Cerny describes the introduction of an SSD as "a true game changer", and above everything else, it's "the key to the next generation". In a lot of ways, the approach seems to make sense. Improved visuals are only going to take you so far -- some would argue that we're now closing in on the limit of what's possible with realistic graphics anyway -- and so, issues like load times and rendering could be where the next generation battle is fought.
Going into more detail in Wired's PS5 article, it sounds like developers have been asking Sony to put an SSD in its next-gen machine for some time. "Starting in the fall of 2015, when Cerny first began talking to developers about what they’d want from the next generation, he heard it time and time again: I know it’s impossible, but can we have an SSD?" it reads.
If this specialised SSD really can all but eliminate load times and allow games to run at their best, then Cerny's talk of changing the game will ring true. Quite frankly, we can't wait to see this thing in action.
This is the first, concrete confirmation that we’ve gotten regarding the display resolution capabilities of the next-generation PlayStation, and as such, the mind boggles as to what Sony’s frankly monstrous sounding PS4 successor will be able to achieve when it touches down in 2020.
From the article:
“Periodically, Cerny pauses the action to prove that the surrounding environment remains perfectly crisp. (While the next-gen console will support 8K graphics, TVs that deliver it are few and far between, so we’re using a 4K TV.)”
The fact that the machine even supports 8K resolution, in a time where the PS4 Pro struggles to render 4K resolution in a native capacity, hints at the sheer amount of power that the PS5 will pack into its chassis.
As the article rightly alludes to, the market penetration for 8K televisions at this point is slight, the hope is that like the 4K sets before it, that the price will come down in time for the launch of the new console.
This is Logitech's new universal remote, the Harmony Express. Note the big honking Alexa button at the top there.
Jeff Dunn
It comes with this hub that works with IR, Bluetooth, and WiFi, as well as a mini IR blaster for extending that range if needed.
Jeff Dunn
Aside from the directional pad around the Alexa button, this is it from a physical button perspective.
Jeff Dunn
It charges over micro-USB instead of USB-C.
Jeff Dunn
You'll hear Alexa respond through this little speaker on the back.
Jeff Dunn
Logitech's new Harmony Express app makes setting up the remote fairly straightforward, though it doesn't do any controlling of its own.
Logitech
Logitech on Tuesday announced the Harmony Express, a new universal remote that features the Alexa voice assistant.
Amazon’s increasingly ubiquitous helper comes built into the device and is accessible via a large circular button at the top of the remote. The idea with the Harmony Express is to use Alexa to control the various devices in your home theater. Past Logitech Harmony remotes have been usable with an associated Alexa skill for those with separate Echo devices, but here the voice controls are baked in.
The Harmony Express costs $250 and is available starting Tuesday.
All about Alexa
The remote itself is small, light, and minimalist from a design perspective, emphasizing the newfound focus on voice commands. There’s no built-in display and only a handful of physical buttons: just basic playback, volume, and navigation controls. There’s a microphone and speaker built into the device, naturally, and the Alexa button glows its familiar shade of blue when activated. The few physical buttons are all backlit.
In some ways, the use of voice controls with the Harmony Express is similar to what Amazon has done with its Fire TV Cube streaming box. As with that device, you can use Alexa on the Harmony Express to tune to specific channels on a cable box; saying “go to ESPN,” for instance, will instruct the cable box to input the channel numbers associated with that channel on its own. You don’t have to say “Alexa” to activate the assistant, but the Harmony Express only understands a limited set of phrases—saying “switch to ESPN,” to continue the example above, won’t do anything. The assistant can turn a TV or streaming device on or off through voice commands, as well as access a cable box’s DVR recordings. Logitech says you can use similar commands to tune to specific channels through an antenna as well.
This being a universal remote, you can also use Alexa to control various other home theater devices. At launch, Logitech says the Harmony Express will be able to directly launch Netflix and “similar apps”—including Amazon Prime, Hulu, and HBO Now—on an Apple TV (4th gen or later), Roku, Fire TV, Sony Android TVs, and a select number of Samsung and LG TVs. It won’t be able to do this on game consoles like the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, though you can still use voice commands to switch to HDMI inputs connected to those devices after the proper setup.
Since the Harmony Express is an Alexa device, it also works somewhat like a portable Amazon Echo. You could use the Harmony Express to answer general knowledge questions, detail the weather, see what’s coming up on your calendar, or other typical Alexa tasks. It can control various smart home devices, too. The main exclusion, according to Logitech, is that it doesn’t support music and audiobook commands, since it’d be a drain on battery and the built-in speaker isn’t designed for music.
Regarding battery life, the company says the Harmony Express should last at least a month per charge. (You charge it via a micro-USB port, and we're a little disappointed it lacks USB-C.)
Logitech says it plans to add additional voice control capabilities post-launch. During a demo in New York City earlier this month, the company mentioned it is looking to add the ability to launch specific shows or tune to specific sporting events by name, among other things.
Still a Harmony
Having the built-in voice functionality is the big reason you’d buy the Harmony Express over one of Logitech’s more standard universal remotes, but the company says the device works with all the same devices as past Harmony remotes, sans voice commands. That includes a ton of TVs, A/V receivers, Blu-ray players, speakers, game consoles, and the like, though it’s worth searching the company’s compatibility list if you’re unsure if your gear would work.
The remote comes with a puck-shaped blaster that utilizes infrared, Bluetooth, and WiFi to control all these devices, as well as a mini-blaster for extending IR range if needed. Having Bluetooth and WiFi allows the Harmony Express to control devices like the PlayStation 4 that aren’t controllable by older Harmony remotes that rely solely on infrared. When you’re paired with a compatible device, the Harmony Express’ on-device controls will automatically map to the device currently in use. The remote doesn’t need line-of-sight to control these devices, either.
All of this is set through a new Harmony Express app made specifically for the new remote. This means the new remote is not compatible with Logitech’s existing Harmony app or the hubs that are designed for older Harmony devices. But it does make the setup process a bit more straightforward: the app will scan for the devices in your home—though you may have to add one or two manually—then have you drag and drop little icons for each found device onto the corresponding HDMI ports on your TV. It then has you associate streaming apps with certain devices, so that when you tell the remote to “go to Netflix,” it knows which device to light up. Unfortunately, you can’t use the app to actually control your home theater; it’s mainly there for setup and the nifty ability to set off an alarm on the remote if it ever goes missing. Again, Logitech really wants you to use your voice here.
For what it’s worth, Logitech says it isn’t taking any data for advertising purposes itself and that the Harmony Express does not record anything when the Alexa button is not being held down. But you can expect Amazon to do the same data collection it typically does with Alexa devices here.
If you have no interest in being a part of that, or in using voice controls first and foremost, it’ll probably be safe to overlook the Harmony Express in favor for the cheaper Harmony Companion. If you prefer having a touchscreen, the higher-end Harmony Elite is a better fit. Personally, given that Alexa is already baked into so many smart home devices these days, my first impression is that the Harmony Express market could be a niche one. It’s not hard to imagine the voice commands here getting mixed up with other Alexa-enabled devices in a home theater. At $250, the remote certainly doesn’t come cheap, either. But if you have a complicated home theater and smart home setup and would prefer to use your voice more than physical buttons, here you go.
It’s undeniable that one of the best characteristics of every Apple product is its display. Apple ships computers – from iPads to iMacs – with great quality, well calibrated displays that can be used for professional work which requires a great level of fidelity. Now, it appears Apple is working a new Mac and iPad display feature to launch with macOS 10.15.
Previously, Astro HQ came up with a solution, Luna Display, that allows Mac users to use their iPad as an external display. There are many solutions on the market for that, but Luna Display has become the top one given that it’s a hardware product leveraging the power of the GPU so the experience is as seamless as possible.
Now, Apple is working on making that seamless experience native to the Mac. According to people familiar with the development of macOS 10.15 – the next major version of Apple’s desktop OS – the new system will have a feature that allows users to send any window of any app to an external display. The external display can be an actual external display connected to the Mac or even an iPad.
The new feature – called “Sidecar” internally – can be accessed via a simple menu. This new menu will be opened by hovering over the green “maximize” button in a Mac app window for a split second. The menu will have options for making the window fullscreen, tiling and moving to external displays, including the user’s iPads and external displays connected to the Mac. Selecting one of the display options moves the current window to the selected external display or iPad, in fullscreen.
Users with an iPad that supports Apple Pencil will also be able to draw with the Pencil on iPad when it’s being used as an external display for the Mac, effectively turning the iPad into a Wacom-like tablet. Engineers are also working on options that will allow windows to be easily snapped to one side of the screen, similar to a feature that already exists on Windows.
The highly anticipated grand finale of Marvel's Avengers series is just around the corner with its US release on April 26, and the hype train is fully deployed. Google has jumped right on it and published new Playmoji characters to hop around in your Pixel camera's viewfinder: War Machine, Thor, Black Widow, Rocket, and Captain Marvel.
These heroes join the existing team of Avengers in Playground's Marvel Endgame pack, available in the Play Store and on APK Mirror. You can place them in your surrounding area like any other Playmoji in your Pixel's camera: Tap "More" there and then "Playground." The characters can be resized and rotated, and will make some signature moves and sounds. For example, Rocket likes to laugh and point at people around him.
We've covered the revamped AR Stickers in depth before when they were rebranded to Playground back in October 2018. Back then, the first round of Avengers was introduced along with some quirky Google-made Playmojis, stickers, and the option to add custom text. Today's addition shows Google's continued commitment to the platform, although it would be interesting to see more movies or fandoms besides Marvel's Avengers here.
Comparing the 2019 iPad Air to the very first iPad Air from years ago.
Samuel Axon
From left to right: the 2019 iPad mini, the first iPad Air, the 2019 iPad Air, and the 2018 12.9-inch iPad Pro.
Samuel Axon
Apple's iPad lineup has had a gap in it lately.
At the top end, you had the 2018 refresh of the iPad Pro—an immensely powerful, envelope-pushing tablet priced and positioned as a laptop replacement. At the bottom, you had the entry-level iPad, which lacked many of the best features in newer Apple products and shipped with a CPU much slower than what's in the latest iPhones.
You were either buying a monster of a tablet for a monster price, or you were getting a tablet that compromised a lot to compete with Chromebooks at the low end. Apple was still making an iPad mini last year, but it was woefully outdated.
Many of us wanted more than the entry-level iPad offered but nevertheless saw a tablet as a secondary device, not a replacement for our main workhorses. That meant we weren't willing to pay iPad Pro prices. As a result, I held on to my aging, first-generation iPad Air (2013) through last year. I probably wasn't alone.
But with the launch of the new iPad Air and iPad mini last month, Apple finally filled the gap. These two tablets seemingly served up the best the iOS platform had to offer, ditched the pretense of replacing your laptop, and didn't break the bank (much).
After spending some time with the devices recently, the result seems clear: Apple's latest tablets are likely the best fits for most people.
These updates are more than a spec bump, but the most notable addition to both the iPad mini and the iPad Air is Apple's A12 system-on-a-chip, which houses the CPU, GPU, Neural Engine for machine-learning tasks, and more.
Specs at a glance: Apple iPad Air and iPad Mini
Screen
2048×1536 7.9-inch (326PPI) pressure-sensitive touchscreen for the mini, 2224×1668 10.5-inch (264PPI) pressure-sensitive touchscreen for the Air
OS
iOS 12
CPU
Apple A12 Bionic (2x high-performance cores, 4x low-power cores)
RAM
3GB
GPU
Apple-designed A12 Bionic GPU
Storage
64GB or 256GB
Networking
802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5 (LTE optional add-on)
Ports
Lightning, 3.5mm headphone jack
Camera
8MP rear camera, 7MP front camera
Size
8"×5.3”×0.24" (203.2×134.8×6.1mm) for the mini, 9.8''×6.8''×0.24'' (250.6×174.1×6.1mm) for the Air
Weight
0.66 pounds (300.5g) for the mini, 1 pound (456g) for the Air (imperceptibly more for the LTE models)
Battery
19.1-watt-hour for the mini, 30.2‐watt‐hour for the XS Max
Starting price
$399 for the mini, $499 unlocked for the Air
Other perks
Augmented reality sensors, computational photography features, Apple Pencil support, Smart Keyboard support (Air only)
It's the same chipset found in last year's iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR, and apart from the extremely speedy A12X in the 2018 iPad Pros, it's the fastest consumer mobile CPU on the market right now. We'll get more into benchmarks later in the review, but performance shouldn't be a problem on these devices any time in the next few years.
The screens are another area of improvement. The Air has a 10.5-inch LCD display with a resolution of 2,224×1,668 pixels, and the mini comes in at 7.9 inches and 2,048×1,536. That means the mini has a higher pixel density (326 pixels per inch to the Air's 264), but that difference is hardly noticeable.
Both displays have a wide color gamut (P3) and a maximum brightness of 500 nits, and both are fully laminated. That last point makes a subtle but desirable difference over the base iPad—and it makes a big difference to Apple Pencil support, which we'll go over shortly.
Both tablets come with two storage options: 64GB and 256GB. 64GB is not enough for most people, but 256GB is probably too much for some folks, so a 128GB option would have been nice. (The entry-level iPad offers that, but it comes with many other compromises.)
The port options are either a relief or a disappointment, depending on your priorities. One all-around win: there's a headphone jack. You'd think that would be a given on a tablet, but Apple omitted it in last year's iPad Pro.
But the Air and mini come equipped with Apple's proprietary Lightning port for charging, data transfer, and accessories. I'd been hoping that Apple would move the entire line to USB-C after it did so with the iPad Pro, even though that implementation was half-baked. USB-C is so much more common and more flexible than Lightning.
On the other hand, this means you won't have to buy new cables and the like if you're coming from an older iPad.
All told, these are big leaps over the previous versions of either tablet—but that's not hard, given that neither of these product lines had seen new entries for several years. We've already talked at length about the efficiency and power of Apple's custom silicon, and I'll get into it a bit more in the performance section of this review. But it suffices to say that these are extremely fast, energy-conscious tablets.
Apart from sticking with the Lightning port, the specs are a win pretty much across the board, and they justify the purchase price for both devices.
Design
Neither of these tablets has a brand-new design in Apple's lineup.
The Air's design is pretty much the same as that of the 2017, 10.5-inch iPad Pro. That means 9.8×6.8×0.24 inches, weighing in at exactly one pound (1.02 for the LTE model). The mini is very close to its 2015 predecessor: 8×5.3×0.24 inches, and 0.66lbs (0.68 for LTE).
Both tablets come in three color options. First, there's the space gray Apple has been offering in most of its new Macs. That finish includes black bezels. The original "silver" color for the back is also available, but that comes with white bezels. And finally, there's gold with white bezels. The gold is the gold most people know from the iPhone 8 (among other things), not the striking PVD (physical vapor deposition) stainless-steel gold of the iPhone XS and XS Max.
Below: Photos of the iPad Air.
The front of the 2019 iPad Air.
Samuel Axon
The back of the 2019 iPad Air.
Samuel Axon
The Lightning port is back, for better or worse.
Samuel Axon
The Smart Keyboard connector.
Samuel Axon
The camera is flush with the chassis.
Samuel Axon
As is the case with other iPads, the backs are made of aluminum and the fronts are made of glass. There's no wireless charging, but that's not a priority for devices of this size anyway.
Both iPads have home buttons with Touch ID, and they lack Apple's TrueDepth camera-array system used for Face ID. If you were expecting Apple to ditch the home button completely in all new devices, that's surely a surprise.
While Face ID scores high in the cool factor, and it's (in theory) more secure in many situations than Touch ID is, it's not a distinction that's going to matter to most users. Both technologies are responsive and secure enough for the vast majority of people. Yeah, it's neat to never have to even think about taking any specific action to unlock your device (as is the case with Face ID), but the fingerprint reader works so quickly it's far from a burden.
It does mean you miss out on a few apps that use the TrueDepth sensors in interesting ways, but developers haven't exactly been cranking those out in huge numbers to date.
Of course, these iPads support all the same touch gestures and swipes that the home-button-free iOS devices do. So you're not missing out on any functionality at all.
The iPad Air's design looks quite modern. No, it doesn't have the rounded screen edges and almost-nonexistent bezels of the iPad Pro or the newest iPhones. But while those things are striking, I wouldn't expect them in a $499 tablet. I don't think anyone was complaining that the 2017 iPad Pro looked dated—at least, I wasn't—and 10.5 inches is a happy medium size for a tablet display.
The mini, on the other hand, looks quite dated—so dated that when I brought it out in front of someone who is far from a techie, she immediately commented on how "old" it looked. I know reviewers sometimes get flak for focusing more on bezels than is really necessary, and sometimes that might be fair. But in this case… it really does look like a design from the past.
The 2019 iPad mini. It looks like the last iPad mini.
Samuel Axon
The view from the back.
Samuel Axon
It has the same thickness as before, too.
Samuel Axon
The home button remains, unlike some new iOS devices, and Touch ID is still in place here.
Samuel Axon
Like the Air, the camera is flush with the body.
Samuel Axon
And it has a headphone jack!
Samuel Axon
Those bezels, though.
Samuel Axon
Having an up-to-date small tablet option in Apple's lineup is very handy—it's the perfect size for reading books and magazines, I'd argue. And the 7.9-inch display is certainly adequate, though it feels cramped when using the latest multitasking features in iOS. But it's disappointing that Apple didn't find a way to (or choose to) get more screen real estate out of this chassis for an even more optimal small-tablet experience.
A short rant about device and screen sizes
I'm consistently frustrated that the devices that get edge-to-edge displays and massive bezel reductions are frequently larger devices that don't need them as much. If you have a smaller tablet or phone, reducing these bezels for more screen real estate makes a huge difference. But if you have a big tablet, the display is usually already big enough to be comfortable. So you're just adding icing to the cake.
I have a dream sweet spot in my head where we could have a convenient, small form factor but an edge-to-edge display. Then we could enjoy the benefits of a highly portable and flexible device at the same time we enjoy the benefits of a roomy screen.
But when Apple introduced edge-to-edge displays to iPhones, it axed the iPhone SE. And it didn't reduce the bezels at all in the iPad mini. Imagine what an iPhone SE would have been like with an edge-to-edge display. Imagine what an iPad mini would be like if its screen was closer to the size of the base iPad's screen.
Yet Apple seems to cling to this notion that smaller means entry-level, so smaller devices don't get the top-level features. I personally find that endlessly disappointing, even though I understand the business reasons for it. Yes, the iPad mini has the A12, and that's welcome. But that screen is smaller and less usable than it needs to be.
Some users want small devices with high-end features, and they would be willing to pay for it. But Apple's not giving them all of its best here.
The highly anticipated grand finale of Marvel's Avengers series is just around the corner with its US release on April 26, and the hype train is fully deployed. Google has jumped right on it and published new Playmoji characters to hop around in your Pixel camera's viewfinder: War Machine, Thor, Black Widow, Rocket, and Captain Marvel.
These heroes join the existing team of Avengers in Playground's Marvel Endgame pack, available in the Play Store and on APK Mirror. You can place them in your surrounding area like any other Playmoji in your Pixel's camera: Tap "More" there and then "Playground." The characters can be resized and rotated, and will make some signature moves and sounds. For example, Rocket likes to laugh and point at people around him.
We've covered the revamped AR Stickers in depth before when they were rebranded to Playground back in October 2018. Back then, the first round of Avengers was introduced along with some quirky Google-made Playmojis, stickers, and the option to add custom text. Today's addition shows Google's continued commitment to the platform, although it would be interesting to see more movies or fandoms besides Marvel's Avengers here.
