Amazon Kicks Off Early Black Friday on Its Devices; App Tracking Transparency Hits Social Media in Wallet; Chromebook Falloff-Ed Market Saturation; iPhones & Apple Watches May Get Crash Detection

Amazon has dived into Black Friday discounts weeks early, with deep discounts on some of its own devices. Engadget.com reports that you can now pick up a Kindle for $50…a $40 savings! Kindle Kids also gets a nice price slash from $110 down to $60. The Fire HD 8 is half off at $45. You can score a Fire TV stick 4K for $25, and the Echo Glow (Amazon night light) is $10 bucks off at $20. It doesn’t have a mic or speaker, but you can use another Alexa gadget to chose brightness and color. 

Apple’s privacy initiative is costing social media real money. According to appleinsider.com, the bite into revenues for Facebook, Twitter, Snap, and YouTube is off nearly $10 billion in the 2nd half of 2021. No wonder they are all railing against Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature. Apple has made a big deal for years about protecting the privacy of its users, but lest you think the are bing totally altruistic in this, Apple’s ad business helped Apple Services revenue grow to $18.3 billion last quarter. BlueConic COO Cory Munchbach notes ‘Apple has done a great job in turning privacy into a PR ploy, but they wouldn’t be doing this if there weren’t money in it.’

Chromebook shipments took a nose dive in Q3, which is mainly being blamed on a saturated education market. Zdnet.com says IDC is noting Chromebook sales are down 29.8%. Tablet shipments are off 9.4%. Last year was a banner year, with all the remote learning and work from home going on, but IDC notes that schools that schools and governments that ‘blew out their budgets to provide devices for remote learning’ are pulling in their horns now. 

Apple is apparently planning a new feature for iPhones and Apple Watches that could detect a car crash and auto dial 911. This would be similar to the fall detection feature on the Apple Watch. According to macrumors.com, Apple will launch the feature in 2022. The sensors in the devices (like the accelerometer) would measure a sudden spike in gravitational force, or g-force, on impact. As with the Watch’s fall feature, the user would have a bit of time to tap the Watch or Phone to cancel the 911 call, and say they are fine. Personal note: you will have to act fast! I think Apple only gives you 30 seconds or a minute to tap “OK,” or the thing will call 911 and text any emergency contacts you have programmed in. I have never had a hard fall, but a few times when cleaning out the cat boxes, have given one a hard slap on the bottom to dislodge a ‘clump’ of kitty litter, and the Watch goes nuts and thinks I fell!