China is close to 'peak smartphone'. What happens next? More than 90 percent of China’s consumers now have smartphones, IDC said earlier week.
Smartphones are now a common tool in the country, owned by the average Zhou, just like washing machines or rice cookers. That’s why China’s smartphone shipments dropped four percent year-on-year in Q1 2015, to 98.8 million units – the first time in six years that has happened. So China is now close to ‘peak smartphone’. What happens next? Here are a few things that might occur in the year ahead: 1. “Apple is perceived as a luxury brand in China, so its brand status is just as important as its utility in the Chinese market,” says Liz Flora, who watches the China luxury market as editor-in-chief at Jing Daily. Why The Apple Watch Could Succeed (Even If It Fails) Two important, distinct watches bookended my youth.
What the Tech World Doesn't Understand About Fashion - Racked. "We desperately need the fashion industry," proclaimed Ayse Ildeniz, VP of Intel's new devices group, in the Wall Street Journal recently.
"The fashion industry understands the aesthetic sense, but also it is very much in tune with why a woman would wear something on her body. " What the Tech World Doesn't Understand About Fashion - Racked. Want Elon Musk to Hire You at Tesla? Work for Apple - Bloomberg Business. Doug Field never considered leaving Apple.
From the summer of 2008 to the fall of 2013, Field, a former chief technology officer for Segway and development engineer for Ford, oversaw product and hardware design, working on the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and the iMac. He earned a generous salary and was excited by the work. Then Elon Musk and Tesla Motors came calling, and Field agreed to become vice president of its vehicle program. Why Apple Pay is the future. Critics are fond of saying Apple doesn’t innovate any more.
But Apple’s new electronic payment system, Apple Pay, is innovation of the highest order. After a relatively smooth rollout this week, I honestly believe Apple Pay is the future of payments. Even so, Apple Pay must clear some big hurdles if it’s to become the universal standard. How Lego Became The Apple Of Toys. Every September, largely unbeknownst to the rest of the company, a group of around 50 Lego employees descends upon Spain’s Mediterranean coast, armed with sunblock, huge bins of Lego bricks, and a decade’s worth of research into the ways children play.
The group, which is called the Future Lab, is the Danish toy giant’s secretive and highly ambitious R&D team, charged with inventing entirely new, technologically enhanced "play experiences" for kids all over the world. Or, as Lego Group CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp puts it, "It’s about discovering what’s obviously Lego, but has never been seen before. " 13 Lessons for Design's New Golden Age. Whether it be architecture, technology, or design.
My new role just involves a broader audience—investors, analysts, and others. I took on this role because design and creativity are Burberry's soul. That's always been my approach. Has your design vision changed as you've settled into the new role? Convenience — Apple Watch's killer feature. A lot of the post-game analysis surrounding the Apple Watch event in September centered on the showcasing of a list of features rather than the presentation of a clear case for why people need it in their lives.
There was no iPhone-style "are you getting it yet? " moment or iPad-style "better than both" argument. Yet the neither of those devices really sold based on those pitches. The iPhone had us at the interface and the iPad at the experience. Because of that — because we've seen amazing interfaces and enjoyed incredible experiences already — the Apple Watch will have to have us at something else.
Before the Apple Watch was announced I wrote that I hoped it would excel at doing four things: Logging: Collecting sensor-derived health and fitness data via HealthKit. Apple did all those and one better: Communicating Since most of those things are backed up by frameworks like HealthKit, WatchKit, PassKit, and HomeKit, we'll be able to do whole lot more as well. Logging. That's how it works. Convenience — Apple Watch's killer feature. Disney CEO Bob Iger's empire of tech. Even in a dress-down gray sweater, Bob Iger looks a bit mechanical.
His mouth is almost geometrically straight, his face constructed of some cool alloy. His hair, of course, is perfect. That he can remain so mirthless even while wearing red-rimmed 3-D glasses and a fedora bedecked with tiny blinking lights is something of an achievement. Slowly he steps into the Dish, a windowless virtual reality chamber with curved walls at Disney’s Imagineering labs, a short drive from his office in Burbank, Calif. He is now in a forest—with cartoonish, lush green trees and brightly colored flowers, each comprising millions of floating pixels. Disney CEO Bob Iger's empire of tech. 13 Lessons for Design's New Golden Age.
13 Lessons for Design's New Golden Age. Apple Failed To Revolutionize The iPad. So What? Apple iPad Air 2 brings 'soft sim' to break mobile networks' stranglehold. Apple’s new 4G-capable iPad Air 2 has a software-based sim card, removing the need for the small white plastic card that mobile phone operators use to control access to their services.
The new Apple sim in the iPad Air 2 means users in the US or UK do not need to get a sim card from a mobile phone providers, but can sign up directly for services from the device - and use the same sim in different countries with different providers. “The Apple sim gives you the flexibility to choose from a variety of short-term plans from selected carriers in the US and UK right there on your iPad,” wrote Apple on its site for the iPad Air 2. The move is a step closer to an entirely software-based sim for any country, which would give device buyers huge freedom in choosing their mobile supplier.