LAS VEGAS – Garmin wants to keep you looking fashionable when you’re exploring outdoors or just around town with its fenix 5 watches. Cesar Palacios shows Jeff Gamet what you can do with Garmin’s latest smartwatches at CES 2017.
This Dual-Battery Wireless Backlit Keyboard for Mac Has It All
We like backlit keyboards. We also like wireless keyboards. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many options that feature both, especially when it comes to Mac-specific models. But accessory firm Matias is looking to change that with the CES announcement of the Wireless Aluminum Keyboard with Backlight. It’s a sleek Apple-style Bluetooth keyboard with support for up to four devices and, here’s the kicker, separate batteries for the keyboard and the backlight. That means when your energy-hogging backlight goes out, you can keep on typing without skipping a beat. The keyboard ships in June in Silver and Space Gray color options, but you can pre-order now for $139.
Blue Microphones Launches Sadie Headphones, Ella Headphones with Planar Speakers
LAS VEGAS – Blue Microphones announced two new high-end headphones at CES, Sadie and Ella. Sadie is essentially the next iteration of the company’s Mo-Fi headphones that I like so much. Sadie dumps the tension controls in the top band to make them lighter, and the company lightened and tightened other physical elements of the design, too. The company told me the sound profile has been tweaked, too, but until I can test them out, I won’t offer any judgement. Sadie is priced at $399.99. Ella features planar magnetic speakers, but Blue says they’ve been tuned to deliver both the detail inherent to planar magnetic speakers and the kind of impact you get from dynamic drivers. Ella also features the swing arm and hinged band that makes the Mo-Fi (and Sadie) headphones such a pleasure to wear. Ella is priced at $699.99. I’ll be covering these headphones in more detail when I review them. In the photo below, Ella is in the foreground, while Sadie is in the background.
Speck's Presidio CLEAR for MacBook Pro Has 4-Feet Drop Protection
LAS VEGAS – Speck announced a new case for MacBook Pro (13-inch) that features 4-feet drop protection. Considering the lack of a MagSafe connector for charging on Apple’s new MacBook Pro models, drop protection may be on the minds of lots of folks. Speck said the case is made from its Impactium Clear material originally used for iPhone cases. As the name suggests, Presidio CLEAR is see-through, and it has a “no-slip grip” feel to it. It ships in later in the first quarter of 2017 and is priced at US$99.95—it hasn’t yet been added to the Speck website. I’ve never been a fan of cases on MacBooks, but drop protection? Come on, that’s cool.
Robo's R2 and C2 Printers are Easy to Use Out of the Box at CES 2017
LAS VEGAS – Robo thinks 3D printers should be more than just functional, so Coby Kabili tells Jeff Gamet how the R2 and C2 printers are a great experience right out of the box at CES 2017.
Polk Audio Shows Off its MagniFi Mini Soundbar at CES 2017
LAS VEGAS – Polk Audio’s new MagniFi Mini soundbar is small, but it can fill a surprisingly large space. Michael Greco shows Jeff Gamet its features at Pepcom at CES 2017.
myEarlySense Sleep Monitor Explained at CES 2017
LAS VEGAS – The myEarlySense sleep monitor aims to help improve your time in bed without impacting your comfort. Arvin Halperin tells Jeff Gamet how it works at CES Unveiled 2017.
First Alert HomeKit-ready OneLink Environment Monitors at CES 2017
LAS VEGAS – First Alert is ready to join your HomeKit network with their OneLink Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Detector and Environment Monitor. Tarsila Wey shows them off to Jeff Gamet at CES Unveiled 2017.
California Roll Bluetooth Speaker - Solar Powered, Water Proof
LAS VEGAS – I don’t often talk about Bluetooth speakers, but Lemon Tech caught my eye with its California Roll during Tuesday night’s CES Unveiled. That’s because it’s solar powered. It has a 5,000mAh battery in it and 32 solar cells on the back. 7 hours of sunlight will get about 20 hours of playback time. That’s handy, but it also has a USB port on it so you can use that battery to charge your mobile devices. And while you’re charging your mobile devices, it will be recharging the battery if it’s getting light. Right? So, rock on. Plus, it’s water and dust proof, making it suitable for the beach and other messy environments. It’s $249, and it ships in March. There’s a coupon code for 20% off (“5W20”), making it just under $200. It’s available in many different colors.
Sevenhugs Smart Remote Wants to be Your Go-to Entertainment and Smart Home Remote
LAS VEGAS – The Sevenhugs smart remote dynamically changes to be the only remote you need, no matter what you’re doing at home. Simon Tchedikian shows Jeff Gamet how it intelligently controls your home entertainment system, smart home devices, and online services at CES Unveiled 2017.
The Incipio OX Case Brings the Headphone Jack Back to the iPhone 7
Still need to use analog headphones with your iPhone 7? Ditch that puny little adapter and kill two birds with one polycarbonate stone with the Incipio OX case, an iPhone case that brings the 3.5mm headphone jack back to your favorite smartphone. The OX looks like a normal slim hardshell case, except for a bit of extra length at the bottom. There, you’ll find both a Lightning and 3.5mm audio jack, powered by an internal DAC. The Incipio OX will be available for both the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus in the first quarter of 2017 in Black, Forest, and Purple color options starting at $59.99.
This Adorable Home Robot Totally Won't Murder Your Entire Family
Our homes have voice-controlled assistants like the Amazon Echo, self-navigating devices like the Roomba, and networked monitoring devices like the Nest Cam. Why not combine all of this tech into an adorable home robot companion? Mayfield Robotics has announced Kuri, the home robot that will navigate around your house, respond with voice and body language, answer your questions, manage your home via IFTTT support, and monitor your children or pets with a built-in 1080p camera. Kuri isn’t the first home robot design, but at just $699, it’s the first to be priced within the reach of many consumers. What could possibly go wrong?
Video: A Look Around Inside CES Unveiled 2017
As a reader of TMO and a listener of our podcasts, especially Mac Geek Gab, you see and hear us write and talk a lot about the various press events we attend. Many of these – Pepcom, ShowStoppers, and CES Unveiled – are very similar in nature. They’re like a trade show, with a few key differences. First, every vendor has basically the same-sized table at which to present their offerings. There are no big booths and no overly-flashy signs or anything of the sort. Everyone’s logos are well-presented, but mostly its about the products. The reason for this is the second key differentiator: all of the attendees are members of the media. There are no distributors there, no general consumers looking around, no aimless tire-kickers. Everyone is there to report about what they see. And, as you know, that’s what we do. With one exceptIon: we’ve never reported about what we see in general. We always show you specific things, but have never intentionally given you a glimpse of the event itself. Here, today, we change that with a look around inside CES Unveiled 2017, just about 15 minutes after the doors opened. Oh, and yes, there’s food. Yummy, tasty food. Enjoy!
Belkin Announces Linksys Velop Mesh Wi-Fi System
Linksys, a brand known for some of the earliest wireless routers, today joins the the market of mesh Wi-Fi providers with their own mesh offering called Velop. Shown here at the CES 2017 Unveiled event, Belkin’s Linksys Velop is a welcome entrant to the home mesh wireless market with a unique tri-band solution that allows for completely dynamic assignment of each unit’s three 2×2 radios. Velop can work in point-to-point, mesh, star, line or tree configurations, choosing whichever is best or most-appropriate for the current wireless environment. Each radio in the system is automatically mapped to the best configuration, and Ethernet backhaul is automatically detected and supported, as well. In a market that’s becoming quite crowded, I find the Velop an interesting contender, combining some of the better aspects of both the eero and NETGEAR Orbi platforms, priced exactly the same as the eero. Units are available for pre-order today in three ($499), two ($349) and one-unit ($199) packages and will start shipping on January 15th. We’ll be getting units to test and will report back with our findings, adding them to our existing mesh Wi-Fi coverage.
Defy Apple and Add a Touchscreen to Your MacBook with AirBar
Apple recently doubled-down on its refusal to add a touchscreen to its MacBook line, but if you’re starting 2017 with a bit of Microsoft Surface envy, you’ll soon be able to turn your MacBook Air’s display into a touchscreen, regardless of what Jony Ive thinks. AirBar is a USB-powered sensor that attaches to the bottom of your screen and enables touch interactions right on the display thanks to the company’s “zForce AIR” light field technology. The company is launching support for the MacBook Air first with support for other models to follow. Interested users can sign up at the company’s website to be notified once pre-orders go live in March. There’s no word on pricing but AirBar already sells a version for Windows laptops for $69.
Control and Culture Clash in Iran over Mobile MMO 'Clash of Clans'
Iran is in the process of banning Clash of Clans, a move that epitomizes that country’s attempts to control culture clash and behavior. According to TechCrunch, the game has been pulled from a popular third party app store in Iran called Cafe Bazaar and will soon be pulled from its other legitimate source. Here’s what’s interesting to me: Clash of Clans has only officially been available for a month in Iran, and it’s being played by two-thirds of the mobile gaming community. Iran’s religious leaders have deemed it to too addictive and promotes both violence and tribal conflict. At the same time, the game was being played on the black market before its release, where it will still be available. It will be interesting to see if there’s any kind of backlash from the country’s mobile gamers. I’m far from an expert on Iran, but it’s hard to see how the country could possibly stop the world at its borders forever. Don’t get me wrong. Clash of Clans—like Game of War and every other successful MMO—are addictive. But I’ve yet to see a successful attempt to legislate addictive behavior. Below is the SuperBowl 2015 commercial for the game that is pretty darned amusing.
Did You Know You Can Order Personalized Sharpies?
Quick show of hands: who here is a Sharpie fanatic? OK, that’s what I thought. We’re all Sharpie fanatics! Did you know you can order personalized Sharpies? It’s Kelly Guimont’s fault. She told me about this. And now I’m telling you. And now we’re all going to be spending all our disposable income not already being sent to Apple on personalized Sharpies…anyway. There’s a list of things you can’t do, and personalized colors are limited to black, red, green, blue, magenta, turquoise, purple and lime green. You can preview your personalizations, and each pen will also have the Sharpie logo. There are a variety of fonts you can choose from, and you also have the option of adding clipart, as shown below, in addition to your personalized message. Warning: the personalization engine uses Flash.
Want to Know if You'd Survive a Nuclear Bomb? There's a Site for That
“I wonder if I live in a place that’ll survive a nuclear bomb” is something we used to ask in the 1960s and 70s, and it seems to have come back into vogue. Back then, we had to do things like go to the library and do research. But now, we can sit in the comfort of our potentially safe homes and check the Would I Survive a Nuke website. Spoiler: I probably won’t in Boulder, but you might be more lucky. The site is getting hit pretty hard, so you may have to try a few times. Seems a lot of people are really interested in knowing their potential fate.
AirPod Alerts for Your Local Apple Store
When AirPods went on sale for preorder on December 13, Apple quickly became backordered. Customers found that delivery estimate for their order were up to 4-6 weeks out. Apple Stores have been receiving shipments of AirPods every day or so. Other stores like BestBuy and Target are also getting regular shipments. If you haven’t ordered AirPods yet, and don’t want to have to check with each store, you can use this handy website to get AirPod Alerts. You enter your email address and the physical address of your local Apple Store. Then, you’ll be notified whenever your store gets a new shipment of AirPods.
![Sylvania Announces Smartbulbs for Apple HomeKit, No Hub Required [Update]](https://www.macobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/sylvania-smart-multicolor-a19-wide.jpg)
Sylvania Announces Smartbulbs for Apple HomeKit, No Hub Required [Update]
Sylvania announced Tuesday it was launching an LED smartbulb in its LEDVANCE product line with support for Apple’s HomeKit (yay!). Better yet, the Smart Multicolor A19 doesn’t require a hub—just plug it in, find it with Apple’s Home app, and you’re good to go. Sylvania said the device will be sold through Amazon and ship in “early 2017.” This will be a great addition to the HomeKit ecosystem. To that end, I’ve been seeing more HomeKit stuff in my inbox during the last few weeks for CES 2017. It’s almost as if Apple’s smarthome platform is finally coming alive. Let’s hope, at any rate. I’ve left messages with Sylvania reps asking about pricing, which wasn’t announced. Sylvania also didn’t release images of the new bulb—the image below is of current products in the company’s smartbulb line. [Update: Sylvania’s PR folks got back to me—pricing is definitely unannounced. I also added a rendered image of the A19. We’ll be visiting with the company next week at CES. – Bryan]
HandBrake Video Converter App Leaves Beta After 13 Years
It only took about 13 years, but HandBrake is finally out of beta. Version 1.0 was released on December 24th, and is the go-to tool for video transcoding. In layman’s terms, HandBrake is what you use to convert DVDs into video files you can play on your Mac. Version 1.0 improves audio and video syncing for difficult sources, adds new device presets, adds new MKV and JSON presets, improves performance Skylake-based Macs, and more. HandBrake isn’t, however, completely leaving the beta world behind thanks to its new less technical documentation that’s tagged beta. You can download HandBrake at the HandBrake website for free.
Apple Posts Its Public Encryption Key, Encourages Customers to Verify Emails
Apple has a new support document encouraging customers to verify encrypted emails, especially security emails from Apple. The document includes Apple’s own public PGP key for those verifications. Apple noted that its current PGP key will be valid until May of 2018. PGP, or “pretty good privacy” is one of the most popular encryption schemes in general use today, through both the PGP Corporation and the open source GnuPGP. Apple posted links to both. You can subscribe to Apple’s Security-announce emails at Apple’s website.
Hey Quark Fans, Check Out QuarkXPress for Dummies
It’s been a while since a quality QuarkXPress book came out, so my long time friend and graphic design expert Jay Nelson stepped up to the plate with a QuarkXPress for Dummies. Jay explains print and digital publishing workflows, color management, image resolution, fonts, output formats, and more. He also explains the evolution of QuarkXPress, which is great for understanding how it went from being the premier desktop publishing tool to the more specialized product it is today. QuarkXPress for Dummies is available now on Amazon for US$34.99.
Raspberry Pi Brings PIXEL Desktop Environment to the Mac
The team behind the super affordable Raspberry Pi computer platform has been working on their own desktop environment called PIXEL, and now it’s available for the Mac. PIXEL is built on Debian, so it’s a fully bootable system, and includes everything you need to be productive, the Chromium web browser, and more. They designed it so you can pop it on a USB flash drive or DVD and run it from there. PIXEL is still in an experimental stage, so don’t rely on it as your primary OS. It’s a free download at the Raspberry Pi website.