All Apple All Day

I haven't been to Phoenix for a few years. (Granted, this polar vortex has me rethinking that course of action.) My grandmother spends her winters down there (and statistically speaking, so does yours), and millions flock to the area in February/March for MLB Spring Training. And now, two of my favorite companies in the world - Apple and the Chicago Cubs - call the same Phoenix suburb their year-round home. That Phoenix suburb - Mesa - recently invested heavily in both entities. Here's why.

It's no secret that we're huge Nest fans here at AAAD. We're also, obviously, huge Apple fans.  So when word got out last week that Google was paying three and a half BILLION dollars for Nest, the AAAD household had to deal with some cognitive dissonance.  How can we love Apple *and* the Google-ified Nest? Turns out it's easy. Read on. 

When it comes to iPhone cases, you can usually go in one of two directions - plastic and a bit gaudy, or elegant, but unbelievably expensive. Occasionally, we see cases that are gaudy AND unbelievably expensive.  Apple's new iPhone 5S case splits the difference. It is elegant, minimalist, and priced in line with the competition. 

There's no question that iTunes was a game-changer for Apple.   But has the time come for it to just... go away?

DirecTV's official stance regarding their equipment is " you get what you get and you don't get upset. " But this is the tech-blog world! We're powered on a constant cycle of early upgrades! Surely the AAAD household can get its hands on the latest and greatest DirecTV boxes. Let's find out. 

It's been a while since I did a High Five feature around here. And it's Christmas! So what are you hoping for this year? Here's what we're hoping for around the AAAD household for the 2013 holidays.  (Or, more accurately, for 2014... we aren't getting any of these things this month. They're PRICEY.) 1. Lutron RadioRA 2 I previously thought I'd do whole-home lighting with an Insteon system... and they've REALLY improved their product lineup this year - but I just don't really like the look of the keypads.  They look like old touch-tone phones. The Lutron keypads are the gold standard.  A few years ago, I stayed at the Andaz hotel at Wall & Water in lower Manhattan (by the way, a spectacular hotel!), and every room had a Lutron lighting panel. You had your choice of multiple "scenes" - hit one button, and all the lights in the room dimmed, except for the ambiance lights behind the TV, which turned on. So cool.  I fig

A few months ago, I wrote about the Redmere High Speed HDMI cables that are available at Monoprice. They're unbelievably thin... about the same size and flexibility as your iPhone charging cable. Last week, I finally got around to ordering four 15-foot cables. And literally the next day, I got an email about the NEW and IMPROVED Redmere HDMI cables! Good thing I hadn't opened the old ones.

This post starts with a rather embarrassing story.  Last summer, we were invited to a Friday evening happy hour at our neighbors' house.  (That isn't the embarrassing part.)

We had a bit of a crisis in the AAAD household last week.  It snowed in the Chicago suburbs (a little bit, and very unexpectedly), and our second-grader would not be allowed out for recess without snow pants . 

I'm a huge fan of the Nest Thermostat.  I'd been looking for a thermostat that could be controlled via iOS for a long time, but the Nest was just so far ahead of the competition in terms of design.  The use of brushed metal instead of plastic... the integrated LED... the "solid" feel to the spinning wheel, with just the right amount of resistance... it's just a beautiful piece of technology.  So when I learned that Nest was releasing an API, and had its eye on the entire home automation ecoystem, I was excited.  But how much is all of this going to cost?