Gartner: 2020 device shipments to grow 0.9% to 2.16B thanks to 5G, before 2 further years of decline

The analysts at Gartner have published their annual global device forecast, and while 2020 looks like it may be partly sunny, get ready for more showers and poor weather ahead. The analysts predict that a bump from new 5G technology will lead to total shipments of 2.16 billion units — devices that include PCs, mobile handsets, watches, and all sizes of computing devices in between — working out to a rise of 0.9% compared to 2019.

That’s a modest reversal after what was a rough year for hardware makers who battled with multiple headwinds that included — for mobile handsets — a general slowdown in renewal cycles and high saturation of device ownership in key markets; and — in PCs — the wider trend of people simply buying fewer of these bigger machines as their smartphones get smarter (and bigger).

As a point of comparison, last year Gartner revised its 2019 numbers at least three times, starting from “flat shipments” and ending at nearly four percent decline. In the end, 2019 saw shipments of 2.15 billion units — the lowest number since 2010. All of it is a bigger story of decline. In 2005, there were between 2.4 billion and 2.5 billion devices shipped globally.

“2020 will witness a slight market recovery,” writes Ranjit Atwal, research senior director at Gartner. “Increased availability of 5G handsets will boost mobile phone replacements, which will lead global device shipments to return to growth in 2020.”

(Shipments, we should note, do not directly equal sales, but they are used as a marker of how many devices are ordered in the channel for future sales. Shipments precede sales figures: overestimating results in oversupply and overall slowdown.)

The idea that 5G will drive more device sales, however, is still up for debate. Some have argued that while carriers are going hell for leather in their promotion of 5G, the idea of special 5G apps and services — versus using it to connect machines in an IoT play — that will spur adoption of those devices is not as apparent, and that’s leading to it being more of an abstract concept, and not one that is leading the charge when it comes to apps and services, especially for the mass consumer market and for (human) business users.

In 6 years of hearing pitches in Silicon Valley, I heard '5G' maybe once. That's not from ignorance – the utility network layer is not very important to innovation at the top of the stack.

— Benedict Evans (@benedictevans) January 20, 2020

Still, it may be that hardware might march on ahead regardless. Gartner predicts that 5G devices will account for 12% of all mobile phone shipments in 2020 as handset makers make their devices “5G ready,” with the proportion increasing to 43% by 2022. “From 2020, Gartner expects an increase in 5G phone adoption as prices decrease, 5G service coverage increases and users have better experiences with 5G phones,” writes Atwal. “The market will experience a further increase in 2023, when 5G handsets will account for over 50% of the mobile phones shipped.” That may in part be simply because handset makers are making their devices “5G ready”

Drilling down into the numbers, Gartner believes that worldwide, phones will see a bump of 1.7% this year, up to 1.78 billion before declining again in 2021 to 1.77 billion and then further in 2022 to 1.76 billion. Asia and in particular China and emerging markets will lead the charge.

Another analyst firm, Counterpoint, has been tracking marketshare for individual handset makers and notes that Samsung remains the world’s biggest handset maker going into Q4 2019 (final numbers on that quarter should be out in the coming weeks), with 21% of all shipments and slight increases over the year, but with the BBK group (which owns OPPO, Vivo, Realme, and OnePlus) likely to pass it, Huawei and Apple to become the world’s largest, as it’s growing much faster. Numbers overall were dragged down by declines for Apple, the world’s number-three handset maker, which saw a slump last year in its handset sales.

Although the market was generally lower across all devices, PC shipments actually saw some growth in 2019. That is set to turn down again this year, to 251 million units, and declining further to 247 million in 2021 and 242 million in 2022.

Part of that is due to slower migration trends — Windows 10 adoption was the primary driver for people switching up and buying new devices last year, but now that’s more or less finished. That will see slower purchasing among enterprise end users, although later adopters in the SME segment will finally make the change when support for Windows it 7 finally ends this month (it’s been on the cards for years at this point). In any case, the upgrade cycle is changing because of how Windows is evolving.

“The PC market’s future is unpredictable because there will not be a Windows 11. Instead, Windows 10 will be upgraded systematically through regular updates,” writes Atwal “As a result, peaks in PC hardware upgrade cycles driven by an entire Windows OS upgrade will end.”

Two trends that might impact shipments — or at least highlight other currents in the hardware market — should also be noted. The first is the role that Chromebooks might play in the PC market. These were one of the faster-growing categories last year, and this year we will see even more models rolled out, with what hardware makers hope will be even more of a boost in functionality to drive adoption. (Google and Intel’s collaboration is one example of how that will work: the two are working on a set of standards that will fit with chips made by Intel to produce what the companies believe are more efficient and compelling notebooks, with tablet-like touchscreens, better battery life, smaller and lighter form factors, and more.)

The second is whether or not smartwatches will make a significant dent into the overall device market. Q3 of last year saw growth of 42% to 14 million shipments globally. And while there have been a number of smartwatch hopefuls, but one of the biggest successes has been the Apple Watch, whose growth outstripped that of the wider watch market, at 51%. Indeed, looking at the results of the last several quarters, Apple’s product category that includes Watch sales (wearables, home and accessories) even appears to be on track to outstrip another hardware category, Macs. Whether that will continue, and potentially see others joining in, will be an interesting area to “watch.”

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The robot homecoming is upon us

Robots were everywhere at CES, as has been the case for at least a decade. But there’s a different tenor to the robots shown off at the recent annual consumer tech event: they’re designed for home use, and they’re shipping products, not just concepts intended strictly for trade show glam.

Home robots have already had a few false starts, including some high-profile flare-outs like Anki and previous CES darling Kuri (despite the backing of global technology giant Bosch). But other robots, including autonomous vacuums, have already carved out niches for themselves within the domestic milieu. Between slow-burn but now mature categories and the sheer volume of newer products jumping in to establish new beachheads, it now seems certain we’re on a path at the end of which lie hybrid companion and functional robots that will become common household items.

Industrial to residential

One of the biggest signs that home robotics is gaining credibility as a market is the fact that companies which have found success in industrial technology are branching out. At CES, I spoke to Elephant Robotics founder and CEO Joey Song, who was at the show demonstrating MarsCat, a fully developed robotic cat designed to be a companion pet with full autonomous interactivity, similar to Sony’s Aibo.

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US patents hit record 333,530 granted in 2019; IBM, Samsung (not the FAANGs) lead the pack

We may have moved on from a nearly-daily cycle of news involving tech giants sparring in courts over intellectual property infringement, but patents continue to be a major cornerstone of how companies and people measure their progress and create moats around the work that they have done in hopes of building that into profitable enterprises in the future. IFI Claims, a company that tracks patent activity in the US, released its annual tally of IP work today underscoring that theme: it noted that 2019 saw a new high-watermark of 333,530 patents granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

The figures are notable for a few reasons. One is that this is the most patents ever granted in a single year; and the second that this represents a 15% jump on a year before. The high overall number speaks to the enduring interest in safeguarding IP, while the 15% jump has to do with the fact that patent numbers actually dipped last year (down 3.5%) while the number that were filed and still in application form (not granted) was bigger than ever. If we can draw something from that, it might be that filers and the USPTO were both taking a little more time to file and process, not a reduction in the use of patents altogether.

But patents do not tell the whole story in another very important regard.

Namely, the world’s most valuable, and most high profile tech companies are not always the ones that rank the highest in patents filed.

Consider the so-called FAANG group, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google: Facebook is at number-36 (one of the fastest movers but still not top 10) with 989 patents; Apple is at number-seven with 2,490 patents; Amazon is at number-nine with 2,427 patents; Netflix doesn’t make the top 50 at all; and the Android, search and advertising behemoth Google is merely at slot 15 with 2,102 patents (and no special mention for growth).

Indeed, the fact that one of the oldest tech companies, IBM, is also the biggest patent filer almost seems ironic in that regard.

As with previous years — the last 27, to be exact — IBM has continued to hold on to the top spot for patents granted, with 9,262 in total for the year. Samsung Electronics, at 6,469, is a distant second.

These numbers, again, don’t tell the whole story: IFI Claims notes that Samsung ranks number-one when you consider all active patent “families”, which might get filed across a number of divisions (for example a Samsung Electronics subsidiary filing separately) and count the overall number of patents to date (versus those filed this year). In this regard, Samsung stands at 76,638, with IBM the distant number-two at 37,304 patent families.

Part of this can be explained when you consider their businesses: Samsung makes a huge range of consumer and enterprise products. IBM, on the other hand, essentially moved out of the consumer electronics market years ago and these days mostly focuses on enterprise and B2B and far less hardware. That means a much smaller priority placed on that kind of R&D, and subsequent range of families.

Two other areas that are worth tracking are biggest movers and technology trends.

In the first of these, it’s very interesting to see a car company rising to the top. Kia jumped 58 places and is now at number-41 (921 patents) — notable when you think about how cars are the next “hardware” and that we are entering a pretty exciting phase of connected vehicles, self-driving and alternative energy to propel them.

Others rounding out fastest-growing were Hewlett Packard Enterprise, up 28 places to number-48 (794 patents); Facebook, up 22 places to number-36 (989 patents); Micron Technology, up nine places to number-25 (1,268), Huawei, up six places to number-10 (2,418), BOE Technology, up four places to number-13 (2,177), and Microsoft, up three places to number-4 (3,081 patents).

In terms of technology trends, IFI looks over a period of five years, where there is now a strong current of medical and biotechnology innovation running through the list right now, with hybrid plant creation topping the list of trending technology, followed by CRISPR gene-editing technology, and then medicinal preparations (led by cancer therapies). “Tech” in the computer processor sense only starts at number-four with dashboards and other car-related tech; with quantum computing, 3-D printing and flying vehicle tech all also featuring.

Indeed, if you have wondered if we are in a fallow period of innovation in mobile, internet and straight computer technology… look no further than this list to prove out that thought.

Ten Fast Growing Technologies from IFIClaims

Unsurprisingly, US companies account for 49% of U.S. patents granted in 2019 up from 46 percent a year before. Japan accounts for 16% to be the second-largest, with South Korea at 7% (Samsung carrying a big part of that, I’m guessing), and China passing Germany to be at number-four with 5%.

1. International Business Machines Corp 9262
2. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd 6469
3. Canon Inc 3548
4. Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC 3081
5. Intel Corp 3020
6. LG Electronics Inc 2805
7. Apple Inc 2490
8. Ford Global Technologies LLC 2468
9. Amazon Technologies Inc 2427
10. Huawei Technologies Co Ltd 2418
11. Qualcomm Inc 2348
12. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co TSMC Ltd 2331
13. BOE Technology Group Co Ltd 2177
14. Sony Corp 2142
15. Google LLC 2102
16. Toyota Motor Corp 2034
17. Samsung Display Co Ltd 1946
18. General Electric Co 1818
19. Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson AB 1607
20. Hyundai Motor Co 1504
21. Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co Ltd 1387
22. Boeing Co 1383
23. Seiko Epson Corp 1345
24. GM Global Technology Operations LLC 1285
25. Micron Technology Inc 1268
26. United Technologies Corp 1252
27. Mitsubishi Electric Corp 1244
28. Toshiba Corp 1170
29. AT&T Intellectual Property I LP 1158
30. Robert Bosch GmbH 1107
31. Honda Motor Co Ltd 1080
32. Denso Corp 1052
33. Cisco Technology Inc 1050
34. Halliburton Energy Services Inc 1020
35. Fujitsu Ltd 1008
36. Facebook Inc 989
37. Ricoh Co Ltd 980
38. Koninklijke Philips NV 973
39. EMC IP Holding Co LLC 926
40. NEC Corp 923
41. Kia Motors Corp 921
42. Texas Instruments Inc 894
43. LG Display Co Ltd 865
44. Oracle International Corp 847
45. Murata Manufacturing Co Ltd 842
46. Sharp Corp 819
47. SK Hynix Inc 798
48. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP 794
49. Fujifilm Corp 791
50. LG Chem Ltd 791

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Have we hit peak smartphone?

Last Halloween, we broke down some “good news” from a Canalys report: the smartphone industry saw one-percent year-over-year growth — not exactly the sort of thing that sparks strong consumer confidence.

In short, 2019 sucked for smartphones, as did the year before. After what was nearly an ascendant decade, sales petered off globally with few exceptions. Honestly, there’s no need to cherrypick this stuff; the numbers this year have been lackluster at best for a majority of companies in a majority of markets.

For just the most recent example, let’s turn to a report from Gartner that dropped late last month. The numbers focus specifically on the third quarter, but they’re pretty indicative of what we’ve been seeing from the industry of late, with a 0.4 percent drop in sales. It’s a fairly consistent story, quarter after quarter for a couple of years now.

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Samsung acquires TeleWorld Solutions to help build 5G infrastructure

Samsung this morning announced that it has completed the acquisition of TeleWorld Solutions. The Virginia-based telecommunications company provides wireless networking and consulting services. It’s TWS’s 5G solutions that Samsung is clearly the most interested in as part of this deal.

The electronics giant says it plans to leverage TWS’s services to help U.S.-based networks build out the next generation wireless.

“The acquisition of TWS will enable us to meet mobile carriers’ growing needs for improving their 4G and 5G networks, and eventually create new opportunities to enhance our service capabilities to our customers,” Samsung EVP Paul Kyungwhoon Cheun said in a release. “Samsung will continue to drive innovation in communications technology, while providing optimization services for network deployments that accelerate U.S. 5G network expansion.”

The deal will make TWS a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung, allowing the brand to continue to offer its consulting services to existing clients. That last bit is important, so as to not leave companies in a lurch over the course of the next year, as 5G becomes an increasing focus beyond just smartphone connectivity.

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Smasung launches the rugged, enterprise-ready Galaxy XCover Pro

We got a bit of a surprise at the end of CES: some hands-on time with Samsung’s latest rugged phone for the enterprise, the Galaxy XCover Pro. The XCover Pro, which is officially launching today, is a mid-range $499 phone for first-line workers like flight attendants, construction workers or nurses.

It is meant to be very rugged but without the usual bulk that comes with that. With its IP68 rating, Military Standard 810 certification and the promise that it will survive a drop from 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) without a case, it should definitely be able to withstand quite a bit of abuse.

While Samsung is aiming this phone at the enterprise market, the company tells us that it will also sell it to individual customers.

As Samsung stressed during our briefing, the phone is meant for all-day use in the field, with a 4,050 mAh replaceable battery (yes, you read that right, you can replace the battery just like on phones from a few years ago). It’ll feature 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage space, but you can extend that up to 512GB thanks to the built-in microSD slot. The 6.3-inch FHD+ screen won’t wow you, but it seemed perfectly adequate for most of the use cases. That screen, the company says, should work even in rain or snow and features a glove mode, too.

And while this is obviously not a flagship phone, Samsung still decided to give it a dual rear camera setup, with a standard 25MP sensor and a wide-angle 8MP sensor for those times where you might want to get the full view of a construction site, for example. On the front, there is a small cutout for a 13MP camera, too.

All of this is powered by a 2GHz octa-core Exynos 9611 processor, as one would expect from a Samsung mid-range phone, as well as Android 10.

Traditionally, rugged phones came with large rubber edges (or users decided to put even larger cases around them). The XCover Pro, on the other hand, feels slimmer than most regular phones with a rugged case on them.

By default, the phone features NFC support for contactless payments (the phone has been approved to be part of Visa’s Tap to Phone pilot program) and two programmable buttons so that companies can customize their phones for their specific use cases. One of the first partners here is Microsoft, which lets you map a button to its recently announced walkie talkie feature in Microsoft Teams.

“Microsoft and Samsung have a deep history of bringing together the best hardware and software to help solve our customers’ challenges,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in today’s announcement. “The powerful combination of Microsoft Teams and the new Galaxy XCover Pro builds on this partnership and will provide frontline workers everywhere with the technology they need to be more collaborative, productive and secure.”

With its Pogo pin charging support and compatibility with third-party tools from a variety of partners for adding scanners, credit card readers and other peripherals from partners like Infinite Peripherals, KOAMTAC, Scandit and Visa.

No enterprise device is complete without security features and the XCover Pro obviously supports all of Samsungs various Knox enterprise security tools and access to the phone itself is controlled by both a facial recognition system and a fingerprint reader that’s built into the power button.

With the Tab Active Pro, Samsung has long offered a rugged tablet for first-line workers. Not everybody needs a full-sized tablet, though, so the XCover Pro fills what Samsung clearly believes is a gap in the market that offers always-on connectivity in a smaller package and in the form of a phone that doesn’t look unlike a consumer device.

I could actually imagine that there are quite a few consumers who may opt for this device. For a while, the company made phones like the Galaxy S8 Active that traded weight and size for larger batteries and ruggedness. the XCover Pro isn’t officially a replacement of this program, but it may just find its fans among former Galaxy Active users.

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Samsung’s Lite devices bring the headphone jack to flagship design (sort of)

Some devices need no explanation. The Galaxy S10 Lite and Note 10 Lite are no such devices. They’re more nebulous, walking an interesting line, between premium and mid-range. They’re a clear attempt by Samsung to change with a smartphone-buying public that has balked at the idea of $1,000+ devices.

Samsung announces ‘Lite’ versions of the Galaxy S10 and Note 10

On that front, they make plenty of sense. Things are, however, not so cut and dry. This is probably no better exemplified by the headphone jack situation. One (the Note 10) has one. One (the S10) doesn’t. It’s a bit of a one foot in, one foot out approach to the technology that Samsung, admittedly, has always been more cautious about abandoning than most.

The pragmatic reason for the decision, I think, is that the Note 10 Lite is the thicker of the two devices. Both feel like solid, flagship devices. The build quality is terrific on both. The Note, however, is noticeably chunkier, owing to the inclusion of the S Pen and a different screen technology. So Samsung saw an opportunity to have it both ways, plopping a headphone jack on the bottom.

The timing is interesting, as well. The company snuck out an announcement just ahead of CES. That both firmly missed the holiday season, while arriving about a month and a half ahead of its latest big phone reveal (the invitations for Unpacked went out the following day). There was also no pricing — and there still isn’t here in the States. That leaves open the question of where they slot in.

Are we talking slightly below the flagship tier? Or is this Samsung’s new vision for mid-tier? European pricing gives us a hint. At €599, that’s pretty significantly below the lowest-tier version of its flagship counterparts. It’s also a pretty decent direction below the Galaxy S10e. It will be interesting to see if that model sticks around for the S11.

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A closer look at Ballie, Samsung’s friendly robotic ball

Okay, I’ve slept on it. I was skeptical at first, but after a good night’s sleep, let’s do this. I want a Ballie. All of the people and the pets in the below video seemed super into it. Where do I sign up?

Okay, let me back up a second. I’d like a little hands-on time with the robotic ball first. Or at the very least a more in-depth demo. But once we’ve gotten those out of the way, yeah, totally. Let’s do this. I want my own BB8. I’ve just seen enough of these home robots come and go to be super skeptical about the plausibility of such a product both coming to market and functioning as advertised.

Even the latest version of Aibo, which is extremely impressive as far as home robotics go, still feels like a lot of unfulfilled potential at a prohibitively steep price. That’s in spite of tremendous resources, multiple generations and years of iteration. It’s been an incredibly tough nut to crack, and the road to success (whatever that will ultimately mean) is paved with the bodies of adorable robotic companions that died long before the their time.

It’s not so much a lack of interest. Who watches a video like that and doesn’t think Ballie would be a fun addition? I would, however, argue that such products deliver unrealistic expectations about what such a product would ultimately look like and how it would ultimately function in a home setting.

Meet Ballie, Samsung’s rolling personal assistant that does…stuff

Baby steps. Bringing that long-promised Bixby smart speaker to market early this year is a good place to start. Next step is a designating a handful of functionalities best served by a roaming robotic ball (security, reminders, package delivery alerts) and building those in. Then deliver a device that can function consistently at a realistic price point. I’m here for it, Ballie.

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Samsung’s knife-wielding robotic chef is all flash

Last year, we asked whether Samsung was getting serious about robotics. A year later, we’re not any closer to answering the question. This year’s presser played out roughly the same as last on the robotics front — all flash and little productizing to show for it.

Meet Ballie, Samsung’s rolling personal assistant that does…stuff

Samsung’s approach to robotics thus far appears to be the model of many other big electronics companies. It’s flirtation with a technology that brings some sense of showmanship to the stage and booth. There’s no better example than Bot Chef. I got a preview of the tech in Samsung’s booth this week, pitched as “an extra set of hands in the kitchen.”

You can’t fault the technology for not being ready for prime time, at this point, of course. That’s not really the point yet. The question, however, is how serious Samsung is about bringing a pair of robot arms to kitchens across the globe to sauté tofu and liberally apply Sriracha. I would love to say “very,” and that the different demos were things the company was actively pursuing delivering on these products.

The futuristic theme of last night’s keynote, however, implied that the company is offering up hypotheticals for what a future could look like — not what it will. Even Ballie, which seems a more realistic addition to the company’s smart home strategy is also still very much conceptual. As with last year’s robot demos, I wasn’t able to get an answer from the company about how much of the robot’s functions were autonomous and how much were choreographed. It’s a cool demo regardless. But is it a serious one?

At the end of the day, I hope Samsung is getting serious about the category. The company has tremendous resources and a lot of smart people. If it really takes the leap, it could be a key player in making robotics more mainstream among consumers. For now, however, I’m unconvinced.

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PopSockets launches a $60 wireless charger that works with its PopGrips

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Popsockets is launching a new must-have item to its lineup of smartphone accessories — and one that solves a significant problem for PopGrip users. The company today is unveiling the PopPower Home wireless charger that allows you to wirelessly charge your supported Apple or Android smartphone by making room for the PopGrip on the back of your phone by way of a hole in the middle of the charging pad.

This design allows the mobile device to sit flush with the charging pad so it can wirelessly charge — something that hasn’t been possible with standard wireless chargers. Instead, PopGrips users would either have to remove their phone case (or swappable PopGrip) to take advantage of wireless charging, or they’d have to forgo it altogether and instead opt to charge their phone with a power cord, as usual.

The new PopPower Home charger solves this problem. It will also work through phone cases up to 5 mm thick and can charge devices that don’t have a PopGrip on the back, like other phones or the AirPods with Apple’s Wireless Charging Case – even if it’s protected by one of the AirPods cases covers that PopSockets sells.

The new charger, powered by Nucurrent, features Qi certification with Extended Power Profile (EPP) to deliver up to 15 watts of wireless power for fast-charging wireless mobile devices. (Many other chargers are 5 to 10 watts, for comparison’s sake.) The phone’s brand/model, case thickness and battery depletion will affect the charge times, PopSockets says.

 

At launch, the PopPower Home supports both Apple and Samsung’s Fast Wireless charging modes. (Popsockets tells us Pixel phones that support wireless charging will also be supported.)

Using the case is as simple as plugging it in, then placing your phone or another device on top — making sure any attached PopGrip slides down into the hole in the middle. An LED indicator on the side will subtly alert you that the case is charging.

Like PopGrips themselves, the case comes in an array of designs, including Night Bloom, Mountainscape, Matte White, Cosmic Cloud, and Carbonate Gray.

Unfortunately, the case only works with standard PopGrips, and excludes metal grips, PopGrip Mirror, and PopGrip Lips.

PopPower Home is available today exclusively on Popsockets.com for $60. That’s pricier than many of today’s wireless chargers, which tend to be $20 or less. But for dedicated PopGrips users, it’s worth it for the convenience of just being able to lay your phone down to charge.

At launch, only three styles are available, but the others will arrive in late January.

It’s not currently being sold as a bundle, but will arrive on Amazon later this year — possibly as soon as February.

Despite the price, the new product will likely do well because of PopSockets’ large, existing customer base. To date, the company has sold 165 million PopSockets, it says.

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Samsung hints at AR ambitions, shows off prototype glasses

What a weird Samsung press conference. The company didn’t waste time on the familiar. Things like Galaxy phones and washing machines got little love on stage tonight. Instead the company was focused on a workout exoskeleton and a friendly robotic call assistant.

Meet Ballie, Samsung’s rolling personal assistant that does…stuff

And then there’s was AR. The technology was more hinted at than outright explained. First it took part in the aforementioned GEMS workout, in which the wearer took out her pair of “Samsung AR glasses.” That demo involved an AR assistant that was, admittedly fairly creepy.

After 1-on-1 training with #GEMS, workout results are aggregated and analyzed to provide professional feedback. #CES2020 #SamsungCES2020 pic.twitter.com/e5GJRNu9Jh

— Samsung US Newsroom (@SamsungNewsUS) January 7, 2020

The subject was dropped a bit, only to come back to it a little while later. First there was am uplifting video featuring Gear VR headsets repurposed to help vision impaired users see their loved ones (definite tear jerker material), followed by what appeared to be a different take on the AR glasses, complete with a camera in the middle of the frames.

Meet Ballie, Samsung’s rolling personal assistant that does…stuff

Of course, we need to use the same caution here that we have with all of the other strange stuff shown off on stage tonight: this is all that prototypes. At best, it’s a potential roadmap. At worst, it’s speculative fiction. Either way, I wouldn’t wager a good deal of money on the the company replacing Gear VR with a pair of AR sunglasses this year.

That said, given larger industry trends, it’s completely understandable why the company is exploring such potential paths.

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Samsung’s GEMS exoskeleton is now an ‘immersive workout experience’

Remember the G.E.M.S. (Gait Enhancing and Motivation System) exoskeleton Samsung introduced last year? Plot-twist. It’s a workout device now. One of the weirdest elements of a super weird keynotes was actually a fascinating pivot.

I wore a prototype of the device lates year, which offered both walking assistance and resistance. The latter is what’s at play here, with the robotic wearing giving you increasingly difficult workouts.

Taking a stroll with Samsung’s robotic exoskeleton

That pairs with AR glasses and a handset, giving you a creepy ass AR workout instructor Like Ballie before it — not to mention all of the different Samsung robotic offerings — the exoskeleton is still very early stages. Keep in mind, the theme of the night was “Age of Experience,” meaning that basically everything we saw tonight was conceptual. 

After 1-on-1 training with #GEMS, workout results are aggregated and analyzed to provide professional feedback. #CES2020 #SamsungCES2020 pic.twitter.com/e5GJRNu9Jh

— Samsung US Newsroom (@SamsungNewsUS) January 7, 2020

In Samsung’s defense, this application could provide a clearer revenue path. There are already a number of companies vying for the assistive wearable exoskeleton category. Samsung is potentially going after an even larger portion of the population, essentially serving as an at-home gym. Though if and when such a device does come to market, it’s likely going to be a lot more than a monthly gym subscription.

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Meet Ballie, Samsung’s rolling personal assistant that does…stuff

This time last year, we asked the question: is Samsung getting serious about robotics. I’m not sure we’re that much closer to an answer, but tonight’s CES keynote pointed to a company that clearly wants to convince us of as much. Though much like the demos shown off last year, tonight’s devices were concepts — indications of what a Samsung could bring to market if it was determined to do so.

Is Samsung getting serious about robotics?

The headliner is Ballie (pronounced Ball-E). Still very much a concept, the device is Samsung’s take on Aibo. Instead of a robot dog, however, the “life companion robot” is simply a rolling ball designed to help out around the house. The robot, “understands you, supports you, and reacts to your needs..”

There’s not a ton of info about the robot, but it clearly has a camera on the front from navigating around the home. It utilizes on-device AI to perform a series of (mostly unannounced) tasks, including home security and fitness.

“We believe AI is the future of personalized care,” EVP Sebastian Seung said in a release. “We see on-device AI as central to truly personalized experiences. On-device AI puts you in control of your information and protects your privacy, while still delivering the power of personalization.”

The on stage demo mostly consisted of Ballie following CEO H.S. Kim around the stage and coming while called. Asked to say “hi,” the robot ball let out a kind of R2D2-style sound effect. A quick demo video, meanwhile, had Ballie communicating with various smart home features and interacting with the family dog. Once the pup made a mess, Ballie triggered the robot vacuum to clean it up.

Still very much a concept, there’s no word when — or even if — Ballie might come to market. At this point, Samsung mostly just wants us all to know that it’s working on it. That said, the underlying technology here certainly seems far more realistic that the devices it showed off on stage this time next year.

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Intel and Google plot out closer collaboration around Chromebooks and the future of computing

Intel, the chip-making giant, has been on the road of refocusing its strategy in recent months. While it has sold its mobile chip operation to Apple and is reportedly looking for a buyer for its connected home division, it’s also been going through the difficult task of rethinking how best to tackle the longtime bread and butter of its business, the PC.

Part of that latter strategy is getting a big boost this week at CES 2020. Here, Intel is today announcing a deeper partnership with Google to design chips and specifications for Chromebooks built on Project Athena. Project Athena is framework first announced last year that covers both design and technical specs, with the aim of building the high-performance laptops of tomorrow that can be used not just for work, but media streaming, gaming, enterprise applications and more, all on the go — powered by Intel, naturally.

(The specs include things like requiring ‘fast wake’ using fingerprints or push-buttons or lift lids; using Intel Core i5 or i7 processors; “Ice Lake” processor designs; better battery life and charging; WiFi 6; touch displays; 2-in-1 designs; narrow bezels and more.)

Earlier today, the first two Chromebooks built on those Athena specifications — from Samsung and Asus — were announced by the respective companies, and Intel says that there will be more to come. And on stage, Google joined Intel during its keynote to also cement the two companies’ commitment to the mission.

“We’re going a step further and deepening our partnership with Google to bring Athena to Chromebooks,” Gregory Bryant, the EVP and GM of Intel’s client computing group, said in an interview with TechCrunch ahead of today. “We’ve collaborated very closely with Google [so that device makers] can take advantage of these specs.”

For Intel, having a Chromebook roster using Athena is important because these have been very popular, and it brings its processors into machines used by people who are buying Chromebooks to get access to Google services around security and more, and its apps ecosystem.

But stepping up the specifications for Chromebooks is as important for Google as it is for Intel in terms of the bottom line and growing business.

“This is a significant change for Google,” said John Solomon, Google’s VP of ChromeOS, in an interview ahead of today. “Chromebooks were successful in the education sector initially, but in the next 18 months to two years, our plan is to go broader, expanding to consumer and enterprise users. Those users have greater expectations and a broader idea of how to use these devices. That puts the onus on us to deliver more performance.”

The renewed effort comes at an interesting time. The laptop market is in a generally tight spot these days. Overall, the personal computing market is in a state of decline, and forecast to continue that way for the next several years.

But there is a slightly brighter picture for the kinds of machines that are coming out of collaborations like the one between Intel, Google, and their hardware partners: IDC forecasts that 2-in-1 devices — by which it means convertible PCs and detachable tablets — and ultra-slim notebook PCs “are expected to grow 5% collectively over the same period,” versus a compound annual growth rate of -2.4% between 2019 and 2023. So there is growth, but not a huge amount.

Up against that is the strength of the smartphone market. Granted, it, too, is facing some issues as multiple markets reach smartphone saturation and consumers are slower to upgrade.

All that is to say that there are challenges. And that is why Intel, whose fortunes are so closely linked to those of personal computing devices since it makes the processors for them, has to make a big push around projects like Athena.

Up to this month, all of the laptops built to Athena specs have been Windows PCs — 25 to date — but Intel had always said from the start Chromebooks would be part of the mix, to help bring the total number of Athena-based devices up to 75 by the end of this year (adding 50 in 2020).

Chromebooks are a good area for Intel to be focusing on, as they seem to be outpacing growth for the wider market, despite some notable drawbacks about how Chrome OS has been conceived as a “light” operating system with few native tools and integrations in favor of apps. IDC said that in Q4 of 2019, growth was 19% year-on-year,  and from what I understand the holiday period saw an even stronger rise. In the US, Chromebooks had a market share of around 27% last November, according to NPD/Gfk.

What’s interesting is the collaborative approach that Intel — and Google — are taking to grow. The Apple-style model is to build vertical integration into its hardware business to ensure a disciplined and unified approach to form and function: the specifications of the hardware are there specifically to handle the kinds of services that Apple itself envisions to work on its devices, and in turn, it hands down very specific requirements to third parties to work on those devices when they are not services and apps native to Apple itself.

While Google is not in the business of building laptops or processors (yet?), and Intel is also far from building more than just processors, what the two have created here is an attempt at bringing a kind of disciplined specification that mimics what you might get in a vertically integrated business.

“It’s all about building the best products and delivering the best experience,” Bryant said.

“We can’t do what we do without Intel’s help and this close engineering collaboration over the last 18 months,” Solomon added. “This is the beginning of more to come in this space, with innovation that hasn’t previously been seen.”

Indeed, going forward, interestingly Bryant and Solomon wouldn’t rule out that Athena and their collaboration might extend beyond laptops.

“Our job is to make the PC great. If we give consumers value and a reason to buy a PC we can keep the PC alive,” said Bryant, but he added that Intel is continuing to evolve the specification, too.

“From a form factor you’ll see an expansion of devices that have dual displays or have diff kinds of technology and form factors,” he said. “Our intention is to expand and do variations on what we have shown today.”

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Watch Samsung’s CES press conference live

Samsung’s been…busy. On Friday, the company Announced a pair of “Lite” versions of its flagship devices, targeted at users on a budget. Yesterday, it announced its upcoming Unpacked event (with some help from an early leak), which will see the announcement of its latest flagship.

So, what’s left for CES this week? Lots. Samsung contains multitudes. For a show like CES, that generally means a lot of different flashy TV form factors and a bunch of home appliances. Yes, this is Bixby’s time to shine — or what’s left of it, at least. That’s a conversation for another day, I guess.

Samsung’s big show is tonight, serving as a sort of unofficial kick off for the big show. Things start at 6:30PM PT/9:30PM ET. You can join along in the fun here.

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Asus and Samsung roll out the first Chromebooks with Intel’s Project Athena certification

A year after Intel first announced Project Athena — a set of laptop specifications underpinned by Intel processors to build what Intel believes will be the next generation of computers equipped for 5G, AI-based activities, and more responsive work — hardware makers are starting to roll out the first Chromebooks based on the specs, starting with Samsung and ASUS. At CES 2020, Samsung unveiled a new 2-in-1 Galaxy Chromebook, and Asus launched the Chromebook Flip C436. 

The Samsung device will start shipping this quarter, Q1, priced at $999.99; while the ASUS machine is estimated to arrive sometime in Q1 or Q2 and it’s not disclosing pricing.

There will be a lot more to come on Athena later today during Intel’s CES keynote at 4pm Pacific time. Samsung and ASUS’s devices are a sneak peak of sorts and point to how Intel (and Google) are getting an ecosystem on board to raise the performance and feature game of laptops — a consumer electronics category that has otherwise been under pressure and largely stagnating as users opt for smartphones as primary mobile “computing” devices, and connected TV screens for stationary use — making the replacement cycles for laptops longer and longer.

Samsung says that at 9.9mm, this Galaxy Chromebook — which will be available in Fiesta Red and Mercury Gray, both aluminum — is its thinnest yet, and that push to keep making its machines smaller comes also with making them more powerful. No surprise there: with laptops continuing to compete against faster, very media-friendly smartphones, the fact that laptops continue to trump them in other ways become unique selling points.

Its 13-inch screen has a 3.9 mm bezel and comes with an AMOLED display (also a first for a Samsung Chromebook) for 4K UHD resolution, with the machine powered by the Intel’s 10th generation Intel Core i5 processor with Intel Wi-Fi 6 (Gig+). It also comes with built-in-pen support, a fingerprint sensor, Google Assistant and close integration with Samsung Galaxy smartphone services.

“The notion that we do everything stationary at a desk is a thing of the past, and people need premium devices built for our new reality,” said Alanna Cotton, Senior Vice President and General Manager at Samsung Electronics America, in a statement.

The ASUS machine, meanwhile, also has a 13-inch screen but opts to house it in a thicker body at 13.7mm. However, with a magnesium alloy body, its weight is coming in at just 2.4 lbs, making it portable in a different sense to Samsung’s new Chromebook.

Processor specs are the same as the Samsung, and it, too, has stylus support and a fingerprint sensor. An “all-day” battery life specification speaks to the kind of usage and users ASUS is aiming for — like Samsung, possibly someone who is not a student but a working person, and someone who will be a heavy user of the machine, with expectations to match.

“The real-world experiences we’re delivering across instant wake, responsiveness and worry-free battery life that are designed to match the expectations of ambitious, on-the-move people who turn to their premium laptop to get things done,” Josh Newman, Vice President, Client Computing Group General Manager, Mobile Innovation Intel Corporation, in a statement.

The idea with both the Samsung and Asus machines is that the Chromebook is growing up: long a popular model in the education sector, these machines are aiming at an older market of professionals and “prosumers.”

“For years, students have come to love Chrome OS in classrooms around the world—but today, Chromebooks are being used for so much more, by the younger generation and working-professionals alike,” said Kan Liu, Senior Director of Product Management at Google, in a statement. “As we see the demand for premium Chromebook experiences rise, we are investing more and more with partners … to build the next generation of flagship Chromebook product innovations and offerings.”

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Samsung confirms February 11 event for its next flagship launch

The Saturday night before CES seems like a less than ideal time to drop some big smartphone news — but it appears Samsung’s hand was forced on this one. Granted, the smartphone giant has never been great about keeping big news under wraps, but this morning’s early release of a promo video through its official Vimeo channel was no doubt all the motivation it needed.

The company has just made the February 11 date officially official for the launch of its upcoming flagship. As for what the flagship will be called, well, that (among other things) leaves some room for speculation. Rumors have pointed to both the more traditional S11, along with the more fascinating jump to the S20.

Say hello to a whole new Galaxy. Unpacked on February 11, 2020 #SamsungEvent pic.twitter.com/ln1pqt2vu7

— Samsung Mobile (@SamsungMobile) January 5, 2020

I’ve collated a bunch of the rumors into an earlier post. The TLDR is even larger screens across the board, coupled with a bunch of camera upgrades and a healthy battery increase. The invite art, which matches the earlier the video, appears to confirm the existence of two separate devices, with different dimensions. That could well point to the reported followup to the Galaxy Fold. In additional to better reinforced folding (a follow up to last year’s issues), the device reportedly adopts a clamshell form factor, more akin to the newly announced Motorola Razr.

More info (and rumors) to come. As ever, we’ll be there (San Francisco) as the news breaks.

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Samsung’s latest flagship and foldable appear set for a Feb 11 announcement

Odds are Samsung didn’t plan to leak news about its upcoming handsets the weekend before CES. But honestly, who knows at this point? A little early publicity never hurt. This one comes courtesy of a teaser video that got teased a little earlier than planned by way of the company’s official Vimeo channel. The leak was spotted by this individual on Twitter and posted to XDA Developers.

The video appears to be a promo for Unpacked, where Samsung is set to unveil its latest flagship, be it the Galaxy S11 or the Galaxy S20, depending which early reports you believe. The February 11 date lines up with some rumors (not to mention the synergy of 11), though others have had the company announcing the devices exactly a week later.

Samsung Unpacked leaked promo. Unpacked is confirmed for 2/11/20 pic.twitter.com/nQeT6i4aRp

— Max Weinbach (@MaxWinebach) January 4, 2020

If past years are any indication, the event is likely set for San Francisco, keeping with the relatively recent trend of getting out in front of the Mobile World Congress news deluge by a couple of weeks.

Let’s talk Samsung Galaxy S11

The video animation also appears to point to a pair of devices. There’s a standard rectangle, likely representing the flagship device and a squarer foldable successor to last year’s troubled Galaxy Fold. Here are a bunch of rumors about the former. As for the latter, early speculation has pointed to a cheaper device, with a classic phone clamshell folding mechanism, akin to the recently announced Motorola Razr.

Notably, Samsung also recently announced a pair of “Lite” versions of its its flagship S10 and Note 10 devices.

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Samsung announces ‘Lite’ versions of the Galaxy S10 and Note 10

Seems Samsung couldn’t wait a few more days for CES to arrive. The hardware giant this morning just announced the launch“Lite” versions of its popular handsets, designed to bring key features from the Galaxy S10 and Note 10, without breaking the bank.

The devices are a clear response to a sea change in consumer demand over the last several years. While Samsung has long offered mid-range devices, the additions of the Galaxy S10 Lite and Note 10 are an appeal to users looking for something in the flagship ballpark. While Samsung has yet to offer specifics on pricing, one images they’ll fall somewhere between its mid-range A series and the $1,000+ cost of the high end products.

Notably, both devices appear to feature actually the same display, a 6.7 Full HD+ plus at 394 PPI, with a hole punch “Infinity-O” camera up top. Aside from some fairly minor spec differences, the Note’s S Pen and some camera differences appear to be the primary distinction between the products.

Both feature a three camera array, on a large, rectangular bump on the rear. Each version has their strengths. The S10 has a five-megapixel macro, 48-megapixel wide angel and 12-megapixel ultra wide (123-degree). The Note, meanwhile, has a 12-megapixel ultra wide, 12-megapixel wide-wide-angle and 12-megapixel telephoto.

Inside, both sport a hefty 4,500mAh battery (with some differences from market to market), coupled with either 6 or 8GB of RAM and a default 128GB of storage. There’s some differences in the processor, though both are 64-bit octo-core models. They’ll both ship with Android 10. 

[gallery ids="1928724,1928731,1928732,1928733,1928734,1928735,1928736,1928737,1928738,1928739,1928740,1928741,1928742"]

“The Galaxy S and Galaxy Note devices have met consumer wants and demands around the world. These devices represent our continuous effort to deliver industry leading innovations, from performance and power to intelligence and services,” Mobile CEO DJ Koh said in. A release tied to the news. “The Galaxy S10 Lite and Galaxy Note10 Lite will introduce those distinct key premium features that make up a Galaxy S and Galaxy Note experience.”

That’s about all we know for now on either, though one imagines that Samsung will offer up more info, including pricing and availability next week at CES.

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Samsung shipped more than 6.7 million Galaxy 5G smartphones in 2019

Samsung Electronics announced today that it shipped more than 6.7 million Galaxy 5G smartphones in 2019, surpassing expectations set by the company earlier.

In September, Samsung Electronics vice president JuneHee Lee suggested that more than two million Samsung 5G smartphones had already been sold during remarks at IFA, and that the company expected to double that number by the end of the year.

The company also said today that its devices made up 53.9% of the global 5G smartphone market, according to a report by Counterpoint Research. It will release its next 5G device, the Galaxy Tab S6 5G, in South Korea during the first quarter of 2020.

Let’s talk Samsung Galaxy S11

The company is expected to launch Galaxy S11 models with 5G in February. While no iPhones currently have 5G support, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo forecast in July that all three versions of the device expected to be unveiled by Apple this year will support 5G. The release of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 and 765 means more manufacturers will be able to offer mid- and high-tier smartphones with 5G support this year, and that may help revive sluggish sales.

What we know about Qualcomm’s next-gen Snapdragon 865 and 765 chips

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