Virtual assistants are all the rage now, in the press if not in not people’s lives.

I am not claiming to do a thorough, like for like comparison. What follows is my subjective, personal experience. Your usage patterns, successes and failures may be different to mine, but I think my conclusions should broadly hold. We’ll see.

I’m comparing an Amazon Echo, an iPhone 6S and the Google app on that same iPhone. I know I’m not using Google Now in its native environment. That was unavoidable and may hobble it. You should bare that in mind if you use Android.

When I got my new MacBook it wasn’t complete. I sat it down on my desk and nothing would connect.

I tried to plug in my monitor, but I needed a dongle to connect to my DVI monitor. My FireWire external hard-drive needed an adapter. I had to get a card reader as my camera takes CompactFlash cards. Even my USB hub needed replacing because my new computer came with a newer, faster USB standard.

I’m sure that you’ve read Fast Company article about Apple playing the long game. It’s fascinating and, despite the deliberately click-bait title I’ve used here, I think it’s generally true for Apple.

However, there is one area where they don’t get things right. Here’s where I think Cook does it again:

“When you look at most of the solutions, whether it’s devices, or things coming up out of Big Pharma, first and foremost, they are done to get the reimbursement [from an insurance provider]. Not thinking about what helps the patient. So if you don’t care about reimbursement, which we have the privilege of doing, that may even make the smartphone market look small.”

As I wrote before, iOS 10 is an odd release to talk about before it’s generally available. Like iOS 8 — but unlike iOS 7 — almost all the good stuff is hidden in APIs, for use by developers. Which means that it’s probably going to be a nice update, but until apps are available it’s difficult to tell.

That’s not to say that there’s nothing interesting visible. Here are a few things that struck me.

There have been lots of articles like “iOS 10 chooses renovation over innovation” since Apple’s WWDC keynote in June.

I think they reflect the fact that when you download the first beta and put it on your old phone — because you’re too cowardly to put it on the handset you use every day — iOS 10 is slightly underwhelming. The first time you look at the home screen you see… pretty much no differences from iOS 9. So you launch Maps and see they moved the search bar to the bottom of the screen. You tap Messages and see some new icons at the bottom. But Mail looks the same. Safari seems to be unchanged.

There are many ways that recruitment is broken for both candidates and potential employers, but this time I want to focus on one aspect that I experienced recently as a candidate: how companies and recruiters don’t treat prospective hires with respect. I’ve changed jobs a few times over the years and some of the ways that I’ve been (mis)treated in the last year surprised even me.

Let’s start with something that I’m sure we’ve all experienced: not getting a response back from an initial application.

Support can be a hard, unforgiving job. You get abuse and you feel the temptation to lash out. I saw this on Twitter this morning:

“I’m disgusted by what you do, but I respect you” pic.twitter.com/4QeUsfBlO2

— Federico Viticci (@viticci) March 18, 2016

Firstly, yes, the tone of both emails from the end user are unacceptable. The first one is a bit rude, the second a lot. Having been on the receiving end of similar messages in the past, both for my software company and in my day job, I feel for Federico.

I read a couple of things about the intersection between technology and the liberal arts today, otherwise totally unrelated but the need for a connection between the two.

# What the humanities can learn

The first was in the conclusion of Walter Isaacson’s “The Innovators,” [affiliate link] a book about the inventors of the “digital revolution.” He started by talking about how engineers need to understand the arts and humanities (as Steve Jobs insisted Apple did) and moves on to how the opposite is also true:

Keeping with tradition, I’m going to write about my new gadgets but my “unique selling point” is going to be brevity. And, in this case, another angle I bring is being a Brit — much of the mainstream tech press is American and content is still very much a local.

## Good

• The same but better. I liked the old one, so I mean that as a compliment.
• Feels much faster than the old one. (The hardware should mean that it does, but if Android has taught us anything it’s that specs don’t guarantee performance.)
• I think Siri is going to be great, and the more apps that it understands the better. For the past couple of weeks¹ it’s only supported iTunes and some of the less useful stuff (weather, sports scores).
• I really like the remote. Clearly it’s not designed for serious gamers but I don’t consider that a flaw. I’m not a serious gamer. (As an aside, it’s weird that much of the press have been complaining about the remote as a game controller and saying that the device won’t replace your Xbox One or PS4. I think it’s a good compromise between the two extremes.)

## Bad

• I think the price is starting to get a bit high as a casual/streaming device.
• Missing a bunch of apps, though, hopefully, this is something that will be solved with time. There’s already Netflix, but I’d like to see BBC iPlayer², 4oD and Amazon video. US media companies seem to have been more on the ball than those in the UK, though many had apps on the old Apple TV; maybe they had less work to do to bring their streaming apps to the 4th gen?
• I don’t have many apps yet but it’s clear that we’ll need folders sooner rather then later.

## Ugly

• The idea of copying all your credentials and configuration over from your iPhone is fantastic. Entering your Apple ID username and password using the on-screen keyboard is a pain. However, it seems not to be working for a lot of people and for me it took so long that I almost gave up.

Overall it’s already slightly better than the 3rd generation Apple TV and has the potential to get a lot better as the App Store fills out. In my mind, it’s odds of success likely rest on the cost. It’s therefore a shame that it’s possibly on the high side. Of course, that’s not been a problem for Apple in its recent history.

I wrote a few words about iOS 9 when it came out, so I thought that I should also say something now that the new version of OS X is on the verge of release. As before, there are people who have written many words about it as a formal review, so I’ll stick to my highlights. I have no intention of being the most complete or thorough here!

Having said that, I am qualified to say a few words. I’ve been playing with El Cap since the first beta and have had it installed on my main Mac since the GM was first made available.