It’s been three months since Apple started shipping the Apple HomePod, its long-awaited entry into the increasingly competitive smart speaker market.
Despite initial optimism around the HomePod’s prospects, reports have indicated that Apple’s smart speaker falls short of its main rivals, the Google Home and Amazon Echo, in terms of features and functionality.
As a music lover in 2018, it is almost impossible to avoid streaming services and their neatly priced subscriptions.
There are two major players that account for 110 million subscribers globally and make up 32% of the US market for music purchases – Apple (15%) and Spotify (17%). As such, it only makes sense to pit the two streaming app giants against one another to see who reigns supreme in terms of having a superior UX.
Last month, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase announced they were teaming up to launch a venture aimed at providing better, more cost-effective healthcare to their employees.
And then last week, it was reported that Apple is launching AC Wellness, “an independent medical practice dedicated to delivering compassionate, effective healthcare to the Apple employee population.”
Finance giant Goldman Sachs has been around for nearly 150 years and is best known as an investment banking outfit, but in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008 that has permanently altered the fabric of the financial services market and led to the rise of fintechs, the firm, like so many other finance behemoths, began transforming itself.
When you think about the reasons you might buy an Apple product, the specific features of a smartphone or iPad might not necessarily come to mind. Similarly, you probably don’t think about all the products you’ve bought when discussing the benefits of using Amazon.
Instead, you might be more likely to think about the brand as a whole, the over-arching customer service it offers, or even the role it plays in your life.
Earlier this year, Apple announced new policies aimed at, among other things, banning apps that contribute to spam and clutter in the App Store. Specifically, one policy gave Apple the right to reject apps built using a “commercialized template or app generation service.”
Now, Apple appears to be prepping enforcement of this rule in a way that could hurt small businesses in a big way.
Amazon’s dominance of online retail in the U.S. was on fully display this Thanksgiving and on Black Friday according to data collected by Hitwise.
According to the competitive intelligence and consumer insights firm, Amazon processed 5.6m transactions on Thanksgiving Day and 7.1m transactions on Black Friday.
The digital ad industry is up in arms about a new Intelligent Tracking Prevention feature that is included in the latest version of Apple’s Safari browser.
The feature is now on millions of mobile and tablet devices as of the release of iOS 11 on Tuesday and will come to millions more later on September 25 with the release of macOS High Sierra.
On Tuesday, Google announced ARCore, a new augmented reality (AR) development platform.
On Tuesday, the European Commission (EC) announced that it is levying a $2.7bn fine on search giant Google for abusing its dominant search position to illegally favor its own vertical shopping search offering, Google Shopping.
In explaining the record fine for breaking EU antitrust rules, EC Commissioner Margrethe Vestager stated:
We’re already making headway into April, but hold fire, let’s journey back and take stock of some March madness.
With highlights from Facebook, Tinder and the BBC, here’s a recap of the month in social. For more detail, subscribers can download the Econsultancy Q1 Social Quarterly.
In January, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States.
His stunning upset victory as an outsider with no political experience shocked the world, and now everybody is trying to figure out what the Trump presidency will actually mean.