Apple brings the ecosystem closer together. Apple released one of its more interesting updates to iOS, included some concessions to developers and confirmed the widely leaked news that it is transitioning to an in-house Arm-based architecture for the last device category still to use a 3rd party: the mac. iOS 14, iPad OS 14 & Apple Watch . These new...
Google & Co. out. Rivals in. VW has confirmed its solo strategy when it comes to vehicle software, but it will need co-operation with other vehicle makers if it wants to make the most of its data and for that data to remain independent of Google & Co. To reach this lofty goal of software independence, VW has set up...
App store revenue shares are under pressure again. The original intention of the Apple App Store was to drive loyalty to the iOS ecosystem which begs the question whether all of the bad press that Apple is receiving for its mandatory 30% revenue share is worth it. Ahead of WWDC next week, the old bone of contention around revenue sharing...
June 17th 2020: Star, global Strategy, Design and Engineering consultancy, has published an analysis of the global vehicle companion application landscape. Star is partnering with Radio Free Mobile, to showcase its in-vehicle application trend analysis. Download a copy of the report copy here. Companion apps offer great opportunity for the vehicle makers who badly need to become more than vendors...
“relaxation” is not really a climb-down. The “relaxation” of the US’s stance against Huawei can be taken either as a sign of fear of missing out or as a move to ensure that US companies continue to have a big role to play in the setting of future standards. One thing I am almost certain of is that this “relaxation”...
Epic Games builds a war chest for bargain hunting. Epic Games is raising $750m at a mooted $17bn valuation from T Rowe Price and Baillie Gifford, as well as existing investors and I, suspect that the war chest will be used to pick up weakened competitors as the going gets tough in the coming recession. From an operational standpoint, I...
ByteDance is moving from growth into monetisation. ByteDance is showing signs of moving into the next phase of its life cycle which involves tidying up loose ends and moving to really monetise the global engagement that it has generated over the last few years. India has become ByteDance’s No. 2 market with 200m users of TikTok as the nature of...
The future of Grubhub is still bleak. Grubhub has decided to sell itself to Just Eat Takeaway rather than Uber in a move that cited regulatory risk but in reality, will result in a continuation of the bloodbath. In a hurriedly put together deal, Just Eat Takeaway will acquire Grubhub in an all-share deal that values Grubhub at around $75.15...
As with servers, the main issue is legacy software. It looks like Apple is finally about to pull the plug on Intel in its Macintosh computers and switch to Arm which will offer the possibility of unification of iOS and macOS but also raises the problem of all the legacy software that will no longer work. Apple is holding an...
Richard is founder, owner of research company, Radio Free Mobile. He has 16 years of experience working in sell side equity research. During his 11 year tenure at Nomura Securities, he focused on the equity coverage of the Global Technology sector.
Nvidia & Mercedes-Benz – The long cycle.
The 4-year design cycle problem again. Nvidia has landed a major blue-chip client for its Drive Orin platform in announcing with Mercedes-Benz but by the time it ships in 2024, the landscape may have changed highlighting again how problematic this 4-year design cycle is becoming. For those not familiar with the automotive industry, the vehicle design cycle is four years...