Apple Space Gray Keyboard with Trackpad or Mouse

Dear Friends,

It’s mud season in Vermont. If you haven’t lived there on a dirt road you just won’t get it. I have seen some pictures that show roads gobbling up even the most powerful 4WD vehicles. April in Vermont is a good reason for me to stay in Key West awhile longer.

On the other hand, friends are posting photos of crocus blooming and the daffodils won’t be far behind. There are also reports that the bears have awoken from hibernation and are once again on the search for food. Spring is in the air!

Down here spring means iguanas. With no natural predators, the invasive iguana likes the warm weather, and the local paper is full of comments from residents wanting the city to do something about the invasion. So far, I think my pups are keeping them at bay at my house (knocking heavily on wood) but they can be real pests.

We have received our initial inventory of the new 9.7-inch iPad and the new spring colors for Apple Watch bands, too. We also have some inventory of Apple AirPods, but they are still very constrained and could be hard to get when we are sold out. I was amazed, while sitting in South Beach at a restaurant, how popular they are as many of the people were sporting AirPods.

This week’s Kibbles & Bytes Exclusive is the Apple Factory Refurbished silver MacBook Pro 15-inch with Touch Bar. It has the 2.9 GHz Intel i7 processor, 16GB of ram, a 512GB SSD drive, and 4GB of video ram.This unit has a 1-year Apple Warranty but we are bundling it with AppleCare+ to extend that warranty to 3-years that will provide extended free Apple tech support and up to two incidents of accidental damage (after deductible). At Apple’s online store this identical bundle would cost you $2758.98 plus tax. This week’s special for Kibbles & Bytes readers, while supply lasts is $200 off at $2558.99!

Spring break lasts a long time down here but we are going to soon be back to a calmer time with fewer tourists. The cruise boats will still come but the thousands of college kids taking a break from their studies will be done for the year.

My gardens here seem to be doing well, everything is growing and with the hotter weather I have to fine tune my irrigation system a bit. It is a shame that it is not HomeKit compatible but I bet it will be soon. I can tell Alexa to water the lawn but not Siri, yet.

Thank you so much for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes. We realize that it is you, our loyal customers that ultimately pay our wages. Some time ago, my friend Jen Mayer from Charlotte Street Computers handed me a book entitled “Customer Satisfaction is Nothing, Customer Loyalty is Everything”. The book wasn’t that well written but there is a lot of truth in the title!

Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

Don & Emily

You know that I have a lot of gadgets at my house. So many, that at times Grace gets frustrated with all the home automation stuff. When we have our dog sitter come to stay Grace doesn’t even tell her how to talk to Siri or Alexa. Nevertheless, I have both of those assistants hanging out in my house listening to my every word.

I grabbed one of the first HomePods that we received and set it up in my office at my house. I will definitely be bringing it back to Vermont with me. The HomePod is the best yet both in terms of the sound quality and the integration with my home. I had also tried a Google Home unit some time ago but it was so bad that I sold it on eBay.

Let’s talk music first. I have a lot of ways to interact with my music. I have Sonos everywhere including the Alexa-enabled Play One and with their voice interface with Amazon Alexa it is easy to request music from a variety of sources. In terms of content, at this point I think that Amazon/Sonos has the broadest selection. I can get songs from Pandora, Apple Music or Spotify. I can also get content from Audible and Tune-in.

But I have a pretty large music collection after spending hours/days digitizing all my CDs and spending a lot of money buying from the iTunes store. I also subscribe to Apple Music so I literally have access to more music than I could listen to in my life. So, what sounds the best? HomePod! It is clear to me that the HomePod has better sound quality, deeper bass and clearer sound than the Sonos Play One by a hair and it is not even close when comparing the sound to the tinny Amazon Echo. It is reggae Thursday at my office every Thursday and I just say “Hey Siri, play me some reggae” and she says “sure thing, here’s some reggae just for you”. The play list that results is tailored to me by learning what I like. I can say, “Siri, I really like this song” and she says “okay, I got it” and that helps to fine tune the music the HomePod plays for me. You can even add songs to a playlist or create a playlist by interacting with Siri.

I can tell Siri to pause or stop if I can a call and it is instantaneous which is handy because it is not always party time at the office.

So, with all the technology I have, when I am listening to music in my office it is HomePod now. It is not quite up to the Sonos Play 5s in my bedroom but the sound fills my office perfectly as it automatically adjusts to my room to provide me with optimal sound.

For music I give the nod to HomePod based upon sound quality, intelligence and ease of use. I give the nod to Sonos/Amazon for the breadth of content.

HomePod also serves as your HomeKit server. When I activated my HomePod and got it on my network, I literally had to do nothing to make it take over the HomeKit tasks. It was automatic. While I will probably still keep my AppleTV powered up you do not need an AppleTV or iPad to have remote access to your HomeKit devices.

The integration with HomeKit makes it simple to use. I can simply say “ Hey Siri, turn on the office lights” and she does it. I can also ask her to turn the thermostat up, lock the doors or do any of the tasks that are HomeKit compatible. I also have scenes that mostly work. I say mostly because as a security feature Siri will not unlock your doors so my “good morning” scene requires my iPhone but that security feature is appreciated. I can probably figure out a workaround but I like the security. My other most used scene is “good night”. When I say “hey Siri, good night” she turns off all the lights except the one next to my bed, turns down the thermostat and locks all three doors. She then says “on it!”. I have to say that Siri’s responses are friendlier and hipper than Alexa.

Of course, you can do much of this with Amazon Alexa but it would take multiple commands and Alexa just seems a lot finickier with names of devices. Because HomePod is connected to my network, I can also unlock (with iPhone) and lock my house in Vermont remotely.

Getting information from Siri is pretty much the same as using Siri on your other devices. I find her answers to be more complete than Alexa but again there is more breadth to Alexa’s database. I have heard that Apple has made a bunch of new hires for Siri and I fully expect that Apple is working hard to show Alexa that she is just as smart. Artificial intelligence is just in its infancy and it is pretty exciting to see what it can do. A bit scary, too but unless we start making Terminators we should be okay.

Later this year as Apple continues development of the HomePod you will be able to add a second HomePod to create stereo sound or use Airplay 2 to play the same music (or different music) is separate rooms. This will give Sonos a bit of competition.

HomePod has some other tricks, too. You can receive a call on your iPhone and hand it off to the HomePod for a conference call —we might have to use HomePod in our conference room. When you receive a text, Siri can read it to you on HomePod. You can tell Siri to send texts, make shopping lists, add stuff to your calendar and I am sure this is just the start of Siri’s skills.

After a few weeks with HomePod I can give it my full endorsement. If I had to have just one music device I would choose HomePod for its versatility, sound quality and because of how seamlessly it integrates with my other Apple devices.

Some Apple products I am immediately drawn to and honestly, I don’t even need a valid reason to buy it. For me, being cool is sometimes all I need! Who doesn’t want to pull out the latest Apple product and all of a sudden you’re the center of attention, and everyone wants to get their hands on what you have. When the iPad Pro came out, this was one of those products that I did not immediately put in an order for. Afterall, I have minimal artistic talent and I don’t need to design the next skyscraper. When it was time for me to upgrade my original iPad mini, I upgraded to the 2017 iPad last year. I just didn’t see how I would ever utilize the Apple Pencil and the iPad Pro.

My view has completely changed in the last several weeks. It all started when I went to a conference and realized I was one of the only folks writing notes in a notebook. Yep, a notebook and a pen. In fact, I love my notebooks so much I even had a favorite brand. Despite sitting in front a computer all day and taking extensive notes via Pages or just Notes, I was still an avid writer of notes. It’s my iPhone and my trusty notebooks that attend every meeting with me, until now. When Apple released the 2018 iPad I realized it was time to stop being so narrow-minded about the benefits of the Apple pencil and iPad.

I’ve only been using the Apple Pencil and iPad for a few days now, but I already wonder why it took me so long to realize how much harder I was working to keep myself organized. Before I get into how I’m using the Apple Pencil with the new iPad, let us talk for a moment about the difference between the 2017 and 2018 9.7in iPad. At first glance, you won’t notice much. It is the same size and weight and fits perfectly into my existing case. I did notice that the fingerprint recognition is improved on this model, the response at least is faster in my testing. There is also improved response time when accessing apps, it’s not dramatic but there is a noticeable difference. In my first 24 hours with the iPad I noticed a decline in battery performance, however, I’m using the 2018 iPad constantly during the day. It seems I’ll need to make it a habit to charge my iPad at the conclusion of the workday just like I often need to do with my iPhone. I don’t really see this as a fault.

I upgraded my iPad so that I could leave my notebooks behind, and, after some research, decided on GoodNotes as my notetaking app. This is a paid app, but so far I have not been disappointed. GoodNotes has been around for a while and while you don’t need specifically an iPad that works with Apple Pencil to use it, a few minutes into using it you can see pretty quickly how natural the process feels. I would occasionally handwrite notes in Notes, but often ran into issues with my hand resting on the iPad and poor recognition from the stylus. Commonly styluses have a hard time with fine point response. I now have a copy of all my notes not only on my iPad, but they also sync to my iPhone and backup to the cloud. This means I’ll no longer have to worry about leaving my notes behind!

Pages with Apple Pencil has also been an unexpected advantage. It’s extremely convenient to receive a file and make quick edits and suggestions. The retail managers utilize Pages to create signage in their retail stores and before it goes out I always check things over for compliance. It’s nice to be able to draw right on the file for corrections and suggestions to layout, it eliminates extra back and forth in e-mail when collaboration is not an option.

I have only been using the iPad with Apple Pencil for a few days, but it’s shown me that the benefits of the two go far beyond the narrow thinking I’d had about who is the ideal user. Whether you’re someone doing graphics work or someone like myself who’s just looking to be more organized and professional, you will likely be surprised with how versatile these two products are. I’ll have a more in-depth review in the coming weeks, including feedback on what it’s like to go from pen and paper to digital.