Blog articles from 03/2019

Over the past few years, Apple has been pivoting from devices to services. This has particularly been the case this year; normally the company announces hardware during its Apple events, but rather than talk about its new AirPods or the iPad lineup refresh, in its March 25th event Apple announced a slew of new services around news, payments, gaming, and TV. These announcements have a few interesting implications for the CE ecosystem as a whole. Breaking out of the walled garden...

After whipping up interest and expectations, Apple announced a number of new services and service oriented features, including Apple News+, Apple Card, Apple Arcade, Apple TV Channels, Apple TV+, and a new Apple TV app. While Apple’s entry into print aggregation and financial services is interesting (particularly financial services), here are three thoughts on their video-related activities. Apple is betting big on original content. Almost one-half of Apple’s entire...

The pay-TV landscape in the US has gone through dramatic changes in the past several years. Traditional pay-TV services, via cable, satellite or telco operators, face a future where consumers have a wide variety of options for video content combined with direct competition from an array of online pay-TV service providers. These online providers provide a subset of channels, targeting the entertainment content subscribers want to watch, typically at much lower prices. As a result, pay-TV...

For any OTT service, including AVOD (advertising video on demand) players like Tubi TV or vMVPD offerings like Sling TV, platform availability is critical in both luring and retaining subscribers. Given the effort and cost required, services must pick and choose which platforms to support and the priority of development for those that will be supported. From a base set of platforms at launch, service providers continue to add device support as a service grows in order to reach new...

Parks Associates is supporting the 16th-annual  What's Next Boomer Business Summit . American Idol  meets aging tech entrepreneurs at The What’s Next Innovation Challenge , an event hosted by Mary Furlong & Associates and sponsored by AARP Innovation Labs during the What’s Next Boomer Business Summit held in New Orleans on April 18. Competition winners receive $10,000 in funding for their product or company and the opportunity to continue to the...

When the Apple Watch Series 4 was released in September 2018, a number of new health-related smartwatch features made their debut. The newly built-in ECG feature, and the most recently announced enhanced sleep tracking feature, have been the focus of many reviews; however, the fall detection capability may prove to be one of the most valuable features the Apple Watch has to offer. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that between the years 2007 and 2016, fall death rates in...