A week or so ago, I tweeted a pair of charts from a presentation I’m doing this week for a client. They showed some of the data from the California Department of Motor Vehicles on the subject of self-driving car technology. This is one of the best data sets we have on this topic so, … Continue reading Who’s Winning in Self-Driving Car Tech
I received a mixture of feedback on Twitter when I tweeted Phil Baker’s column from yesterday. Most of the feedback was critical of Phil’s point that Apple may be losing the younger generation. They argued that, because so many of them prefer Apple hardware to everything else, others do as well. This is a solid … Continue reading Apple and Generation Z
I recently acquired a pair of the elusive Spectacles by Snap Inc. the parent company of Snapchat. While not the most stylish design, the best way to describe them is whimsical, playful, fun, and entertaining. Phrases which I also believe are the best way to understand Snapchat and Snap Inc. as a whole. Strategically, Snapchat … Continue reading Snapchat Spectacles and Making Memories
When we look at behavior data across many different social networks, it is interesting that not all social networks are created equal. Behavioral patterns are the key things to look for, especially with the ones I’m going to look at here. It is key to know if consumers are behaving in a way that works … Continue reading A Deeper Look at FB, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter
(Tech.Pinions: Today’s Daily piece, “Adventures in Machine Intelligence” was an Insider post we originally published on December 12th, 2016. We post it today as an example of the daily content for our Insider subscribers. You can subscribe, yearly or monthly, at the page found here) While I tend to stay away from high-performance computing and … Continue reading Adventures in Machine Intelligence
CES is one of those shows where we analysts have to filter through the noise to find what we believe to be sustainable and realistic industry trends. CES is not the kind of show that you can look broadly at everything happening and come away with where the tech industry is heading. A great deal … Continue reading A Few Big Themes from CES
A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed my 2016 predictions with a view to seeing what I got right and wrong, and why. This week, it’s time for a new set of predictions for 2017. I’m going to do it mostly on a per-company basis and I’m also going to include one big question for … Continue reading 2017 Predictions
In all my years of studying the technology industry, I’ve always found it more helpful to know installed bases of devices, platforms, apps, etc., vs looking at what is selling in terms of market share in any given quarter. Just focusing on sales share of hardware products per quarter is a deceiving statistic when looked … Continue reading Global Device Ownership at 2016 Year’s End
In the last few weeks, there has been a lot of discussion about the PC market. I have maintained the market is still contracting and consolidating. Only a handful of hardware vendors will continue to own share of this contracting market and most of the positive gains by vendors will come from stealing customers from … Continue reading Weekly Stat: Two Charts on Consumer PC Behavior
There’s been lots of talk since Apple’s event last week about the reception to the new MacBook Pros, especially among the Apple commentariat. It’s fair to say the backlash against these new devices is stronger than for any MacBook announcement I can remember and yet it’s mostly coming from two particular sets of people – … Continue reading The Mainstreaming of the Mac
Apple this week introduced new MacBook Pros and, in addition to bright new screens, fast new processors, and–of course—ever thinner form factors, Apple introduced a new hardware feature called the Touch Bar. It’s a high-quality miniature screen that runs the length of the keyboard, replacing the old F Keys row above the numeric keys. In … Continue reading With Touch Bar, Apple Again puts Faith in Third-Party Developers
Many of you know my love of Twitter. A major part of my role studying this industry is to gather information and stay on top of everything as close to real time as it happens. Twitter plays a significant role in my daily workflow to do that. I don’t know exactly how much time I … Continue reading Long Live a Free Twitter
The writing is on the wall for online TV to be the predominant way humans consume video content. It truly is only a matter of time. Some countries, like parts of Asia and Europe, are much farther along in this transition as content providers there increasingly offer their full suite of content options to be … Continue reading Unpacked: The Time Shift from Linear to Online TV
I once had a theory that Facebook would not survive the segmentation of social networking. The time-tested observation that, as markets mature, they segment, was the basis for my point. What I did not predict was Facebook would buy all or as many as the social networking branch-offs like Instagram, WhatsApp, and more coming, to … Continue reading Facebook is the New Google for the Next Decade
Naver, the Korean parent company of messaging app LINE, is planning to list the company on the Tokyo and New York stock exchanges for the first time. This represents the first IPO for a major standalone messaging company and, as such, is an interesting test case for the category. But it’s also a great chance … Continue reading LINE: The First Major Messaging IPO is a Mixed Bag
These days, there are a lot of questions swirling around Apple and the biggest question of all is whether Apple has forgotten how to innovate. Of course, this question is not new. CAPTION: February 1996 The company once notorious for its ability to upend convention and revolutionize markets may no longer have what it takes, … Continue reading Part 1: Who Is Apple Innovating For?
Looking at many different social media networks/services from a global perspective, there are a few interesting trends, none larger than Facebook. Literally. On a global scale, Facebook not only has the most active users but also the most engaged ones. When consumers are asked how frequently they use specific social media sites/services, Facebook returns the … Continue reading Unpacked: Global Social Media Usage
This post was originally published for subscribers of Tech.pinions. Our subscribers gave us feedback this story should be made available to the public. If you are interested in subscribing and getting a daily analysis of the tech industry, you can learn more here. Many of my colleagues at Tech.pinions have weighed in on the anniversary … Continue reading The Apple Watch as a Health Monitoring Tool
The computer industry continues to experience tough times, as evidenced by IDC’s preliminary 1Q16 shipment numbers and Intel’s recent quarterly earnings data. Charles Arthur wrote a good column on the topic last week. I’d like to dive deeper into one of the fundamental issues facing the industry — declining consumer demand for home PCs. The … Continue reading The PC Industry’s Consumer Conundrum
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
On Wednesday, Facebook held an event designed to announce progress on its Live Video product. Mark Zuckerberg hosted a live video and the company began rolling out a new video tab to its mobile apps as well as a number of other enhancements to the service. This is, of course, part of a broader trend … Continue reading The Live Video Obsession
I would like to draw a correlation between something interesting that was revealed this week by Facebook on their earnings call with this week’s column. Facebook had a very impressive quarter. Two particular metrics stand out to me, as visualized by Tech.pinions author Jan Dawson’s wonderful quarterly deck service. Facebook has found their groove. It … Continue reading Unpacked: Using Tech While Watching TV
The last few quarters, investors have been quite cautious around GoPro as the bear thesis rang loudly in their heads. Yesterday, it seems the bear thesis played out as they missed revenue estimates by nearly $100m and shares dropped 25% and were halted. The company also announced they would cut seven percent of their workforce. … Continue reading GoPro Floundering, Apple’s iAD Strategy, The Great PC Rebalancing
I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the role of voice in the future of computing. Whether or not science fiction becomes self-fulfilling prophecies, the genre always assumes we will talk to computers in the future. The building blocks for voice and more importantly, the artificial intelligence engine powering them, are just being … Continue reading Unpacked: Stats on Voice Search on Mobile
