GOOGLE AND AMAZON ARE IN THE PICTURE, TOO

Apple and Samsung are making pushes into the smart home for obvious reasons: the smart home — and, more broadly, the Internet of Things — is a huge business opportunity, especially if they're at the center of it. And neither has to worry about immediately profiting off of their work, since there are bigger stakes in the long run: Apple can further entrench the iPhone in people's lives; and eventually, Samsung intends to offer paid services through SmartThings — it's already starting to do this with security monitoring.

Apple and Samsung may be the first of our current tech giants to try this approach, but they aren't the only ones. Google is working on a smart home language called Weave, which should eventually do for Android what HomeKit is doing for iOS. And Amazon is quietly building up its own smart home ecosystem using its voice assistant Alexa, which has been learning to talk to more and more products (and making its way inside of other companies' products, too).

That may sound like a new version of our current mess — too much going on in the smart home for any of it to make sense — but it's easy to see the issue being mitigated if two or three platforms become dominant. Just like most app developers support both iOS and Android, it wouldn't be a surprise if all companies in the smart home market supported both HomeKit and SmartThings, or SmartThings and Weave, or Weave and Alexa. That would also mean leaving consumers with options should one company make some disagreeable changes.

The nice thing about all of these companies taking on the smart home is that they can make it very easy for us. And, because they're so huge, they can get a rich ecosystem of companies to line up and listen, making compatible products that integrate with each other. But it's worth questioning whether, in the long run, it's ideal for the companies already ruling over mobile — and much more — to control yet another facet of our lives. That's already starting to happen. And if they continue to make building a smart home easy enough for everyone, it likely will.

A perfect companion for a phone with no headphone jack

 

Truly wireless earbuds are finally coming into their own here at CES 2016, but it might not be long before tech's biggest company reveals its own pair. The oft-reliable 9to5Mac is reporting that Apple is working on a premium set of entirely wireless earbuds — under the Beats brand — that could debut alongside the iPhone 7 later this year.

Apple's earbuds are said to include "a noise-cancelling microphone system" that will allow users to interact with the iPhone and control Siri completely wirelessly. 9to5Mac's report says that Apple's current concept resembles what we've seen (and been impressed by) from Bragi at CES this week. And they're recharged when placed inside a carrying case, similar to the Motorola Hint.

It's believed that these premium headphones will be an optional purchase and won't come bundled with the iPhone 7; instead, a revamped pair of EarPods are in development for inclusion in the box. Presumably those will plug into the Lightning port, because yes, Apple really is (probably) getting rid of the headphone jack. Numerous rumors have pointed to a future of Bluetooth headphones and others powered by Apple's Lightning jack, and 9to5Mac's latest report is yet more confirmation of that plan. Apple is likely to introduce the iPhone 7 this fall, months after a mid-cycle introduction for the smaller-sized "iPhone 6C" rumored for release this March. However, Apple's said to be considering several designs for the new flagship, with one option that "substantially" resembles the iPhone 6 / 6S.