Category Archives: Gadgets & Apps

All posts that don’t obviously fit in one of the sub-categories go here.

AirPods 2

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Walked into the living room a couple of days ago and discovered Riley chewing on something. One of my AirPods. Just crunched it a little but that was enough so I had my excuse to order the new AirPods 2 (not sure what they call this second generation). I’d read and heard the sound was even better. From a Reddit  user:

First of all, the new AirPods are loud. When comparing the new and old AirPods at the same volume, the new AirPods clearly sound louder. Along with an increase in power, there is an improvement in the overall sound space.

Try listening to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The old AirPods provide a familiar well-balanced sound, but with the new AirPods, you can feel in an instant the rich chorus work and expressive power of the music. Freddie Mercury’s vocals have a high resolution such that you can feel the breath that remains after he speaks. After listening to this, the sound of the old AirPods seems flat.

I listened to the song this morning and have to say it sounded damned good. And I can now summon Siri without tapping one of the pods. (Siri responds with “Uh huh?”)

Smart speaker ownership could outpace radio ownership in younger generations by 2020

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“The prediction comes from a survey of 15- to 39-year-old contemporary radio format partisans. The number of survey respondents who own an AM/FM radio outside their car fell from 48% in 2017 to 41% in 2018. Smart speaker ownership is posting an opposite trajectory from 14% in 2017 to 24% in 2018. Based on those rates, AM/FM radio ownership is projected to decline to 34% by 2020, while smart speakers are anticipated to rise to 41% by that year.”

“The survey also asked what audio services the respondents used. Across the ages of the survey participants, all posted the highest rates for on-demand audio, topped by ages 15-19 with 77%. YouTube was the second-most common, again with 15-19 year-olds leading consumption at 70%. Pandora had a mixed set of results, with ages 30-34 posting 38% use and ages 25-29 posting 37%, while ages 15-19 had 28%.”