Smartwatches

LG Announces the First Android Wear Smartwatch with LTE

October 2, 2015

LG is announcing a new version of the Watch Urbane, the chunky Android Wear device it released this spring. The new version puts an ever so slightly bigger screen inside of a slightly smaller body. It’s able to do that by building some of the watch’s tech into its bands, which are no longer swappable. It’s inside one of those bands that you’ll find the most interesting addition to this model: a cellular radio.

The obvious questions are about: battery life (especially since it also has GPS), reception, size. It’s still early days. All these elements will improve. The bigger question, though: do you release a product before they actually *have* improved?

Thursday Assorted Links

September 24, 2015

1. Samsung Galaxy S7 to have versions with curved and flat displays I wouldn’t be surprised if this happens. Usually, when Samsung sees a fork in the road, they take it.

2. Xiaomi fast expanding ecosystem raises concerns, say sources Concerns about Xiaomi, that is. Jingyue Hsiao, Monica Chen, and Steve Shen, for DigiTimes:

Market watchers have become more conservative about Xiaomi’s development potential because the vendor will constantly need more funds and resources for tapping new markets or product segments, commented the sources.

3. Pebble Is Trying to Run Circles Around Apple

4. The gen-two Moto 360—a beautiful, compact design without much new tech Ron Amadeo, for Ars Technica:

It doesn’t move the needle much, but design is what really matters in wearables.

5. Bosch invents new electric car battery to double mileage Always take claims of battery advances with two grains of salt, but FYI.

Android Wear Now Works with iPhones … Now What?

September 1, 2015

Nicole Lee, for Engadget:

All told, Android Wear for iOS should work almost the same as it does for Android phones. You’ll get notifications from your favorite Google services like Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Now, as well as Apple’s Calendar, Google Fit, the weather, alarm, agenda, Translate and so forth. It’ll work with voice queries and you can change the watch face just as you can with the Android app. According to Google, you don’t need to have any of these apps installed; they’re all built into the iOS app itself (We’re guessing that you’ll be asked to login with your Google credentials and it’ll go from there). Any third party app notifications that show up on your iPhone will also show on the watch. However, if you want true native third party app syncing, apparently that’s still in the works.

This could be good for consumers and for Android Wear watch sales. Consumers who use iOS can chose additional watches, and Android Wear watches can now reach an expanded market. The bigger the market for smartwatches and wearables, the faster they’ll improve. Three big questions, however:

How many iPhone users will opt for an Android Wear watch? The reason to do so would be: price, fashion, utility (e.g., always-on display, cellular connectivity), or custom watch faces (for either fashion or utility purposes).
How good can iOS interoperability get over time? Today, iOS interoperability is fairly constrained. And though it may remain so, the nature of those constraints will likely evolve. Google’s ability to utilize iOS can improve, too. Finally, Android Wear developers can now try and impress a new set of customers.
Will Android Wear OEMs take specific action to capitalize on this? For them, it’s a mixed bag. On the one hand, it means more consumers can buy their watches. (Swatch, for instance, is probably quite pleased right now.) On the other hand, since most of the OEMs are smartphone makers, they’re giving consumers fewer reasons to buy an Android smartphone. Would they dare advertise this benefit? Can you imagine a Samsung or Motorola ad that highlights iOS compatibility? We’ll see.

These are all questions and possibilities. Let’s check back and see how this really develops.

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Tuesday Assorted Links

September 1, 2015

1. Samsung Takes Smartwatch Fight to Apple Considering that there’s no release date, price, or launch market specified, I think this headline is 2X the overstatement that it would be anyway. It runs Tizen, by the way. A variant will have a 3G modem. In terms of the modem and call functionality, I’m sincerely looking forward to seeing how that performs and what consumers think.

2. ‘It’s time’: Lenovo sends out invites for a Moto 360 2 unveiling on September 8th

3. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 uses machine learning to fight malware

Instead of relying on a static list of threats to protect you, it’ll actually watch out for suspicious app behavior. […]

“Snapdragon Smart Protect is engineered to look at the actual behavior of device applications in real time and almost instantly detect and classify any application behavior that is considered suspicious or anomalous,” Qualcomm wrote in a blog post. “Suspicious applications are classified into severity levels of malware […].

4. Apple partners with Cisco to boost enterprise business I get uneasy when I read things like this. There’s no meaningful consumer problem to solve here. And for Apple, what’s the worst down-side to *not* doing this? To me, it means X fewer people working on new products or helping existing customers have a meaningfully better experience.

One big problem, Messrs. Cook and Chambers said, is ensuring employees get adequate networking performance in the workplace. Apple and Cisco said they aim to establish a “fast lane” for iOS devices in the corporate world, prioritizing wireless and Web connections so critical business applications aren’t compromised by a streaming cat videos and other nonbusiness fare.

5. Xiaomi said to release notebook in 2016 with help from Inventec and Foxconn Will it use Windows? First Windows device of more to come?

On the Apple Watch “Smart Bands” Rumor

August 29, 2015

Mark Gurman, for 9to5Mac:

Last week, Europe-based news website letemsvetemapplem.eu reported that Apple is preparing “Smart Bands” to add additional health tracking sensors to the current-generation Apple Watch. The article went on to say that Apple would release the bands starting next year instead of refreshing the Apple Watch’s core hardware, with speculation that Apple does not believe people will upgrade their Watches annually like iPhones. […]

The Apple Watch and its diagnostic port were actually designed with the possibility of bands with sensors launching in the future. These potential sensor bands could also integrate with the Apple Watch over Bluetooth, and Bluetooth-based health accessory connectivity is already an option in the Apple Watch’s Settings application […]. […]

We are told that the potential presence of “Smart Bands” will not deter Apple from annually upgrading the Apple Watch’s hardware.

First, it’s fascinating to imagine Apple considering a range of peripheral devices, essentially, connecting to Apple Watch. Including some that it might make. And if the Apple Watch gains cellular connectivity someday, the combination of the two (connected watch + peripherals) is interesting.

But back to this article: If we think of Apple Watch as a tool, adding additional modules or extensions of sorts is a plausible development of the product. On a smartphone or tablet, it’s somewhat easier to absorb new hardware into the “base”, but smartwatches offer less flexibility in that regard. It’s reasonable to assume they would have to still be aesthetically appealing, otherwise that defeats the purpose. Those who really the value additional health sensors may care less about aesthetics, but the device still has to appear reasonably pleasing to observers.

At this early point, I’d guess (the obvious, which is) that only some will opt for such smart bands, for reasons of need, fashion, and price. And smart bands, as Mark reports, won’t reduce the need for an annual update to the Apple Watch. Why? As a hybrid fashion/utility device, its industrial design needs to stay current, whatever that actually entails. And new designs increase the odds that first-time customers buy the watch. So, as Mark indicates, any “smart bands” aren’t likely to change the annual launch cadence.

IDC: Apple Sold 3.6M Apple Watches in 2Q 2015; #2 in Wearable Shipments

August 27, 2015

IDC estimates for wearable shipments in 2Q 2015:

Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker, August 27, 2015

Note that this is analogous to showing Apple’s share of the overall handset market (i.e., not just smartphones); Apple doesn’t sell the most handsets, either. But what really matters is profit share. If IDC or any analyst firm estimated operating profit from wearables, Apple would be in first place. And it’s just getting started, in terms of distributing Apple Watch and, more importantly, in terms of capitalizing on Apple Watch’s hardware and software platforms (you may need to scroll down a bit).

Intel: Yes, They’ll Sell Modems to Apple, Says Raymond James

August 25, 2015

Tiernan Ray, helping us get the latest analyst perspective at Tech Trader Daily (both highly recommended):

Writes Mosesmann, Intel’s comments mean the company will probably get some “low-end” business from Apple starting next year:

We got multiple Valley datapoints that support Intel’s success at Apple with the new 7360 LTE mobile chip for 2016. At IDF, the Street got the opportunity to meet newly promoted GM of the Communications and Devices Group, Aicha Evans, who refreshingly and bluntly told the audience of analysts and investors that if Intel couldn’t get to scale in modems, it would basically be done. Our sense is that she knows it will have scale and Apple is that avenue. Tavis McCourt, who covers Apple and Qualcomm for Raymond James, views any Qualcomm competitor incursions into Apple as coming at the low end of the iPhone portfolio in 2016, and calls for flagship penetrations in 2017, at the earliest.

Why flag rumors, speculation, or developments like this? Anything related to processors (baseband processors in this case) and Apple is interesting.

Processors, in the abstract, are dense bundles of capability. They drive a large range of performance, efficiency, and design decisions in mobile devices.

Apple competes on many levels, and a primary one is hardware. In the context of processors, Apple advances the practical leading edge, in CPU, GPU, sensor hub and, potentially, baseband performance (think Apple Watch modem).

Any bit of information therefore, about what Apple may be ruling in / ruling out is interesting. Sometimes because it’s accurate. Other times because it simply gets you thinking or keeps you aware.

Google Brings Interactive Watch Faces to Android Wear

August 20, 2015

Frederic Lardinois, for TechCrunch:

Android Wear’s watch faces are getting a bit more interesting today. Developers were always able to display a lot of information on their watch faces, but users couldn’t interact with it. Starting today, however, you’ll be able to install interactive watch faces that allow you to pull up more information and launch apps with a tap right from the watch face (and developers will be able to build them).

Nice move. I think many consumers will value this, whether for fashion, fun, or utility. I’ve said before that I view the smartwatch as a tool. It delivers, in a phrase, fast utility. Allowing users to select or configure the specific watch face they want – even if the OS provider doesn’t make it – could be very valuable to many consumers. Apple doesn’t offer custom watch faces today, but I’m convinced it will. Until then, there’s this … It’s more on the “fun” side…

Sunday Assorted Links

August 9, 2015

Still digging out from vacation. Lot of interesting developments.

1. Huawei, Xiaomi to hike adoption of in-house-developed smartphone APs. I think they’re focused on reducing their component costs, and on diversifying or securing supply, rather than on any sort of performance boost. An interesting excerpt, however:

Xiaomi and Huawei’s strategy is expected to directly impact AP providers such as MediaTek and Qualcomm. Within the global top-5 smartphone vendors, Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi and LG, which together contribute over 60% of worldwide shipments, four of them have already adopted in-house developed APs or have been aggressively increasing their adoption, which could seriously damage independent ARM-AP suppliers as well as x86-based solution supplier Intel.

Note, however, that Leadcore, the AP manufacturer working win Xiaomi claims that “Xiaomi wants its own custom-designed processors to differentiate its products and control its destiny“. I think that’s a bunch of marketing spin, and the “differentiation” is really a cost focus.

2. Microsoft Launches ‘Translator’ Free Apple Watch App. I haven’t tried it yet. In principle, sounds like a good idea; a good fit with the fact that a smartwatch is, in my view, essentially a tool. And it’s not surprising that Microsoft has a team(s) working to quickly deliver apps for Apple Watch.

3. Big Android Makers Will Now Push Monthly Security Updates. … because there’s something magical and comforting about the nice, round 30-day number?

4. Michael Lopp (Rands in Repose): “Busy is a bug, not a feature.” I suppose it depends on the role. I agree that for a leader to be continuously busy, or “too busy”, is not a good sign. Though it is more complicated than that (“war time” vs. “peace time”, etc.). Michael is now at Pinterest. Another interesting part:

“It’s gonna sound like I’m lazy but I swear I’m not lazy,” he says. “My job is to get myself out of a job. I’m aggressively pushing things I think I could be really good at and should actually maybe own to someone else who’s gonna get a ‘B’ at it. But they’re gonna get the opportunity to go do that [and continue to learn in the process]. My job is to — it sounds like I just want to sit here and drink coffee and talk about bread — but it’s about pushing it down, so these things, which naturally come to me [go to others in the company].”

5. Smartphones are hurting our children – but the real culprit is bad parenting. The headline says it all.

Sultans of Shrink Pack More Chips into Smart Wearables

July 31, 2015

Michael Gold, for Reuters:

The latest chapter in the miniaturisation of increasingly smart consumer electronics lies in the hands of chip packagers, an indispensable group of firms whose role in the supply chain alone is worth $27 billion. […]

To serve this market [chip packagers] have come up with an assembly process known as System-in-Package (SiP).

“SiP bundles a ton of components into one simple plug-n-play, almost like a Lego block,” said Taipei-based semiconductor analyst Randy Abrams at Credit Suisse. […]

“The SiP inside the Apple Watch was unprecedented,” Vice President Jim Morrison of analysis firm Chipworks told Reuters. Chipworks found as many as 40 chips in the hermetically sealed pod, more than double any other package it had seen before.

The article doesn’t quite say it, but Apple is heavily customizing, if not designing, much of its own SiP, the “S1”. Why? As I wrote back in March:

This degree of customization is the right call – because it affects everything that’s supposed to make a smartwatch appealing and valuable: size, functionality, performance, battery life, and upgradeability.

So, it’s the start of a new era of post-PC, post-smartphone devices. Most device makers opt to use, or have to use, the “Lego” they can procure. Except Apple.

Apple, Samsung in Talks with Telecom Groups to Launch e-SIM Card

July 22, 2015

Daniel Thomas and Tim Bradshaw, for the Financial Times:

Last year, Apple revealed its own Sim card for its latest iPads. However, it was supported by only a handful of operators such as T-Mobile and AT&T in the US, and just EE in the UK. Those familiar with its UK rollout said that it had not been widely adopted.

The electronic Sim is not expected to replace the Apple Sim, a piece of plastic that fits into a device and could be included in the next generation of iPhones.

e-SIMs in phones? Sure. So that you don’t have to swap SIMs? Okay. So that you can dynamically change between carriers? Maybe. But there’s a more interesting thing to think about.

What device is so space-constrained that, today, carrying a SIM card is prohibitive? Keep a watch out.

And if a device has a SIM card, what else does it need to make use of it? Please radio it in, when you find out. More (but not very much) on all this at a later date.

Apple Watch Captured 75% of Global Smartwatch Unit Share in Q2 2015

July 22, 2015

From Strategy Analytics’ press release:

Source: Strategy Analytics. [1] Numbers are rounded.

Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics:

We estimate Apple Watch shipped 4.0 million units and captured a dominant 75 percent smartwatch marketshare worldwide in Q2 2015. Apple Watch launched in sixteen major countries and saw decent take-up from iPhone loyalists in the United States and elsewhere. Apple Watch has clearly raised the bar for the global smartwatch industry. The ball is now in the court of rivals, like Samsung, to respond.

4M units. 75% unit share, globally. Without even really being global yet.

By the way, I usually shrug when I see unit market share. It’s of limited use. But for a new category like this, it’s interesting. What’s better than unit market share? Profit market share. What is Apple Watch’s profit market share? Probably above 95%.

One way to think about how Apple achieved this success is here, though it’s hardly comprehensive.

New Platforms will Require New Metrics or Reference Points

July 20, 2015

Brian X. Chen and Vindu Goel, for the New York Times:

Yet only five of the 20 most popular free iPhone apps in the United States have versions for the Apple Watch, according to data from App Annie, an analytics firm. And the number of apps for the watch, which now stands at about 7,400, is growing at a slower rate than the explosive uptick of apps that were produced for iPhones and iPads in their early days.

Comparing figures across platforms is a very limiting perspective. It’s like comparing the number of Windows or Mac apps that were quick to create a smartphone version — and guessing the outlook for smartphones based on that. Or the number of television networks that initially made a Roku app, or the number that worked with Apple to create an Apple TV app.

New platforms support products that perform new jobs. Or perform existing jobs in a new way. So, the way customers approach these platforms and products, and the way that developers approach them, will be different than in the last platform.

As time passes, for instance, we might find that the use of native apps on smartwatches is much higher than on phones. Or that the app growth rate is simply different, even in a healthy market. Moreover, we might learn that the “top apps”, let alone the “top free apps”, on smartphones don’t evenly transfer over to smartwatches. And that the way to measure app activity, and to gauge app success or failure, is a bit different. At this point, it’s really too early to tell, and comparisons to smartphones won’t be very helpful.

In a nutshell, you can’t apply all the thinking from the last platform to the new one. That, in part, is why it’s new. And why it will create new uses, new winners, and new ways to thrive.

Why I Discount Wristly’s Apple Watch Survey

July 20, 2015

You may have seen the Wristly survey data about Apple Watch. Wristly claims to show Apple Watch customer satisfaction is higher than with iPhone and iPad. I like the Apple Watch, and customer satisfaction with it may indeed be that high.

But I’m completely disregarding Wristly’s data and any resulting conclusions. For two reasons:

1. Wristly data includes input from people who a) visited its web site and b) proceeded, there, to sign up for its survey panel. That is a very poor method of building a panel of consumers to survey. It tends to add consumers who really like the product and are eager to participate in surveys. Would you say that defeats the purpose of measuring customer satisfaction? I would. It reduces the randomness in the sample. Wristly’s sample may consist of other consumers, but the practice I outlined is a warning sign.

2. Wristly then compares the results from its survey to the results from another survey organization, ChangeWave. Its intent is to show that Apple Watch customer satisfaction is even higher than it was for the iPhone and the iPad (as measured by ChangeWave). Sure, that’s an interesting thing to do. But unless Wristly and ChangeWave used the same methods, it’s a poor practice. And the change (or increase) in satisfaction between ChangeWave’s last survey and Wristly’s may well be in the margin of error for Wristly’s flawed data set (point 1, above).

So again, I think the Apple Watch is a good product, and it’s the product I choose to use. Customer satisfaction is probably at a very healthy level. But I don’t put any stock in Wristly’s numbers, whether they claim success or failure.

Fitbit’s Dilemma – What Problems Will it Solve Better than Other Devices?

July 14, 2015

Christopher Lochhead, Dave Peterson and Al Ramadan, co-founding partners at Play Bigger Advisors, writing on TechCrunch:

Fitbit operates in the emerging space for fitness trackers. And they are the leader, but (and it’s a big but) they face massive competition from companies in adjacent spaces like Garmin, Jawbone, Samsung, Xiaomi and, of course, Apple. Even scarier, Fitbit has not answered the seminal question:

“Are we in a standalone category or a feature of a bigger category?”

It could turn out that Apple subsumes fitness tracker capabilities into the smartwatch or smartphone in much the same way Microsoft crushed the word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software categories when they popularized Microsoft Office. […]

For Fitbit to win they must prove to customers that they solve a problem that encroaching smartwatch and smartphone players can’t. And right now, that’s looking like a tough argument to make.

Smartwatches – at least the Android ones – will eventually rival the price of Fitbit’s high-end products. Fitbit will need to either make smarter products or lower-priced products. It doesn’t appear to have the basis for the former, and it likely won’t have the cost structure for the latter (compared to low-cost rivals). It might just maintain an existence in the US, where its installed base and brand are strong (today). I don’t doubt there will always be some consumers who prefer the Fitbit’s design, user interface, analytics, subscription services, or power efficiency. But, at least in terms of the performance level visible today, Fitbit’s proficiency in those areas doesn’t appear to be unique enough to constitute a protect-able advantage.

Think about the more distant future. In 20 years, if you have (or when you have) a wearable on your wrist, is it more likely to perform a few functions or a broader set of functions (e.g., will it help you communicate)? What kind of affinity will it have for other devices you carry? What type of company is better-positioned to make such a device?