iPhone 7 and Apple Watch 2: Are we there yet?

iPhone 7 and Apple Watch 2: Are we there yet?

On September 7, 2016 Apple announced the new  Apple Watch Series 2 with WatchOS 3, iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus with iOS 10, and AirPods with the new W1 chip. This is an interesting release year for Apple which, in my opinion, is starting to reveal a subtle change in the company strategy under the helm of Tim Cook as compared to Steve Jobs.

First off the new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are not terribly exciting. The new phones are little more then incremental upgrades over last year's iPhone 6 models which include 6s, 6s Plus, and SE. Here is what is new and different for 7 and 7 Plus:

• Super Mario Run is coming to iPhone first
• new Jet Black and Matte Black color options
• Force sensitive home button which is more like a trackpad then a button
• IP67 water resistance which means that you no longer have to have that horrible sense of dread when your iPhone slips out of your back pocket and falls into the toilet or you walk into a pool while trying to catch a Snorlax but you are still not going to want to take your phone swimming with you. 
• Better camera with optical image stabilization on all models and a second lense on the 7 Plus that allows for true optical zoom and some depth of field gimmicks to take better photos
• Better display (25% brighter with more colors)
• Stereo audio speakers on top and bottom of the phone for a true stereo experience when viewing media in landscape mode
• Better performance with the new A10Fusion quad core processor
• The removal of the headphone jack replaced instead with a set of lighting ear buds and a lightning to headphone jack adapter that both ship with the phone.

So Apple pretty much has to make these kinds of incremental improvements every year just in order to have a new device to release. Nothing new about the iPhone 7 is really exciting or innovative with one or two exceptions. Super Mario Run looks really cool but it will run fine on your iPhone 5 or 6 just as well as the new iPhone 7 so don't upgrade just for that. The removal of the headphone jack is a pretty big deal that has upset a lot of folks but it is actually a really good thing that Apple has done. Read on and I will explain further after the summary of the AirPods and Apple Watch 2. If you have a working iPhone 5 or 6 or an Android phone that you are happy with then wait until iPhone 8 in 2018 before considering an upgrade. 

Next up is is the Apple Watch Series 2. Here is what is new and different for Apple Watch 2:

• Pokemon Go app for the Apple Watch
• White ceramic color option
• Waterproof up to 50m which means you can take it swimming with you while your iPhone stays in your duffel.
• Better performance with the dual core S2 chip
• Built-in GPS

Now the watch is getting incremental updates so that Apple can release a new one every year. Well, I still don't want one. If I was going swimming 3 times a week for fitness I might think about getting an Apple Watch to help track my exercise but I find that Pokemon Go motivates me to get out and walk already far more then Apple Watch 2 will motivate me to get out and go swimming and I really don't mind holding my phone in my hand while I walk so I really don't need the watch to tell me when a wild pokemon or a pokestop pops up. The watch still can not operate independently from the iPhone and in fact replace the need for a phone in your pocket at all which is what I am waiting for. We are definitely not there yet with the watch but I am starting to understand why Apple released this really expensive fitness tracker. Read on and I will explain further.

To complement the new iPhone 7 with it's lack of headphone jack this year Apple is trying to re-design bluetooth headsets with the release of the AirPods. A lot of ridicule has been directed at these things that look like Apple literally took a pair of scissors and snipped off the wires from their signature white earbuds. The most notable thing about the AirPods is that they are not just bluetooth. Prior to the event Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak made his feelings known when he warned Apple against removing the headphone jack. They key point that Steve made was that bluetooth audio does not sound good enough for people that want the better fidelity they get from a wired connection. Apple's answer to this problem was to "enhance" bluetooth and make their own wireless technology in the form of the W1 chip. The advantages of the W1 chip are that it can sync the audio playback between the right and left ear buds without a connecting wire, it has better quality audio, it supports Siri (from your phone) and you "sync" it with your phone by just tapping the AirPod on your iPhone or Apple Watch just like using the Phone for Apple Pay. The obvious disadvantage is that it only works with other Apple devices running iOS 10, watchOS 3, or MacOS Sierra.

Since the release more information has been gathered from the folks chosen to do pre-release hands on reviews by Apple and, it turns out, that the AirPods will work with non Apple devices!.  Inside that W1 chip is a fairly standard bluetooth audio connection to your phone so, in theory, it won't sound any better then any other bluetooth headset. Some reviews are in now seeming to tell the tale that they really do sound marginally better then other bluetooth headsets due to the build quality and the better fit. Will this be enough to satisfy the concerns of the Steve Wozniaks of the world? Probably not and I have no plans to spend $159 on a pair but this was still a good and bold move on the part of Apple. 

Apple is changing it's product strategy. Under Steve Jobs Apple would let other folks throw products at the wall to see what would stick for a while (Samsung is great at doing that) and then jump into a new market slashing through the competition like a ninja with an innovative product that suddenly made even folks that didn't think they needed one want one. This is how Apple released the Macintosh, the iPod, the iMac, the iPhone, and the iPad. Starting with the Apple Watch their strategy has changed and continues with the release of the AirPods. Apple is no longer playing the ninja lurking in the shadows waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Now Apple is playing the long game feeding products into the market that are not meant to make everyone want one right away but instead force the market to change as the competitors try to keep up with Apple and standards change to accommodate the innovations that Apple puts into their products. The removal of the headphone jack on iPhone 7 and the release of the AirPods are just this.

In order for a standalone smart watch that replaces your phone to be a successful product there has to be a way to talk on it that is not holding the watch to your ear or inflicting speakerphone on all of your callers and there has to be a way to listen to music that is not plugging a wire into the watch. The AirPods are the beginning of the creation of such a thing and the removal of the headphone jack is a way to start nudging consumers to want such a thing. My vision of the smart watch that I would want to buy to replace my phone includes in its initial packaging such an accessory that is not as gawdy as the AirPod, has better music quality, and has a tiny high resolution camera on each earbud to allow the capture of high quality 3D images and video streamed through the earbuds to the device where it is captured in memory and / or streamed to the cloud or as a live broadcast. Current bluetooth technology does not yet support the kind of accessory that I envision but AirPods will move the industry and innovations in technology to such a thing. 

iPhoneSE with Google Hangouts: The Best of Both Worlds

I just recently upgraded from a Motorola Moto X (model XT1058) to an iPhoneSE 64GB. I had originally intended to write a nice review of the iPhoneSE once I got it all setup. This blog entry could be considered that but while I was configuring the device and explaining to a few folks what I had done I realized that there was much to it then just getting a new phone or even migrating from Android to iOS.

Let me start with a brief review of the iPhoneSE. This is the device that Apple should have released along with the iPhone 6s a year ago. I suppose someone inside Apple wanted to protect the sales projection for the 6s which is why they did not but since then have realized that there were still a lot of iPhone 5, 5c, and 5s users that did not and were not going to upgrade to a bigger phone. My Moto X had a 5" screen which was bearable but still too big. Even the 4.7" screen of the iPhone 6 and 6s is still too big. The 4" screen size of the iPhone 5 is, in my opinion, the perfect size for a phone. The 4" iPhone fits easily in any pocket or small purse and can be used effectively with one hand. My thumb can navigate anywhere on the screen and with the TouchID sensor I can even unlock the phone one handed without having to enter a passcode. Inside the iPhoneSE is all of the guts of the 6s with the same A9 CPU chip, M9 motion co-processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 12 megapixel iSight camera. The iPhoneSE even has a 1624 mAh battery which is bigger then that of the iPhone 5s although smaller then the 1715 mAh battery in the 6s. With the smaller screen the iPhoneSE uses far less juice to operate so the battery is more then sufficient. By far, though, the best thing about the iPhoneSE is that Apple kept the form factor exactly the same down to the button layout which means it immediately fits into any case that was designed around the iPhone 5 or 5s. Apple wasn't even smart enough to accomplish that little feat with the release of the 5c which won't fit into cases built for the 5s. In my subjective review of the iPhoneSE I can't find a thing wrong with the device to complain about.

Having been an avid Android user for over 3 years one might think that the transition to iOS would be rough but it was not. I suppose that this pain was mitgated by the fact that I have owned an iPad using iOS for longer then I have owned an Android device so I was already intimately familiar with iOS and know how to operate it. But there is more to it then just that. When I got my first Android phone (having come from a Blackberry) I decided that I liked Android over iOS for a phone for a couple of reasons. The first reason to prefer Android is the less restricted Google Play store which is far more lenient in what apps they allow to be sold through their distribution channel. I will still miss the ability to run a bitTorrent client on my mobile device but I decided I can live without that luxury until it is time to upgrade my iPad but more on that in another post... The second reason to prefer Android over iOS is the bevy of free services that Google offers which are all built right in to Android. There is Google Voice, Google Docs, Google Drive, and more. In 2013 there was no such thing as Google Hangouts until it was officially launched during the Google I/O conference on May 15, 2013. Now Google Hangouts encompasses text messaging, voice phone calls, video calls, video conferences with up to 10 participants, and has access to all of your Google contacts. On my Moto X I was able to set Hangouts to handle all incoming SMS messages. If you have a Google Voice number that is now also integrated with Hangouts so that you can make and receive voice calls through it. Hangouts is also a fully cross platform application with apps for Android and iOS as well as desktop apps for Windows and Mac OS through the Chrome applications. This means with Hangouts I can send and receive text messages from any device so I don't have to type on the tiny phone keyboard when I am sitting in front of my keyboard.

As I was configuring the new phone I realized one other interesting thing that kind of changed everything. On Android the Hangouts dialer is a separate app so making and receiving phone calls through Hangouts means a separate icon to click. On iOS the dialer is integrated into the Hangouts app for iOS.

Here are the steps I took in my migration from my Android phone to the new iPhoneSE:

1. I ordered a new phone on a new line to get a new number (no upgrade of the existing number). Since providers are making you pay for the phone on a monthly plan now anyway there is no penalty to making a new account for the new phone
2. Once the new phone was activated I went into my Google Voice account and put in a transfer request to move the phone number from my existing cell to Google Voice. Note that I had previously configured Google Voice to handle all calls and SMS messages through Hangouts.
3. I configured Google Voice to forward calls to my new cell number.
4. I configured the new phone to use Google Voice for voicemail (there are instructions for this in Google Voice)
5. Once the number transfer was complete I deactivate the service on my old phone
6. I installed the Google Hangouts app on the iPhone but told it not to ring the phone since Google Voice would forward the incoming call to the new cell number anyway

BAM! My old number is now fully functional on the new phone. I can use the Hangouts app to place calls and send and receive text messages from my old number which is in everyone's contact list already. The only person who even has the new number is my wife Sandy. 

At this point I have the best of both worlds enjoying all of the free Google services seamlessly on an iPhone. Anyone who has a Gmail account has a Google account and with a few clicks can configure Google Voice and Google Hangouts in the same manner. 

Here is another interesting tip. Google Voice will assign you a phone number for free so by this same method you can take your old deactivated phone and configure Hangouts on it so you can grant a family member their own phone and number without paying for any service at all. As long as they have access to Wifi (like connected through the personal hotspot on your phone) they can talk and text and otherwise use it like a real phone.