Apple iPhone Sales

A new study about actual users of the iPhone 8 and iPhone X shows that combined adoption of the two models during the first few days of use as a percentage of the total user base is higher than that of the iPhone 6s or 7 at the same time in rollout.

According to analytics firm Localytics, the iPhone X achieved 0.93 percent of the total iPhone user share after only a weekend of use. The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus garnered 0.7 percent, pushing the pair over 1.6 percent.

For comparison, the iPhone 6s in 2015 captured 1 percent of the iPhone active user base, with the iPhone 6s Plus taking 0.3 percent. The iPhone 7 also seized 1 percent, with the tightly constrained iPhone 7 Plus seeing 0.2 percent of the active user base.

In 2014, the iPhone 6 captured 2 percent, with the iPhone 6 Plus collecting 0.3 percent.

What the percentages do not account for, and Localytics points out, is the growth in the iPhone user base over time. While the iPhone 6 saw the highest percentage of users in the first active week of use in 2014, there was a groundswell of users upgrading to the first larger form-factor iPhones produced —and a smaller amount of total users than there are now.

Localytics expects that if Apple's predictions of a best-ever quarter are accurate, the iPhone X will grab more of the overall user base than previous models have.

The research firm based the 2017 data on 70 million iOS devices globally. The iPhone X data collection period was Nov. 3 to Nov. 5.

God Help Us

A Pew Research Center survey of US social media users found that more are turning to Twitter, YouTube—and even Tumblr—to get news.

Take Twitter, for example. More Twitter users (74%) said they are getting news from the social network than said the same in 2013 (52%).

But it’s not just Twitter.

More people on YouTube—a platform that’s not necessarily known for news content—are also turning to the site for news. In 2013, 20% said they did. Fast forward to 2017, and that number has increased to 32%.

And news-seeking among Snapchat’s users also increased by 12 percentage points between 2016 and 2017.

Separate June 2017 data from Kantar, which analyzed the social platforms US users had accessed in the past week, found that by far the highest proportion of respondents—85%—accessed news via Facebook.

By contrast, 39% said they did so via YouTube and almost as many (35%) through Twitter.

Lumion Cases

By Bayle Emlein

Even before the iPhone X was announced, Lumion was showing stylish cases to protect it.

The same models are available for the Galaxy Note 8. Lumion has a patent-pending semi-automatic slide on the back of its cases to keep cards out of view when not needed and permit easy access without when they are. The Osprey holds 2 cards. The Chinook case can hold five and has a high tech rugged design that provides extra protection for the screen and cut-outs. If you want to be sure the features of your are visible, choose a Diamont case, which has a clear back. The Savant is a wallet case with leather finish that has slots and pockets maximize your carrying capacity. Huey is a single-layer case molded from matte thermoplastic polyurethane. Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) is clear, smudge and finger-print resistant, and flexible. Huey provides a minimalist cushion to protect your phone.

Lumion has many more models to select from at https://lumionus.com.

Lifepack Hustle

By Bayle Emlein

The rucksack has entered the 21st Century. The Hustle collection of Lifepack packs and shoulder bags meets the needs of the millennial professional. They are solar powered and anti-theft.

Solar powered? Solar charging batteries keep all that essential 21st Century gear juiced up no matter how far off the grid you take it. The Hustle pack has a waterproof nylon cover you can pull out of its invisible pocket to be sure that everything stays dry in a downpour.

Anti-theft? Welcome to the 21st Century. An anti-cut layer of plastic and a retractable cable lock with a 3-digit combination lock the pack, attach your gear to the pack or the pack to a fixed object. An anti-shock foam pad at the bottom of the Lifepack protects your electronics from hard landings. Lots of organized storage keeps said gear in its place and accessible.

Solgaard’s goal is to have all pre-ordered Hustle packs and shoulder bags delivered by December. Instead of a little something in someone’s stocking, why not give a person you really care about something really nice to stuff. That person could be you.

Look for them at https://solgaard.co. Make your fingers leave the >M< off at the end, and note that the letter >A< is doubled.

Energizer Hard Case

By Bayle Emlein

You know what Energizer does: it keeps going and going. Avenir Telecom, one of the leading providers in Europe, has partnered with Energizer to develop chargers, cables, and surge protectors. At ShowStoppers in September, the afternoon before the opening of Mobile World Congress Americas, they featured two prototype models of telephone. The first is Energizer® Smartphone Hard Case H550S.

The Hard Case H550S is dustproof, waterproof, and drop tested. At 11.1mm, it is the thinnest device in its category. A “Gorilla Glass 3” screen is built in and it comes with an extra Asahi tempered glass screen protector. It sports a 16MP back camera.

Energizer Powermax P600S is a consumer product with a long-lasting battery for all day use. The curved edgeless screen of the 600S offers high-quality viewing on the Gorilla Glass screen.

Both phones will have a 4500mAh battery of granting the users twice as much time than the average smartphones of the market. Also like the other phones in the line, the Powermax P600S maintains a thin and elegant design.

Energizer lightning, USB-C and Micro-USB cables. for and are already available around the world through Avenir Telecom. A rugged smartphone that can keep on going and has style will be a nice addition to their product line and to consumer choice.

Doppler Labs is Gone

Doppler Labs, a smart earbud company that raised more than $50 million in funding from backers like Universal Music, Live Nation and the Chernin Group has shut down after running out of cash and options.

The company posted a farewell note to customers on its site this morning.

The startup most notably developed the Here One earbuds, a competitor to Apple’s AirPods that packed in noise-cancelling and a feature called “active listening,” which allowed users to augment the way they heard the world around them so they could tune out the hum of traffic or a jet engine while still being able to hear human voices.

In an extensive interview with Wired, CEO Noah Kraft told the publication that after preliminary acquisition meetings with all the “big five” (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft) didn’t go anywhere, the company was left scrambling to raise more money as lackluster sales of the Here Ones (the company sold just 25,000 pairs) made it apparent that the startup might not be cut out for the cutthroat world of hardware.

“We fucking started a hardware business! There’s nothing else to talk about. We shouldn’t have done that,” Kraft told Wired.

The company was early to the idea of wireless earbuds, launching a Kickstarter for an earlier product called Here Active Listening, which took the idea of headphones for a spin. It was a product that couldn’t even play music, it only utilized the company’s active listening noise augmentation, and yet the startup raised $635,000 in the campaign. In interviews, Kraft called the device a “proof of concept” for what would come later.

What came next were the Here Ones, a device that captured my attention and excitement in early demos, but was ultimately hampered by product and feature delays. The Achilles’ heel of the device was its paltry battery life, which negated most of the promises of a device that promised to augment your daily listening. While the company’s leadership initially gave the press battery life numbers that were in the range of AirPods, what ended up shipping was a device that showcased a lot of cool technologies in a tiny package that generally lasted only a couple of hours on a single charge.

Though Doppler Labs’ forward-thinking vision of a world where everyone has a computer in their ears may one day come to fruition, it will be another company’s challenge to take on.

Apple to Drop Qualcomm?

Apple Inc has designed iPhones and iPads that would drop chips supplied by Qualcomm Inc, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The change would affect iPhones released in the fall of 2018, but Apple could still change course before then, these people said. They declined to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.

The dispute stems from a change in supply arrangements under which Qualcomm has stopped providing some software for Apple to test its chips in its iPhone designs, one of the people told Reuters.

The two companies are locked in a multinational legal dispute over the Qualcomm’s licensing terms to Apple.

Qualcomm told Reuters it is providing fully tested chips to Apple for iPhones. “We are committed to supporting Apple’s new devices consistent with our support of all others in the industry,” Qualcomm said in a statement.

Though Qualcomm has for several years supplied Apple’s modems - which help Apple’s phones connect to wireless data networks - Intel Corp has provided upward of half of Apple’s modem chips for iPhones in recent years, Rasgon said. Intel in 2015 acquired a firm that would let it replace more of Qualcomm’s chips in iPhones, Rasgon said.

Rasgon said it’s too early to say definitively whether Apple fully intends to drop Qualcomm next year because Apple can likely make multiple contingency plans for different supplier scenarios.

“Apple is big enough that if they want to support multiple paths, they can do that,” Rasgon said. “Samsung (Electronics Co) did this too. A couple of years ago, Samsung designed Qualcomm out, but Qualcomm didn’t even know until it was close to time to ship” Samsung’s phones, Rasgon said.