Week in Review: Matter is the smart-home solution to tech's Tower of Babel
Plus: Apple could be saying goodbye to Lightning and hello to a VR headset | Is Apple's VR headset finally on the way? | It's time for Apple to strike out Lightning
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Hello again, and welcome to another meander through the past week in tech. How have you been? Excellent. Glad to hear it.
If you’ve just been following the headlines you might think it’s been a slower, simpler, slower week in the world of technology. However, there were a few small but interesting happenings of note that got TechRadar’s writers digging beyond the headlines, to identify some themes and trends that could see big changes coming to many of the gadgets we all rely on.
But first, let’s talk about a pretty exciting rumor…
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The big question is not if we’re going to see this, but when – it seems pretty certain that Apple is going to launch something in the VR/AR space in the near-to-medium future, and the fact that it’s showing off a demo unit suggests that the big reveal might not be too far away.
The thing that gets me most excited about an Apple VR headset is that it’ll almost certainly be very good, combining well-thought-out hardware with genuinely useful software.
Will we see it at Apple’s WWDC 2022 developer event next month? It’s unlikely in my view – but there’s a good chance we could see it later this year.
Is Apple getting ready to call time on the Lightning port? (Getty Images)
The question gets discussed every time a new iPhone is in the offing: will Apple ditch the Lightning port in favor of USB-C? It’s being put under immense pressure by European regulators to do so, and Apple, being Apple, has resisted that pressure for many years; but rumors are growing that it could switch to USB-C for the iPhone 15, or possibly even the iPhone 14.
Not that this bothers our US Editor-in-Chief, Lance Ulanoff, who (rightly, in my view) says that we should stop worrying about losing the Lightning port, as it’s outdated, and it won’t harm sales if Apple makes the switch.
Sure, people might be annoyed initially (especially if Apple doesn’t include an adaptor in the box), but in a few years’ time, when every gadget charges over USB-C, they’ll be glad they’re no longer teasing out a wire from under the bed only to find that it’s a Lightning plug, and not what they need.
Ikea's new Dirigera hub pictured alongside the Ikea Bookshelf speaker (Ikea)
You might think that everything about smart home technology is, well, smart, but it actually isn’t. You want to buy all these smart bulbs, and smart cameras, and smart doorbells, and smart speakers, but first you have to check if they’re smart enough to ‘talk’ to each other.
Wouldn’t it be so much easier if they could all speak the same language? Well, it looks like that could finally happen, thanks to the incoming Matter connectivity standard, which is designed to be a unifying set of protocols which would ensure that, for example, a device from Apple could chat happily to a Samsung SmartThing.
So the news that Ikea is getting in on the act and launching a new hub which supports the Matter standard means we’re a step closer to the truly smart smart home – soon you’ll be able to ask your iPad to turn off all the smart devices around your home, rather than having to fire up half a dozen different apps.
That’s a question I don’t normally ask myself as I pop a pair of $100 earbuds or headphones into or over my ears – but Becky Scarrott, our new Senior Audio Editor, has got me thinking.
Becky has been trying out a variety of premium audio products at High End Munich, the show for people that like powerful but expensive listening gadgets, and they don’t come much more premium than Campfire Audio's Trifecta wired in-ear headphones, which look like jewelry and will set you back a cool $3,375.
It turns out she’s quite the salesperson, and her knowledge of all things audio is on full display here – just look at the authority she oozes: “Hard-to-reach sonic elements in well-loved Fontaines D.C. tracks presented themselves to my ears in quite jaw-dropping ways. Campfire Audio's Trifecta celebrated the bass floor of Stormzy tracks with crisp, seemingly effortless zeal and snap, too.”
That's high praise indeed, and while I really don’t think I can afford $3,375 right now, Becky has me wondering “What if…”
The new Sonos Ray is the company's smallest and most affordable soundbar yet (Sonos)
If you were wondering why Sonos seems so keen to make smaller and cheaper devices these days, wonder no more. Our new Home Tech editor, Matt Bolton, sat down with Brandon Holley, product creation lead at Sonos, to ask what was going on, and whether this signaled a shift in the way Sonos sees its key audiences.
“If you step back and just think through the last couple of years – obviously it’s been a very challenging couple of years for folks,” Holley said. “But I think we’ve all found new ways to use our living spaces, myself included. I live in a pretty small apartment in Boston, my living room was my fitness center. It was my office. And it was our live concert venue for quite a while.
"We’re looking for someone that has a space like that – a small- to medium-sized room – that is trying to make that experience better.”
It’s a fascinating interview that covers a lot of ground, so do read the whole thing.
Memorial Day is one of the longer-established annual sales events, and a chance for shoppers in the US to score some decent savings outside of the increasingly huge Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day periods. We’ll be doing what we always do for such events: spending hours scouring the web for the best deals and putting them on a plate for you.
Our Memorial Day hub is already full of the best early deals that we’ve seen – so if you’re looking to bag a cheap TV deal or an upgraded iPad, we’re here to help.
Paleontologist Leonardo D. Ortiz David beside a life-size reconstruction of Thanatosdrakon at the National University of Cuyo in Mendoza, Argentina (Courtesy Leonardo D. Ortiz David)
One of the joys of summer here in the UK is eating fish and chips by the seaside, but it's not without its hazards. Seagulls – or giant flying rats as I like to call them – are attracted to the hordes of tourists eating in the open air, and will brazenly swoop down to snatch chips (french fries for those of you in the US), ice cream and anything else that takes their fancy from the hands of unwary holidaymakers.
However, I'd rather take my chances with the seagulls than with a Thanatosdrakon, also known as the 'dragon of death'. Researchers in Argentina unearthed two of these winged beasts, the largest pterosaur species ever found in South America.
The sub-species they belonged to are known for their very large skulls, hyper-elongated necks and short, robust bodies, and the larger of the two specimens that were unearthed had a wingspan of 30ft / 9m. Honestly, if one of these things comes looking to steal my lunch I'm not going to put up a fight.
This is from the editor
I’ve got rather a lot on at the moment, as I’m getting married this weekend, and there are always 10 things that haven’t been done at any given time.
So I’ll keep this bit brief. Please sign up for the newsletter if you haven’t already, as it really does help us. And if you want to get in touch with me, just send me an email, including NEWSLETTER in the subject line, and I promise I’ll give it a read.
Have a wonderful weekend, and I look forward to seeing you back here soon – bright-eyed, bushy tailed, and ready for another round of tech entertainment.
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