As we lead up to this years “main event,” I wanted to share some initial points underscoring my read that there is unprecedented demand for Apple’s iPhone this holiday quarter and beyond. Major Upgrade Cycle: This has been the source of many analysts’ upside, but I think it may even be larger than many realize. … Continue reading Unprecedented iPhone Demand
With an Apple Event fast approaching, I’m reviewing critiques of past Apple Events to see how accurate they were. Turns out, not very. Critique is needed and welcome. Repeated errors? Not so much. Evolutionary Or Revolutionary The iPhone and the iPad have received a lot of criticism for being evolutionary, not revolutionary. I take strong … Continue reading Apple Claim Chowder: Evolutionary Or Revolutionary
With an Apple Event fast approaching, I’m reviewing critiques of past Apple Events to see how accurate they were. Turns out, not very. Critique is needed and welcome. Repeated errors? Not so much. Product Apple’s products receive a lot of criticism and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. Some of the criticism seems unfair to … Continue reading Apple Claim Chowder: Product
With an Apple Event fast approaching, I’m reviewing critiques of past Apple Events to see how accurate they were. Turns out, not very. Critique is needed and welcome. Repeated errors? Not so much. Killers There is a long, sordid history of products being introduced as iPod, iPhone, and iPad Killers. You know the deal. Product … Continue reading Apple Claim Chowder: Killers
You want to talk about Apple. I understand. They are the biggest tech company in the world. Their products are used by hundreds of millions. Oh, and next week there’s — OMG! — a major Apple event, not at Moscone Center in San Francisco but at Flint Center in Cupertino, the very same location where … Continue reading The 5.5 Inch iRemote For The Apple Home
I have been publicly doubting the existence of the 5.5 inch iPhone for some time. I promised many on Twitter I would share my overall thesis on the category so here it is. Starting from the data points, we know several things. In the USA, phablet sales are quite small. Our estimates have the active … Continue reading My Phablet Skepticism Thesis
The latest round of company quarterly financial results illuminate three trends in the device market: Apple continues to generate record profits largely due to growing iPhone sales (iPad sales are slowly declining, Macs are growing, iPod sales are mostly gone, and Apple’s services revenues are growing) Samsung’s profits are steadily declining (though from such a … Continue reading Mac vs. PC All Over Again
I thought I would do something different and show some charts and let our readers help interpret them and share thoughts on what the data reveals. I found data from a service called Terapeak that provides a range of analytics for products on Amazon and eBay. Since Jan wrote a great article today on wearables, … Continue reading What Does This eBay Wearable/Smartwatch Data Tell You
I’ve just published a new report for my subscription clients on the topic of smartwatches. The report combines consumer research on demand drivers for smartphones, such as fitness tracking and the use of push notifications, with a review of the state of the products on offer from the major vendors. I thought for this week’s … Continue reading Grading on a curve: Smartwatches in 2014
I gave a brief overview of my thoughts on global web usage in the Tech.pinions Insider weekly newsletter that goes out each weekend. But I wanted to dive into a few more points I think are interesting. When it comes to the business model of so many companies in the smartphone, tablet, and PC market, … Continue reading Deeper Dive on Android vs iOS Web Usage
Satya Nadella is just the third CEO in Microsoft’s nearly 40 year history. For most of that time, Microsoft followed a fairly simple strategy: license operating system software to OEMs and sell software to consumers, and later, enterprises. Bill Gates’ Microsoft: Licensed Software During Bill Gates’ time as CEO, Microsoft did offer a limited line … Continue reading Big Changes at Microsoft: Define “Platform”
One of the more interesting things I have been observing for a few years is how the smartphone market has increasingly become extremely regionalized. It is fascinating to analyze the dynamics that have allowed the smartphone market to go global but, in doing so, open the door for local brands and local companies to be … Continue reading The Regionalization of the Smartphone Market
Lastly, I’d like to take a look at the PC category. This is the one area where Microsoft is dominant. However, there is a clear shift happening in the PC segment many fail to realize. Let’s start with the platform share of traditional PC form factors. I estimate the total installed base of the desktop … Continue reading PC Computing Market Shares
The tablet market share story is quite different. While the market appears to be slowing, it is, in fact, still growing. Our data shows year-on-year increases in user numbers have dropped from around +200% at the start of the decade to less than +15% in 2014. This product may be even more subject to seasonality … Continue reading Tablet Computing Platform Market Shares
With Amazon in the news this past week, the idea of growth at the expense of margins came to the fore again. Amazon’s financials over the last several years look like this: Amazon is clearly prioritizing growth at the cost of margins. This is reflected in its massive investment in infrastructure to support its three … Continue reading The cost of international growth
As early as 1999, I started looking closely at the concept of customer loyalty and, more specifically, what would it take to keep me loyal to a particular OS or service. As a heavy technology user going back to the early 1980’s, my own computing journey took me through various PC operating systems, applications and dozens of hardware devices … Continue reading The Quest to keep Tech Customers Loyal
The iPhone is bigger than McDonald’s. That seems a useful demarcation for how we should view the iPhone in particular and Apple in general. The iPhone is that once-in-a-generation product that alters daily reality for at least a century. The Model T production line, overnight shipping, indoor plumbing and the credit card are other such … Continue reading Thoughts On iPhone Inc
Apple’s earnings for their last financial quarter came out on Tuesday. I reviewed them here (and talked about the iPad specifically here) but wanted to address something more long term in my column on Tech.pinions this week. The issue I’d like to talk about is the cyclical nature of Apple’s operating and financial performance and … Continue reading Hitting for the cycle: why Apple should move its product launches
This week Ben Bajarin, Jan Dawson, and John Kirk discuss the IBM+Apple partnerships, Microsoft’s predicament, Google’s earnings, and Samsung’s challenges. Click here to subscribe in iTunes. If you happen to use a podcast aggregator or want to add it to iTunes manually the feed to our podcast is: techpinions.com/feed/podcast Show Notes: Jan Dawson Thought’s on … Continue reading The Tech.pinions Podcast: Our Takes on this Week’s Tech News
When Apple released their Q1 earnings in late April, they reported sales of iPads were down substantially over last year’s same quarter. Apple CEO Tim Cook stated part of the reason for a decline in iPad demand this year is, in Q1 of 2013, there was pent-up demand for the iPad mini and a backlog … Continue reading Why Has the Growth in Tablets Stalled?
The news Apple and IBM have joined forces to deliver a powerful new business approach to the enterprise is the shot heard round the IT world. This global deal, where IBM in essence becomes a VAR (value added reseller) for Apple and includes IBM porting more than 150 of their IT apps and tools exclusively to … Continue reading Apple and IBM Storm the Enterprise
Most of the wearables on the market today are an experiment in artificial stupidity. Rather than solve problems, they create them. Using a wearable today is like using a screwdriver to cut roast beef. A good design introduces enough unfamiliarity to be interesting, but not so much as to be annoying. ~ John Maeda (@johnmaeda) … Continue reading Divining Apple’s Wearable Design
In the late 1990s, I began a series of lectures at conferences titled “Three Screens of the Digital Lifestyle.” As early as 1991, I was researching how people were using various screens in their lives and made the assumption that, over the next five to seven years, all of our screens would be digital and … Continue reading What it will take to “own” the customer
Most of the devices we use have three essential components: processors, inputs and outputs. What’s interesting is much of the innovation in the consumer technology space at present is happening across these three categories, but the major companies in the space are each innovating in different areas. Let’s look at a few of them: Apple, Facebook, … Continue reading Where the innovation is: brains, inputs and outputs
I have noticed successful CEOs share an uncanny ability to lay bare a company’s strategy while simultaneously leading you down a false path. Steve Jobs was a master at this. I learned from watching Jobs it was always best to remove my expectations, toss aside my biases, and focus strictly on what he was saying … Continue reading Decoding Page And Brin
