512 Pixels

If you don’t get goosebumps watching Bill Gates discuss the next decade and a half of world-changing improvements his foundation is planning, you aren’t hooked up right.

Over on The Sweet Setup, Steve Owens picks the best app for sharing tasks with others.

I missed last night’s show, but I’m glad Federico and Myke outlined my future so clearly for me before moving onto topics:

This week Federico and Myke talk about Windows 10, Windows Holographic and unsubscribing from web services.

I’d like to thank these three sponsors:

• lynda.com: An easy and affordable way to help individuals and organizations learn. Free 10-day trial.
• Automatic: Your smart driving assistant. Get $20 off by visiting our link.
• PDFpen 2 for iPad and iPhone, from Smile: Edit your PDF’s from wherever you are.

Today’s Microsoft’s keynote was packed full of announcements, from previews of Windows 10 and a post-IE browser to Xbox improvements and a virtual reality headset.

Really.

Like many who have been in the Apple camp for a long time, my natural tendency to dismiss Microsoft as old and boring, reserved for people stuck in the enterprise, but the truth is that Redmond is more relevant than they have been in years, and today’s event proves it in several ways.

Color me excited about what Microsoft is doing for the first time in a long time.

Windows 10

Starting with Windows 8, Microsoft started on their whole “one OS, everywhere” concept, but the company had to split their OS based on what processor was under it — resulting in the much-despised Windows RT.

All that’s gone now, it would seem. Windows 10 is one OS, spanning from the desktop to the smartphone. The whole OS has an interface that’s smart enough to know what kind — and size — of device it is on.

Hell, even the Xbox is getting Windows 10; whatever that means.

This isn’t the approach Apple’s taken, of course. Apple still ships Mac OS X and iOS as separate operating systems, albeit with special versions for the Apple TV and (soon) the Apple Watch. OS X and iOS share a lot of under-the-hood bits, but they don’t share much in the way of control or UI elements.

While I think Apple’s way still is best, but there’s no denying that Windows 10 is compelling.

Features like Cortana, Microsoft’s powerful digital assistant will be on the desktop, as will smartphone-like access to things like Bluetooth and location settings.

Interestingly, it’ll be free for a year for anyone who owns Windows 7 or 8. Clearly, this is in response to Apple making OS X updates free several years ago, but this is a big move for Redmond. Unlike Apple, Microsoft doesn’t rely on hardware for the majority of its income, so it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out in the company’s earnings.

Office

The upcoming version of Office falls in line with Windows 10, with one version to run on all devices. Both the OS and the office suite will change depending on input type, which seems a little crazy, but these things have to live in a world where a laptop can flip over and become a tablet, and it’s good to see Microsoft realize that.

Project Spartan

While it’s here to plague web developers for years to come, the end of Internet Explorer is in sight.

Maybe.

It’s actually unclear if Spartan is just the next IE, or if Microsoft will take this opportunity to put the maligned brand out to pasture.

We know that the new browser will be powered by an all-new rendering engine, but it doesn’t seem like its WebKit. This world it still doomed to having Microsoft build its own engine, but hopefully it will be as modern as the company claimed today.

On the feature side, Spartan boasts deep integration with OneNote, making it easy to mark up webpages and share them. There’s also Reading List which is exactly what it sounds like.

Surface Hub

The new Surface Hub — no, not this Surface or that Surface — is a 84-inch 4K display with a built-in computer hooked up to a bunch of sensors, cameras, speakers and more.

In short, the Surface Hub can hold conference calls, serve as a digital whiteboard (powered by OneNote) and more.

Where it got real weird

The Microsoft HoloLens is a visor-based virtual reality headset that overlays holographic images on the real world.

Basically, this plus the Oculus Rift.

I don’t even really know what to say about this, but this article is well-worth the read. I have no idea what this stuff is for beyond gaming, but it sure seems awesome.

The White House:

For the first time, the White House is making the full text of the speech available to citizens around the country online. On Medium, you can follow along with the speech as you watch in real time, view charts and infographics on key areas, tweet favorite lines, and leave notes. By making the text available to the public in advance, the White House is continuing efforts to reach a wide online audience and give people a range of ways to consume the speech.

I like it.

Sometimes, a tool is announced that seems like magic. Audio Hijack 3 lands squarely in this category.

App Store sales figures are higher than ever. In the first week of 2015 alone, iPhone and iPad users spent nearly $500 million on apps. And that’s not surprising given how easy it is to drop money on the top paid apps. Wouldn’t it be great if a service existed to help you save money in the App Store?

Enter Apple Sliced. Apple Sliced is a free web service that aims to be the ultimate App Store companion. App prices fluctuate at a surprising rate (25% of paid apps had free sales last year), so we track these changes to help you save money. You can sort through the day’s top price drops and sales, find buying advice based on past price changes, and set alerts to receive notifications whenever an app you want goes on sale.

And that’s not all. Apple Sliced also offers app recommendations uniquely matched to your personal tastes, helping you discover great apps otherwise buried in the App Store listings.

It’s free to use, so check it out.

The New York Times has discovered that there’s more to my city than Elvis posters.

Awkwardness about Steve Jobs quotes aside, I think adding a first-party stylus options would help the iPad make a bigger dent in artists’ workflows, especially if it proves to be pressure-sensitive.

As we discussed on today’s Clockwise, the current iPod touch is aging poorly. The last hardware update was in September 2012, and as a result, it has a iPhone 4-era 5 MP camera, is powered by the iPhone 4S-era A5 and packs the iPhone 5’s 4-inch screen.

While the iPod touch is the only iOS device without a contract that sits at the $199 price point, Apple’s clearly letting it fall behind.

The obvious reason is that overall, the iPod is a sinking ship. Check out these charts from MacStories’ coverage of Apple’s Q4 results:

It doesn’t take an economist to see that the iPod family is in trouble. While I’m sure the iPod touch is the top-selling iPod, the picture is nothing but bleak for the entire brand. It’s not hard to understand why Apple’s let the iPod touch go a little bit in terms of tech specs.

But I think more than declining sales are hurting the iPod touch. Just look at this table:

$199$249$299$349$39916 GB iPod touch32 GB iPod touch64 GB iPod touch16 GB iPad mini16 GB iPad mini 232 GB iPad mini 216 GB iPad mini 316 GB iPad Air

The iPod touch is a big hit for parents looking for lost-cost devices for their kids, but with the original, A5-powered iPad mini now for sale at just $249, the iPod touch is a harder sell. The iPad mini — with its bigger screen and better battery — is a lot better for games and videos, the two things kids do with these kinds of devices. Toss in that it’s much harder to lose a 7.9-inch device than a 4-inch one, and it’s not hard to see why the iPod touch may be losing out to the iPad mini.

Of course, parents aren’t the only consumers who look at Apple’s current product lineup and may be drawn to the iPad mini for the same use cases. Add the fact that iPad apps can often be more powerful, it’s a wonder that the iPod touch sales at all at the current price points.

I don’t know what Apple’s move is here. The company has never worried about cannibalizing their own products, but I can’t help but think that when the original iPad mini goes away, the iPod touch will see another hardware update. For fans of the product, however, that can’t come soon enough.

This week on Connected:

This week, the Europeans and Stephen discuss some follow-up then move on to some fake Blackberry news, smartwatch companion apps and RSS.

Sponsored by:

• lynda.com: An easy and affordable way to help individuals and organizations learn. Free 10-day trial.
• Igloo: An intranet you’ll actually like, free for up to 10 people.
• Squarespace: Start Here. Go Anywhere. Use code WORLD for 10% off

While these art projects float around every so often, this one really jumped out at me. Clearly, this isn’t ever going to be a real product, but it sure is pretty.