Smartphone Sales Take a Tumble
Surprise, shock, smartphone gross sales are down once more. According to the tech analyst agency IDC, telephone gross sales have declined by practically 15 p.c 12 months over 12 months within the first quarter of 2023. This is a continuation of a slide that started final 12 months; gross sales have been declining for the previous a number of fiscal quarters.
Much of the slowdown is probably going attributable to a confluence of pandemic-related financial elements like chaotic provide strains and skyrocketing inflation. But one other facet that would clarify why fewer persons are shopping for telephones is that, for essentially the most half, telephones are completely fantastic. Modern smartphones have plateaued, each by way of their design and the capabilities of their software program, and the way forward for telephones is more likely to contain gradual, iterative enhancements slightly than massive leaps that warrant sooner upgrades.
The response from smartphone producers to this gross sales slippage, at the very least on the floor, has been a resounding “this is fine.” Companies aren’t going to cease rolling out new gadgets on a yearly foundation anytime quickly. They’re additionally making an attempt to generate curiosity and hype by making an attempt out new type elements. Google is reportedly planning to announce a $1,700 folding Pixel telephone at its IO occasion on May 10 that it hopes will get folks jazzed up about its telephones.
Here’s some extra tech information.
An Apple a Day
Apple’s been within the health-tracking sport for a whereas now. In 2020, the corporate launched Apple Fitness+, its slick Peloton competitor service that syncs with its bestselling Apple Watch. Now Apple appears to be planning an growth of the service, powered by machine intelligence.
According to Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, Apple is broadening its digital well being companies to incorporate customized health teaching and emotion monitoring. The companies might also emerge in a new model of the Health app on the iPad. The AI-powered portion of the app is alleged to have the ability to take knowledge out of your wearables and make well being solutions all through the day, like when to train and tips on how to eat more healthy.
Apple’s temper monitor and another well being options are anticipated to be introduced throughout Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in early June. The teaching options probably gained’t be rolling out till later this 12 months.
Halo Finite
In un-health information, Amazon has determined to shut down its Halo product line. That means the top of Amazon’s Halo health trackers and alarm clocks that observe your sleep. Halo gadgets have been by no means big within the health market, however they have been quirky—and creepy. The health trackers have been pitched as having the ability to monitor practically each facet of the particular person sporting them, together with monitoring your feelings and scanning your physique fats. Amazon says that its Halo gadgets will cease engaged on July 31, however the firm will provide refunds to anybody who bought a Halo system previously 12 months.
Amazon has been eager to lower prices throughout its operations. It trimmed its Echo choices in November and has laid off workers in its human assets, cloud computing, and drones divisions. But don’t let the Halo shutdown idiot you: the corporate remains to be very a lot involved in well being. (Especially all that candy, candy affected person knowledge.) Amazon is plowing forward with its Amazon Clinic telehealth service, and in February it accomplished its acquisition of One Medical, a major well being care supplier.
Gadget Lab Bro-dcast
Balls. Roughly half the folks on this planet have gotten ’em, however the ugly sacks are usually pointedly ignored in a lot of well mannered society. Recently, dozens of corporations have began to capitalize on the scrotum, promoting ball cleaning liquids, lotions, and deodorants for the gonads. Companies have lengthy exploited societal magnificence requirements to promote merchandise to ladies, and now it’s the males’s flip. Largely, the advertising has labored, turning males’s grooming merchandise into a $70 billion business in simply a few years.
This week on the Gadget Lab podcast, WIRED’s fact-checker-in-chief Zak Jason joins the present for a balls-to-the-wall dialog about his expertise with scrotum sprays and the broad world of males’s magnificence merchandise.
