Just Give the People What They Want

My new truck comes with a range of connected services from Toyota. Of course it has its own mapping and data connection for streaming music, but it comes with a lot more than that. All of that stuff is free for the first year (or longer), but after that, I’ll need to decide if there’s any of it that I want to pay for beyond that.

That’s a problem for future Stephen, but I already find it all a bit annoying. I really just want to use CarPlay 99% of the time. Turns out, I am not alone, as Andrew Hawkins writes:

According to JD Power’s Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study, overall satisfaction among car owners is 845 (on a 1,000-point scale), a decrease of two points from a year ago and three points lower than in 2021. That’s the first time in the 28-year history of the study that the consumer research firm registered a consecutive year-over-year decline in owner satisfaction.

Unsurprisingly, more people are choosing not to use their car’s native infotainment controls. Only 56 percent of owners prefer to use their vehicle’s built-in system to play audio, down from 70 percent in 2020, JD Power found. Less than half of owners said they like using their car’s native controls for navigation, voice recognition, or to make phone calls.

Sounds like good news for General Motors!

Welcome to the Wild World of HomePod mini Stands

On today’s episode of Connected, Federico talked about a HomePod mini base he recently purchased that includes a 10000mAh battery for using the small speaker outdoors. I ordered one, looking forward to enjoying the situations shown off in the product’s silly photography:

PlusAcc for HomePod Mini Battery Base

This led me down a road I didn’t expect to travel, exploring the wild world of weird HomePod mini stands. Here are some of my favorites:

Up first, we have the BELIEFLUO Outlet Shelf Holder, Bathroom Decor with Built-in Cable Management,A Space Saving Solution for Homepod Mini,Google Home/Echo/Smart Speakers/Electric Toothbrush/Cell Phone (Decora). This product screws into an outlet cover and provides a shelf for your HomePod mini to sit on, all safe and sound:

BELIEFLUO stand

While we’re considering how to mount a HomePod mini near an outlet, let’s take a look at the $13.99 LeongLzt Ouligei Top-Notch Quality Homepod Mini Wall Mount Holder, Homepod Mini Plug Mount with in-Built Cable Management System, No Screws Needed – an Elegant Space Saving Accessory:

LeongLzt mount

I’m not sure I would trust an outlet to hold the weight of a HomePod mini, but that’s where the TotalMount Compatible with HomePod Mini – Hole-Free Design Eliminates The Need to Drill Holes in Your Wall (Premium White – Hole-Free Mount) comes in. As outlined in the name, this mount gives you yet another option for attaching a HomePod mini to your wall: adhesive tabs!

TotalMount

If adhesive tabs aren’t your thing, you can always just screw a mount right into your wall.

If all of these products just aren’t murdery enough for you, may I suggest you check out the Madatop Stand for Homepod Mini, ABS Holder Tripod with Robot Shape, Safe Stable Mount with Anti-Slip Silicone Pad Protects Home pod Mini Speaker Well, a $26 HomePod mini stand complete with adjustable robot legs:

Madatop stand

I am afraid of this one.

Vox Media Reportedly Moving to WordPress

Sara Fischer and Kerry Flynn, writing at Axios:

Vox Media, the parent company to websites such as New York Magazine, Eater and SB Nation, will no longer use Chorus — its proprietary content management system — to power its own websites, sources told Axios.

[…]

Vox Media will move its own websites off of Chorus and into WordPress VIP, the enterprise arm of the 20-year-old CMS company.

As a CMS Nerd, this strikes me as a real shame; everything I’ve ever heard about Chorus has been positive.

Kbase Article of the Week: Mac mini EFI Firmware Update 1.6

Apple Support:

This update fixes several issues to improve the stability of Mac mini (Mid 2011) computers and is recommended for all users.

This update improves the reliability of booting from the network, addresses an issue that can prevent HDCP authentication after a reboot, and resolves an issue with boot device selection when a USB storage device is hot-plugged.

Running a firmware update will never not be scary.

Improving Heath.app’s Medication Tracking

Dr. Drang, writing about the Medication reminder feature in iOS:

After I got my pills entered into the app and set the time of day at which they should be taken, I enabled Notifications so I’d get an alarm and a persistent notice on my phone’s lock screen. This is where the app and I got crosswise. I usually didn’t have my phone with me when I took my pills, and even when I did, I’d often fail to tap the button in the app that marked them as taken and dismiss the notice. So later in the day I’d see the notice and question whether I’d failed to take the pills or just failed to mark that I’d taken the pills. The problem was that taking the pills—even the horse pill—was not so memorable that I’d know for sure that I’d done it a few hours earlier. I ended up questioning myself about the pills every week or so.

Is this related to the fact that I’m 62 years old? Probably, but I’ve always been a bit absent-minded (my wife would say more than a bit). And while I will certainly take the lion’s share of the blame for my inability to keep perfect track of my medications through the Health app, I doubt that I’m the only one who has trouble disciplining themself to mark their pills as taken as soon as they’re swallowed.

I love the solution he came up with for dealing with this, in fact it’s also been in use at my house for quite some time.