Worldwide smartphone shipments dropped for the first time. That means we’re about it hit, if we haven’t already, the peak smartphone era. What that means, and what gets us excited, is it’s the setup for the NEXT BIG THING. In this show we talk about possible next big things and implications or the smartphone industry. Show notes are below.
Sometimes a product requires a new look or feature. Sometimes the change is seen as a disruptive innovation and people love it. Sometimes it’s seen as a tone deaf redesign that inspire people to write petitions agains the change. This week we look into the latest changes from Snapchat and talk about it in the context of other changes like the Facebook timeline, Digg v4 and and iOS change. The show notes are below.
The right to repair question centers around one seemingly unlikely tech company: John Deer. It turns out that tractors are some of the most sophisticated machines (dare we say, robots) with hundreds of sensors, computer components, and software to run all facets of the machine. As a result, repairs have become more complicated and companies like John Deer are choosing to lock down their software to prevent unauthorized repairs.
Of course, this presents a problem for farmers. Not only do authorized dealer repairs tend to cost more, they’re also not always conveniently close to the farm. To them, it feels like the big companies are simply trying to squeeze them for more money.
It’s a debate that has implications on all hardware/software devices: your phone, computer, washing machine, refrigerator, car, and more. This week we dive into it… and spoiler alert… we don’t really come to any hard conclusions. It’s complicated.
It’s the beginning of 2018 and that means it’s time for us to provide concrete predictions of what will happen in tech this year. We managed to keep the show under an hour, which is amazing. We talk about larger tech trends (telling you the theme for the year), we cover the big 5 oligopolies (Apple, Alphabet, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft), plus discuss some small players (Snap, Elon Musk, Snap, Disney). It’s a great show and will give you a concrete foundation for the year. See the show notes below.
It’s our seasonal finale where we review our predictions for the year and review what happened. There’s a lot packed into the 45 minute show (the prediction show, #275, was 3 hours!) Each of the predictions are captured below.
What happens when a founder/leader gets tired of their main product and decides to take on a secondary product? For the second product, they’re no longer starving artist, but a fat artist. Does massive amounts of money and people help? We discuss this idea in this week’s podcast with many examples.
Guy Hursh wrote and interesting article that discusses why Apple is commanding the share of profits, and the share of premium phone sales. He’s starts from the stance that both phones are functionally similar, and therefore it has to do with Apple’s better ability to promote themselves. In this show we dive deep into that claim.
iPhone X uses Face ID to unlock your device and provide new AR capabilities. We talk about the pros and cons of Face ID and the coolest new AR apps. Will it work as described? Is this really the future? See below for additional articles and detailed description of iPhone’s security.
Developers have been playing with Apple’s ARKit: a way to create augmented reality apps. Some of the initial apps look fun, but we want to know: is this a game changer like multi-touch was? Or will this be like Apple’s Force Touch, which is fun, but limited in its usefulness. In this week’s show, we dive into that very question.
Mary Meeker shared her 2017 internet trends report this week. It’s super long, but we broke it down to the good stuff. We also talk about the future of AI and how it’ll get smarter in a beyond-exponential way. The rest of the stories are below.