I needed a replacement for a failing Time Capsule, used to back up two MacBooks. The obvious solution would have been a new Time Capsule but I did a little investigation and found that I could get a two disk Synology (a NAS, or network attached storage) for less than the equivalent from Apple. More features for a lower price? Yes please!

The downside? It’s not plug and play in the same way that the Time Capsule is. I had to install the disk, download the operating system, set up the disks, create users… None of which were really hard but still need to be done.

Buying the Mpow Swift Bluetooth Headphones was an experiment to see if there was a solution to a very first world problem: tangled headphone cables.

Good bluetooth headphones easily go into the hundreds of pounds. These were less than £20 and, considering that, are surprisingly good.

They’re in-ear and block enough sound that I can listen to podcasts on the tube which is my main requirement. The sound quality is fine for music if you’re not too picky.

The Amazon Fire 7″ falls very much into the “good for the money” category. If you compare it to an iPad you’re going to come away disappointed. The screen is terrible. Viewing angles are not great, the colours are washed-out and it’s low resolution by modern standards. Battery life could be better. The case feels cheap and it creaks a bit when you squeeze it. And the app selection is nowhere near what you get in Apple’s (or even Google’s) eco-system.

I wasn’t sure that I wanted a “big” iPhone as I was perfectly happy with the 4” form-factor. But if I was going to get a new phone and the new ones are bigger, I reasoned, I may as well go really big and go for a 6s Plus. On paper it made perfect sense.

Then I played with one in an Apple Store and I laughed. In practice it was comically big. I really didn’t want a phone I could only realistically use with two hands.

This weeks PhotoFriday theme is “Transportation.” Here is my entry. It was taken in Vienna, er, wow, six years ago. Doesn’t time fly?

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:

This weeks PhotoFriday challenge theme is “Glass.” My entry is a picture of The Shard in London, from a couple of years ago when I could see it from my office.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Yellow.” I’m entry number 60.

My entry in this weeks PhotoFriday challenge, “Yellow,” is a picture of one of my birthday presents from last year.

A couple of days late, but this weeks PhotoFriday theme is “Minimalism.” Here is my entry. It was take in Littlehampton earlier this year.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Signs of Autumn.” I’m entry number 34.

(Incidentally, this isn’t the first time “Minimalism” has been a theme. My previous entry was here.)

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.