Apple Could Make More iPhones Outside of China; Intel’s New Sunny Cove Chips & Archetecture; Amazon NYC Warehouse Workers Push for Union; Top 10 2018 Google Searches

Posted: December 12, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

With the continued threat of higher tariffs from the Trump Administration, Apple is looking at moving more iPhone production out of China. Techcrunch.com says Apple is looking at more production in India, and in Brazil, where Foxconn has had a factory since 2011. If there ends up being a 10% tariff, Apple (through Foxconn) will probably stay with China. If the tariff hits 25%, Apple will say goodbye to production in China (with the exception of phones built for sale within China proper.)

Starting new year, Intel will release Core and Xeon chips with a new architecture…the add a number of instructions that accelerate frequently used workloads like cryptography and compression. Intel claims a 75% improvement in compression performance. Arstechnica.com reports that Sunny Cove chips will be built using the 10nm process. It is a derivation of Skylake, but can execute more instructions in parallel with lower latency.

In news that will give Jeff Bezos heartburn, Amazon workers in New York City are pushing to unionize. They are working with the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, and according to the verge.com want to address safety concerns, long unpaid security checks, what they term unreasonable hourly quotas, and insufficient breaks. A leak recently of an anti-union training video Amazon made has increased interest. Among other things, the video encourages managers to express opinions like ‘Unions are lying, cheating rats.’ Even the raise to $15 per hour doesn’t begin to cover things for workers living in NYC, which is also true of other costly areas like Connecticut and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Because we love lists, and think it gives us insight into what the collective of humanity is (or was) thinking about, here are the top 10 Google searches of 2018: #10 (imagine some echo on the numbers if you must) Kate Spade; at 9, Stephen Hawking; XXXTentacion was in the 8th slot; #7 Anthony Bourdain (note that all of these people had died); the #6 most searched was Meghan Markle; 5 actually wasn’t a person…it was ‘Black Panther’ the movie; Stan Lee was 4th; #3 was Mac Miller; in 2nd place was Avicii; and the top spot was the World Cup. Don’t you feel so much more informed?

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Ford-Bye Gas, Hello Batteries; Samsung Giant Indian Factory; Owning Apple i Devices = Wealth

Posted: July 9, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Previously, Ford had announced that, outside of the Mustang, they were ditching cars for all SUVs and trucks. Now, engadget.com reports that Ford is going all-in on electrics. They plan to have a 300 mile range Mustang inspired small SUV (code name Mach 1) on the road by 2020. They plan to have 40 electrified vehicles…16 of then EVs…..by 2022.

Samsung has opened the world’s largest mobile phone factory in India. According to Bloomberg, it will make everything from $100 cheapies to the flagship S9. Locally, most sales in India are in the $250 or less range. Last year, India passed up the US to become the 2nd largest market for smartphones after China. Cisco did a study, and sees India going from 359 million smartphones in 2018 to 780 million in 2021.

In a study by the University of Chicago, in the US ’no individual brand is as predictive of being high-income as owning an Apple iPhone’. Businessinsider.com says the study was based on 2016 data. According to the researchers, owning an iPhone gave them a 69% chance to correctly infer that the phone owner was ‘high-income,’ which they defined as in the top 25% of income for the household type (like single adult….or couple with dependents.) For reference, back in 1992, the strongest indicator of high income households was Grey Poupon mustard!

Apple Working On Own CPUs for Macs; Cheaper Google Pixel 3; Tesla Model 3 Production Scramble; Facebook Adds HD Video and 360 Degree Photos to Messenger

Posted: April 3, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Just as Intel is rolling out i9 and updated i7 chips, comes word that Apple is working on Macs that run its own CPUs. Arstechnica.com reports that Apple could be shipping computers running its own processors by 2020, but it will take a serious rewrite of the MacOS. On the plus side, the Apple designed chips will use less juice, increasing battery life on MacBooks, and developers will be able to publish apps that run on both the MacOS and iOS for mobile devices. Apple is thought to be treading carefully in this, and would continue to use Intel CPUs for a time, as developers still need to build apps that run on Intel processors, and they would not want to take a huge hit to the App Store if developers balk at non-intel processors.

Google is apparently going to have 3 models in the Pixel 3 lineup pater this year. According to bgr.com, one will be a more affordable model. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news? The cheap model may only be available in India and similar markets, and not here in the US. As a mid range device, it would also lack features most smartphones offer as standard…specifically, the other two Pixel models. The lower priced Pixel 3 could hit the market in July or August. No date range for the two higher line Pixel 3 phones yet…or pricing.

By now, Tesla was supposed to be cranking out 2500 Model 3s per week. They are still falling short, but are now producing 2000 per week, so at least have gotten into the ballpark after a number of production hiccups. Theverge.com says Elon Musk claims to be sleeping at the factory until they hit the 2500 number. Tesla has promised to be building 5000 per week by later the end of the 2nd quarter, as they try to clear the backlog of orders and deposits still numbering several hundred thousand. The continued misses, have spooked Wall Street and the stock has dropped 22% in March.

Facebook is trying to put on a happy face in the wake of all the negative news about privacy. The social network’s newsroom has announced that Messenger will now be able to handle 360 degree photos and panoramic shots, as well as HD quality, 720p videos right from the camera roll of smartphones. They note you will need to download the latest software update to Messenger to get the new features.

iPhone 8 Sales Sluggish; Google Addressing Pixel 2 Screen Issues; India Passes Up US

Posted: October 27, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

It appears LOTS of people have been holding out for this morning’s preorder of iPhone X. 9to5mac.com reports that purchase data from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners shows the iPhone 8 is selling less than an S model has in the past. iPhone 8 and Plus models were only 16% of all iPhone sales last quarter, compared with 24% for the 6S and 6S Plus models. We won’t know for a while how iPhone X is selling or will sell, but it basically sold out immediately earlier this morning, with shipping estimates not at 5 to 6 weeks wait time. There will be a very limited number in stores next Friday, November 3, if you love standing in line and taking your chances. **Update: iPhone X reportedly sold out in 38 minutes early this morning.

Complaints have been flying about screens on the new Google Pixel 2 models…colors faded, screen burn of previous images, strange shades of blue at off-axis viewing angles, and on top of those, a high pitched ‘clicking’ during calls. Google says, they are investigating all, and a Google forum post says they are addressing them in an Android update. For the colors, they are adding a ‘saturated’ mode to the ‘vivid’ mode already included. To eliminate the burn effect, they are dropping the screen brightness by 50 nits…an amount that is nearly undetectable to the naked eye. A software fix is coming for the clicking, but you can turn off NFC to fix in the meantime. To ease fears of the bugs, Google has extended the warranty of all Pixel 2 and 2 XL models to two years.

‘We’re number…three?’ Yep, India has passed the US, and is now the world’s #2 smartphone market, behind China. According to techcrunch.com, India exceeded 40 million phones in the 3rd quarter. Looking at India’s 1.3 billion population compared to the US with 320 million, it seems unlikely that the US will regain the slot. China remains far and away the leader with 110 million shipped per quarter.

Apple-10 Prototypes for iPhone 8; Google Should Sell 3 Million Pixel Phones; Premium Amazon Alexa Coming; Cyber Monday Sets Record

Posted: November 29, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

There’s lots of buzz about what next year’s iPhone 8 will be like. Some may be true…but Apple is testing more than 10 prototypes of the anniversary handset right now, according to businessinsider.com. A curved screen is a consistent rumor, as is an OLED display with darker blacks and less power hogging. Of course, there’s the glass back and possible wireless charging. Apple was supposed to get OLED screens this year, but dropped them due to supply problems, so stay tuned.

Preorders for Google’s Pixel phone have blown the doors off what was expected. 9to5google.com reports that, based on preorders and Verizon activations, they should sell 3 million phones by the end of this year. The Pixel is already 10% of the premium market in India…benefitting from Samsung’s collapse over the fiery Note 7. Apple has also benefitted there, grabbing 66% of the premium phone market!

Amazon apparently has a premium Echo speaker with Alexa in the works with a large touch screen and higher grade speakers. Bloomberg.com says it may be out first quarter of 2017. The speaker and screen with be angled and on top, so a person standing can use it when it’s sitting on a counter or table. The present Echo sells for $180 when not discounted, so expect the higher line one to be over $200.

Cyber Monday was the biggest online shopping day, ever. According to zdnet.com, analysts say US online spending topped $3.39 billion, and that’s a 10.2% increase over last year. It’s also slightly more than Black Friday, which notched $3.34 billion. Interestingly, mobile revenue was a little lower than Black Friday, but it was still up 48% over last year’s Cyber Monday. The five best-selling toys in terms of quantity sold on Cyber Monday were Lego, Shopkins, Nerf, Barbie, and Little Live Pets. The five best-selling electronic products were Sony PlayStation 4, Microsoft Xbox, Samsung 4K TVs, Apple iPads, and Amazon Fire tablets.

Moto’s Modular Capable Flagships Coming; Foxconn to Build Big iPhone Plant in India

Posted: May 10, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pictures leaked out a while back of Motorola’s 2 Moto X flagships with what looked like fairly large speaker holes on the metal back, and a protruding camera lens. According to venturebeat.com, there’s more to it than that. The Vertex and Vector Thin will accommodate modular backplates you can swap out that add functionality. There will be at least 6 at launch counting the plain cover. The others have: stereo speakers; a battery pack; a camera grip with flash and optical zoom; a pico projector; and a rugged cover with wide angle lens attachment. The camera lens will sit flush with the backplates…which Motorola calls Amps….attached. So far, no pricing on either the phones or the Amps.

The Economic Times of India says Foxconn is close to a deal to build a 10 billion dollar iPhone manufacturing plant there. 9to5mac.com reports it will sit on 1200 acres, and be up and running in about 18 months. This is only one of 10-12 manufacturing plants Foxconn hopes to open in India by 2020. Apple sales were up 56% year over year in India.

The ‘Small’ Tesla Model 3 May Have Serious Cruising Range

Posted: June 11, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sometimes you see something you know will be a game changer. While a lot of eyeballs have been on Apple’s WWDC this week, Elon Musk spoke at the Edison Electric Institute get together in New Orleans. According to bgr.com, Musk let it drop that the compact Model 3, which is 20% smaller than the pricey Model S, Will have a driving range of at least 250 miles. If Tesla holds to the $35,000 price point on the smaller car, they won’t be able to build these things fast enough, and other car makers will breathlessly be trying to play catch up. The Model 3 will be rolled out next March, and should be launching in late 2017.

On the subject of the aforementioned Apple, major supplier Foxconn is reportedly in talks to open a factory in India. Reuters says this would allow them to avoid the wage inflation in China, and in addition help them keep Apple business in a market Apple wants to develop. Foxconn is shooting for developing 10-12 facilities in India, between factories and data centers…all by 2020.