Tweet Facebook’s new Home on Android smartphone is an audacious attempt to demote the OS to a utility role, to keep to itself user data Android was supposed to feed into Google’s advertising business. Google’s reaction will be worth watching. Amazon’s Kindle Fire, announced late September 2011, is viewed as a clever “Android lock pick“. [...]
March 24, 2013 – 10:38 pm
Tweet Critics spew well-meaning generalities when criticizing Marissa Mayer’s first moves at Yahoo! They fail to see the urgency of the company’s turnaround situation, the need to refocus the workforce and spruce up the management. Last July, Yahoo! elected a new CEO, their seventh or eight, I’ve lost count. Marissa Mayer is an ex-Google exec [...]
Tweet Besides its ads, Apple says very little, confident numbers will do the talking. This no longer works as others have seized the opportunity to drive the narrative. The day before Samsung’s big Galaxy S4 announcement, Apple’s VP of Marketing, Phil Schiller, sat down for an interview with Reuters and promptly committed what Daring Fireball’s [...]
March 10, 2013 – 11:10 pm
Tweet When looking at the potential for a really smart watch, the idea of an Apple iWatch looks almost sensible. Still, there is a long way between the attractive idea and stuffing the required computer power in a wristwatch. As I somberly contemplate the death of personal privacy, our being spied upon everywhere, at all [...]
Tweet As they approach the one million apps mark, smartphone and tablet app stores leave users stranded in thick, uncharted forests. What are Google and Apple waiting? Last week, Google made the following announcement: Mountain View, February 24th, 2013 — As part of an industry that owes so much to Steve Jobs, we remember him [...]
February 24, 2013 – 8:59 pm
Tweet The iPad placed a clear bet on simplicity — and was criticized for it. The bet won. But now, can the iPad evolve toward more business applications without sacrificing its simplicity, without becoming a “fridge-toaster”? Three years ago, the iPad came out. The device was an immediate hit with customers and (most) critics. Steve [...]
February 17, 2013 – 9:56 pm
Tweet Rumors don’t actual Apple products make, see the perennial Apple TV — and the latest iWatch rumors. This is an opportunity to step back, look at Apple’s one and only love –personal computers — and use this thought to sift through rumors. Every week brings new rumors of soon-to-be-released Apple products. The mythical Apple [...]
February 10, 2013 – 6:38 pm
Tweet Looking for next big wave of products or services, for something as big as smartphones or, more recently, tablets, we see technology kept in check by culture. To qualify as a Big Thing these days, a product — or a service, or maybe something hardly more effable than a meme (think “social networks”) — [...]
February 3, 2013 – 8:43 pm
Tweet The iPad started simple, one window at a time, putting it in the “media consumption” category as a result. Over time, such category proved too narrow, the iPad did well in some content creation activities. Can the new 128 GB iPad continue the trend and acquire better workflow capabilities? Last week, without great fanfare, [...]
January 27, 2013 – 9:25 pm
Tweet To perform painful surgery on its business model, Dell needs to take the company private. Seeing challenges in raising the needed $22B, Microsoft “generously” proposes to contribute a few billions. Is this helping or killing the deal? The news broke two weeks ago: Dell wants to go private. The company would like to buy [...]
