Jared Newman

@advisorator.com

5756 Followers 949 Following

Tech journo, newsletter publisher, yacht rock appreciator, fast food enthusiast. https://jarednewman.com/newsletters https://jarednewman.com/blog https://jarednewman.com/

Cord Cutter Weekly turns 10! On June 10, 2016, I sent out the first issue of this newsletter to a small number of friends and family members. Cord cutting has changed a lot since then, but I’m still finding new ways to help folks save money on TV, and I’m grateful that you’re still following along with me. Thanks for reading, for sharing this newsletter with others, for sending thoughtful questions, and for supporting me with metaphorical coffees or Advisorator memberships. These newsletters are still my favorite thing to work on every week, and I’m looking forward to at least another decade of writing them.
"Try these apps Mac storage alerts: Mister Plimsoll is a cool app from fellow tech journalist Glenn Fleishman for monitoring Mac disk space. You can click the menu bar icon to quickly check on all your storage drives, and you can set up alerts (via iMessage, email, or notification) for when free space falls below a certain threshold. It's completely free with no ads or invasive data collection. I wish a Windows equivalent existed, but so far I've found nothing."
Not that it’s any comfort to The Surge‘s characters. Through found audio notes, environmental cues, and the occasional direct encounter, the game has a haunting way of weaving various personal plotlines into the story. Seeing them through to their tragic ends is one of the The Surge‘s high marks. As a tech journalist I naturally gravitated toward the story of Hackett, whose subtle stutters and stammers in the game’s later videocasts hint at a growing discomfort with playing the company shill. We eventually learn that he was once an award-winning journalist, who switched over to corporate PR to better provide for his family. This tends to work out handsomely for the PR people I know in real life; not so much for Hackett.
A paper drawing of a stone face with an orifice where its mouth should be, and a message that says “Dare to put your hand in? The mouth of truth. The honest are healed and filled with joy. Try it now.”
Two humanoid robots, sprawled face down on the floor. I think they might be dead.
Toshiba M550 TV Review from a site called VARGE, URL is pcvarge.com, with a logo that looks very much like The Verge but in red.
A chart titled "Let's talk about sax" showing the % of Billboard Hot 100 number one hits with a saxophone. It drops off suddenly in the 90s.
A Pebble Time Steel smartwatch with a Windows 95 watchface, including a start button over a teal background with a "Date/Time" window in the foreground.
Sadly, Apple itself is no longer a reliable source for AppleCare+ information. Its AppleCare product page doesn’t mention two-year plans and doesn’t show the price of basic plans without theft and loss coverage. The online AppleCare+ portal, meanwhile, doesn’t list annual pricing, and Apple’s online store only sells Theft and Loss plans. All this has the effect of keeping customers in the dark and getting them to pay more than intended.
Sliced brisket
A tray of smoked mac and cheese slightly browned at the edges
A tray full of smoked wings with two sauces, one labeled "Caribbean Death (hot)" and "Buffalo (medium)"
Big ol mess of wings being smoked
Finished brisket on the smoker
A brisket on a vertical smoker. The bark has formed but not as dark as a finished brisket would be.
It's a whole packer brisket rubbed with salt and pepper.
Between cable providers, live TV streaming services, free streaming options, and a trusty antenna, there are an assortment of ways to watch the game. Unfortunately, many of them offer varying levels of video and audio quality, yet it’s weirdly difficult to get precise details on what those differences are. Seriously, I shouldn’t have to spend hours chasing down PR contacts and interrogating them on 4K, HDR, and surround sound options for the Super Bowl. This stuff should just be posted online by the companies involved. But since they won’t, I will.
This is where Advisorator comes in. I started this newsletter in 2018 with the goal of sharing my enthusiasm for technology in an approachable way, having noticed that the non-techies in my life were often blown away by what they didn’t realize they could accomplish. Heading into 2025, it’s time to acknowledge a shift in the mission. Yes, I still want to celebrate technology at its best, but I also want to call it out at its worst. Above all, I want you to feel like you’re in command of technology, not the other way around.
"Several doorbell cameras offer the ability to manage notifications based on facial recognition or familiar face detection. This feature can help reduce unnecessary alerts when household members or frequent visitors are detected. Here are some options and related reviews: 1. Nest Doorbell: The Nest Doorbell (battery or wired) allows users to filter notifications for familiar faces if subscribed to Nest Aware. This helps ensure you only receive alerts for unknown visitors or specific scenarios. Reviews consistently highlight its robust facial recognition and notification customization as standout features"
"Put a llama on it" Even when companies had tangle examples of generative AI in their products, they often had a tacked-on quality, as if AI hardware requires nothing more than stuffing a generic large language model inside a menu somewhere.
Samsung, for instance, showed off how its TVs can understand what you’re watching and suggest similar content, as if Automatic Content Recognition isn’t already fueling the multibillion-dollar TV ad tech business. It also demonstrated an AI feature that tells you the names of actors on screen, 13 years after Amazon came out with X-Ray for its streaming video catalog.
A cube-shaped projector with a rectangular speaker on its side that’s twisted to a different angle.
A CES badge for Jared Newman of Advisorator, with a taped-on portion that says “Read my newsletters” and has a QR code.
An email subject line that reads "TCLtv+ DEBUTS FIVE ORIGINAL Al FILMS FROM TCL STUDIOS"
"Did you know that Advisorator’s paid edition has a lower cancellation rate than Netflix? Even though I make it extremely easy to cancel, those who subscribe to my humble tech advice newsletter tend to stick around for the long haul."
Three Threads posts marked "Picked for you": One from "raidersresistance" that reads "Raiders HC Antonio Pierce told reporters this morning that he spent last night texting all his players, staff & personnel that work within the..." One from "foodsciencebabe" that reads "I'm sorry...what??" And one from "nancyjanefrench" that reads "Years ago at church, I was talking to my neighbor about how awkward it is to get 'holiday texts' from coworkers and people you barely know...."
An entire brisket on butcher paper with a deep bark
Top down view of a brisket with deep bark. There’s a light blotch in the middle from some butter that melted while the turkey was on the smoker on the rack above, plus some extra underneath while the brisket rests.
A cooked turkey with crispy skin
A whole packer brisket with decent marbling sits on a cutting board, fully trimmed and rubbed with salt and pepper. A shaker of the not-so-secret ingredient (MSG) is nearly out of frame.
A "picked for you" post in my notifications about some guy who bought non-TSA compliant luggage locks at the Apple Store.
A jungle military base in an 8-bit art style, with a blue soldier facing outward and some enemies facing the camera, with various gunfire and explosions throughout.
Bluesky people search results showing “No results found for nation’s restaurant news”
Just don’t expect Fantastical’s new cross-platform focus to extend to Android. Simmons says an Android app is not going to happen because he doesn’t believe it wouldn’t benefit Flexibits’s business. As an example, he points to iA Writer’s recent decision to abandon its Android app, citing frustrations with Google, development difficulties, weak protections against fake reviews, and “rampant piracy.” (Google declined to comment on these concerns.) “That’s one story,” Simmons says. “I could give you eight others, that you just hear, ‘We went to Android, and no one’s paying,’ or ‘We went to Android, and it’s hard to support.'”
A little practice amp maybe 6 inches wide and 4 inches tall, with a green guitar hanging above it and wireless audio transmitters connected to both.
iPad settings menu showing Apple's Home app accounting for 40% battery usage.
Sheen returned to television in Anger Management, the spin-off of the film of the same name. The series ended after a 100-EPISODE RUN IN THE SECOND SEASON
Reddit post: If you have web apps/bookmarks on your home screen that you want to hide but keep access to, add them to a new page and disable that page. I have my Xbox cloud gaming web app saved to the Home Screen, but I don't use it enough to warrant keeping it there. Clicking the minus button only lets you delete it since it's a bookmark and not an actual app. Idk why this didn't dawn on me before but I moved it to its own empty Home Screen, then tap on the dots and just disable that screen. Now it's hidden but still accessible via Spotlight and the App Library.
The industry’s had plenty of chances. Remember when T-Mobile tried to sell a TV service with two separate packages—one for entertainment, and another for news and sports? Programmers flipped out, and T-Mobile wound up shutting the whole thing down. Remember when Hulu’s former CEO spoke of plans for a skinny live TV package of news and sports? Never happened. Remember when Verizon tried to sell a choose-your-own-channels TV bundle? Disney got it killed in court. Of course, any shake-up to pay TV bundling has risks. If cheaper, more flexible bundles were available, some existing subscribers might downgrade. But that seems acceptable given the alternative, which is a bottomless pit of subscriber losses, a steady stream of carriage fights, and a fractured streaming landscape that even Hollywood executives hate.
You can now drag files directly from the Downloads Panel to your desktop, a folder, or even into an email or document. No more digging through your download folder, just grab what you need and drop it where it needs to go. You can mark multiple files in the Downloads Panel to be moved simultaneously.
An elaborate tree of branching decisions for choosing between an iPad Mini, 10th-gen iPad, iPad Air, and iPad Pro