Apple followers picked up the scent of the company’s dormant AirPower wireless charging pad (see 1710060023) this week, as rumors swirled about the mat’s impending release in a staggered spring hardware rollout. Apple announced an iPad refresh Monday (see 1903180027) and updated AirPods Wednesday. Thursday, Apple watcher MacRumors spied what appeared to be a new image of an AirPower positioned with an iPhone XS and the wireless charging case for the second-generation AirPods, after Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal report that Apple finally approved production of the wireless charging accessory. Apple first teased AirPower during the September 2017 iPhone 8 launch event. MacRumors used source code from the AirPods page of Apple’s website in Australia that showed “more evidence” Apple plans to release the wireless charging mat "at some point." The updated AirPods page was intended to showcase the new optional wireless charging case on a charging mat, “but Apple never ended up featuring the image publicly,” said the publication, which found it “hidden within a CSS stylesheet.” Apple didn’t comment.
SAR Insight projects 100 million voice-controlled speakers will ship this year, and Qualcomm’s QSC403 SoC will help drive “significant growth” in portable smart speakers, said analyst Peter Cooney. Analyst Jack Gold of J. Gold Associates expects most growth in the midrange of the market. The QSC404 and QSC405 likely will be “the sweet spot” but the premium QSC 407 will produce the highest revenue, he said. Qualcomm Tuesday here in San Diego (see 1903200042) launched the QCS400 family of smart audio SoCs, which combine artificial intelligence; digital signal processing; Dolby Atmos and DTS:X decoding; compute, media and graphics processors; and multi-keyword voice control support. Initial target of the four-chipset family is the fast-growing smart speaker market. Executives referenced additional uses outside of the traditional audio space. In a demo using a generic smart speaker as the voice interface to control a smart light bulb, Andrea Cantone, Qualcomm Technologies senior manager-product marketing, showed the difference between controlling a light using Alexa vs. in-house assistant Snapdragon. The Alexa command had to follow the script required by Amazon to wake up the device, go to the cloud and tell it to turn on a kitchen light. He told the Snapdragon voice assistant, loaded on the device itself, “It’s too dark in here,” using more casual language enabled by AI. The QCS400 SoCs cover a range of uses, and while they’re audio-based, the product categories don’t have to be. Qualcomm is eyeing thermostats, routers and appliances as targets for the SoCs.
Traditional watches were 56 percent of the U.S. “wholesale watch universe” in 2018, but smartwatches outsold them in Q4 and took 55 percent share of total watch sales, said NPD Tuesday. “We have entered a new watch universe where smart options have become as significant as the traditional,” it said. “Smartwatches are today’s growth engine, but there is still a place for traditional watches among consumers and in the marketplace.”
Qualcomm is eyeing a smart speaker market pegged at 220 million devices globally by 2020, Rob Saunders, director-product marketing, told us before Tuesday's announcement of a next-generation “smart audio” chipset. The company, he said, is pushing a “clear and obvious interest in voice UI,” or user interface. Interest extends to speakers with displays, cameras and audio products. Voice interface “is here to stay and across a variety of devices,” Saunders said. Music playback is the most requested smart speaker use, in some surveys as much as 70 percent. Immersive audio technology -- Dolby Atmos, DTS:X and Sony’s 360 Reality Audio, based on MPEG-H 3D Audio, launched at CES -- could drive a new wave of audio, said Saunders. The chipsets have Wi-Fi 802.11ax and Bluetooth radios and can support Zigbee devices. Having compute power on the chip lets engineers move some voice and speech recognition and natural language processing from the cloud to the local device for simple commands, said Saunders. That's useful in geographies with poor internet reliability, he said, for backup local control of devices without connectivity.
Josh.ai announced collaboration with LG to let TV owners request content through some LG TV displays. The sets will be controllable via commands including “raise the volume” and “switch inputs to Roku,” said Josh.ai Tuesday. The company bills itself as a higher level voice control product.
“Continued proliferation” of smartwatches, ear-worn devices and wristbands will help fuel a 15.3 percent increase in global wearables shipments this year to 198.5 million units, said IDC Monday. It forecasts an 8.9 percent compound annual growth rate to 279 million units by the end of 2023. “The rise of smart assistants on wearables, both wrist-worn and ear-worn, is a trend worth watching,” said IDC. "Though still in its infancy, the integration of these assistants with wearables opens up new use cases,” it said. Smartwatches were 44.2 percent of global wearables unit shipments in 2018, and IDC forecasts its share will reach 47.1 percent in 2023. “Smartwatches from Apple will undoubtedly lead the way,” and will be 27.5 percent of the smartwatch market in 2023, it said. CAGR of 0.7 percent and declining average selling prices will be dominant trends in wristbands, said IDC. “The market is already dominated by Chinese brands such as Huawei and Xiaomi, and IDC expects this to continue.”
Apple began taking orders Monday for the next generation of iPads, highlighting the “breakthrough price” of its $499 iPad Air and iPad mini starting at $399. Cellular connectivity adds $130 to the price of each. The 10.5-inch and 7.9-inch models feature Apple Pencil ($99) support and the company’s A12 Bionic chip with Apple’s Neural Engine. The company claims a 70 percent performance boost with twice the graphics capability in the iPad Air and three times the performance and nine times faster graphics than the previous-generation iPad mini. Both tablets include Apple’s developer app, Swift Playgrounds. Front and back cameras take 1080p videos. The devices will be in stores next week, and Apple’s video strategy launch event is planned for Monday.
The Illinois tech manager who urged the FTC last week to “put a stop” to manufacturer limitations on third-party repairs (see 1903150055) was “right” to call out vendors whose software updates can render devices unfixable, emailed iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens Saturday. “Oracle and IBM are tying security updates to service subscriptions in a pretty underhanded way,” said Wiens, an advocate of state right-to-repair laws who calls the FTC’s inquiry into manufacturer practices “a big deal.” Oracle declined comment and IBM didn’t respond to emails Monday. The tech manager, Timothy Pearson, singled out Nvidia when he told the agency last week that “any right to repair guidelines in today's high tech, firmware-driven world must address the issue of vendor cryptographic signatures being required to replace existing malfunctioning firmware on hardware devices.” Nvidia didn't comment.
Cadence Design Systems announced availability of Verification IP (VIP) in support of USB4, due to be released midyear. Engineers using the Cadence VIP will be able to develop standard-compliant SoC designs for mobile, consumer and display applications, it said Thursday. The USB Promoter Group announced pending release of the USB4 spec this month, saying it doubles the bandwidth of USB and enables multiple simultaneous data and display protocols. Based on Intel’s Thunderbolt protocol, USB4 is said to enable two-lane operation using existing USB Type-C cables and up to 40 Gbps operation over certified cables.
Complexity of radio components for 5G will lead to higher smartphone prices that could impede 5G, Strategy Analytics reported Thursday. New sub-6 bands for 5G, license shared access, uplink carrier aggregation, MIMO and millimeter wave present “stiff technical challenges” to RF component suppliers Skyworks, Broadcom, Qorvo, Murata, Qualcomm and others, and will require cost-effective solutions to the more complex radio needs of 5G phones and user equipment, said SA. In the past five years, RF systems have transitioned from discrete filters, switches and amplifiers to largely system-in-package RF front-end modules encompassing multiple technologies in a single package, noted analyst Stephen Entwistle. The resulting consolidation among RF front-end component suppliers has benefited Qualcomm as a supplier of the entire radio system, he said. Pressure on suppliers will increase with 5G: Those that can supply more complex and sophisticated modules and SoCs at attractive prices will see a revenue opportunity, he said.