Alexa Photo Frame

Amazon had a big fall smart home event this past week in New York City. If I had to pick one product that stood out to me, it’s the Alexa Photo Frame. I think this will be a big hit with a lot of people who want photos in a simple frame that also includes Alexa for things like pulling up photos of specific people by voice command or recording memories about a photo to recall later. For a company that has shipped a whole range of smart home displays over the years, I like that this one focuses mostly on being a photo frame. We’ll see if I keep that opinion if I get to try one of these in person. With Apple HomeView on the horizon, it doesn’t really fit my needs, but I love the concept so much I might have to give it a shot.

A Mac for the iPad generation

Last week Apple announced their new MacBook Pro with a touch OLED screen. There’s been a lot of discussion referring back to Steve Jobs, quoted out of context. I think Federico Viticci at MacStories had a great way to describe touch on a MacBook Pro:

“Steve Jobs was right about many things, but I’ve long disagreed with his take on the “terrible” ergonomics of touchscreen laptops. Sure, you don’t want to be forced to interact with a laptop display that sits perpendicular to the keyboard at all times. But for the occasional interaction that benefits from direct manipulation of content – whether that’s zooming on a picture or rotating a 3D object or game character with your fingers – it’s nice to have a secondary input method that does not rely on a UX abstraction such as a trackpad.”

The rest of Federico's article is a great read and goes into detail on macOS working on a touch display. I think these new MacBook Pros look compelling because of the weight reduction. As a happy M5 Max MacBook Pro owner already, I’ll be waiting for a future Mac chip generation to upgrade to a touchscreen.

Alexa Home Map

Amazon announced a new Alexa Home Map feature at their smart home event last week. It looks like a fascinating and intuitive way to view and control your smart home. I love how Amazon also says they’ll incorporate security camera footage and weather to visualize things around the home on the display. That feels like a lot of compute for something so superficial, but I love that the concept feels pulled in from the future.

The Schedule

Last week I published my review of HomePod mini 2. I also worked on a whole lot of other projects that you'll see soon enough in future videos.

I hope you have a great rest of your Sunday,

Eric