Streaming goes after broadcast radio. Spotify has launched a radio-like product that is a niche add-on for now but if successful will challenge the existence of broadcast radio in the USA. The new product is called Your Daily Drive and is part of the offering made to premium subscribers only. It comes in the form of a Spotify playlist that...
The shake-out begins. I suspect that Aurora will regret rebuffing VW’s attempts to acquire it as the loss of this key partner is likely to make life very difficult for this also-ran of the autonomous driving industry. Aurora is just one of many who I think are already struggling, meaning that the inevitable shake-out that is coming, may already be...
Samsung plays the waiting game. Samsung is still clearly struggling with the Galaxy Fold but I suspect that behind the scenes, it is waiting to see how the situation for Huawei’s Mate X pans out. Samsung has made a very vague statement regarding the launch of the Galaxy Fold saying that it will announce the new launch date in the...
Google’s defence of Huawei is about Samsung. Google has come to Huawei’s defence using the old fragmentation argument, but I think that its real aim is to prevent Samsung from becoming all-powerful once again and threatening its control of Android. According to the FT (see here), Google is lobbying the US government for a further extension of the ban or...
Drive.ai adds nothing to Apple’s proposition. Apple certainly needs to make an autonomous driving acquisition, but whether drive.ai is the right asset and the logic of pursuing autonomous driving at all remains very much open to question. The Information (see here) has gotten wind that Apple is looking to acquire drive.ai, most probably as an acquihire. This means that Apple...
Apple is still pretty far from the holy land with iPad OS. Apple’s new iPad Pro OS goes some way towards improving the ability of the iPad to perform like a laptop but still falls pretty far short. iPad OS was launched at WWDC 2019 and while it looks like a fork of iOS but in reality, it is simply...
Apple inches its ecosystem forward. Beneath the pomp and the adoring crowd was a series of updates to its core platforms which inched the iOS ecosystem forward but, in reality, did very little other than keep pace with its competitors. The main updates included: First, iPadOS: This sounds like a fork of iOS, but it is the same code with...
Signs of AI progress. More needed. Facebook’s ability to spot fake accounts is improving, but it is still making much longer than it should to detect these bad actors and remove them. Facebook has produced its transparency report for 2019 (see here) which reveals a massive jump in the number of fake accounts being registered but also a good improvement...
Uber now has to bow to the stock market. Uber’s maiden set of results demonstrated exactly the problem associated with listing immature companies on the public market in that its ability to fight for share is being hurt by its requirement to keep the market happy. It’s one consolation will be that Lyft is in exactly the same position, having...
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.
Epic Games – Party time.
Epic embarks on a trip around the Digital Life Pie. Epic Games is not resting upon the massive success and cash generation from Fortnite but is instead putting this money to work to build what may become a fully-fledged ecosystem in its own right. On top of its recent purchase of Psyonix (see here), Epic is also buying Houseparty...