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.
India’s smartphone user base topped 300 million in 2016 – The Economic Times (Jan 24, 2017)
Counterpoint Research has good data on the global smartphone market, and especially in emerging markets like India, so the numbers here are broadly reliable. India is a fascinating market – Apple and others have often compared it to China, but though the size is similar the demographics and wealth are very different, even if you compare India today to China a few years back. I’m not yet convinced that India is going to look like China does today anytime soon from a smartphone perspective, and that makes life very tough for a brand like Apple, which was tenth in the overall market share rankings. It did capture 62% of the premium market in Q4, but the premium segment is only a tiny fraction of the overall Indian market, which continues to be dominated by cheaper handsets, increasingly coming from Chinese vendors. You might be interested in this piece I wrote a few months ago about Apple’s prospects in India.
Why The LG G6 Won’t Have Snapdragon 835 – Forbes (Jan 24, 2017)
This is sourced reporting from a Forbes contributor who (as far as I am aware) doesn’t have a long track record in scooping news like this, so take it with a pinch of salt. But on the face of it, this makes sense – Qualcomm’s 835 chip is brand new, and Samsung would logically need bucketloads of them for its next Galaxy S phones, potentially gobbling up all the supply available and squeezing other OEMs out in the short term. Apple is famous for securing long-term access to the components it needs and squeezing others out in this way, and given the timing and Samsung’s scale in smartphones, it makes sense that it would be able to secure all the available supply of 835 chips on a short-term basis too. That’s going to be tough for other OEMs launching handsets in the first half of 2016 – even though the article downplays the jump from the 821 to the 835, there are some significant additions in the new chip which will create better performance in areas like battery life, VR/AR, and so on.
via Forbes
Verizon grows its strong customer base profitably in 4Q – Verizon (Jan 24, 2017)
Verizon puts a brave spin on its results in its headline, but there’s a lot of detail beneath the headline which isn’t quite so positive. Having started the transition to device installment plans in wireless later than its peers, it’s still seeing declining service revenues and now expects to see that trend continue into 2018 rather than 2017 as previously forecast. Its postpaid phone net adds continue to be well down over last year’s Q4 results, and adds over 2016 as a whole were pretty anemic. Tablets are another drag on the company’s overall results as it continues to see customers who bought cheap tablets two years ago turn off their service as they exit their contractual lockups. On the wireline side, penetration of Fios TV continues to fall each quarter, while Fios broadband penetration holds up a little better. Verizon continues to be the largest carrier in the US, and a very profitable one, but as smaller competitors become more aggressive on price, there are questions about whether Verizon can maintain its margins and grow at the same time – recent evidence suggests that’ll be tough.
via Verizon
Virulent Android malware returns, gets >2 million downloads on Google Play | Ars Technica (Jan 23, 2017)
Malware continues to be one of those things that essentially only affects Android in the smartphone world – iOS is for all intents and purposes immune to it because of the strong review process that all apps go through and because apps are sandboxed within the OS. The biggest single downside of Android’s relative openness is this vulnerability to malware, and that’s especially worrisome when the malware is distributed through the official Google Play Store. The numbers here are small in the grand scheme of the Android installed base of well over a billion users, but if you’re one of those two million, that doesn’t matter.
via Virulent Android malware returns, gets >2 million downloads on Google Play | Ars Technica
Android Instant Apps starts initial live testing – Android Developers Blog (Jan 23, 2017)
Google announced Instant Apps at I/O last year, and I wrote about them in the context of the overall evolution of apps in June here. This is one of many interesting experiments around how apps might evolve, and one that’s uniquely well-suited to Google’s natural bias towards the web and search. It previously tested app streaming back in 2015, and that is also live for some apps today – the two concepts are similar but slightly different. They’re both ways to use apps without downloading, but app streaming streams an image of the app running elsewhere, while Instant Apps downloads the app in the browser for temporary usage and then clears the content again once an interaction is complete. That’s a subtle difference, but both alternatives get at the same objective – making apps available without all the effort of a typical app install from within a search, ideal for a one-off use of an app, but obviously not a replacement for those apps used regularly.
via Android Instant Apps starts initial live testing | Android Developers Blog
Verizon Lays Off Go90 Employees, Tasks Vessel Team With App Rebuild – Variety (Jan 23, 2017)
Verizon’s Go90 has never seemed like the right answer to the question of what a mobile carrier should do to make money from video (the right answer might either be launching a fully fledged video service a la DirecTV Now, or simply enabling all other video services a la BingeOn). These layoffs seem like validation of that sentiment, as it looks like Verizon is doing a bit of a reset on its Go90 efforts, putting former Vessel people in charge instead of the 155-strong team it’s had in San Jose for some time now, most of whom came from the Intel OnCue acquisition. Go90 has always been an odd mishmash of stuff, mostly freely available elsewhere with a few freemium elements focused on millennial-oriented content, but has never felt like a serious video play, and I still don’t expect it to turn into any kind of meaningful business for Verizon unless there’s a big pivot to a new strategy for the service.
via Verizon Lays Off Go90 Employees, Tasks Vessel Team With App Rebuild | Variety
Samsung Electronics Announces Fourth Quarter and FY 2016 Results – Samsung (Jan 23, 2017)
Samsung released preliminary numbers a few days ago, and rather shocked everyone by previewing some of its best results in a long time (and its best operating margin ever). Until today, though, we didn’t know the precise breakdown by segment behind those numbers – now we do: the mobile business rebounded decently from last quarter, but is still a shadow of its former self in terms of both revenues and profits, while the semiconductor business is going gangbusters. The latter provided a quarter of revenues but a little over half of operation profits for Samsung Electronics last quarter, and was the major driver of that fantastic overall operating margin. An increasing focus on premium products and rising prices driven by tight supply versus demand both helped that division, while on the mobile side Samsung seems to have done a good job selling Galaxy S7 phones to those who might otherwise have bought a Note7. It looks like Q1 might be a little tough on the mobile side – we won’t get a Galaxy S8 at Mobile World Congress in February, meaning Q1 will be the lull quarter before a likely launch in Q2. But overall this is a pretty decent set of results for a company dealing with the fallout of the Note7 recall.
via Samsung Electronics Announces Fourth Quarter and FY 2016 Results – Samsung (Samsung’s earnings deck with lots more detail here and there’s more coverage on Techmeme. You might also be interested in the Samsung Q4 2016 deck which is part of the Jackdaw Research Quarterly Decks Service)
Apple Pay on the Rise – TXN (Jan 23, 2017)
The headline here is a positive one about Apple Pay, whose adoption does seem to be on the rise, as this data from consumer spending analytics app TXN suggests. However, it’s also worth noting that the actual penetration of Apple Pay within the set of retailers in the data is still very low – no retailer has higher than 4% of their total credit card transactions going through Apple Pay, and that includes those that have iOS apps where it is by far the easiest way to pay (assuming you have Apple Pay set up in the first place). Apple Pay continues to be a fantastic technology where it works, but it still works in relatively few places, and as such most users haven’t been able to develop the habit of trying to use it everywhere. Even where it seems it might work (e.g. my local CVS) it often fails, which causes embarrassment and a barrier to trying again next time. We’re still waiting for the big tipping point for mobile payments like Apple Pay to go truly mainstream – for now it’s mostly still a niche technology.
via Apple Pay on the Rise – TXN
Alphabet Gets Matsuoka Back as Nest CTO, After Her Stint at Apple – Bloomberg (Jan 23, 2017)
Another departure from Apple who now shows up elsewhere, this time Nest, itself the subject of recent executive departures. Matsuoka has a long history at Google/Alphabet, and was only at Apple for a brief time – it sounds like the role there just wasn’t a good fit, and perhaps Tony Fadell’s departure at Nest reassured her that the sometimes toxic culture there is changing for the better. In and of itself, not an enormously significant departure from Apple, but obviously now part of a recent string of departures, something that’s worth watching for any signs there’s anything more going on than the usual turnover of talented people on the hunt for the next challenge.
via Alphabet Gets Matsuoka Back as Nest CTO, After Her Stint at Apple – Bloomberg
Yahoo Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2016 Results – Yahoo (Jan 23, 2017)
Yahoo’s results seem to have been well received, though it also announced that the Verizon acquisition now likely won’t close until Q2. The results themselves are a mixed bag, really – there’s been an interesting switch between search and display advertising performance over the past year, with erstwhile strength search taking something of a dive, while display advertising actually performs better. Overall revenue after traffic acquisition costs is still down year on year, but Q4 was stronger by far than the rest of 2016. Yahoo has changed the presentation of so many of its metrics that many of them are impossible to compare on a like for like basis year on year, but positive change overall is still hard to find in the results. Mostly, they’re probably better described as less bad rather than actually good. There’s plenty here for Verizon to sink its teeth into when the deal eventually does close.
via Yahoo Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2016 Results – Yahoo (further coverage on Techmeme)
Trump’s new FCC chief is Ajit Pai, and he wants to destroy net neutrality – The Verge (Jan 23, 2017)
It’s the nature of the beast that all regulatory appointments quickly get seen through the very narrow lens of a single issue that’s important to the tech industry, and that’s the case here. Ajit Pai is, as is the case with the rest of the FCC commissioners, a smart guy with a set of nuanced views on a variety of complex subjects. Yes, he’s clearly going to do what he can to overturn the FCC’s net neutrality rulings, but his time at the FCC will be about far more than that. On net neutrality, how you feel about this appointment will depend on how you feel about net neutrality – not just whether you’re in favor of it in a vague, general sense, but the specifics of what you think it should cover. The reality is that there has never been much danger of the major US broadband providers doing some of the things basic NN regulations would prevent even in the absence of regulation. But there are NN purists who insist that any unequal treatment of traffic is unacceptable, and they likely will be disappointed by what happens under a Pai Commission – AT&T’s preferential treatment of DirecTV content, for example, will definitely be just fine with the incoming FCC. On the other hand, I don’t think we’ll see any carriers blocking competing content or anything else along those lines even if the net neutrality rules are thrown out.
via Trump’s new FCC chief is Ajit Pai, and he wants to destroy net neutrality – The Verge
Inside Instagram’s reinvention – Recode (Jan 23, 2017)
This is a great little profile of Instagram, with lots of little tidbits of information. There are several overarching themes: the mimicking of Snapchat features is definitely one of them, but the broader context is that Instagram is generally moving really fast to ship new features, which is particularly striking given that Kevin Weil, who runs product, came from Twitter, a company that often seems paralyzed by indecision when it comes to tweaking functions. The whole piece reinforces the sense that Instagram is the vehicle through which Facebook is both iterating more quickly and trying to compete more directly with Snapchat, while the evolution within the core Facebook product is slower and more deliberate.
via Inside Instagram’s reinvention – Recode
How Facebook actually isolates us – CNN (Jan 23, 2017)
This isn’t a new idea – it’s been around at least since Eli Pariser’s Filter Bubble was published in 2012. But this study dives a little deeper and provides a scientific foundation for the claims made. However, it also demonstrates how much of the filtering and bubble behavior on sites like Facebook is really tapping into deeper human tendencies like confirmation bias, of which content shared through the mechanism of a social network is a massive enabler. Though the article doesn’t mention Facebook once beyond the headline, the study itself was focused on Facebook, so these findings are specifically about that specific network, though the patterns would largely apply to others too. Because so many of these features are grounded in fundamental human behaviors, they’re very tough to change too, so although Facebook may share some blame for enabling rather than challenging those tendencies, it’s going to be very tough to change them unless Facebook makes a very deliberate attempt to break up the filter bubbles and actively challenge users with new information that contradicts their existing views, which seems very unlikely.
via How Facebook actually isolates us – CNN
Apple-Supplier Foxconn Weighs $7 Billion U.S. Display Plant – Bloomberg (Jan 23, 2017)
There are lots of pieces that come together in this announcement, though the actual details are still very vague, and no final decisions have been made. Firstly, there’s the pressure from President Trump during the campaign (repeated since in a gentler manner) for Apple to produce some of its hardware in the US. Then there’s the recent meeting between the SoftBank and Foxconn CEOs and Trump around bringing jobs to the US. And finally, the suggestion Apple might use Sharp (now owned by Foxconn to make OLED displays for the next iPhones). One scenario is that, as with the Mac Pro, Apple chooses a relatively low-volume, high margin product to manufacture in part in the US, with OLED screens from Sharp for a high-end iPhone 8 model one possibility. Apple has remained entirely silent on the question of manufacturing in the US, and of course doesn’t actually build its own devices anywhere, instead relying on Foxconn to do the assembly, so the ball here is somewhat in Foxconn’s court – without its support, Apple likely can’t do anything.
via Apple-Supplier Foxconn Weighs $7 Billion U.S. Display Plant – Bloomberg
Alexa and Google Assistant have a problem: People aren’t sticking with voice apps they try – Recode (Jan 23, 2017)
Call this a rare bit of cold water poured on the hot topic of voice assistants and especially Amazon’s Alexa. The data here suggests that the third party “Skills” available through Alexa have essentially zero staying power, with most abandoned very quickly after the first use. I suspect that’s partly down to the awkward syntax you have to use to invoke Skills on Alexa, and partly down to the fact that most of the Skills are novelties at best, with many providing very little utility at all – the number of Skills available is one that Amazon likes to tout and reporters dutifully report, but is largely meaningless while this is the case. In addition, none of this really says anything about the usefulness or sticking power of the built-in functions, and that would be a great subject for a survey. I would guess that people stick with the core functions a lot more than these Skills, or return their devices because they’re not using them – the latter was my own eventual outcome when testing the Echo.
via Alexa and Google Assistant have a problem: People aren’t sticking with voice apps they try – Recode
Sprint Acquires 33 Percent of TIDAL and Creates Game-Changing Partnership – Sprint Newsroom (Jan 23, 2017)
The one thing missing from this Sprint/Tidal press release? Subscriber numbers for Tidal, which have been the source of recent controversy. As I said in commenting on that news, Tidal may have a tough time surviving if its subscriber numbers are as bad as they seem, and I’m guessing this Sprint investment is designed to stabilize things a bit. Partnerships between streaming services and wireless carriers are old hat – Spotify has lots of these in Europe, and they’ve helped its paid subscriber numbers enormously, while we’ve seen several others here in the US too. From a Sprint perspective, this can be seen as a response to T-Mobile’s Music Unlimited program, which offers free music streaming from every major music service, though Tidal is a much more niche approach, which means it’ll likely have limited benefit unless Sprint heavily subsidizes the service for its subscribers.
via Sprint Acquires 33 Percent of TIDAL and Creates Game-Changing Partnership | Sprint Newsroom
Snapchat Discover Takes a Hard Line on Misleading and Explicit Images – The New York Times (Jan 23, 2017)
There’s a certain irony in the fact that Snapchat is now trying to remove some of the lewder images from its Discover tab, when its early reputation (somewhat undeservedly) was that of an app that existed specifically so that users could send each other such images of themselves. But this is the sort of thing we see as apps and services that have been allowed to run relatively unfettered begin to ramp up efforts to court advertisers in preparation for an IPO, which is exactly what Snap is doing. Cleaning up the Discover tab should provide some more comfort to advertisers about the context in which their ads will be seen, though there’s nothing in these guidelines about racy images that are relevant to the Stories behind them, which I’d say many of the images I see in the Discover tab arguably are. The other side of this effort could be increased user controls around the content they see on the Discover tab, since some users would prefer not to see those images or the Stories behind them at all – balancing the needs of publishers, advertisers, and users is always the hardest balancing act for any ad-backed business.
via Snapchat Discover Takes a Hard Line on Misleading and Explicit Images – The New York Times
Alphabet’s smart home brand Nest expands to Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain – TechCrunch (Jan 23, 2017)
Nest has appeared somewhat stuck over the last couple of years – though there have been updates to some of its existing products, there’s been nothing brand new or particularly notable, and it seems committed mostly to maxing out its addressable market with existing products. That’s confirmed by this report of expansion into new countries in Europe, which is one of the few levers left to the company based on its current business model and products. I continue to feel very strongly that the future of home automation is services, and Nest has no direct play there for now, though its new CEO is well suited to pursue such a strategy. In the meantime, all it can do is attempt to saturate the addressable market for retail, DIY purchases of smoke detectors, thermostats, and cameras, which is largely limited to early adopters and tinkerers. That’s not a great long-term strategy for Nest, and until something changes in its business model, its future doesn’t seem all that bright.
via Alphabet’s smart home brand Nest expands to Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain | TechCrunch
Super Mario Run will be available on Android in March – The Verge (Jan 23, 2017)
Super Mario Run was an iPhone exclusive when it first launched, and as such was featured in Apple’s Fall 2016 keynote. However, that exclusive won’t last forever, and it appears that the game will be coming to Android in March, despite the criticism of the business model and other features of the game. What’s not clear is whether the business model will be the same – while getting people to pay for iPhone games is hard, getting Android users to pay up is much harder still, so I wonder whether the additional investment will be worth it if Nintendo sticks with the $10 unlock model. More broadly, there will be additional games for both iOS and Android later this year, so Nintendo is clearly still committed to its smartphone game strategy. However, we still haven’t seen the symbolically important release by Nintendo of any of its highly popular original games for smartphones, something almost every observer seems to think it should do, but which it chooses for some reason to resist for now. It’s also worth noting that Super Mario Run (though not the next game) is another example of iOS first, Android later – a trend that continues to be one of the biggest hits against Google’s Play Store and Android in general.
via Super Mario Run will be available on Android in March – The Verge
When Their Shifts End, Uber Drivers Set Up Camp in Parking Lots Across the U.S. – Bloomberg (Jan 23, 2017)
Along with its distaste for regulation, the other big narrative that dogs Uber is its treatment of its drivers. This piece stops short of saying that Uber mistreats its drivers, but provides quite a bit of detail on those drivers and their habits, including the fact that a number sleep in their cars at night, while others regularly sleep in hostels and motels rather than traveling home between shifts. The article also says that half of its driving gets done by full-time drivers, despite Uber’s marketing to those who are looking for a “side hustle”. The pressure for Uber to treat at least these full-time drivers as employees with better benefits isn’t likely to go away anytime soon, and one of the biggest questions around Uber is whether it will ever be able to afford to give them what they want as it reaches the point where it drives towards profitability.
via When Their Shifts End, Uber Drivers Set Up Camp in Parking Lots Across the U.S. – Bloomberg