// 9TO5GOOGLE — MOBILE & WEB
What tech is making you happy?
Tech is in a weird place right now. There are plenty of exciting developments in AI, tons of new hardware, and rapidly growing ideas, but it’s all surrounded by the effect today’s tech is having on society. So, what tech is making you happy right now?
9to5Google Weekender by Ben Schoon is a part of our free newsletter that also includes ‘Inbox,’ a twice-weekly roundup of key stories from around the web by Daniel Bader. Sign up here to get Weekender delivered to your inbox every Sunday along with ‘Inbox’ on Tuesday and Thursday. You can find past issues here.
This article spawned from my time recently with new tech including Googlebook, the Oppo Find X10 Pro Max, and the Mac Mini that I recently purchased.
In the 10+ years I’ve been working in this industry, Googlebook is the first big launch that left me unable to find the upsides. Even after reviewing the otherwise excellent HP Googlebook 14, I’m still struggling to find anything to be optimistic about. And that largely boils down to the timing, as we discussed in last week’s Weekender issue. Googlebook is not only a platform that’s less capable than its competitors, but also wants to demand more from customers for it, all in a time where our resources as customers are more strained than ever. That same train of thought also comes into the Oppo Find X10 Pro Max that I reviewed earlier this week. It’s a great smartphone, one I think I’ll keep using for a while yet, but it’s also obscenely expensive, not really to the fault of Oppo directly. That’s just the tech industry we’re dealing with right now – heck, it’s the economy as a whole we’re dealing with right now.
So, that Mac Mini I bought. That came out of a limited-time deal where the M4 Mac Mini was $650. I’m still a Windows guy at the end of the day, but as PC components only become harder to find and, frankly, to afford, a $650 Mac Mini was by far the most logical way for me to eke more out of my gaming PC that’s already overdue for some component replacements.
All of that is to say, the tech industry right now is full of a lot of tougher choices when it comes to the bottom line. As a reviewer, that’s been a tough conversation to balance, and it has me thinking not just about how we’ll interact with new devices going forward, but also where to find the optimism in the tech I’m using.
Here are some recent examples of tech that have brought me a smile:
What tech is making you happy right now? Is it a new gadget you picked up, or just the simple fact that your existing device is still up and running? Regardless of your outlook on the tech industry as a whole right now, it’s a stressful time out there, so let’s all focus on the positives for a minute…
The launch of iPhone Duo this week has also come with a bunch of additional foldable news. New apps for Android foldables, a new Samsung foldable on the horizon, it’s been a big week!
I said I wanted to focus on the positives, but there’s nothing particularly positive about this one. YouTube is removing the dedicated subscriptions tab from its app in exchange for a new, customizable homepage.