The Sunday Scene - 12
AirPods Pro 3 marketing image from Apple
First
AirPods Pro 3 - These new headphones from Apple are the latest and GREATEST in a long line of incredible headphones. I’m writing this part of my newsletter in the passenger seat of my wife’s car, with noisy kids in the back seat as we go somewhere for Saturday afternoon. I’m listening to my go-to Pure Focus playlist on Apple Music and the loud kids are barely a distraction. For the record, I rarely do this kind of thing around family and it’s also to make our afternoon plans possible. Regardless of the reasons why, if you like noise cancelling of AirPods Pro 2, be prepared to be blown away by AirPods Pro 3.
Compared to AirPods Pro 2, I find the new transparency mode to be a bit harsher and it doesn’t dampen as many of the background noises as AirPods Pro 2 in my initial tests doing household chores. We’ll see how Apple tweaks this mode in the future. While it’s a niche use case, these headphones are also a great upgrade for Apple Vision Pro users.
Second
Ubiquiti’s new UNAS Line - About a year ago Ubiquiti released the original UNAS Pro. The initial UNAS Pro was competitively priced with a $500 starting price for a NAS that had 8 drive bays and 10GB Ethernet. Since the initial hardware release, Ubiquiti has continued to update the UniFi Drive software, and now they have new hardware to fill out the product line. Ubiquiti is expanding, offering a 4 Bay rack-mount UNAS Pro 4, as well as new UNAS-2 and UNAS-4 models that sit on a shelf or tabletop and can also connect to your computer with USB-C.
There are lots more details to get into with these devices and I’ll be working on some content to cover them sometime soon.
Third
iPhone 17 Pro - Last week I mentioned that I had initial plans to get iPhone Air, but since then, I changed my preorder to iPhone 17 Pro in blue. The better cameras, better cooling, and still lighter weight than my 16 Pro Max are what pushed me over the edge. Year over year upgrades are only for silly people like me, but this year’s iPhone Pro is a great update for me so far.
On Friday in the store I held iPhone Air and it is impressively thin and light. If the rumors are true and it is essentially one half of a folding iPhone for next year, I think it will be a tough decision for lots of power users. Do you take a hit in camera capability and battery life to have a bigger, folding screen? Or do you continue to go with a traditional iPhone Pro with better cameras, battery, and cooling?
The schedule
Yesterday I published a review of Level Lock Pro, and on Thursday night, I had a great time talking with Edgar from Edgar’s Home Tech on my live stream.
This week I should have another long form video for you, along with hopefully doing a live stream on Friday. I’m still finalizing the details.
