Last week, my Techpinions colleague Carolina Milanesi wrote a terrific piece reflecting on Mobile World Congress 2019 in Barcelona. Since her column focused mainly on the device aspects of the show, I thought an analysis of the network aspects of MWC might be a good complement. Let me tee off my saying this was one … Continue reading Reflecting on #MWC 2019: Network Edition
Apple’s automotive project, codenamed Titan, is one of those rare private yet public internal projects we are not accustomed to with Apple. With the latest news about a small round of layoffs in the division, I thought it was worth touch on Apple’s automotive initiatives and adding some food for thought around what may or … Continue reading Apple’s Automotive ReOrg, Apple Watch Sales 2018
Some interesting news hit yesterday about the FTC putting together a task force to more deeply look at issues of anti-trust in America. Part of the focus will be on past mergers which were approved and whether or not regulations should come down on companies where these mergers should not have been approved. This is … Continue reading Pro’s and Cons of the FTC Task Force on Anti-Trust
We, as consumers, now know more about our own health and wellness than ever before. […] Think back a decade: How many times, outside of a medical appointment, did you pause to check your pulse? I’ve been a regular runner since junior high, but I don’t think I ever bothered to track my heart rate … Continue reading Health Technology in Ninja Future: Secrets to Success in the New World of Innovation
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
It’s no secret the Internet has brought disruption to the news media and publishing industry. Unfortunately, I think a lot more disruption is still to come. If you pay much attention to what is happening you are aware of some of the challenges many publishers are facing. I am not going to hit them all, … Continue reading What’s Ahead for Publishing and Media
It’s hard to have a conversation around Apple that does not include Apple’s services business. Rightly so, as the services revenue for Apple is likely to be one of the largest contributions to their overall company growth as well as one of the more predictable revenue streams. In Dec of last year, I wrote an … Continue reading Apple’s Services Playbook
Though it’s a year shy of the big decade marker, 2019 looks to be one of the most exciting and most important years for the tech industry in some time. Thanks to the upcoming launch of some critical new technologies, including 5G and foldable displays, as well as critical enhancements in on-device AI, personal robotics, … Continue reading Top Tech Predictions for 2019
We at Creative Strategies recently conducted a study on what consumers want in the way of technology and specifically, how they use technology in their business and personal lives. We are especially interested in the technology workflow of the knowledge workers and what technology they use to do their jobs. An early analysis of the … Continue reading How Smartphones Will Impact the Next Generation of Laptop Designs
Through a series of industry events, I spent some time digging deeper into the data center and cloud platform market. Mostly, at a technical/semiconductor and component level, but the deeper I went into the markets that drive growth, the more I realized how much I previously had underestimated the TAM growth ahead for companies which … Continue reading Data Center/Cloud Platform TAM Expansion is Bigger Than You Thought
When it comes to a breaking report of a consumer app or service having a breach leading to an invasion of customer privacy, not a week seems to go by without some news. This constant barrage of bad press for consumer services, that use a business model that hinges on advertising, has deep impacts I’m … Continue reading A New Challenge for Consumer Startups
Anyone who has been reading my analysis here, and other places, know I’ve been relatively bearish on Qualcomm. The primary reason was that of the trend by premium smartphone companies to go more vertical and make their chips. Samsung does this, even though they still use Qualcomm technology in some of their products. Huawei similarly … Continue reading Premium Silicon
I am spending most of the week at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit in Maui where 5G is headlining this important event. Qualcomm has set up a 5G network in their demo rooms and showed us various devices using this ultra high-speed network for everything from high-speed downloads of movie and content to applications ranging from … Continue reading Rushing to 5G
After years of hype and inflated expectations, it’s clear that the mania around fully autonomous cars has cooled. In a refreshing, and much needed change, we’re starting to see companies like Nvidia, Intel/Mobileye, and Arm now talk much more about the opportunities to enable enhanced safety for occupants in cars supporting advanced technologies. It’s not … Continue reading Automotive Tech Now Focused on Safety
The technology may have a very futuristic feel to it, but in current implementations, it’s clear now that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have very practical real-world applications that aren’t nearly as scary as some may fear. Thanks to a freshly completed study by TECHnalysis Research on the usage of AI applications in … Continue reading Top Goals and Challenges for AI in Business
Last week, Amazon held an event in Seattle to announce that Alexa is now being used on over 70 new devices and launched many new hardware products of their own that support Alexa. Creative Strategies Principal Analyst and Techpinions columnist, Carolina Milanesi, did a great overview of the actual products Amazon announced at last weeks … Continue reading Why Amazon Released So Many New Alexa Connected Devices
I had a hunch going into today’s Apple event that the stars of the show would be Apple’s silicon engineering team. The incredible amount of custom silicon engineering that went into making yesterday’s products is worthy of a whole post at some point. For now, I want to focus on the component that may have … Continue reading Apple’s Neural Engine = Pocket Machine Learning Platform
As an analyst with a background in the semiconductor industry (my first tech job was at Cypress Semiconductor), and heavily covering the semiconductor industry when I first joined the Analyst community in 2001, I was beginning to think this knowledge and expertise was helpful to have but becoming less relevant. For a stretch, it seemed … Continue reading Semiconductor Foundry Battles
To date, approximately 65 million smart speakers have been sold worldwide. Most of those to North America, but the rest of the world and China, in particular, is catching up fast. The YoY growth in the market has been impressive. It is, without a doubt, the fastest growing category in consumer electronics. In our analysis … Continue reading Smart Speaker Growth, Alexa Screens vs. Google Screens
You’d be hard pressed to find a topic that’s received more attention, been more closely scrutinized or talked about at greater length recently than Artificial Intelligence, or AI. Alternatively hailed as both the next big thing in technology—despite a multi-decade gestation period—and the biggest threat that the tech industry has ever created, AI and the … Continue reading Survey: Real World AI Deployments Still Limited
In early August, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, announced that his company had developed a new AI chip for his Electric cars and claimed that it is ten times faster than the ones they use today from nVidia. When I was at NVIDIA’s spring developers conference, I went to a session on NVIDIA’S AI Xavier processor … Continue reading Tesla, Google, Facebook and Others Move Towards Vertical Integration
Over the past few weeks, I have been asked a lot whether the prices of smartphones will continue to increase and if such an increase is justified. The success of the iPhone X took those who said people would never pay $1,000 for a phone by surprise. The iPhone X also gave hope to smartphone … Continue reading The Value of Smartphones
Ever since Apple has gone all in developing custom silicon chips like their A-series processors as well as companion chips like connectivity modules, an image sensor, display modules, and several others they don’t talk about publicly, other companies have followed suit. I often get asked why companies feel the need to start making their chips … Continue reading The Risks of Custom Silicon
Apple’s ASP defies the logic and assumptions so many have built up over the years. In fact, I could argue the smartphone, in general, is continuing to defy the logic of many but even within the smartphone market, the common sentiment (note I did not say common wisdom) was that the market would commoditize like … Continue reading Understanding Apple’s iPhone ASP
A few years ago, I wrote an article called “when the easy growth is over.” I slightly regret the title because no growth is easy and we should applaud companies who do tap into the current and scale their businesses because it is not easy. However, my article was more to the point about the … Continue reading Tech Industries Problem of Slowing Growth
