Notably lately, and albeit with a number of exceptions, Apple has traditionally held 4 public media occasions per 12 months:
- March(-ish): New computer systems and tablets
- June: Worldwide Developer Convention, thereby centered on new working programs, functions and providers
- September(-ish): New smartphones and good watches
- October(-ish): New computer systems and tablets
with different (lesser) product class bulletins—headphones, good audio system and the like—scattered among the many occasions as the supply timing is sensible.
See, for instance, my 2021 Apple occasions protection:
And my so-far 2022 protection:
Admittedly, as I write these phrases on Thursday, October 6, we’re solely within the first week of October (which isn’t even performed but), so I is likely to be “leaping the gun”. However, in tandem with insights from typically dependable leakers, I’m questioning if Apple will probably be skipping its second fall occasion this 12 months, as a substitute selecting to announce no matter (if something) it plans to solely by way of press releases. And in that case, I’m wondering what this may say about Apple’s present expertise and product well being: is it having difficulties taping out higher-end Professional and Max variants of the M2 SoC unveiled in June, following within the footsteps of the M1 and its M1 Professional and Max larger siblings, for instance? And/or is foundry accomplice TSMC having issues getting them to yield sufficiently to permit for system manufacturing based mostly on them? And talking of M2-based programs, is an Apple Silicon-based successor to the legacy x86-based Mac Professional and/or iMac Professional nonetheless within the playing cards for 2022? Inquiring minds need to know.
Fortunately, Amazon and Google have each stepped into the breach with media occasions of their very own. Google first, since at the least the majority of its bulletins hit the wire simply this morning (as I write these phrases). Sadly, nevertheless, the information began final week with a downbeat (albeit not sudden) determination: the corporate is getting out of the “cloud” gaming enterprise (though firm officers declare that the core streaming concepts and learnings will propagate elsewhere), mothballing the Stadia service that I examined and wrote about in July 2020 (with the now-ironic evaluate title “Will Google keep on with on-line gaming?”).
To the corporate’s credit score, it’s promised to totally refund all Stadia-related purchases ({hardware}, recreation titles, and so forth.) that clients have to-date constructed from Google itself (with no extra to return: the net retailer is already shut down, though the service itself will stay “up” for a number of extra months). That stated, you’re fiscally SOL for something Stadia-related you’ve purchased from Finest Purchase or one other third-party middleman. Sorry, Charlie.
Earlier this week, the Nest subsidiary took the stage, unveiling a 2nd-gen camera-inclusive wired doorbell, up to date mesh Wi-Fi units, and the enhanced Dwelling app that knits them collectively.
Nest Wifi Professional was essentially the most attention-grabbing providing within the suite, at the least for me (partly as a result of the newer Dwelling app revision continues to be below improvement, so I can’t strive it for myself but). As long-time readers could keep in mind, I’ve been working a mesh community at my home-based workplace for a number of years based mostly on TP-Hyperlink-developed Google OnHub units, which have been initially supposed to be used as standalone routers.
As soon as Google and its companions (ASUS additionally made an OnHub gadget) added mesh capabilities to the structure, no matter OnHub was linked to the broadband modem routinely grew to become the mesh router, with others appearing as hubs (the mesh counterpart to an entry level in a legacy wi-fi community). “Backhaul” connections between the router and every hub might optionally happen over Wi-Fi, however particularly because the hubs have been nonetheless hardware-apportioned as dual-wired-Ethernet port routers (with one port traditionally linked to the WAN and the opposite linked to the LAN), the backhaul might additionally happen over sooner, extra dependable and fewer range-sensitive Cat5 cable. And since I conveniently already had Cat5 spurs working to the varied areas the place I needed to position hubs, I after all selected that route.
Google’s shutting down OnHub help later this 12 months, nevertheless, so I spent (lower than I feared of) the Labor Day weekend migrating the community to newer Google-branded {hardware}. As I first talked about in a teardown earlier this 12 months, I had two choices obtainable to me; AC1200 2×2:2 MU-MIMO Google Wifi and newer AC2200 4×4:4 albeit no-MU-MIMO Nest Wifi units. Nest Wifi was the (principally) apparent selection, however its base configuration was unappealing from a connectivity standpoint. Not like with mesh OnHub and Google Wifi, each of which supported optionally available wired Ethernet backhaul, the connection between the Nest Wifi router and every of its hubs was Wi-Fi-only. So, I mothballed the hubs that got here with my initially bought Nest Wifi package (to be exact, one in all them is on the teardown pile) and acquired a number of extra Nest Wifi routers, which because it seems (in a barely documented style) can additionally act as mesh hubs.
Google Wifi and Nest Wifi are each specified as being Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) architectures, regardless of their MU-MIMO-or-not implementation variations. With the brand new Nest Wifi Professional, alternatively, Google has skipped Wi-Fi 6 (which, not like downlink-only Wi-Fi 5, bidirectionally helps MU-MIMO for each uplink and downlink) and gone straight to Wi-Fi 6e, which builds on the Wi-Fi 6 basis by moreover supporting as much as seven 180 MHz-wide channels within the just lately FCC-reassigned 6 GHz band. Right here’s the wrinkle, nevertheless; Google claims that Nest Wifi Professional isn’t backwards suitable with prior-generation Nest Wifi. I imagine them, however solely partly, as I think they’ve deliberately over-simplified the messaging.
Recall that the usual Nest Wifi “package” that the majority of consumers will implement depends completely on wi-fi backhaul between mesh hubs and their frequent router nexus. With Nest Wifi, this can be a channel within the 5 GHz band. With Nest Wifi Professional, alternatively, a channel within the newly obtainable 6 GHz band is reportedly leveraged for backhaul. The backward incompatibility right here is clear. Nonetheless, not like with Nest Wifi, hearkening again to the even older mesh OnHub and Google Wifi approaches, wired backhaul is once more an obtainable possibility with Nest Wifi Professional—to wit, I’ve learn at different media sources that each one units within the package are once more able to appearing as routers. I’m betting that if I changed my Nest Wifi gadget appearing as a router with a Nest WiFi Professional successor and reconfigured my community from scratch (sadly, Google’s Wi-Fi programs don’t help “cloud” or different settings backup-and-restore, subsequently my preliminary concern about how lengthy my Labor Day weekend challenge would take), it’d see my legacy Nest Wifi routers appearing as hubs simply superb over Cat5. Or perhaps not.
Now to this morning’s information (which hit the streets after the ominous precursor reminder earlier this week of the Pixel 4’s help demise).
As I’ve beforehand talked about, with the Pixel 6 technology (commonplace and larger-and-camera-richer Professional, together with the newer “A” variant), Google transitioned from utilizing Qualcomm-developed SoCs to its personal ICs, based mostly on Arm-licensed processor and GPU cores together with Samsung-supplied mobile modems and different RF subsystems, and in addition leveraging Google’s personal Tensor AI processor core. Right this moment’s introduced Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Professional, priced identically to their predecessors with comparable storage allotments, are based mostly on a brand new SoC (the identical in each circumstances, not like Apple’s transfer a month in the past, the place solely the “Professional” variant acquired the modest structure improve), albeit with modest-at-best evolutionary updates…besides in a single case:
With the exceptions of a modest improve to the 2 mid-tier processor cores and slight clock upticks for each, they and the high-end cores (will we name this a large.MiDdLe.LITTLE structure?) have a main processing system that’s basically similar. Admittedly, there’s a extra significant replace to the GPU. However the TPU structure replace is the place Google centered the majority of its improvement consideration, resulting in new deep learning-based capabilities corresponding to enhanced text-to-speech and Tremendous Res Zoom, Photograph Unblur, and different computational pictures upgrades.
Then there’s the long-rumored, lastly right here, $349 or $399 (with LTE) Pixel Watch:
Right here too, Google has turned its again on the Qualcomm-developed SoCs that its wearable OS licensees had lengthy used (with often-notable efficiency penalties) and as a substitute integrated a Samsung-developed SoC, the (nonetheless four-year-old) Samsung Exynos 9110. Fast apart, Samsung’s personal new WearOS-based good watch, the Galaxy Watch4, runs the newer and considerably processing-upgraded Exynos W920 SoC…and is priced notably decrease than the admittedly considerably extra enticing (IMHO) Pixel Watch. ???!!! And in each circumstances, once more IMHO, the only-24-hour estimated working life between costs is a non-starter.
By the best way, the sooner “household” video additionally confirmed the Pixel Buds Professional earbuds, which Google had introduced again in Might:
I’ve owned a number of generations of Google-branded headphones up to now. The unique Pixel Buds had a wire tethering the earbuds to one another, though they have been wi-fi from there to the cell phone or different Bluetooth-connected gadget. Google’s subsequent try, additionally known as the Pixel Buds, distributed with wires completely however didn’t help ANC, and a few customers reported sketchy Bluetooth connectivity (I personally by no means observed an issue). The next cost-reduced Pixel Buds A Sequence dropped options corresponding to wi-fi charging, ambient sound-sensing microphones and full contact management to be able to get beneath $100. And now with the Pixel Buds Professional we do have ANC…however they’re again as much as $199.99 (I personal two units, really, one in all them destined for the teardown counter). However hey, imagine it or not, for a restricted time in the event you pre-order a Pixel 7 Professional smartphone you may get both a free Pixel Watch or a free Pixel Buds Professional set…
After which there’s the Pixel Pill, coming subsequent 12 months, whose deliberate launch Google first revealed at its I/O developer convention again in Might.
We don’t know far more than we did then, however the further info is intriguing. First off, the Pixel Pill will (unsurprisingly) be based mostly on the identical SoC used within the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Professional, in addition to in subsequent 12 months’s Pixel 7a smartphone (which is now additionally official). And secondly, there’s the Charging Speaker Dock, a magnetized operate combo which transforms the pill right into a Google Nest Hub clone. Clearly, as I suspected from the start, Google’s Android 12L (large-screen Android) improvement aspirations lengthen past the foldables of its companions Microsoft and Samsung. And clearly, too, Google’s broader aspirations are centered on the good residence, commensurate with its work on the Matter and Thread interoperability requirements, and with the Pixel Pill as its management nexus (an intentional if unhealthy pun; long-time readers could recall my previous Google Nexus pill travails).
I promised I’d additionally cowl Amazon’s information from final week (paradoxically additionally following within the footsteps of a product cancellation), which was considerably much less meaty” from an engineering standpoint however nonetheless pretty attention-grabbing (at the least to me). You may, for instance, now doodle and in any other case notate in your eBooks with a brand new stylus-supportive Kindle, the Scribe:
Hopefully, at the least a few of you’ve got already seen my printed teardown from earlier this week of the fourth-generation Echo Dot. In it, I discussed that though the acoustic suspension cavity behind the speaker was notably bigger this time round, the motive force itself was basically unchanged. Nicely, for the upcoming fifth-generation mannequin (the “with clock” variant is proven beneath), the now-fuller-range transducer acquired the event consideration:
Amazon additionally up to date the high-end Echo Studio, though I’m not clear on whether or not something greater than the software program driving the gadget really acquired up to date, since Amazon claims that first-gen Echo Studios will probably be upgradeable without spending a dime with matching spatial audio and “frequency vary extension” enhancements:
Then there’s the Halo Rise, a dedicated-function sleep tracker supposed to sit down subsequent to your mattress (talking of the Nest Dwelling Hub…on this case, nevertheless, absent a microphone):
The corporate’s Astro robotic is now in a position to acknowledge (and monitor) any canines and cats within the family (no phrase whether or not it’s urine-resistant), in addition to notice any open doorways or home windows, and a third-party SDK can also be in improvement:
And the very last thing that notably caught my eye is that recent-generation Echo units will quickly have the ability to additionally act as mesh Wi-Fi hubs…on this case for the Amazon-now-owned Eero router line, nevertheless, versus the Google-branded routers I mentioned originally of this prolonged piece. There was extra…a brand new TV and Fireplace TV Dice peripheral, new Ring and Blink safety cameras, new Eero networking {hardware} and providers…however I’ll allow you to learn extra about them in protection elsewhere, as a result of, talking of “prolonged”, I’m nicely past 2,000 phrases at this level, and it’s time to wrap up. Over to you in your ideas within the feedback!
—Brian Dipert is the Editor-in-Chief of the Edge AI and Imaginative and prescient Alliance, and a Senior Analyst at BDTI and Editor-in-Chief of InsideDSP, the corporate’s on-line publication.
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