Important Note
Tech Narratives was a subscription website, which offered expert commentary on the day's top tech news from Jan Dawson, along with various other features, for $10/month. As of Monday October 16, 2017, it will no longer be updated. An archive of past content will remain available for the time being. I've written more about this change in the post immediately below, and also here.
★ Apple Tweaks its iPad Pro Line and Further Optimizes iOS for iPad and AR (Jun 5, 2017)
Apple today upgraded its iPad Pro lineup and announced a new version of iOS with big changes for the iPad as well as support for AR. The major theme in both the hardware and software aspects of the iPad announcements was productivity, where Apple continues to push the iPad Pro as a potential laptop replacement. The hardware changes improve performance across the board while specifically tweaking the ratio between screen and device size for the smaller iPad Pro in a change that likely foreshadows what Apple will do in a more dramatic way in the Fall with the iPhone. Just as the Mac lineup became more powerful with today’s announcements, so the iPad is becoming more powerful as a potential computer replacement, and the iOS changes specific to the iPad further that message, with support for a much wider range of multitasking scenarios and other more sophisticated features. For the first time, the iPad version of iOS feels like it’s gaining a truly distinct identity that’s really optimized for heavy-duty productivity tasks, and it will be interesting to see how the OS feels on the iPads not designed for pro use, because a number of user interface elements and conventions will change as a result. However, the other big change in today’s iOS announcements is support for AR through ARKit for developers, which is Apple’s first foray into AR. Notably, whereas the VR support in the Mac is primarily aimed for today at creation of VR content, Apple’s AR push is much more end-user centric, and will enable developers to quickly and easily create a range of AR apps and games for the iPhone and iPad. Whereas smartphone-centric AR today is very photo- and video-centric and dominated by companies like Snapchat and more recently Facebook, Apple’s platform approach could dramatically expand the use of AR in smartphone apps and move smartphone-based AR forward significantly in terms of mainstream adoption.
via Apple (iOS) and Apple (iPad Pro)
★ Apple Updates Mac and macOS with Creatives and VR in Mind (Jun 5, 2017)
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Amazon Reportedly Working on Cheap Smartphones for India (Jun 5, 2017)
I haven’t really seen this picked up anywhere yet, as it’s coming from a lower-profile news site, but it’s a fascinating bit of reporting. It suggests that Amazon is working on low-cost smartphones for India and potentially other markets, which would run the standard version of Android rather than Fire OS. That’s a huge shift from the Fire Phone strategy, but a sensible one given how poorly that phone performed and how hard breaking into the smartphone market is for brand new operating systems. But the target would also be very different, with a focus on low-end phones in emerging markets. Given how hard Amazon is pushing to take a major share of the Indian e-commerce market right now, building its ecosystem in other ways makes a ton of sense. The one part of this that seems a little odd is that Alexa allegedly isn’t on these phones. That’s likely partly because it’s not available in India at all at the moment, but this whole strategy only really makes sense if these phones put Amazon services front and center. Otherwise, Amazon is entering a crowded and fiercely competitive market increasingly dominated by Chinese companies, so it’s not worth it unless it’s going to meaningfully benefit the Amazon ecosystem and help grow its base of loyal customers in India and elsewhere.
via Gadgets360.com
Weekly Narrative Video – Maturing Smartphone Market (Jun 3, 2017)
This week’s Narrative Video is on the Maturing Smartphone Market narrative, which has been in the news a couple of different ways this week, with the announcement of Andy Rubin’s Essential Phone, and IDC’s updated smartphone forecasts. The reality is that the smartphone market is maturing in a couple of important ways: both in terms of mature market penetration, which is reaching the top part of the S-curve, and in terms of technology, which is now at the point that smartphones are very good and innovation is becoming more incremental than dramatic. The video talks through these and other trends, and subscribers can see it on the narrative page.
Samsung Announces Pricing and Availability for WiFi and Smart Home Hub (Jun 2, 2017)
Samsung announced its Connect Home mesh WiFi and smart home hub product alongside the new Galaxy S8 phones in March, but didn’t provide pricing or availability, something it’s now done. It will go on sale on Sunday at Best Buy and then become available more broadly in mid July, and will cost $170 for a single unit and three for $380, with a higher-throughput Pro version available for $250 per unit. The pricing is comparable with the many mesh WiFi solutions that have emerged in recent years, but the big difference is the SmartThings integration, which would normally involve a separate purchase. I’ll wait until reviews are available to judge it beyond that, but as I mentioned in the comment linked above back in March, it’s good to see Samsung finally starting to tie together its SmartThings and smartphone businesses, and I look forward to seeing whether that helps SmartThings get more traction in the market. The pure mesh WiFi space is certainly crowded enough already.
via Engadget
Walmart Tests Using Store Employees To Deliver Packages On the Way Home (Jun 2, 2017)
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Some Advertisers are Moving Spend from Google and Facebook to Amazon (Jun 2, 2017)
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China Overtakes US to Become Top Contributor to $100bn Global Gaming Market (Jun 2, 2017)
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Waymo Exploring Expansion into Self-Driving Truck Technology (Jun 2, 2017)
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Amazon Adds Reminders and Named Timers to Alexa (Jun 2, 2017)
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Tech CEOs Respond Negatively to Trump Withdrawal From Paris Climate Accord (Jun 1, 2017)
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Facebook Reportedly Working on Messaging App for Kids (Jun 1, 2017)
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Google Confirms Plans to Block Some Ads in Chrome in Future (Jun 1, 2017)
There were reports a while back that Google was planning to incorporate some limited ad blocking features into its Chrome browser, and Google has now confirmed those reports and explained exactly what it’s planning. As the reports suggested, Google isn’t planning to implement a broad ad blocker but rather will block just those ads deemed annoying by the Coalition for Better Ads, of which Google is a member. It sounds like Google has started reaching out to publishers to explain the forthcoming change and will be providing detailed guidance on how they can ensure their sites are in compliance. As I said when the earlier reports surfaced, it’s smart for Google to be part of the push for limited ad blockers even if that may seem counterintuitive, because if it can focus that activity on egregious ads rather than all ads indiscriminately, it has a much better shot at protecting its own massive ad revenue than if others take more of a blanket approach. We can be certain that none of Google’s own sites or ad formats will be affected by this filter, but we can also guess that there will be something of an outcry from publishers feeling that Google is favoring itself while disadvantaging others. It’s going to be fascinating to watch this play out over the next few months.
via AdAge
YouTube Clarifies Content Policies for Creators and Advertisers (Jun 1, 2017)
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Baidu Partners with Bosch and Continental for Autonomous Driving (Jun 1, 2017)
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AT&T Adds $10 DirecTV Now Bolt-On to Unlimited Mobile Plans (Jun 1, 2017)
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Apple Adds Robot, Drone, and Instrument Support to Swift Playgrounds (Jun 1, 2017)
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Skype Gets a Big Makeover Focused on Messaging and Social Sharing (Jun 1, 2017)
Skype is one of those odd products – a fairly sizable communications property owned by a major tech company, and yet one which doesn’t make much money, isn’t growing much, and hasn’t really been focused on either messaging or social communication. It’s been clear, though, for some time that Microsoft would very much like Skype to be a big part of its consumer push and become more of a messaging- centric app, and the makeover it announced today seems like a big step in that direction. The new design, rolling out first on Android and later on other platforms, puts social sharing and messaging much more prominently in the app, but that’s no guarantee that people will actually use those features more or even see Skype as a natural place to do that kind of sharing. I only ever use Skype for work phone calls at this point, and others I’ve spoken to who use its messaging features use those almost exclusively for work communication too, so I’d be very curious to hear more from Microsoft about who is using messaging on Skype and what they’re using it for. My guess is that, for all the changes Microsoft is making here, it won’t be that much more successful than in the past in making Skype a mainstream consumer service or app for social communication and messaging. It doesn’t have the brand or the user base to make that objective work. It’s also adding in more bots, an effort that began with a bang at Build last year but has been quiet since, but again those will only be relevant inasmuch as people are spending a lot of time in Skype already and want and expect to find those interactions with brands and companies there. In the end, I don’t see anything here that makes me think Skype is going to become a radically different animal, even if it might look quite different after these changes. And that’s emblematic of Microsoft’s broader consumer challenges: it simply doesn’t have a broad-based consumer play at this point beyond productivity.
via TechCrunch
Verizon Had $100bn Offer for Charter Rebuffed (Jun 1, 2017)
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EU Reports that US Internet Companies Have Improved Removal of Hate Speech (Jun 1, 2017)
Back in December, four big US Internet companies signed a voluntary code of conduct with the EU under which they agreed to improve and accelerate the removal of hate speech from their platforms. Now, the EU is reporting good progress on those goals, with twice as high a percent of offending content removed, and Facebook and Twitter removing substantially more content within the first 24 hours, while YouTube slipped a little in this regard for reasons that aren’t clear. As Facebook has discovered, policing content is an expensive and labor-intensive task at the best of times, but having external standards set like this raises the stakes even further. The big risk in the EU and specific European countries is that this moves from voluntary codes of conduct to actual laws with significant consequences for non-compliance, so the big US companies are wise to do what they can to play nicely to try to ward off such outcomes.
via Reuters