hapticmonkey

I don't know much about this, but does "proximity pairing" use some open standard API that's part of the bluetooth spec? Are there any examples of other devices using something like this?

Part of the appeal of Airpods is how seamless they are to pair and share between devices. The UX of bluetooth headphones pairing and device switching before Airpods came along seemed atrocious.

Is this a case of Apple arbitrarily locking out third parties, or is a case of Apple doing the work to get something to work nicely and now being forced to give competition access?

The best (in terms of image quality) consumer displays on the market right now are OLED TVs from LG and Samsung. But they’re also “Smart” TVs.

I keep mine disconnected and use an external media box (AppleTV 4K).

Google Streamer has hardware AV1 support, although I’m unsure if it can direct play with Plex.

AppleTV with Infuse can direct stream and software decode AV1 at 4K 24fps. Not sure about AV1 HDR though.

I uninstalled it after about half an hour of use when it became clear the app kept pushing me to watch videos with Andrew Tate (with him on the top half of the screen and random racing games on the bottom half). It’s dystopian.

Infuse is a game-changer. I’ve been network streaming from my own media servers since the days of the original Xbox Media Center. Infuse is the best setup I’ve used. It a shame there’s nothing comparable in terms of polish on Linux or Android.

Does that work with the DRM from streaming apps, though? Can you get 4K and atmos with Netflix or Disney+ with that hardware? And an easy remote and UI?

> Then it is Apple that is harvesting your data.

They quite literally have settings to disable that. There are no ads in the operating system.

https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/tv/atvb66239fa1/tvos

I'm sure some conspiratorial thinking would lead people to the conclusion that Apple are secretly tracking and selling data. There is no evidence to suggest this is happening.

It's probably the next best thing to setting up your own linux home theater PC. But that comes with trade-offs with UX and DRM blocking 4K streaming apps and lack of Dolby Vision playback.

My LG TV has been offline for the past 2 years (since I got it). I'm so much happier using the Apple TV.

I know people want "dumb" displays, but the reality is that these OLED panels offer industry-leading image quality and benefit from economies of scale, where most users want some form of built-in OS. A signage board cannot compete on price or quality. As long as TV manufacturers let me run it offline without issue, I'm fine with that.

Also fwiw, you can use apps like Infuse on the Apple TV for playing your own media files over the network. No Need for USB drives, just connect direct to the shared folder.

Apps placed in the top row of the app grid get to display content at the top area, when that app is selected. Most apps use it for things like continue watching or show recommendations.

That’s very different from turning on your TV and seeing an ad for Mercedes or whatever taking up the screen.

There are no ads in the AppleTV operating system itself.

The only Apple “ads” I ever see are inside the Apple TV+ app (yeah, their naming is confusing…) and it’s only for TV shows they’re promoting in their streaming service.

This is like the Rick and Morty “you pass the butter” joke.

All the talented engineers pouring into AI realising they’ve just been used as tools of the ad-tech market to serve more ads to people. That’s their real purpose.

Please get out and go and make something better. Before even your most treasured moments, like reading kids bedtime stories, become commodified with ads.

https://ai.google.dev/competition/projects/storybook-ai-bedt...

I've seen some on private sites. My guess is they are not popular enough yet. Or pirates are using specific hardware to bypass Widevine encryption (like an Nvidia Shield and burning keys periodically) that doesn't easily get the AV1 streams.

Remember when the Youtube app overrode the AppleTV screensavers, to show their own screensavers if Youtube was paused.

Any other app, you leave a video paused, the OS screensaver will come on. Those beautiful, aerial screensavers that are better than any screensaver I've ever seen in all my decades of working with computers. So of course the Youtube app had to block them with their own shitty variant. They have no taste and no respect.

I started out using XMBC on the original XBOX. Eventually evolved it to Kodi and various HTPC setups when HD video became popular.

These days I’ve settled on AppleTV 4K with Infuse. It’s just so much more polished and reliable than anything else.

While I appreciate what Kodi can do, it’s UX is stuck in 2005. And decisions like how it handles the BACK button while playing is just so odd to me.

It's quite obvious that these devices are a prototype for some eventual immersive AR glasses. Sure, they are currently bulky and heavy and have poor battery life and block your face. But these companies hope to eventually iterate all of that away.

This is the groundwork. But I don't know if they have a larger vision (pun intended) other than "oh shit, the smartphone industry has been conquered and now sees diminishing returns, we need something else to generate revenue".

> What does Apple bundles with their Vision Pro for $3500?

That the device you strap to your face isn't tracking your personal data.

Depends on the TV brand. I use an LG OLED TV and it’s 100% fine being used as a “dumb” TV. I keep it disconnected and use an AppleTV. I never see the TV’s operating system unless I want to adjust picture settings.

Apple gets a lot of criticism but one thing I do like is that their devices at least respect me. The AppleTV streaming box has no ads in the OS and OS-level data sharing is opt-out.

It’s nothing inherently bad with “smart” devices. Just the business models behind them.

New LG OLED TV’s are fine. You can keep them disconnected and just use external HDMI inputs without any nagging or issue.

My AppleTV 4K’s “reduce loud sounds” and “enhance dialogue” features have made watching TV at night bearable again.

These sorts of things are fun projects, and I appreciate the effort that goes into them. But running my own media server with 4K mkv files I can browse and play on an OLED TV is light years ahead of what I had in the 90s, and I love it.

If the future is AI, then a future where every compute has to pass through one of a handful of multinational corporations with GPU farms...is something to be wary of. Local LLMs is a great idea for smaller tasks.

Before AI, people complained that Google was taking world class engineering talent and using it for little more than selling people ads.

But look at that example. With this new frontier of AI, that world class engineering talent can finally be put to use…for product placement. We’ve come so far.

My LG OLED has never been connected to the internet. It never complains about it or asks me to connect. There’s a setting to automatically load the last used HDMI input when it turns in. I haven’t seen the TV’s Home Screen or OS in years. Probably as good as you can get at the consumer level.

Even if an article is not about AI, the comments section will somehow find a way to make it about AI.

It’s exhausting.

It's pretty clear to me that Youtube shoving endless low quality content towards kids is their intended business model. It's what drives the most engagement. It's why they don't let you permanently disable YouTube Shorts. It's why they don't let you block channels easily any more. Or dislike videos. They're AB testing themselves into a low quality slop firehose.

There's some truly great content on the platform, some of it even for kids. But it gets drowned out by mountains of algorithmic slop.

I have stopped giving my kid access to Youtube. instead I set up my own media server, filled it with pirated TV shows and Movies I can curate, and give them access to that on the TV and iPad in their allowed screen times.

If anyone reading this ever gets the chance, go to Tekapo in New Zealand and enjoy the sky. The area is park of a Dark Sky Reserve. I enjoyed a midnight stargazing tour complete with telescopes and hot springs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aoraki_Mackenzie_International...

What a great future we are building. If AI is supposed to run everything, everywhere....then there will be 2, maybe 3, AI companies. And nobody outside those companies knows how they work.

This has been my experience as well.

Something about the human brain just makes it very bad at observing a mocked-up screen layout and understanding how well it works in practice. Apply that to an entire application with multiple functions and the problem increases exponentially.

Experience helps speed things up. But rapid iteration with a fast feedback loop is the best practice. Design is not doing the start of the loop, it’s doing the entire loop. Repeatedly.

This is partly why I take issue with the “iMessage green bubbles are anti-competitive” attitude.

Google and Microsoft mishandled chat so badly they basically handed Apple and WhatsApp the crown in the consumer space.