"smartphones" articles

Smart watch adoption is picking up in the United States. According to Parks Associates' most recent survey data, as of 2017 14% of U.S. broadband households own at least one smart watch. Consumer-reported purchase intention for smart watches has also more than doubled year-over-year, ahead of the holiday shopping season. 2017 is an important year for the U.S. smart watch market. Traditional fitness wearable brands Fitbit and Garmin have announced their first "true" smart...

The Apple Event was today, and Apple made a series of interesting announcements about its iPhone lineup. The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus were announced, and the rumored iPhone X was confirmed. These new iPhones offer more powerful processing via Apple's new A11 chip, as well as an Apple-designed GPU. This allows Apple to offer on-device machine learning and computer vision-enabled abilities which enable a number of new use cases. Apple's machine learning tech enables: Native...

Distracted driving is a critical and growing issue. IoT Peggy Smedley kindly invited me to join her show this week as she focuses on IoT and Transportation this month, particularly in regards to distracted driving. Listen to the full interview. Parks Associates research shows that 92% of U.S. car owners perform activities that require mobile or Internet connection while driving , and more than 60% do so routinely. These activities include making calls, accessing maps,...

Research from Parks Associates shows that while familiarity with smart home products is still low, there is more and more interest from consumers to integrate connected products in the home. 5% of U.S. broadband households own a smart plug/adapter module. U.S. broadband households with smart light bulbs own 2.4 of these products on average. 92% of U.S. car owners perform an activity that requires a mobile or Internet connection while driving. 19% of U.S....

Today Facebook will address the changing environment for consumers to communicate, including the introduction of AI, VR, social sharing models, and more, at its F8 Developer Conference. Companies in connected CE, smart home, mobile, and entertainment IoT spaces are watching the emergence of these new technologies and business models to determine their impact on device development, content creation, and consumer engagement. Companies need to continue to expand consumer familiarity...

Yesterday, Comcast officially unveiled its wireless ambition . It now offers a mobile service featuring unlimited voice and data starting from $45 per month (other non-unlimited data plan options are available). Our quick takes are as follows: 1.       It is a small step forward but may imply bigger moves in the future : right now, Comcast’s mobile plans are only for its existing customers, and it discounts heavily for its high ARPU customers—for...

The sharing economy is a phenomenon describing new business models built on the proliferation of smartphone and app use that are supported by shared resources from device owners. These business models are augmented by real-time data including location, instant gratification, on-demand pricing, and easy payment options. From sharing reviews through Yelp to sharing car rides using Uber, smartphone owners and app users have become suppliers of resources and participants of new business use...

This is an interesting time to be in music streaming. Competition is rife, and the margins are thin. The largest players are either unicorns in search of profitability (i.e., Spotify, Pandora) or tech giants looking to lock consumers into their ecosystem (Apple, Google, Amazon). Smaller players are increasingly looking at ways to differentiate and stay afloat. For example, Sprint recently announced that it is acquiring one-third of TIDAL, a rebranding of the Norwegian WiMP service...