Apple’s 2 moves highlight ho-hum tech year
With no new product categories and no breakthroughs in wireless communications, we found ourselves squaring off against a market trying to push existing technology into places where it doesn’t really fit.
[...] we got things like cars with wireless hotspots, which could come in handy if you want to watch a movie on your laptop while waiting for a tow truck.
Or the Bluetooth electric toothbrush, which tells you, via a smartphone app, to brush harder, softer or longer.
Each panel has an LCD screen with a big number denoting the toasting level, and bars that disappear one-by-one as toasting proceeds.
[...] it’s just a toaster, with same basic mechanism the things have employed since it became a must-have appliance in the 1930s.
[...] they were business moves by Apple: the acquisition of Beats Music, which spells victory for streaming music over downloads; and Apple Pay, which uses tap-and-pay technology that Google and others have been trying to seed the market with for a few years.
The Google apps — things like Docs, Gmail, Maps — are embedded in the Android operating system.
For most people, that’s not a good idea, because rooting requires some tech savvy along with Internet research to find and use the necessary software.
The best way to speed things up on an Android tablet or smartphone is to back up all your data and perform a factory data reset, both of which can be done by going to Backup & Reset in the main settings.
A friend told me I would need the original remote control for my TV, and that’s gone missing (I haven’t needed it because I’ve been using the remote I got from Comcast).
Remotes from Comcast and other TV providers can’t switch sources.