First and foremost, I hope that all of you had a wonderful Christmas or just day off yesterday. Be it a big day or small one, to be able to sit around with friends and family is in itself the best gift you can ask for. Still, there’s something especially wonderful about having a tree that’s filled with gifts underneath it. Even better if they were techie, geek, or gamer gifts.
If you got something fun for Christmas, let me know in the comments section below! My own gifts after the jump.
iPad Pro
One thing that I’ve yet to talk much about publicly is that there is a redesign coming to SRN at some point. I’m not sure exactly when, but I’m looking to do a big shift from the current layout. More simple yet more dynamic. I was lucky enough to have the site take on an adaptive design more than two years ago which allows it to fit any screen size without needing to go into a stripped down ‘mobile’ version. The next design is all about efficiency and simplicity in design with a strong eye towards privacy. SRN has never been a site that pushes out annoying ads but expect even less of them with the next version. More on that in the future.
To that end, I’ve been wanting an iPad Pro so I can sit and doodle away with designs. Even with the current design, it took far too many iterations to get it to where it is now and most of them were done in Photoshop. While that will surely be how the final design is locked, sometimes I just don’t want to deal with layers and this and that and instead, focus on getting my thoughts down. Luckily my wife was more than understanding and in turn, surprised me with a Space Gray iPad Pro 128GB. Bring on the redesign!
New Apple TV
Long time readers will note that SRN started out as a blog that mixed my thoughts on Sony with news. The site eventually shifted towards a more typical tech news site and even had a few staff members for nearly two years. Feeling like I needed to shake things up again, in the last year, I’ve once again shifted towards a site that’s mostly my own thoughts. While I’m certainly happy to deliver the latest Sony news, I try with each piece to put the news in context. Is it good for Sony? Is it bad for Sony? Why is this happening and could they do something to improve upon that given situation? Suffice to say, all this coverage is keeping the wife and I busy, making keeping up with shows pretty damn hard.
Let me put it this way: we’re both huge Marvel geeks and we’re now just starting to watch Jessica Jones on Netflix. With our TiVo having no shortage of shows on it and us subscribing to every service under the sun like HBO, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and on and on, just finding a show can be hard and it at times turns into a game of going through each service to find that one show or movie you want to watch.
That’s why (all other reasons aside, like the App Store on Apple TV which is going to change what the device can do) I’m most excited about Siri on it. The ability to say I want to watch The Leftovers or Sens8 and she takes me to the service that has it is beyond convenient. I once again have my wonderful family to thank for my new Apple TV and I couldn’t be more excited.
Hue Bridge 2.0
Speaking of Siri, I already live in a house with Hue lights which allow us to easily control them with our phones and watches but with the original setup, there was no Siri support. Luckily my sister was awesome enough to get me Hue Bridge 2.0. Didn’t have to change a single bulb in the house but by simply replacing my old bridge with the new HomeKit-enabled bridge, we can now command all of our lights with Siri.
From basic commands like “hey Siri, turn on hall lights” to something more fun like “hey Siri, set home theater” which automatically dims the lights by 75% and turns them blue, the ability to control the house with Siri is quite fantastic and convenient. Next on our list is the EcoBee thermostat and August Smart Lock, both HomeKit-enabled, which will allow us to create even more dynamic scenes like saying “goodnight Siri” and having her automatically turn off lights, lock the door, and adjust the home temperature.
Discuss:
So what did you get?