Category Archives: Smartphones

Week 88 QotW – Samsung Galaxy S8 Event

This is the second week of our new split format, and this is the Question of the Week episode. This week’s News Roundup should follow on Friday.

This week’s question is “What do you make of the Samsung announcements this week?” Samsung held an event on Wednesday in New York City at which it announced its latest smartphones, the Galaxy S8 and S8+, as well as several other accessories, including updated Gear 360 and Gear VR devices, and a new mesh WiFi router-plus-IoT-hub called Connect Home. Jan, who was at the event, talks through some obvious questions about the new devices and the other announcements from today’s event.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson@aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

This week’s links are all to Tech Narratives pieces Jan wrote about the Samsung announcements:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

Episode 53 – Apple in India, Facebook News Feed Changes

Our News Roundup this week covers three topics: Microsoft’s announcement that Windows 10 now has 350 installations; Twitter’s addition of stickers to photos shared through the platform; and Amazon’s new strategy for selling third-party Android phones with ads on the lock screen.

Our Question of the Week is “How is Apple doing in India, and how can it do better?” It builds on research Jan has been doing over the last few weeks on what Apple might do to boost its fortunes – and specifically the iPhone’s fortunes – in India. We talk about the unique characteristics of the Indian market, and how it’s different from China; the state of the smartphone market in India; Apple’s current position there; and four major themes around how Apple can accelerate growth and increase its addressable market there.

Our third segment covers the changes Facebook announced to its News Feed algorithm on Wednesday, the reasons for the move, and the likely implications for users, for publishers, and for Facebook. As usual, we wrap up with a Weekly Pick, this week two items recommended by Aaron.

I want to briefly thank all those who helped me in my research for this episode and my weekly Techpinions column, which also went up today on the same topic, including Shibesh, Harshil Shah, Sudeep Mishra, Sascha Pallenberg, Viranch Damani, Varun Krishnan, Nitin Alabur, and others. Your help and insight is much appreciated.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson@aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

Episode 37 – A 5G Primer and Samsung’s New Phones

Our News Roundup this week covers three new items: Android’s early developer preview of Android N; the conclusion of the Apple eBooks trial; and the debut of Amazon’s first live TV show. Our Question of the Week is “What is 5G? And should you care?” and piggybacks on an article Jan wrote for Techpinions on Monday offering something of a primer on the technology. We talk through the first four Gs briefly, and in particular talk about what’s unique about 4G, before moving on to where the process of defining 5G has got to, and when you’re likely to be able to actually use it. Our third topic is Samsung’s new phones, which were reviewed by many publications this week. We discuss the consensus from the reviews as well as what the phones seem to signify about the state of Samsung. We wrap up as ever with our Weekly Pick, which is another cooking-themed recommendation from Aaron.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

Episode 35 – State of the Smartphone Market, more Apple/FBI

This week, our News Roundup covers Apple’s response to beta users’ feedback on iPad Pro Pencil navigation support in iOS 9.3, smartphone announcements from Mobile World Congress, and Fitbit’s earnings. Our Question of the Week is “What’s the state of the global smartphone market?”, which Jan addresses. We talk about whether the smartphone market is growing, and where, which players are growing (and which aren’t), we talk about the fact that iOS/Android and Apple/Google are no longer the most interesting competitive dynamics, and offer some predictions for the future. Our final topic is a sequel to last week’s discussion about Apple and the FBI, given all the new information that’s emerged since our earlier discussion. We wrap up with our Weekly Pick, as usual, which this week is a website recommendation from Aaron.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

  • The Verge story on Pencil navigation in iOS 9.3 and future versions
  • The Verge’s coverage of Mobile World Congress announcements
  • Jan’s live tweeting of Fitbit earnings, as a Storify story
  • Related to Apple / FBI:
  • Aaron’s Weekly Pick, Serious Eats, a cooking blog/website.

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

Episode 31 – News Roundup, Apple Earnings

This week, we once again did our brief news roundup on several topic items, but then we spent the bulk of the time on Apple’s fiscal Q1 2016 earnings, which came out earlier this week (and skipped our Question of the Week and Weekly Pick features).

Our news roundup covered three items: the FCC’s move to open up the cable set-top box market, the disclosure of what are purported to be Google’s revenues from Android as part of the Oracle-Google court case, and insights from the earnings of the US wireless carriers.

In our discussion of Apple’s earnings, we covered the iPhone and guidance for the March quarter, what’s going on with iPhone growth and when it’s likely to turn around again. We talked about the significant foreign exchange impact Apple has been facing, and the fact that it’s been forced to talk about it now that its growth has slowed dramatically. We discussed Apple Watch sales briefly, talked about China and India specifically, and also discussed the iPad, Mac, and the potential for new products in 2017. Lastly, we also covered Apple’s new emphasis on its Services business and the power of its installed base (something Jan wrote about this week on the Beyond Devices blog).

As ever, you’ll find links to related content and various ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded SoundCloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also now have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.