Topic: Smartphones
Bloomberg Reports More Details on Forthcoming iPhone User Interface (Aug 30, 2017)
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★ Google Previews ARCore, Its Response to Apple’s ARKit for Android Phones (Aug 29, 2017)
Google today announced ARCore, an equivalent to Apple’s ARKit tools for developers to create AR experiences on Android phones. Importantly, it’s not tied to the latest version of the Android operating system but rather is being implemented on a device-by-device basis, with Google’s own Pixel and Samsung’s Galaxy S8 the first devices to support it, with the latter running Nougat rather than Oreo. There are two ways to look at this announcement, given the timing: on the one hand, it looks like a response to ARKit and the massive positive buzz that’s received since it was announced in June; on the other, it’s a natural outgrowth of the work Google’s done with its much higher end Tango AR framework in the last few years, and that’s certainly how Google’s pitching it. I think the reality given the speed with which this has been released is that this was something Google was working on pre-ARKit but has accelerated in light of the ARKit launch.
Its blog post headline is “Augmented reality at Android scale” and you can read that one of two ways: on the one hand, as a counterpoint to ARKit, which runs at the somewhat smaller iOS scale, but on the other as an acknowledgement that – interesting though Tango is as a platform – it was never going to achieve true Android scale. The rollout plans here are a little vague – Google hopes its “preview” of ARCore will hit 100 million devices sometime this winter, which is likely a fraction of the iOS devices that will support ARKit by that time, but there’s potential for broad rollout of this platform to most recent premium Android devices over the next couple of years. That’s likely short of true Android scale (2 billion plus phones) but would likely hit the devices where it’s most relevant, which are those that compete more directly with the iPhone, though Apple will enjoy a year or two of significantly greater adoption before Android starts to catch up.
At this point, it’s hard to see Tango as anything other than a time-consuming and expensive failure in its own right, but it’s clearly allowed Google to learn a lot which can now be applied to ARCore and therefore be much more useful and widely available. Between Apple and Google’s launches, it’s clearer than ever that smartphone AR will be by far the largest chunk of the overall AR/VR spectrum, and we should see some really interesting implementations over the next few months.
via Google
Google Starts Branding Google-Fork Android Devices as Certified (Aug 28, 2017)
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BlackBerry Says It’s Close to Licensing Secure Android Version to Phone Makers (Aug 24, 2017)
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★ HTC is Exploring Strategic Options Including Sale of Vive VR Unit (Aug 24, 2017)
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★ Samsung Announces Pricey Note8 With Dual Cameras, Confirms Speaker in Works (Aug 23, 2017)
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Essential Phone Reviews Highlight Challenge of Android Differentiation (Aug 18, 2017)
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★ Lenovo Reports Q2 Loss, Flat Smartphone Sales (Aug 18, 2017)
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Asus ZenFone AR Review Suggests Tango Will Remain a Niche AR Product (Aug 18, 2017)
Android Police has a review of the Asus ZenFone AR, the second phone to carry Google’s Tango augmented reality technology. It sounds like it’s a big improvement over the clunky first phone from Lenovo, but it certainly doesn’t sound like it’ll be a big seller, while Tango itself doesn’t sound like it’s moved on much either. The review is worth noting because Google has been in AR for far longer than Apple, and yet Tango seems to have stalled at the experimental phase, with lots of effort from Google and yet very little to show for it. Two phones, neither of which will end up selling in large numbers, very few apps and essentially no meaningful position in AR just at a time when the space is about to take off thanks to Apple’s entry through ARKit in iOS. That’s something of an indictment of Google’s failure in this area, with its Daydream VR effort faring a little better but also not yet finding a sizable market niche to call its own. One other thing to note from the review here: it sounds like Tango absolutely hammers battery life on this device, and that’s something that will be well worth watching when ARKit-based apps launch on the iPhone in September. Pokemon Go has already taught us that apps featuring AR (and location-based elements) can be hard on batteries and still be popular, but it will detract from AR’s popularity on the iPhone if ARKit apps show a comparable tradeoff in battery life.
via Android Police
Essential Begins Phone Sales, Sprint Offers Discount for 18-Month Payment Plan (Aug 17, 2017)
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HMD Global Launches First High-End Android, Nokia 8 (Aug 16, 2017)
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Essential Phone Readying to Ship Within a Week, White Model Coming Later (Aug 16, 2017)
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Amazon Says Smartphone Sales in India are Growing Rapidly, Driving Other Sales (Aug 10, 2017)
NDTV’s Manish Singh has an interview with the head of consumer electronics sales for Amazon in India which provides several interesting insights on trends around smartphone sales there. It seems Amazon’s sales of smartphones in India have risen dramatically in India over the past year, up 100% overall but up by far higher percentages in the smaller cities around the country. Perhaps more importantly, Amazon is finding that a smartphone is often the first purchase a customer makes through the site, but in many cases turns the customer into an Amazon convert, with many other purchases following that first positive experience. In a sense, this is the equivalent of Facebook or Google pursuing strategies to expand internet access: the efforts are designed to create new potential customers who are more likely to be loyal to Amazon, though this would be even more effective if Amazon launched its own devices, something NDTV has previously reported it was working on. The piece here also talks about Amazon’s strategy of offering the broadest possible range of devices and brands while also securing the odd exclusive including phones from OnePlus and a particular model of the iPhone. That’s an interesting strategy in a market where a majority of smartphone sales are still made in offline retail, but online is an increasingly important channel. Overall, some good insights into both Amazon’s India strategy and the Indian smartphone market. Also worth noting: this separate story from NDTV on the new Nokia 6 (from HMD Global) hitting 1 million “registrations” (effectively a soft pre-order) on Amazon’s website in India, which is running some special promotions and bundles around the phone.
via NDTV
T-Mobile Launches Budget Smartphone and Offers Others on Lease Programs (Aug 9, 2017)
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Essential Gets Additional Funding from Amazon’s Alexa Fund, Tencent (Aug 9, 2017)
Essential, Android founder Andy Rubin’s fledgling smartphone outfit, has announced additional funding from companies including Tencent and Amazon, but still refuses to say exactly when its smartphone will go on sale, saying only that a date will be announced in a week or so. It’s also announced that Amazon and Best Buy will be the retail partners for launch, while Sprint was announced earlier as the exclusive US carrier partner. If you’ve read any of my previous pieces on Essential, especially the first one, you’ll know how skeptical I am that an effort like this can succeed. The market is so mature at this point and the distribution and other battle lines so clear that breaking in with yet another Android phone will be a real challenge, one further exacerbated by what’s going to be limited distribution on the weakest carrier in the US. The funding is therefore intriguing, because it suggests these backers see something in the phone that I don’t. Importantly, it’s Amazon’s Alexa Fund specifically that’s making that company’s investment, something the Journal piece I’m linking to here doesn’t dig into at all, but which suggests that the phone will major on Alexa integration, something hinted at earlier by Andy Rubin as part of a statement about the phone’s ecumenical approach to voice assistants, but not made explicit. And backing from both Foxconn and Tencent is intriguing in the context of a phone that’s mostly being launched in North America for now. Recent conversations I’ve had suggest Amazon’s smartphone sales business is going very well, but of course many of its sales are of the kind of low-end prepaid handsets people buy outright anyway rather than the higher-end premium hardware Essential will be selling. I continue to be very bearish on Essential, but at least it sounds like we might finally see the hardware hit the market soon.
via WSJ
Huawei Smartphone Reportedly Coming to AT&T (Aug 4, 2017)
I’ve had a few items recently about Huawei, including an item earlier this week about global smartphone market share, and you’ll hopefully have sensed that I think it’s a fascinating company to watch. But one of the other consistent themes about Huawei is that it’s been successful in much of the world with one big exception: the US, where the major carriers haven’t sold its phones. Fellow Chinese smartphone maker ZTE has been more successful in getting its phones ranged by US wireless carriers, especially in the prepaid space, but Huawei has been absent. And it’s worth noting that when it comes to the postpaid market that dominates the US, there are really just three big brands: Apple, Samsung, and LG, in that order. Every other vendor has under 5% of the total US smartphone installed base, with Motorola and HTC rounding out the top five. With all that as context, the fact that The Information is reporting Huawei is working with AT&T for a launch, possibly built around its next flagship, is kind of a big deal. Given the flagship focus, this almost certainly means it’s coming to AT&T’s postpaid service, which is arguably an even bigger deal, and follows on from earlier reporting that AT&T was certifying Huawei’s chipset. Between this and the availability of the Motorola Z2 Force on all four major carriers, we’re potentially entering the first real phase of expansion in the US smartphone lineups offered by major carriers in quite some time, following a period of simplification and focus. That’s yet another sign of both maturing smartphone markets and a maturing wireless market in the US, which is going to force carriers to get creative in how they attract and retain customers.
via The Information
Motorola Z2 Force Reviews Highlight Tradeoffs (Aug 3, 2017)
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Repair Association Hits Apple Hard in Report on Environmental Regulations (Aug 3, 2017)
I saw an article pop up this morning from Mashable about Apple and its repairs policy, and then saw another this afternoon from the Verge (linked below) on the same topic, which made me wonder why, and it turns out that the answer is a new report from the Repair Association. The Repair Association is an industry body made up of device repair companies and environmental and other organizations, and as such has a clear point of view on device repairs: they’re a good thing, and any limitations on repairability are a bad thing. I had a long Twitter exchange this morning with the author of the Mashable article about this topic, and the thrust from my side of the conversation was that the framing here is all wrong. Yes, Apple does place restrictions on who can repair its devices and how, and it also increasingly designs its devices in ways which make them harder for third parties to repair, but as I’ve said before in the context of iFixit and other repair companies’ reviews of Apple devices, this isn’t done to thwart repair companies or customers, and it isn’t a money grab.
The big shift in Apple’s design over recent years has been increasingly tight integration of components, which has been a key enabler of making devices smaller and more powerful, something that’s been a part of iPhone and iPad design from the start but which has more recently spread to the Mac line as well. This definitely makes repairs harder, and Apple also places restrictions on how screens can be repaired because they’re integrated with the Touch ID sensor that controls device unlocking and Apple Pay among other things, and repairing them without access to special tools stops Touch ID from working. Again, that’s a side effect of Apple’s security-centric design and not a deliberate strategy to frustrate would-be repairers or customers. Apple opposes some of the stricter standards and regulations proposed by states and various bodies because they’re often designed to prioritize repairability over functionality, sometimes in ways which seem directly aimed at the way Apple designs its products. Meanwhile, Apple has made enormous strides in its environmental efforts over the last few years under the leadership of Lisa Jackson, formerly head of the EPA and therefore no slouch when it comes to environmental protection. That’s extended from using sustainable energy to better recycling of parts with Apple’s Liam disassembly machines and so on. Apple is moving in the right direction here, and as the Verge piece at least acknowledges, none of what Apple is doing here is actually environmentally unfriendly, as the Mashable piece suggests.
via The Verge
Chinese Smartphone Vendors Grew Strongly in Q2, Gaining on Big Two (Aug 2, 2017)
New smartphone shipment and market share numbers are out for Q2 from various analyst firms, and they all show the same broad pattern: somewhere between a modest decline and modest growth year on year for the market as a whole, modest growth for Apple and Samsung, and strong performances by three Chinese vendors, with Huawei making significant gains in the number three spot. IDC, Strategy Analytics, and Canalys among others differed slightly on the exact shipment numbers, while Strategy Analytics seems to find another 20 million or so shipments somewhere compared with the others. The top four spots have now remained unchanged for over a year, with the exception of Q4 last year, when Apple briefly pipped Samsung for the number one spot, though this quarter Xiaomi’s resurgence squeezed Vivo barely out of the top five. Huawei got within a few million of Apple’s sales total for the first time off the back of pretty strong growth, but Xiaomi had by far the fastest growth (which you already know if you’ve read two earlier pieces on Huawei and Xiaomi). The broader picture has Chinese vendors dominating the top ten, though these firms only report the top five in their public releases: by my count, Chinese vendors take seven of the top ten spots, with Apple, Samsung, and LG the only exceptions. And those Chinese vendors rely enormously on the Chinese market for their sales, while several have no presence in the US at all, meaning that the smartphone market is increasingly fragmented globally, with different players taking the lead in different parts of the world.
via Android Police
★ Apple Reports Accelerating Growth, First iPad Unit Growth in Four Years (Aug 1, 2017)
Apple reported its fiscal third quarter / calendar second quarter results today, and they came in at the high end of its guidance and beat analyst estimates. One of the biggest surprises was strong iPad unit growth year on year after four years of declines, and just the second quarter of revenue growth for iPads during that period, thanks largely to sales of the lower-priced $329 iPad introduced earlier this year. But Apple said all its product categories saw year on year revenue and unit growth, with Apple Watch reportedly growing 50% year on year, and Mac and iPhone unit growth up modestly, while the Services business continued on its recent tear, driven largely by the App Store, but also to an extent by Apple Music and iCloud storage plans. iPhone ASPs were up modestly year on year driven by stronger sales of the latest Plus models, and would have been up more if not for the fact that the company sold down its inventory significantly, with almost all the reduction being made up of more expensive phones.
Perhaps more significantly for the longer term outlook, the company provided guidance for the September quarter which essentially guarantees new iPhone hardware in September. I would guess that at the very least Apple will have the successors to the current phones on sale in the usual timeframe and in the usual volumes, while my hunch is that the new higher-end model will also go on sale at the same time but be even more heavily supply-constrained than new iPhones usually are.
Apple continued to talk up performance in mainland China as distinct from the Greater China region it reports, where sales were down 10% year on year, the best result in nearly two years, but still a drag on overall results with other regions all growing, all but Japan at double digit rates. Tim Cook also addressed the issue of VPNs in China which I wrote about yesterday, and defended Apple’s stance, which is a combination of following the law in each country where it operates, and believing that it’s better to engage and stay in a country than leave, even where it disagrees with policy (my notes on this portion can be seen here).
Overall, Apple’s management on the call seemed as bullish as they have for some time, clearly looking forward to what they expect to be a strong finish to the year in both product and financial terms. Tim Cook wasn’t drawn the slightest bit on new iPhones, but did hint at new products this fall, talked about the role of autonomy beyond vehicles and Apple’s big project in this area, raved about ARKit and the potential of AR, among other things. There’s clearly a good mix of products coming to market in the near term and investment for the long term which Apple’s management is also happy about. That’s no guarantee of a strong performance in the September or more importantly the December quarter, but I continue to be pretty bullish on what’s coming over the next few months from Apple.
via Apple