3: TV & Home Unleashed
The first part of Apple’s event this week had more than meets the eye
On Monday Apple streamed their “Unleashed” event where they unveiled their new MacBook Pros. The MacBook Pros are amazing! I preordered one myself, but there were a number of other interesting developments this week related to Apple’s home tech.
Apple Music Voice
Apple announced a new level of Apple Music at $4.99 per month. This slots below the current single user plan at $9.99 and family plan at $14.99. This is also the first Apple service you can subscribe to by simply asking Siri, presuming you have a payment method with Apple already setup. The goal here is clearly to compete with Amazon’s Music Unlimited plan for their Echo devices which costs $3.99 per month.
Bravo Apple! One of the most common things I use my HomePods for is playing music. Giving users an easy, but limited way to do this for less cost per month is essential to compete with other home speaker products.
One of the key components of this new Apple Music Voice service are mood based playlists you can ask Siri for. While Apple Music Voice is not yet available, the new playlists are rolling out already to existing subscribers. MacStories did some research has more details on 250+ new mood-based playlists. I tried working to the Deep Focus playlist today. I don’t like it as much as Apple’s curated Pure Focus playlist, but it’s great to have variety. I currently listen to the Pure Focus playlist A LOT during my work week.
HomePod mini in colors
Apple also announced new options to get the HomePod mini in red, blue, and yellow, shipping in November. Apple clarified during the presentation that they not only colored the mesh fabric, but also the touch surface on top, the volume icons, and the braided cable. These colors are a nice addition to the line up. To me it also signals that Apple considers the HomePod mini to be an ongoing success worth investing in.
Third Generation AirPods
Personally, I’m not interested in these AirPods, but I’m glad to see Apple release the long-rumored update. One of the headlining features is that they support spatial audio. I didn’t see anything clearly stating one way or another, but I would bet that means they work with Apple TV’s spatial audio that I talked about earlier this fall on my YouTube channel. I find this to be a great feature when you want to watch content alone.
TV & Home on top at Apple.com
My favorite surprise this week was Apple replacing “Apple TV” with “TV & Home” on their website’s top navigation bar. “Apple TV” is a confusing term for Apple these days given the TV+ service and the set top box and the TV app. When you click on TV & Home you get links to Apple’s TV related topics, the HomePod mini, the Home app and their HomeKit accessories page. I don’t think pairing these two categories is a mistake. As I posited in Issue 0 and the about page of this newsletter, Apple’s home strategy is bigger than HomeKit. Home entertainment hardware, software, and content are all key parts of home life that Apple is focused on. This navigation change, along with the stage time in this week’s big press event, are clear signs that Apple is focusing on the home in a way they might not have in the past.
My video
This week I share my experience switching my internet over to T-Mobile 5G Home Internet. It’s a mix of upgrades, cost savings, and limitations, but is it something I’m keeping? Spoiler alert exclusive to this newsletter, I already called my cable company to cancel my old plan.
Around the web
Apple Virtual Keynote Home Furniture Directory
If you like the style of Apple’s interior design in their home set and other locations in their recent productions, Michael Steeber at 9to5Mac made a great summary with links to furniture after WWDC in June. Most of the furniture is out of my price range. I need to save that money to spend on more Apple products. 😅
Apple’s $19 screen cleaning cloth is sold out
The attention and memes around this product are great. I have no doubt it will be a nice cloth, and I will certainly add it to my wish list for gifts for future holidays. But if you want to get it anytime soon, you better check for in store pickup because it is heavily backordered online.
The REAL reason why the M1 Max is so fast
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hello thanks for the reply... when you say it uses bluetooth, it works via bluetooth to communicate to the nearest hub available? so if the Apple tv hub is too far or in basement and i have the sensor on second floor, will that cause issues?
How are eve homekit products… ? I am looking for some light switchs and motion/ occupancy sensors.