LIFE
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THE AUSTRALIAN, THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 2017 theaustralian.com.au/life
15
TECH TALK CHRIS GRIFFITH
Siri brings it on HomePod After two years Apple has finally released a new product: HomePod. Some will say it has been a long time coming when you consider Apple’s glorious past — iPod, iPhone, MacBook Air, iPad — and the fact its previous new device, Apple Watch, was released in 2015. HomePod is an 18cm-long speaker that not only plays Apple Music, with its 40 million song library; it also has Apple’s personal assistant, Siri, baked into it. As with more established rivals Amazon Echo and Google Home, you’ll be able to ask Siri on HomePod to tell you the news, weather and about the traffic to work, set reminders, make calendar entries, dictate iMessages and more. You can do most of these with Siri on your iPhone now. With HomePod, the news and weather will have to be spoken rather than displayed on a phone screen. It’s hands-free operation, so you can give instructions as you come home carrying the weekly shopping, or your hands are covered in flour in the kitchen.
Emphasising HomePod’s music capability may be enough to entice Apple users to buy it ahead of its rivals HomePod will be able to manage your shopping list. This is available with Siri already. You can try it now. Manually create a list-type reminder on an iPhone called “shopping”, then ask Siri to “add butter to my shopping list” and she will. When you’re at the supermarket, tell Siri “read out my shopping list” and she will. Here, Apple is playing catch-up with Amazon Echo and Google Home. Echo is not yet available in Australia but in the US has amassed more than 10,000 skills through third-party contributions. Google Home which is due in Australia from mid-year, has excellent natural language capability and good local knowledge built up by Google through years of Android use, and can recognise different members of a family when each speaks to it. Apple, in contrast, is just starting out. It is marketing HomePod primarily as a capable speaker that can adjust audio output based on room dimensions. HomePod has an array of seven tweeters, a 4-inch woofer and six microphones to hear what you ask. While Australian pricing is unknown, at $US349 ($467) in the US it’s by no means a highend speaker — but with Apple technology it will probably punch above its weight. Emphasising its music capability may be enough to entice Apple users to buy it ahead of its rivals. But Google and Amazon remain ahead in the home-control stakes. So what about that other fast-developing consumer tech area: virtual reality and augmented reality? Will Apple be the leader there? Unlike Google and Microsoft, Apple has not built a VR or AR headset, or planted phones in the back of headsets to drive VR experiences as Samsung does with Gear VR. This year’s Worldwide Developers Conference suggests Apple is playing a different game. It wants its devices to be the leading choice for developers creating VR and AR content. Apple says its new 27-inch iMac Pro can deliver up to 5.5 teraflops of computing power which it says makes it a great platform for creating VR content. It has announced upgraded software called Metal 2, a tool developers can use for graphics development for VR. While it hasn’t produced an AR device similar to Microsoft’s expensive HoloLens, Apple this week announced what it called an ARKit: software that will let developers create clever augmented reality experiences on iPhones and iPads. It’s the nearest Apple gets to Google’s Project Tango, which enables AR initially on two special Android phones by Lenovo and Asus. Apple may wait until it has developers aboard and applications ready before producing a VR or AR headset, if it intends to. But in the connected home and the VR and AR spaces — two rapidly developing areas — Apple isn’t the shining light at the head of innovation. Yet leading the technology pack does not necessarily equate to making the best product. Indeed, yesterday Apple chief executive Tim Cook said the company aimed to be the best, not first to market. Time will tell if Apple makes a killing in these areas that are shaping the future of consumer technology.
Staying in: I’m game if you are Turn off the consoles; true friends are rediscovering how to roll dice, flip a card and ask questions CARLI PHILIPS
FAB FOUR
MIGHT AND STYLE The latest E-Class offerings from Mercedes-Benz tap different niches in the luxury market BRUCE McMAHON
MOTORING
It’s one for the wilds and one for the wild, with Mercedes-Benz adding an all-wheel drive crossover at one end of the EClass stable and an all-wheel drive hot rod at the other. The diesel-powered AllTerrain becomes the sole wagon in this range, one with a broad range of abilities and the one for bush tracks if need be. The burbling bi-turbo E 63 and E 63S sedans are perhaps more for racetrack outings. Both additions retain the inherent sensibilities and luxuries of Mercedes’ full-sized E-Class machines and so revert to premium touring cars for day-today drives. Each has individual charms and character.
The hot rod A stock-looking E-Class sedan, the E 63 S 4Matic+, with just subtle hints of menace to its style, is claimed to be the most powerful four-door sedan on the planet. Yet it retains an elegant stance and only those 20-inch wheels and low-profile rubber, big air intakes, bonnet bulges plus discreet V8 BiTurbo 4Matic+ badges on front flanks suggest there’s a dramatic machine beneath a well-proportioned body. Inside, too, there’s not a great deal to suggest this is anything but a well-equipped, well-finished luxury sedan with five seats and fairsized boot. Standard fittings include the wide display screen for monitoring and operating a comprehensive infotainment system and internet connection. The E 63 S sports extra cabin accoutrements — such as AMG Performance seats (maybe a bit too grippy) and digital TV tuner — over the E 63 model, that one with a little less performance and lighter price tag. It’s the full-house E63 S with 450kW and 850Nm from twinturboed V8 that blasts from zero to 100km/h in 3.4 seconds, running on to an electronically limited top speed of 300km/h. It’s Porsche territory. The 4.0-litre engine’s ever-willOR YOU MIGHT LIKE
Porsche Panamera 4 From $225,500 Another sporting German sedan. The Panamera 4 runs with all-wheel drive and 3.0-litre, turbocharged V6; V8 versions more expensive.
The crossover ing outputs are delivered through a nine-speed auto to all wheels; both Mercedes gearbox and 4Matic system are tuned up by German hot rodders AMG with 100 per cent of torque heading down back under normal conditions and up to 50 per cent delivered upfront when needed. E 63s ride on air suspension with wider front tracks than a standard E-Class and weigh in around 1900kg with a full 80 litres of fuel on board. The factory reckons the E 63 S averages 9.3l/100km, aided by four cylinders being deactivated when cruising. It may take some time before a driver settles down to cruise — this is one serious muscle car packed with giggle and hoot whenever prodded. There’s a handful of drive modes from Comfort through to Race where there’s a Drift setting too; Sport+ offers the best mix of drivetrain responses, and aural delights, on a country road. Power and torque are delivered always with authority and deep growl, whether stepping off the line, overtaking or pulling out of turns. It’s a visceral experience; at times even the speedometer appears left behind in the thrust. But at all times there’s amazing grip and chassis confidence, on dry or damp roads, to use far more of that performance than local laws allow. The 4Matic+ and Mercedes’ traction system work seamlessly to counter loss of traction, understeer, oversteer or any driver apprehensions. Back off and there’s that defiant snap, crackle and pop from the V8’s exhaust.
MERCEDES-AMG E63 S 4MATIC+ ENGINE
4.0-litre, twin turbocharged petrol V8 (450kW/850Nm) TRANSMISSION
Nine-speed automatic, all-wheel drive AVERAGE FUEL ECONOMY
Claimed 9.3l/100km PRICE
From $239,900 RATING
hhhhk MERCEDES-BENZ ALL-TERRAIN E 220D ENGINE
2.0-litre, four-cylinder diesel (143kW/400Nm) TRANSMISSION
Nine-speed automatic, all-wheel drive AVERAGE FUEL ECONOMY
Claimed 5.7l/100km PRICE
The Mercedes-Benz All-Terrain is a good-looking European wagon, sitting a tad higher than a conventional E-Class estate — 29mm taller on air suspension and 20-inch tyres. It’s further distinguished as an all-wheel drive crossover by bolder grille, silver body garnishes, roof rails plus dark grey cladding around wheel arches and below the bumpers. There’s a premium soft-roader style to the All-Terrain and, while this is a minuscule niche, Benz doesn’t want to cede even 100 or 150 sales a year to the likes of Audi’s A6 Allroad. Taut body lines on the Mercedes wagon mask a commodious cabin with up to five passengers shielded from the 670-litre cargo space by a Labrador grille. The top-class ambience, highlighted with gloss black trim, is enhanced by Mercedes-Benz “wide-screen cockpit” with car and convenience modes digitally shown across a dashboard screen; displays can be customised to suit and include analog-styled speedometer and tachometer for traditionalists. Out front is a new turbocharged four-cylinder diesel with 143kW and healthy 400Nm of torque from 1600rpm. It’s a quiet and efficient powerplant, mated to a nine-speed automatic for the
From $109,900 RATING
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Conclusion
OR YOU MIGHT LIKE
Mercedes-Benz GLE 250d From $92,900 Perhaps not as new but this Benz offers similar abilities and comforts in a cheaper package, plus today’s popular high-riding SUV style.
This Mercedes-AMG E 63 S is a magnificent machine, a luxury four-door sedan with uber performance parameters yet with the most civilised of day-to-day road manners. A premium hot rod.
Think cosy, think hygge, the Scandi lifestyle of connection and contentment. The world has cottoned on and The New York Times has called the trend the true expression of “joining with loved ones in a relaxed and intimate atmosphere”. With winter upon us, gather your besties, heat the mulled wine, pop on the cashmere socks and hole up in your woodsy cabin for board games with friends (fireplace preferable). Staying in is the new going out. Say farewell to the consoles and your solitaire friends in The Philippines because analog has never been so cool. Euromonitor International has reported a global sales rise in board games, increasing from $9.3 billion in 2013 to $9.6bn last year. In-person games are trumping digital devices in Australia, too, with the market up 16 per cent according to international toy company Hasbro. Monopoly has been around
since 1935 and has had hundreds of editions, but its rules have remained virtually unchanged. This year was a game changer, though, with a public vote casting off the thimble, boot and wheelbarrow, to be replaced by a tyrannosaurus rex, rubber ducky and penguin. And in a sign of the times, the new Ultimate Banking cashless version
uses bank cards and an electronic unit instead of paper bills. It’s every player for themselves when it comes to word games Boggle and Scrabble. Arguing is inevitable, with seasoned wordsmiths v millennials and the use of acceptable urban slang (this year the Merriam-Webster Dictionary added more than 1000 new words,
including photobomb and facepalm). The same goes for pressurecooker Scattergories and whether “School Supplies” starting with M (Macbook) and “Ice Cream Flavours” (mango) should be accepted. Perfect for “kids these days”, Trivial Pursuit 2000s boasts fast facts and general knowledge from the past 17 years.
Benz 4Matic all-wheel drive system. There are five drive modes, from Comfort through Dynamic to All Terrain mode borrowed from the Mercedes-Benz GLE SUV. The latter raises the E-Class wagon another 20mm (below 35km/h) and adjusts electronics so all drivetrain responses better suit an off-road crawl or slip and slide. And the E-Class All-Terrain is more than capable of tackling rutted forest tracks. Reasonable ground clearance, good engine and clever four-wheel drive system allow the wagon, even with road-biased tyres, to crawl over rough ground with confidence. There’s also an All Terrain screen display showing the wagon’s angles and dangles in the rough. For the most part the E-Class will be run as a comfortable touring wagon. It’s a quiet and assured on-road machine without the inherent disadvantages of a tall-bodied SUV. Steering is spot-on, the front end well-behaved and the diesel always willing. The only jarring note is the crash-bang when those 20-inch run-flats hit a major pothole; maybe the no-cost option 19inch wheels and tyres with a little more sidewall would be the go. But there’s little else to option here. Standard safety and convenience gear runs from nine airbags to a Driver Assistance package with Mercedes’ Drive Pilot for semi-autonomous driving and aids to keeping the wagon on the straight and narrow. There’s a tyre pressure monitoring system — but no spare tyre.
Conclusion The Mercedes-Benz E220 AllTerrain is a comfortable and capable wagon. It’s also an expensive crossover and its appeal may be limited in these SUV-saturated days.
Say farewell to the consoles and your solitaire friends in The Philippines because analog has never been so cool
Nothing spells team spirit like Taboo, with players guessing the word on each other’s cards without giving away associated verbal clues. Pick your teammate carefully as it makes for an advantage in the clue-giving stakes. Popular “think fast, talk fast” game Articulate! is a barrel of laughs. Guess words from your team’s description in 30 seconds without saying “sounds like” or “rhymes with”. Articulate for Kids!, vocab education in disguise, is fun for the whole family. Classics such as chess and backgammon never die, but a slew of independent games is gaining traction. Cards against Humanity is the wicked new grown-ups game launched on Kickstarter with just $4000. Rules are simple: each round, a player asks a question from a black card and everyone else answers with their best (funniest) white card. May the best person win.