Blog

Driving Mobile from the Desktop

by Ryan Fuoco on July 31, 2015 at 11:43 am

Windows 10 launched with the key promise of creating a user experience that transcends the phone, tablet and PC. While this should, at least in theory, help drive the appeal of Windows-based phones, the reality is that it may be too little, too late for the mobile component. According to NPD’s Mobile Phone Track, Windows-based phones accounted for just 2.8 percent of U.S. smartphone sales in Q1 2015.

The One-trick Pony Lives On

by Eddie Hold on June 18, 2015 at 10:58 am

“My, that’s a large phone that you have,” said the lady. No, I wasn’t in a bar and it wasn’t a pick-up line. It wasn’t even aimed at me, but rather at my daughter who was toting around a gigantic Windows phone. Or as I like to think of it, her portable TV, since all she really uses it for is Netflix.

The Connected Car Epiphany

by Eddie Hold on May 12, 2015 at 3:43 pm

I’ve become a believer in the Connected Car, after wondering for quite some time why I should care about the concept at all. But my epiphany, if you can call it that, only came about when I didn’t buy one - and that doesn’t bode too well for the current market.

Control, Monitoring Just the Tip of the Iceberg for Smart Home Market

by Ben Arnold on April 20, 2015 at 1:57 pm

There are few categories in the consumer electronics market as dynamic as the smart home market right now, and for good reason. Smart home products like connected, programmable thermostats, networked cameras, and Wi-Fi connected light bulbs allow users a level of control over the systems and appliances in their homes that most have never had before. The category is growing as well- according to The NPD Group’s new Smart Home point-of-sale tracking service, sales of home automation products, which include security and monitoring products, smart lighting, and system controllers, have grown 27 percent in the past year as the market size has approached $400 million. And for the most part, consumers have a good idea of what smart home products are. According to NPD’s recent Home Automation Study, 78 percent of consumers said they were familiar with smart home products.

Sticks and Phones on the Strip

by Eddie Hold on April 16, 2015 at 3:55 pm

The Las Vegas Strip is a strange place at any time of year, but many of us only experience it during CES when it is overflowing with an eclectic mix of tech geeks, box-makers and execs all looking for - or touting - the next Great Invention. Without CES, the crowd is the more typical mixture of tourists and party-goers armed with “selfie-sticks” and smartphones, as I discovered this week.

Waiting for Godot’s Pal the YouTuber

by Eddie Hold on March 23, 2015 at 12:25 pm

Twenty-five years ago last Friday, Depeche Mode inadvertently almost started a riot. The band had finally become “big” in the U.S., but had not realized just how big. As a result, when they agreed to a CD signing session at a local record store – the Wherehouse record store – they had no idea that 15,000 people would turn up. Whoops. The message went out on the radio: “for all of you with radios listening to this, pass the message that Depeche Mode will only be here for three more hours.”

HTC Launches Initial Wearable

by Eddie Hold on March 1, 2015 at 6:05 pm

HTC has taken its first bold step into the wearables space, with the launch of the HTC Grip. The activity tracker is the first product to come out of the partnership HTC announced with Under Armour at CES in January. And importantly, the product looks like an Under Armour product thanks to its color scheme, and works directly with UA’s Record app, rather than having its own proprietary app.

In Search of a Bounceable Phone

by Eddie Hold on February 27, 2015 at 10:43 am

I break things. It’s (usually) not intentional, but a surprising number of devices stop working for me. My connected scales have refused to tell me my weight recently (that should tell me something), my automated door lock froze to death and my smartphone mysteriously re-boots on a regular basis. And that’s before I do anything unusually dumb, such as dropping them, throwing them in water, or losing my shorts (with my phone in them). So when I was recently loaned an “ultra rugged” phone – the Sonim XP7 - I couldn’t help but devise an unusual range of tests to see how well it would survive in my world.

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