Apple Is Giving College Students a Pair of AirPods When They Buy a Mac or iPad

Yesterday, Apple’s Education Store was down for a while. That usually means there’s something new coming to the store, and it turns out that’s exactly the case. And, it’s pretty good news if you’re a college student who might be in the market for a new Mac or iPad. When you buy one right now, Apple will give you a free pair of AirPods, or you can upgrade to a pair of AirPods Pro.

Courtesy Apple, Inc.

I’ve written on more than one occasion that I think the AirPods, along with the AirPods Pro are the best overall wireless earbuds you can get. It’s not that they’re the best sounding, though they do sound quite good. The reason is simplicity. They just work.

That includes the noise cancellation and transparency modes on the AirPods Pro. Sure, you can get earbuds from Sony with slightly better noise cancellation. Sure, there are higher-end wireless earbuds that offer better sound. But no other earbuds offer the same combination of features, sound, and ease of use.

Courtesy Apple, Inc.

College students already save $100 off the starting price of a MacBook Air. Now, you can get that same device + a set of AirPods, which should cost you $1159, for only $899. That’s a pretty sweet deal.

Smart Home Assistants: Alexa vs Google Assistant vs Siri

There are a lot of reviews of the different smart speakers or smart home devices you can buy. For example, you can find plenty of reviews that compare the Echo Dot with the Google Nest Mini, or the Sonos One with the Apple HomePod. Most of them cover things like audio quality or other features that come built into the specific hardware. 

That's really helpful, but I want to zoom out a bit and give you a perspective on the voice assistants themselves and the overall ecosystem since that's where the real magic happens (or not). For context, in our home, we have devices with each of the three major voice assistants running. We have a Google Nest Hub, a Nest Thermostat (from before Google bought it) and a few Nest Mini speakers, which run Google Assistant and control the smart light bulbs throughout our home.

We also have iPhones and Apple TVs which run Siri. Finally, we have three Echo Dots with LED Clocks that are powered by Alexa. I also have a second phone, a Google Pixel 3a. As a result, we find ourselves frequently talking to all three voice assistants for different reasons. And, as it turns out, not all are created equal. 

Alexa

Alexa is certainly a good voice assistant. She can answer questions, and she usually does a good job of understanding what we mean. That's no small feat considering we have Echo Dots with the LED clock in our kids' rooms, and they are always asking her questions.

One of the biggest advantages of Amazon's Echo devices, where Alexa primarily lives, is that they support not only Amazon Prime Music, but Apple Music and Spotify as well. If you're a music lover, that could be a big deal. 

On the other hand, setting up other devices, like C by GE light bulbs, for example, has been far more complicated than with Google Assistant. In fact, despite the fact that it'd be great if our kids could control their own lights upstairs, I've mostly given up trying to connect them to Alexa, it's just too much work. You have to have a hub, sign in to a C by GE account, connect it to your Alexa app, and then search for devices. Google is far easier in this regard.

Google Assistant

While Alexa rules upstairs, on our main level, it's Google Assistant who powers most of our smart lights, and answers most of our questions. Frankly, for normal commands like "turn on the lights," or questions like "what's the weather?" Google Assistant does a great job. 

As an added bonus, on the Google Nest Hub Max, Google Assistant does a great job of pulling up relevant information, maps, weather, or even photos. It also makes it really easy to pull up TV programs using YouTube TV, and them stream them on our Living Room television using Chromecast.  

One of Google's biggest advantages here is the number of Google services we already use like Google Calendar, Gmail, Maps, and YouTube TV, plus the fact that it integrates so easily with services like Spotify or Netflix.

It is worth mentioning that I'm generally harsh on Google over privacy concerns, and I don't want to gloss over that here. Like the others, Google has faced criticism over how the company has used recordings of interactions with Google Assistant. On the positive side, the company has released changes to its privacy settings, and even rolled out voice commands to give you better control over what happens with your data. 

Siri

Oh, Siri. How we want to love you. You're built into our iPhones and Macs, and you're always there for us. In some ways, you're far more helpful than either Google Assistant or Alexa, but in others, you still fall so far short.

For example, adding reminders using Siri is one of my favorite things about iOS. Also, being able to send iMessages, activate Siri Shortcuts, or even get directions, are all very useful. And those tasks work really well. Where Siri falls short is asking her other questions or finding information. 

Siri just doesn't have the breadth of answers that you get from Alexa or Google Assistant. In fact, when we would ask all three services the same question (about a sporting event or the weather, for example), Siri was often the odd-one-out. The others just provide better answers more reliably. 

Which Is Best?

I really want to like Siri, mostly because of the integration into iOS. There are definitely a few areas where she excels--like the ones I mentioned earlier--but there's really no doubt that Google Assistant is the overall best, purely from a voice assistant standpoint.

She understands the greatest number of questions we ask, and most frequently returns the correct answer, or most helpful information. Google Assistant also does the best job of controlling our smart home, including lights. Unless you plan to limit yourself to one family of technology, and need to connect to Apple Music, I'd recommend Google Assistant as the best overall voice assistant. 

This article was first published for my column at Inc.com

The FBI Isn't Happy that Apple Is Protecting Your Privacy

It seems absurd that we’d have to start here, but let’s be clear: Apple isn’t on the side of terrorists. You wouldn’t know that the way the Department of Justice tells the story, with federal law enforcement loudly criticizing the company’s position on encryption and protecting your data.

The latest attack came earlier this week with Attorney General William Barr’s statements at a press conference where the FBI revealed it had been able to hack into the iPhone used by the shooter who killed three U.S. sailors, and injured eight others, at the Pensacola Naval Air Station last year.

Credit: SHUTTERSTOCK

“Apple’s desire to provide privacy for its customers is understandable, but not at all costs,” said Barr at the press conference. “There is no reason why companies like Apple cannot design their consumer products and apps to allow for court-authorized access by law enforcement, while maintaining very high standards of data security. Striking this balance should not be left to corporate board rooms.”

The most dangerous part of this argument is that it sounds reasonable. Who isn’t on the side of preventing bad guys from doing bad things? Who wouldn’t want the government to be able to investigate crimes, especially acts of terrorism?

Except, once you open that door—or iPhone—it’s open.

Apple’s position has long been that privacy matters, and protecting your data with encryption is an important aspect of that value. There is no such thing as encryption that has some type of special secret access for the government whenever it thinks it needs to crack an iPhone. Either it’s encrypted or it isn’t. Apple believes that encryption is important enough that it’s willing to stand up to the government.

And it should.

This isn’t the first time, either. It made a point in 2016 of refusing to unlock another iPhone, this one belonging to one of the attackers in the San Bernardino mass shooting. The government was eventually able to access that phone using a third-party tool that is able to guess a passcode while bypassing some of the device’s security features. Apple, however, didn’t budge.

Regardless of the protests by the country’s top law enforcement officials, that’s exactly how it should be. Apple has made protecting your privacy its core brand value, and it stands behind that with its actions. No matter how much pressure, no matter how much criticism, we’re all in big trouble if Apple ever gives up that principle.

That’s because encryption protects your personal data, your business data, your photos, your conversations, your text messages, your financial records, and your health information. It makes it so that hackers with bad intentions aren’t able to access take advantage of that personal information. In order for that to be the case, it means the feds can’t have a backdoor.

The FBI and DOJ aren't the only government agencies, by the way, that take a different stance on user privacy than Apple. I wrote this week for Inc.com about how states have decided to bypass the contact tracing technology developed by Apple and Google, and are instead designing their own apps which collect and track far more information.

While those decisions have nothing to do with criminal investigations, there is a similar thread, which is that government agencies don't particularly like that Apple is protecting your privacy even when agencies want your information. And, before you think this doesn't really matter because it doesn't directly affect you, let me remind you that there has never been a more important time to get this right.

Keeping your personal information private, whether it's banking records, or your company's customer data, or just personal photos of your kids, matters. So does keeping your health or location information private--which is suddenly extremely relevant. 

There has never been a more important time to remind ourselves that whatever access the government has to the iPhone belonging to a terrorist, it will have for everyone. And, even more importantly, whatever access the government has to a backdoor can also be exploited by people with far worse intentions. That, ultimately, is why it matters.