Apple’s strategy for the smart home has been one of the areas I’ve been most critical. Mostly out of frustration when I see Amazon and Google flooding the market with options for smart home control centers. At Apple’s fall launch event yesterday, their smart home strategy becomes more clear and quite differentiated. For as far … Continue reading Apple’s Patient Strategy for the Home
Over the last 25 years, I have often been asked to speak to high school seniors and first-year college students about the best area of tech to study for a career in tech. In the early days of speaking to these students, I would tell them that IT careers would be rewarding and financially beneficial. … Continue reading The one High Tech job That Will Never Go Away
Close to six months into different levels of sheltering in place, most organizations have been shifting their focus from temporary measures to supporting working from home long term, whether fully remote or hybrid work. A lot must come into play when working or learning remotely: connectivity, security, device deployment, and management, but nothing has been … Continue reading The Future of Work Calls for Employees’ Wellbeing
In June, Microsoft announced a substantial update to Microsoft Teams, which included support for up to 49 people in the gallery view, virtual backgrounds, support for 300 participants, instant channel meetings and more in the IT Admin suite for management and security. But today we got more. Microsoft launched “Together Mode” for Teams. This new … Continue reading Microsoft Teams and the Meeting Lifecycle
The iPad has been a hot topic lately. 2020 marks the tenth anniversary of the iPad launch and the beginning of its rapid rise to fame in the years following. Looking back at the last ten years of iPad, it becomes clear the original vision for the product has not yet been reached, nor has … Continue reading iPad’s Evolving Vision and Unintended Consequences
Let it be known, the challenges initially stated by many companies and industry experts, that creating a durable cover glass for foldable phones that is on par with modern smartphones today, is as difficult as initially stated. We have yet to see a folding screen device release to the public that has not come with … Continue reading Foldable Devices Glass Challenge
We are almost at the end of 2019, and as I prepare for CES, I look back to this year to see what characterized tech over the past twelve months. A lot happened this year so much so that remembering every product and every piece of news is almost impossible. When I look back at … Continue reading Five Words That Defined Tech in 2019
Few companies thrived as much during the wireless and mobile communications era than Qualcomm. As cell phones were going from clunky briefcase-sized devices to sleek-pocketable devices everyone owned, Qualcomm was at the center of it all. Their S-curve growth during the mobile communications era was much like Google’s during the Internet growth era. However, two … Continue reading Qualcomm 2.0
The PCs Death I enjoyed this article from Ed Bott looking at the predictions of the death of the PC that did not happen. Admittedly, I was in the group who soured on the PC when the tablet launched and questioned the relevance of the PC form factor in light of the easier to use … Continue reading The Death of the PC, Intel’s Roadmap Leak, North Focals 2.0
When I first started college, my major was Pre-Med with an emphasis on geriatrics. I already had my pharmacy tech credentials, and the place I worked at had multiple contracts to be the pharmacy of choice for nursing homes and some private clinics that were focused on people over 70. For two years, I was … Continue reading America’s Senior Citizens and Screen Time
Most of the major online sites we use today are free. Sites like YouTube, Google Maps, Facebook, Linked In, Reddit, etc. use advertising and premium subscriptions to make money, but ads are at the heart of their broader business model. However, posting ads indiscriminately and not truly targeted at people’s interest is losing favor with … Continue reading Can Major Internet Sites Create Successful Paid Services?
Snap announced their latest Spectacles today called the Spectacles 3. To no one’s surprise, the prior two generations sold in extremely low quantities and the jury is still out if Snap can ever succeed in hardware. That being said, there are some interesting features that are showcase some of the fun parts of Augmented Reality … Continue reading Snap Spectacles 3 and the AR Generation
I’ve had the opportunity to use the Apple Card as a part of a private invite/preview since Friday. While I don’t intend for this to be a review, what I do want to discuss is the strategic opportunity for Apple with Apple Card that living with it has caused me to observe. Why a Credit … Continue reading Apple’s Strategy with Apple Card
Last week, President Trump enacted Level 3 tariffs on goods made in China, to the tune of $200 billion dollars. Here is the list of what will be charged in the new tariffs. The list includes a huge amount of food items as well as tariffs on hundreds of materials like Zinc Oxide, Nickel Ore, … Continue reading More Tariff’s are Bound to Impact Tech In Multiple New Ways
I’m using the Chewy.com filing for IPO news to make a broader point about e-commerce and the niche opportunity in general. Specifically, how it is interesting to think about the success of more niche market e-commerce sites and why those sites may likely be a better commerce experience than Amazon. There is an interesting observation … Continue reading Serving the Underserved and Growth M&A
Many of my long-time readers know I have somewhat of a double life. I have a high-tech life and my low-tech life. My high-tech life involves lots of the latest, often unreleased gadgets, where I try and live in the future and make sense of what all that means. My low-tech life involves a lot … Continue reading I Facetimed the Game Warden
I have been a subscriber to Texture, the magazine subscription service that Apple bought in early 2018. This service has close to 300 magazines and, in my case, I subscribe to about 35. I subscribe to all of their food, tech, news and sports magazines and the two diabetic publications they have in Texture. If … Continue reading Apple’s News+ Has Pitfalls and Potential
Yesterday, Tesla had what they called an Autonomy Day at their headquarters in Silicon Valley. The focus was on autopilot features, and they highlighted their custom silicon development for the first time since announcing they were moving away from NVIDIA’s solution. One specific quote from Elon struck me and stood out as a statement about … Continue reading The Autonomous Driving Future and a Generation of No Drivers
Last May, I attended the SID conference in L.A. This is the premier display conference in the world. At this show, I saw the first foldable displays that could be used in a smartphone and unfolded to become a small tablet. I wrote about it and laid out how companies like BOE, Visionex, and Samsung … Continue reading A Twist on Foldable Smartphones
As I wrote a few weeks back, the gaming market is very large and extremely diverse. People spend extraordinary amounts of time and money playing games across an increasingly broad range of devices and platforms. From marathon gaming sessions on tricked out desktop PC gaming rigs, to snippets of game “snacking” on smartphones while standing … Continue reading Gaming Content Ecosystem Drives More Usage
Now long after the original Segway was launched, I had the privilege of being able to test one. I had met its creator, Dean Kaman, at a dinner in San Jose a year before the Segway launch. Others who had actually been told about it like Steve Jobs and noted venture capitalist John Doerr, who … Continue reading How Scooters are Rewriting our Views of Personal Transportation
When I joined Creative Strategies in 1981, one of my tasks was to work with customers to help source materials and components for use in their products. Initially, I sourced materials for PC’s and over time became involved in sourcing all types of components and materials for a plethora of tech devices. In most of … Continue reading As Smartphone Ownership Cycles Lengthen, Consumers Need to Consider Device Durability
We recently ran a study, across a range of demographics and smartphone platform owners in the US, to get a read on current behaviors and frustrations with the smart assistants we use on our smart speakers and our smartphones. For this analysis, I want to focus on the assistants on our smartphones and some insights … Continue reading Smartphone Assistant Study: What Our Research Revealed
At the height of the PC revolution, the PC industry sold about 350 million PC’s a year. Those days are long gone, and unit sales of PC’s have declined ever since. But during the last 18 months, we have seen a slight uptick in PC demand, mainly from buyers looking for mid to higher priced … Continue reading PC Market Resilience
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 … Continue reading How Social Issues Impact Buying Trends
