Mobile Forward

Amazon Introduces $50 Kindle to Attract More Consumers

Michael Liedtke, for the Associated Press, at the San Jose Mercury News:

“Our tablet focus is in and around content consumption,” said David Limp, Amazon’s senior vice president of devices.

It’s a little storefront, TV, and game center. Cheap, but with ads. And some experimental marketing (a six pack of tablets?). Let’s see.

Will Amazon’s most valuable consumers be buying *this* particular $50 model. No – if they buy a Kindle, they’ll probably buy a better model. But some of tomorrow’s Prime customers (tweens and teens) just might be the ones this is aimed for. And then they’ll ask their mom, dad, grandma, or grandpa to buy this or buy that. Might be on the tablet. Or might be via the other person’s account. At least that’s the hope, I believe. If it works, it’s worth the ultra-low (if any) gross margin that this product has.

On a related front, Pocketnow believes this latest version of the Kindle UI is looking thinner (closer to stock Android) than ever before.

Satya Nadella Demonstrates Microsoft’s New Attitude

Julie Bort, for Business Insider, reports on Satya Nadella’s demo, where he used an iPhone. Three quick things:

1. A CEO doing a product demo. We need more of that.

2. A CEO using a competitor’s product. (Admittedly, he doesn’t own that iPhone.) In my experience, the more secure a CEO felt about his/her ideas and market reality, the more comfortable they felt mentioning or using a competitor’s product.

3. Microsoft apps for iOS. Pretty amazing how many productivity apps they’ve done, and many are well received. I know it’s not a new story, but it’s still cool. Take a look at the screenshot from Nadella’s phone to see the extent. Julie Bort offers a nice summary of each.

So, again: here we had a CEO using a competitor’s product and developing for it. Did the world come to an end? Did this, in itself, cause that CEO’s company any issues? No; quite the opposite. Refreshing to see Nadella’s attitude. More broadly, note that the Mac Office team in Redmond have essentially been loyal Apple supporters (in deeds) for years. All good stuff.

Samsung Foldable Smartphone Chatter

From GforGames.com:

As some of you might recall, back in March, a Samsung Display official was quoted saying that “the commercialization of foldable smartphones will be possible in 2016”. A couple of months or so later, the guys over at SamMobile revealed that Samsung is working on a new prototype codenamed “Project Valley” or “Project V”, with a unique design and a foldable dual screen. […]

According to a leakster with in-depth knowledge regarding Samsung’s plans and the industry, in general, Samsung might unveil the fabled Project Valley foldable smartphone next January. The handset is allegedly undergoing testing […].

There’s a saying in the military: “early reports are often wrong”. 10x if you don’t know the source. But, it’s interesting to monitor the chatter on this. If Samsung does unveil a device, it could range from a demo (to show off Samsung Display’s latest capability) to a high-tier product. Generally, as the mobile industry looks to advance smartphones beyond glass rectangles, this looks to be one of the most promising directions. It if works well, at a reasonable price, it helps alleviate the standing tension between display size and pocket-ability. And it makes a broader range of proportions and products possible. Apple has shown some interest, too.

Walt Mossberg: It’s Time to Free the Smartphone

Great piece by Walt Mossberg, executive editor at The Verge and editor at large of Re/code:

It’s time for U.S. mobile carriers to focus on being first-class networks, not second-rate retailers and app developers. […]

It’s time to treat the smartphone like any other computing device, to leave the selling and supporting of them to the Best Buys, the Apple stores, the Amazons.

Apple, the country’s most important smartphone maker, took a huge step toward this future last week. It announced that it would sell new iPhones under its own installment plan, which will include a warranty — cutting out the carrier.

Very well said. On one point, though, I do have a different perspective: I think US carriers can’t afford not to sell devices. They sell devices because that promotes the use of their offering, i.e., network (coverage, quality, speed), rate plan features, and customer support. If Carrier A stops selling but Carrier B doesn’t, the latter will soon have more consumers. That’s because no one else except Carrier A will work as hard to ensure that its advantages are well represented at the point of sale. Why is that important? Without that, Carrier A can’t afford to keep investing in its offering. Basically, when a product requires a high level of R&D or capital expenditures, if you don’t control the way its presented and communicated to the consumer, you put that investment at risk. And in the case of wireless service, missing an opportunity to present your product to a customer might result in losing their business – and their family’s – for years. Want an example of another company that invests a lot in developing its products and wants to manage the way they’re presented at the point of sale? Apple.

Wednesday Assorted Links – Car Edition

1. Connected, self-driving cars dominate buzz at Frankfurt auto show  David McHugh, Associated Press, at the San Jose Mercury News:

The big question among automakers is whether they will be the ones to provide new technologies — and profit from them — or will major tech companies like Google and Apple take a slice of the industry. For now, the two sides are balancing cooperation against competition as they gauge what the future holds.

General Motors CEO Mary Barra succinctly expressed a common view, asserting that “we will see more change in the industry in the next five to ten years than we have in the last 50.”

2. Google self-driving car patent reveals how you’ll let AI take the wheel  Chris Ziegler, for The Verge:

An arm on the steering column (not much different from a windshield wiper arm) could be pulled to engage a car’s self-driving mode; at that point, the system would do a check to see whether it’s ready and able to actually take control from the driver. If it isn’t — the car can’t get a GPS lock, for instance — the driver might see a “Not Available” light on the dash. Otherwise, you’d see a “Ready” light, at which point you can start taking your appendages off the wheel and pedals.

3. How carmakers can compete for the connected consumer Hans-Werner Kaas, Andreas Tschiesner, Dominik Wee, and Matthias Kässer, for McKinsey, in the full PDF report cited by the article:

The connected car will feature a high number of interfaces (e.g., to infrastructure, to other vehicles, and to some cloud-based platform) for which common standards are required (cross-brand, cross-geographies). Building an ecosystem of multiple OEMs with a shared platform might turn out to be a more promising way for them to succeed than to try competing on their own.

In such an ecosystem, OEMs and other players could cooperate using the same (software) platform to reach sufficient scale and to acquire specific capabilities for providing functionalities and services while keeping control over data flows.

They could, I suppose. Under perfect cooperation. But that’s not very likely. That’s one reason (of several) why Google has developed an autonomous automobile platform. And also one reason why Apple thinks its integrated hardware-software approach will be an advantage.

Tuesday Assorted Links

1. Qualcomm’s new Quick Charge will take batteries from 0 to 80 percent in 35 minutes  Vlad Savov, for The Verge:

Quick Charge 3 is 38 percent more efficient than its predecessor, and will appear in mobile devices next year.

2. Apple creating new software platform to unify its cloud services, based off Siri’s open-source backend  Huge, complex undertaking. Benjamin Mayo, for 9to5Mac:

What’s particularly interesting about this change is that Apple will be relying heavily on open-source software. Mesos is released under an Apache license, for instance. However, the report claims Apple has struggled to attract engineering talent with open-source backgrounds due to the company secrecy.

3. Apple is quietly expanding its stealthy R&D center in Lund (Sweden) to work on ‘advanced mapping technology’: report

4. Verizon and AT&T to roll out mini-stores inside Best Buy locations across the country

Tuesday Assorted Links – Car Edition

1. An early perspective on who might win the car wars  Brian Fung, for The Washington Post:

Who’s going to win the coming auto wars? The answer is twofold: whoever can crack the Chinese market wide open, and whichever company can avoid getting distracted by the lure of entertainment technologies and can stay focused on advances to ease the actual task of driving.

2. German Car-Parts Makers See Bigger Role in Technology  William Boston, for WSJ:

“The future of autonomous driving is more likely to take place in an urban environment than on the German Autobahn,” he said. “That’s why we believe the future of autonomous driving is the small car.” […]

The Germans are moving into [autonomous driving] technology aggressively because they have a lot to lose. Every seventh job in Germany is pegged to the auto industry. […]

“Whether our customers are the premium manufacturers in Germany, local volume brands in China, or Apple, our business [as a components technology] doesn’t change,” said ZF’s Mr. Sommer. “It is more of a danger for the auto manufacturers.”

3. Apple’s ‘Project Titan’ car faces manufacturing roadblocks, could necessitate partnership  Neil Hughes, for AppleInsider:

A person with knowledge of Apple’s secretive “Project Titan” revealed to AppleInsider this week that the company is currently facing problems as it plans out a manufacturing site for the anticipated “Apple Car.” They said the company’s timeframe, in which it would like to begin manufacturing within five years, may result in Apple seeking out a partnership with another, already-established player in the automotive space.

Monday Assorted Links

1. Microsoft to launch Surface Pro 4 and new phones at October 6th event Looking forward to this.

2. Microsoft Cortana May Come to Cyanogen

[Cyanogen CEO] McMaster revealed that Cyanogen is working with Microsoft to deeply integrate Cortana into the next version of Cyanogen OS. This is key to catapulting Cyanogen into the mass market, he asserts […].

3. Xiaomi teases upcoming news or products which will “Solve the most important problem in Life”

In the comments for that post, many users are guessing that Xiaomi might be launching “Xiaomi Loans”.

4. Obstacles Xiaomi Needs to Overcome Decent list.

How Car Companies are Easing Consumers into a Driverless Future

Seth Porges, for Forbes:

The new Volvo XC90 SUV […] has a feature called Pilot Assist that completely takes over driving in low-speed roads. As long as you’re going under 30 mph, the car can steer, brake, accelerate and keep you in your lane. […]

The feature is pushed as a way to alleviate the stressful foot-pumping that comes with stop-and-go traffic. By focusing on this narrow problem, Volvo makes the benefits of their system both obvious and relatable. […]

This is a smart tactic. If you tell somebody that a car will drive itself, you risk scaring them—or hearing that all-too-common response that often comes along with new consumer technologies: “Why do I need this in my life?” By focusing on specific use cases such as stop-and-go traffic, manufacturers such as Volvo effectively answer that question.

Monday Assorted Links – Car Edition

1. Auto manufacturers pledge auto-braking for the masses (Scroll down to the “Complete stop” section.)

In another move that could speed the adoption of self-driving cars, ten automakers pledged on Friday to outfit all of their new cars with automatic braking systems, which use on-vehicle sensors to apply the driver’s brakes if a collision with a car or any other object is imminent.

2. Intel Establishes Automotive Security Review Board Hope it’s effective.

[Intel] announced the establishment of the Automotive Security Review Board (ASRB). The board will encompass top security industry talent across the globe with particular areas of expertise in cyber-physical systems

3. Google names auto veteran CEO of its self-driving car project

[Google] says the project isn’t ready to become a separate company yet, “though it’s certainly a good candidate to become one at some point in the future.”

4. Google reveals plans to increase production of self-driving cars Exploring production makes sense.

[Google] revealed its plans to build many more fully autonomous prototypes, and possibly move towards mass manufacturing.

5. Apple’s ‘Project Titan’ car initiative negatively impacting Tesla’s product development, source says It’s so hard, from the outside, to understand the true nature of what, if anything, is going on – even with some inside information. It does, however, sound interesting. Especially if some of the people that Tesla lost (Apple gained) are senior engineers and production managers.

6. New BMW CEO open to partnerships with tech firms: Sueddeutsche Zeitung

BMW’s new chief executive Harald Krueger is open to exploring deeper partnerships with software and computer companies such as Apple […].

BMW has realized next-generation vehicles cannot be built without more input from telecoms and software experts […].

7. Honda gets California approval for self-driving cars on roads Cool. More exploration and more competition should lead to better products, faster.

The Secret to Apple’s Success: Steady Improvement

Charles Arthur, for The International Business Times:

Apple’s strategy: parsimoniously dole out useful features to keep people on an upgrade staircase that never quite ends by always having something a little better around the corner. Or quite a lot better […]. […]

A few months ago, I mapped the hardware and software features Samsung has added over the generations to its Galaxy S line, from the original through the S2, S3 and so on. My expectation was of a gradually rising list; instead I found regression. The most obvious is the waterproofing, removable battery and swappable SD card that the S5 offered, and the S6 has forgone. […]

By contrast, I cannot find a single example of a hardware or integrated feature Apple has removed in the iPhone’s history.

I would have said “incrementally”, rather than “parsimoniously”, but I agree with the broader point: Apple keeps moving forward, steadily. Samsung, less so. (See this related post about Samsung, highlighting some of its performance issues.)

‘Hey Siri’: More to Come

Roberto Baldwin, for Engadget:

Nuance told Engadget that its mobile cloud service processed 4.07 billion voice transactions in Q2 2015. That’s a roughly 49 percent increase from the 2.74 billion transactions during the same period in 2014.

So get ready for a future where you’re spending more time talking to Siri. Apple’s actual voice-assistant roadmap (in typical Apple fashion) is a bit of a mystery. But in the home, expect the voice assistant to take on an increasingly larger role as HomeKit and the Apple TV evolve and gain traction. CarPlay vehicles will become increasingly available to new car buyers and the iPhone will still tell you what the weather is outside.

Your voice is the new user interface and Apple is building a platform just to hear what you have to say.

“Has built” may be a better way to phrase it, for that last sentence, but that’s just knit-picking.

Thoughts on Apple’s September Event

By any measure, Wednesday’s keynote was a blockbuster, in the range of the announcements and the degree of product advancement. Here are my initial thoughts:

Apple Watch

  • The Hermés custom watch face increases the odds we’ll see third party faces in the next one or, at most, two years.
  • New gold finish, available at the $349/99 Apple Watch Sport price point. Previously, the only gold-colored option was the (real gold) 18K Apple Watch Edition version, starting at $10,000. At $349/99, the new gold finish one will likely sell millions.
  • On the question of “are there too many SKUs?” When SKUs demand a duplication of R&D, or add complexity to marketing or the point of sale, they’re usually not worth it. In this case, the underlying product (R&D) is the same. And, to-date, the marketing and point of sale presentation appear to be effective. So, any complexity risk (including on the supply chain side) appears worth it. These SKUs add the color/finish/material variety that a personal product requires in order to become mainstream quickly. I’m not saying that will happen, but variety, in this case, may help.
  • I have little doubt that the product, the colors and bands, the distribution channels, and the marketing will drive high initial Apple Watch unit sales. The key issue, one where we might not have insight for several more months, remains sustained use: consumers continuing to use the Apple Watch, at the rate Apple would like.

iPad Pro

  • My recent slides explaining why the iPad needed to get bigger.
  • Apple continues its recently-intensified pursuit of professional users. And remember, “professional” doesn’t just mean “corporate office/desk” – it includes creative pros, field workers, etc.
  • Note how Apple won the hearts of consumers with the iPad, and is now ready to win the minds of businesses. Microsoft Surface essentially tried the reverse (in part to avoid challenging Apple head-on in the consumer market), but that approach hasn’t worked well.
  • It was promising, seeing new, more powerful iPad apps (e.g., for more intense video editing or design). I love Apple’s line “[for] tasks you’d never consider doing on a PC”. Huge multi-touchable space + Apple Pencil = more post-PC possibilities than ever before.
  • If you need the larger display, power, and stylus capability, the iPad Pro is worth the price delta over the iPad.
  • Microsoft was definitely on the right track with Surface/keyboard/stylus. But iPad Pro execution may be better (display size & responsiveness, pencil precision and utility, focused OS, many form-factor-optimized apps, TouchID, and raw CPU and GPU power). Let’s see.
  • About the stylus/pencil: it’s about precision cursor control; when a fingertip can’t be effective. And it’s optional.
  • Absent: mouse support and a file explorer – both useful if you’re a pro. iOS 9 has cursor control but, likely due to time constraints, that wasn’t demonstrated. The iOS 9 cursor control appears to work best when iPad is flat, or at least at a shallow angle. When it’s at the angle intended for keyboard use, it’s not clear how useful it would be.
  • By the way: this is the first instance of an iOS device charging another device (the Apple Pencil). More to come? (Imagine iPad charging the iPhone, if you’re in a pinch.)

iPad Line-up

  • Apple’s iPad line-up is now fairly broad: iPad mini 2, iPad mini 4, iPad Air, iPad Air 2, iPad Pro. No doubt, the aim is to address as many consumers as possible, in terms of capability and price points. Will it make for a complex line-up, especially when consumers consider storage levels and price points? It’s possible.
  • Apple continues to use the Apple SIM (soft SIM) in the iPads. The question is, will they come to the iPhone?

iPhone

  • Apple essentially embraced installment plan pricing. Phil Schiller: “The simple truth is, on an installment plan, any iPhone you want is pretty affordable”.
    • When expressed in monthly installment terms, the price delta between an iPhone and other phones is fairly small. That’s why the (US) shift to installment pricing hasn’t hurt iPhone unit sales (and may actually have helped).
  • Upgrade program: Appears to be US-only. For about $1 – $1.50 per day (depending on the model), consumers can upgrade their iPhone every 12 months.
    • The upgrade program “isn’t tied to a single carrier” (link). Apple is taking control of more of the buying experience and consumer relationship. It’s not eliminating the need for carriers, but it’s reducing their influence.
    • If a meaningful number of consumers sign up, this effectively shortens the iPhone upgrade cycle and also provides Apple with (trade-in) product that can reach lower price points (e.g. in emerging markets).
    • Android OEMs would likely love to offer a similar upgrade program (think of it as HW-as-a-service). For upgrade plans to work, however, a company needs loyal customers – not just the *mechanics* of a program. Apple has loyalty. Many OEMs don’t. The root cause: undifferentiated products and poor marketing.
  • 3D Touch: Reduces deep dives into apps. Allows for shallow “peek” inside app or fast “pop” into specific action inside the app. Between 3D Touch and related gestures, I’m interested to see how users adopt the UI updates. I’m hoping they’re not too complex. Reserving judgment.
  • Exciting to see progress with Mx co-processor. M9 is low power efficient enough to enable “Hey, Siri” to work even when iPhone is unplugged.
    • Co-processors (“sensor hubs”) are relatively new to mobile devices. They enable the sensors to operate in a low power way, while many of the remaining components idle to conserve power. In this case, the M9 is always listening for the trigger phrase “Hey Siri”, and when it hears it, it can power up additional parts of the iPhone to help it capture, relay, and respond to your request.
  • “Hey, Siri” is now likely to get used 100X more, providing Apple and developers more insight. That should create a virtuous cycle: more use -> better functionality & better 3rd party app support -> more use.
  • Live Photos: Genius. A very tasteful, straightforward, effortless way to increase the enjoyment you can get from a photo. And it’s the default mode. Very powerful. Some apps enable similar functionality. But who wants a separate app or a less certain format?
  • Apple’s drive to gain Android “switchers” continues: it’s launching an Android app to entice and enable Android consumers to make the jump.
  • No iPhone-5C-like model this year. Instead, the iPhone 5S is the lowest-price model. It also appears to be the last 4” iPhone. As I mentioned above, iPhones that are traded in as part of the upgrade program can now be re-sold at lower price points, reducing some of the need for an iPhone-5C-like model.

Apple TV

  • Big leaps forward on every front: interface, device hardware, content, functionality, and developer access.
  • It’s not a hobby any more. It’s a platform. Apple has been telegraphing this shift for years, yet no competitor has launched anything of this caliber.
  • New OS and SDK: tvOS. Impacts of this are yet to be seen, and hold tremendous promise.
  • Why? Because, as Apple says, “Apps are the future of television”. I believe it. Apps and games will expand the purpose and audience reach of Apple TV, and the time spent using it.
  • Roku (nice company, nice products) pioneered apps and games, but Apple TV and the developers who’ll build for it have the ability to take things to a whole new level. Why? Combination of superior hardware, better OS/SDK, better developer base, and the ability to utilize iOS devices.
  • To paraphrase a great Tweet by Zac Cichy:

“Xbox went from games to the TV. Apple TV is going the other way around.”

  • Amazing combo UI: Siri voice control and touch.
  • Universal search with ability to filter. (Congrats to Amazon for debuting universal search; they did little to market it, however.)
  • Search results emphasize, in practice, content over source.
  • Remains to be seen: How effective the UI is for apps like shopping. And whether people want to do that from their couch.
  • Absent: any sort of channel bundle, for now. So why launch now? Here’s the answer, via a great Tweet by Joe Rosensteel:

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: A box refresh is leverage for future OTT negotiations. US-only OTT concerns? Myopic.”

On Apple’s Effort to Grow its Machine Learning/AI Teams

Julia Love, for Reuters:

Apple has ramped up its hiring of artificial intelligence experts, recruiting from PhD programs, posting dozens of job listings and greatly increasing the size of its AI staff, a review of hiring sites suggests and numerous sources confirm. […]

One former Apple employee in the area […] estimated the number of machine learning experts had tripled or quadrupled in the past few years. […]

Machine learning experts who want unfettered access to data tend to shy away from jobs at Apple, former employees say. […]

And some machine learning experts might be enticed by the challenge of matching Google’s smarts amid privacy constraints, suggested John Duchi, an assistant professor at Stanford University.

“New flavors of problems are exciting,” he said.

I’m hoping that there are more candidates “enticed by the challenge” than ones who “shy away”, but we’ll see. As I’ve said before, if there’s a list of Apple’s top-5 computing priorities for the next five years, I believe machine learning is on it.

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