All Apple All Day

Our first plans for expanded built-ins!  It's been a while, but finally, we know where we're going.   As promised, here are the first (very rough) plans for how our built-in cabinets will look after the renovation.  The only question at this point - can we do this ourselves?  I'm thinking that the answer is "yes", with one exception - the media cabinets (or at a minimum, the cabinet doors) will have to be purchased.  The open-shelving portion of each new bookshelf will be a DIY project, as will the crown molding and baseboards. 

I was at our local Best Buy on Sunday - not really looking for anything in particular. Nest thermostats, AirPlay stereos, maybe a new TV for the office. ASIDE: Back in college, I worked at a Best Buy for a month around the holidays. It was excruciatingly boring, and I quit as soon as I left for home at Christmas break. I have no trouble spending hours in a Best Buy on my own, but the minute they start  paying  me to be there, I'm crawling up the walls to get out.  I walked into the Magnolia room - after all, I was just browsing, and they have the best stuff in Best Buy - and I noticed a display of in-wall speaker systems.  "Aha!", I thought. "This is the solution for the living room home theater - expand the built-in shelving, and incorporate in-wall speakers!" There's going to be an open space where the mantle overhangs, directly to the left and right of the TV... this could work. 

I need to pick up some HDMI cables immediately. We've been using a set that we purchased from Monoprice about a year ago.  Unfortunately, they aren't quite long enough to run through our walls, and their nylon jackets make them rather stiff and inflexible.  If I'm going to be tearing my drywall apart and cutting notches in the studs to fish HDMI cables through, I want the thinnest, most flexible cables that I can buy. (Also, I want them to be cheap.) We're also looking at speakers - we currently have a Bose Acoustimass 5.1 double-cube speaker system in our living room. It gets the job done, and the speakers are very small.  We could certainly use some wall mounts and incorporate the Bose cubes into the new home theater system. It would look fine, and would cost nothing.  But we're also considering in-wall speaker solutions.  (We'll look at the options for in-wall speakers tomorrow. For now, let's look at in-wall HDMI cables.) 

I'm looking for a used AirPort Extreme. In all the usual places - eBay, Craigslist.  I'll probably get one this week. Why? It's a long story.  A while back, I picked up an AirPort Express A1084 router on Craigslist, and found that it was incompatible with my AirPort Utility and wireless-n network, even though it looked *identical* to the current model of AirPort Express.  So, I wrote a post on this blog about the different types of AirPort Express routers, noting that if you're looking for used Airport Express routers to extend your AirPlay network, you'd better seek out model A1264. In the months that followed, Apple updated the AirPort Express again, changing the form factor (it looks like a little white AppleTV now), adding simultaneous dual-band support, and giving it model number A1392.  ASIDE: I'm not totally convinced that the form-factor change was an improvement. The A1264 plugged directly into the wall, which was incr

No one talks about the iPod anymore. I only know of two types of people using them these days - preteens using iPod touches for gaming, and people using old Nanos or Shuffles for running.   And, I suppose, my sister, who has an iPod permanently residing in a dock and acting as her home stereo system. But for about 6 years, from 2001 until the iPhone's announcement in 2007, it was THE gadget.  Music only, and we liked it that way. When the iPhone was just a rumor, one critic memorably said "I love my iPod. I don't want it to ring ." These are the 5 "Greatest" iPods. They're not necessarily the 5 "best" iPods - obviously, the Touch is the most capable, "best" iPod. But can it really be called the "greatest", when it's practically an afterthought in the Apple product line? And these iPods aren't being graded on a curve, either. Obviously, the original iPod was the most revolutionary for its time

We've been in the new house for about six months, and there's still a huge pile of HDMI wires running from our TV over the fireplace, to the AV stand holding our components.  It works great, it looks terrible.  It's time for a change. I could bury the HDMI cables in the wall horizontally, or run them through the basement and back up.... but the former plan requires expensive drywall work, and the latter has a fireplace in the way and might be impossible. Time for a bold plan. Time for wall-to-wall built in cabinets!

We love our AppleTV. It's tiny, it needs only 2 cables (HDMI and power), and it can access the entire iTunes content ecosystem.  We've used it to rent movies, stream almost everything from our iPad, and play music from our full iTunes library - which is stored on our iMac, while using an iPhone as a remote.  Clearly, for a "hobby" device, Apple has created a killer iPad accessory. It's practically mandatory at this point. Go get one. But you know what it can't do well? Stream a video library. Which is why I'm interested in an HTPC.

I wrote a post, about a week or so ago, expressing skepticism about the Apple iWatch rumors.  Basically, my thought process boiled down to " People wouldn't want to show off an iWatch, so Apple shouldn't make one ". And still the rumors continue to build.... Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that Apple was experimenting with some sort of curved-glass wristwatch, which would have some iOS functionality. I still didn't get it, and wrote it off as an "Apple HDTV" type of wish-rumor.  After all, it's been a few years since Steve Jobs wowed us all with the iPad. Tablets are mainstream now. We want to be astounded by Apple again. So we look around our houses and try to figure out what products Apple could improve upon. And for the moment, the idea is wristwatches. 

Finishing a basement is never an easy process. But before we can even start, we have to decide where we want to finish. Our basement isn't huge, so we're not going to be adding much in the way of walls or rooms. It will primarily be a large open area, with a small storage room, a bathroom (thankfully, rough plumbing is already in place) and a furnace room. We're working on a long timeline - the image you see on the right is our aspiration for 2013 - getting the rigid foam insulation glued into place. Plans after the jump.

Let's fire up the Wayback Machine and take a look at the Top Five tech items from a decade ago!  ( "Wayback Machine": a reference that is, in itself, so dated that it makes me seem older than a post about VCRs and CDs .) 10 years ago, I was a second-year attorney in downtown Chicago. The Cubs were starting a magical season that would end.... well, it would end just tragically. And for the first time, I had some disposable income. And I did my best to dispose of it. I was a fixture at the North and Clybourn Best Buy, and constantly tracked eBay (and later, Craigslist) for bargains. These days, it's difficult to find a true "bargain" on eBay - everyone seems to know precisely what everything is worth, and if you describe/photograph your item properly, you can more or less guess the final auction price.  eBay functions about as closely to a "perfect market" as anything this side of the NYSE, which is amazing when you consider that

Passport is a great idea. Not just a "good way to handle tickets", but a Great Idea in general. It's a platform/app that the iPhone should have more of - an aggregator of content from other apps.  If and when iRemote becomes a reality, the idea should be the same: Apple will provide the platform, and  consumer electronics makers will create their own "cards" or "modules", which provide control for their products.  Within the iRemote app, we'd seamlessly flip between controlling our Blu-Ray player, and controlling our lighting system - in the same way I can flip between my Starbucks card and the movie ticket I bought on Fandango six weeks ago. Wait, is that seriously all there is in my Passbook?

Here in the Chicago suburbs, we had two options for whole-home DVR services. We initially went with WOW Ultra TV, and after about 4 months, we switched to DirecTV's HR34 Genie system. (Neither Verizon FIOS nor AT&T UVerse were available in our area, so we can't review those. I haven't used Dish's Hopper, either. This is a straight compare/contrast review of WOW vs. DirecTV.) Both Ultra TV and Genie have their plusses and minuses. Both offer 1080p output, but that's primarily for the menus, as most TV content is provided at lower resolutions.  Both systems have a similar design architecture - a central hub, with multiple tuners and a large hard drive, recording and storing all TV shows, and distributing them to televisions around the house upon request.  Both systems also bring a number of "add-on" apps and have ways of accessing "on demand" content.  We've had each system for enough time to really put them through

These guys clean up pretty well!  Considering that these foosball men have gotten progressively filthier from the time this table was installed, in a bar/roller rink/whatever in the 1970's, I really couldn't have asked for better results. We're talking about 30+ years worth of dust and grime and spills. I used Goo Gone, which has been my product of choice for cleaning up vintage collectible stuff over the last 15 years. (I learned back in the 90's that you can take a brittle, 20 year old pricetag off of a Star Wars carded figure with no problem with enough patience and enough Goo Gone. I'd imagine you can take mailing labels off of an old magazine with it too - but I'd tread lightly.)

We're just getting started with an Insteon home automation system. There are a few light switches in our house that I'd like to be able to control remotely (for example, our outdoor lights are accessible only from the garage), and there are others that I'd like to be able to control in tandem - for instance, setting "scenes" in our living room, dimming certain lights and turning others off when we watch a movie.  Just recently, however, Belkin announced some additions to their WeMo system - including light switches - that may make the system a plausible alternative to Insteon. Let's compare and contrast.

I've seen a few stories recently predicting that Apple will produce some kind of wristwatch in 2013.  I really, really doubt it. And that's not based on analyzing Apple's component buys, or reading rumor sites. I just can't believe that the company that did more than almost any other to sink the wristwatch will come back and create a wristwatch a few years later. 

I'm a computer forensics attorney, which partially explains my focus on gadgets and tech. When I'm not traveling to client sites, I work from home. And since we moved last summer, I've had the opportunity to put together a pretty solid home office.  It became apparent really, really quickly that I needed a printer/scanner that had a document feeder - essentially every day, I'm printing-signing-scanning some sort of document. I currently have a Canon PIXMA MX410. It's a very good all-in-one printer. It has a document feeder, it works wirelessly with my work PC and my iMac, and it's pretty easy on the ink. I have absolutely no complaints. Actually, I have one complaint. The MX410 is not AirPrint capable. So I can't print directly from an iPad or iPhone.

Steve Jobs once famously called Blu-Ray a "bag of hurt" when explaining why Apple never built a Blu-Ray drive.  I'm sure Steve believed that, too - Blu-Ray likely seemed like more trouble than it was worth for Apple, especially given Apple's decision to move away from physical media.  At the time of that statement, the HD-DVD v. Blu-Ray war was recently ended, and it was unclear whether or how long Blu-Ray would be a dominant format. Basically, there were too many variables in play for Apple to jump in and deliver their trademark seamless user experience.  But won't an Apple remote control face the same obstacles? Sure, at first. But given Apple's power to shape an ecosystem, not necessarily for very long.

There are quite a few lists of "Apple's Greatest Flops" floating around the web. This isn't EXACTLY one of those lists. Some of these products sold pretty well. One was everywhere. Instead, this list focuses on products that didn't have a purpose, that had a tragic flaw or were tragically underpowered - products for which Apple probably wishes they could have a "do-over". We aren't going to talk about the Apple Newton MessagePad on this list, because at least there was vision  involved. That product's failure was in that it arrived too soon (1993) and tried to do too much, and with too little connectivity. It was essentially a PalmPilot, with attempted handwriting recognition, 5 years too early. If you take a Newton, add a cellular radio, and allow it to exist in a world with cellular networks (like, say, 1998), or home wifi (like, say, 2002) it's a phenomenally powerful device for the nineties, right? Basically, a proto-iPhone. Let&

Great news ! Honda (and presumably Apple)  just announced a number of car models that will feature Siri Eyes Free , and the Acura RDX is among them . (And the Accord, but whatever.) I drive a 2008 Acura RDX, and while we still have a handful of years left before we think of trading it in, it's good to know that our next car will have Siri Eyes Free. (Because the RDX is awesome, it got even better with the 2012 revamp, and we're sticking with it indefinitely.)

The big news from Apple this week wasn't all that much news at all. As rumored, they announced a 128 GB iPad 4. Which I'm sure is awesome. But is it really necessary? Or interesting? It certainly has no power to stir the hearts of men. It's just a spec bump. It's barely worth writing about - I can't imagine that Apple is going to move a ton of these at $799. But it feels strange that Apple even thought this was necessary. I agree with Citibank analyst Glen Yeung, who feels that this was a "defensive" move , perhaps made in reaction to Microsoft's upcoming Surface Pro. Apple? Doing things in reaction to Microsoft releasing some product? In 2013? Has the world gone upside down?! Dogs and cats, living together... mass hysteria! And yet.... Mr. Yeung may be right.  It's hard to argue that the iPad mini was a defensive move, intended to compete with the Kindle Fires and assorted Android tablets in the low end of the tablet market. And now, 128G

This is the first in a new AAAD feature - the High Five. A list of 5 items that fit into a common theme. Today, the top five Apple products I never owned, but that I'd really wanted. (And in many cases, still want, and plan to incorporate into our new house.) Some of them were flops that washed out of stores before I'd had a chance to get one - others were major sellers that came out when my only disposable income was a weekly allowance. One is a best-seller that's still part of the product line.  This isn't a list of "quirky Apple products no one remembers", like the QuickTake camera or the 20th Anniversary Macintosh, or the Mac TV. Today's list consists of 5 Apple things that were well-known enough for me to Apple-geek-out over, but that for one reason or another, I never acquired. Let's get started after the jump with the computer pictured right here.....

Logitech recently announced that they're selling several lines of business, including their Harmony remote control division , and while there hasn't even been a whispered rumor about Apple among the suitors, Apple should be considering the purchase. Apple doesn't necessarily need to purchase Logitech's Harmony division... but they should seriously consider co-opting what Harmony used to do well in the remote-control market. Apple's expertise in user-interfaces could deliver a remote control device that would act as a central hub for home entertainment and automation.  And the best way to do that may be by purchasing Harmony - if only for the IP and the optics.  To the extent that Logitech is selling patented tech with the Harmony division, that tech could help Apple in developing the iRemote. And even if no helpful patent or tech is included in the sale, the acquisition of a major remote-control maker like Harmony would demonstrate - conclusively - th

Our previously-documented issues with Comcast just got stranger today. This is just getting pathetic.  If you hadn't read my previous posts, we were going to switch our internet provider from WOW to Comcast - primarily b/c WOW charges $50/month, and Comcast had an introductory offer at about $35/month for the first 6 months.  So we called a Comcast tech, who told us that he couldn't install internet service without laying new cable and digging a trench in our yard, and that he couldn't dig a new trench until spring...  ...so would we mind if he just dragged a few hundred feet of coax across our yard, to be buried at some indiscriminate point in the spring when they might be able to schedule it?  Well, yes. Yes we would mind. Because that is stupid. 

You know what's expensive? Pretty much any iPhone plan. But you know what's really expensive? Two iPhone plans - one with AT&T and the other with Verizon. A family divided (on cellphone providers) is an inefficient family.  So, yesterday we bit the bullet and got Mrs. AAAD a white iPhone 5. The old white iPhone 4 is headed to eBay. We'll pay AT&T $135 in early termination fees, and we'll pay Verizon a $35 activation fee.  Totally worth it. 

This review comes to you courtesy of GoGo inflight Internet - making air travel substantially more tolerable since 2010 (or so.) I'm currently en route to LaGuardia for a few days of business meetings. 6:00 am flight = 3:45 AM alarm, 4:30 AM taxi... But at least there's GoGo.   It's easy to take in-flight wireless for granted, and I'm more guilty of that than most. If I'm on a flight with no wifi, I'm legitimately disappointed/annoyed. Bad character trait, I suppose. And it's not a desire to get work done - I primarily goof around on iOS devices, and pay for the privilege.

If you're like me, your iPhone Newsstand folder is completely empty. Maybe you have a New York Times app - maybe not. On the iPad, the Newsstand is useful - there are magazines that use the platform. On the iPhone, less so. I wish that Apple would make Newsstand an iPad-only app aggregator. And while we're at it, how about a single platform for Remote Control apps - with the ability to add third party app "modules" as needed? 

There's no question that Tivoli Audio makes fantastic-looking electronic equipment. It's also well-built and sounds great as an AM/FM radio.  What it doesn't do is AirPlay. Tivoli sells some Bluetooth-capable Model One radios (for $259.99), and seems to have a new Bluetooth device that can be used in conjunction with a standard radio ($149.99) to stream music.   But that's a lot of money, and it's not iOS or AirPlay. I want this to be simple . And cheap. 

We have a cable problem. I'm not talking about our TV service, which is awesome (thanks DirecTV!) or the actual HDMI cables connecting our components (which are a giant mess, but whatever, they're all getting buried in the walls soon.  I'm talking about piles and piles of loose, often obsolete, connector cables that pile up in my (and, probably your) life over the years.  At first, I was able to put them all in a freezer bag. Then, I needed a shoebox. Finally, a 2x1x1 box from Amazon. And cables are popping out of it in every direction.  And yet, when I really, really needed an S-Video cable last year for capturing some video from an S-VHS player, I didn't have one. It's a mess that's getting on my wife's nerves - and it's a useless mess, seeing as I'm still buying cables for specific tasks! Clearly, I need to come up with a solution. 

I know I've done a lot of posts lately about Apple in general. But this blog is actually only PARTLY about Apple - it's primarily about our iOS-centered home remodel/update. And while technology is a big part of the remodel, there are other parts, too. 2x4s. Drywall. Furniture. Cabinets. And a game room. The first item arrived a couple of months ago - our Deustcher Meister 1970's era foosball table. My family picked this up in the early 1990s, I played it rather religiously through highschool with my friends, and I remember it looking pretty old back then. It looked substantially older when I picked it up from my parents new house last fall. The players were filthy. The rods were rusted. The ramps (in each corner, to the side of the goal) were chipped and pulling away from the playing surface. One of the players was facing backwards. Obviously, that won't do.

Okay, I'll grant that it probably hasn't been a full year. We're reviewing the latest version of the SiriusXM app for iPad, which is excellent, and should be a mandatory purchase for all SiriusXM subscribers.  For most of us, satellite radio is strictly for the car. Getting their signal in your house was a ridiculously difficult process - you needed to purchase equipment, and use an antenna near a window. I wasn't interested.  I also wasn't particularly interested in their browser-based internet radio (even though I had it on a free trial.) It was more or less tied to the computer, and my speakers weren't great.  Then, SiriusXM released a mobile app, (and worked out their contract issues with Howard Stern, making his broadcasts available on the app), and Apple introduced AirPlay, making every bit of iPad audio stream-able to any AirPlay device. Suddenly, this was a seriously compelling product. I could listen to any SiriusXM content, over my home

The size is almost perfect. The small bezel on the sides, the shape - the iPad mini is almost exactly what I've been looking for. But I don't have one, and I probably won't get one this year. The reason is - it just doesn't provide any functionality I'm not already getting from my iPad and iPhone. It doesn't quite think different enough for me.   Next year, I want the Mini to be higher-tech, with a Retina screen - and to incorporate some old-timey tech, too. More after the jump. 

The Wall Street Journal and a number of other outlets reported last week that Apple was going to begin producing a cheaper iPhone, presumably going after the "economy phone" market. It would cost users nothing with a 2-year contract, and it would only cost Apple all of the ideals they hold most dear, and much of their current business model.   I suppose that's a bit of an exaggeration. But not entirely.  Story time! 15 years ago, Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy. Their stock price was in the single digits, and had been for essentially the entire nineties. They were lost. I was still an Apple fanboy, and purchased a Mac LC 3 to take with me to college.  The Mac LC (which stands for "low-cost color") is precisely the kind of misguided product that the  low-cost iPhone - let's call it the "iPhone LC" would be. The computer was so underpowered that  a warning bubble popped up telling me that it literally could not run the MacPaint so

I've read a few reviews of the Ronin case by Element, and, true, it's not the most practical purchase at $199. It's a phone case. But just look at it . The wooden sides, curved ever so slightly. The milled aluminum. The leather back . The last time I felt this way toward a gadget was when I saw the first iPhone. It's just so perfect looking. I guess I'm a sucker for wood trim on my electronics... And since when does practicality enter into the equation? I'm buying a $250 thermostat , for crying out loud, and I definitely spend a lot more time with my phone in my hand than I do my thermostat. Okay, I've convinced myself. I'm buying this thing. And I'll take pictures and review it here.

I imagine that headline sums up a pretty common course of action these days. I just dropped AT&T wireless, after 6 years of iPhone fun. Things had gotten a bit better following our move to the suburbs. Back in Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood, it was common to have no service whatsoever. AT&T explained that a cell tower had completely failed in our neighborhood, creating a "dead zone", and that there were no current concrete plans to repair it. And still, they offered no solutions whatsoever. No microcell, no equipment swap, no SIM replacement, nothing. Basically, a "deal with it" stance. Which is their prerogative.

It's been slow going at the AAAD residence, as we've tried out a half-dozen TV/internet/phone providers over the first seven months we've been in the new house. We finally seem to have hit on the right "unbundled" combination: DirecTV's HR34 "genius" box for TV/DVR AT&T standard, basic phone service (VOIP was unable to play nicely with our security system) ...and Comcast cable internet, at least during its six-month introductory rate.   or, at least I THOUGHT that's how it would work. I wasn't really expecting Comcast to utterly fail to install internet service to a single-family home in a Chicago suburb. And yet, that's precisely what happened.