In year 2016 it will be sold over 1.4 billion smart phones. Mobile is the new central ecosystem of tech. The smartphone is the single most important product, which will determine the development of the semiconductor market. Smart phone centre of innovation and investment in hardware, software and company creation. The smart phone market is huge. Today, there are well over 2bn smartphones in use, and there are between 3.5 and 4.5bn people with a mobile phone of some kind, out of only a little over 5bn adults on earth. With billions of people buying a device every two years, on average, the phone business dwarfs the PC business, which has an install base of 1.5-1.6bn devices replaced every 4-5 years
Smart phone market is no longer fast gowing market. Expect single-digit worldwide smartphone growth in 2016. According to a new forecast from the International Data Corporation (IDC ) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker , 2015 will be the first full year of single-digit worldwide smartphone growth. IDC predicts worldwide smartphone shipments will grow 9.8% in 2015 to a total of 1.43 billion units. The main driver has been and will continue to be the success of low-cost smartphones in emerging markets. China has been the focal point of the smartphone market – now China has largely become a replacement market and there is economic slowdown in China.
Apple & Google both won, but it’s complicated – both Apple and Google won, in different ways. Android won the handset market outside of Apple, but it’s not quite clear what that means. Microsoft missed the shift to the new platform so Windows Mobile is on life support.
We will continue to see a globalization of the mobile landscape in 2016, as new China brands shake up the smartphone markets with new designs and business models. Expect continuing growth from China brands like Xiaomi, Lenovo and Huawei. Huawei says it sent in 2015 to more than 100 million smartphones and its now firmly among the world’s three largest suppliers. Samsung is the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer, but it looks that it’s production volumes are shrinking because of cheaper Android phones coming from China.
Last year’s CES had a conspicuous lack of killer smartphones, and O’Donnell expects this year to be very challenging for handset vendors – Apple included. It is getting really hard to differentiate from a phone perspective. In the smartphone market changes happen slowly, and for the challengers it is difficult to penetrate the market.
Apple’s position in smart phones is not currently a threat really none. The volumes of the iPhone does not come close to the Android camp in the unit sales figures, but it is clearly not Apple’s target at all – it targets to high-end phones. Apple made record sales in 2015 holiday season, but it is possible that Apple is going to have a tough year in 2016. Some Wall Street analysts predict an end of iPhone sales growth, shrinking iPad sales, and a tough year ahead for Apple. The high cost and the markets getting full are met weigh the Apple iPhone phone sales.Wall Street expects iPhone sales for the fiscal year ending in September will barely budge — and might even decline — from last year. That would be the worst year for iPhone sales since the device was introduced in 2007. If realized, the forecast significantly affect Apple’s value. Despite recent reports of cuts by iPhone suppliers, Apple remains most profitable company in S&P 500. Fortunately for Apple, most of its smartphone competitors are struggling.
Microsoft got the third mobile ecosystem market position, but it’s market share is pretty low: Microsoft’s market share was only 1.7 per cent in the third quarter of 2015. It is very possible that Microsoft will cut Lumia production significantly in 2016. Microsoft’s long-rumored Surface Phone is coming in the second half of next year, reports Windows Central. Windows 10 phones are not dead yet even from other manufacturers as Acer, Alcatel OneTouch just made some new ones. The key feature in the Jade Primo is support for Microsoft’s Continuum feature, allowing you to use the phone like a PC when connected to a larger display – though limited to apps that run on the device’s ARM processor. The idea, claims Acer, is that you can leave your laptop at home, but what’s the demand for PC phones? It is hard to get winning much traction in a market dominated by Android.
Microsoft says the Windows 10 Mobile upgrade will begin early 2016 to select existing Windows 8 and 8.1 phones. Microsoft could not update the smart phones in 2015 despite the fact that the operating system had originally been set to launch alongside the desktop version of the software in July. Microsoft has had a longstanding “chicken and egg” problem: Too few people have Windows phones for developers to care about making apps for the platform, and customers don’t want to buy Windows phones because they don’t have enough apps. Microsoft tries to help his problem With Windows 10, apps that developers write for the PC will also work on Microsoft’s phones. It could have some positive effect, but is no silver bullet. Microsoft’s biggest problem: The 10 most-used apps of the year in the U.S. were all made by three companies — Facebook, Google, and Apple.
It’s only been 15 years since the first camera phone came out. Today smartphones are giving consumers enhanced photo and video capabilities with 8-16 megapixel class. Smartphone cameras are great, or at least close enough to great that you don’t notice the difference. We’ve reached the point where you’ve got to work pretty hard to find a phone with a mediocre camera. Compared to a DSLR, smart phone cameras are lousy because they use tiny sensors, but still the camera in your pocket is crazy good considering the limitations manufacturers work under. The vast majority of top-tier smartphones use Sony sensors for their main cameras. The molded plastic lens elements in many cameras have reached the point where they’re essentially perfect.
For new smart phone camera technologies you could see array of lenses to enable Lytro-like refocusing, create 3-D depth maps, and improve image quality in low light. Some manufacturers are also exploring new areas, such as 3D cameras, massive megapixels (80MB), cameras that can take 360 degree panoramic images and video and cameras that can shoot 1,000 frames a second. 4K Ultra HD for mobile is another move to watch in 2016 as it becomes more common feature. Smartphones have decimated the point-and-shoot camera segment.
Smart phones are increasingly used to shoot videos. Smart phones are already deployed in many newsrooms for mobile journalism video shooting as it is easier (and cheaper) to learn how to film and edit on your phone than it is to use a big camera.(check for example step-by-step guide to shooting iPhone video). Live streaming video from smart phone becomes mainstream. Periscope was one of the first apps to really make live streaming events simple and easy enough that people wanted to do it. Many other apps are following the trend. Facebook begins testing live video streaming for all users.
Smart phones have already replaced many separate technical gadgets already, and this trend will continue. Smartphone have increased screen sizes and have finally become mobile TVs: Smartphones have overtaken the tablets as the most popular mobile device for viewing videos. The most watched content were targeted at teenagers videos and animation series for children.
Mobile display will be more accurate than eye in 2016 in high-end smart phones. Few enjoys a 4K-quality image even in his living room, but by the end of 2016, the same accuracy can be your smartphone. ETSI is preparing for development at ETSI CCM working group (Compound Content Management). Scalable 4K signal requires a very high dynamics (HDR, high dynamic range), as well as the WCG wider color space (Coloc Wider gamut). Such HDR / WCG techniques has only slowly been add to TV broadcasting. One can of course ask whether UltraHD- or 4K image are planting a cell phone make any sense, but they are coming (Sharp already announced that it would launch 4K-level mobile phone).
So device manufacturers need to support user expectations for downloading larger files for apps, movies, photos, videos and other materials, more frequently and more quickly. Networking speed is an area where we will see companies start to push the envelope in 2016, such as new creative strategies for caching, spectrum hopping and managing the Internet of Things.
The quality of LTE modem can make or break your smart phone product. Smartphones consist of two main components: Modems and application processors. Application processor performances of several smartphone brands are widely published, but LTE modem performance measures are much more difficult for the average purchaser to assess. Consumers have generally ignored the importance of connectivity in smartphone purchases, but device performance and positive user experiences are driven by best-in-class connectivity. There are 5 LTE smartphone modem chip makers currently shipping in mobile devices and besides U.S.-based Qualcomm, they include: HiSilicon (China), Intel (U.S.), Leadcore (China), MediaTek (Taiwan), Samsung (Korea), and Spreadtrum (China).
5G will be talked a lot enven though standardization is not ready yet. Just five years after the first 4G smartphone hit the market, the wireless industry is already preparing for 5G: cell phone carriers, smartphone chip makers and the major network equipment companies are working on developing 5G network technology for their customers.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that a smartphone is also a telephone. Nearly half of all phone users today employ their mobile phones as their primary voice connection (a number sure to grow). That the voice features in cell phones also advance. Very early on, the standard for human voice transmission was set as the “voice band” located between 300 Hz and 3.3 kHz (to put this in perspective, the natural frequency span of human voice during speech ranges from about 50 Hz to nearly 10 kHz). These standards were carried over for cellphone audio quality. Now that there are about about as many cellphone subscriptions as there are people on earth, one would think that there really shouldn’t be any more technological excuses for poor voice quality. New standards branded as HD Voice and VoLTE promise the eventual extension of voice transmission frequency range up to 7 kHz. There are also other major challenge preventing great sounding calls – especially noise challenges facing cellphone users. To get good sound quality we need to develop algorithms that isolate the person speaking from all other sources of noise.
Financial Services needs to get over its reluctance and go mobile in 2016, but it might not happen in large scale this year. Compliance concerns have long prevented financial services businesses from adopting mobile capabilities as quickly as other industries. Yvette Jackson of Thomson Reuters argues that technology advancements have made compliance worries of the past now obsolete.
Mobile payments are finally taking the momentum in North America, Japan and some European countries in 2016. Every second consumer is expected to smartphone or wearable device purchases to pay in few years. There are now types of mobile payment technologies in use. Some of them will turn to be interim techniques.
Despite many tools available mobile application development is still hard work in 2016. Mobile developer report shows growing back-end challenge: 33.9 per cent spent more than half their development effort on back-end integration. This effort includes creating and debugging APIs, finding documentation for existing APIs, and orchestrating data from multiple sources. iOS and Android dominate as target platforms. The disappointment for Microsoft is that all its hoopla about the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) does not seem to resonate here. What about making money? Only just over 60 per cent of those surveyed are primarily out to make money from apps themselves, with others aiming for goals such as customer loyalty and brand awareness. In-app purchases are the most effective method, followed by advertising and app purchase. Application landscape is changing: Single-function applications no longer meet the everyday life needs on mobile devices.
Web standards are becoming promising for mobile use but they are still far from making mobile apps obsolete in 2016. There’s a litany of problems with apps. There is the platform lock-in and the space the apps take up on the device. Updating apps is a pain that users often ignore, leaving broken or vulnerable versions in use long after they’ve been allegedly patched. Apps are also a lot of work for developers. Use the Web and the Web browser can sometimes help in solving some of those problems while creating other different set of problems. For example updates to HTML apps happen entirely on the server, so users get them immediately. Also HTML-based platform and a well-designed program that makes good use of CSS, one site could support phones, tablets, PCs, and just about anything else with one site. Currently HTML5 standards are advancing rapidly in the area of mobile Web applications. Web standards make mobile apps obsolete? I don’t think that it will happen immediately, even though many big tech companies are throwing weight behind a browser-based world (backed strongly by Google and Mozilla). So app or web question will still very relevant for mobile developer in 2016.
Google appears to be lining up OpenJDK – an open-source implementation of the Java platform – for future Android builds. Android runs apps written in Java on its Dalvik engine, and lately, its Android Runtime virtual machine. These apps require a Java class library, as well as various Android-specific bits and pieces, to work. Now it seems the next big releases of Android will use not the heavily customized Harmony-derived library but instead OpenJDK’s core libraries.
Android, which is controlled by Google, is one of Facebook’s biggest markets. Facebook has a contingency plan in case the company falls out with Google, according to The Information: a way to deliver app updates without going through the Google Play Store — currently the only way to update apps — and has a way of handling in-app payments. Amazon, which makes Android-based tablets, has a similar system: The app acts as a new store front from which other apps can be downloaded and updated, without Google Play.
There will be fascinating conversation in tech about smartphone apps and the web – what can each do, how discovery works, how they interplay, what Google plans with Chrome, whether the web will take over as the dominant form and so on. Ask the question: Do people want to put your icon on their home screen?
Mobile Internet continues to be important also in 2016. There is place for both Internet pages and apps. The internet makes it possible to get anything you’ve ever heard of but also makes it impossible to have heard of everything. We started with browsing, and that didn’t scale to the internet, and then we moved to search, but search can only give you what you already knew you wanted. In the past, print and retail showed us what there was but also gave us a filter – now both the filter and the demand generation are gone.
There is hunt for a new runtime, and a new discovery layer. Could it be messaging, Facobook or something else? Facebook and Google try to make mobile publishing platforms faster. Facebook has Instant Articles platform that aims to make articles loading fast on mobile devices. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is Google’s plan to make pages appear super-fast for those using mobile devices. Fast-loading pages may also mean fast-loading ads, with advertising platform support for AMP that’s been announced. I expect that first those plaforms will make loading the articles faster than traditinal pages, but over years those systems, if they catch, will be bloated to be slow again.
Maybe in 2016 we should stop talking about ‘mobile’ internet and ‘desktop’ internet - it’s like talking about ‘colour’ TV, as opposed to black and white TV. We have a mental model, left over from feature phones, that ‘mobile’ means limited devices that are only used walking around. Get over it. For 15 years the internet was a monolith: web browser + mouse + keyboard. The smartphone broke that apart, but we haven’t settled on a new model. Mobile’ isn’t about the screen size or keyboard or location or use. Rather, the ecosystem of ARM, iOS and Android, that has bigger scale than ‘Wintel’.
Dick Tracy had it right. Wearable devices are becoming more of any every day item as they proliferate across markets. Wearable market is still immature and growing in 2016. While many new fitness bands, smartwatches, and other wearable devices have entered the market, most have under-whelmed prospects and users. It is quite clear the wearable industry is in its infancy and fraught with growing pains. You can expect the top five vendors will not only shift places, but come in and drop out on a quarterly basis. Wearables grew 197.6% in Q3 2015 when mobile companies shipped a total of 21.0 million wearables worldwide.
Whereas the smartphone is the ultimate convergence product, we are learning that wearables are inherently divergent products. It seems that super-duper smartwatches loaded with full-blown phone/email/camera/voice assistant capabilities together with all other bells and whistles are not necessarily winning recipe like it was for smart phones. Many consumers want instead simplicity, ease of use, and instant actionable feedback. As an embedded developer of wearables, not only do you have the challenge of addressing battery life issues, but also architecting and developing a system that takes full advantage of the underlying hardware. Heartbeat monitoring has become the must-have feature for fitness trackers. China has quickly emerged as the fastest-growing wearables market, attracting companies eager to compete on price and feature sets.
The newest wearable technology, smart watvches and other smart devices corresponding to the voice commands and interpret the data we produce - it learns from its users, and generate as responses in real time appropriate, “micro-moments” tied to experience.
Links to some other mobile predictions articles worth to check out:
16 mobile theses by Benedict Evans
Mobile 2016 Predictions from EE Times
2015 Appcelerator / IDC Mobile Trends Report: Leaders, Laggards and the Data Problem
702 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
CNNMoney:
Samsung is recalling the Galaxy Note7 worldwide and halting sales due to a faulty battery, will replace all devices regardless of when they were purchased — Samsung says it’s recalling its new Galaxy Note 7 smartphone worldwide after reports of the device catching fire while charging.
Samsung is recalling the Galaxy Note 7 worldwide over battery problem
http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/02/technology/samsung-galaxy-note-7-recall/
Samsung is recalling millions of new Galaxy Note 7 smartphones worldwide after reports that the devices can catch fire while charging.
The massive recall of one of Samsung’s flagship devices is an embarrassing setback for the world’s biggest selling smartphone maker. The Note 7 was unveiled just a month ago
Samsung (SSNLF) said Friday it had found a problem with the battery in some of the phones and was halting sales in 10 countries, including South Korea and the U.S. It will offer customers a new product for free in the coming weeks to replace the 2.5 million Galaxy Note 7s that have been sold.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Julia Love / Reuters:
Sources: Google scraps Project Ara phone but may still bring the technology to market via partners, potentially through licensing
Exclusive – Google shelves plan for phone with interchangeable parts: sources
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-google-smartphone-exclusive-idUKKCN118065
Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google has suspended Project Ara, its ambitious effort to build what is known as a modular smartphone with interchangeable components, as part of a broader push to streamline the company’s hardware efforts, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
KGI: iPhone 7 to feature 2.4GHz A10 chip, IPX7 water resistance, new 12 megapixel cameras, 2 black color options, Lightning EarPods, 3GB RAM in Plus model, more
https://9to5mac.com/2016/09/03/kgi-iphone-7-to-feature-2-4ghz-a10-chip-ipx7-waterproofing-new-12-megapixel-cameras-piano-black-color-more/
KGI says that the iPhone 7 will include the new Apple A10 SoC, which will be CPU clocked at up to 2.4GHz, a dramatic increase over the existing A9 silicon.
In terms of the internal performance, the report claims the iPhone 7 will be powered by a new Apple A10 chip manufactured by TSMC using a new ‘InFO’ process. Apparently, this chip will be a major upgrade over the Apple A9 chip seen in the iPhone 6s with maximum clock speed hitting 2.4 GHz.
The iPhone 7 screen display will also be getting an upgrade.
Memory and RAM will also be increased. KGI says Apple will drop the 16 GB and 64 GB offering and add 256 GB storage tier. The new lineup will feature 32 GB, 128 GB and 256 GB models.
Agreeing with a leaked spec sheet from a few days ago, KGI says that Apple will include Lightning EarPods and a Lightning to 3.5mm Headphone Jack adapter with every iPhone 7. This is to compensate for the lack of 3.5mm headphone jack in the hardware itself.
It is forecasting 65 million iPhone 7 units shipped by the end of the year, a significant decrease below the 82 million level set by the iPhone 6s in the same timeframe last year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Project Ara’s Six Errors
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1330402&
What exactly failed in Project Ara? Was it the idea of an open hardware community, the very concept of a “modular” phone, or Google “not getting” smartphone users?
So, Alphabet Inc.’s Google has pulled the plug on Project Ara. An Ara phone would not be coming to market.
The goal of the project was to enable anyone to design a totally customizable phone. Call it a Lego phone, a modular phone or a DYI phone. Whatever, it didn’t catch on.
The project generated some buzz and created intrigue. But it also perplexed industry observers and left them deeply skeptical.
I was among the doubters from the get-go. I couldn’t really figure out Project Ara’s demographic, as I outlined it in my blog in 2014 entitled “Google’s Project Ara: Who Are Real Targets?”
But I’m not here to say “I told you so.” Seriously!
Actually, I was secretly hoping that Google would prove me wrong.
Reuters reported that cancelling Project Ara is “one of the first steps in a campaign to unify Google’s various hardware efforts,” ranging from Chromebook laptops to Nexus phones
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-smartphone-idUSKCN11806C
Six errors
But aside from shift in a corporate direction and personnel changes at Google, what exactly failed here?
1. “Modular” means complexity
2. Low cost & high performance
3. Never underestimate testing
4. Smarts are in the SoC
5. Software complexity
6. How it looks is important
Krewell’s conclusion is that Project Ara “could be used for Maker projects and other research, and low volume projects, but it’s not a high volume solution.”
My personal conclusion is that an “open” hardware project is a great idea, but it appears a lot harder than organizing an open software community.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
comScore: smartphone apps now account for half the time US users spend online, up from 41% in July 2014
Smartphone apps now account for half the time Americans spend online
https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/02/smartphone-apps-now-account-for-half-the-time-americans-spend-online/
Here’s a stat that’s sure to worry Google: smartphone applications now account for half the time that U.S. users spend online, up from 41 percent back in July 2014, according to a new report from comScore. And when you add tablet applications into the mix, that figure rises to nearly 60 percent.
The new milestone was achieved this July, the report says, and is a testament to our increasing reliance on native mobile applications to deliver us the information we need, as well as the entertainment and distractions we crave – things we used to turn to the web for, in previous years.
This shift towards apps is exactly why Google has been working to integrate the “web of apps” into its search engine, and to make surfacing the information hidden in apps something its Google Search app is capable of handling.
Smartphone Apps Are Now 50% of All U.S. Digital Media Time Spent
http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/Smartphone-Apps-Are-Now-50-of-All-US-Digital-Media-Time-Spent
Another major digital media milestone was reached this July. Smartphone apps, which have been playing an increasingly important role in consumers’ digital lives over the past several years, now account for more than half of all Americans’ time spent online
While the smartphone app has been the most important access vehicle to the internet for some time, growing its share to a point where it now eclipses all other digital media platforms combined speaks to just how central to our lives the smartphone has become.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nic Fildes / Financial Times:
EU’s net neutrality implementation guidelines ban network-wide ad-blocking by telecoms
Blow to telecoms companies as EU outlaws network-wide ad blocking
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0%2Fcd64993e-6ec7-11e6-a0c9-1365ce54b926.html#axzz4JNQk3bO5
Plans by European mobile phone companies to block advertisements across their networks have been dealt a heavy blow after new EU telecoms rules outlawed the process.
Yet guidelines published by the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications on Tuesday advised local telecoms regulators that while consumers should be allowed to install “ad blocking” apps on their phones, network-level blocking should be prohibited.
The guidelines will now be passed on to local regulators, including Ofcom in the UK, to apply.
“European citizens have a right to protect themselves from being tracked, profiled and targeted by AdTech. Lobbying efforts by the advertising industry were successful in obfuscating these fundamental rights,” said Roi Carthy, chief marketing officer of Shine.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mobile Phone Antenna Performance 2016
https://www.viestintavirasto.fi/attachments/toimialatieto/MobilephoneTest2016.pdf
This study investigates the antenna performance of a number of mobile phones widely used in the Nordic Countries.
The test is often referred to as the antenna test, even though the test includes more than
the antenna. The transmitter and the receiver electronics are also included in the tests, but
since these parts must fulfil the req
uirements in the technology standards, this
performance typically has a rather low degree of variations between different models.
The main difference in performance is due to differences in antenna design, in
combination with how the user is handling the phone
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung out as much as $1 billion for Note 7 recall, will reportedly stop using its own batteries
https://9to5google.com/2016/09/05/samsung-out-as-much-as-1-billion-for-note-7-recall-will-reportedly-stop-using-its-own-batteries/
Prior to halting sales of the Galaxy Note 7 and recalling shipped units, Samsung had sold nearly 2.5 million units of the phone. What will it cost to get all — or most — of these units back in house and then replace them with new units? Well, let’s just say it won’t be cheap. According to estimates compiled by Bloomberg, this recall could cost Samsung as much as $1 billion, an amount Samsung said was “heartbreaking”…
Short term this is a painful hit to profits, but long term it’s damage to Samsung’s reputation that will be hard to deal with. Through Samsung’s efforts to handle this recall, it has been harshly criticized by Consumer Reports for not handling things officially via government resources. Even worse, all of the negative publicity of phones exploding won’t melt away too soon. Many customers have already decided against getting the Note 7 following the recall.
To help ensure Samsung doesn’t have issues with batteries after replacing devices, the company is reportedly dropping its own Samsung SDI batteries which previously powered nearly 70% of Galaxy Note 7s. This is a safe move for the company seeing that the remaining batteries, supplied by Chinese manufacturer ATL, were exempt from these issues. Samsung is expected to order more batteries from ATL for replacement Note 7 units.
Samsung Note 7 Recall Will Be Pricey, But Probably Worth It
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-04/samsung-s-note-7-recall-will-be-expensive-but-probably-worth-it
Samsung Electronics Co.’s recall of millions of big-screen smartphones isn’t going to be cheap.
The South Korean company may spend as much as $1 billion, after deciding to replace all of the 2.5 million Note 7 phones that were shipped since they went on sale two weeks ago, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Samsung would only say the amount was “heartbreaking.” About three dozen of the devices were found to have batteries that caught fire and exploded.
The timing couldn’t have been worse. Samsung was on a roll, with the success of its flagship Galaxy S7 helping to drive its shares to a record last month and lifting quarterly profit to the highest in two years — all of this in a sputtering global smartphone market.
The bigger question in the coming weeks is how much damage the recall might inflict on Samsung’s brand.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Death of Project Ara Shows Google Is All Grown Up
http://www.wired.com/2016/09/death-project-ara-shows-google-grown-up/
As Reuters reported last week, Google has suspended—and possibly killed—its plan to make a modular smartphone with interchangeable components. The move is curious—especially considering that in May at its annual I/O conference, the company restarted its Ara hype after more than a year of silence, loudly proclaiming that about 30 people inside the company’s Advanced Technologies and Projects lab, or ATAP, were using Ara as their primary phone. But at the same time, the move isn’t surprising.
“Each of our efforts to create new, seemingly impossible products, has been faced with intense challenges along the way. Technical challenges. Organizational challenges. Challenges that might have broken lesser teams,”
Those words carry an added meaning when you consider she was leaving ATAP for Facebook. Facebook is a much smaller company than Google, and it doesn’t yet have the same—ahem—“organizational challenges.” The death of Ara is another sign that Google is struggling to maintain its innovative edge as it morphs into a giant corporation.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Natalie Gagliordi / ZDNet:
IDC: Fitbit leads wearables as Apple Watch shipments drop 58% YoY; basic wearable devices like simple fitness bands rise 48% YoY; smart wearables down 27.2% YoY
Fitbit leads wearables market as Apple Watch sales decline
http://www.zdnet.com/article/fitbit-leads-wearables-market-as-apple-watch-sales-decline/
According to new data from IDC, Apple Watch shipments plunged nearly 58 percent compared to the same quarter last year.
Basic Wearables Soar and Smart Wearables Stall as Worldwide Wearables Market Climbs 26.1% in the Second Quarter, According to IDC
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160906005204/en/Basic-Wearables-Soar-Smart-Wearables-Stall-Worldwide
Shipments of wearable devices reached 22.5 million in the second quarter of 2016 (2Q16) according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker. Despite a decline in shipments for one of the largest vendors, the overall market for wearable devices grew 26.1% year over year as new use cases are slowly starting to emerge.
“Fitness is the low-hanging fruit for wearables,” said Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst for IDC Mobile Device Trackers. “However, the market is evolving and we’re starting to see consumers adopt new functionality, such as communication and mobile payments, while enterprises warm to wearables’ productivity potential.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:
KGI: Apple to announce new wireless earbuds called AirPods, which will target the premium headphone market and use custom “Bluetooth-like” low-power tech — Apple’s new wireless earbuds, expected to be announced this week as “AirPods,” are said to feature a custom-designed wireless chip
Apple ‘AirPods’ to target high end of headphone market with custom ‘Bluetooth-like’ low-power tech
http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/09/06/apple-airpods-to-target-high-end-of-headphone-market-with-custom-bluetooth-like-low-power-tech
Tuesday, September 06, 2016, 09:14 am PT (12:14 pm ET)
Apple’s new wireless earbuds, expected to be announced this week as “AirPods,” are said to feature a custom-designed wireless chip that will be “Bluetooth-like,” carving out a share of the high-end headphone market and potentially paving the way for new smart home and smart car accessories.
“Apple will likely have its own-designed Bluetooth-like communication chip and launch own-brand Bluetooth headphones targeting the high-end market, with Beats positioned in the midrange market,” Kuo wrote. He did not give any potential indication of pricing.
With Apple expected to ditch the headphone jack, Kuo believes that wireless headphones will become the default option for many iPhone users. He sees Apple addressing that growing market with a two-pronged attack: Apple-branded “AirPods” on the high end, and a range of Beats-branded headphones for the middle of the market.
Kuo believes that Apple may in fact deviate from Bluetooth specifications, given what he called the company’s “higher requirements for power-saving, communication specs and potential rapid growth.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
David Smith:
Indie developer maps App Store revenue from paid to ads, says advertising in his apps made up around 10% of sales in 2012 whereas now it accounts for nearly 80% — I’ve been thinking this past week (as I often do) about the ever-changing landscape of the App Store.
Evolving App Store Business Models
https://david-smith.org/blog/2016/09/05/evolving-business-app-store-business-models/
I’ve been thinking this past week (as I often do) about the ever-changing landscape of the App Store. This year has seen some of the biggest changes in policy and structure that I can remember. We have new subscription pricing models, search ads, a substantial purge of older apps, new requirements for app names and a variety of little changes to the App Store app itself in iOS 10.
I won’t know how the sum of these changes will impact my business until probably later this fall, but it seemed like a good time to look back at the last several years and examine the path that brought me here.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Dual Cameras Are Better?
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1330406&
By using dual cameras, smartphone manufacturers are able to support extremely advanced imaging features while keeping the solution slim (below 5mm height), lightweight and robust.
September 7, 2016 is going to mark a significant milestone in the mobile imaging domain. One of the most anticipated revolutions in the upcoming iPhone7 lies in the camera complex. According to recent rumors the large sibling of the iPhone7 will carry a dual camera structure, with the key objective of creating higher quality images.
Dual cameras come in various forms and types, including symmetrical (e.g. 13Mpixel + 13Mpixel), asymmetrical (e.g. 16Mpixel + 13Mpixel), Bayer + Mono (color sensor + B/W sensor), wide + tele (wide lens camera + tele/zoom lens camera) and others. In all cases, such dual camera structures are used to replace the larger sensors, optics and moving parts normally found in advanced DSLRs. By using such dual cameras, smartphone manufacturers are able to support extremely advanced imaging features while keeping the solution slim (below 5mm height), lightweight and robust.
Improved Low Light Performance
One of the most challenging scenarios users face when taking an image is low light scenes – whether we want to savor a moment strolling down a colorful night market, or if we take an image in a dimly lit room.
So how can different dual camera types help us improve low light performance?
Mono (black and white) + Bayer (color) type dual cameras mainly rely on the additional light that comes into the mono sensor.
When fusing the B/W image with the color image the result is significantly enhanced, even in extreme low light conditions. Another interesting fact is that the Mono pixels are sampled in full frequency range as opposed to the Bayer (R, G, B) pixels
Interestingly, Mono + Bayer dual cameras can also help reduce the effect of motion blur. By allowing 2.5x more light onto the mono image sensor, the resulting exposure time of the camera can be much shorter.
However, not all of us are photography buffs that carry around a supersized DSLR camera with a heavy lens everywhere we go. Instead, we all carry around our mobile phones which in fact became one of the most accessible items we possess. When we capture an Image with our existing smartphones, zoom is achieved digitally, which in fact makes the experience and resulting image quality less than optimal.
Dual camera zoom uses a combination of a wide and tele lenses in order to achieve real optical zoom
The wide + tele dual camera topology brings the user the best from all worlds – having the ability to have a wide angle view where a lot is in focus or zooming in with real optical zoom to focus on the object the user desires while the rest of the world is blurred (Bokeh) – same as in professional cameras.
Another major advantage of having dual cameras is the ability to sense depth – similar to the way our eyes operate.
Refocus
Bringing it all together
Whether for optical zoom, depth map or enhanced low-light performance, the toughest part about any dual sensor technology is being able to encapsulate it all into a real-life product that is both robust and provides consistent high quality images. This requires an unusual mix of disciplines, including optics (being able to design your own lenses), actuators (having unique support for focus and image stabilization in dual sensors), image fusion algorithms (be it for depth, zoom or others) and system knowhow (application processors, image sensors, ISP, etc.).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple yesterday unveiled the iPhone 7 models have captured headlines across the. Size does not change the audio connection was lost, the greater the Pus-model got two cameras, and the amount of memory has been increased to 256 GB at best. However, the best part of the novelty can be found in the phone’s circuit board.
Apple has updated the iPhone’s usual way of application processor. A10 Fusion chip is 40 percent faster than A9 processor. Graphics 6-core GPU is 50 percent faster than the A9.
TSMC manufactured the circuits 16-nanometer FinFET process, and it supports LPDDR4 bus, like its predecessor.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4999:uuden-iphonen-paras-osa-on-piirikortilla&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
John Paczkowski / BuzzFeed:
Apple execs Greg Joswiak, Dan Riccio, Phil Schiller on why audio jack was ditched: space for camera tech, processors, battery, and to improve water resistance — Apple VP Greg Joswiak is grinning as he holds up what is easily the smallest iPhone adapter I have ever seen. iPod white …
Inside iPhone 7: Why Apple Killed The Headphone Jack
https://www.buzzfeed.com/johnpaczkowski/inside-iphone-7-why-apple-killed-the-headphone-jack?utm_term=.wlJVXd9oKa#.amQ9WN5lXw
The standard audio jack that connects your headphones to just about everything has been around for nearly 150 years. Here’s why Apple thought it was time for a change.
Apple VP Greg Joswiak is grinning as he holds up what is easily the smallest iPhone adapter I have ever seen. iPod white and about the length of a matchstick, it’s designed to connect audio headphones with an industry standard 3.5-millimeter analog plug to the Lightning port on Apple’s newest iPhone, which no longer bears the industry standard jack they require to work.
“This time, we’re putting an adapter in every box,”
Apple is no stranger to killing things people use all the time — and even love. But the headphone jack?
The headphone jack predates not only Apple, but computers themselves. And it is ubiquitous. So, when you’re killing a century-old standard around which the entire audio industry developed, it’s wise to take precautions.
Invented for use with telephone switchboards in the late 1800s, the audio jack is among the oldest existing electrical standards. Originally 6.35-millimeter in width, it was reduced to 3.5-millimeter in the ’60s, a transformation that made it pervasive across most every piece of electronic audio equipment you can think of
Apple is arguing that the future of audio is wireless, that the world’s current assumptions about mobile audio are not only antiquated, but worthy of immediate abandonment.
“The audio connector is more than 100 years old,” Joswiak says. “It had its last big innovation about 50 years ago. You know what that was? They made it smaller. It hasn’t been touched since then. It’s a dinosaur. It’s time to move on.”
The 3.5-millimeter audio jack, however, is neither inadequate nor in obvious need of replacement. Sure, it is certainly dusty. But it is widely used and unencumbered by patents. You don’t have to pay anyone to use it. The signal it transmits doesn’t need to be decoded. And because it is an analog and not a digital standard, it cannot be locked down with digital rights management (DRM). Like the AC power socket adorning the walls of our homes, the headphone jack is a dumb interface. In Apple parlance, “it just works.”
“We’ve got this 50-year-old connector — just a hole filled with air — and it’s just sitting there taking up space, really valuable space,”
opportunity to increase battery life. So the battery in the iPhone 7 is 14% bigger than the one in its predecessor
Even better, removing the audio jack also eliminated a key point of ingress that Riccio says helped the new iPhone finally meet the IP7 water resistance spec Apple has been after for years (resistant when immersed under 1 meter of water for 30 minutes).
In the end, it was simple math that did the audio jack in, a cost-benefit analysis that sorely disfavored a single-purpose Very Old Port against a wireless audio future, some slick new cameras, and the kind of water resistance that anyone who has ever dropped an iPhone in the toilet has long wished for.
The headphone jack is great for delivering audio, widely used, and unencumbered by patents and digital rights management, critics argued.
“We are removing the audio jack because we have developed a better way to deliver audio. It has nothing to do with content management or DRM — that’s pure, paranoid conspiracy theory.”
AirPods use Bluetooth for their connection. Bluetooth headphones have historically suffered from a conga line of connectivity problems: onerous pairing, dropped connections, crappy sound. Apple is confident it’s solved them all with that W1 chip. “As you can imagine, by developing our own Bluetooth chip and controlling both ends of the pairing process there’s a lot of magic we can do,” Ternus says. “We use a Bluetooth connection, but cover it in a lot of secret sauce.”
Just what’s in the secret sauce, Apple won’t say.
Though their $159 price tag will elicit gas faces in some, Apple’s AirPods have a pretty compelling wireless audio story.
“We do understand that this might be a difficult transition for some people who love their wired headphones,”
Remember, the iPhone 7 will come with Lightning headphones and an adapter for people who don’t want to give up their existing headphones.
Susie Ochs / Macworld:
Apple AirPods hands-on: stay securely in place, feel more comfortable to wear than EarPods, auto-pausing effect works well
AirPods hands-on: They stayed in my ears and sounded awesome
I really thought I’d hate the AirPods, but guess what? They rock!
http://www.macworld.com/article/3117706/headphones/airpods-hands-on-they-stayed-in-my-ears-and-sounded-awesome.html
I didn’t want to like the AirPods, I really didn’t. But in the hands-on area after Apple’s iPhone 7 event on Wednesday, I found myself dancing along in spite of myself—and the AirPods stayed put, feeling surprisingly secure. With convenient features on both the hardware and software sides, I have to admit that Apple’s totally-wireless AirPods kind of rocked my world.
The AirPods’ special features are pretty impressive too, even though that specialness means they only work with Apple devices. You don’t need a brand-new iPhone or Apple Watch to use them, but they only support Apple devices running the latest operating systems: iOS 10, macOS Sierra, and watchOS 3. The AirPods use Bluetooth, so you would think maybe there’d be a way to pair them to an Android phone or an iOS 8 device since those have Bluetooth too, but there’s no button on the AirPods to put them into pairing mode.
Each AirPod has infrared sensors, so they know when they’re in your ears or not, and an accelerometer so you can double-tap either AirPod to invoke Siri.
Removing one AirPod from your ear while music is playing will automatically pause it
The charging case is pretty neat on its own, too. It’s got a Lightning port in the back, and you can charge just the case on its own or the AirPods inside the case.
AirPods themselves get about 5 hours of playback per charge
The case has enough juice for about 24 hours of playback, Apple says
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
iPhone 7 has no 3.5mm jack, comes with Lightning “EarPods” and a Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter; Apple also sells the adapter for $9 and EarPods for $29 separately
Lightning earbuds will come with the iPhone 7
Something to listen to
http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/7/12824296/apple-lightning-earbuds-announced-iphone-7
Apple has updated its iconic white earbuds to include a Lightning connector and will bundle a pair with every iPhone 7.
The headphones otherwise appear the same as the EarPod model that Apple introduced in 2012 — they just now end in a Lightning connector instead of the standard 3.5mm headphone jack.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed:
How Apple slowly evolves its products, like the iPhone, Watch, and its line of headphones, to draw customers deeper into the Apple ecosystem
Apple’s Strategy Is Innovation By A Thousand Tweaks
https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/apples-strategy-is-innovation-by-a-thousand-tweaks?utm_term=.omAv52j8JM#.mfkOmMq6zX
The iPhone is to make you buy the AirPods which are to make you use Siri to make you keep your MacBook to get you to upgrade your iPhone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Matt Krantz / USA Today:
Nintendo stock jumps 25%+ in US trading after company announces Super Mario Run for iPhone 7 and Pokémon Go for Apple Watch
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2016/09/07/real-winner-apples-talk-isnt-apple/89966928/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Killing the headphone jack is a business decision that helps Bluetooth headphone companies, where Apple’s Beats is the market leader
The biggest winner from removing the headphone jack is Apple
Fun fact: Apple owns the #1 wireless headphone company
http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/8/12839758/apple-is-biggest-winner-from-killing-headphone-jack
If you take Apple’s word for it, removing the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 was a pure expression of its desire for technological progress. “Some people have asked why we would remove the analog headphone jack from the iPhone,” Phil Schiller, Apple’s marketing chief, said yesterday. “It really comes down to one word: courage. The courage to move on to do something new that betters all of us.”
Already Apple’s defenders have been echoing that sentiment. The headphone jack is century-old technology
And if you do want to use old headphones, you need to keep a small adapter handy. And that’s just to name a few of the many drawbacks.
The benefits, on the other hand, are surprisingly few. Removing the headphone jack frees up a small amount of space inside the iPhone. And while it’s true that audio over Lightning can produce a higher sound quality, that’s been an option on iPhones for years — now Apple is just forcing everyone into choosing it. There’s no actual improvement to sound in the iPhone 7.
While it’s tough to make the case that dropping the headphone jack is better for consumers, the benefits for Apple are much easier to see. The iPhone 7 will be bought by tens of millions of people during the next few months alone, and its lack of a headphone jack is going to make many of them consider buying Lightning or Bluetooth headphones. Apple profits from both.
Any company that wants to make a pair of Lightning headphones has to go through Apple’s licensing program.
And that’s just Lightning. More likely is that the lack of a headphone jack on the iPhone — and increasingly, on Android phones as well — will lead to an uptick in sales of Bluetooth headphones. And it just so happens that Apple owns the number one Bluetooth headphone company, Beats.
Beats brings in more revenue from Bluetooth headphones than LG, Bose, or Jaybird, according to NPD figures released in July. In terms of unit sales, it controls over a quarter of the Bluetooth headphone market.
Sales of Bluetooth headphones are already growing, with units up 64 percent year over year according to NPD’s US figures. And Apple’s removal of the headphone jack is likely to give them another boost.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple Heralds Dawn of Dual Lens Camera
Dual lens smartphones to become the norm, says Corephotonics
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330419
Apple’s newly announced iPhone 7 Plus, with a dual-lens camera designed to provide both telephoto-zoom and depth of field features, is likely to set a new high in the industry standard for image quality never before imagined for mobile photography.
Although unlikely to completely replace digital single reflex cameras, Philip Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Apple, boasted during the Apple event Wednesday, “This is the best camera ever made in any smartphone.”
Consisting of a 28mm wide-angle lens and a 56mm telephoto, iPhone 7 Plus’ dual lens is designed to offer 2x optical zoom, and up to 10x digital zoom.
Later this year, Apple plans on a software upgrade that enables the same dual lens to provide what’s known as an optical “Bokeh effect” (Bokeh in Japanese means blur).
This effect brings pin-sharp focus to an object in the foreground while blurring the rest of the scene. The resulting image resembles one taken by a telephoto lens with shallow depth of field, a stark contrast to photos taken by the wide-angle lens currently used in smartphones.
The dual-lens camera won’t be just a nice high-end smartphone feature. Rather, it will change the course of the smartphone trajectory, according to Eran Kali, vice president of licensing at Corephotonics
He predicted that the dual lens will soon become obligatory in smartphones, and Apple’s competitors are catching up fast.
Kali told EE Times that Corephotonics is “the inventor of the computational dual camera for smartphones” derived from its own IPs.
Apple isn’t the first smartphone company to launch dual-lens smartphones. Both HTC and Huawei tried it, but neither used a dual lens for telephoto zoom, nor was image quality very good.
Noting that HTC and Huawei lacked Corephotonics’ technology, Kali explained the difference.
HTC used only one of the two cameras as its main camera, deploying the second for real-time processing. Huawei, which reportedly developed its own dual lens technology, used it to capture more light in low-light conditions. “But Huawei’s P9 smartphone produced pictures only marginally better,”
Since a private showing of its concept demo in 2013 and a public debut during the Mobile World Congress in 2014, Corephotonics has been evangelizing benefits of the dual camera zoom among smartphone vendors.
Corephotonics’ technology consists of both hardware (proprietary optics and actuators) and computational software (proprietary algorithms designed to run on a number of off-the-shelf application processors and GPUs).
In Kali’s opinion, Corephotonics’ dual camera solutions — the company has three models — have already progressed beyond iPhone 7 Plus’ current status. He explained that Corephotonics offers 2X optical zoom, continuously seamless digital zoom, an optical stabilizer, better depth of field, and enhanced imaging in low light — all squeezed into the smartphone’s most constrained form factor — the height — at 6.0mm or lower.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple Debuts Three Custom Chips
AirPods’ W1 is company’s first wireless SoC
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330418
Apple’s products announced today pack at least three new chips including its first wireless SoC to date, showing the company’s increasing silicon prowess.
The company’s largest and most complex effort remains the iPhone application processor. The 64-bit A10 Fusion in the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus packs 3.3 billion transistors.
The SoC adopts ARM’s Big.little approach, using two high performance cores running 40% faster and two high efficiency cores at one-fifth the power consumption of the A9 SoC in the iPhone 6. It also sports a six-core GPU that’s 50% faster than graphics in the A9.
“It’s the most powerful chip in a smartphone,”
The biggest surprise of the event came from the lowly earbud. Apple’s new wireless AirPods and three new wireless Beats headphones include a custom chip called the W1.
Apple’s Schiller and the company’s materials did not mention the term Bluetooth.
Schiller said AirPods do not require a device pairing process typical of Bluetooth. A one-step process lets them pick up audio from either an iPhone or Apple Watch which presumably would at least require some variant of a Bluetooth or Wi-Fi transmission.
Separately, Apple rolled out an updated Apple Watch Series 2. It uses a so-called S2 system-in-package with a 50% faster dual-core CPU and 2x faster GPU than are in the current model.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung reportedly remotely deactivating recalled Note 7 units in France after Sept 30
https://9to5google.com/2016/09/11/samsung-reportedly-remotely-deactivating-recalled-note-7-units-in-france-after-sept-30/
As we hear more and more about Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 recall, it’s becoming clear that this is all one big mess. Between not originally doing things officially with the CPSC and more units exploding, Samsung is in trouble. Regardless of what the company does, with the CPSC’s involvement or not, there’s one massive obstacle to face: stubborn customers…
Already we’ve seen several people online saying that they won’t send back the phone, but in some cases, they may not have the option. According to a Reddit user in France, Samsung is essentially forcing customers to exchange devices.
While this apparently only applies to France (for now), it seems that Samsung is just outright shipping customers a brand new, non-explosive Galaxy Note 7 in the color they already own. In that same package, Samsung is also throwing in a Gear VR headset and a prepaid package that will allow customers to send back the defective unit free of charge.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Rise, Fall and Return of TomTom
Europe’s biggest consumer tech company is back and wants you to wear it
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/09/the_rise_fall_and_return_of_tomtom/
Yesterday TomTom announced seven new consumer products (eight if you count the two SatNav units) with four fitness and three navigation products, its highest High Street profile for some years.
Tech pundits were preparing the last rites for the SatNav pioneer a few years ago, but it has proved to be resilient. And as others fell away, TomTom is now biggest, and arguably the only consumer tech company Europe has left to boast about – while its industrial and commercial units continue to tick along. This week it again took the No.1 crown in telematics in Europe, for the second year running.
Tomi Engdahl says:
FAA Statement on Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Devices
http://www.faa.gov/news/updates/?newsId=86424
In light of recent incidents and concerns raised by Samsung about its Galaxy Note 7 devices, the Federal Aviation Administration strongly advises passengers not to turn on or charge these devices on board aircraft and not to stow them in any checked baggage.
Tomi Engdahl says:
At the same time when the world news about Microsoft’s decision to stop selling of the Windows mobile phones – the company is obviously not commented on the matter – statistics show that Windows 10 is the only shifted 14 percent of Windows phone users.
Information is significant because it reflects the more general problems in Microsoft Windows 10 with respect. Originally, the new operating system had to expand the device billion within 2-3 years. A significant part of the chapter was based smartphones.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5020:suurin-osa-lumioista-vanhalla-windowsilla&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Recalled Samsung phone explodes in little boy’s hands
http://nypost.com/2016/09/11/recalled-samsung-phone-explodes-in-little-boys-hands/
A 6-year-old Brooklyn boy suffered burns when one of Samsung’s recalled Galaxy Note 7 smartphones exploded in his hands — and his grandmother says he’s now too scared to go near any other devices.
The boy was using the phone at home in East Flatbush on Saturday night when it suddenly burst into flames, his grandmother said Sunday.
“The child was watching videos on the phone when the battery exploded,”
Samsung’s new smartphone may catch fire: US officials
http://nypost.com/2016/09/11/samsungs-new-smartphone-may-catch-fire-us-officials/
Apparently the hottest phone on the market isn’t the new iPhone.
The federal government wants you to get off your Samsung Galaxy Note7 smartphone immediately — because its battery could explode.
The US Consumer Product Safety Commission issued the warning on Friday amid reports that the phone was causing fires.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Do you think that activity bracelet data is protected?
Activity or fitnessrannekkeita were sold during the first quarter of the year over 20 million copies. They collect all sorts of information to the user. Unfortunately, the data is easy to capture on their way to the cloud.
Technical University of Darmstadt, cyber security now Professor Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi explained that almost all of the data is outside the bracelets to capture. The study included 17 different bracelets from large manufacturers such as Xiaomi and Garmin.
While all cloud-based solutions for transferring data wristbands encrypted protocols, such as HTTPS, only four of the wristband was ylipääätän done anything about it, that the data would remain protected. According to Sadeghin even these methods do not prevent a motivated hacker.
Sadeghin team was able to make the so-called. man-in-the-middle attack, or to manipulate the data the way to cloud services. For example, five bracelets saved data only in raw text format in smartphone, which is a big security risk.
Sadegh says that insurance companies and others who build services upon monitoring of the activity, should be given to information security professionals manage storage, transfer and verification of data. This is becoming more and more important position in the activity bracelet data will be taken, for example, to accept the court as evidence.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5031:luuletko-etta-aktiivisuusrannekkeen-data-on-suojassa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cho Mu-Hyun / ZDNet:
Samsung says it will cap Note7 charging at 60% in OTA update, starting Sept. 20 in S. Korea, is in talks with telcos from 9 other countries for similar rollouts — Samsung will limit the battery charging cap for Galaxy Note 7 users to 60 percent through a Over-the-Air (OTA) software upgrade on September 20 following more explosions.
Samsung software upgrade will cap Note 7 charging at 60 percent
http://www.zdnet.com/article/samsung-to-deploy-sw-upgrade-to-cap-note-7-charging-to-60-percent/
Samsung will limit the battery charging cap for Galaxy Note 7 users to 60 percent through a Over-the-Air (OTA) software upgrade on September 20 following more explosions.
Samsung will commence a software upgrade next week to limit the battery charging cap of Galaxy Note 7 to 60 percent following more reports of explosions.
The Over-the-Air (OTA) software upgrade will commence on September 20, 10 am in South Korea.
Samsung is in talks with telcos from nine other countries where the phablet is available to deploy a similar software upgrade.
Galaxy Note 7 has a battery capacity of 3,500 mAh, but the forced upgrade will enforce it to 2,100 mAh.
Wall Street Journal:
Samsung says it will replace Note7 in US and Canada after country safety regulators end investigations, plans to offer replacements in Singapore this week
Samsung Rushes to Contain Fallout From Galaxy Note 7 Recall
Smartphone’s recall hurts consumer and investor confidence in South Korean company
http://www.wsj.com/news/article_email/samsung-rushes-to-contain-fallout-from-galaxy-note-7-recall-1473777044-lMyQjAxMTA2NjExMjQxMzI2Wj
Samsung Electronics Co. is facing growing consumer confusion and anger as the world’s biggest smartphone maker grapples with a recall of its newest devices following reports of exploding batteries.
The South Korean technology company said early this month that it is recalling 2.5 million Galaxy Note 7 large-screen smartphones in 10 countries and other markets where the device had been shipped, citing faulty batteries that have led to some exploding while charging. Some 11 days later, the South Korean company had yet to set a specific timeline in important markets such as the U.S. and Canada on when consumers can get a replacement phone.
The company is also grappling with the issue of whether it will have enough supply of the new phones and components to replace millions of handsets that have reached consumers in such a short time frame.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Sources: Microsoft may discontinue Band fitness device, will focus instead on its cross-platform Health service
Don’t expect a new Microsoft Band device this year (or maybe ever)
http://www.zdnet.com/article/dont-expect-a-new-microsoft-band-device-this-year-or-maybe-ever/
Microsoft’s Band fitness device looks to be at the end of its run. The cross-platform Microsoft Health service is where Microsoft is focusing its efforts.
Band 2 looks to be the end of the line for Microsoft’s Band fitness devices — at least for the short term, and possibly for good. But the Microsoft Health service backing the Band will live on.
“We continue to invest and innovate in the Microsoft Health platform, which is open to all hardware and apps partners across Windows, iOS, and Android devices. We also continue to sell Microsoft Band 2 and remain deeply committed to supporting our customers and exploring the wearables space.”
If I’m reading between the lines of that, I’d say there’s no Band 3 coming. But Microsoft officials declined to go so far as to say that.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Steve Kovach / Business Insider:
Apple AirPods review: intelligent pairing, impressive sensors, but mediocre sound, audio controls are convoluted, and they look awkward when in use
REVIEW: Apple’s new AirPods are a mixed bag
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-airpods-review-2016-9?op=1%3fr=US&IR=T&IR=T
Nothing pairs better with a controversial move like killing the headphone jack from the most popular consumer product in history than releasing an equally controversial accessory to go along with it.
Since Apple announced its new wireless AirPods, they’ve become sources of both optimism and skepticism.
$159 AirPods since Apple announced them last Wednesday, and they certainly are a mixed bag. They fit nicely in my ears, they sound fine, and Apple finally solved the annoying Bluetooth pairing process. I also enjoyed having a new way to communicate with Siri.
At the same time, a lot about the AirPods make it apparent that this is a version one product, especially when it comes to controlling your music. And that design is likely to remain controversial.
The AirPods look nearly identical to Apple’s wired EarPods, except with the wires snipped off at the bottom. Each AirPod has a built-in microphone for phone calls and talking to Siri, and they’re packed with extra technology like infrared sensors that can detect when they’re in your ear and an accelerometer that can detect when you tap each AirPod.
They connect to your iPhone via Bluetooth, and will also work with any other standard Bluetooth audio device. AirPods come with a magnetic charging case that has its own battery for charging your headphones while out and about.
Think of AirPods as standard Bluetooth headphones with some extra intelligence built into them. Each AirPod has a new W1 processing chip inside that acts as the “brains” of the headphones.
The pairing is one of the best features. Instead of poking through settings and waiting for your headphones to appear in your Bluetooth menu, all you do is flip open the AirPods’ charging case when it’s close to your iPhone. A little window pops up that prompts you to pair — and boom. You’re all set. Also, after pairing with your iPhone, the AirPods will automatically pair with your Mac and Apple Watch if they’re running the new macOS Sierra and watchOS 3 software updates, respectively.
The W1 chip also makes sure music doesn’t play through the AirPods until you put them in your ears
AirPods sound nearly identical to Apple’s wired EarPods.
Battery life is great though. Apple says you get up to five hours of listening time, plus up to 24 if you charge them up with the battery included in the carrying case
Unlike Apple’s wired EarPods, there’s no dongle for controlling your music, answering calls, or adjusting the volume. That means you have to do everything through Siri or directly on your phone. It’s easily the biggest drawback to the AirPods, and it will likely be a deal breaker for many
Tomi Engdahl says:
Breaking
Apple launches iOS 10, tvOS 10 & watchOS 3
http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/09/13/apple-officially-launches-ios-10-tvos-10-watchos-3
Apple on Tuesday made available iOS 10 for iPads, iPhones, and the iPod touch bringing mass enhancements to messages, Maps, Siri, Photos, Apple Music, News, and more.
The first version of iOS 10, version 10.0.1, can be downloaded free through iTunes or as an over-the-air update through the Software Update function in the iOS Settings app. The update has left some hardware behind, running on the iPod touch sixth generation, iPhone 5, iPad Mini 2, and iPad fourth generation and newer.
Messages is vastly improved, and has added a number of emoji-related enhancements, dynamic text bubbles, hooks for developers, and rich links with images automatically integrated into chats.
watchOS 3
Apple’s watchOS 3 brings a great deal of battery life enhancements, and speed improvements to the Apple Watch. A user’s favorite apps will be kept in memory, background updates will pre-cache data, and apps will launch instantly on the new OS.
Apple is also planning to launch a series of new customizable watch faces in watchOS 3, including a fitness-focused one that presents activity rings in a large size, and a new Minnie Mouse option. watchOS 3 also makes it easier to switch between watch faces with a swipe.
Tomi Engdahl says:
iOS 10:
The MacStories Review
https://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-10-the-macstories-review/
iOS 10, which is an iPhone release focused on people – consumers and their iPhone lifestyles; developers and a deeper trust bestowed on their apps. Like its predecessors, iOS 10 treads the line of surprising new features – some of which may appear unforeseen and reactionary – and improvements to existing functionalities.
Even without a clean slate, and with a release cycle that may begin to split across platforms, iOS 10 packs deep changes and hundreds of subtle refinements. The final product is a major leap forward from iOS 9 – at least for iPhone users.
Where iOS 10 does break away from the old is in the system requirements needed to install the OS. Most devices from 2011 and 2012 aren’t compatible with iOS 10
In addition to Lightning, every iOS 10-eligible iPad has a Retina display
It’s going to be a while until Apple can achieve its vision of 64-bit and one-tap payments across the board, but it’s good to see them moving in that direction by phasing out hardware that no longer fits what iOS has grown into. iOS 10 is starting this transition today.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple releases iOS 10 and watchOS 3
You can try new Messages, music, Siri and Apple Watch features today.
https://www.engadget.com/2016/09/13/apple-releases-ios-10-watchos-3/
You no longer have to be a guinea pig to give Apple’s latest software upgrades a try — as promised, the Cupertino crew has released the finished versions of iOS 10 and watchOS 3. As before, iOS’ biggest improvements are in communication — Messages gets apps, hand-drawn images, secret messages and stickers (among many other additions), while Siri now offers you control over third-party apps. You’ll also see major interface revamps in Maps (which now offers proactive suggestions) and Music, a Home app to manage smart household gadgets, lock screen widgets and wider use of 3D Touch on supporting hardware.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ABC News:
Tim Cook favors AR over VR, suggests it may be more commercially viable because it allows users to be more “present”
Exclusive: Why Apple CEO Tim Cook Prefers Augmented Reality Over Virtual Reality
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/exclusive-apple-ceo-tim-cook-prefers-augmented-reality/story?id=42064913
In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Apple CEO Tim Cook said he favors augmented reality (AR) over virtual reality (VR), and suggested the emerging technology may be more commercially viable because it allows users to be more “present.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Anita Balakrishnan / CNBC:
US Consumer Product Safety Commission formally recalls about 1M Samsung Galaxy Note7 phones after 26 reports of burns and 55 reports of property damage in US — The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission officially recalled the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 in a Thursday announcement.
Samsung, safety regulators officially recall about 1 million Galaxy Note 7 phones
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/15/consumer-safety-agency-plans-recall-of-samsung-galaxy-note-7-dj-citing-official.html
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission officially recalled the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 in a Thursday announcement.
The recall will include about 1 million of the premium mobile phones because of serious fire and burn hazards, CPSC chairman Elliot Kaye said at a press conference. Replacement devices should be available at most retail locations no later than Sept. 21, Samsung said.
“I am urging all consumers to take advantage of this recall right away,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cho Mu-Hyun / ZDNet:
Samsung to use green battery icon on new Note7 phones, instead of the white icon used on old faulty devices, to differentiate safe units — New Galaxy Note 7s will have different colored battery indicators to differentiate from the original faulty phones, but questions remain whether it will quell safety concerns.
New Note 7s will have green battery indicators instead of white
http://www.zdnet.com/article/new-note-7s-will-have-green-battery-indicators-instead-of-white/
New Galaxy Note 7s will have different colored battery indicators to differentiate from the original faulty phones, but questions remain whether it will quell safety concerns.
Samsung will change the color of the battery indicators in newly produced Galaxy Note 7 handsets to allow consumers to differentiate the old faulty units from the new ones, the company has said.
The new Note 7 battery indicator at the top right corner of the home screen will now be green instead of white.
The South Korean giant is manufacturing and delivering new batches of the phablet to local distributors and stores in South Korea so that it can start the exchange on Monday 19 September, the first working day after the Thanksgiving holiday period. It is yet not known whether the same measure will be applied in other countries.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
iPhone 7 Plus teardown reveals 2900 mAh battery, 3GB RAM, bigger Taptic Engine occupying space created by removal of headphone jack
iFixit teardown reveals exactly what replaced the iPhone 7’s headphone jack
https://9to5mac.com/2016/09/15/ifixit-teardown-reveals-exactly-what-replaced-the-iphone-7s-headphone-jack/
As it does every year, device repair site iFixit is putting all of Apple’s new devices through the teardown process. This year, the site is tearing down the iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and Apple Watch 2. As usual, Apple leaves some details regarding the internals of its new devices a secret, but iFixit is able to figure out some of those secrets with its teardowns…
Tomi Engdahl says:
Taylor Stanton / Slice Intelligence:
iPhone 7 Plus outsold 7 in the US in the first 48 hours of availability, Slice Intelligence analysis of 32k receipts suggests — Data from Slice Intelligence just revealed the first online sales figures for the iPhone 7, and early shoppers prefer the Plus.
iPhone 7: for the first time, the Plus model is the most pre-ordered
https://intelligence.slice.com/iphone-7-first-time-plus-model-pre-ordered/
Data from Slice Intelligence just revealed the first online sales figures for the iPhone 7, and early shoppers prefer the Plus. Among those preordering the iPhone 7, in the first 48 hours of availability, 55 percent ordered the Plus model.
As is typical, those who re-ordered the iPhone 7 tend to be Apple loyalists. Fifty-five percent of iPhone 7 buyers purchased an iPhone online in the past two years.
The most popular iPhone 7 color ordered were the new black shades, with 69 percent opting for the black or jet black version. The color of choice for iPhones past has traditionally been space gray.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Half of U.S. smartphone users download zero apps per month
Thirteen percent of smartphone owners account for more than 50 percent of all app downloads.
http://www.recode.net/2016/9/16/12933780/average-app-downloads-per-month-comscore
Apple recently announced that its iOS users alone have downloaded more than 140 billion apps since the App Store launched in 2008.
But the app market, as we’ve noted, is still a challenging one.
Half of all U.S. smartphone users download zero apps per month, according to comScore’s latest mobile app report.
Specifically, some 49 percent of U.S. smartphone users download zero apps in a typical month, according to comScore
Of the 51 percent of smartphone owners who do download apps during the course of a month, “the average number downloaded per person is 3.5,”
Meanwhile, others report significantly different data. Tune, a company that works in the mobile-app advertising market, found that 75 percent of U.S. smartphone owners download at least once a month, based on a June 2016 survey.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Moto, HTC Top Android Report
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1330474&
Consumers and developers alike will want to know which manufacturers produce the most up-to-date, reliable, and best-performing Android devices. So, we recently compiled a report on Android device performance by manufacturer, focusing on OS update speeds, crash rates and device fragmentation by region.
A new report shows HTC and Motorola are producing the best Android handsets in terms of OS update speeds and app crash rates, although Sony had the lowest overall crash rate. Beware Russia, it’s a bear when it comes to smartphone fragmentation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Microsoft’s Xamarin purchase is a blunder
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-xamarin-purchase-is-a-blunder/
Being able to run C# programs on Android and iOS sounds good, but Xamarin was never able to make a go of it. So, why should things change now?
At long last, Microsoft has bought Xamarin, This company’s claim to fame is that with its Mono project, it’s open-sourced a great deal of Microsoft’s .NET Framework and C# language for Linux and more recently Android, iOS and Mac OS X.
That sounds like a great idea. It’s too bad it’s already been shown to be a flop several times over.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Did Apple offer enough to make you upgrade?
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/brians-brain/4442685/Did-Apple-offer-enough-to-make-you-upgrade-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20160915&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20160915&elqTrackId=0376b9ae147c4f9396af082e8bb3bd91&elq=75898752bddb4b0e88cabca45300ae80&elqaid=33894&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29626
Last Wednesday, Apple unveiled its latest-generation 4.7″ and 5.5″ smartphones, succeeding their iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus precursors announced a year earlier, along with the second-generation Apple Watch, replacing its two-year-old (at least from an announcement standpoint … shipping happened later) predecessor.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Air pressure sensors in smartphones: Transforming navigation and fitness tracking
http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4442696/Air-pressure-sensors-in-smartphones–Transforming-navigation-and-fitness-tracking?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160915&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160915&elqTrackId=d1a27bcb91c94803aa076240696472ac&elq=ede3bcddc71545cc9e625083f8af47d3&elqaid=33880&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29612
Today’s smartphones utilize a wide array of accelerometers, gyroscopes and various other sensors in their designs. Relatively unknown is the barometric pressure sensor, which measures air pressure. These sensors are currently being integrated into premium-grade smartphones, but are also becoming more common in mainstream phones or wearables such as fitness trackers and Internet of Things (IoT) applications.
A barometric pressure sensor measures air pressure and can, therefore, play a key role in weather forecasting – lower pressure indicates that poor, rainy weather is more likely. Also, air pressure is affected by altitude changes, which means that such a sensor can provide highly accurate information about vertical elevation.
Indoor navigation is one of the more interesting applications for this technology, where air pressure data is interpreted to determine the user’s current floor level in a building – this is useful for finding one’s way through shopping malls or underground parking lots.
Indoor navigation is one of the more interesting applications for this technology, where air pressure data is interpreted to determine the user’s current floor level in a building – this is useful for finding one’s way through shopping malls or underground parking lots.
An example of this trend is Bosch Sensortec’s cooperation with NextNav in the development of accurate floor level detection solutions. NextNav has demonstrated its ability to provide precise altitude information by implementing Bosch Sensortec’s BMP280 pressure sensor within the scope of its wide-area Metropolitan Beacon System (MBS) network.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google’s next Nexus smartphones are to be manufactured by HTC.
They will be sold under name Pixel familiar from Chromebooks.
They will use an unreleased version of Android (Geekbenchin view is that this is Android 7.1 Nougat)
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5058:uusissa-nexusissa-taysin-uusi-android&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sam Rutherford / Tom’s Guide:
iPhone 7, 7 Plus cameras don’t produce as sharp or well exposed images as Samsung’s Galaxy S7 line, but OIS, f/1.8 aperture, 2x optical zoom are major upgrades
It’s Close, but iPhone 7′s Camera Still Can’t Top Samsung
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/iphone-7-vs-galaxy-s7-camera,review-3906.html
While their resolution may have stayed the same, the 12-megapixel rear cameras in Apple’s iPhone 7 and 7 Plus look to offer a big improvement in picture quality. Not only does the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus both sport a cameras with optical image stabilization, a larger f/1.8 aperture and an upsized sensor with bigger pixels, Apple has tacked a second camera onto the iPhone 7 Plus with a 2x optical zoom.
Bottom Line
The contest between Apple and Samsung has never been closer, but in the end, the Galaxy S7 Edge comes out on top simply because its camera produces photos that are sharper and more well exposed than the iPhone 7′s.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung sells stakes in four companies
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37404659
South Korean tech giant Samsung says it has sold stakes it held in four other companies in order raise money “to focus on its core business”.
The company has shares in four companies raising more than 1 trillion won ($888.9m; £681m).
The sales come as Samsung is recalling its flagship Galaxy Note 7 phone after reports of fires caused by faulty batteries.
Analysts say the recall could cost the company more than $1bn.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Note7 recall could hurt brand, or not
U.S. consumer product safety agency is working with Samsung over formal recall
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3120342/smartphones/samsung-note-7-recall-could-hurt-brand-or-not.html
Samsung’s recall of Galaxy Note7 smartphones over reports that dozens caught fire might have a lasting impact on the company’s image.
Or not, depending on which analyst you ask.
“What more can a vendor do than a complete recall?” asked Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Research. “This is exactly what Samsung did. All I’d say is that that they could have sent out the ‘power down’ message a few days earlier and maybe sent that through the carrier text network like a weather alert.”
In fact, Samsung issued a global recall of Note 7s on Sept. 2. From the start, however, there was confusion about whether that recall meant users should immediately stop using the smartphones or charging them, since the fires were traced to problems with lithium ion batteries. About 2.5 million Note 7s were reportedly sold at the time of the Samsung recall, with 35 initial reports of fires.
About a week later, on Sept. 10, Samsung updated its advice and urged Note7 users in the U.S. to “power down” the device and “exchange it now.”
Samsung said consumers should visit the store where they purchased the device to obtain a replacement Note7
As of Wednesday, there was no formal CPSC recall for the U.S. or a CPSC approval of a replacement device. A software upgrade to lessen the power that could be charged to a Note7 in use in South Korea also hadn’t been approved for use in the U.S.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rush to Take Advantage of a Dull iPhone Started Samsung’s Battery Crisis
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-18/samsung-crisis-began-in-rush-to-capitalize-on-uninspiring-iphone
Korean company recalls 2.5 million phones weeks after launch
One employee posts on internal board episode is ‘humiliating’
Few things motivate Samsung employees like the opportunity to take advantage of weakness at Apple Inc.
Earlier this year, managers at the South Korean company began hearing the next iPhone wouldn’t have any eye-popping innovations. The device would look just like the previous two models too. It sounded like a potential opening for Samsung to leap ahead.
So the top brass at Samsung Electronics Co., including phone chief D.J. Koh, decided to accelerate the launch of a new phone they were confident would dazzle consumers and capitalize on the opportunity
Then it all backfired. Just days after Samsung introduced the Note 7 in August, reports surfaced online that the phone’s batteries were bursting into flame. By the end of the month, there were dozens of fires and Samsung was rushing to understand what went wrong. On Sept. 2, Koh held a grim press conference in Seoul where he announced Samsung would replace all 2.5 million phones shipped so far. What was supposed to be triumph had turned into a fiasco.
First, Samsung told people to shut off their phones and stop using them. A few days later, it offered a software patch to prevent batteries from overheating, signaling consumers could keep using the phones.
“This is creating an enormous problem for the company — for its reputation and ability to support its customers when there’s a problem,”
Samsung’s flagship electronics unit built its reputation on high-quality products and cutting-edge technology, becoming the largest phone maker in the world and a powerful rival to Apple in innovation. One employee, in an online discussion group, called the episode “humiliating.”
The crisis is straining a management team that’s been without clear leadership for more than two years.
“The battery issue arrived at the worst moment for Samsung and it seems like there was a delay in reacting to this communication crisis,” said Thomas Husson, an analyst at Forrester Research. “This may indeed be due to the change in top management.”
The roots of the battery crisis can be traced back more than a year, when Samsung was contemplating what features to include in new phones.
The battery is a critical component. Smartphone makers have been pushing the boundaries of the technology for years as they try to satisfy consumer demands for long-lasting devices that charge faster. That increases manufacturing challenges and raises the risks of defects.
Samsung opted to give the Note 7 a 3500 milliampere hour battery compared with 3000 mAh for the previous model. For comparison, the iPhone 7 Plus has a 2900 mAh battery. The main battery supplier for the Note 7 was Samsung SDI Co.
As the launch date approached, employees at Samsung and suppliers stretched their work hours
Still, by August, it looked like Samsung had made it. The company shipped early models of the Note 7 to wireless operators around the world
But when customers started using the phones, the fires began. The first signs of trouble emerged online, as they’re wont to do in this age of social media. Photos and videos of charred phones were posted on the web. “Hey YouTube,” said one man, as he described how his phone had burst into flame and showed off the blackened remains. “Be careful out there. Everyone rockin’ the new Note 7, it might catch fire y’all.”
Executives at Samsung headquarters in Suwon were in shock.
The phone division pointed fingers at battery maker Samsung SDI, while managers there argued the problem could be elsewhere, including in the phone design or insulation.
Samsung’s top managers knew they needed to move fast. Internally, there was a debate about whether to do a full-blown recall or to take less dramatic steps, like a battery replacement program.
The initial conclusions indicated an error in production that put pressure on plates within the battery cells. That in turn brought negative and positive poles into contact, triggering excessive heat that caused the battery to explode.
As it investigates, Samsung has stopped buying batteries for the Note 7 from the SDI affiliate. It shifted purchases to Amperex Technology Ltd., a unit of Japan’s TDK Corp., according to local media reports.
Samsung managers have studied past product recalls, including those at Toyota Motor Corp., and the conclusion seemed clear: Move quickly and dramatically.
But Samsung moved so fast it got ahead of regulators who help organize such programs.
Samsung, which may pay as much as $2 billion for the recall, said on Sunday it sold stakes in ASML Holding NV, Seagate Technology Plc, Rambus Inc. and Sharp Corp. for a total value of about 1 trillion won ($891 million). While Samsung says Galaxy Note 7 sales will resume in Korea around Sept. 28, it has yet to specify when global sales would resume.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ben Fox Rubin / CNET:
IHS estimates iPhone 7 $649 base model costs Apple $225 to make, up 18% YoY — According to a new teardown from IHS Markit, the cost of the new device jumped about 18 percent from last year’s model. — James Martin/CNET — All that new tech crammed into the new iPhone 7 isn’t coming cheap for Apple.
The iPhone 7 costs Apple more than you think
https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-iphone-7-costs-teardown-estimate/
According to a new teardown from IHS Markit, the cost to make the device jumped about 18 percent compared with last year’s model
Tomi Engdahl says:
Most Galaxy Note 7 Owners Getting a Refund or iPhone
By Angela Moscaritolo 20 Sep 2016, 6:56 p.m.
Just 18 percent of Note 7 owners recently surveyed said they plan to stick with the phone.
http://uk.pcmag.com/smartphones/84700/news/most-galaxy-note-7-owners-getting-a-refund-or-iphone
Turns out, not even the lure of $25 can get people to stick with a phone that has a history of exploding.
More than a third of Galaxy Note 7 owners recently surveyed said they plan to get a refund, according to SurveyMonkey. Over the weekend, the site polled 507 America adults who own the phone, and found that 35 percent would seek a refund while 26 percent plan to switch to an iPhone instead.
Another 21 percent polled by Survey Monkey said they would opt for a different Samsung phone like the Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 Edge, according to USA Today. That leaves just 18 percent who said they plan to stick with the Note 7 once replacement handsets are available later this week.