Welcome to AWT TV, a weekly show featuring Steve Sande, Dennis Sellers and Marty Edwards of Apple World Today. Each week we’ll discuss what’s happened in the world of Apple, talk about new apps and accessories, maybe even have a demonstration or two of the latest software.
Tonight’s show was rather fun, talking about the “Apple Tax” and why we’re perfectly happy to pay it, demoing a macOS drone simulator, and more.
The discussion about the “Apple Tax” came from an article written by Marty on October 10, 2017 in which he talked about the benefits that Apple owners get from allegedly paying more for the products. Many other products are also pricey, but you don’t get the amazing customer service that goes along with Apple products. Steve brought up an article on a “competing site” in which the editor of the site showed how the more expensive Google Pixel 2 Plus really doesn’t compete with the iPhone 8 Plus.
This moved into a discussion of Google Assistant vs. Siri, and we both agree that Google Assistant does a much better job of understanding what people are asking for, while Siri is often way off. Siri needs a lot of work to catch up with both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.
Steve then went into a bit of a rant about Apple’s current fascination with Hollywood and making original content, and why they should pay attention to their hardware and software instead of playing with TV shows and movies.
The discussion brings up the fact that Google and Amazon are both making quick moves in hardware, and that they could both eat Apple’s lunch if the company doesn’t keep up the quality and ease of use of the existing product line.
Steve is getting fascinated with drones, but doesn’t want to buy an expensive one until he learns how to fly… How do you accomplish that? With a flight simulator app. He demos Zephyr from Little Arms Studios (https://zephyr-sim.com), a Mac (and Windows) app that works with an actual drone controller to teach potential fliers how to fly drones without crashing expensive hardware. The app selects from seven different drone models, can throw wind and weather at the pilot, and so on.
We then talk about the DJI Mavic Pro drone for a while, balsa wood airplanes that we played with as kids.
Next week, Marty will be demonstrating a new game app for iOS — Flower. This $4.99 game is described as “Poetry in Motion”, and it looks incredible.
If you enjoyed today’s show, be sure to give us a thumbs-up and — if you haven’t done it before — subscribe to the Apple World Today YouTube channel.
