Tech Narratives – Page 16 – Daily Tech Commentary from Jan Dawson

Important Note

Tech Narratives was a subscription website, which offered expert commentary on the day's top tech news from Jan Dawson, along with various other features, for $10/month. As of Monday October 16, 2017, it will no longer be updated. An archive of past content will remain available for the time being. I've written more about this change in the post immediately below, and also here.

Each post below is tagged with

Company/Division names

Topics

and

Narratives

as appropriate.

WhatsApp Tests App For Businesses, Says Will Begin Charging Them Soon (Sep 5, 2017)

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Advertising Sustainability

Lenovo Pays $3.5m as Part of Settlement with FTC Over PC Adware Security Issues (Sep 5, 2017)

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Lenovo

Declining Privacy & Security

★ Xiaomi Announces Mid-Tier Android One Phone with Google (Sep 5, 2017)

Google’s Android One project for emerging markets was launched in 2014, and focused on countries in the Indian subcontinent and other parts of Asia. But it’s appeared to be struggling, with little recent positive news from vendors supporting it in those countries. In addition, at its I/O developer conference this year Google announced a project internally called Android Go, which is focused on optimizing Android for low-cost devices and therefore seemed to be in somewhat the same vein. But the funny thing about Android One is that’s it’s been morphing somewhat from a project for the low end of the Android market to one more targeted at the mid market. There have been several Android One phones through Sharp in Japan since mid-2016, and now Xiaomi is announcing a device. which seems at least in part targeted at India.

The most interesting thing about Xiaomi as a partner is the fact that it’s always majored on its proprietary UI – MIUI – as a differentiator for its devices, and it’s arguably that the fairly locked-down Android One was intended at least in part as a response to Android OEMs’ customizations, so this is certainly a departure for Xiaomi. As with the Japanese phones, though, this one is also targeted at the mid-market, selling for a little over $200, with 80% of handsets sold in India below $200. So it’s a poor fit for the original focus of the Android One project, which is arguably now being taken over by the Android Go initiative, but indicative of what Android One is evolving into. The big question is whether the device will actually sell, given that a Xiaomi phone without MIUI is a tougher sell and there are plenty of other cheaper Android phones in the countries the companies are targeting with this one. There’s certainly no guarantee Android One does any better in India at $200 plus than it did at $100.

via Bloomberg

Facebook Bids Over $600m for Indian Cricket Rights But Loses Out to Broadcaster (Sep 5, 2017)

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Facebook

Huawei Announces New Chip for Smartphones with AI Capabilities (Sep 5, 2017)

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Huawei

Daily Podcast Episode 49 – September 1, 2017 (Sep 1, 2017)

The daily podcast episode for September 1 is up now on SoundCloud and should be syncing shortly to iTunes, Overcast, and other podcast apps. As usual, the podcast spends about one minute on each of the items covered on the site today, and also points to a few other items in the news today which I didn’t cover but which are nonetheless interesting. You can find today’s episode on SoundCloud and all episodes on iTunes, Overcast, and so on. The additional items covered are below:

ARCore and ARKit Analysis (1 & 2)
Facebook’s Population Mapping
Alphabet Reorg

Daily Podcast

★ Roku Files to Go Public, Loses Money, Sees Ads as Core of Future Business Model (Sep 1, 2017)

Roku today made public its S-1 filing with the SEC as the first step towards a long-awaited IPO. I’ve been tweeting charts and nuggets from the filing for the last couple of hours in this thread, but I’ll provide a brief summary here. The long and the short of it is that Roku is growing at a decent clip, is currently unprofitable with little sign of that changing, and is in the midst of a big shift in its business model. Whereas for most of its history selling its streaming boxes has been its core revenue stream, it’s recently added a platform licensing business, but that’s not actually where its new revenue streams are coming from. Rather, it licenses its platform very cheaply and monetizes usage by taking a cut of certain subscriptions sold through its platform and serving up ads. It’s the latter which is a surprisingly important part of its business model (though there have been signs of this shift) and which is a major focus of much of the text in the S-1 filing. Last year, this advertising and subscription revenue share was nearly $50 million out of its $400 million in total revenue, and half of its platform revenue, and that accounted for essentially all of its growth in 2016. In that sense, though Roku on paper looks like principally a hardware company, it’s in some ways more like a Facebook or a Google – a company that collects millions of data points on its customers (18TB of uncompressed data per day) and will use that to target advertising. In that sense, Roku is an unusual player in the streaming space, given how many modern streaming services eschew advertising, but sees itself as a key beneficiary of the move of TV advertising dollars from traditional channels to streaming. This is going to be a fascinating IPO to watch and I’ll have plenty more analysis on Roku in the next few days.

via Roku Form S-1 (SEC)

Roku

IDC Wearables Report Shows Basic Trackers Striking, Watches Growing (Sep 1, 2017)

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Wearables are Struggling

Apple Reportedly Looking to Take Over Hollywood Studio Property for Video Push (Sep 1, 2017)

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Apple Doesn't Get Services

Instagram Hack Appears to be Far More Widespread Than Originally Thought (Sep 1, 2017)

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Facebook Threatens Privacy

Apple Captured 85% of “Totally Wireless” Earbud Sales in the US Since December (Sep 1, 2017)

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Apple

Apple is Doomed

Apple Updates Exec Bios to Reflect Siri Move, Cue’s Original Content Push (Sep 1, 2017)

This is a minor thing, but nevertheless an important one in several ways. Apple has updated the executive bios on its website to reflect a few changes, notably the change in responsibility for Siri from Eddy Cue (generally responsible for online services) to Craig Federighi (responsible for software), and Eddy Cue’s ownership of Apple’s original video content push. That’s notable for two reasons: one is that Eddy Cue has lost other areas of responsibility recently, notably the App Store to Phil Schiller, and Siri is an area where Apple can ill afford to be seen to be falling behind the competition. Taking it away from Cue is likely a sign that Apple wants to see the same rapid improvements there as it did in the App Store when Schiller took over, but also a recognition that the content push is going to take more of Cue’s attention going forward.

Also worth noting: though there’s still only one woman among Apple’s top-tier leadership of SVPs and CXOs as shown on its executive leadership page, the next tier of VPs is now half women, with three of the four women of color. Diversity in the top ranks at Apple has been poor and slow to change, in part because the senior leadership team has been so stable for so long, but it’s clear that Tim Cook is using the more frequent changes happening at the next tier down to increase diversity there.

via Mac Rumors

Apple
Siri

Apple Doesn't Get Services

Microsoft And Samsung Partner to Cross-Promote Xbox One X and QLED TVs (Sep 1, 2017)

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US National Labor Relations Board Files Complaint Against Tesla For Blocking Unions (Sep 1, 2017)

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Tech Disrupts Transportation

Daily Podcast Episode 48 – August 31, 2017 (Aug 31, 2017)

The daily podcast episode for August 31 is up now on SoundCloud and should be syncing shortly to iTunes, Overcast, and other podcast apps. As usual, the podcast spends about one minute on each of the items covered on the site today, and also points to a few other items in the news today which I didn’t cover but which are nonetheless interesting. You can find today’s episode on SoundCloud and all episodes on iTunes, Overcast, and so on. The additional items covered are below: