Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
The Harmony One's only highlighted new software feature is the ability to set up a favourite TV channels list, which is displayed after you run the "watch live TV" Activity. You can fit six favourites buttons on one screen and you can even allocate them a customised JPEG (either from Logitech's list or of your own creation).
[Update: This feature is also available on the Harmony 785 using software v7.4.0]
Perhaps more useful is the addition of a "return to Current Activity" soft button. This allows you to execute an Activity such as "Watch DVD", then navigate away from the DVD remote control screen to a Device screen (such as your amplifier) and then return to the DVD remote screen whilst still in Activity mode. Previous Logitech remotes such as the Harmony 785 offered no way of returning to an Activity once you navigated away. This meant if you wanted to go back to controlling the DVD player in such circumstances you either had to execute the "Watch DVD" Activity again (and perhaps lose your place in the movie) or switch to the DVD player under Device mode (which meant the remote no longer tracked your commands). Such a useful new feature is the only tantalising taste of what we hoped the Harmony One might offer. Hopefully it will be retrospectively added to other Harmony remotes via a software upgrade.
[Update: You can return to the previous Activity on the 785 or 525 by pressing the Activities button twice. All that's new on the Harmony One is giving this function its own button.]
Such new features are a nice touch Considering there are no new features, we doubt there's enough to lure people away from the Harmony 785 or 880 - which have a considerably cheaper street price. Why can't you set favourites for other Activities on the Harmony One? Why can't you customise the look of other buttons? Such things would help compensate for the loss of the four programmable colour function buttons found on the Harmony 785.
All up the Harmony One is a rather disappointing for those familiar with the Harmony range and expecting a complete overhaul. Had Logitech dubbed it the Harmony 900 we might not be so critical, but when you optfor a name like the Harmony One you really are implying perfection. So much work has gone into the hardware redesign - it was even named a 2008 CES Innovations award winner for excellence in design and engineering - yet so little work has gone into the interface.
The Harmony One might look sleek and sexy, but sadly Logitech has done stuff-all to address the shortcomings of the earlier Harmony models. It's even taken a few steps backwards such as limiting the number of Activities or Devices displayed at once to a paltry three. Hopefully future software upgrades will address such issues. Meanwhile the Harmony One might look great, but it's not the One remote control to rule them all.
Logitech's Harmony One universal remote control retails for $AU399.95 ($US249.99). For more details visit www.logitech.com
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
How to Make Business Discovery Work for Your Business
Business Discovery takes its cues from consumer apps. Like Google, it encourages us- ers to hunt for and explore data without worrying about or even noticing the underly- ing technology. Their entire experience is working within an intuitive interface to get real-time, self-service results with only minimal training. ...more
Try an easy-to-use set of web-enabled
tools for business-class productivity services. Office 365 provides
anywhere-access to email, important documents, contacts, and calendars
on almost any device.
LATEST HEADLINES FROM YOUR IT
