Living with the Apple Watch

Well, after the previous blog post my phone dilemma was solved to the point where the snappiness of the 6s won me over despite the Nexus 5X being more versatile. I was thinking about what to do with my now-unused 6+, and I tried to sell it online for a while. However, secondhand market for the larger iPhones doesn't seem to be as active as the one for the smaller iPhones, and as a result of that I couldn't attract any buyers despite a reasonable price demand. Then I noticed a trade-in program with a Finnish retailer Gigantti. Of course the rate they offered wasn't quite the same than what I could get with selling the phone directly to a new owner, but still it was quite decent especially when considering that I'd get to keep all the accessories such as extra Lightning cables (you can't have enough of these lying around) and chargers, so it turned out to be an OK deal. However, part of the deal was that I'd spend the amount they'd pay for my 6+ on other products from the store, so I thought I'd finally get myself the Apple Watch. Sure, there are lots of (maybe clickbait?) articles popping up around the first anniversary of the Apple Watch, but despite all the gloom and doom in the articles, I'm rather happy with mine and so far it seems to beat the LG G Watch Android Wear device I used to wear, and it does so in almost every category. Currently the G Watch wins only in the "display the time constantly" department, as that's something which is not currently possible with the Apple Watch. However, I've noticed that the gesture for waking up the screen is rather reliable, more so than the G Watch equivalent that I used before just setting it up to display the time constantly.

I'm not going to do a category-by-category comparison for the simple fact that my Apple Watch gives my G Watch such a severe beating in too many ways that a more serious comparison wouldn't be even funny anymore. Let's just say that I'm happy with the more reliable activity tracking (no more bogus cycling credits for driving my car in a slow traffic), some quite useful glances and the possibility to respond to messages (using canned responses, though) and answer phone calls directly from my watch.

Sure, apps are slow to launch on the watch, but I use them so rarely that it doesn't really matter. I didn't use apps that much on my G Watch either. I mainly want to know what time is it (well duh, it's a watch), get my notifications and hopefully also deal with some of them straight away, and track my activity and hopefully motivate me to exercise a little bit more. The Apple Watch does these just fine and wins two out of three categories compared to Android Wear. In addition, even if the apps are quite slow to launch, having a slowly launching Authy on my wrist is still faster and more convenient than getting up and fetching my phone from another room when I need my two-factor authentication. However, getting up and walking to another room would fill my standing ring, so it's a win either way.

I also appreciate how easy it is to change the bands. However, I don't quite like the price of many Apple's bands, so maybe I'll give some 3rd party bands a try.

Now if only Apple Pay were available in Finland...

Phone Dilemma Revisited

Whoa, it's been a while since the last update. Quite a lot has happened since the last post. The iPhone 6+ is now sitting powered down and waiting for me to decide what to do with it. The reason why it's powered down is that I first got myself a Nexus 5X from a deal (32GB for 349€, not bad with the prices over here), and just recently got an iPhone 6s from work. Just the 16GB model, though.

What comes to the 16GB storage, that abomination does not belong in an expensive flagship phone in 2016. It just kills the user experience, something which Apple at least used to hold in high regard. I had to forget about restoring my old backup as the device would've been full straight away. Granted, I did have quite a lot of unused apps, so instead of slimming down my backup I decided to start out fresh. I installed just the bare necessities, but still I was running into problems with the storage even though I took Schiller's advice and used the cloud. However, with my first 16GB iPhone since the iPhone 3G (where 16GB was all you could get and it was quite sufficient for the time with much smaller photo resolution and smaller apps) I quickly found out that the "optimise iPhone storage" option for the iCloud Photo Library doesn't quite work as expected. Instead of offloading my local photos to the cloud, it insisted on pulling some ancient pictures from my iCloud Photo Library to the device even though I hadn't even viewed any of those photos in years. That in turn made things a little bit harder when I was trying to empty my local camera roll into the Mac OS X Photos app. All those ancient pics it synced to the phone were identified as new even though the OS X Photos uses the very same iCloud Photo Library. I had been running Google Photos alongside iCloud Photo Library for a while now, and this episode actually pushed me to disable iCloud Photo Library and trust my photo backup to Google Photos instead. So far I'm really happy with the choice. Now I actually have some headroom on the all-too-cramped device and unwanted old photos no longer show up to mess up the photo import. If the minimum storage would've been the more appropriate 32GB I might still be actively using iCloud Photo Library, but now that Apple's stinginess with storage revealed the shortcomings of the "optimization" algorithm, I think I'll scale down my iCloud storage subscription since I no longer need or trust iCloud Photo Library (I had some issues earlier on already, but this "optimization" mess was the last straw). Great business move Apple. If you skimp on the storage in order to sell your cloud service, maybe first make sure that the cloud service actually works? If the cheapest model (read: the only one you'll get from the company) had 32GB of storage, photo library taking up close to 5GB on day one could've gone unnoticed as there would've been plenty of headroom on the device, but when you're fast approaching 1GB free and the Photos app goes "Oh look, another pic from 2005! Gotta cache that on the device!", you start to take measures against such stupidity. That meant disabling iCloud Photo Library and soon I'll be scaling back my iCloud storage subscription too.

OK, that's for the iCloud rant. Now to the actual dilemma. I have a hard time deciding which device will host my primary SIM now. Currently it's sitting in my Nexus 5X, but I've been considering about moving it to the iPhone 6s. It's rather funny (if I were Apple, I might call that alarming instead) that a phone that costs only half as much as the 6s and still provides more storage is so strong in this competition. Let's make a quick comparison of the pros and cons of each.

Nexus 5X
Pros:

• Mobile payments. Pivo provides these and they even link against my debit card, which is nice.
• Camera. It actually seems to capture better details than the 6s camera, something which surprised me quite a bit.
• Voice control. I can actually control both music and podcasts playback hands free in my car, thanks to Google Now supporting both Google Play Music and Pocket Casts
• USB-C fast charging. While the battery isn't too good, being able to top it up quickly is nice.

Cons:

• No work email or calendar. However, company policy is here to blame instead of Android itself. Still an annoyance that I can't do much about
• Bluetooth issues with some apps. Google Play Music seems to handle an incoming call, but e.g. Pocket Casts resumes playback as soon as the ringtone finishes playing even though I've answered the call. That leads me to having to interact with the phone itself to pause the podcast so that I can actually hear what the person in the other end is saying. I've submitted a bug report about this, so let's see what they'll do.
• USB-C availability. I have some chargers, but finding a friend with a spare USB-C charging cable is still quite rare
• Apps. Some apps just aren't as good as their iOS counterparts. However, there are apps that are currently impossible to implement on iOS, so this is more of a draw.
• No apparent waterproofing and really poor waterproof case availability.

iPhone 6s

Pros:

• Wicked fast. Is this thing snappy or what?
• Work email and calendar. Helps quite a bit quite often.
• Good apps. Even though all innovative stuff isn't available thanks to hardware and/or review policy limitations
• Lots of good apps for a musician. Yes, I play guitar in a band and every now and then even hit the right note.
• Surprisingly good built-in water resistance even though Apple hasn't acknowledged this, but iFixit teardown and several tests have revealed this. Also plenty of case options (including waterproof ones) available.

Cons:

• Siri just doesn't work with the apps I use. Sure, it's now available in Finnish, which is nice, but as the music controls are limited to Apple Music (I use Google Play Music for cloud stuff and this 16GB PoS doesn't have space for syncing local stuff to Apple Music) and Apple Podcasts (which I'm not going to bother with when Overcast and Pocket Casts are available).
• No mobile payments yet. We're well into 2016 now, so how about expanding Apple Pay a little bit more, Apple?
• Somewhat poor battery life & no fast charging. Sure, Lightning cables are nowadays everywhere, but how about making the phone a little bit thicker to accommodate a more usable battery?
• Camera isn't as good as I've been used to on an iPhone. Surprisingly many failed shots on this one. I'm starting to suspect the hardware in my phone might be defective.

As you can see, both phones have their pros and cons. I now just have to figure out which pros are more important than the associated cons. Apple could help its device quite a bit here by rolling out Apple Pay in more countries and opening up Siri access to 3rd party apps. I'm quite confident that Marco would implement Siri support to Overcast if it were just possible. Well, maybe I'll need to play around with both phones a little bit more. 

Oh, one more thing. If that phone call continuity weren't restricted to the same wifi, I'd just put my primary SIM to the 6s and the work one into the 6+ and never miss a call without ever having to mess around with toggling call diverts. Pretty please, Apple?

Back on iOS - Again

Well, as it turns out I'm once again running an iPhone as my daily driver. I managed to find a person who wished to trade in his 64GB iPhone 6 Plus that was warranty replaced with a new device on new year's eve for my 64GB Nexus 6P. Even though I would've preferred the 6s Plus with 2GB of RAM, the 6 Plus was still a good deal as it removes the battery issues I had with my iPhone 6 and also solves the annoyances my Nexus 6P got with Android 6.0.1, i.e. Bluetooth and occasional connectivity issues. The 6P wasn't a bad experience (far from it), but in the end iOS seems to fit my needs better. With the iPhone I get better and more predictable battery life, my work email and calendar (granted, this is a company policy issue instead of a technical limitation), and most importantly stable Bluetooth. Those irregular one second gaps of silence every now and then that 6.0.1 introduced were slowly driving me crazy. With podcasts it was an annoyance, but when it comes to music it's approaching the dealbreaker territory quite fast.

Maybe I was just using the wrong apps on Android, but upon my return to iOS it was nice to see how many of the apps I used had 1Password and/or TouchID integration. The Nexus Imprint on my 6P was a bit of a letdown as it wasn't of much use besides unlocking the phone even though it did that blazingly fast. 

However, I did lose mobile payments for now with the transition as Apple Pay is not yet available in Finland and thanks to iPhone NFC being locked down to Apple Pay only, the NFC hardware is currently totally useless. Even more than having Apple Pay here, I'd like Apple to open up the NFC interface so that Pivo (the app I used for mobile payments on Android) could introduce mobile payments also on their iOS app. I prefer having those smaller payments linked to my debit card (like I had with Pivo) instead of piling up stuff on my credit card.

I still have my Nexus 5 for staying in touch with the Android side of things, but with my 6 Plus as my daily driver I'll be eagerly waiting for iOS 9.3 and Siri in Finnish + Night Shift. If the iPhone 7 does indeed have the rumored waterproofing, I think I'll upgrade to the Plus version of that once it comes out.

Oh, one more thing. I kinda like the fact that I got my 6 Plus secondhand as I didn't get to pick the color. I now have the gold version which is quickly growing on me (Apple going with a toned-down more champagne gold is the key here, I couldn't stand some flashy bling gold), but if I had initially bought it myself, I might've gone with the Space Gray as my color preferences regarding iPhones have been pretty much in line with those of Henry Ford.

Android Annoyances

So, I've been living with the Nexus 6P as my daily driver for a while now. In general I've been satisfied, but it's obvious that the honeymoon's over and some issues are really starting to annoy me:

• 6.0.1 update seemed to make the battery life somewhat worse. I now have to resort to occasional top-up charges during the day despite the beefy battery.
• I keep missing my e-mails due to notifications not firing. Looks like I'm not alone.
• It would be nice to get my work email on my phone (however, our workplace policies are more to blame than Android here).
• Some apps aren't just as good as their iOS counterparts. For example 1Password has an Android version with Nexus Imprint support in development, but it's sure taking its time to arrive. Granted, there are some apps that aren't currently even possible on iOS and I do like the fact that I can pay with my phone on Android as Apple Pay is still not available in Finland, but still some of key apps I use regularly not being as good on Android as they are on iOS is annoying.
• I just can't seem to find any decent waterproof cases for the 6P. iPhones have lots of options available and I was happy with the Catalyst case I had for my iPhone 6.

If the camera weren't as good as it is especially in the low light, I'd most likely be eyeing the 6s Plus right now, but with the camera being actually good I'll try to survive with the 6P for a little longer and hope that the problems get sorted out.

UPDATE: My 6P was kind enough to remind me that I had actually forgotten one issue from my list, i.e. wifi just deciding to stop transferring any data at some random point in time. I need to toggle wifi off and back on again every now and then to be able to e.g. open links. Annoying.

Nexus 6P

Well, life with two small kids is such that there's often not enough time for blogging, so this entry is a little bit late. I was thinking about writing my immediate reactions to getting my Nexus 6P, but I've had it for a week and a half now when I have the time to write something about it.

I guess the most interesting question is whether it's any good, and the answer to that is oh yes it is, definitely. I've gotten used to the size quickly, the display is just amazing, the camera is actually good and takes surprisingly good shots in low light, and also the battery gets me through the day without worries even though it's not quite iPhone 6s Plus caliber.

As the 6P isn't exactly cheap, I ordered a Spigen Rugged Armor case for mine together with some glass screen protectors from CaseBase. I think I have to mention that the Spigen case isn't even nearly as bulky as the name Rugged Armor suggests, but I'm still confident that it can save me from some extensive damage when I inevitably drop the phone at some point. In addition, as the phone charges via USB-C, I needed some extra cables and having read about some of the cables not being up to spec, I decided to get cables from a brand with good reputation. I ended up ordering some Anker cables in both USB 2 and USB 3 versions and they didn't let me down. According to the CheckR app all of them are up to spec. I also got myself a USB-C OTG cable, so now I think I just need myself another quick charger, as the charging speed I get with the charger that came in the box is quickly spoiling me. I'd need one at least for the office.

The Nexus Imprint fingerprint scanner is also great and well up to par with at least the TouchID sensor I had on my iPhone 6. I didn't have the 6s+ at the same time so it's hard to say which one is actually faster, but both the 6s+ TouchID and the Nexus Imprint are fast. The location of the scanner also seemed odd at first, but I quickly noticed it's right where my finger lands anyway, and the Rugged Armor helps with the alignment. Now we only need to get fingerprint authentication support to more Android apps. I'm looking especially at you, 1Password and Pivo.

Android 6.0 Marshmallow on the phone is really snappy and makes a nice combo with my Android Wear watch. I haven't missed iOS a bit during my time with the 6P. The only downside is that my backup Nexus 5 now feels slow.

It should be clear that as the overall verdict I'm a really happy Android and Nexus 6P camper now. But could we just get waterproof Nexus phones next year?

Looks like I've switched to Android

No Nexus 6P news yet as my phone hasn't arrived :( I ordered mine from Saunalahti and at least they seem to have a shortage in 64GB models. Well, I hope it won't take too long. In addition, with the Finnish postal services mostly on strike currently, my case & USB C cables from Amazon haven't arrived either. We'll see when those finally make it here.

As I gave my previous daily driver, i.e. the iPhone 6 to my wife after her iPhone 5 broke down a couple of weeks ago, it meant taking a different phone into active use myself. At first I was using a loaner iPhone 6s+ for a week and as mentioned in the previous post, I was really close to buying myself one, but due to circumstances I had to take my Nexus 5 into use as my daily driver until the 6P arrives. Having been using exclusively Nexus 5 over a week now, I just realized that I haven't actually missed using an iPhone to any meaningful extent. Sure I've missed a good camera every now and then since the Nexus 5 shooter isn't that great, but that's something the 6P should handle with flying colors. Sure there are also a couple of apps I'd still like to use, but those have also good Android alternatives.

In addition, with Android I no longer have to wait for Apple Pay or even Android Pay to become available over here as I got a pilot invitation to Pivo's mobile payments, so now I have a virtual debit card that's linked to my debit account and usable straight via my Nexus 5's NFC. Neat.

Going Android also means that I can skip a costly watch upgrade for now as my LG G Watch is still chugging along even though charging is occasionally a little picky. When it's eventually time to replace it, I have a nicer price range of devices available instead of everything starting from rather expensive.

But so far it looks like I'm rather happy with the current Android offering and even more so when my Nexus 6P arrives. At least my wallet is happy with the saner pricing compared to Apple's current European offering. So it looks like I'm an Android user now, let's see if this lasts. For iOS I still have my old iPad 3 and the broken iPhone 5 is currently being repaired, so that will be a backup phone once it gets back. I will be needing the iOS devices at least for watching hockey, although I'm yet to check whether today's update to Ruutu.fi's Android app finally solved the playback issues they had previously. But for now it's mainly the green bot for me.

Going Phablet - We have a winner!

My phablet ponderings are now over and I have a new phone waiting to be delivered. That phone is the Nexus 6P. It was a really close call as I was really close to buying the iPhone 6s Plus. In fact, I went to a local carrier store to buy myself a 6s+ of my own as my loan period was running out, I was impressed by the camera and the battery life and I just wanted to restore my backup to a new phone and be done with it. However, the store didn't have the 64GB version in stock and the 16GB version is a useless and a shameful joke in 2015, so I actually had to bite the bullet and disable iMessage and all that and move all my stuff to my Nexus 5.

I thought it would be a temporary transition and the next day (it was Sunday when I made my store visit) I would just call the carrier and ask whether any nearby stores have 64GB version in stock. Well, it turned out 64GB wasn't that readily available in stores but by ordering one I could get it within a couple of days. However, the 6P launch was close so I wanted to give it a little more thought before just placing an order for the 6s Plus especially when the Nexus 5 is still a usable phone even though its camera and battery leave lots of room for improvement.

So I hadn't ordered a new phone yet and I was listening to podcasts while going through some routine tasks at work when it dawned on me: My headset control button works consistently now. It was either play or pause depending on the current playback state. Every. Single. Time. I had gotten all too used to my iPhone interpreting 30-40% of the control button clicks as me wanting to activate Siri or voice control when in reality I just wanted to pause playback or resume it.

Now that I realised I wouldn't have to suffer with that unintentional Siri / voice control BS if I used Android, those almost 300€ savings if I chose the 6P started to be really enticing. However, some of the potential savings would have to be spent on additional USB C cables, but it would still leave me with over 200€ more money compared to getting the 6s Plus. As I had also tested the 6s Plus and knew what it was capable of, I thought it would be only fair to give also the 6P a try. If I prefer the 6P, then I've made an excellent choice, but if I don't I can just sell it and throw in the extra money for the 6s Plus and use it without that nagging "what if the 6P is actually better for me" feeling I'd have if I had bought the 6s Plus outright.

But now I'm just waiting for my Nexus 6P to ship. I hope it happens on the next Monday when the phones become available in Finland. A case and some Anker USB C cables (yes, I've read that Google engineer piece so I decided to buy my cables from a manufacturer with a good track record) are also on their way from Amazon. More stuff to come when the phone arrives.

Going Phablet - But Which One?

It looks like I've had yet another hiatus in blogging, but at least this time I have a good reason for it. My previous post was published two days before my daughter was born, so for the last two months the life at home has been somewhat busy :)

What comes to the new Apple TV, it's now been released and fortunately my predictions about the Finnish pricing were a little bit off and it's not quite as expensive as I anticipated even though it's not exactly cheap anyway. I still haven't got one as the input methods are currently restricted to the on-screen keyboard, which is quite incompatible with my blood pressure, so I'm hoping they get at least the Remote app updated or allow Bluetooth keyboards. My Nexus Player is running just fine while I'm waiting and seeing if Apple gets their stuff together.

But the main topic of this post is me getting a new phone. My wife's iPhone 5 broke down, so she got my iPhone 6 and as I've been wanting to try out a phablet-sized device anyway, I'm now in the market for a new phone. I actually have an iPhone 6s+ from work in my use until the next Monday, so I'll get at least some feel of that size and what it's like to use.

Currently my selection is pretty much a race between the iPhone 6s+ and the Nexus 6P which becomes available here in Finland on November 23. So let's check the benefits and downsides of each choice.

The iPhone 6s+ is a nice device, but its price in Finland is anything but nice. The 64GB version costs a whopping 969€. 64GB is a must here since 16GB on a late 2015 really expensive flagship with a 4k camera is just a bad joke, shame on you Apple. On my loaner device I also had an issue with registering taps on Safari, but that seems to be fixed by setting 3D Touch to require a firmer press. Keeping my fingers crossed for that. However, if I go with the 6s+, it means that an Apple Watch is on the list sooner or later and that's quite expensive too. I do have an Android Wear device that I can use for notifications, but the 3rd party watch support on iOS leaves a lot to be desired.

On the software front things are more favorable as the apps I use still have a slight design edge on iOS even though Android is gaining fast thanks to Material Design. There's also Ruutu.fi's service which I use for watching Finnish hockey. It does exist on Android as well, but for some reason they just can't get the live broadcasts to work on a satisfactory level on Android despite multiple fixes to their app.

On the hardware front one of the nice things is that Apple apparently has improved waterproofing of the 6s generation quite a bit, so I might not need to get myself a bulky waterproof case like I did for the iPhone 6. Those waterproof cases are also widely available for iPhones, but unfortunately I haven't seen that with the Nexus series. The 6s+ also has optical image stabilization for photos AND video, which is rather nice. The battery is a mixed case. It's much beefier than on the smaller iPhone and thanks to iOS's power management it can provide a nice battery life despite being not that impressive on paper. 3D Touch is also an interesting addition, but with the current app support its actual usefulness is still somewhat unclear.

What comes to the Nexus 6P, 699€ for the 64GB model and 50€ less for a still usable 32GB model is a clear winner here as the difference is almost 300€ when comparing 64GB to 64GB 6s+ and even more if I choose the 32GB version, but that's quite unlikely as 50€ more for much improved futureproofing isn't that much and it's basically half of what Apple charges for the storage tiers. As I mentioned, I already have an Android Wear device so I would have a fully-featured wrist companion right away. Granted, the LG G Watch is a rather old device and it doesn't support all the goodies Android Wear offers nowadays, so a watch upgrade would be on the roadmap also with the Nexus, but the models still tend to be cheaper than the Apple Watch. I also have a Nexus Player already, so ecosystem-wise I'd be more set for the Nexus.

The software side is a mixed bag, though. Like I mentioned previously, Ruutu.fi's Android app is rather horrible and I'm not holding my breath for them to provide an Android TV app, while an app for the new Apple TV is rather likely. Then again, with open NFC access software vendors are able to provide some nice solutions for e.g. mobile payments (Pivo's service should be opening for public access soon).

The hardware side has also its benefits and downsides. The camera actually beats the iPhone 6s+ especially on low light situations according to tests I've seen. It has also USB type C, which is nice, symmetrical and modern, but that also means that I need to add some extra cables to the purchase price since I need charging capabilities in my car and at the office too. I do have lots of Lightning cables, micro-USB cables as well Qi wireless chargers, but as the 6P omitted wireless charging, the only option is to get some extra USB C cables, which can be of really varying quality.

One thing that also bothers me is reports of the back glass breaking spontaneously. This seems to happen especially when the phone is subject to sudden temperature variations. When you keep in mind that I live in Finland and winter is coming, this has the potential to be a huge issue as I can easily subject my phone to 40C differences in temperature by coming in from -20C outside to +21C or so inside and vice versa.

Then again, there have been reports of surprisingly good cellular reception with the 6P, so if that is true it's a definite plus for the device.

When considering the points above, the choice won't be an easy one and I really wish I had also the 6P for a test run before investing a lot of money into either one. Well, let's see if the choice becomes clearer during the weekend.

Apple TV Rumors

In the previous post I was thinking about keeping my Mac mini booted to Windows 10 while waiting for El Capitan to be released. Well, that experiment lasted for two days. While Windows 10 was quick and snappy, something was bothering me and at least one thing was appearance and typography. I ran into font issues on some websites and maybe it's just me, but I simply prefer the aesthetics of Mac OS X to that of Windows. In addition, I have quite many OS X apps I've grown to depend on and wouldn't like to shell out money for Windows equivalents (if those exist) right now.

But the main topic I wanted to cover in this post is the forthcoming new Apple TV. A newly surfaced 9to5Mac rumor indicates that the device would cost $149 or $199. If those prices (for different storage options maybe?) are valid, then I guess the European equivalents will be around 199€ and 249€. Those would be quite expensive when a rather competent Nexus Player can be bought for just 99€. It would be relatively expensive even if there's a straight Dollar to Euro conversion (which there won't be with the current exchange rates), so the device itself will have to be rather amazing to justify the extra cost when considering that all my current needs are pretty well served with the Nexus Player as it handles YouTube, Plex, Netflix, and even AirPlay (with AirTight) just fine. I don't bother discussing the rumored $40 channel package subscription Apple's allegedly going to offer for the Apple TV as I don't think the service will be coming to Europe – let alone Finland – anytime soon, if ever.

Carrying just one phone, security, Windows 10, and stuff

Whoa, it's been quite a while since the last update and quite a lot has happened since that. My phone/watch dilemma has indeed been solved at least temporarily now as I've been carrying mostly my iPhone 6 around while the Nexus 5 has been relaying calls and text messages. However, at home I've used the Nexus 5 quite a lot as it has a remote app for the Nexus Player that's our current go-to media player with a native Plex and a working YouTube (unlike the Apple TV 2, which never got an update for the new YouTube API).

Even though I've used also Android devices while primarily using my iPhone, I had to give a serious thought to removing the Android devices from active use thanks to multiple security issues piling up around the Black Hat conference. However, now my Nexus 5 has received the initial Stagefright patch and was never vulnerable e.g. to Certifi-Gate (oh how I hate that name), so at least I'm good to go for a while even though the vulnerabilities made the platform's difficulties with updating devices rather evident. Let's just hope that the manufacturers keep their promises about starting to deliver more frequent security updates. In addition, Google could also step up its game. With a massive hole like Stagefright it was rather uncool of them to leave the 2012 Nexus 7 devices unpatched by referring to reaching their 3-year update limit. They could've ended the device's updates on a high note by supplying that all-important fix, but now they chose to stick to an arbitrary cut-off date instead. That cut-off date was also based on the original US release, so no one living in Europe, for example, got the updates even for that 3-year period. Now I'm also waiting for the next security update round for my Nexus 5 as the initial Stagefright patch turned out to be incomplete. With things like security updates I'm getting really fed up with the slow staggered rollout. At least with my iPhone I can get the update as soon as the server load allows it, and the delay is typically only a couple of hours at worst, unlike days or weeks with the Android update rollout schedule.

Windows 10 also came out recently. I had been using the preview versions on a couple of laptops (a Dell Latitude D620 and an ASUS T-100 hybrid) earlier on, but after the actual release I updated also the Boot Camp installation on my Mac mini as well as Windows 7 on the Dell Precision T1500 tower I bought from the office when old gear was sold to employees. Now all four machines are running Windows 10 and I quite like it. Yes, I'm aware of the privacy issues that have now surfaced, but most of them were there for 8.1 already and I disabled the options already back then. Who knows, I might actually try keeping my Mac mini booted mostly to Windows 10 while waiting for the El Capitan release of Mac OS X. That way I could really see if this could be a useful OS for me, especially when I'm quite impressed about how snappy things are on my hardware compared to Yosemite. We'll see if El Capitan improves on that front.

Phone/watch dilemma solved (at least temporarily)

Looks like I can give my phone/watch dilemma a little rest now that I got the Pebble Steel I ordered from a discount I noticed on eu.getpebble.com. The watch arrived today:

Yes, it's compatible with both my iPhone 6 and Nexus 5

The watch is actually a little bit smaller than my LG G Watch, but that's not a problem as there's no touchscreen on this one.

It'll remain to be seen how I like this one in the long run, but at least I can now get notifications from my iPhone to my wrist and now that I'm not tied to my Android phone in order to have my watch work, I can just set up call transfer and a text message forward Tasker rule on my Nexus 5 and carry just my iPhone with me. Happy times.

Oh, I also got a Catalyst case for my iPhone, so now I need only waterproof Bluetooth headphones and I'm all ready for the "summer" we've had this far.

New Nexus Gear

In the last few days I've got myself some new (at least to me) Nexus gear. What comes to my Nexus 5 with the broken screen, I didn't end up shelling 150€ for replacing the screen but bought a secondhand Nexus 5 for 160€ instead. Granted there's the downside that the replacement N5 has only 16GB of storage while my old one had 32GB, but I think I can live with that since I can bring also the old one along if I need to carry e.g. some extra movies. This option also gave me a backup/testing device as the old one is still usable despite the cracked screen. I'm planning to install the Android M preview on it to check if I can replicate the reports I've read about quite impressive battery life gains.

The other newcomer is a Nexus Player. As you might have noticed, Google recently updated the YouTube Data API, which in turn broke several YouTube clients. My 2nd generation Apple TV was among the affected devices and it's become quite obvious that it won't be getting an update (the 3rd generation one did, however). As also WWDC went by without the rumored Apple TV update, I decided to stop waiting and get myself something I could watch YouTube on and possibly also get a native Plex app so that I could dump my PlexConnect hack.

After I got my Nexus Player up and running I could see that decent YouTube experience was back (I do have also a Chromecast, but my wife wasn't too fond of the idea of having to use her phone for controlling the thing), but the Plex experience was a step or two back compared to PlexConnect even though I was running an official Plex app now. The app looks OK and all that, but finding my content is unnecessarily hard as it doesn't provide an option to browse by folder. This combined with a crappy search (that doesn't seem to reach e.g. episode description in the Summary field) makes finding a correct episode unnecessarily hard. You'd think a native official app would provide a superior user experience compared to a content replacement hack, but unfortunately that's not the case. I hope the Plex folks wake up and make the Android TV version usable.

Looks like Windows Phone isn't completely dead yet

Seems like I've missed the announcement Shifty Jelly made back in April: http://blog.shiftyjelly.com/2015/04/29/pocket-casts-for-windows-phone/

This means that there's now a good podcast app that can sync between iOS, Android, AND Windows Phone, so I can strike one issue from my "why I can't use a Windows Phone" list. Actually, with this app available I could take my Lumia 620 with me when I go for a walk in a weather where rain is quite likely. The phone itself has an IP54 cover on it and it gets additional "protection" from the fact that it's so old and cheap that I don't really give a crap should it get wet and die.

Pocket Casts coming to Windows Phone together with 1Password finally having an Alpha for a more full-featured app than their previous 1Password Reader from the WP7 days shows that maybe the platform isn't completely dead yet. Let's see how things shape up with Windows 10 once they get the phone version a lot more stable than the current preview.

Then they just need to tackle smartwatches, some way to avoid typing in the passcode all the time (with iOS I have Touch ID and with Android there's my Android Wear as a trusted device), have Bluetooth actually work, peripheral support, etc. But this announcement is still a step forward.

Apple Watch - I Would if I Could

So it looks like Finland didn't make it to the second wave of the Apple Watch launch: http://www.macrumors.com/2015/06/04/apple-watch-seven-more-countries-june-26/

This is rather unfortunate for me as my LG G Watch is getting really picky about charging so the day when it won't charge at all might not be that far away. In the previous post I was thinking about getting an Apple Watch as also my Nexus 5 is in need of a repair while I do have a fully functional iPhone 6, but it looks like Finland won't be getting the Apple Watch anytime soon, so I may have to spend some money on a new Android Wear device and either repair my Nexus 5 or get a different Android phone with a better camera. For after all, with the G Watch I've gotten used to wearing a smartwatch so going possibly months without one doesn't sound like an enticing idea.

Then there's also this one: http://www.macrumors.com/2015/06/03/redesigned-apple-tv-not-ready-for-wwdc-debut/

Some time ago YouTube stopped working on my second generation Apple TV as Google updated the protocol and the 2nd gen Apple TV didn't receive a software update to fix that issue. As WWDC was quite close, I decided to wait for the rumored new Apple TV with a possible App Store (and a Plex app to go with that). However, now it looks like the new Apple TV is still at least a couple of months away, and if the Apple Watch is any kind of a measure, I don't think we'll have it in Finland in 2015 anyway. I've been thinking about getting a Nexus Player, and if WWDC does indeed go by without any information about the new Apple TV, I'll just go and get one.

Tim & co may not like my next purchases, but that shouldn't be a surprise when considering how poorly Finland has been served lately.

Broken Nexus 5 Doesn't Help with My Watch Dilemma

Wow, it's been over a month since my last update. I have to pick up the pace again. What comes to the previous one, I'm happy to report that my LG G Watch is still alive but not that happy to report it's getting more and more picky about actually charging when it's placed on the charging cradle, so I'm not completely sure for how long it's still going to serve me.

But now to the actual topic of this post, my Nexus 5. Last week it unfortunately fell display-first on a tile floor from not that high, and now the display is partially shattered. Fortunately the breakage isn't something that downright prevents using the phone, but one approximately 2 cm long crack is rather annoying as it's clearly visible also when the display is active. The longer cracks can be seen when the display is off or when trying to view an active display from an angle.

I'm not sure if the cracks are visible in the picture above, but maybe zooming in helps.

So while the phone can still be used, the cracks are something that I more or less can't tolerate for long on a phone I'm going to use actively, so something needs to be done sooner or later.

Repair prices around here seem to start from 150 € which in itself is quite OK, but when considering that the Nexus 5 itself cost me just 400 €, I'm a little bit reluctant to spend that money on repairing old tech that's still good enough e.g. for testing purposes and has a couple of issues (mediocre camera & lousy battery) affecting the actual use of the phone.

This is where the watch dilemma kicks in. As mentioned earlier, I'm not quite confident about my LG G Watch's longevity and I've been wanting a better smart watch for a while now. However, fancier Android Wears are around 270 € - 350 € depending on the model and now that the rumored iOS support wasn't revealed in I/O, getting a better Android Wear device would mean fixing or upgrading my Android phone as well. Fixing would be cheaper, but when considering how much worse the camera on my Nexus 5 is compared to my iPhone 6, I'm not quite confident I would be happy with the Nexus 5 as my daily driver. However, if the rumored 2015 refresh turns out to be true, then things might naturally change.

But currently it's starting to look like the Apple Watch would actually be the cheapest option in my very specific case (yes, I'm perfectly aware how marginal a scenario this is) to get a good phone + good watch combo up and running as I already have a fully functional iPhone 6 that doesn't have any pending repairs. While there's nothing certain expect for "2015" as the Finnish release date, the Apple Store app was recently introduced also in Finland, so that could be one sign about the Apple Watch release not being too far away. Interesting times.

LG G Watch Died?

This is what my LG G Watch looks like now. Earlier today I noticed that the screen was off (it should be displaying the time constantly) and it wouldn't wake up no matter what I did. Even though at that point I was supposed to have around 75% of battery left, I thought there had been some mysterious battery drain that I've encountered a couple of times. So I got home and put my watch into the charger and left it there while doing chores around the house. When I came back after a few hours, the watch was sitting in a Firmware Update screen and wouldn't react to anything. I even tried holding the reset pin down for half a minute, still nothing.

Any ideas for resolving this are highly appreciated. I've already got used to wearing a watch again so I'd like to get one back into service. Or then I might just have to go and get myself a Pebble :P

Phone/Watch Dilemma Revisited

OK, so the initial Apple Watch reviews have arrived and it looks like I'll stick with my reaction after the pricing was revealed, i.e. skip it at least for now.

The most disappointing thing I discovered in the reviews was that it's actually worse in its watch function than Android Wear. John Gruber writes:

For non-watch wearers, Apple Watch’s functionality as a timepiece should be just fine. Flicking your wrist or tapping the screen is far more convenient than taking your iPhone out of your pocket or bag to check the time. But for regular watch wearers, it’s going to take some getting used to, and it’s always going to be a bit of an inconvenience compared to an always-glance-able watch. It’s a fundamental conflict: a regular watch never turns off, but a display like Apple Watch’s cannot always stay on.

Umm, a smart watch display can indeed stay always on, I've had my LG G Watch configured that way for almost as long as I've had the watch and I really like being able to check the time without any special gestures and/or waiting for the display to wake up.

The slowness that Nilay Patel discovered isn't that enticing either, although that's supposed to be fixed in forthcoming software updates.

So in its current form I'm not going to spend 3 times as much as I paid for my G Watch on the Apple Watch especially when the timepiece functionality would get compromised compared to what I have now. Sure there would be some nice additions in the Apple Watch, but currently they're not enough for me to justify the cost and compromises in the watch functionality. In addition, iOS support for Android Wear is starting to look like a real option (http://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/09/google-android-wear-ios/), so I'm eagerly waiting for that. I just hope Apple won't pull a dick move in App Store review.

Bluetooth Parity

I've had Android 5.1 on my Nexus 5 for a while now (I was impatient and ended up flashing the OTA image once the links appeared on Android news sites) and I just realized I haven't blogged about an important improvement I discovered. The improvement in question is audio playback via Bluetooth. Now my Nexus works just as well as my iPhone does in my car, i.e. connects quickly and starts playback smoothly without any initial choppiness. Finally.

Phone/Watch Dilemma

Ok, I'm getting seriously tired of carrying two phones with me. I'd really like that one phone to be my iPhone 6 as it blows my Nexus 5 out of the water in both camera and battery departments and the travel card reader enabled by Android's less restricted NFC doesn't quite make up for those deficiencies.

The problem is that I'd still like to carry a smartwatch, so I'd need something that can pair with my iPhone. Pebbles would do that, but their appearance is somewhat too clunky for my taste. Another option would be for Google to release their rumored iOS compatibility for Android Wear soon. My wallet would like that as I could use my existing gear.

Oh well, maybe I'll wait for the Apple Watch reviews to get out before making any decisions. Even though the Apple Watch pricing is rather prohibitive, the UX advocate in me would appreciate how it will undeniably provide the best possible integration with the iPhone (OK, the playground isn't fair here as e.g. Pebble doesn't get similar access to the system). But once the reviews arrive, I know whether I should go and get myself a Pebble or cough up the money for the Apple Watch. The next couple of weeks would be a great time for Google to release the iOS support for Android Wear :)

Apple Watch? I think I'll pass, at least for now.

So, now we know more about the Apple Watch including its pricing, and especially the European prices are a little bit too high. Finland isn't getting the watch in the first round (all those who were surprised, please raise your hand now. Anyone?), but a quick look at the German Apple Store revealed that the model I was after (42mm Sport) sells for 449€, which is a little bit more than I was prepared to pay for a smartwatch. In addition, if anything's certain it's that the Finnish prices won't be lower than the German ones, but no one would be surprised if they were even higher.

Combine the price with some UX worries, and it seems more than likely that my G Watch will carry me at least to the gen 2 milestone, if not even further (possibly superseded by another Android Wear device).

The recent price increases (thanks, weak Euro!) for Apple laptops have also got me to consider if my next primary machine could be something else. They are nice machines for sure, but I can't bend over backwards to deal with diminishing upgradeability/repairability combined with ever-increasing prices.