Samsung 's quarterly report and the sad future of the mobile market, Android apps from Apple and Microsoft, 'smart' bus stops and a new type of battery …
Horses mixed in a bunch, people,
And volleys of a thousand guns
Merged into a drawn-out howl …
M. Yu. Lermontov
Samsung
Recently Samsung has published its quarterly report, which has shown very good results. For the first time since seven quarters, the company's operating income increased compared to the same period last year. In this quarter, it amounted to $ 6.42 billion against $ 3.6 a year earlier. As for the mobile division, its results are not so impressive – $ 2.1 billion against $ 1.54 a year earlier.
Representatives of the company have already stated that the key to success was the new flagship smartphones Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S6 Edge + and the premium line Galaxy A. In fact, there is a degree of cunning here – a solid part of the profit came from the sale of components (screens, etc.), yes and the fall in the exchange rate of the national currency against the dollar was just right here.
However, another point is much more interesting – Samsung believes that already from the beginning of 2016, the smartphone and tablet market will significantly slow down its growth, and therefore no longer expect any particularly outstanding results from the mobile division.
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Undercover work
Many analytical companies are speaking in the same vein. For example, according to Strategy Analytics, smartphone shipments growth in the current quarter was the weakest in six years.
Many large markets are already packed with smartphones to the eyeballs, the only chance to increase sales is to convince users to change their devices every year.
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The fact that nowadays smartphones are not the same, everyone is tired of tablets, and “smart” watches do not deserve the proud title of a mobile technical device at all, conversations have been going on for a long time. And, it seems, there is nothing surprising here – about the fact that before the grass was greener, and the sun was shining brighter, people talked, talk and will always talk. And not only technology gets here, but in general everything and everything, from modern music and sports to popular resorts and the taste of tea bags. And how many times in recent years commentators have buried the mobile divisions of A-brands, it's even scary to remember, Apple with Samsung have been living out their last days for ten years now.
One could continue to blame all this on the excessive pessimism of ordinary buyers or on the fatigue of the 'geeks' who have had electronics, if not for one 'but'. Gradually, companies themselves are joining buyers, which do not see any particular growth prospects in this market.
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'Electronic fatigue' |
At the same time, they behave differently. Some are trying to find new niches and invest in smart devices, virtual reality helmets and wearable electronics. Someone with their last strength is fighting for a place in the sun and no longer dares to think about it even for a year ahead. And someone is trying to go beyond the native platform, trying to force a part of the “enemy” audience to pour water on their mill.
Google has been and remains a typical example of this approach. Despite the fact that the company focuses on its own operating system, it has never abandoned the idea of making money on users of 'other people's' devices. Google apps and services are available on a ton of different platforms, from iOS and Windows Phones to netbooks on Linux and FirefoxOS devices. Android for the search giant is primarily a means, not an end goal. He earns not on the devices sold as such, but on services and advertising. But Microsoft and Apple took a different path for a long time – their own services were in their eyes the very bait that was supposed to lure (and then keep) the user on devices under their OS. And the very idea of sharing the advantages of their platform with competitors was perceived as blasphemy.
Microsoft
Once upon a time, even the mobile version of MS Office itself in Microsoft was considered not so much as an independent product, but as an argument in favor of their OS. However, the company changed its mind pretty quickly. Office is too serious and profitable to make it hostage to the popularity of mobile Windows (read, bury it alive). Pretty soon it came out under the same Android, even if the first versions were of such quality, as if MS were deliberately trying to sabotage a 'hostile' OS.
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Overview of the official Microsoft Office app for Android |
But with less iconic software products, everything was not so simple. According to rumors, the same Cortana was originally planned to be made an exclusive 'feature' Windows, but in the end they decided to release it for all mobile operating systems. Moreover, if you wanted to try it on Android, it was possible long before the release of the mobile Windows 10.
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Impressions of Microsoft Cortana on Android smartphone |
At iOS this is still more difficult, but the beta test (still closed at the moment) began there as well. In any case, some testers from the USA and China have already been able to test the work of this voice assistant on their own iPhone.
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Further more. The company began to develop special applications for 'foreign' operating systems that had nothing to do with Windows at all. For example – Android launcher Microsoft Arrow, in which there is not even a hint of 'tiles'.
And in spirit it is much closer Android than Windows. which, on the one hand, is completely logical … but on the other, it is still unexpected.
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Offtopic: Microsoft Arrow Launcher |
It just recently left the beta stage and became available on Google Play, where there are already several dozen of various applications Microsoft.
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Apple
It is clear that Microsoft has a special situation. When there are clearly no chances to conquer the mobile world using your OS, you inevitably have to make compromises. It is much more interesting that something similar is beginning to do and Apple, which had no problems with popularity iPhone and never did.
The first sign was the infamous Move to iOS application, which turned out to be a copy of the Copy My Data program.
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I will not abandon the 'android' because it is good |
I don’t know what the Cupertino company was counting on, but the application did not live up to their expectations anyway. Users Android perceived it as a rather mediocre and completely non-funny trolling, setting a rating of about two points.
By all indications, it looked like this was the first and last attempt to write software for Android for Apple. But reality turned out to be generous with surprises – after just a couple of months, the Apple company added a proprietary application for managing the Beats Pill + speaker to Google Play.
Why this is needed Apple is not entirely clear. Support the Beats product this way? Perhaps, but still strange. And somehow very much for show. Or maybe this is some kind of an attempt to prepare users for the announcement of the corporate client Apple Music? Try to gradually instill that music is their strong point?
Someone will say. that all this is nothing more than an attempt to inflate an elephant out of a fly, and the announcement of such an application is nothing more than a funny curiosity, an accident. In response, I can only quote an old anecdote:
The seminarist takes the exam. The father asks: “Do you believe in miracles?” “No,” he replies.
“Okay, a man fell from a high tower and didn't crash. Is that not a miracle in your opinion?
– No, it's an accident.
– Okay, the same person again falls from the same tower – and again he is safe. What's this?
– Coincidence.
– Okay, let it be. But the same man falls from the same tower for the third time, and again he is alive and well. THIS then what?
– And this, father, is already a habit!
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BlackBerry
Another example of an attempt to go beyond the usual platform can be the smartphone BlackBerry Priv. It was already discussed in the last issue of the digest, so, in order not to repeat myself, I will just show a new video demonstrating the main features of the smartphone.
[iframe url = '// www.youtube.com/embed/3d0bqe2Z7pI' width = '640 ″ height =' 360 ″ scrolling = 'no' frameborder = '0 ″ marginheight =' 0 ']
And here is a video about the features and benefits of BES12.
[iframe url = '// www.youtube.com/embed/KzOdoqJaypA' width = '640 ″ height =' 360 ″ scrolling = 'no' frameborder = '0 ″ marginheight =' 0 ']
All this is great and correct. Here are just one seditious thought – to buy (or not to buy) BlackBerry Priv will mostly not for this. Even if someone rightly objected that BES is exactly the essence BlackBerry. Either the idea of such a QWERTY slider from a once famous company will appeal to customers, or no branded services will save it.
The smartphone is expected to go on sale this week with a target price of $ 699.
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It just so 'by chance' coincided that on the same days an overhead QWERTY keyboard for the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 goes on sale. And at a more or less democratic price – 4,990 rubles. Considering the price of the flagship itself and the obviously small circulation of the accessory, this is quite a bit. Samsung could well have increased the price and one and a half to two times higher, lovers of the strange would buy this and that. And the rest would have passed by anyway. And for some reason it seems to me that this is no accident.
A few years ago, the very idea that such a 'blotch' could compete with the QWERTY-slider from BlackBerry (then still RIM) would have made me not even smile, but rather laugh out loud. Today it no longer seems ridiculous or funny. Just a little sad.
Whatever one may say, but the old era is gradually leaving. And this is the best illustration of this.
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Batteries
Whatever might happen to smartphones in the distant future, the demand for high-quality batteries was, is and will be. The only pity is that their development is not at all keeping pace with the appetites of technology. Almost every month we hear about another breakthrough, but things are still there – there has never been a revolution in this area, and it has not.
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Offtopic: new type batteries |
A new word in science and technology promises (once again) to be a lithium-air battery from specialists from the University of Cambridge. It will be based on a porous carbon electrode, which will increase the battery capacity tenfold.
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On the one hand, I really want to believe it. On the other hand, the immortal is spinning on the tongue, 'British scientists said …'.
In the meantime, active users of mobile devices can either carry an external battery with them or recharge their smartphone somewhere during the day. A lot is being done in both directions now, but only from the outside all this 'fuss around the sofa' looks even more ridiculous than the discoveries of British scientists.
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Offtopic: 'Smart' clothes |
For example, you can build batteries into clothing. There are already at least a hundred such projects, there are even attempts to build solar panels into clothes or automatically recharge the battery while rubbing clothes or walking. Against their background, the idea of the 'battery' strap, with which Aaron Krause went to Kickstarter, looks very good.
[iframe url = '// www.kickstarter.com/projects/iontechwear/the-ion-belt-sleek-safe-and-stylish-portable-charg/widget/video.html' width = '640 ″ height =' 360 ″ Scrolling = 'no' frameborder = '0 ″ marginheight =' 0 ″]
The design of the belt will be the most classic, the only distinguishing feature will be three tiny LEDs and an invisible USB connector.
The capacity of the built-in battery will be 3,000 mAh – just right for city dwellers.
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For those who do not like all these wearable bells and whistles, life will be made easier by the 'smart' bus stops that will eventually begin to appear in cities.
In Moscow, by the end of the year, the authorities promise to install 181 “smart” bus stops, where it will be possible not only to use free Wi-Fi, but also to recharge mobile equipment.
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According to rumors, similar sockets may one day appear in public transport, in particular, in new subway cars. The joke about 'wired' mobile phones is becoming more and more real every day. And in what place there you need to laugh, it becomes more and more difficult to understand.
