Dear Friends,
Nearly every year the biggest consumer electronics show, CES in Las Vegas is upstaged by Apple. Apple does not attend this gigantic show but the influence of Apple’s products and technology can be seen everywhere at the show. Jason and I were in Las Vegas for three days last week and my iPhone Health App said that I walked over 20,000 steps each day. The show fills the entire Las Vegas convention center and the Westgate, Sands, and Venetian expo centers. It is simply massive.
I remember, many years ago, coming to CES about the time that the candy-colored iMacs were introduced at Macworld Expo and being shocked at how many vendors at the show were taking Apple’s cue and releasing products with brightly colored plastic. Every year it seems that Apple has the greatest influence on consumer electronics even though they are not present at the show and this year was no exception. Of course, there was the iLounge with everything iPad and iPhone and hundreds of other booths offering cases and accessories for Apple’s iOS devices. But different this year was the emphasis on some of Apple’s new tools, mainly HealthKit and HomeKit. There were of course, many companies trying to get the jump on the Apple Watch by offering wearable devices but there seemed to be a lot of waiting for that new product from Apple.
The main convention hall had a lot of products for health and fitness that worked with HealthKit. There were lots of home automation products with HomeKit and a bunch of car audio manufacturers and cool cars had CarPlay compatibility. On a whim, Grace and I decided on the last day to go over to the Sands for the exhibits at that venue and there was a whole section of the floor devoted to Health and Fitness with a lot of HealthKit compatible devices and a whole section on Home Automation with HomeKit. We ended up spending the whole day there.
Aside from the huge Apple influence at the show, there were some other remarkable products on display. A couple years ago there were maybe one or two booths that showed drones and it was certainly a fringe technology. This year there was a whole section on drones with some the size of your hand and some that were very sophisticated. Robotics in other forms were also big at the show with everything from an automated solar panel cleaner to a grill cleaner to these moveable remote controlled displays on a stick from iBeam. It was looking more and more like all the drones and robots from Star Wars.
There were, of course, the usual selection of new TVs with curved 4K OLED being this year’s buzz. Last year it was 3D TV, which seems to have disappeared now. It was a good show, good meetings, and exciting to get a glimpse of future technology.
This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive is my favorite eReader – the iPad mini. I just don’t buy books anymore but read on my iPad mini and we have a handful of leftover iPad minis (2012 edition) with 16GB of storage and WiFi connection. Available either in white or space gray these are only $245 for Kibbles & Bytes readers and I will give you a free Hammerhead Capo case with your purchase (a $25 value!).