Google, Amazon and Apple Product Launches... but mostly about phones.

Well, you'd think tech, recently, has been an exciting landscape. There have been a lot of big companies making "major" product releases. Frankly, I'm bored. Largely, with all of them.

I already ranted about some of my smart assistant gripes. The most exciting product from Amazon to me was the Echo Spot. But the price point destroys it for me. The most exciting product from Apple... none of them. The most exciting product announce from Google, the headphones (legit).

On smartphones, we are basically where desktop PCs were in the early 2000's. If you buy a high end phone today, you have no reason to upgrade for years to come. There is still a little buzz and shine around new releases. But more and more people are only upgrading their phones when they actually start having issues with them. No phone released in past year introduces any monstrous leap in specs or new functionality which should stem this change.

My phone will paid off in 2 months! I have NEVER paid off a phone before upgrading. Not once since I started buying cell phones. Before they were even smart. If there was a way I could upgrade early, even if it meant paying out an old phone, I always upgraded long before the device was paid off. I've never destroyed or lost a phone before that time either.

The problem? I can't find a reason to upgrade. I'm looking for one. I'm tech fiend. I just bought a Nest Thermostat. It tells me I haven't used heating or cooling at all in the past 3 days. I clearly didn't need that purchase. But I bought it anyway. Because it offered things which seemed tangible upgrades over the previous programmable thermostat. I'm weak willed. This Nexus 6P should have been in the possession of a friend or family member who is much less spontaneous than me months ago.

I have specific demands of my phones. But prior to the Nexus 6P purchase, it was always possible to meet those demands if I was willing to pay enough. Money isn't the problem. The phone I want doesn't exist. If I could piece together features of other high end phones I could probably fabricate something fictitious which would persuade me. But even then, it would probably take a while to entice me enough to bite.

Here are my expectations for a new phone;

• A camera on or near par to the one on the Nexus 6P. We've hit the limit of my expectations from a phone camera. They deliver amazing pictures now.
• A faster processor
• Same or more RAM
• Same or more storage
• Wireless charging
• Same or better battery life
• Similar screen size
• "Pure" Android experience

Wireless charging is new requirement for me. But, either the port or the cord which shipped with Nexus 6P is getting flaky and I am generally able to charge my phone any time it needs it, even if it isn't fast charging. Wireless charging removes a point of failure on the device. Given the aforementioned decline in rapidity of device upgrades this is a new and unexpected requirement for me. I've never owned a device long enough for regular use to result in broken or flaky charging.

This is a trend I think the industry is missing. Many major phones have back tracked on wireless charging. I think it will become more of a consumer demand if phone ownership starts outlasting the life of charging ports and cables.

Phone screens also keep ballooning. And while I realize that every year, today's phablet becomes tomorrow's "small phone" things are getting ludicrous. Most high end phones only come in the smallest in a 5.5 inch form factor. I don't mind what I consider to be a large phone. But the Nexus 6P is already at the edge of my usability. Ideally my next phone would be smaller than this one. But it wouldn't matter, even the larger phones are no longer hitting all of my requirements.

Another side effect in the upwards climb in phone sizes is that the smaller flagship phones also take compromises on battery life. Based on usage estimates... it looks like my Nexus 6P would outlast a similar sized new phone.

And lastly, I demand a pure experience which I think rules out most Android sellers even on the high end. I expect, at least, security updates guaranteed for a reasonable period, the ability to control all reasonable aspects of the UI and to be able to uninstall or safely disable any non-standard app. Once again, given the shift in length of terms of ownership for a phone, these things become more important than they already were.

Apple, I think most people would posit as an alternative. Apple unfortunately is not an option for me. And they weaken their position by deviating from their prior, solid, principles. What made them a weak choice in the first place is that the bulk of the OS has remained unchanged since the iPhone became popular. Grids of icons. Badge notifications. Minimal UI customization. They just keep repainting it. It is dated. Apple's core principle prior to this seemed to revolve around planned obsolescence. They would throw out anything seemingly outdated at the drop of at hat. Today they allow themselves to be beholden to years old design decisions which don't always make sense.

They also, generally, tended to deliver wholly unique experiences across device categories. Now they are doing a hybrid thing where most of their new products run iOS, but they often appear and behave differently. And all of this nonsense is also tied to the same ages old design decisions. This is FAR worse than Microsoft ever attempted, even with Windows 8. They weren't an option to me beforehand. They've simply killed themselves off to me. I understand my feelings and perceptions won't hurt the brands image or even my friends and families opinions of the products. It is personal, there is no universal right or wrong. But, there are personal ones. Apple is, personally, wrong for me.

Also, as Google follows Apple in releasing a phone without a headphone jack, I feel compelled to discuss how I feel time has changed my perception. I still think headphone jacks should be offered. I'm not sure BT headsets offer the same sound fidelity, and I still don't believe they are widespread enough to merit this move.

That being said, I do feel the technology is generally superior (not universally and definitely not for everyone). I bought a wireless set of headphones this year, and now I refuse to plug wired headphones in when I don't need to. The reason? On device controls. Skipping or pausing songs without grabbing a device or switching apps quickly becomes a convenience it is hard to lose. Same with volume adjustments. Answering calls, etc...

It isn't a perfect world. I actually hate wearing my headset while answering calls (big over the ear head phones with little audible clues that anything is actually working until someone responds). And just because my headphones and phone are paired and connected, doesn't mean I'm always wearing them, which can make phone calls a pain. It may seem odd, but even when paired to a wireless headset, I'd rather use the phone itself for phone calls. This could all be solved with more configuration options. And maybe such things will pop up over time. As people are forced to use BT for all headphone usage I'm sure it will emerge that current behaviors weren't really designed with this usage in mind. But I don't hate the concept as much as I did. But that is only because I actually own nice BT headphones.

I do want to talk about the only product announced recently which I'm truly excited about. And that is Google's new headphones. It is the translation services which make it exciting. Google has taken all of the translation related advances lately and baked them into a set of ear buds. I thought Microsoft was winning this race with their Skype enhancements. And while I think the Skype enhancements are great and not necessarily a competitor with this product, I think this is a win in a more tangible way. And a super cool one. It really is super close to the Babel Fish from Hitchhiker's Guide. 

This feature requires a Pixel phone and the 5 hour battery life is disappointing. It uses the Apple charging case approach to offer something closer to a full day without going to an outlet, which I don't really love. But the concept itself is truly incredible.

This got added to my list, which only included HoloLens previously, of emerging tech trends to follow. Both have some critical drawbacks (viewport size and price on HoloLens and battery life and Pixel requirement for the ear buds), but both are solid beginnings for future devices which can change our perception and usage of technologies and even our interactions with other people and the world. 

Phone based AR is another one getting a lot of hype but, I feel, a dead end. Introducing platform support for it after something like HoloLens is like trying to sell a new horse and buggy after the car. HoloLens isn't perfect today as mentioned above and has nowhere near the market of Android and iOS phones. But the phone approaches to AR are undeniably inferior in a way which can't be resolved because it is the phone which marks the biggest deficiency.

It is permanently letter boxed and not meant to be on or in your face. And while it still deliver novel interactions, they will largely be niche applications. It is nothing more than a fallback device. AR on the head or directly into the eye simply has no real competition from a tech perspective from hand held viewports.

It could be a stepping point. But I think the fact that the bulk of apps will be written with handheld usage in mind will, at the least, delay efforts to take that tech to a proper head mounted or similar device.

And there you have it. Tech has finally done something in the past few weeks worthy of writing something about.