dick applebaum

cgWerks said:

dick applebaum said:
Apple needs to release a browser extension, so you can play audio to the homePod from web sites like Vimeo, Youtube, etc.

I don't know about Vimeo, but I just tried YouTube and I can pick AirPlay to output the audio, so I'd guess you could do that to the HomePod too. Or, if you want all the audio to always go there (i.e.: Mac to HomePod), just hold the 'option' key and click your sound in the menu bar and pick the AirPlay device.

Youtube doesn't see anything but AppleTVs -- I have the homePod, an Airport Express connected to the iPod HiFi, and an Airport Express connected to a Bose Airwave.  iTunes sees all these in addition to AppleTVs.

I'm on the latest iTunes and the latest High Sierra beta. I suspect that support for AirPlay is an early partial implementation of AirPlay 2.

anantksundaram said:

Oh no. It’s going to be a continuous drip-drip-drip of intrusiveness, and having to regularly hit “Remind Me Later.”  All for new, cute emojis and font changes. 

Ugh. 

A few thoughts:

Apple has gotten much better at automating software updates:

• for developers, recently, many beta releases of the various Apple OSes were updated every few days or weeks
• the downloads are performed in the background -- eliminating much of the time the user is without the device
• these mini-releases have been quite reliable
• much of the various Apple OSes are being rewritten in Swift -- a safer, more predictable, more reliable language
  
• on some devices, e.g. the AppleTV, you can schedule automatic updates -- so the user need not be aware of the updates *

* I suspect that this is how the homePod is updated


Sometime this year Swift 5 will be released.  A major target for Swift 5 is stable ABI's (Application Binary Interfaces). If this is accomplished, it brings many advantages to both Apple and 3rd-party developers.  One significant advantage is that major portions of code (e.g. the libraries) will not change their interfaces -- and will need to be downloaded only once for a major release.  This means:

• Apple's software releases will be much smaller, safer, more predictable, more reliable and faster/easier to update
• the same applies to Apple Apps and 3rd-party Apps

I don't recall when, at the original release of OSX (or a later release) -- but Steve talked about his goal for a day when new Apple software releases would be automatic, seamless, and transparent to the user.

It appears that Apple may reach that goal in 2018-2019. 

Weird:  iTunes was playing thro the HP and I rebooted the iMac -- the HP kept playing through the sign-on screen.  That tells me that the HP must be buffering most, if not all, of a song.

For some reason, this popped into my head:

"Mother, may I go out to swim? Yes, my darling daughter. Hang your clothes on a hickory limb But don't go near the water."

FWIW...

A pioneer of solar cellsEdit

The invention of the transistor in 1948 must have had an effect on Leslie Hoffman. In the early 1950s, he took a major interest in solar cells, also called photovoltaic cells. When Bell Labs introduced the solar cell to the world in 1951 it was only a curiosity. It had a very poor light-to-electricity conversion efficiency of 2 percent, and was very fragile and expensive to fabricate. Several manufacturers, including Hoffman, managed to improve the efficiency to 4.5 percent by 1954, but photovoltaic cells were still impractical.

Hoffman KP706 Trans Solar Radio (1959), running on batteries or with a Hoffman solar cell array on the top.

Hoffman made great strides in making the solar cell a practical and useful source of renewable energy. From 1957 to 1960, he improved its efficiency from 4.5 to 14 percent and lowered the production cost to make it a marketable item. One of Hoffman's great achievements was the first satellite to be powered by solar cells, the Vanguard 1, launched in 1958.[8]The solar arrays or panels are Hoffman photovoltaic cells. In 1959 H. Leslie Hoffman received the David Packard Medal of Achievement for innovation.[9] In 1959 he was one of the board of directors for the Electronic Industries Association (EIA).

The success of Vanguard 1 led Hoffman to broaden the use of his solar cells into other products and applications. In 1959, the launch of the U.S. satellite Explorer 6 had solar arrays using 9,600 Hoffman solar cells. The Consumer Products Division introduced a transistor radio line that operated with solar cells or batteries. It was called the Hoffman Trans Solar Radio.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Hoffman

I was the manager of Data Processing for Hoffman Semiconductor in 1960.  In their lobby they had a window into a clean room that showed a silicone ingot being pulled from a crucible.

Employees could buy Hoffman products at a discount — I bought a solar powered radio/record player.