While the hype around virtual reality and, to a lesser extent, augmented reality, has been steadily ramping up, to date there haven’t been all that many actual device shipments. Two recent major AR/VR platform announcements from Microsoft and Google should help change that. At Computex, Microsoft announced it would make available to its hardware partners … Continue reading The AR/VR Platform Wars have Begun
ARTICLE OUTLINE This is part 5 of 7 in a series of articles that explores Innovation at Apple. 1. Who is Apple innovating for? 2. Where should Apple’s innovation be focused? 3. How does Apple innovate? 4. When should Apple introduce its innovations? 5. What does innovation inside of Apple look like to someone outside … Continue reading Part 5: What Does Innovation Inside Of Apple Look Like To Someone Outside Of Apple?
Everyone is familiar with the saying, “Necessity is the mother of invention”. In fact, most inventions come from someone seeing a need and creating a product or service that meets that need. More importantly, inventors pretty much drive much of the world’s commerce as individuals and companies apply various levels of R&D to an idea … Continue reading Does Apple Need to Invent or Innovate?
ARTICLE OUTLINE This is part 3 of 7 in a series of articles that explores Innovation at Apple. 1. Who is Apple innovating for? 2. Where should Apple’s innovation be focused? 3. How does Apple innovate? 4. When should Apple introduce its innovations? 5. What does innovation inside of Apple look like to someone outside … Continue reading Part 3: How Does Apple Innovate?
Now that Lenovo has reported its Q1 2016 financial results, we have a reasonably full picture of how the global smartphone market performed in the quarter. While many of the largest vendors report their performance directly as public companies, some of the medium-sized and smaller vendors are privately held, so we need to rely on … Continue reading The Smartphone Market in Q1 2016
Twitter – by Jan Dawson Twitter this week announced that, in the coming months, it will start exempting some forms of content from its traditional 140 character limit, including pictures, usernames, videos, and polls. The news has been a very long time in coming as users have long demanded these changes. Twitter has hinted several … Continue reading Unpacked: Analysis of This Week’s Top News
The Amazon Echo: what happens if this is all there is to a device? CC-licensed photo by Cryptik Merlin on Flickr For years, Apple has made a name for itself through the design of its products – their combination of appearance, materials, and software functionality (which is part of the “design”, aka “how it works”). … Continue reading The Real Threat to Apple: The Invisible Device
A few weeks back, I attended the Collision Conference in New Orleans. This is my favorite “food city” so, when I found out Collision would be held in the Crescent City, I booked a flight and made a point to attend this year’s event. Collision has become one of the best shows for up and … Continue reading Is Storytelling the Key to VR’s Future?
Microsoft Sells off Feature Phone Biz – Carolina Milanesi Two years after the acquisition of Nokia, Microsoft has sold its feature phone business to FIH, a subsidiary of Taiwanese hardware manufacturer Foxconn, for $350 million. In a separate deal, Microsoft also sold its brand rights on feature phones and certain related design rights to HMD, … Continue reading Unpacked: The Week’s News
Software upgrades are commonplace. We have them in apps, video games, computer software. Pay an additional amount and the products can seamlessly acquire new capabilities. Now, there’s an equally seamless hardware upgrade: Tesla will upgrade the battery in an owner’s $71,000 Model S70. The owner pays an additional $3250 for the company to do an … Continue reading Hardware Upgrades Offer New Opportunities
I’ve been thinking about pricing for various consumer tech products and services and there are some aspects that are incongruous. For example, how is it you can host a conference call for 150 colleagues for free using FreeConference, yet the minute you leave the U.S. with your cell phone, pricing leaps to the stratosphere? So, … Continue reading The Biggest Rip-offs and Best Bargains in Consumer Tech
Every quarter, once earnings season is over, I put together a set of comparisons for the “big six” consumer technology companies: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Samsung. The full analysis goes into a deck which is part of the Jackdaw Research Quarterly Decks Service, which you can read more about and sign up for … Continue reading The Big Six in Q1 2016
Google’s hardware strategy has always felt less like a strategy and more like a string of experiments. It is understandable why a company like Google is interested in their own hardware. In many ways, Google and Amazon are alike in that their business model opens the door to a “hardware as a service” offering. They … Continue reading Google, Amazon, the Chinese, and the Hardware Brands of Tomorrow
I’ve written a couple of times (here and here) for Insiders about smartphone upgrade cycles in the US. Today, I want to broaden the discussion a little and talk about something slightly different. This is something I touched on very briefly on the podcast this past week, but I’ll elaborate on it here. What’s becoming … Continue reading The New Smartphone Upgrade Cycle
LG’s Rolly keyboard: strong enough to prop up a lossmaking mobile division? CC-licensed photo by Rob Pegoraro on Flickr. LG released its first-quarter figures and, oh my, the news for its mobile division was bad again: shipments down to 13.5m (a 13% drop year-on-year), revenues of US$2.67bn at the prevailing exchange rate, and an operating … Continue reading How LG’s add-on keyboard makes more profit than its phones
Apple’s last earnings call made it clear the spectacular iPhone growth of the past has peaked. Although Apple is still doing well in services, Macs, and even iPhones, the drop in iPhone sales has left many people asking if Apple can ever grow the iPhone market again. In a recent Tech.pinions Insider post, I suggested … Continue reading Two Technologies That Could Spur New iPhone Growth
Source code isn’t trivial – and that for the iPhone is closely guarded. Photo by Jason Swaby on Flickr. Let’s begin at the end – because news stories generally should start off with the most recent information. Speaking under oath to the US Congress, Apple’s general counsel Bruce Sewell said: “I want to be very … Continue reading China, Apple’s iOS source code and the pursuit of unfounded speculation
I was in Shenzhen, China last week at the first CE China trade show, produced by IFA, the German company that also produces the giant IFA trade show in Berlin each September. Shenzhen, which has a population of over 10 million people, is about an hour’s drive from Hong Kong and just over the border … Continue reading IFA’s China CE Show and the Chinese Push for VR
Last week, I had the pleasure to attend Huawei’s Analyst Summit in Shenzhen, China. I had the chance to hear senior management talk about the company’s strategy in the different segments it operates. While I am well aware of how wide Huawei’s reach into the mobile market is, both consumer and enterprise, I am always … Continue reading Huawei’s Push into the High End Depends on Continued Growth of its Honor
We’re about to embark on the earnings reporting season for Q1 2016 and I thought I’d do a quick preview of some of the big things to look out for as the major technology companies report earnings. I’m going to focus on just a handful of the biggest companies rather than try to be exhaustive. … Continue reading Q1 2016 Earnings Season Preview
The PC industry isn’t getting any healthier. Both IDC’s and Gartner’s figures for PC shipments in the first quarter are out and both show the same direction of travel: down 11.5% to 60.6m units for IDC, down 9.6% to 64.8m units for Gartner. There are some variations between what the two count as a “PC”: … Continue reading The PC Decline: Four Key Points to Note
During the early computer era of the 1960s, it was thought there would only be the need for a few dozen computers. By the 1970s, there were just over 50,000 computers in the world. Computers have grown in power by orders of magnitude since. They have become more intelligent in the way they interact with … Continue reading There is A Revolution Ahead and It Has A Voice
There has been an awful lot of negative talk concerning Apple this past month. In response, Jan Dawson wrote an excellent article for Techpinions entitled, “Why 2016 isn’t 1997 for Apple”. I encourage you to give it a look if you haven’t done so already. Apple is always subject to criticism, but this time the … Continue reading The Apple iPhone Is The Biggest Fish In The Biggest Tech Pond
If you have read my columns on VR recently, you know I am relatively bullish on this new technology. I have used all of the headsets available and, while the actual VR differs with each, they all deliver an experience that is both exciting and immersive. As I look at the VR landscape, there is … Continue reading Why Oculus Could be Destined to Ultimately Fail
With Apple’s announcements this past week, it’s been fascinating to read analysts’ and reporters’ comments about whether Apple is still an innovator. Critics cite the modest improvements made in the recent revisions of the iPhone line as demonstrating Apple’s failure to innovate. When I did a search for “Apple innovation”, up came dozens of headlines like this from the past … Continue reading Apple and innovation
