The installed base of iPhones in the U.S. reached 181 million units in Q3, a 3 percent increase from Q2 and a 14 percent increase from Q3 a year earlier, said Consumer Intelligence Research Partners Thursday. The installed base is “leveling off,” it said. It estimates more than four in every 10 iPhones in circulation are at least 3 years old: “These phones reflect the huge impact of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which at the time represented the first new form factor in four years.”
Wemo said its Wi-Fi smart dimmer is compatible with Apple's HomeKit smart home platform with the rollout of a software update. A new Wemo app, free at the Apple App Store, will facilitate a firmware update for the dimmers, Wemo said. The company’s mini smart plugs were already HomeKit-compatible, Belkin said, and with the switch, more than 1.5 million Wemo mini plugs and dimmer switches can be included in HomeKit scenes and be Siri voice-controlled via the HomePod smart speaker. Users also can remotely turn Wemo dimmers on-off and adjust brightness levels from an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac, it said.
One-fifth of U.S. broadband households has a tech support subscription, Parks Associates blogged Thursday, saying 50 percent of smart-home owners who set up devices on their own reported setup problems. Support services for connected households should expand protection for the entire home network “with knowledge of all connected devices, their capabilities, and how they interact with each other,” said analyst Patrice Samuels. Artificial intelligence and adaptive tech innovations can help companies develop a support service that is cost-effective while delivering positive user experiences, she said.
A coming folding phone is "just the beginning" of a product road map that includes rollable and stretchable displays, said Justin Denison, Samsung senior vice president-mobile product marketing, at its event in San Francisco Wednesday. He demonstrated the device open, as a tablet, and then closed as a smartphone “that fits neatly inside your pocket.” The Infinity Flex display was one of four trademarks Samsung applied last week at the Patent and Trademark Office (see 1811050016). Mass production of generation one will begin in coming months, Denison said. The two displays follow users from one to the other in a "continuity mode." Google's Glen Murphy, director-UX, announced Android support, including via application programming interfaces.
InnoPhase is in final stages of developing products based on its digital radio architecture to improve battery life of Wi-Fi, LTE and other IoT wireless device protocols by two to eight times, it said Wednesday: Multiprotocol wireless products are in field testing, production slated for early next year. IoT products based on its PolaRFusion “can cut the cord and be battery-based,” the company said.
ON Semiconductor is demonstrating ultra-low-power IoT prototype platforms this week at electronica 2018 in Munich. Demos based on its RSL10 radio SoC include the Bluetooth IoT development kit and energy-harvesting Bluetooth low-energy switch. Demos will show mesh networking, battery-less edge nodes and audio and vision solutions powering artificial intelligence at the edge, ON said. The RSL10 is said to consume 62.5 nanowatts in sleep mode and 7 milliwatts when receiving. The SoC, integrating an RF transceiver and Arm Cortex-M3 microcontroller, is designed for intelligent and connected IoT edge nodes, which can operate solely from harvested energy for battery-free, no-maintenance operation, said the company.
Research firm eMarketer ratcheted up its holiday sales forecast Tuesday, eyeing the first $1 trillion-plus season, benefiting from the maximum number of days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Analyst Andrew Lipsman predicted 5.8 percent retail sales growth, the highest since 2011. E-commerce will remain the growth king, jumping 17 percent to $123.7 billion, predicted Cindy Liu. She noted e-tailers' market share e-tailers battle to compete against Amazon (see 1811020019 or 1811050040). Mobile shopping from smartphones and tablets will jump 44 percent, reaching 5.4 percent of holiday sales, said the analyst.
Samsung added free ad-supported programs Danger TV (adventure short videos), Outside TV (adventure sports and outdoor lifestyle movies) and RiffTrax (scripted, humorous audio commentaries to accompany TV programs and movies) to its TV Plus service, said channel provider Wurl TV Monday. They join Wurl’s Fail Army and Pet Collective channels in TV Plus. Wurl plans to launch channels on all smart TV platforms.
Smartphones will continue to gain share as consumers’ preferred method for shopping online, with 48 percent of visits and 27 percent of revenue, Adobe reported. But completed cart orders occur 20 percent less often on smartphones than on a desktop PC due to “sub-optimal checkout experiences,” costing retailers $9 billion in mobile sales, per the report. Shopping visits by tablets are down 30 percent in four years to 8.8 percent of e-commerce sales, it said, saying larger smartphones and smaller laptops leave little room for tablets. Voice-assisted shopping will grow, with 21 percent of consumers saying they plan to reorder frequently purchased items, and 17 percent planning to use voice-activated devices to place one-time orders for in-store pickup. Retailers with stores and online shopping have an advantage, said John Copeland, head-marketing and customer insights, saying many shoppers want to interact with products in store and be able to pick up the orders within hours. Retailers with online and physical footprints are expected to have 28 percent higher conversion online vs. retailers without a traditional storefront, Copeland said. U.S. online holiday season sales this year will grow 14.8 percent to $124.1 billion, with nearly 20 percent of holiday season dollars forecast to be spent between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, totaling $23.4 billion of e-commerce dollars, Adobe said. Cyber Monday is projected to become the largest, fastest-growing online shopping day of the year, with receipts of $7.7 billion. Results are based on its analytics, cloud service and surveying more than 1,000 U.S. consumers in October.
Q3 global smartwatch shipments jumped 67 percent year-on-year, reaching 10 million units, said Strategy Analytics Friday. Apple Watch maintained the top position with 45 percent share, while Fitbit jumped into second, overtaking Samsung and Garmin. Apple shipped 4.5 million smartwatches worldwide in Q3, a 25 percent increase, but its share slipped from 60 percent on stiff competition from Fitbit and others, SA said. Fitbit had no smartwatch share in the year-earlier quarter, but shipped 1.5 million devices worldwide and captured 15 percent global share this Q3, the researcher said: “Fitbit is now the world’s second largest smartwatch brand. Its Versa portfolio is proving wildly popular across North America. Fitbit has further scope for growth next year by pushing deeper into Europe, Asia and Latin America.”