Tag Archive | IPhone
April 10, 2014  

Digital lollipop simulates taste without eating

Digital Lollipop

Made in Singapore, still in laboratory development, digital pacifier will introduce a new meaning on the Internet: the taste. Using electrodes, it is indeed capable of transmitting the language all the taste pallet: bitter sweet, salty, sour. “Why not tomorrow discover behind his computer taste dishes prepared in Top Chef?” Other applications considered: appease “virtually” a sugar craving for the regime, educate people to new flavors …

DIGITAL LOLLIPOP (Singapour) VF – Forum…

TASTING all the ice cream you want and not getting fat? It sounds too good to be true. But researchers from the National University of Singapore have developed a ‘digital lollipop’ that allows users to simulate taste – without a calorie passing their lips, The New York Times reports.

While it sounds complicated, the technology behind the node is actually quite simple, according to engineering scholar Nimesha Ranasinghe who pioneered the project.

Small changes in vibration and temperature produce a sweet, salty, sour and bitter taste on the users tongue.

The aim is to eventually have flavours available through smartphones or televisions that could allow users to share dinner with their favourite movie characters or taste a product before they buy.

But your iPhone hasn’t turned into a Snickers just yet.

Researchers are still working out how to produce complex flavours and develop the all important texture and smell in order to trick the brain into believing it’s real.

July 1, 2013  

Apple vs Google vs: where is innovation?

apple-vs-google

Google’s primary source of profit is search-related advertising while Apple’s is consumer hardware. And Google’s five-front assault on Apple’s profit model takes advantage of that difference.

Here are five of Apple’s fronts and how Google is attacking them:

1. iPhone

Apple lags and has lost share in high end smartphones where 426 million units were sold during the first three months of the year. Gartner reported that in the first quarter of 2013, Apple’s global share of the high-end mobile phone market declined from 22.5% in the 2012 period to 18.2%.

Apple is number two to Samsung — which supports Google’s Android operating system. Samsung’s market share increased from 27.6% to 30.8% in the first quarter of 2013.

2. iPad

Android has already taken the tablet market lead from Apple. IDC expects Android to control 60% of the tablet market by the end of June 2013.

It wasn’t always so gloomy for Apple’s iPad. After all in the second quarter of 2012, the iPad commanded over 60% of the tablet market — but that figure has dropped ”to around 40% in each of the third and fourth quarters of 2012 and the first quarter of 2013,” reports Venturebeat.

And Android has been gulping iPad’s market share. Venturebeat notes that between the first quarter of 2012 and the first quarter of 2013, Apple swapped the lead with Android — in 2012 Apple outsold Android by 11.8 million to 8 million; while in that same period in 2013, Android trumped the iPad by 27.8 million to 19.5 million.

Moreover, IDC expects skies to darken for the iPad. In the second quarter of 2013, IDC believes that Apple will ship fewer than 19.5 million units because Apple is not launching what CEO, Tim Cook, called its “amazing” new hardware until “fall 2013 and throughout 2014.” Thus IDC expects Apple to ship between 17 million and 18 million iPads — leaving Android tablets with 60% of the market in Q2 2013.

When it comes to competing with Android smartphones and tablets, Apple can either cut price and slash its profits or hold its prices and win fewer new customers. Cook has yet to prove that Apple can innovate its way out of that profit-growth dilemma.

3. Apple Maps

Under a year after Apple removed Google Maps from the iPhone, Google introduced a new version that is simpler and can be customized to each user.

By sharing what Google knows about each individual from other services, Google can customize maps. According to the New York Times, “When users who are logged into Google visit Maps, they will see the places they frequently visit highlighted, like restaurants, museums and their home. Google learns the places they go by drawing information from all of Google’s services — including search and Maps history, Google Plus posts and information in users’ Gmail in-boxes.”

Bernhard Seefeld, the product management director for Google Maps, bragged to the Times, “We can build a unique map for every place and every click.” For those who are worried about Google knowing too much about them, this new service is creepy — but potentially useful.

Meanwhile, the memory of Apple Maps six most epic fails lingers.

4. iTunes

Google is going after music streaming through the introduction of Google Play Music All Access (GPMAA) — a service that lets users stream music using Google Play for Android. For $9.99 a month, GPMAA combines “users’ current Play collections with access to millions of additional songs,” according to Fortune.

Meanwhile, Google was able to secure content deals with three major record labels—Universal Music, Sony, and Warner Music Group — and beat Apple to market with the streaming service that iTunes has long-been rumored to be developing, says Fortune.

5. Innovation

The most important front where Google is trouncing Apple is innovation. To be fair, under Steve Jobs, Apple’s approach to innovation was to introduce a much better product in an established industry. The result was big success from great products like the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and iTunes.

But Google Glass’s big media splash suggests that creating entirely new categories of products can also be a way to spur growth. We can also speak about the Google Cars that can for sure impact also IT solutions.

Google certainly needs help there — since its traditional markets are slowing down.But it looks like Google is winning the war for the future: Google is offensive and Apple only defensive.

Related articles
June 13, 2013  

Apple, iOS 7 and WWDC: 7 articles for you to read

Apple WWDC

Apple CEO Tim Cook touted iOS 7 as “the biggest change to iOS since the introduction of the iPhone.” And it’s true. All the icons are still there in the familiar grid, but all the felt and wood-grain design elements have been taken out to pasture. Everything looks far more modern than it did before, and it’s all presented in a flatter, more layered interface.

It’ll be interesting to see how the general public responds to the new design. It looks a lot slicker, but some may find it less homey than previous versions.

Some of the new features include:

  • There’s a parallax effect for 3-D-like motion for home-screen images. Basically, your background photo responds to the angle at which your phone is being held to make it seem like your icons are floating above the picture.
    Control Center gives you quick access to common settings (sound, brightness, connectivity options) by swiping up from the bottom of the screen.
  • Multitasking has been expanded as well to include all apps instead of select ones like music apps or apps like Skype.
  • AirDrop lets you quickly share photos with your friends around you wirelessly. Taking a dig at Samsung’s marketing efforts, Federighi added, “No need to wander around the room bumping your phone.”
  • The revamped Photos app organizes your photos by location and date. Apple calls the feature Moments.
    Siri has been overhauled with a less-robotic female voice and the addition of a male voice.
  • “iOS in the car” is a new initiative involving several major car companies in which they’ll build the ability to turn your car’s information screen into a stripped-down version of iOS, with access to Maps, messaging and voice-activated controls. Look for it in cars starting in 2014.
  • The App Store will finally allow you to let your apps automatically update themselves.
  • The long-rumored iTunes Radio feature has been realized. It functions very similarly to Pandora, letting you play custom Web radio stations based on particular artists. Songs can be purchased in iTunes or shared with friends; the service is free but ad-supported. If you’re an iTunes Match subscriber, the service contains no ads.
  • Activation lock makes it so your phone can’t be used if it gets stolen, even if the thief wipes everything first.

Related articles

TECH in AMERICA (TiA)

by Om Malik (courtesy gigaom)
Summary:
Anytime Apple announces a new piece of hardware or changes its software, we get a lot of people weighing in on those developments. The news of iOS 7 wasn’t any different. There are hundreds of posts out there, but here are seven I like.

It has been one of those weeks where I have not had time to sit down and think about the various news announcements from Apple’a  annual World Wide Developer Conference. However, I have come across some really great articles that are worth reading and sharing. Here are some of my picks.

View original post 120 more words

May 17, 2013  

3Q13: Apple’s smartphone share in single digit

Apple 3Q13 screen-shot-2013-04-29-at-4-18-04-pm

The chart at right represents the worst case scenario for Apple’s share of the global SmartPhone market.

Using Apple’s own numbers for fiscal Q2, we calculate that iPhone sales grew 7% year over year in a sell-in basis while the overall smartphone market grew by about 36%. The net result is that Apple’s share of the global smartphone market fell from 23% last year to 17% share this year — the largest year-over-year decline in the iPhone’s history.

The situation won’t get any better by June. Based on Apple’s fiscal Q3 revenue guidance, we estimate Apple will sell about 25 million iPhones in the current quarter. If the overall market grows 30%, Apple’s share will fall to 12.3%. If it grows 36%, Apple’s share falls to 11.7%.

Given this, how can be maintained a $600 price target for Apple and an Outperform rating?

  • Apple’s market share typically troughs before new offerings… Apple’s share could increase dramatically with the introduction of a lower priced device, and meaningfully with the addition of new carriers. We estimate that adding China Mobile would boost Apple’s global smartphone market share by over 100 bps in the first year, and that a successful low end iPhone could boost share by 500 bps or more.
  • iPhone is still growing healthily. As gloomy as these market share forecasts appear, we model iPhone unit sales growing 15% in FY 2013, and 10% in FY14, and our model does not include the introduction of a lower-priced device. Yes, Apple is growing at a fraction of the market – because it is not participating in the fastest growing, low end segment – but we still expect it to grow.
  • The size of the total iOS ecosystem remains staggering on both an absolute and relative basis – and Apple’s customer base remains intensely loyal. In short, iOS is in no risk of going away… Moreover, our consumer surveys point to iPhone repurchase intentions of over 90%, notably ahead of competing ecosystems, including Android.
  • Market share does not necessarily correlate with profitability. Currently, Apple’s iPhone positioning is increasingly mirroring the Mac, which commands just 5% PC market share, but is highly profitable, accounting for an estimated 40% of total PC industry profits.
Related articles
April 20, 2013  

Apple: innovations wanted now!

  AppleDown

Since 2012, no major innovation comes from Apple. The company collapses on Wall Street since September 2012, and the Dow Jones with, in April 2013.

Greater the success, greater will be the fall?

While Apple’s stock had exceeded U.S. $ 700 in September 2012, she fell yesterday to U.S. $ 380 in the stock market on Wall Street, nearly half! As a result, the New York Stock Exchange finished well in the red and the Dow Jones dropped 0.94%. Worse, Apple action now displays a price / earnings ratio of nine times, it is ie very low, worthy companies deemed (“Permanently screwed”) by the markets. group at Apple, must publish the results of its first quarter results on Tuesday, April 23 through a difficult period, punctuated by disappointments. Admittedly, expectations are so strong!

What ignited the powder?

Cirrus American company said this week that its unsold inventory “of a product from a customer” were greater than expected in the first quarter 2013. Yet the company is a leading provider of audio components for Apple on the supposed flagship models such as the iPhone and iPad and it generates 90% of its sales through Apple!

This concern on sales adds to doubts about the future of the company: the management team have a vision for the company? Did Apple really revolutionary new products in the hood? How to improve its margins in decline since its flagship products become commonplace?

On mobile phones, the lead taken by Samsung

In terms of mobile phones, Samsung, selling 25 million smartphones per month, continues to steal market share at the California firm. According to forecasts from research firm Strategy Analytics, the South Korean should hold 38% market share in 2013, while Apple on the other hand do have more than 19%. In 2012, the gap was much thinner since Samsung had 32% and Apple 21% market share.

2013 financial perspectives

If in 2012, the company has still reached $ 43 billion, up 10%, some analysts predict that Apple’s net income could decline by 18% in the first quarter compared to the same period of the last year it would be an absolute first: the benefits have not declined over the past decade!

Some data still green

Apple has $ 150 billion in cash reserves, and has no debts. It helps to relative the health of the company. Who can say the same?

Related articles

April 10, 2013  

The Pricing of Social Innovation

SocialInnovation

Over-design & over-price products / services

Whether destined for emerging markets or developed markets, firms make similar mistakes when designing and pricing social innovations. First of all, they miss opportunities to respond to customer needs by over-engineering their offerings or making them too complex. Secondly, they over-price these offerings, thinking that customers will be willing to pay for “green” or sustainable products or for products that serve social needs in developing or under-developed markets. In other words, they over-design or over-price their products or services.

Sustainable value for social innovation

Sustainability has received a lot of attention in recent years. Recent concepts of sustainable value for social innovation have been explored and introduced by experts such Cooperider, Ross Kanter, Laszlo or even Peter Drucker. They characterize sustainable offerings as designed around user needs, right-engineered for the sophistication of local markets, widely accessible to the target markets, simple in nature and presenting little trade-off with respect to quality. In other words, products and services that fall in the social innovation sphere, carefully crafted to local markets and subject to advanced, needs-based segmentation approaches. Johnson & Johnson, for example, has been very successful at entering the larger Indian hygiene market by designing simple and basic products that respond to the needs of a large market, and priced based on local willingness-to-pay. Apple is now thinking about a “strip-down” version of the iPhone for emerging markets.

Local-local strategy to enter emerging markets

Many companies have entered emerging and developing markets by adopting a local-local strategy: local products designed for local customers. They have embraced the fundamentals of the value-based pricing methodology: careful market segmentation, assessment of willingness-to-pay for value drivers, pricing based on this willingness-to-pay, and communication to the market of the sustainable value messages. Value-based pricing in that case does not mean high or premium prices. It means pricing sustainable and social innovations based on the local customers’ willingness-to-pay. Many companies complain they cannot get additional premium in emerging markets for their “green” or sustainable technologies. They are looking at this the wrong way. By over-designing their offering or mis-calculating willingness-to-pay, they over-price innovations and miss their market target.

 Value-based pricing for emerging markets

It means using the fundamentals of value-based pricing for emerging markets and for environmental offerings. Cell phone companies do it successfully on the African continent. GE and Interface have transformed their business models around sustainability and eco-imagination. Other Fortune 500 companies are extremely successful in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries. The challenge resides in two critical elements of the innovation process: 1) right-engineering performance based on user needs; 2) pricing based on customer willingness-to-pay.

Join the value-based pricing revolution!

PictureSocialInnovation

See initial article

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April 8, 2013  

TOP Internet Browsers: tendencies, countries & more

LightInAmerica

TOP4 Internet Browsers on Laptops

For last 5 years, main evolutions are Internet Explorer (IE) position divided by 2 from 68% to 32%, Chrome started from nothing to the first position with 38%, low reduction from Firefox from 28% to 24% and low progress for Safari from 4% to 8%.

WorldWide5TOPBrowser5years

TOP3 browsers in 1st pos. by country

It is very interesting to see that the first Internet Browser is very different from a country to another. In USA, Canada, Australia, China and all south African countries, IE remains the TOP1 Internet Browser.

Chrome is the first Internet Browser in Central America and South of America, in all European countries expect Germany, Poland and Finland, in Russia and all old Russian satellites, in India, in Pakistan, in Morocco,  in Egypt.

And finally, Firefox is in the first position in most of North and central African countries, in Germany, in Poland, in Finland, in Iran, in Indonesia & in Madagascar.

WorldWideTopBrowser02-042013

Future tendencies for the next 5 years?

Positions of browsers of mobile devices are probably the most important indicator for the tendency of browsers position for the next 5 years, if we take as valuable hypothesis that the future of computers are mobile devices.

Chrome is also at the first position (Android) with 30%. Opera has reduced from 28% to 15% in 5 years, Safari (iPhone) from 22% to 24% has slowly progressed.

Firefox & IE don’t have any position on mobile devices currently. But it could change in the next 5 years, with high progress of Windows Phone with Nokia, and the launch next summer 2013 of Firefox OS, the mobile OS of Firefox.

We have finally to notice important progress of UC Browser from 0% to 10%, a very fast Browser working with all mobile OS. Is it the future main browser for all mobile devices?

WorldwideTOP9MobileBrowser

See more statistics

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March 30, 2013  

Why you need to industrialize your Mobile Center of Excellence

SAPInnovation

Scaling innovation certainly does pose challenges – particularly when it comes to mobile, unless mobile is at the heart of your innovation strategy.

Today, the top 5 devices activated are iPhones and iPads and enterprise adoption of smartphones is reaching 80%. App development has also accelerated. Companies who were experimenting with a handful of business apps are now deploying dozens or even hundreds of apps. And organizations that were once considered early adopters are now joining the majority. Given the proliferation and impact of mobile, it’s easy to see why scaling mobile innovation is now critical.

But how do you accomplish this? And what role should your Mobile Center of Excellence (MCoE) play? There are four obstacles that may be standing in your way:

1. Putting All Your Apps In One Basket

Mobility is a channel, not only a technology. With expansive proliferation of mobile apps, mobile stores, point solutions and platforms, there is a significant risk of investing in the wrong place – or putting all your eggs in one basket — a point made amply clear by the high rates of mobile app abandonment after first use.

2. Organization Without Representation

How do you organize and operate to drive mobile innovation within your enterprise? What kinds of operating models can capture the strategy and innovation cycles of your mobile effort while also accommodating the sometimes-stormy implementation and survival phase? Identifying influential mobile stakeholders will help you uncover ottom-up alignment opportunities amongst those who drive and support use case decisions.

3. A Use Case is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Today with mobile, the transformation focus is shifting to business user behavior and engagement. Finding the right way to engage users or customers can direct process change and subsequently transform entire businesses and industries. Use cases that leverage mobile technology and provide the right level of business orientation ultimately become the strategic use cases that truly matter.

4. Not Innovating Innovation

To realize the true power of mobility, especially Enterprise Mobility, the innovation process must be ongoing. It needs to focus on finding, building, managing and operating the right mobile portfolio at a predictable cost while also evolving with the needs of your users.

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