $25 number from. 

This article totally ignores that BTMM is about more than screen sharing. There are tons of alternatives for VNC style screen sharing. There aren’t very many good alternatives for accessing all the files on your Mac via finder, even when on a different network, especially when you don’t have complete admin access to configure either your home network or the one you are attempting to access from.  BTMM handled this with aplomb, and with virtually no configuration needed either.  LogMeIn and Parallels Access do have features for accessing files in such a manner, but in my experience have been quite flaky in this regard.  Especially if you want to access files on drives other than the boot volume.

Also, none of these solutions can match the integration of BTMM. BTMM allowed one to access all these services right in the finder. It basically made it so that accessing your macs remotely was as simple as if they were still on your local network. No other service can replicate that functionality.  Screen sharing is only one use case where BTMM is useful. That doesn’t paint the whole picture. 

raoulduke42 said:

I've also got one of the dual-ethernet port Expresses that so far has just been used for travel purposes (shared my iPhone internet connection to three other devices via a MacBook Air and that Express recently when then hotel wifi was crap)... but I'd totally replace my one-port Express on the back deck with the dual if Airplay 2 is supported... but yes, seems unlikely. Hopefully someone makes an Airplay 2 audio whatzit (that's not a full receiver) in the future if Apple really is going to give up on their old hardware.

I don't really understand this use case.  Wouldn't it be much easier to just share the iphone internet connection directly from the iphone to these three devices, rather than having to use a macbook air and an airport express all to replicate the same functionality?  What am I missing?