Author: Tim Bajarin

I attended last week’s Samsung Developer conference in San Francisco and saw them introduce the first flexible smartphone from a major player. If you follow my columns here on Techpinions, you know that I have been writing about flexible displays since I saw the first ones from BOE displayed at the Society of Displays (SID) conference in L.A. last May.

That design caused quite a stir at this show and proved that, at least in concept, display vendors like BOE could create a display that folds and, in turn, helps smartphone vendors create the equivalent of a smartphone/tablet like device for the first time. While Samsung did not show their flexible display publicly at SID, they were showing it to vendors in private suites and declaring that they too would supply folding displays for use in these multi-mode devices.

Although Samsung had publicly shared they were doing a flexible phone for months, last week’s developer conference was the devices coming out party. This new smartphone and tablet device is slated to ship before next summer, and it is estimated that it could be priced as high as $1700 in the US. Samsung expects to make about a million of these devices in its first year, and I suspect they will have a pretty big marketing campaign behind it when it officially launches.

While I applaud Samsung’s innovations with this new design, I am concerned that this is a big gamble for them in the short term. At the moment, I have seen no credible research that shows that consumers want a device like this. And with a 1 million run and potential pricing as high as $1700, only industry competitors and early adopters will buy them in this first iteration of a folding smartphone.

One significant risk for them is that this phone could serve as a way to verify the market for not only themselves but also competitors. At the very least it will test the waters for consumer interest. At worst, if they are successful and draw real interest, you can bet Apple, Huawei, and other top-level smartphone makers will follow suit. Apple has a history of letting others create a new product category and watch it develop and if it shows promise, they apply their design genius and tie it to their ecosystem of hardware mfg and supply chain management as well as their apps and services and even though a latecomer, Apple is known to quickly surpass the competition and become the volume leader with their own flexible smartphone/tablet product in the future.

But the thing that I am deeply concerned about with this Samsung Flexible device is that in its first generation, the product is not good and has serious flaws. That is the type of thing that will impact its acceptance, and if it delivers a mediocre to poor experience, it could poison the market for a device like this for years.

One fundamental flaw may be in their use of a plastic cover. Plastic is known to scratch and is more breakable then something like Corning’s Gorilla Glass that has proven to be an excellent cover for smartphones today. Samsung says they invented a new polymer for use in their cover for this device but gave little details on how scratch resistant and unbreakable it will be.

Another big hurdle for its success is software. The current mobile software would not work on a folding screen that stretches to as much as 9 inches when unfolded and would need serious support from software developers to work correctly. Samsung made this clear at their developer’s conference and planned to introduce an API for developers so they can modify software for a flexible device. I talked to a couple of developers who were impressed with the design of this flexible device but were not convinced it would be worth creating software for it unless they saw it selling in the multi-millions. Call it the proverbial Chicken and Egg problem magnified.

One last thing that concerns me is that ODM’s I talk to say that manufacturing flexible displays in volume is not easy. Yield rates are low now and it is not clear when they can perfect this type of display. Also, creating the flexible mechanics around this design is a not easy task either. There is a serious issue related to things like its bendable framework as well as creating the type of mobile motherboard design inside so that it too can flex thousands of times with complicated electronics on board.

The new Samsung foldable smartphone/tablet has potential, but there are many obstacles on its way to success. Samsung is known for creating quality products, so I do not doubt that when they ship this first device, it will be a relatively stable product. I hope for them and the industry that what is delivered is good enough to spur further exploration of this design. I do think it is a game changer and could spur a lot of smartphone refreshes in the next decade. But if this first version underperforms, it could deal a setback to these type of combo devices for some time, even if there is serious interest in this type of smartphone and tablet design.

In last week’s ThinkTank piece, I stated that Apple, with the introduction of the new powerful iPad’s, was trying to change the rhetoric around these new products. Instead of directly calling them tablets, they talked about their computer like features and only once referred to them as tablets.

I also pointed out that these new iPad’s are closer to the original vision Steve Jobs had when he introduced the iPads in 2010 and suggested that someday an iPad could replace a laptop. In the eight years since the iPad has been on the market, it has become a go-to portable computer for many people. I can do about 70-80% of what I can do on my laptop with the iPad, and now that Adobe’s Photoshop and many other mainstream computer productivity apps are available on the iPad, these “tablets” are becoming more computer-like every day.

Earlier this year, I met with one the top execs of a major PC company who sells a lot of low end to mid-range laptops. This exec told me that the one thing Apple could do that would impact his laptop business was to introduce a computer for $799 or lower. I am sure he was relieved when Apple introduced the new MacBook Air with a starting price of $1199. But that relief might be short-lived. Given Apple’s new positioning of the iPad as a potential laptop placement, with a starting price of $799, his worst fears could be realized over the next year or two.

PC makers have, to date, argued that the iPad was way too underpowered to ever replace the laptop as a true productivity tool. Up to now, that has been true. But with the new iPads sporting Apple’s Bionic A12 processor that can compete for head to head with most of Intel’s Core i5 processors that are in the majority of mid-range laptops, that gap is narrowing.

If you look at Microsoft’s Surface, which is a tablet with a keyboard, this design concept has already gained some serious market traction. With the iPad’s new powerful engine and larger base of productivity software, at the very least these new iPad’s can compete head to head with Microsoft’s Surface. However, I believe that given Apples marketing muscle and new updates to their connectivity software that drives more and more of the Mac and iPad’s to cloud shared apps and services, it will, over time, allow them to compete directly with the mainstream laptop market.

This may especially be true with the 12.9-inch model. In the short time, I got to play with it in Brooklyn last week, I could see how it could evolve into a laptop replacement for me in the future. I do not doubt that laptops are not going away anytime soon and in fact, may even see some more growth in the next year or two.

But to underestimate the new iPad’s as a potential competitor to laptops would be a mistake. Apple’s posting of it as a computer says that they will continue to make it even more powerful and work with developers to create even more powerful productivity apps. Add to that Apple’s marketing budget and muscle that will clearly show how it could serve as a person’s main portable computer and you could see Apple potentially being quite successful with making the iPad a notebook replacement for many in the future.

If they do push to make the iPad a notebook replacement and it is successful, could that cannibalize their notebook business? Apple has done this before. The iPhone took out the iPod and Apple planned it that way. Last year, Apple sold 42 million iPad’s compared to about 25 million Mac’s. Keep in mind that Apple’s goal is to sell as many Mac OS and IOS devices and tie them to their growing echo systems of apps and services. I don’t believe Apple will ever discontinue their MacBook’s as there will always be a need for them by some customers, but I can see how many MacBook users who are not power users might default to an iPad Pro as an alternative to a laptop.

One other thing they did that makes it possible for the iPad to act as a computer is the addition of USB-C for the connector. It can now be used with a 4K monitor. There have been many attempts to try and make a smartphone the center of a PC experience and Samsung has created the DEX to tie their smartphones to a monitor and keyboard. But most smartphones did not have the kind of power you need in a PC to make it the center of a computing workstation.

These new iPads now sport PC class processors, and with an external keyboard, it will be interesting to see if people begin using it in this format to handle real-world productivity tasks in the future. While many reviewers dismiss Apple’s new positioning of the iPad as a potential laptop replacement, and this version may not be enough to get people to move from their laptops to an iPad Pro yet, I am convinced that over the next two years Apple will make this product more powerful and PC like and spend the kind of money and marketing to make it a serious option to a laptop.

I flew out to Brooklyn for Apple’s launch event this week and was pleasantly surprised that they introduced major upgrades to the MacBook Air and the iPad Pro line. Although these were rumored in advance of the event, getting to see them in person and touch them and play with them is much better than just seeing it streamed.

The new MacBook Air is a significant new version of the MacBook Air design that makes it the most powerful thin and light laptop in Apple’s line. And for MacBook Air fans, this upgrade is very welcomed. One of the more interesting things I overheard when the media had hands-on with the MacBook Air after the event is that many said that this is the laptop they would want to buy themselves. It has serious power, a Retina screen, one of Intel’s best Core i5 processors and more than enough memory and storage for even the most hardcore laptop user.

One important technical side note about the new MacBook Air that did not get enough attention is that Apple created a new aluminum alloy that includes some recycled aluminum for the unibody casing from the ground up. In a nod toward their overall approach to creating more green products, this new alloy material does not need to be smelted and is instead created with a new, much greener process, although Apple would not tell me what that process is. Apple has a long history of inventing new materials and manufacturing processes that do not exist if they need it to make any of their products. This is an excellent example of that.

I too would covet this as my go-to laptop, especially for travel, but I found the most exciting product at the launch to be the new iPad Pro’s. This new tablet goes way beyond being a tablet. I think that this is the iPad that Steve Jobs originally envisioned when he said at the iPad launch in 2010 that someday a “tablet” could replace a PC. And with new Photoshop from Adobe, and apps from Autocad and a whole host of new and powerful drawing tools, along with full Office support from Microsoft, I would argue that most of what a person does on a PC can now be done on an iPad Pro. It also uses their Bionic A12 processor that can go head to head performance wise, with most core i5 processors on the market today.

Traditionalists will scoff at the idea that the iPad Pro, even with its increased power, could ever supplant a laptop or PC, but for a lot of people, it already has. Many use it as their primary computer now and only default to a desktop or notebook for apps that need heavy lifting as they call it. Today, the majority of people who have an iPad also have a PC or laptop. But the amount of time they spend on a PC versus an iPad has changed and the iPad, for a lot of people, is where they spend most of their time when doing mainstream computing tasks.

One other thing they did is add USB-C to the new iPad Pros, which now makes it \possible to connect it to a 4K display and even use it to charge your iPhone. Apple did stress the creative aspect of the new iPad at the launch, but they also hinted that they too see the iPad becoming more than a tablet and began positioning it as a laptop replacement. In fact, I think that their initial target is Microsoft’s Surface line and within the next two years will build on this new iPad Pro and add other features like mouse support and better continuity with their Mac platform and, over time, begin migrating more of their customer base to the iPad Pro line as a laptop replacement for general users.

That does not mean they would get out of the laptop business. They will continue to build more powerful laptops and Macs and could even move from Intel-based processors to their own A-series sometime in the future. Although we know they have no plans to merge IOS and Mac OS, that will not matter if they deliver greater continuity between the two and their software developers make versions of their apps for the Mac and the iPad, thus giving users an even broader choice of hardware designs to meet their individual needs. In this case, it would either be the iPad Pro with its tablet-focused design or a MacBook Air, with its clamshell design. Add to that fact that much of what we use in the way of apps are cloud-based and either a MacBook Air or an iPad Pro could meet individual needs in new ways.

From an industry standpoint, the new iPad Propositioned as a laptop replacement could eventually be a big deal. All of the traditional PC players have discounted Apple’s iPad as being too low powered and weak to compete with conventional laptops. This new iPad Pro is now as powerful as most mid-level to even some high-end laptops since almost all use Intel’s Core i5 processors.

Apple had a slide that showed that Apple sold more iPads than any individual PC company sold in PC’s in the last 12 months. That slide was not an accident. It was Apple signaling that they plan to compete with laptops directly in the future. They are not trying to revive the tablet category. They are changing the focus and saying that the iPad Pro could replace a Windows or even a Chrome-based laptop.

How long will this take for Apple to transition the iPad Pro to a worthy laptop competitor? This new iPad Pro with computer-like power is the first step in what I believe is a three-year journey. Their rhetoric on the new iPad Pro, as well as what they shared at the event is interesting. Tim Cook barely mentioned the word “tablet.” When describing the iPad Pro. And the chart, along with the demos of PhotoShop and the mention of Auto Cad and AR-based apps tied to real-world applications, only enforced their view that the iPad Pro is more than a tablet.

I will write more next week on the impact it could have on the PC laptop market.

The other thing that interested me is the new 12.9 inch iPad Pro’s design. When I held it next to the new 11-inch iPad Pro, the size difference and weight is close. You have to see the new 12.9 inch iPad Pro when it hits stores next week. The current 13.1 inch is too big for me to carry around all of the time so I default to the 10.5 inch iPad Pro as my go everywhere device. But I am pretty sure that I will move to the 12.9 version given the new design is so similar in size to the new 11-inch iPad Pro and make it my go everywhere device in the future.

I suspect both products will gain serious attention from Apple fans and even draw in many switchers. Both products, along with strong iPhone sales should help them break unit sales and revenue numbers this holiday quarter.

In a few weeks, at the Samsung Developers Conference in San Francisco, Samsung’s Mobile Chief, DJ Koh, is slated to introduce their first foldable smartphone. This has been rumored to be in the works for over a year, and if he introduces this foldable, which would also double as a small tablet, it would be the first of its kind in the market. https://www.fastcompany.com/90231522/samsung-may-finally-be-ready-to-show-off-its-foldable-phone

In May, after I attended the SID conference in LA, I wrote about the folding displays I saw from Visionox and BOE and that behind the scenes, Samsung was showing their foldable screen to potential customers. It appears that Samsung will be using their display in their version of a folding smartphone/tablet device.

While Samsung may be first to the market with a foldable, Apple may not be too far behind. Recently, Patently Apple wrote about a whole host of patents that Apple was granted and one specifically covered a foldable iPhone.

What’s interesting about this granted patent is that it was submitted to the patent office years ago. That means that Apple has been working on a foldable iPhone for quite some time and this is not a knee-jerk reaction to Samsung doing a foldable phone now. This granted patent could also become a problem for Samsung if Samsung’s version in any way treads on this issued patent Apple just received. To date, we have not seen any patents granted to Samsung in this same area.

While first movers like Samsung might blaze a trail in foldable smartphone/tablet like devices, Apple has a long history of letting other companies release any new design first and then eventually doing their own using their award-winning design principles and only the best and most appropriate materials. Then they tie it to their overall eco-system of apps and services and, although being late to the foldable device party, end up with the lion’s share of the profits.

I do somewhat get a sense from Samsung’s pre-announced rhetoric that they are not certain this first generation foldable device will be a hit. They specifically said it would use a plastic cover for the screen cover and plastic is not scratch proof, and over time the folding crease can have a blur effect that mars its clarity. Although they say they plan to release it next year at some point, I almost wonder if it is more a beta product and they are waiting for a glass cover solution before going all out in its push and promotion.

What is notable about Samsung’s folding smartphone/tablet device is that it has the potential of starting a major refresh of smartphone purchases. To date, smartphone demand worldwide has plateaued even though many buy new smartphones every year. But a new foldable design could revitalize the market for smartphones in general and drive a major refresh of people upgrading to a new, foldable smartphone as early as 2020, especially if Apple brings their version out around that time frame.

This week Palm (not the original Palm Company) introduced a tiny phone called the Palm Phone. It sports at the 3.3-inch screen and is designed to be kind of mini add-on to your primary smartphone.

When I first saw the pictures of this palm-sized phone and its diminutive size, it reminded me of the Palm Pre, also a very tiny smartphone introduced before Apple introduced the iPhone and was to be their next big smartphone to drive their growth. At that time they were a subsidiary of HP and was led by former Apple exec John Rubinstein. When I got the Palm Pre, its small size and tiny keyboard made it very difficult to use, and while it had some innovative features, it never took off. While it did indeed fit in the palm of your hand, it too small for most people to use for just about any app available on the Palm OS back then.

This new Palm Phone also fits in the palm of your hand and uses a much better screen and follows the basic designs of most smartphones, albeit with a tiny screen. It uses a dual sim configuration that allows it to have the same number as your primary phone. This makes it ideal as a secondary or sidekick phone to take with you should you not want to carry your larger phone with you for some reason. Some people were surprised it used Android instead of the Palm OS, but the ship has sailed on the Palm OS and getting developers to support it would have been an uphill battle for the maker of this new Palm Phone.

It is only available on Verizon for $349, and then you are charged $10 a month since it uses the same number and is priced more like you would if you had a data SIM card in an iPad or the Apple Watch.

This new Palm Phone will test the market’s interest in two key ideas, the first being the acceptance of the concept of having a smaller phone that mirrors your bigger phone. The problem is that while your big phone will run all Android apps, the Palm Phone does not. It has its texting solution, and many mainstream apps would not work on this smaller screen. It is an intriguing idea, but I am struggling with who this new phone’s real customer is. Most people are already comfortable with their current smartphone and have many options off-screen sizes now that ranges from 4 inches to 6.5 inches.

The second thing it will test is the interest in a small screen phone. Interestingly, the original iPhone was 3.5 inches, and Apple kept that small size in their phones for five years before they jumped to a 4 inch iPhone and eventually the larger screens we have today. I remember having a lot of discussions with Apple about moving to larger screens, arguing that people will want more screen real estate to watch videos and see their pictures on a smartphone. But for many years, Apple felt that 3.5-inch screens were enough for their customers, and it took serious competition from others to force them to move to larger screens for the iPhone.

Today, 70% of all video is consumed on a smartphone or tablet. And if you have ever watched a movie or video on one of these devices, you know screen size matters. The Palm Phone, sporting a 3.3-inch screen, is not optimal for video or for even playing most games. That makes it a very limited smartphone and convincing people to use it just as a backup or secondary phone I believe is a tough sell.

I am intrigued by the sidekick nature of the new small Palm Phone, but I have trouble seeing why I would want a smaller phone with me when I want the smartphone that I carry to have no limitations on what I can do with it. I suppose it will appeal to some, but I doubt that this audience is large.

That said, it will be interesting to watch if this smaller smartphone gains any traction. If it does, I can see someone doing a similar model that has no limitations and could serve as a primary phone instead of a secondary one. And it would have to be tied to its cellular number and network, and not be linked to a similar number on persons existing smartphone.

I admit that as I am getting older and my eyesight is not as good as it was 20 years ago, a larger screen is more appealing to me. The trend in consumer buying is to go for a larger screen, not a smaller one when buying a smartphone and $349 to pay for a sidekick on top of the money spent on a person’s main phone seems like a stretch for the majority of smartphone buyers.

In last week’s ThinkTank I wrote about the importance of marketing to Millennials in terms that they understand and will react to positively.

Millennials represent 80 million in the US, and they have a strong place in our offices, factories, and business establishments all across our country. They have money to spend on all types of products and services. As I pointed out, their needs are quite different from Baby Boomers and Gen Xer’s and how you market products and get their attention should be more focused on their specific needs and wants.

As I continue to study the buying mentality of all generations, there is another factor entering consumers minds, and that is a company’s position on social issues. I subscribe to Fortune’s CEO Daily newsletter and its author, Alan Murray, pointed out an important study done recently by Flieshman Hillard on this exact topic.

Here is Mr. Murray’s note about this study:

The folks at Fleishman Hillard have a report out this morning saying that 61% of “engaged” consumers believe it is important for companies to express their views on key social issues. Among millennials, that number increases to 75%. And the report suggests a majority of those consumers will adjust their buying habits accordingly. “People are making purchase decisions based on whether they agree or don’t agree with the positions of a company,” said Kristin Hollins, who leads the firm’s corporate reputation practice in the Americas. And corporate leaders are feeling the pressure. “It’s no longer an option to stay silent.”
You can see the study here.

Here are the positions the study says are must have’s for companies to take a stand socially:

(% of engaged Consumers expectations and associated rank order.)
1-49% Sexual Harassment
2-48% Acceptance of Diverse Ethnic Customs and Traditions.
3-45% Data Security
4-45% Gender Pay Gap
5-45% Outsourcing Jobs
6-45% Unemployment

The Study also pointed out other Issues to watch are related to Freedom of Speech, Access to Healthcare, Affordable Health Care, Domestic Violence, Poverty and Affordable Housing.

The Study looked at this question across four distinct age demographics, and one, in particular, surprised me. The most vocal generation speaking out today about socials issues, especially via social media, are Millennials. But as this study points out, what they call the Silent Generation, those over 73 years of age, and many boomers, have even stronger feelings about a company’s social position when it comes to their view of the company they buy from or deal with in their lives.

For example, 76% of the Silent Generation says Sexual Harassment is high on their list of concerns while for Gen X, only 51% say it is a concern, and for Millennials it is only 46%. On the subject of Data Security, 62% of the Silent Generation and 61% of Boomers say it is an issue while only 34% of Millennials see it as a concern. The results are similar for things like Data Privacy, Racism, acceptance of religious beliefs, Gender Discrimination and Equality and Gender Pay Gap.

Two things strike me about this report. First, companies no longer can remain on the sidelines when it comes to social issues. I think Social media and the 24 hour new’s channels are making it hard for people to stay silent anymore and are being challenged to view what they buy and what companies they deal with through their personal belief prisms. As this report points out, what a company believes on social issues are becoming important to peoples buying criteria and habits.

Clearly, Apple understands this and has not shied away from making their views on social positions well known. Yes, they make great products that are in high demand, but the company has always been one to speak out on social issues and are following the lead of Steve Jobs’s, one of the more brilliant marketing minds we have ever had in the world of business. If this report is accurate, companies positions on social issues is not a passing fancy and are likely to become more important in how people view companies they deal with or buy from in the future.

The second thing that strikes me is how the silent generation is taking a solid position on social subjects and what they expect from the companies they deal with. Since they are not as vocal or that engaged on social media, I don’t think most of us were aware of the fact that they are factoring social issues into their views about the way to look at companies they interact with and buy from.
There are other interesting findings in this Fleishman Hillard report, and I recommend readers take an closer look at their research, which to me was very illuminating on this important issue for companies and marketers.

I recently started looking at a study by GraphicsSprings that researched millennials brand recognition of six major IT companies. The focus of the study is on the impact these companies logo’s had on the demographics it studied, but I would argue that what the company does and how it impacts these customers are why these brand logos do or do not resonate with these different age groups.

Here is the chart the that highlights their findings:

“The table below compares the generational recognition differences between Millennials and Baby Boomers of 6 IT companies which feature in the top 200 global corporations, all of which hail from The United States:”

“The results above are a clear indicator of how brand recognition changes from generation to generation. Dell Technologies, for instance, is recognized by 80% of Baby Boomers, but only 45% of Millennials in America, whereas Apple is universally recognized, no matter the age of the respondents. Additionally, Microsoft is 90-95% recognized by those born from the 1940s to 1985, whereas it drops down to 75-85% for Millennials in US and Europe, suggesting that Apple reigns supreme with the younger generation in these regions. Interestingly, recognition for Microsoft in Asia remains high across all generations.”

Not surprisingly, Apple has 100% brand recognition across all demographics in regions studied. But millennials view of all others is mostly down compared to baby boomers. I see this shift in millennials view of these brands as being problematic for these companies. If they are not careful, they could descend into being looked at by millennials, and Gen Z, as their parent’s tech companies and less relevant to them over time.

Part of the issue is that at the hardware level, only Apple really gets the attention of these younger generations. The iPod struck a huge chord with many millennials when they were in their teens and for the Gen’s Zer’s, the iPhone delivers their music to them on demand. Add the iPad, and the Mac’s and Apple Watch to this and Apple has a suite of products that set them apart from other tech vendors and in these younger eyes, it makes Apple cool.

Although the “cool Factor” seems to be a key driver in how millennial ’s view these companies, how these products look and feel and help them with their status among peers is another important thing to consider. I was shown an internal report from a company who looks at younger generation buying preferences and study’s millennial’s technology buying trends. I was surprised how high products boosting their status among friends was on this list. In fact, in this internal survey, it ranked in the top 5 considerations.
Millennials also need to trust the brands they buy from.

Eileen Brown of ZD Net summarized a research study from IT Community Spiceworks that addresses this issue:

“Austin, Texas-based online IT community Spiceworks reached out to almost 700 IT buyers in organizations across North America and Europe during March 2018 to examine different generations of IT buyers. The results show that a different mix of brand and product attributes influence millennials who will respond to different tactics to engage them.

Around 85 percent of respondents said that they need to trust a tech brand before making a purchase. Over half (57 percent) of IT buyers prefer to purchase from tech brands that focus on building a relationship compared to those looking for a quick sale. This is reinforced amongst millennial IT buyers (born 1981 to 1997), where 34 percent said they need to have personal experience with a brand, such as an email exchange or in-person encounter, before making a purchase.

Only 17 percent of baby boomers (born 1946 to 1964) and 25 percent of Generation X respondents (born 1965 to 1980) felt the same way.
Millennials seem to be less responsive to impersonal marketing tactics such as cold calls, direct mail, and mass emails.
Meaningful brand relationships and personal brand experiences are also more important to millennials than older Generations.
Millennials are more likely to be influenced by their personal tech preferences — 65 percent believe the technologies they purchase for personal use influences the technologies they purchase for their organization, compared to 55 percent of Generation X and 57 percent of baby boomers.

Industry buzz will prompt 17 percent of millennials to purchase a new personal device compared to 10 percent of Generation X and only 8 percent of baby boomers.”

One other chart from the Spiceworks study is particularly interesting. It points out that 26% of millennials want the company they buy from to align with their values.

Millennials represent 80 million people in the US and most are already in the workforce. More importantly, they are big consumers of technology at the personal and professional level. Tech brands need to really be aware of this age demographic and look closely at making products that not only meet their needs but in some ways are also cool. Apple nails this with their products and other tech companies need to be more vigilante in creating products and services that this demographic’s needs but also really want. Otherwise, they could be thought of as their parent’s tech company and not be in the running when they pull the trigger on the products they buy for personal or even business use.

One of the mantra’s of Apple detractors is that Apple no longer can innovate. They point to Apple evolving products instead of breaking any new ground, and some maintain that Apple has not innovated much since the iPhone was released in 2007. They say that the iPad is just an overgrown iPhone. While the Apple Watch does break some new ground for them as a new product, they don’t give Apple many props since it was not the first smartwatch and its roots lie in health trackers that were in the market years before Apple introduced the Apple Watch series 1 product.

The big problem with this non-innovation argument is that it states that innovation is tied to brand new product introductions that define a new category of devices. It misses the concept of using breakthrough processors, camera features and specialized software that does more than evolving a product and gives them new functions and capabilities. At this level, Apple has innovated on all products they have released since the original Mac. What they I think they mean is Apple is not disrupting markets at a pace they would like while overlooking their innovation in semiconductors, design, and software.

It should be noted here that most companies are lucky if they can bring one breakthrough product to the market that defines a new category of products or services. In apple case, they have done this with the Mac by bringing to the market a GUI, Mouse and integrated software. The All-in-one candy-colored iMacs introduced a new computer design that changed the way desktop computers were created. The iPod brought digital music players to the masses. The iPhone birthed the era of the smartphone, and the iPad brought mobile computing to new levels of portability. Apple’s Watch has created the smartwatch category and helped define what it is and can do and is the #1 Smart Watch on the market today. All of these were disruptive and innovative.

Central to Apple’s ability to develop category-defining products and innovate is their control of the hardware, software, and services used to create and deliver these products to the market. As I wrote in last week’s Tech.pinions ThinkTank column, Apple’s vertical strategy in which they even create their processors also plays a big role in their ability to disrupt and innovate.

As one who has covered Apple since 1981 and tried hard to understand what Apple’s real value proposition has been to the industry, I would have to say that introducing new user interfaces has been one of the things they do best. With the Mac, they gave us a graphical user interface and the mouse. With the iPod, they created a new mobile interface that worked on a portable music player. With the iPhone, they introduced touch UI’s for navigation and most recently, added voice as a UI to access and get information from the all of their devices today.

So what will likely be Apple’s new user interface face frontier for disruption and innovation? I bet that it comes with AR and eventually glasses of some type that deliver a more personal approach to using AR apps. While voice will be a cornerstone of the UI, gestures will be the new “mouse” for glasses. With gestures, Apple will extend their role of advancing man-machine user interfaces that drive it into other products and mass market acceptance.

What comes after gestures is interesting to think about. Given that one of Apple’s core competencies is to bring new user interfaces to the market, perhaps the next big frontier will be brain driven interfaces. There is much work being done in this area in the field of medical science and its potential use by people who have disabilities that can’t type, use a mouse or any other normal ways to communicate and interact with computers. Maybe this UI comes out of Apples medical R&D and can be made part of their advancements in user interfaces in the future.

While Apple’s ability to disrupt has been at a slower pace than some would like, one would be hard pressed to suggest that they are not innovating in semiconductors, design, software and user interfaces. How they deliver AR and glasses will probably be their next disruptive act with gestures advancing their role in bringing new man-machine interfaces to the mass market. Moreover, should they ever master brain-to machine user interfaces, the implications for those with medical handicaps and even mainstream users could be dramatic.

When an ordinary healthy consumer looks at Apples new Watch Series 4, with its updated health-related sensors and its new ability to do a real-time electrocardiogram, they most likely see a more modern and better model of this watch, but the heart health features are not relative to them. One of the comments I heard from some of the younger journalists at Apple’s launch event was, “this new watch is for older people.”

First, let me address the relativity of this watch to all users, not just older ones who might have heart issues. The significant new features in this Apple Watch are specialized sensors that can detect early signs of AFIB, something that can causes strokes and even heart attacks. Then you have the additional ECG capability that monitors heart rhythms and can give your Dr. a map of your heart rate and look for any irregularities.

When I was younger, I was very athletic and felt invincible. Even in my late 20s, it seemed that I could burn the candle at both ends and stay very active. In my early 30’s I was running 5 miles three times a week. However, during a physical at age 33, my doctor discovered I had high blood pressure. I was in peak health, yet I had high blood pressure. Some of it was hereditary, and part of it was eating habits related. While I could correct the eating issue, it took medications to deal with the genetic problem. So at 33, I became a lifelong heart patient.

Over the years I have seen quite a few friends struggle with heart-related issues even at an early age. One of the top leaders in Tech in the 1980’s had a stroke in his late 20’s, and this has impacted his life ever since then. I have even had a friend who died of a heart attack at age 23. There are so many factors that go into one’s potential of developing heart disease at any age, that starting to monitor this particular health issue even in the younger stage of one’s life has merit. That is why I dismiss the idea that Apple’s Series Watch 4 with its heart health monitoring features are just for old people. I believe it has serious heart tracking health features that should be relative to anyone over 20 years of age.

From my own perspective as a heart patient, this watch is even more relevant to me than the ones in the past. I have two strikes against me. I have been a type 2 diabetic since 1995, and in 2012 I had a triple bypass. Without the Apple Watch, I have been monitoring my health in great detail over these years and use a blood pressure cuff daily. I also use Dexcom’s G6 Continuous Glucose monitor 24/7. This allows me to see my blood sugar readings any time I want to check on them. (I initially used a separate handheld device to look at these readings, but since Dexcom made it work on an Apple Watch, I now glance at my watch to see any current blood sugar measurement)

If a person has been diagnosed with heart disease, this watch could be critical to them. However, even if they haven’t had a heart disease diagnosis, the potential of AFIB in anyone at any age may be worth the expense of having an Apple Watch keep tabs on their heart health.

Apple has had thousands of letters from people who have had the Apple Watch alert them to health issues that got them to mention it to their doctors for immediate treatment. Apple has also had hundreds of letters from people who told them that the Apple Watch has saved their lives.

So, what other health features could Apple Bring to the market in the future? There have been many rumors that Apple could be creating their Continuous Blood Glucose monitoring system. Moreover, it is not too far fetched to believe that Apple could add another unique sensor that worked with an inflatable band that could read blood pressure.

I believe that the Apple Series Watch 4, with its advanced heart health monitoring features, will prove to be even more important to millions of people over the age of 20. This new Watch has much higher value than past models, and I suspect it could become Apple’s best selling model to-date as these new health monitoring features will have a greater appeal to a broader audience around the world.

One of the things I learned very early on in my limited relationship with Steve Jobs was that he was a control freak. That was both good and bad. Bad in the sense that this was a factor in him getting fired in 1985 when he tried to take control of everything related to the Mac and the way he tried to manage Apple. It was also a good trait when channeled correctly. That started when he came back to Apple in 1997 and had learned a great deal about sharing responsibility with others under him while at NeXT and not being so anal that he had to be in control of everything.

This control freak persona also served him well in one key area too. Jobs was notorious for wanting to control everything he could relate to manufacturing and the supply chain. This drove him and his team to begin developing their processor for the iPhone and other products Apple would bring to market. While their original processor was designed specifically for the iPhone, Apple has expanded its semiconductor portfolio into quite a few products now. One can look to the S-series in the Apple Watch, the W-series in the AirPods (and Apple Watch), and the T-series in an expanding number of MacOS systems. Jobs philosophy was that if they bought components off the rack, they would never be able to outdo their competitors.

I have been impressed with Apple’s semiconductor chops and the development of a robust set of semiconductor IP. Their design work has created a library of IP cores that they can build upon to use homegrown processors in current and any new products they will bring to market over the years. This vertical integration has become a significant differentiator for Apple and has helped them grow their profits exponentially. If they want to do something new to AirPods, Apple Watch, etc., they call upon this core IP and build on it to create new, customized features for newer versions of their products.

Tim Cook went to school on Jobs’ desire to own as much of the technology they could to have more control of their product and profit destiny. However, to date, they have still had to rely on Intel to provide the core processor for the Mac’s. However, I believe that will change in the next two years.

I always thought Intel was a stop-gap move by Apple when it came to using X 86 processors in Mac’s. At the time Apple jumped to Intel, they were forced to do this when Motorola stopped making the 68000 series chip that had been in Mac’s for decades. However, Jobs’ desire to control his destiny down to the chip level suggested to me that it was only a matter of time before Apple would use their semiconductors in the Macs.

One key thing that suggests that this could be happening before the end of this decade is the recent announcement by ARM Holdings of a much more powerful ARM chip that could rival Intel’s Core I5 chips in PC’s. Apple, being a significant licensee of the ARM core, gives them the ability to add on to this new ARM semi design with their own IP and perhaps create an even more powerful chip to eventually rival the core I7’s they get from Intel today and add them to their entire line of Macs.

Alternatively, they could use their own chips in Mac’s that today use Core i5’s and take a bit longer if needed to get to their own Core I7 level chips that would be used in high-end MacBooks and All-in-One Macs.
I no longer believe Apple is committed to Intel for the long run. Their chips are getting so much more powerful at every level that using their own proprietary chips in Macs is not a question for me anymore. The only question is when the will do this.

Apple owning their own semiconductor IP and being able to use fabs like TSMC that is already producing products for Apple using 7 nm processes give them quite an edge on the competition. Their semiconductor team gets stronger each year as they continue to bring some of the brightest minds in semiconductor design and related software into their IP fold.
Even more interesting is that Apple ’s vertical integration makes it hard for competitors to keep up with them. Samsung does a pretty good job competing at the semiconductor level, and their mobile division has their own approach to vertical integration since they can tap into various divisions in Samsung Corporate. However, even here, Apple has a pretty solid edge in the design process as these teams are actually part of the overall team the creates any new product. In Samsungs case, they tap into individual divisions within Samsung, and as far as I can tell, they don’t make their semiconductor team part of the design team and integrate them into the overall product R&D as a whole.

I look for Apple to become even more potent in their use of homegrown IP in semiconductors and perhaps other components in the future that makes sense for them to develop in-house. If they continue on the track they are on now, Apple’s role as a product and service powerhouse will only become better and more integral to Apple’s future.

It looks like Samsung’s long-rumored flexible or foldable smartphone will hit the market later this year. According to Toms’ s Guide:

“Speaking to CNBC in an interview published on Tuesday (Sept. 4), Samsung’s mobile division chief DJ Koh said that the foldable phone would launch later this year, possibly as soon as the company’s developer conference in November.” It kicks off Nov. 7.

In the interview, Koh said that Samsung recently surveyed to see if there’s consumer interest in a foldable phone. After hearing from customers that they want the device, he said that “it’s time to deliver.”

“In the interview, Koh wouldn’t say in detail how the device would work, but he did reveal that “you can use most of the uses…on foldable status.” He added that the device could be “unfolded” that would give you more screen real estate to surf the Web “or see something. So every device, every feature, every innovation should have a meaningful message to our end customer,” Koh said. “So when the end customer uses it, (they think) ‘wow, this is the reason Samsung made it.”

In May, after I spent time at the Display Conference in L.A, I wrote about the various flexible displays I saw demoed by BOE, Visonex, and others. As I pointed out in this article, most of the display’s I saw was still a few years out, but they gave me a glimpse of where mobile smartphones are headed. I also pointed out that once the smartphone industry begins to integrate flexible displays into their designs, we could see one of the most substantial refresh rates in new smartphone adoption as more than a billion people will, over time, want to move to get a smartphone with a flexible display.

Then in August, I wrote about Samsung entering the foldable and flexible display market with their version of this display that uses a plastic cover to keep it from breaking.

Samsung’s decision to enter the market at this time is exciting and important and could start the competitive rush to bring more smartphones with flexible displays to market. However, being first also means they will have arrows at their back, and any glitch in this first foldable phone could set them back. Also, Apple loves to go to school with the mistakes of those who bring a new product to the market that might be of interest to them in the future.

Given that the Samsung Display was introduced this year and said it would be ready by early next year, I am assuming that Samsung Mobile will be using the new display from Samsung’s Display group. The BOE and Visonix flexible displays will not get to market until at least 2020-2021.

However, using this new Samsung flexible display does come with some risks. In the column mentioned above “While I view their advancement in flexible displays as a positive, I am concerned with their decision to use plastic as a cover for this new display. Historically, plastic has not performed well given it is prone to scratches and does not deliver the clarity you get from glass covers. Motorola found this out when they used a plastic cover in their Moto Z2 Force phones called Shatter-shield that was not well received. The replacement cover was cheap, but it was prone to scratches and peeling.

Moreover, Samsung used a plastic display cover on the Galaxy Active Tab 2, and the reviews were not the favorable due to scratching and problems with optical clarity.” Samsung bringing a foldable or flexible smartphone to market using a plastic cover is a significant risk. Glass covers for flexible displays are in the works, but I don’t believe are ready for the market at this stage.

That said, a Samsung introduction of a foldable smartphone will launch the new era of smartphones and by 2021-2022 will be the dominant form factor for premium smartphones. Also, my best guess, from seeing the BOE and Visonex models in person, these will be the leading displays used in these new phones. This is not to disparage the new Samsung foldable and flexible displays. It too could be in many smartphones, but since nobody I know of has seen this Samsung display, I can only comment on the ones I have seen in person and BOE, and Visonex are stellar displays with great potential to help drive the next significant innovations in smartphones.

A Few months back, Intel pushed CEO Brian Krazanich out the door for a relationship discretion that happened before he became CEO. However, many of my sources tell me that there was a lot of other things that forced him out the door beside this publicized reason. I won’t get into what sources tell me about his leadership breakdown, but suffice it to say that his days were numbered for many purposes and it was only a matter of time before he would be fired.

Now Intel has a significant CEO search in the works, and whomever they pick will have one of the enormous challenges of this era of Intel’s future. There is little growth in PC’s any more, an area that has been their bread and butter for the last 40 years. While they are playing in IOT, ARM processors are much better suited to use in these devices. Through Mobile Eye, Intel has a play in self-driving vehicles, but NVIDIA has such a lead on them that I do not see them as being highly successful in this space. Add to that the fact that Tesla is doing their super-computer processor for their cars and some of the big automakers tell me they have various internal projects in the works to use their specialized chips on some critical aspects of their self-driving programs.

Their entry into the 5G and cellular modem space is interesting but might not be long-lasting. Sources tell me that the Intel cellular modem that will be used in Apple’s new phones has a lot of proprietary Apple IP inside and it is plausible that Apple could eventually do their cellular modems in the future if this is true. While their commitment and investment in 5G were essential to Krazanich, it might not be strategic to a new CEO who will want to put their stamp on Intel’s future.

Indeed, one key thing to watch for in a new CEO will be what their background and focus have been on. Chips are driving the bulk of Intel’s revenues and profits for the data center, and that seems to be where Intel’s future is headed. That is not to say they won’t keep doing chips for PC’s, IOT, etc. However, if the bulk of their growth and revenues come from data center and memory chips, any new CEO will want to bolster that side of the business.

Intel is notorious for investing in new areas and then abandoning them when they no longer seem strategic to their future. If a new CEO comes in whose background and experience has been in data centers and understood this is their future, then current business such as their cellular modem business could be sold off as they have done with other investments that would be not viewed from a new CEO as crucial to Intel ’s future. Same goes for their investments in self-driving cars. While I think that they could and would still want to provide embedded processors for smart vehicles, given the competition, their Mobile Eye investment might not pass the strategic vision of a new CEO that would be data center and memory processor-centric.

This is perhaps the most critical CEO search Intel has ever done. All of the CEO’s from the past were from inside of Intel. Replacing Gordon Moore, Intel’s co-founder was complicated, but Andy Grove stepped in and guided Intel through the PC revolution. I liked Craig Barrett, who followed Andy Grove, but his decision to rely on Intel’s Israel team and their promise to create ultra low powered processors, put them in a bind when they did not deliver as planned by the beginning of the smartphone revolution. This left Intel without a chip for these mobile phones, and they missed this tremendous opportunity.

Paul Otellini, who followed Barrett, was the first non-technical CEO as he came out of their marketing division. He is the one that built up the Intel Inside program and made Intel a household name. He as the most media and analyst savvy and he was a joy to talk to and interact with. As an analyst, these were the best times we ever had with an Intel CEO, and while he made some mistakes, he was loved inside and outside of Intel and during his time, he convinced Apple to use Intel chips in the Mac, a decision that has been good for Intel.

Finding a CEO that can lead Intel into the future is very important. Whomever they bring in needs to be technical and marketing savvy and be willing to drive growth around their new bread and butter, which will be via data center and memory technologies. Yes, they need to continue to innovate on Moore’s law at the CPU level, but the future growth will come from how they participate in this vast industry shift to data centers and the cloud. This new CEO has to drive this and possibly cut out investments and other divisions that are not strategic to their future.

I expect them to announce a new CEO relatively soon as they need a dangerous leader who can help them navigate the future sooner than later. For their sake, I hope they hit this one out of the park!

Arm held an analyst briefing last week in which they shared some details about new features coming to their ARM for their platform. While they often communicate with analysts just before they announce a new product, this was the first time in history they showed us a roadmap for the Arm core and detailed its evolutionary path through 2023.

The fact that they laid out a roadmap is a big deal. A few years back I went to meet with Arm officials in Cambridge, the UK which is where their headquarters are located. At the time, I tried to get them to open up about their future designs, but they always kept that very close to the vest. Over the years they seemed to get even more secretive. At the same time, they made huge strides with the Arm core and made it more powerful yet less power hungry.

Last week’s reveal of a longer-term roadmap suggests to me that Arm has had a significant breakthrough in their overall design, something that makes them secure in stating that they believe they can now take on Intel head to head in the PC market with an Arm processor that can compete with most Core i5’s from Intel. More importantly, their goal is to take at least 10% of the PC market by 2022-2023 time frame.

A lot of analysts and media got a glimpse of this last Dec when Qualcomm showed off their always-connected PC program using the Snapdragon 835 processor. Along with Microsoft, who worked with Qualcomm to create a version of Windows 10S that works well on a non-Intel chip, the two companies have been working with vendors to develop more laptops based on Arm processors. This move by Microsoft to support Arm is a strategic one. Sources tell me that Microsoft is committed to processor diversity and no longer will support only Intel chips. I suspect this means that Microsoft will also be more vocal on supporting AMD’s Ryzen processors too.

One of the reasons I think Qualcomm is so committed to getting into the PC business along with Arm is that they see Intel as being vulnerable. Intel is still years away from getting to 7nm processes, while Arm showed in the roadmap that they, along with their partner fabs, are moving quite fast to 7nm and will be using 5 nm processes by 2021-2022.
Of course, the PC business is not as lucrative as it was ten years ago, but laptops will still be an essential product well into the next decade. Even if we stay constant at 250-275 million PC’s sold each year going forward, there is money to be made in PCs.

However, there is another form factor that I think is very attractive to Arm, Qualcomm, and Microsoft and that will come from many dual screen styled portable computers next year. I believe dual screen laptops will be the 2 in 1’s of the next decade and there will be a lot of room for innovation with this new design. More importantly, since this form factor can also double as a tablet in some instances, a lower powered processor will be critical to its design. Low powered chips are where an Arm-based processor could be significant.

If you have a dual screen system that genuinely doubles as a laptop and a tablet, battery life becomes even more critical. While Intel is trying to get their processors to be more power efficient, I don’t think they can match Arm. Arm, with their partners, will be using 7nm and 5nm processes years before Intel can and this should keep the Arm world ahead of Intel for at least another five years if not more, at least where it comes to lower powered processors.

In the mid-1990’s, I was invited to participate on a ship cruising the English Channel that held a major conference for the tech industry of the UK. During this event, I got to spend time with someone the significant players in UK tech such as Sir Clive Sinclair, who created one of the first portable computers, and Dr. Herman Hauser, a Co-Founder of Arm Ltd. At dinner with Dr. Houser, we got to talking about the future of the PC industry, and I asked him what role he thought Arm could play. At the time, Arm chips were mostly used as embedded processor and controllers and use as a PC chip was not even in their thinking.

Always considered an out-of-the-box thinker, as well as quite a character, Dr. Hauser told me that he did envision a day when an Arm processor could power a PC. While I had a hard time imagining an Arm chip in a PC at that time, it looks now like his vision is starting to come true. While I do see many challenges ahead when it comes to Arm gaining much ground in the PC market, I do think a goal of 10% by 2022-23 is achievable and if Intel continues to flounder, their share could be even more prominent by then.

Over the last few months, I have often written about the idea that AR headsets could be the next big thing in mobile. In a column I wrote on July 16th, I pointed out that I believe Apple, Google and others will create what I call “light headsets” that receive all of its intelligence from a smartphone and the glasses themselves serve as an extension of a smartphone’s display but in a more visually mobile fashion.

I had a meeting this week with some folks from the automobile industry who pointed out that AR delivery via glasses is not the only way AR will get to the mainstream market. They say that there is a lot of thinking going on around the glass windshield also being a display vehicle for AR content and in this case, the AR intelligence comes from the car itself. One person in the meeting even speculated that this could be a big part of Apple’s automotive project in which they would deliver the AR intelligence and apps via some automotive dashboard and then use the smart car’s display to provide the AR content as one drives.

Many are familiar with heads-up displays but imagine if the heads up display becomes AR smart. As one drives around, it not only see’s the road data we see now, but adds other types of info that could enhance the navigation and overall driving experience. In fact, we might have gotten a glimpse of this value-added navigation process when Apple showed a set of AR features in iOS 12 that delivers a new dimension to turn-but-turn walking navigation in their iOS map app.

At CES in January of 2017, Corning had an automotive exhibit in which the windshield had the heads-up display as part of the design. In this case, the windshield was serving as a display screen and made it an integral part of the driving experience. Today, most heads-up displays are via some add-on device, and although some of the more forward-thinking automotive companies are building it into the car itself, most of the features are still tied to navigation and various types of road data and alerts.

Extending AR features from AR Kit apps to a smart windshield has a lot of merit to it, and if you follow Apple’s overall AR strategy, you could see how this could be plausible. Indeed, Apple’s introduction of AR Kit and their push for AR since June of 2017 is essential to their future. Apple CEO Tim Cook has stated on numerous occasions that he is most excited about AR and its impact on Apple over time and I am inclined to believe that AR does not stop with glasses.

However, what is not clear to me at this time is if Apple did aim at the windshield of a car, would the intelligence come from the iPhone in the way the CarPlay uses the iPhone to deliver intelligence to today’s vehicles? Or do they create an iPhone connection built into some add-on device or into a smart dash to provide AR using the windshield as the display?

To be clear, my suggestion that Apple could or would use a car’s windshield is pure speculation on my part. Although given the comments I received from an automotive exec I met this week leads me to believe that I am not the only one thinking Apple may be eyeing a car’s windshield as a way to deliver AR apps tied to their ecosystem of devices and services.

Samsung’s investment in Harmon and Harmon’s investment in Navdy also puts them on a path to do something similar, and Google’s AR Core could be poised to try and get Google’s AR architecture into smart cars and also use a windshield to display AR content.

To date, our research has mostly focused on AR via some form of glasses of mixed reality goggles. But from this point on we need to think a bit broader about how AR could be delivered using a car’s windshield to view AR content needs to be considered going forward.

In early August, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, announced that his company had developed a new AI chip for his Electric cars and claimed that it is ten times faster than the ones they use today from nVidia. When I was at NVIDIA’s spring developers conference, I went to a session on NVIDIA’S AI Xavier processor that is targeted for use in cars. In this session, I learned that at that time, it was the most powerful processor for AI available. When Musk made this statement about his own processor, I assumed he was comparing it to Xavier, and if it were ten times faster than this chip, he would have achieved quite a feat.

But a call to Danny Shapiro, NVIDIA’s Director of Automotive Technology, spread some light on Musk’s claim.

“The performance claims are against what they have in the vehicle today, which are three years old,” says NVIDIA’s director of automotive Danny Shapiro. NVIDIA’s latest silicon is at least ten times faster than that, which would put it on a par with Tesla’s chip.”

NVIDIA has been a critical partner for Tesla, and if it were not for them, Tesla cars would not be on the market today. What I disliked about Musk’s proclamation about his own processor is that he did not clarify that he was comparing it to an older chip, and in essence, threw NVIDIA under the bus. That is not the way to treat a partner that bent over backward to work with Tesla and help them achieve the success they have today.

That said, Tesla is moving towards vertical integration by creating their own AI chips and, where possible, producing components for their cars internally. In fact, they make their own seats for their cars already, and I suspect that over time they will try and move more and more towards creating as many components for their vehicles they can to control the supply chain themselves.

Google, Facebook, and others are doing something similar. The # 1 thing they are trying to take control of is the core CPU and GPU needed for any ancillary hardware products they make to extend their products and services. In Google’s case, they are creating chips for their smartphones, laptops and AR and VR headsets.

In Facebook’s case, they are creating AI chips for use in their Oculus VR headsets and who knows what other actual hardware they may build over time. The idea of taking control of a company’s eco-system of various components are not new. Indeed, Apple is the poster child for this type of vertical integration.

Early on, Apple obtained a core license to the Arm architecture and had built their own custom-semiconductor on top of an Arm core. This has allowed them to control their own destiny at the chip level. To date, Apple still uses Intel chips in their Mac desktop and laptop products, but I would not be surprised if Apple, in the next two-to-three years, migrates the Mac OS over to work with the Arm-based processors too.

At the heart of these moves towards vertical integration is the desire to control a company’s destiny. Apple has been criticized for the slow updates they deliver to the desktop and laptops, but that is mostly due to their reliance on Intel’s processors and when new ones become commercially available.

It is also now much more comfortable for a company to create their processors by either doing what is called semi-custom design, which is what they do when they build on an ARM core for example. In more extreme cases, they might develop the chip from scratch. In the past, for them to develop these chips, most had to create their own fabs to make them. Today, thanks to fabs like Global Foundries, TSMC, Samsung, etc, they can take their design to these semiconductor manufacturers and let them build it for them.

However, there is a risk when doing custom Silicon. In a recent Tech.pinions subscriber post, my son Ben, who is much more semiconductor literate than I am since his background is in chips, wrote about what is at stake when one’s does custom Silicon:

By going down the proprietary silicon route, companies are betting their differentiation on this strategy. I say it this way because of one common theme with companies efforts in custom silicon is how focused it is on a specific area of differentiation. If one did an in-depth analysis competitively, you would likely find where these companies believe they are differentiated by where they try to build custom silicon to enhance or deepen that differentiation.

The risk, however, in this scenario is their efforts in custom silicon are not able to sustain their differentiation as companies like NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Intel, AMD, etc., design better, more powerful solutions that enable said companies competitors to have an even better offering.

While I agree with Ben about the risks, I suspect that these companies will plow ahead with their own custom silicon solutions anyway. Their desire to control their own destiny even at the chip level and use it to differentiate seems too critical to their future for them to trust any given supplier to meet their futuristic vision with off the shelf processors.

In early June, after I came back from the industries premier display conference known as SID, I shared in my PC Mag column some of the significant developments I saw there in flexible displays. The two major players who were very vocal about their breakthrough flexible displays were Visionox and BOE.

However, while I was at the show, I was told that Samsung was showing a new flexible display to some of their customers in closed-door meetings but was not sharing any info on this product publicly just yet. However, I was told to stay tuned.

Well, in late July 2018, Samsung officially pulled the covers off of their version of a flexible display and announced that it was targeted for use on smartphones but hinted that their flexible display could end up being used in other devices too. The devices they focused this new display for beyond smartphones include use in vehicles, portable gaming consoles, tablets and mobile military devices. The press release stated that it had received a special certification from UL and met the military specifications for durability and difficulty to break or crack.

My colleague at PC Mag, Matthew Humphries, wrote about this in a recent column and pointed out that “The new display is a combination of flexible OLED panel and strong plastic cover, with certification from Underwriters Laboratories backing up the unbreakable claim. It’s so strong, and no damage was visible after 26 drop tests from a height of 4 feet.”

Regarding new flexible displays, this is very encouraging. It suggests that we are getting closer to having mobile devices that can use flexible screens, which could mean many new innovative mobile devices over the next 2-5 years. Moreover, the competition between BOE, Visionox, Samsung and eventually LG will only keep all of them on their toes and push for superior flexibility and in turn, more innovative designs.

While I view their advancement in flexible displays as a positive, I am concerned with their decision to use plastic as a cover for this new display. Historically, plastic has not performed well given it is prone to scratches and does not deliver the clarity you get from glass covers. Motorola found this out when they used a plastic sheet in their Moto Z2 Force phones called Shatter-shield that was not well received. The replacement cover was cheap, but it was prone to scratches and peeling.

Also, Samsung used a plastic display on the Galaxy Active Tab 2, and the reviews were not the favorable due to scratching and problems with optical clarity.

Interestingly, also in late July, Corning invited a lot of analysts and media to their Sunnyvale, CA campus to launch Gorilla Glass 6. PC Mag was there to cover this launch and my colleague Michael Kan shared the details of the virtues of the new Gorilla Glass 6.

As he points out, Gorilla Glass 6 is twice as durable as Gorilla Glass 5 and has an extra level of armor that helps the glass survive repeated drops from higher heights. Corning says on average the new lens can withstand 15 falls at the height of 1 meter (3.2 feet). An even more impressive test we saw was a drop from about 8-9 feet in which the smartphone they dropped was # 55 from that particular smartphone.

At the event, Corning also pointed out that many smartphone vendors are also wrapping their phones in Gorilla Glass because more and more smartphones are adding multiple antennas and radio signals can easily penetrate glass, while these signals are often thwarted when trying to get through a plastic screen. That is why you most likely will never see a plastic cover on the back of any smartphone, where these radio signals emanate from.

While the scratch resistance is the same as Gorilla Glass 5, I was at the Gorilla Glass 5 launch and watched the repeated, and extensive scratch tests that were done at this event and saw how well it performed. I carry my iPhone X, with a Gorilla Glass screen, in my pocket along with a pocket knife, small pen, and my Apple EarPods and have zero scratches on my phone after ten months of use.

One odd bit from the Samsung flexible display press release is that while it touts the unbreakable nature of their new screen, they said nothing about its ability to withstand scratches. Also, they were even vague on the clarity factor that has always dogged plastic screens.
While they do emphasize a sturdy plastic cover that makes the flexible screen more durable, the issue of scratches and visual clarity needs to be seriously considered by any vendor who decides to use this particular flexible display.