I think the heavy reliance on these templates is a good clue. Apple TV's interaction model is a lot about swiping around from tappable element to tappable element. Arbitrary layouts will make this a miserable experience. Apple probably wants to establish a number of layout patterns that they believe will yield a good experience.
The original Google Now team leaving is not indicative of a problem. Google Now is more a search product than an Android product, so it makes sense for it to be taken over by Search engineers.
I think the best way to judge this product is as a hub for a smart home. The fact that it is an easy to wifi router is incidental (in spite of the fact that is all the marketing is talking about). It seems pretty clear, "onHub" is suppose to be a hub for a bunch of "on" branded smart home devices.
Will Alphabet buy Apple? (with the trillions it will make from Planetary Resources, which I assume will incorporate as well eventually). Apple even has a letter reserved for it - The A in Alphabet.
Made me see the world a little differently.
“The Chinese will sell people anything they like. They don’t ask any questions. They don’t care what you do with what they sell you. They won’t ask whether the Egyptians are going to hold elections, or repress people, or throw journalists into jail. They don’t care. The Americans think, If everybody is like me, they’re less likely to attack me. The Chinese don’t think like that. They don’t try to make the world be like them. Their strategy is to make economic linkages, so if you break these economic linkages it’s going to hurt you as much as it hurts them.”
the modern chinese philosophy is to mind your own business, and survive, generate wealth for your children. Try to co-exist, and try to not make enemies (which doesn't mean you make friends), ut if you're troublesome, then stay the hell away.
Great quote towards the end of the article: "Not all students are convinced they need to know a great deal about U.S. history anymore. Some believe in the power of the global marketplace to shape their present and future lives, and therefore see our hallmark U.S. institutions — the Constitution, citizenship, federal government system ... and the histories attached to them — as arcane compared to the new worlds that technology, innovation and consumption are spawning."
