Those bluetooth headphones I sound so torn up about all the time? Today I used them for all my listening to, from and during work, and it was pretty darn nice. I am starting too feel they stay in my ears really well, at least with their "wings" attached. They sounded good to me, for both music and spoken things, and I did not have a single technical issue. Finally, there is that extra magic trick of wires being gone. Realizing I left the phone in the other room, moving around as if cables to snag and twirl actually were a thing of the past.
Seems like every session only produces more doubt about whether I will ever buy wired phones again. Right now, price for quality level feels like the most serious point against, and that will only become less of an issue over time.
A very Google christmas
Google just held their autumn event, more or less following up on things from Google IO and releasing a range of hardware which had unfortunately leaked thorougly. Nothing made me fall over with giddy excitement, but every single thing feels interesting to me and I would like to play with them all.
Home is probably at the top of my list, in large part because it looks like a very nicely done device in a category I have never experienced. I hold no hopes for Amazon getting Alexa over here, but Google already has a Swedish store page for Home even if it says "Unavailable" instead of "Buy". I also like the look a lot, and I immediately wanted more base colors. (I think the fabric ones are for me.)
The Pixel phones feel solid but deeply unexciting, and something in me felt annoyed that the shiny part of the back was presented as a purely decorational thing (I think it made me wonder if they could have done something useful, or saved a bit of thickness, instead). Unexicting or not, I will definitely read up on the camera. Better photos are a great thing, and they say it scores higher than any other smartphone in Dxomark's tests. Which also made me look forward to Dxomark testing the Iphone 7 plus, because that is not there yet. That unlimited cloud storage for photos and videos, that … is not a negative thing at all. Big bonus points for the color names of the Pixel: Quite black, Really blue and Very silver is just awesome.
A small detail which caught my attention was the mention of the Pixel phones having what they called "the new Pixel launcher" or something close to that. Of course it makes sense to adapt hardware and software to eachother, but I was still a little surprised Google's own phone will not ship with pure stock Android. On the other hand, this is not a thing aimed at developers, and it makes sense for Google to want to differentiate themselves just like everyone else.
Following the stream
To my memory, this is the first live stream I have watched on Youtube. No pauses, no stutters, no drops in resolution, and a regularly updated number of live viewers. Peaked just under a quarter of a million as far as I saw. It may be a lot lower than what Apple has to deal with, but in any case it was a great experience and definitely gave the feeling that there is serious infrastructure behind it all.
Alright, almost time to podcast. I foresee more discussion of some or all of the above.