Why today’s iPhone 7 announcement is a huger deal than it seems

So Apple announced the iPhone 7 today. Most of the blog coverage I’ve read have talked about how it’s mostly subtle iterations from the 6S. Hardware-wise I guess that’s true. But I think the announcements surrounding the phone unveiling are actually pretty big in their implications. I word-vomited my thoughts on this at my ever-tolerant associate earlier today and am reproducing them below (with citations, as it were) for your reading pleasure/because I want to share this and figure I already did the writing so…

this announcement/release is a huge deal

deceptively so, I think

like the features on the 7 are mostly iterative

the phone looks exactly the same

but in terms of setting new standards/announcing “okay Apple now says that this shit is happening” it’s massive

a) water/dust-resistant

Samsung has had this for a year on the S6s but it’s been seen/presented as a nifty feature as opposed to a baseline standard of performance

but having a phone that can survive that with no issues is huge! like as a day-to-day life companion device it’s immensely useful and now it’s ubiquitous

b) no headphone jack

will push headphone manufacturers towards WAY more Bluetooth headphones of better quality and lower prices

like it turns that product category from, again, a nifty bonus feature to a Huge Deal

now there’s actual pressure for competition

and then b1) Apple casually announces fully wireless/independent earbuds

the past year we’ve seen a few attempts at that from various small companies, like at the Kickstarter level

for the most part they’re not out yet or been eh for some reason or another

but now Apple says yo this is real we threw our resources at this problem and now the tech is here

and then maybe c) dual cameras for depth of field shots

which could be very cool

but that’s only on the 7+ so it’s not the same level “new standard” yet

fin

namsayin?

I think I’m gonna copy and paste that into a blog post

The World Needs To Know

Why I Cancelled My Oculus Preorder and Ordered A Vive: The Prelude To The 2016 VR Wars

Hi! I hope you like words and article links.

A note: for the purposes of this post we will be acting as though lower-end VR devices do not exist because quiet now, Sony Morpheus, the grown-ups are trying to talk.

Now I know what Makerbot guts look like

So I’m working for a cool tech startup in NYC called KINETIC (slogan: “Protecting the backbone of our economy” I love these guys click the link to find out why that’s a pun) lately. Been having a really really good time and doing some very cool stuff. We’re based in a startup accelerator in Midtown, which has an array of five Makerbot Replicator 2s and one Replicator 2X in a little room that smells like hot plastic. My first week, four of the 2s and the 2X worked reliably, but by now we’re down to one 2 and the 2X. I just got a small respite from urgent deadlines and have a new task that would benefit greatly from parallel prototype manufacturing, so I took a deep breath and dove in, trying to fix the four busted Replicator 2s. The first thing I had to do was name them.

the Bad Blood music video is amazing

all I knew about Taylor Swift was that she was a girl singer who had dated some famous people and then I saw the music video for Blank Space

that made quite the impression, as did the ensuing consecutive replays. So when my brother told me the new video had just come out and did I want to watch it I literally dropped what I was doing (it wasn’t fragile) and joined him on the couch and

key impressions:

1. the dubstep remix and Señor Lamar’s verse vastly improve the song
2. the last 36 seconds are full of incredible bits that were produced but didn’t find their way into the video proper. Right off the bat the X rocket launcher is shown to have a cool light effect on the side–probably something the props team totally spent some time and effort building cause they’re professionals. The crazy kicking heads off army dummies stuff! LIGHTCYCLE WHEELIES and lots of other cool bits but those are some of my favorites especially lightcycle wheelies. Just such a cool example of the amount of awesome that went into the making of this incredible video
3. it’s great that this is where pop culture is right now

stuff is so awesome lately. thank you Taylor

David out

PAX East aka omgVR

EXPLANATION at the time that I wrote this PAX was “this past weekend” and then name difficulties happened aaaaaand now here we are

I’ve been in Boston this past weekend, checking out this year’s PAX East (Penny Arcade Expo). It’s a nerd convention like Comic-Con, but centered around gaming and gamers of all flavors–console, PC, handheld, cards, tabletop. I’m actually writing this from the bus back right now, whose wifi unfortunately works about as well as the T after 2am (next level burn) (actually it’s worse because the T at least has the decency not to pretend to be up and running).

PAX was pretty cool. Even though I wasn’t really eyeing any of the high-profile AAA stuff on offer, I had a blast chatting with indie developers and computer hardware reps. However, I’m not really going to talk about that here because I really really would much rather talk about VIRTUAL REALITY

on the importance of names

Hi guys,

Welcome! I’ve been trying to get this site up for about three weeks now. Literally the entire reason it’s taken so long is because I’ve had an acute case of Name Choice Paralysis. This gets me every time–when I got this laptop a few months ago I spent a solid ten minutes, a full six hundred seconds and change, staring at the blinking cursor in the “Name” field. It’s easily the hardest part.

“The hardest part of blogging is choosing a name”–David Sugarman, 2015, you can quote me on that.

Anyway, now that I’ve got one (and I happen to think it’s pretty decent), I’m really excited to finally be up and running! Check this space (or subscribe on RSS) (or watch my Facebook page) (or watch my Twitter profile) for updates on, well, whatever I’m excited about right then. I’m hoping to post about tech, videogames, music, cooking, and all sorts of other things. If you know me already, you probably have a pretty good idea of what to expect, and if you don’t, hi there! You’ll figure it out soon enough.

This is David Sugarman on the Internet, signing off. Catch ya laaaater