Toby Knapp

Toby Knapp

Dive into the captivating universe of Toby Knapp! Experience his authentic life story, engage on social media, revel in exclusive interviews,...Full Bio

 

Apple. Amazon. Google. The walled gardens of our lives.

.: Apple Photo. Used with permission and under agreement :.

I'm watching the Apple Special Event today... and before we go any further, know that I've endorsed Apple in some way, shape, or form, since 2005.

That being said...

Wow. How are we to choose the sandboxes in which we live, work and play?

I love Apple. I use the iPhone almost exclusively and I use a Macbook Pro as my personal laptop for content creation and more....

But, if I'm being honest...

I use Google's Nest Home Hub. I love it and it just works. I can video chat with family and it really is the best alarm clock I've ever had. I can stream iHeartRadio, SiriusXM, Pandora and Spotify on demand. I can watch YouTube from my bedside if I can't sleep and when I wake up, it reads to me the overnight headlines... which literally is like getting a daily briefing first thing in the morning - even before I get out of bed. Apple doesn't have anything like this... aside from the iPhone... but again, the Home Hub doesn't exist in my world to be my phone. It's a bedside assistant that can really do so much for me... including showing me some of my favorite photos and more.

The Google ecosystem is an incredible ecosystem. From GMAIL to search, to Google's assistant... it all works together well. I'm a fan.

I'm also a fan of Amazon's Alexa, and particularly, the Amazon Music speakers. In my living room, I've got the Amazon Echo Studio speakers - one for left channel audio and one for right - and the Amazon Echo Sub. I've also got Alexa controlling the mood lights on my patio and in my home studio. The sound is pretty amazing - and the 3D Audio they've got really does bring a new life to music. Alexa seems to be a bit a step ahead of Siri... however I won't compare any one of 'em to Google's assistant. Google has too much access to our personal data which makes it fundamentally better... because it knows us better. But I don't use Alexa or Amazon for that. I use it to turn on and off some lights, to give me updates on my Amazon orders, to tell me the weather, or to play our stations on iHeartRadio.

As I sit here watching this Apple event on my Apple TV, which I'm controlling on a remote app on my iPhone... I'm thinking out loud that there are three playgrounds in my life. My digital life. I can do many things in each of 'em and I can do the same things in each of 'em. Some of it all seems like a redundancy.

But there is one thing which one ecosystem has which the others dont...

Apple's design. The hardware. The "gotta-have-it" thing they pack into devices like the iPhone... which is really the remote control to your digital life... that's what these other ecosystems don't have.

Watching this product launch video... it's even next level. And it was all shot on an iPhone. My iHeartRadio amigo Michael J would say "it's like Spielberg directed this..."

He may have. You just never know...

At Apple, they know you want an amazing camera which just works. So they've put one - probably the best one - in a phone for you. Oh and it shoots amazing videos. Oh and you can edit them on the phone. Oh and you can post to YouTube or Instagram or whatever from it, too. If you want to edit the video or photos on the Mac, well, that's cool, it just works better and you don't need wires. If not, you can use any of a billion apps to make your photos and videos smoke... on the phone. Oh and that includes Google apps for photos and videos, too. And Adobe. You know, because Photoshop.

The playground that feels - and makes you feel - is what Apple does. Feeling and emotion... and amazing design.

You can't really beat that...

At some point, the playgrounds are going to have to merge. There is just no way anyone can afford to pay for the 'season pass' for each of these playgrounds. It's not sustainable. And some ecosystems do things better than the other... and, yeah, the others are striving to be better than the other.

Until that time comes, I'm going to continue to figure out how to keep skipping between the playgrounds of our digital lives... because they each - in their own way - bring about joy...

... and that joy. That bliss. That's what all of this... is all about, right?

Until then, I'm going to sign up to deliver Uber Eats for the next month... so I can afford the new toys which unlock the digital playground(s) of my life.

Thanks for reading.

#LoveFromToby

-t.


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