Facebook was once viewed as invincible. When chatting with VCs, investors, and many in the business world, there seemed no safer bet than Facebook’s hyper growth business. It seems the invincibility of Facebook carried over into the mainstream media given the amount of backlash we received when we published some recent research on US adults … Continue reading Facebook’s New Reality and The Case Against Hyper Scale
It came as no surprise to me that the EU ruled, and fined Google for monopolistic practices. Antitrust situations are always tricky, especially when the two biggest in the tech industry have involved relatively open operating systems in Windows and Android. The nature of the open model is good for consumers by keeping costs of … Continue reading Google and Antitrust
There has been a lot of speculation lately that Apple is getting ready to create some media bundle that would be under subscription. According to multiple sites, the idea would be to bundle all of their media properties under a special program that mirrors something like Amazon’s Prime services. I have no direct knowledge that … Continue reading Apple’s Most Strategic Investment So Far This Year
This article was originally published for subscribers of the Tech.pinions Think.tank. To learn more, or sign up for your daily dose of tech industry insight, click here. Last month, in collaboration with Aaron Suplizio from Experian, we conducted a study on iPhone X owners. Most of the respondents in our survey were from the US, … Continue reading Top Takeaways From Studying iPhone X Owners
Some of the most exciting and revolutionary innovations to appear on the scene over the last few years are augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). At their core, these eye-opening technologies—and the many variations that lie between them—are fundamentally new types of displays that let us see content in entirely different ways. From completely … Continue reading The Unseen Opportunities of AR and VR
I remember when Apple Watch first came out vividly because we had already been studying the wearable market, largely for health and fitness, for a few years. I was super excited to see what Apple had up their sleeve with this first product but had a hard time understanding why I, a relatively healthy and … Continue reading Living With Visual Vital Signs
To say Facebook has been in the news lately is an understatement. I added some additional commentary in my article a few months ago The Beginning of the End of Facebook – Part 2. A few main points I made in that article are worth repeating so I can build out a few more components … Continue reading The Unraveling of Facebook
In late February, I started writing a piece entitled “Why Apple should buy Texture.” For months I had been studying Apple’s need to acquire more content and original programming. In my main Techpinions column on Monday, I laid out the challenge they have in this area given the strong investments competitors like Netflix and Amazon … Continue reading The Real Importance of Apple’s Acquisition of Texture
A long time ago, in 2011, I wrote an article for TIME called The Beginning of the End of Facebook. Regarding readership, this article is likely one of the most read things I’ve ever had published and was featured on TIME’s main homepage for a few days. I was so excited I took a screen-shot … Continue reading The Beginning of the End of Facebook – Part 2
It has been interesting to watch health-related technology solutions accelerate over the last few years. Much of this has been driven by the smartphone and the bar that it raised regarding our expectations with many products. The smartphone also contributed to helping commoditize many technological components making them affordable for companies to begin to integrate … Continue reading Health Tech is Coming Into Its Own
In Today’s Daily Tech.pinions column, I outlined why Apple’s presence, although indirect, was glaringly missing from CES the past few years. As I point out, HomeKit is garnering much better support in years past, but there is a higher level point that became clear this year. One noticeable trend at CES this year was how … Continue reading Apple’s Siri Microphone Strategy
It is the season and as I think I have been pretty good this year, I thought I’d come up with my Letter to Santa. There are a few things on the list but when it comes to tech it comes down to five things: more diversity in leading positions in tech, more tech for … Continue reading Dear Santa, All I want for Christmas is….
Earlier this month, we at Creative Strategies, conducted a study across 1000 US consumers to understand how smartphone owners use the camera on their smartphones. We also wanted to know how much of a driver the quality of the camera is when it comes to buying a new smartphone as well as what else users … Continue reading DSLR Owners love Their Smartphone Camera as much as You do
We’re about to kick of earnings season for Q3 2017, and so I’m doing my usual quarterly preview. My focus here isn’t so much predicting what we’ll see as suggesting the things to look for when these companies report. As usual, I’ll tackle the main companies I track in alphabetical order. Alphabet Alphabet’s last set … Continue reading Q3 2017 Earnings Preview
As we’re nearing the end of earnings season, one of the things that’s become increasingly clear is that the big companies have mostly performed consistently with their past performance, delivering strong growth and profits. Meanwhile, smaller companies have struggled to find growth and profitability, often losing share to their bigger competitors. The recurring theme for … Continue reading Tech Dominance Begets More Dominance
In what was one of the most packed WWDC keynotes in recent memory, the Apple Watch got under 15 minutes of stage time, and health and fitness features got only a fraction of that. But that’s not really indicative of all the additions to Apple’s health, fitness, and broader wellness features being made this year, and … Continue reading Apple’s Health and Fitness Push Accelerates as it Turns 3
Late last month I wrote about the 5 major industries impacted by the iPhone. I listed the PC, Telecom, Music, TV and Health industries that the iPhone helped change and in almost all of these cases it even forced them to change their business models. While the iPhone impacted the industries above it also had … Continue reading The iPhone and its Truly Disruptive Nature
Back in January, around the tenth anniversary of the announcement of the iPhone, I wrote here about the impact that it has had on the world, but talked mostly in qualitative terms. As we now approach the tenth anniversary of the first sales of the iPhone, it’s worth another look, this time from a quantitative … Continue reading The iPhone at 10 in Charts
There was a lot unveiled during the Apple WWDC keynote last week and, as to be expected, some of the hotter and bigger products stole the limelight and relegated others to be simply an extra in the over two-hour-long production. watchOS 4 might not have seemed significant, especially to those who have been so eagerly … Continue reading Apple watchOS 4 brings Intelligence to the Wrist
Apple has not traditionally talked much hardware at WWDC. However, when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Any and all hardware advancements are the foundations for developers to build upon. Developers will be the first to tell you they never want to see hardware innovation stop because hardware innovation is what gets them … Continue reading Apple’s Hardware Stars at a Software Developer Conference
I was looking at a recent Pew Research Center report abut tech adoption by seniors. It stated 40% of American adults ages 65+ own a smartphone now. At the same time, more than 2/3rds of seniors use the internet, which is a 55% increase from 2000. And as the chart below states, 51% now have … Continue reading Tech Adoption and Senior Citizens
Studying generations under 30 provides a unique challenge. One of the demographic patterns we observe around technology in particular is how habits change with specific life stages. From a purely anthropological standpoint, this seems obvious. Your habits during your youth/formative years are different than those in the middle of your life and both of those … Continue reading The Rich Media Generation
I’m attending Microsoft’s Build developer conference this week and one of the most striking things is the way in which Microsoft has reversed the order of its daily keynotes from past years. Whereas the first-day keynote in the past has focused on Windows and devices, those topics have now been pushed to day two, while … Continue reading Microsoft’s Symbolic Shift from Windows to Cloud
The last few years have seen a fascinating shift in storylines as well as data around the storylines. Many of us who research consumer trends in the industry focus quite a bit on the endpoint because they serve as gateways to broader software and services experiences. For this reason, our eyes have been squarely on … Continue reading In the Mobile-First Era, Don’t Forget the PC
One of the key narratives I regularly encounter is surrounding the Millennial demographic and Apple. In our most recent millennial study, we included some sentiment questions about Apple we think give us some insight into the current mindset of millennials around Apple hardware. There are many data points collected by us and many other researchers … Continue reading Millennials and Apple
