Logitech announced the MX Master 4. I’m currently using the MX Master 3S and pretty sure I’ve used every iteration before.

This one adds haptic feedback (do I need that?), a USB-C receiver (I’ve been using Bluetooth, but I think the receiver is better), and a new button.

I’ve always liked this series for the number of buttons and ability to customize them. On the Mac I can pull up all my windows, bring up the app switcher, and I have the thumb wheel set to adjust the volume. Imagine what can be done with another button.

I’ve never been a fan of Apple’s Magic Mouse and I prefer a mouse to a trackpad. I do have an Apple Magic Trackpad on my desk for rare use cases. I turned it on the other day for Final Cut Pro since it makes zooming on the timeline so much easier.

The 3S was a really nice upgrade, the softer clicking is nice and I think this one is even quieter. Not sure these changes are enough to upgrade but if you have an earlier version or don’t have one and think you’d like a mouse with all the buttons, check it out.

Link to Google’s announcement

It was strange a few months ago when Google announced that Nest Aware was getting another price increase with no new features. I saw a lot of people in the Reddit groups saying they were bailing on Google/Nest. I looked at some other options but nothing looked good enough to be worth the up front investment to buy all new cameras. If another company had the right types of cameras and 24/7 recording, only then would consideration begin.

In the Google Home/Nest ecosystem I have a bunch of cameras – including a doorbell camera, outdoor camera, and a few in the house. I have a few Nest Home Hubs that are exclusively used as digital picture frames and the one in the kitchen is the only one with the microphone enabled. I only talk to it for one reason, to set timers. I use Apple as my main home setup, I don’t often talk to Siri but it works for turning lights on and off when I ask.

The migration from the Nest app to Google Home has not been good. I avoided moving any cameras over to Google Home until earlier this year when my old Nest Doorbell was finally giving out (when someone would ring the doorbell, it would turn off, apparently that means an internal battery has died, after watching some videos on how “easy” it is to fix, it was time for a new doorbell). Even now having some cameras required to be in the Google Home app, I have two in the Nest app because it is still better. My two biggest complaints: when opening the Google Home app, it takes over the audio on my phone, so whatever I’m listening to stops playing, and while they’ve added the ability to tap to skip forward or back 15 seconds, it doesn’t work on the live video.

Speaking of devices dying. Besides the doorbell this year, I’ve had a Nest Home Hub screen die and a Nest IQ Indoor camera stop working.

The new doorbell is tempting, if only because the one I have really reduced the field of view from my original Nest doorbell. I’m glad to have a newer outdoor option. I currently have a Nest IQ Outdoor on the back of the house, not something I’m wanting to swap out often as it was just screwed into the new siding. I wish they would have made one that reused the IQ’s mounting plate.

Third Party cameras are maybe the biggest part of the announcement. Walmart has a $23 camera that is supposed to hook into Google Home just like the Nest cameras. I will be keeping an eye out to see how well that works and what other companies jump on board.

Google Gemini is the other part of the announcement and I’m not sure how much I care. I don’t think it is going to make setting timers any better. I am curious about the camera features such as describing what it sees in a notification. Maybe it can even be smart enough to say that in the backyard the movement is that shadows appeared because the sun came out. Then it can figure out that it shouldn’t bother me with that notification.

In typical Google fashion, I don’t have this year. Will I have it later today? This month? This year? There is no way to know.

I am going to want that doorbell.

iOS 18 is out on Monday. To my surprise, I don’t think everyone pays attention to every Apple news story like I do. Even less likely, do they install the beta software as soon as it’s relatively safe. That makes me wonder if when everyone installs the updates if they have any idea what is in them. I’ve been using iOS 18 for 2+ months and here are some of the things that you’ll notice or might want to consider looking into. This way you’ll be ready when you update.

I’ll grab images from Apple’s iOS 18 page, which you should also check out to see all the features. I also don’t have an iPhone that supports Apple Intelligence but so far on the devices I do have with it, I don’t see much use for it.

Home Screen Changes

This is the biggest change to me, probably because it is the most seen. I enabled the large icons (Edit Home Screen -> Customize) which also removes the app labels under the icons. I like it a lot but when I use my work phone that isn’t updated yet, it’s pretty shocking how tiny the icons look. You will need to know what all the app icons are since the labels will be gone.

I don’t know what it is about the iOS 17 update but I’ve been tweaking my home screen widgets like crazy. I’ve used some widgets the past few years but once I got the weather and photo widget in place, they stayed. Maybe allowing them to be interactive made more devs include them in their apps. Here are a few of my favorites that will find a place on a screen somewhere, but I’m still moving them around.

Contacts

I hadn’t used this one before so I’m not sure how much is new. I thought it was just a shortcut to call a few contacts. Turns out there is a lot more to it.

On the widget it shows their current location, if it’s shared with you, it will add an icon if they are driving, and if you have an unread message from them it will indicate that as well.

When you click on a contact I thought it would just bring up their contact page. It actually brings up a whole summary view. I’m not sure this is even in any app, it’s different than the user pages in Contacts and Messages. It should be the default view for Contacts across the OS. It obviously shows the call, FaceTime, and message options. It also includes a map, any Messages threads they are a part of, anything shared (links), photos of them, and emails.