Category Archives: Apple

Apple, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Digital Transformation, Internet, Internet of Things, Technology

The Internet of Things is taking over your life.

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On February 9th, 2018, Apple suddenly woke up and finally released the HomePod.

What is it?  It plays music and, assuming your house and all its gadgets are connected using Apple’s HomeKit ecosystem, it will let you control them via Apple’s intelligent assistant, Siri. It can tell you what the weather or news will be, and it will answer (possibly) whatever other random questions you think of. It can turn off your lights or air-conditioning. And other…. stuff.

If you have an iPhone, you’ll know what Siri is – basically say “Hey Siri, play XYZ” and then pray what the results might be. There are other competitors to HomePod already, primarily Amazon’s Echo, which is powered by its Alexa voice assistant and Google Home which uses Google Assistant.

We live in an IoT world

The Internet of Things or IoT.  If you don’t really know what that means, I can assure you, it is revolutionizing your life and the way you live, even if you don’t realise it.

Do you have a smartphone? A fitness wearable such as a FitBit or an Apple Watch?  If so, you’re part of the Internet of Things, a term – perhaps badly named – which simply refers to the ability of devices which are connected over the internet, all contributing information from each other into some form of database for a particular reason.  

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Using a fitness wearable as a simple example. You wear it. It measures your steps, how many floors you’ve climbed, how much you sleep.  Depending on your activity or willingness to lose weight, you may log how much you eat each day into a program which is connected to your wearable’s smartphone app. You may run and have a special heart-rate strap if your wearable doesn’t already measure it. You may even have a Bluetooth connected scale which logs your weight and that information is then absorbed into the same database. That information can get posted online somewhere onto a social media network where you can compete with your friends. All of those devices talk to each other and combine into one database over the internet which has been specifically designed for basically one thing – improving and monitoring your health and fitness.  

So, the IoT.  Perhaps you’ll have a fridge that will let you know on your smartphone when you need to replace items which have spoiled and send an alert to you when you are grocery shopping. Wait, you don’t already?  Go back two years.

Companies in various industries are devoting a large amount of resources and money to invest in IoT technology, so much so that it has become mainstream in many sectors, such as manufacturing and transportation.

In essence, it is the process of digital transformation – that is to say, transforming the physical world into one big digital one.

The beauty of it all

Other than smart fridges and fitness trackers, there are so many new products and innovations, it is impossible to summarise them all here. Yes, people joke about smart toasters and coffee machines but the IoT certainly makes everyone’s lives genuinely smarter and easier.  

Right now, the smart home industry is the nexus of the industry and where it is all happening.  Companies across the globe are positioning themselves and trying to takeover this portion of the market.  Companies like Samsung, Lutron, Nest and Honeywell have been in the market for years, to be joined by groups such as Amazon, Google and now Apple, the latter three simply creating hubs/voice assistants which interface with actual automation systems (such as Lutron or Honeywell).  Smart homes can be programmed so that airconditioning can come on at certain times of the day to cool/heat your home before you get home or lighting to come on at certain times. Voice assistants can read the news to you in the morning or play music, change tracks, volume etc while driving.  And yes, coffee can be made for you.

But the Internet of Things isn’t limited to just home automation. It is worldwide connectivity.  People to people, people to things and, of course, things to things.

Waze, the driving app is a great example of the IoT.  As described on their website, Waze “is powered and used by drivers all over the world. Drivers connect to one another and work together to improve each others driving experience. As a community-based traffic and navigation app, Waze was created as a social navigation tool for private cars.”  It is a social app – you plug into the app where you are, where you are going and, using GPS and it being able to then work out your location, how fast or slow you are moving, etc, it will send out alerts regarding how heavy or light the traffic is to others travelling the same route.  It is smart, growing smarter the more people use it, has very few limitations and is exactly how to run an IoT business.

Smart Cities

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Dubai is a good example of where things may ultimately be heading.  Smart cities are those that in the future use the IoT effectively and efficiently to manage both assets and resources.  For example, the ability to improve a city’s energy use, its public transport, security, reduction of waste. With one of the highest penetration rates of smartphone usages in the world, Dubai’s ambition isn’t just to be a model smart city with government services being delivered to its citizens digitally, but its ambition is to be “the happiest city on earth” as a result of it. A public/private collaboration, it wishes to deliver over 1,000 “smart services” by 2021.   Interestingly, though not surprisingly, as part of that strategy, Dubai also aims to have the world’s first “blockchain-powered government”, one which entirely stores its data in its own secure, decentralised digital blockchain network.  

The future of IoT

So, we are increasingly becoming connected and eventually we will live in cities which are also digitally operated. Virtually endless opportunities are possible, many of which we have yet to comprend or consider.  

But there are challenges and the two main issues which the average person faces being part of a such a connected network are privacy and security.

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Although we are not quite yet heading towards some kind of Orwellian dystopia, one can see the pressures upon basic privacy and concerns regarding the security of information which IoT presents. Being part of it, you are basically giving up a lot of personal information to third parties. What TV shows you watch, your spending habits, how often you walk, what you weigh, are you married, do you have kids, what your potential income is…. the list goes on. The question to ask is that by giving up that information, will that data stay private and will companies ensure it is secure? By opening up your home and the ability to control your coffee machine from your bed, are you also inadvertently exposing your entire network to third party hackers, and all of your personal information?  The ways companies are able to securely and responsibly store the information they obtain from users are critical matters which must be dealt with in the IoT world.

But the excitement really is now coming to a head.  With the onset of the “fourth industrial revolution” and the seeping of IoT, artificial intelligence, automation, blockchain, robotics, big data and machine learning into both work and home, we are now well beyond the tipping point: digital transformation will be the driving force of our lives for years to come.

So the HomePod has just come out.  The Amazon Echo came out in 2015.  The Google Home in late 2016.  It feels like Apple is really late to a party.  But actually, they’re not, and that’s because the party is really just beginning.

Chris Garrod – February 14, 2018

Apple, Technology

The iPhone X:  Do I like it?

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The answer to the title of this article: “I still don’t know”.

I’ve been using it only a week. So maybe I’m an Apple fanboy who is a little impatient. But also very worried. I can only imagine my Android friends now giggling at me.

Since moving my SIM card from my iPhone 7 Plus to the X, I’ve done a lot of research. What kind?  The research I’ve been doing has primarily been me Googling “What are the Pros and Cons of the iPhone X” and “Tell me why I like the iPhone X”.  That is to say, the kind of research I should have been doing before I shelled out over $1,000 on this thing.

So. I’m basically looking for reasons on the internet why I should like this gadget. Yup, I need the justification, folks.

Things I do like

  1. The notches!  Ok, I do actually like the notches.  This has been on the “con” part of a lot of people’s list. But I actually think it fits in well with the design, adds a distinctive look (“Hey, you! I have an iPhone X!”), and with the time on one side, and with the wi-fi/signal strength and battery monitors on the other, it makes sense.  And I don’t even really miss the now forgone battery percentage, which I thought I would. Fine.
  1. The “swipe up” instead of pressing a “home” button doesn’t really bother me. You get used to it and it becomes kind of intuitive.  
  1. The camera.  Or at least, the fact that I can now take Portrait mode shots using (a) a smaller phone than the Plus and (b) when taking a selfie.  And the new Portrait lighting is also cool. As is the far better aperture for low light shots.
  1. The size. It is quite a bit smaller than the Plus and not that much bigger than the 7 or 8. Which means I can indeed sit down without having to remove my smartphone from my trousers and having to decide whether to place it on the table or wedge it between my legs on my chair. Thank you Apple.
  1. Wireless charging. I suspect I will like this. Eventually. But then, these are also options for the iPhones 8 and 8 Plus.

Things I don’t care about

  1. Fast charging. I honestly, honestly don’t care as my iPhone is mostly plugged in at my desk for most of the day and charging is just never an issue. Plus fast-charging isn’t even default – you have to pay for a cable or an adapter to utilise it.
  1. The screen. “Jaw-dropping OLED display” apparently.  Maybe I’m just getting old but yeah, the display is great… but is it really jaw dropping when compared to the iPhone SE, 7, 8 etc?  My eyes like it but my jaw stayed in place.
  1. The speed. Blazingly fast, etc etc etc.  Sighs.  Perhaps I just don’t use apps which require A11 bionic chips, or the speeds I am experiencing with the iPhone 7 Plus appear to be acceptable.  Not doubt at some point Apple will take iOS to a point where upgrading is a necessity but for now, it just doesn’t seem like a big deal.  
  1. Animojis. I just don’t care.

Things I don’t like (breathes deeply)

  1. Face ID. I really, really miss Touch ID. I keep reading how Face ID will get better as the technology improves, but how?  Currently it only works if I’m staring at the iPhone X pretty much straight on within around 2 or so feet. It won’t work sideways.  I can’t unlock my phone unless I physically either move it towards my head or I move my head towards it, straight on – either way, I look idiotic. The Touch ID, in my view, was perfect, and the version which Apple had finalised with its recent releases was supremely fast and, as Steve Jobs would have said, it just….. works. Face ID could now be the future for iPhones and, yes, that does worry me, unless drastic improvements are made.
  1. The size. OK, the screen is huge. Does it have to be this big? I like the fact it is physically smaller than the Plus.  But the screen is huge.  I have big hands. And yet I find this phone hard to use with just one.  Reaching the top to bring down the Control Center is next to impossible.  Getting to the upper left icon is, actually, impossible.  And no, using Reachability by turning it on in the “Accessibility” option is not, for me at least, an answer (swiping up a little from the bottom and then down is tragic). Since, using the iPhone X, and considering its price, my paranoia regarding dropping it is higher than ever (see below).  So, despite its larger physical size, I find the use of the Plus model easier, from a one-handed perspective.
  1. The weight. Bear with me on this one. The iPhone X is lighter than the Plus. But it is a lot heavier than the normal iPhone 7 or 8. And what makes it heavier and bulkier, is the absolutely mandatory case. This thing is made of glass and stainless steel and will die or get severely damaged as soon as it is dropped. And bearing in mind the price, and the fact it is not “grippy” and cannot be used with one hand, you will drop it. And I’m going to hate seeing scratches even more on this thing than I would on any other iPhone.
  1. Half-baked swipage. Some of the swiping actions on the iPhone X seem to come naturally and are well implemented, such as swiping up instead of needing the Home Button. But I miss double tapping the Home Button to show open applications (swiping up slowly halfway and stopping carefully, oh so carefully, on the iPhone X is something to get used to) and I also miss swiping to delete open applications – something I suppose Apple may likely fix in a future update. But my overall feel is that some of the swiping options could have been better thought out by Apple prior to the release of the iPhone X.

Overall?

Putting the Plus model aside, because of the size of it makes it less usable than I would prefer, I took my old iPhone 7 out (currently in reserve for my wife’s usage) and had a look at it. Lovely black matte backing to it. Great and perfectly acceptable screen. Nice and light, even with a case but even better without. Smaller and usable with one hand. A quick and very usable Home Button.

But the negatives. Well, there is really just one primary negative. The camera of the 7 (or 8) versus the iPhone X.  I use my smartphone camera a lot. And the Portrait mode in the Plus model meant that the Plus became my smartphone of choice. Some of the photos I’ve taken over the past year or so since having the 7 Plus have been great using Portrait mode, and I find it hard to envisage going back to a smartphone without it. Because of that, I cannot use the iPhone 7 and have been lugging around the 7 Plus. I have to have Portrait mode and seeing Portrait selfie mode in the X is even better.

My ideal smartphone, if Apple were to make one, would be one using the body of the 7 or 8 but putting Portrait mode into it (and keeping it as 256GB please).  And with a black matte backing, if possible, under $1,000.  

The iPhone X is the future, yeah, I know. I hate Face ID. So I will have to put up with it for now and I miss using my old Home Button. And I’ll just get use it having to always use it with two hands, in a strong enough case. I’ll admire the lovely screen and create unicorn Animojis for a while.

…And probably buy the iPhone X2 (or whatever it will be called) next year.