polymnia

Took a Mazda CX-5 for a test drive a couple weeks ago. The vehicle had a very quiet cabin, the top end audio system sounded amazing. The cabin was beautiful. The tech was very well done, there was a heads-up display on the windshield, steering headlights. Lots of great tech.

Then there was the touchscreen. Or, more specifically, the software it was displaying. Needle scratch. Not good.

I wasn't shopping for myself, but if I had been, I think I would have bought the CX-5 even with the crummy software. But since I'm not quite ready for a new car, I'll give Mazda a couple more years to get the infotainment system squared away.

It's only taken 5 years for me to find a car I actually want to buy which is at least PLANNING on adding CarPlay.

Guess I'm thankful Apple hasn't given up on pushing CarPlay. I never thought we would still be waiting for mainstream brands like Mazda to add the feature.

klock379 said:

Why not just run "ls -R > filename.txt" in a terminal window? I don't get it...

Why are nerds so insufferable?

no wonder people enjoyed beating us up in high school.

bsimpsen said:

polymnia said:

There is one problem with these smart switches/remotes: None of them seem designed to fit a standard Decora sized wall plate opening, including this one based on the photos shown.

Sweet!

The photo in the AI article made the switch look too wide to fit a standard plate.

This is exactly what I've been looking for.

Thanks for interneting for me

I see no reason for Sonos to be scared. They don’t compete with Amazon or Google speakers directly. They have some features that overlap, that’s all. 

No one looking for a premium, audio-focused multiroom system is going to go with Google or Amazon. As far as HomePod, the product doesn’t yet match Sonos’ core multi-room & stereo pairing competencies. 

I’m as big an Apple partisan as you will find this side of DED here at AppleInsider, but I don’t see a clear path to Apple destroying Sonos. There are many hurtles left for Apple to clear before relegating Sonos to irrelevance. And Sonos is moving to align itself with the Apple ecosystem. So if HomePod & AirPlay 2 take off (hehe), Sonos will play nice with them. 

I know it’s popular on this forum to talk up epic fails. But I don’t think that is what is coming for Sonos. 

Why would Apple strip away the only thing anyone seems to agree is market leading about the HomePod, namely, sound quality?

is it any surprise that Google & Amazon are leading in AI & parsing queries? That was their core competency for years going into this market. They haven’t had great luck building standalone hardware. Now that they are leaning into something they are already good at, they are finding more success. Amazon has done this once before with Kindle. But only so far as it leveraged the company’s core book selling competency. The phone crashed and burned. 

Apple has always featured brilliant hardware design with solid software to run said hardware. But they haven’t shown much success by building a software competency that later resulted in new hardware. Unless I’m missing something. 

Apple would be wise to stick with the high end hardware features. At least until they prove competency in AI & voice interfaces.