I recently got back from a mini-vacation in San Francisco and Houston for business and a wedding. In preparation for my first trip to Hawaii and my bucket list solo adventure to Japan, I've been looking for ways to capture video while still being able to live in the moment. Thankfully, a friend of mine was able to loan me his GoPro Hero 5 Black.

With five-day long weekend under my belt with a GoPro, here are my quick thoughts:

• it's kind of awkward to use a GoPro around friends when we're not doing anything particularly adventurous or exciting.
• in an effort to record quick video while still living in the moment, the seemingly 4-5 second boot time to start up and record was a big disappointment for me.
• when the GoPro was actually recording, it felt great because I didn't have to put any effort into framing the shot; the wide angle is a game-changer for capturing moments.
• The short battery life was a big disappointment for me. I just hated how conscious and conservative I had to be of the battery when i was out for a whole day.

Overall, unless I was repeatedly doing adventurous activities or doing solo trips, my lifestyle probably won't justify the $299 price tag.

(hashtag: apple-2017-predictions)

If the 5.8" iPhone Pro rumors are to be true, I can see Apple embracing multi-tasking in the form of dockable widgets. Not to be confused with Android's split-screen apps that are literally apps chopped in half, but the ability to dock widget-versions of apps.

In theory, iOS 10's iMessage Stickers should be as popular as Line/WeChat stickers in Asia. In practice, iOS 10's sticker interface is too clunky. I expect a "Favorite Stickers" section and other improvements to encourage better engagement among iMessage users.

I see Apple's new Clips app as a hint for native third-party camera filters for iOS. It will allow third-party developers to create Snapchat-like filters that can be seamlessly added to — and removed from — photos/video directly from the Camera Roll.

Building on my Dockable Widgets prediction that assumes a 5.8" iPhone Pro, I think Apple will finally include picture-in-picture video support for iPhone.

I'll be surprised if Apple markets the next iPhone as "The 10th Anniversary iPhone." Surely they will highlight how the iPhone changed the world in the past 10 years, but I think they've learned from their costly mistakes of past "anniversary" products.

I think it will simply be called: iPhone Pro.

The smartphone camera is one of those underappreciated technologies where each incremental innovation seems boring…until one day all the bases are finally loaded and someone hits a grand slam.

Seeing sketchy rumors that iPhone 8 may have an iris scanner like the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. I'm still having a hard time seeing how that it better than a fingerprint scanner under the touch screen.

But to Samsung's credit, the most interesting part of having both a fingerprint scanner and an iris scanner is the software aspect — two tiers of security and authentication. Works great for parents who need to protect access to certain data while giving their kids freedom to play games.

A more Apple solution would be to simply let different fingerprints unlock different things instead.

Killing net neutrality to "eliminate unnecessary and burdensome rules" is like Android staying completely open — it enables big greedy corporations to abuse the openness to lock it down, control consumers, and maximize profits.