Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
News gushed this week about the demise of the once booming tablet market, which according to reports has somehow not been able to maintain its meteoric rise to prominence. Just last year, analyst firms were increasing their expectations for the tablet market, only to have those estimates scaled back this year.
This news flash was tied to Apple’s unveiling of new iPad models (enhancements? tweaks?) that did not exactly excite the online masses who are apparently in charge of deciding the success of such things. Sure, faster processors and a smidge less girth are nice, but probably not enough to cause Apple fans to break out their camping gear.
(Apple did beef up the photo-taking capabilities of its iPads, which could cause some to break out their pitchforks should that move lead to growth in tablet-based paparazzi.)
Word on the street is that people don’t feel the need to buy a new tablet device every year, or every two years, or apparently every four years, thus dooming the tablet market to being compared to the laptop market. (Oh the horror!)
I don’t want to say that I did not see this coming … but I will as it’s very rare that I ever see anything coming.
It was in this same column nearly four years ago where I laid out my internal struggle over what at that time were sky-high estimates for where the tablet market was going. At that time I acknowledged the sexy nature of those hunks of plastic, metal and glass, but for the life of me could not figure out why I would need a ‘tweener device, let alone the need to keep buying new ones every leap year.
This demise in interest also comes at a time when it seems mobile operators have just begun to gain traction in selling cellular-equipped tablets. Recent quarterly results from mobile operators have shown a much larger influence from tablet sales on “new” connections, bolstered by more reasonable pricing and consumers being enamored by shared data buckets.
However, with innovation in the tablet market seeming to have hit a plateau, maybe it’s time for tablet makers to take this party to the next level. A new report from EcoATM found that “only” 9% of current iPad owners would upgrade to a new device if it had a “gold-plated” option.
Now, I am not sure how EcoATM worded this survey and if 9% of people were stating that they would be interested in a “gold-plated” iPad or just one that was painted gold, but I am going to take this at face value. EcoATM put in “only” ahead of that 9%, which to me should have been changed to something like: Somehow 9% of those that we surveyed answered yes to our smart-ass question asking if they would want a gold-plated iPad to go along with their gold-plated toilet.
So, there you go tablet makers of the world. If you want to stir up some new hype for your apparently bland products, it’s time to spread some of those precious metals on the inside to the outside.
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:
–Huawei has thrown a wrench in the rush toward “5G,” announcing plans to rollout “4.5G” technology in 2016. Huawei said the move will include working with the 3GPP standards body on updates to LTE and LTE-Advanced to come up with 4.5G around the Release 13 and 14 versions of the technology.
Now, I will ignore the fact that there are no plans for a “4.5G” standard, and in fact the arbiter of setting “Gs,” the International Telecommunication Union, has never been a fan of adding decimal points to the end of its work. I will also have to ignore the fact that the number to true commercial 4G deployments can be counted on one hand.
For those of you that may have forgotten, the ITU standards for 4G include “enhanced peak data rates to support advanced services and applications of 100 megabits per second for high mobility and one gigabit per second for low mobility.”
But, I have to give Huawei some props for at least throttling back all of this 5G talk, which many of its rivals can’t seem to rein in.
–Leave it to our northerly neighbors to be the first to realize the need for extremely ruggedized smartphone designs.
Word came this week that Canadian mobile operators Telus Mobility and Bell Mobility are set to begin offering Sonim Technologies XP7 smartphone, which the device maker boldly claims meet its “rugged performance standards, which go far beyond basic MIL-spec and IP certifications.” Take that MIL-spec and IP certifications!
I will assume that since Canadian operators are the first to jump on the device, Sonim has used a still-pending toughness “standard” based on how many polar bears the device can keep from eating the phone’s owner.
Sonim said the device includes LTE support, runs Google’s Android operating system and can have its touch screen manipulated by a person wearing “dirty or wet work gloves.” The device also includes an “extra-loud” speaker and noise cancellation, which if read quickly enough would seem to equal “zero.” More importantly, the device includes support for push-to-talk services, meaning that it’s basically a time machine since no one today uses PTT. Right? (Oh, I forgot, this is being picked up by Canadian operators so they still think it’s the 90s.)
Anyways, I will go on record now as stating the XP7 will be the reason that the human population is not destroyed by Canadian wildlife.
–Finally, Sprint has found a frothy new way to gain points with consumers. The company this week announced a partnership with Anheuser-Busch and Mesh Systems to power “smart” beer tap handles at bars that will “flash and display dynamic messages each time the home team cross the end zone or touches home plate.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tqkTlZzl5g&feature=youtu.be
No word if those handles will also light up should a drunk fan in the stands at a game takes a run across the playing field, with or without clothing.
Sprint, which was approached by Anheuser-Busch for the partnership, will tap (get it?) into its machine-to-machine “expertise” as part of this deal. I guess this goes along pretty well with Sprint’s new aggressive approach to the market.
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