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CI 304 Reporting and Communications of Intelligence Partnership Exercise Articles Apple Innovation Exercise Articles

Presented by Heather Hallenbeck

Academy of Competitive Intelligence 630.983.5530 www.academyci.com

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise without the permission from the Academy of Competitive Intelligence and Heather Hallenbeck THE AMAZON APPROACH

As Amazon enters new spaces, it follows a strategic playbook:

First, Amazon introduces a customer-friendly product with a user experience and customer experience superior to that of its competition. This allows the company to build economies of scale, network effects, and leverage for negotiating with other parties (e.g. suppliers).

Then, it invests in upfront fixed costs that allow it to function better and provide an outsourced version of services to its customers. We’ve seen this with Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA) and (AWS), which allow companies to use traditionally expensive services (warehouses, data centers, etc.) on a rent-to-own basis.

By attracting enough users to a platform and offering its own outsourced services, Amazon can then standardize suppliers’ offerings on its platform. This allows it to create transparent and competitive markets for buyers and suppliers.

Hiring to lead its joint healthcare venture with JPM and Berkshire suggests a continuation of this playbook.

Gawande is focused on using standardization as a means of scaling up healthcare, especially for relatively commoditized goods and services.

Lack of standardization and focus on consumer experience has resulted in an incredibly fragmented, opaque market in healthcare, which makes the following particularly vulnerable to Amazon’s entrance:

• Middlemen that are value extractors and have large profit margins

• Companies that focus on formatting or coordinating information

• Areas where customer experience has been an afterthought

• Companies that have relied on opaque pricing as a business model

3 5/28/2019 celebrates HIPAA-compliant data transfer with six new healthcare skills | MobiHealthNews

Amazon Alexa celebrates HIPAA-compliant data transfer with six new healthcare skills

Developed by providers, payers and other stakeholders, each of the new voice-based services is designed tox) conveniently bring knowledge and management into the home.

By Dave Muoio (/content/dave-muoio) April 04, 2019

Earlier this morning, Amazon announced in a blog post that its voice-based Alexa platform now supports the development of software that communicates HIPAA-protected health information through an invite-only Alexa Skills Kit program.

To kick off the new capability, the company also highlighted the launch of six new Alexa skills built by healthcare providers and other stakeholders. Each is designed to help members, patients and caretakers manage care at home with easy-to-use voice commands.

“From our view, [Alexa’s data protection] makes for great opportunity in healthcare, because what we’re trying to do is make it easier for patients to access information, easier for patients to track their health and easier for patients to interact with their healthcare system,” Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Children’s Hospital, which released one of the six new skills, told MobiHealthNews. “Voice represents a great leap forward — as much as it is challenging for someone to log into their , download and train them in a mobile app, out of the box Alexa works. … It just makes sense to use these tools that are hands free and utilize the main modality that we use to communicate, voice, to improve care.”

The six new Alexa skills are:

My Children’s Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) Boston Children’s Hospital’s newest voice technology tool helps parents understand and follow pre- and post-surgery guidance, as well as to understand their child’s recovery progress and manage upcoming appointments. The skill is currently being implemented at the hospital for patients receiving cardiac surgeries, although Boston Children’s said that it is hoping to expand the skill to include additional patient groups “in the near future.”

Livongo Blood Sugar Lookup: A companion to the digital chronic disease management company’s Livongo for Diabetes program, the new skill allows users to quickly check the latest blood glucose reading taken by their device or their weekly average. According to the company, program members can also receive a selection of general health tips through their device.

https://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/amazon-alexa-celebrates-hipaa-compliant-data-transfer-six-new-healthcare-skills 1/15 5/28/2019 Amazon Alexa celebrates HIPAA-compliant data transfer with six new healthcare skills | MobiHealthNews

Swedish Health Connect A tool from the Providence Health system that allows users to find nearby Swedish Express Care Clinics and book same-day or -day appointments at the organization’s urgent care locations.

Cigna Health Today Designed for employees enrolled in a Cigna plan, the service helps users check in on their wellness program’s goals and access additional info on rewards and health tips.

Atrium Health The health system’s skill allows patients in and South Carolina find information about local care facilities —such as wait times, hours of operation, address and contact information — and book appointments.

Express Scripts he pharmacy benefit management firm’s offering lets members track home deliveries of their prescriptions, with the option to receive a notification when an order arrives at their door.

Why it matters

The arrival of HIPAA-compliant data transfers to one of the world’s most popular voice assistant platforms sets the stage for a number of new voice-first products (http://ww.mobihealthnews.com/content/37-startups-building-voice-applications- healthcare). And while voice command-based tools have been pitched for stakeholders across the industry, these six initial skills highlight the impact this medium could have among consumers and patients.

“We’re taking advantage of technology people already have,” Brownstein said. “How do we take advantage of the rising tide of adoption of consumer tech, and bring healthcare value to it?[By] not trying to invent things that are healthcare specific, but leveraging what consumers are already utilizing and already know how to use, and bringing healthcare through those platforms.”

From consumer health advice to clinician tools, Amazon’s voice assistant has already seen a number of skills and services revolving around healthcare. Although the past year was chock full of pilots and early implementations, experts in the field have stressed that the technology is only just expanding beyond its “first ”of reactive health information services to become a more and more proactive tool.

On the Record

"We believe voice technology, like Alexa, can make it easy for people stay on the right path by tracking the status of their mail order prescription, helping us further solve the costly and unhealthy problem of medication non-adherence,” Mark Bini, VP of innovation and member experience at Express Scripts, said in a statement. https://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/amazon-alexa-celebrates-hipaa-compliant-data-transfer-six-new-healthcare-skills 3/15 WHY IT MATTERS Amazon Alexa can aid doctors during surgeries

24 Mar 2019

NEW YORK: with in-built Alexa or Home smart speakers can not only play your favourite songs at home but can also assist doctors during medical procedures, say researchers.

Smart speakers can be programmed to act as an aid to physicians in hospital operating rooms, researchers said on Saturday during the Society of Interventional Radiology's annual scientific meeting in Austin, Texas.

Smart home speakers offer a conversational voice interface that allows interventional radiology (IR) physicians to ask questions and retrieve information needed for their patient treatments without breaking sterile scrub.

During treatment, IRs rely on nuanced medical information delivered in a timely manner.

"When you're in the middle of a procedure, you need to remain 1/7 sterile, so you lose the ability to use a ,

Kevin Seals, MD, a fellow in interventional radiology at the University of , San Francisco (UCSF). A team of doctors perform a surgery. Photo: Reuters.

This technology helps us to quickly and intelligently make decisions relevant to a patient's specific needs, added Seals, who is also the lead author of the study.

To reach this conclusion, the researchers at UCSF developed a device-sizing application for the Google Home smart speaker.

The application processes questions from a human voice and provides recommendations on the precise sizing of medical devices.

There are hundreds of devices, with more being introduced every day, making it difficult to determine the correct sizing or materials needed in every circumstance.

"This technology allows physicians to concentrate more closely on the care of their patients, devoting less time and mental energy to device technicalities," noted Seals.

In developing the application, size specifications were acquired using literature reviews for 475 IR devices, such as catheters, sheaths, stents, vascular plugs and others.

"Further research will look to provide information from electronic health records and patient clinical data, such as allergies or prior surgeries," said researchers. Amazon has explored getting into consumer health diagnostics - testing for disease at home

Christina Farr

CNBC 14 December 2018

Amazon 's secretive special projects group has considered products for consumers to conduct medical tests in the home, which could take the company into the health diagnostics space, according to a person familiar with the company's plans.

Two people say the company was in discussions this year to buy a venture-backed diagnostics start-up called Confer Health, but those talks did not result in a deal. Via its web site, Confer develops hardware for at-home tests starting with fertility and infections like strep throat. Their tests are designed to provide clinicl grade results at home without visiting the doctor's office.

The person said that Confer would have fit into a medical diagnostics project that was being actively explored over the summer. That project was led by a team under Babak Parviz, who joined Amazon from Google in 2014 to create a special projects lab focused partly on health. Within its diagnostics unit, the company was interested in fertility and geriatric tests for seniors, this person said. A different person who met with Parviz around the same time also said that he expressed strong interest in home health testing.

It is not known whether Amazon has decided to move forward with the project. One person said that Confer deal talks fell apart in the summer, around the time that Amazon made the decision to acquire the Internet pharmacy company PillPack.

But a move into the home health-testing space would be a signal of Amazon's ambitions to remake the entire health care supply chain. It could bring Amazon into competition with testing giants Quest and LabCorp , as well as retail health centers where the bulk of tests are performed today. If successful, it could save people trips to the doctor's office for simple things like checking to see whether they have the flu, and reduce the spread of communicable disease.

Confer has raised just shy of $10 million in venture capital and is advised by Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook executive who has been notoriously bullish on Amazon. Amazon and Palihapitiya did not return requests for comment. Confer Health declined to comment.

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-explored-getting-consumer-health-205400755.html?guccounter=1 1/3 5/28/2019 Amazon has explored getting into consumer health diagnostics — testing for disease at home

$250 million by 2020

The leader of the diagnostics project, according to the person familiar, was Kristen Helton, a PhD in bioengineering who also co-founded a health monitoring start-up. Her previous academic papers point to an interest in point-of-care diagnostics, specifically making it easier for people to access tools to test for disease outside of the lab. She has also looked closely at using saliva as an alternative to blood for biomedical testing.

Other Amazon employees involved in the diagnostics project and discussions included Parviz; Adam Siegel, who previously developed a medical device start-up; and Douglas Weibel, who teaches biochemistry and biomedical engineering at the University of -Madison.

All the people have been part of a bigger team at Amazon called "Grand Challenge," which is run by Parviz and has also operated under the monikers 1492 and Amazon X, as previously reported by CNBC .

The diagnostics project might be going under the internal code-name "Picard," although CNBC could not confirm this definitively.

An internal document from this summer discusses a project led by Helton, code-named Picard, that is expected to bring in at least $250 million in sales by 2020. The document says Picard would be in its third year of existence by 2020, suggesting that it was slated to launch this year, and that the project was a "new initiative for Amazon (organizationally within AWS but a non-AWS product)." Parviz is one of the direct reports for AWS CEO .

The name Picard, which likely originates from the "" character, suggests that this project is health-related, as the series features a "McCoy Home Health Tablet" that promises to deliver patient data to doctors instantly. The series is also famed for a device called a "tricorder," which measures environmental and health data. Amazon CEO is known to be a "Star Trek" fan.

'Quite revolutionary' Medical diagnostics experts say that Amazon is uniquely positioned to succeed in the health-care space, where many start-ups have struggled.

If Amazon moves ahead, "the notion of being able to connect consumers to a health testing product that sits in the home, as well as delivering treatments, would be quite revolutionary," said Greg , a tech-driven life sciences investor with Menlo Ventures, who does not have direct knowledge of Amazon's plans.

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-explored-getting-consumer-health-205400755.html?guccounter=1 5/28/2019 Why Amazon Could Have A Hard Time Getting Into Pharmacy

7,556 views | Aug 29, 2018, 08:00am Why Amazon Could Have A Hard Time Getting Into Pharmacy

Bruce Japsen Senior Contributor Healthcare I write about healthcare business and policy

TWEET THIS  The J.D. Power analysis indicates U.S. consumers “love their pharmacies”

A worker makes deliveries as a truck sits parked outside a Walgreens store in Los Angeles, California, U.S., on Oct. 20, 2017. Photo: Christopher Lee/Bloomberg

In a boost for brick-and-mortar drugstore chains, J.D. Power says customer satisfaction remains high for pharmacies and the retail health services they provide.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2018/08/29/j-d-power-amazon-faces-tall-order-toppling-brick-and-mortar-drugstores/#4c9329a01f97 1/3 5/28/2019 Why Amazon Could Have A Hard Time Getting Into Pharmacy The independent analysis by J.D. Power comes as Amazon begins to enter the U.S. pharmacy business, buying the online pharmacy PillPack earlier this summer in what some see as a potential threat to drugstore chains.

But J.D. Power’s average customer satisfaction score of 847 on a 1,000-point scale for brick and mortar pharmacies is good news for and CVS Health as they forge ahead with the strategies of adding more healthcare services inside their brick-and-mortar stores. Such scores compare with other industries J.D. Power deems "high scoring" like direct banks, property and casualty insurance companies and "full-service investment advisors," J.D. Power said.

“Amazon, or any other organization looking to disrupt the $100 billion U.S. mail order pharmacy market, will have their work cut out for them," J.D. Power senior director and healthcare practice leader Greg Truex said in a statement accompanying the report. “Legacy pharmacy players have invested heavily in delivering superior service, while brick-and-mortar pharmacies are starting to reap significant customer satisfaction gains from retail-style clinics offering health and wellness services.”

J.D. Power’s 10th annual U.S. Pharmacy study measures customer satisfaction based on responses from more than 10,000 pharmacy customers “who filled a prescription during the three months” before the May-June 2018 survey period, the company said. The survey methodology is “based entirely on consumer opinions and perception” and funded and conducted by J.D. Power.

Such consumer perceptions are key for brick-and-mortar retailers as health insurance companies who pay for medical care increasingly look at patient satisfaction as fee-for-service medicine gives way to value-based care models.

Brick-and-mortar retailers are stressing their face-to-face relationship with customers. Walgreens is testing several partnerships and this summer launched a digital marketplace that links its customers to medical care providers and their prices beyond services inside the drugstores. And CVS Health is touting its relationships with medical care providers and the potential to add more services https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2018/08/29/j-d-power-amazon-faces-tall-order-toppling-brick-and-mortar-drugstores/#4c9329a01f97 2/3 5/28/2019 Why Amazon Could Have A Hard Time Getting Into Pharmacy once its acquisition of the health insurance giant is completed in the coming weeks.

The J.D. Power analysis indicates U.S. consumers “love their pharmacies”  and they also like the “availability of health and wellness services,” which is an endorsement of the health clinics offered by drugstores. Customers also appreciate customer service of non-clinical staff and gave drugstores high markets if “non-pharmacist staff greeted” them in a friendly manner.

But the survey offers a challenge to online retail giant Amazon as it pushes into the mail order prescription business with its PillPack acquisition. Amazon is becoming a competitor to more established mail order businesses that J.D. Power also gave high marks including Humana Pharmacy, which scored 885, Pharmacy (866), Express Scripts (862) and UnitedHealth Group’s OptumRx (861).

“Amazon will have their work cut out for them with regards to entering the mail- order pharmacy segment with their recent purchase of Pillpack," J.D. Power's Truex said. "Our study shows that groups like Humana, Kaiser Permanente, Walgreens and CVS have very high advocacy and loyalty scores, with more than 70% of their customers indicating they ‘Definitely Will’ return to those organizations. Amazon will certainly enjoy a halo-effect, but they’ll need to bring their A-game to this industry.”

For more information on healthcare, read Bruce Japsen's book, Inside Obamacare: From Barack And Michelle To The Affordable Care Act.

Bruce Japsen Senior Contributor

I've written about health care for three decades, starting from my native Iowa where I covered the presidential campaign bus rides of Bill and Hillary Clinton through t... Read More

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2018/08/29/j-d-power-amazon-faces-tall-order-toppling-brick-and-mortar-drugstores/#4c9329a01f97 3/3 5/28/2019

Amazfit Verge will now let you have a chat with Amazon Alexa

Smartwatch also adds iOS clling into the mix

The Amazfit Verge is getting a whole lot smarter, thanks to the arrival of Amazon Alexa.

With Alexa now built-in, Verge owners can hear flash briefings, forecasts, sports updates, and more through the onboard speaker.

The full rundown of what can do with Alexa is listed below:

Flash Briefing – Set up and add favorite topics to personalize your daily news and content Sports Update – Set up favorite sports leagues (NBA/NFL) and ask the for the latest scores Calendar – Link with Google, , Apple, Exchange calendars. Users can ask Alexa on their Verge smartwatch what’s on their calendar for the day Alarm – Set a reminder or wake-up alarm To-do list – Manage your schedule and to-do list Q&A – Get answers to common questions throughout the day Translation – Get translation help in more than 50 languages, including Chinese, English, Spanish, Japanese and more

The iOS- and Android-friendly smartwatch, which runs on a custom OS, joins a very small group of that offer official support for Alexa on the wrist. The uses , and Samsung's Galaxy Watch has its own smart assistant, , of course, though you can unofficially use Alexa on an Apple Watch and Galaxy Watch through the third-party app, Voice in a Can.

The Verge does already include its own built-in voice assistant, but the addition of Alexa will no doubt be to the ears of anyone that's already making good use of the smart assistant and other Alexa-compatible tech.

In addition to the arrival of Alexa, Amazfit Verge maker Huami has also announced that it's improving the smartwatch experience for iPhone owners, too, by adding the ability to make and receive calls on the watch.

When you factor in that this $160 smartwatch already packs in features like GPS, a 1.3-inch AMOLED 360x360 screen, a heart rate monitor and NFC for contactless payments, the addition of Alexa is a solid addition from Amazfit.

We'll be putting the new features to the test along with everything else the Verge is capable of in the near future, so keep a look out for our full review. Today's best smartwatch deals

Samsung Galaxy Watch S3 Frontier - Active Save $114.98

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$229 $188.98 https://www.wareable.com/smartwatches/amazfit-verge-alexa-support-commands-7175 2/4 5/28/2019 Alexa: Tell me about Amazon's ambitions in healthcare - Pharmaphorum

Alexa: Tell me about Amazon’s ambitions in healthcare

Dominic Tyer

April 18, 2019

Over the last two years Amazon’s healthcare plans have gone from being a closely guarded secret to underpinning a series of very public deals and product launches, with 2018 proving to be the tipping point.

https://pharmaphorum.com/digital/amazon-alexa-haven-healthcare/ 1/5 5/28/2019 Alexa: Tell me about Amazon's ambitions in healthcare - Pharmaphorum The year before, all the chatter was focused on the company’s secret healthcare team and the disruptive potential of this, as-yet-unknown, unit. Then all the behind-the-scenes work started paying o.

Twelve months later and the company had made a series of high-prole healthcare appointments, moved into the medical retail sector, made further moves in digital health and established a joint venture with a blue-sky mission.

Keeping up this pace in 2019 would have been surprising, and the company looks to be letting last year’s deals and launches bed-in, but it did make one very interesting, voice-activated move this month.

Its smart-speaker Alexa signicantly ramped up its healthcare potential after it gained the ability to transmit and receive health information in line with the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and its data privacy and security provisions.

To showcase the new functionality, Amazon signed up a number of healthcare providers, payers, pharmacy benet managers and digital health coaching companies to launch six new Alexa healthcare skills.

They allow certain users of the device to do things like ask Alexa when their prescription delivery will arrive, to schedule a doctor’s appointment and even check their last blood sugar reading and provide trend information on their blood sugar measurements.

Amazon’s rst partners for this new type of Alexa healthcare skill are pharmacy services organisation Express Scripts, health service company Cigna, healthcare networks Providence St. Joseph Health and Atrium Health, digital health company Livongo (see video below) and Boston Children’s Hospital.

“Boston Children’s Hospital has long believed that voice technology has the potential to substantially improve the healthcare experience for both consumers and clinicians”

John Brownstein is chief innovation ocer at Boston Children’s Hospital, whose My Children’s Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) skill allows patients and caregivers to easily share recovery progress with their care team post-surgery.

“Boston Children’s Hospital has long believed that voice technology has the potential to substantially improve the healthcare experience for both consumers and clinicians,” he said. “We began this journey with one of the rst Amazon Alexa skills from a hospital four years ago and are thrilled to participate in the initial launch of Amazon Alexa’s HIPAA-eligible service for developers.”

The hospital’s new Alexa healthcare skill was, he added, “just one example of how voice technology can extend the care and support of our patients beyond the four walls of the hospital”. https://pharmaphorum.com/digital/amazon-alexa-haven-healthcare/ 2/5 5/28/2019 Alexa: Tell me about Amazon's ambitions in healthcare - Pharmaphorum

Livongo's Amazon Alexa Healthcare Skill

As a US-only, invite-only programme, it’s yet to fully hit the mainstream, but the direction of travel is clear to see, with Boston Children’s Hospital not the only organisation to have launched Alexa healthcare projects in recent years.

Others include a rst aid skill from the Mayo Clinic and an information skill from WebMD in 2017 and a healthcare information skill from Cigna that arrived last year. The Answers by Cigna skill provides brief answers to more than 250 of the most commonly-asked healthcare questions and aims to improve the public’s health literacy.

With over 20% of Americans owning a voice-activated smart speaker, of which Amazon’s Echo is currently the most popular, there’s a good chance it could help with this, given that one third of adults in the US have either or below basic abilities to deal with health information, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Amazon’s healthcare plans and projects

The development of Alexa as a source for health information and tools is just one strand of Amazon’s eorts in healthcare and looking at its achievements in 2018 that I briey mentioned above gives a sense of the scale at which it wants to operate within healthcare – and perhaps pharma.

The tech giant’s commerce roots were evident in its $1 billion acquisition of US online pharmacy PillPack last summer. The deal with PillPack could disrupt the traditional pharmacy market by delivering pre- sorted medicines and rells to customers’ doors and Amazon also showed interest last year in ’s second-largest pharmacy MedPlus.

It followed those activities with the October launch of an exclusive range of diabetes and hypertension devices. The Choice devices, produced by healthcare consultancy the Arcadia Group, included blood glucose monitors, blood pressure monitors and test strips to help people manage their conditions at home.

Amazon also began selling an exclusive line of Perrigo OTC products as part of its Basic Care range in a move that, as suggested, could help strengthen the company’s association with healthcare in consumers’ minds.

https://pharmaphorum.com/digital/amazon-alexa-haven-healthcare/ 3/5 5/28/2019 Alexa: Tell me about Amazon's ambitions in healthcare - Pharmaphorum The company already sells a huge variety of professional medical supplies, oering everything from scalpels to sample containers and even a hospital room, and its Amazon Business unit aims to be a major supplier to hospitals.

“When talking about the ‘GAFA’ (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon) bloc of technology companies and their efforts in healthcare it’s common to speculate as to how or when their non-pharma players will disrupt the sector”

On the digital front in 2018, Amazon’s Web Services unit joined a initiative from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) that aims to harness the power of commercial cloud computing for NIH biomedical researchers. And there was also the November launch of machine learning tool Comprehend Medical, which mines doctors’ and patient health records for data about a patient’s diagnoses and medications.

Last year also saw Amazon make a trio of headline-grabbing appointments, as it signed up the FDA’s former chief ocer Taha Kass-Hout, cardiologist Maulik Majmudar and Atul Gawande, a surgeon and writer.

The latter was picked to head-up Amazon’s non-prot joint venture with and JPMorgan Chase, known for now as Haven, that launched with a mission to provide their employees with a better health plan.

When talking about the ‘GAFA’ (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon) bloc of technology companies and their eorts in healthcare it’s common to speculate as to how or when their non-pharma players will disrupt the sector. In Haven, which now wants to deliver “better outcomes, satisfaction and cost eciency in care”, Amazon – and its partners – are certainly setting their sights high. Amazon has come a long, long way since it was rst incorporated in 1994 as Cadabra, Inc – a name swiftly dropped after a lawyer visiting Je Bezos pronounced it ‘cadaver’. Thankfully, its prospects in health are, well, much healthier today and, 25 years after it began life as an online bookshop, the urry of healthcare activity witnessed in the last 12-18 months could well reect Amazon’s own commercial evolution into the ‘everything store’.

https://pharmaphorum.com/digital/amazon-alexa-haven-healthcare/ 4/5 5/28/2019 Amazon kicks off PillPack marketing campaign with email to Prime users | MobiHealthNews Amazon kicks off PillPack marketing campaign with email to Prime users

Amazon sent Prime users an email virtual pharmacy PillPack, which the company acquired in 2018.

By Laura Lovett (/content/laura-lovett) April 24, 2019

Nearly a year after Amazon announced that it acquired virtual pharmacy PillPack or close to $1 billion, the retail giant is now starting to market the service to its members. Evidence of this emerged yesterday when Twitter users started posting the adverts introducing the new service to members. Notably, Jay Hancock, a Kaiser Health News correspondent, posted a screenshot of his email from Amazon, which boasts free shipping for the service. The email reportedly links to a PillPack landing paged advertising monthly home delivery services, prescription refill management and free service — with the only cost being copays.

PillPack gained recognition for its model of delivering medications in pre-sorted dose packaging and coordinating refills and renewals. The service originally targeted people who take multiple daily prescriptions.

https://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/amazon-kicks-pillpack-marketing-campaign-email-prime-users 1/14 5/28/2019 Amazon kicks off PillPack marketing campaign with email to Prime users | MobiHealthNews

Why it Matters

All eyes have been on the major tech giants as they begin to make moves in the healthcare industry.

Perhaps its no surprise that Amazon, famed for its quick and easy product delivery services, is dipping its toes into the mail-order pharmacy space.

But the tech company turned heads in January of 2018 when it announced a partnership with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase to build out a nonprofit healthcare company that, for the time being, will focus on the companies’ employees. While details of exactly what the partnership will mean are still scare, we do know that Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s, will be heading up the venture, set to be based in Boston, and that it will be named Haven.

In other Amazon news, the company announced this month that< its voice-based Alexa platform now supports the development of software that< communicates HIPAA-protected health information through an invite-only Alexa Skills Kit program.

TJI research, which first spotted the twitter posts, also noted that Amazon is selling health and< life insurance in India. Inevitably there will< be more health announcements in the future for Amazon, but only time will tell the direction.

What's the Trend?

While Pillpack gained recognition when it became part of< Amazon, it is far from the only online pharmacy.

Its competition includes, Capsule, a -based startup, that carved out its spot in the field with its hand delivery system.

Once a doctor prescribes the medication, the patient will get a text from Capsule enabling them to schedule delivery. Capsule< promises to deliver the medication to anyone in New York City within two hours of the interaction. The platform also lets patients transfer their refills from their old pharmacies to Capsule. Recently, the company landed a whopping $50 million in Series B funding.

Also coming into the space is NowRx, an online pharmacy specializing in same-day, same-hour prescription deliveries. In October, the company< announced a $7 million Series A raise.

https://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/amazon-kicks-pillpack-marketing-campaign-email-prime-users 2/14 5/28/2019 What is Haven? Amazon, JPMorgan, Berkshire revamp health care Everything we know about Haven, the Amazon joint venture to revamp health care

Published Wed, Mar 13 2019 5:49 PM EDTUpdated Thu, Mar 14 2019 9:26 AM EDT Christina Farr@chrissyfarr Key Points

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan have a non-profit called “Haven,” which is aimed at improving health care for their 1.2 million combined employees. Here’s what we know about it so far. The company just made its latest hire: Sandhya Rao as a VP of clinical strategy.

This image shows Atul Gawande, US writer, surgeon and researcher. South China Morning Post | Getty Images

What happened when , and Jeff Bezos, technology’s biggest power player, got together to try to disrupt health care?

The market went absolutely bonkers.

In January of 2018, three corporate giants -- Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan -- announced that they wanted to do something about the problem of rising health care costs for their employees and a lack of improvement in care. In response to that news, health care stocks shed billions in value. CVS Health, Walmart, Cardinal Health and Express Scripts were among those affected.

It’s been more than a year since the consortium formed, and it just finally got a name: “Haven.”

The group has a CEO and a team of about a dozen people. But what will it actually do to fix health care’s myriad problems?

Here’s everything we know, everything we don’t, and what we expect to happen:

Analyzing the hires

Haven is building quite a team.

Most recently, Haven hired Sandhya Rao, the senior medical director for health care system Partners Population Health, to run clinical strategy, according to an email viewed by CNBC announcing her departure. A Haven spokesperson confirmed the hire to CNBC, and said that Rao’s official title is vice president of clinical strategy.

She will join:

CEO Atul Gawande, a surgeon and writer on health care Chief Operating Officer Jack Stoddard, a seasoned health-tech executive Chief Technology Officer Serkan, formerly CTO of , a doctor-booking app. Dana Gelb Safran from Blue Cross Blue Shield in Massachusetts, who will run run analytics projects. David Smith, an executive they hired from UnitedHealth’s unit, which prompted a lawsuit from Optum over an alleged breach of contract. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/13/what-is-haven-amazon-jpmorgan-berkshire-revamp-health-care.html 2/6 5/28/2019 What is Haven? Amazon, JPMorgan, Berkshire revamp health care

So what do all these hires point to?

After analyzing the team, Trevor Price, founder and CEO of Oxeon Partners, a top health-tech recruiting firm, suggested that Haven will likely build a “risk-based clinically integrated network.”

That is, he believes the team would first build a curated network of doctors by analyzing data on performance, cost and other factors. Then it would build trust with employees and direct them to the appropriate type of care for their condition -- for instance, an urgent care clinic, medical specialist or telemedicine appointment. It’s about “steerage,” said Price, which could save these employers on their health costs by preventing workers from seeing doctors that over-charge and under-perform.

Price says Stoddard is particularly interesting because he worked at a digital health company called Accolade that specializes in building these relationships with employees and then directing them to the most affordable care.

That suggests Haven might also contract directly with hospitals and clinics and agree to pay them based on the quality of care they provide, rather than the quantity of patients they see or tests they order.

All in all, said Price, it’s an impressive group that spans entrepreneurship, technology and clinical medicine , although it is biased towards people who’ve worked at large corporations. It suggests Haven has big plans, as these folks would be unlikely to leave their day jobs for an initiative that lacks ambition.

A threat to incumbents?

The group had no official name, so was often referred to by the initials of its partners: ABC or ABJ. Now, the group is called Haven.

So what’s in a name?

The definition of Haven is a place of safety and refuge. It’s a port in a storm, a shelter for ships and boats, a retreat. If health care is a scary place for consumers -- particularly the 1.2 million combined workers of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan -- Gawande’s Haven is sending a strong signal that it wants to help.

Gawande also made that loud and clear in his statement and responses to a FAQ on the company’s new web site. He described being an “ally” and a “partner” to doctors, insurance companies, and patients. He also described meeting with employees in recent months to hear from them about their health care experiences. So Haven is a friend, not a foe, if you work for Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway or J.P. Morgan.

But will it be a threat to incumbents, like pharmacy benefits managers and insurers? That’s the big question at the center of a recent legal dispute over Haven’s hiring of Smith, the former Optum executive. Optum sued Smith, claiming that in the 18 months prior to his resignation, he played a role in defining the company’s strategy and had high-level access to confidential information. Optum also claimed that Smith printed off documents including a high-level analysis of the industry, while interviewing with ABC.

In response, Haven said it would not compete with Optum, a highly profitable unit of UnitedHealth that provides health care, data services and pharmacy benefits, and stressed that it would not offer products or services to the general market.

Doing a lot by doing nothing

Even if Haven doesn’t do very much, that might still light a fire under the health care industry.

The fact that three companies have come together to say that they’ve had enough with the status quo is a big deal, argues Matthew Holt, a managing director who specializes in health at private equity firm New Mountain Capital.

“These execs have influence in the market by standing up and talking about inefficiency and cost,” he explained.

Behind the scenes, it’s clear that Bezos, Dimon and Buffett are rallying the industry to do something to improve the $3.5 trillion health care industry. At J.P. Morgan’s annual health care conference this January, Dimon hosted a private dinner for top executives from pharmaceutical companies and advocated for lower drug prices. He told the room, “we are not happy with health-care costs and want to help.”

That kind of talk sounds the alarm to others who feel similarly, suggests Holt.

“There are folks out there cheering them on, which in and of itself can drive influence,” he said.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/13/what-is-haven-amazon-jpmorgan-berkshire-revamp-health-care.html 3/6 5/28/2019 Amazon opens up Alexa Mobile Accessory Kit to all wireless headphone and wearable device makers | VentureBeat

Amazon opens up Alexa Mobile Accessory Kit to all wireless headphone and wearable device makers KHARI JOHNSON @KHARIJOHNSON NOVEMBER 20, 2018 11:16 AM

Image Credit: Jabra Amazon today announced general availability for its mobile accessory kit, a toolkit to help manufacturers quickly add Alexa to their devices. The Alexa Mobile Accessory (AMA) kit allows -enabled devices to connect with the Alexa app for voice control of things like music, news, access to tens of thousands of Alexa skills, and smart home control. Also announced today: introduced Smart Headset, the first Amazon approved reference design for device makers to test Alexa on the go.

The $299 device includes push-to-talk access to Alexa through the Alexa smartphone app. Ituses the Alexa Mobile Accessory protocol to transmit Alexa audio data and controls overBluetooth.

The mobile accessory kit was initially made available for a limited number of devices, such asthe Jabra Elite 65t and headphones from Bose and Sony, all of which utilize the Alexa VoiceService (AVS). AVS provides many of Alexa’s most popular services, but as this review of JabraElite 65t headphones makes clear, there are some limitations.

Amazon first introduced the mobile accessory kit in January ahead of the Consumer ElectronicsShow (CES) to bring the intelligent assistant to more Bluetooth-enabled devices like wirelessheadphones and wearables, part of an overall push to put Alexa in homes, cars, and theworkplace.

https://venturebeat.com/2018/11/20/amazon-opens-up-alexa-mobile-accessory-kit-to-all-wireless-headphone-and-wearable-device-makers/ 1/3 5/28/2019 Amazon opens up Alexa Mobile Accessory Kit to all wireless headphone and wearable device makers | VentureBeat

Alexa for Business was made available for third-party devices last month, for the first time extending the service utilized by businesses, hotels, and colleges beyond the Amazon Echo and Echo Dot.

The Auto SDK, one of the first projects from the Alexa Auto team, was introduced by Amazon in August to help carmakers put Alexa into more infotainment systems.

More news on this front is likely on the way when OEMs show off their latest gadgets at CES in January 2019.

https://venturebeat.com/2018/11/20/amazon-opens-up-alexa-mobile-accessory-kit-to-all-wireless-headphone-and-wearable-device-makers/ 2/3 5/28/2019 Amazon Echo integrating health and wellness into Alexa’s future.

GIZMOS Why Alexa’s Next Big Move Is Into Health Care The shrewd logic behind Amazon’s reported plan.

By CHRISTINA BONNINGTON

Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Thinkstock and Amazon.

https://slate.com/technology/2018/05/amazon-echo-integrating-health-and-wellness-into-alexas-future.html 1/7 5/28/2019 Amazon Echo integrating health and wellness into Alexa’s future.

Health care is a $3 trillion a year industry, and tech companies such as Amazon are vying for a slice of it. In January, the e-commerce giant announced a partnership with JPMorgan and Berkshire Hathaway to “revolutionize health care.” Chie ly, this joint partnership would work toward developing a less costly health care network for their employees, but the exact aims and methods are otherwise vague. It’s also been rumored periodically that Amazon might enter the pharmaceutical business. Now, reports suggest Amazon is interested in building health care applications directly into its , Alexa.

Amazon is building a 12-person health and wellness team within its Alexa division to help make the assistant more useful to the health care sector, according to CNBC. This includes ensuring its functionality is compliant with health privacy laws. Diabetes management, care for the elderly, and care for new mothers and infants are speci ic targets of the team. Integrating Alexa with health care—particularly in managing chronic illness like diabetes— makes sense. In many households, Alexa eventually becomes part of the family, working her way into day-to-day activities like controlling the home or learning the news in the morning. Amazon could easily add a new Alexa Blueprint skill that reminds a user of medications that need to be taken at a certain time, coordinates with other apps to log glucose or blood pressure levels, or keeps track of upcoming doctor’s appointments.

In fact, some health care providers and hospitals have already begun working on their own Alexa skills. Libertana Home Health Care has trialed Alexa as a home health care aide for the elderly, helping ensure clients take their medications on time, keeping them connected with distant family members, and acting as a lifeline in the case of falls or injuries. Hospitals such as Massachusetts General have even tested Alexa in the operating room, helping surgeons go through safety checklists before beginning procedures.

Now, rather than relying on third-party developers to create skills for the health care sector, Amazon has a team working on natively allowing for variations of these kinds of experiences. The bene it for Amazon here is threefold: First, it makes it easier for an organization (whether it’s a hospital, retirement home, or insurance provider) to integrate Alexa into their operations. Developing an app of your own can be time-consuming and costly; this removes barriers. This also opens up Alexa products to new markets. With various health and wellness- monitoring capabilities baked in, it may make more sense as a gift to an elderly family member, and it opens the possibility of mass purchases by health care organizations. Lastly, it could give Amazon more valuable insights into its users, which can be used to hone their experience. Of course, giving Amazon access to user health data also raises privacy concerns, depending on what information it plans to collect and how it’s stored—but at this point, that’s difficult to predict.

With an aging population and an anticipated shortage of nurses, the addition of Echo devices in physicians’ of ices and hospitals could help alleviate some of the more mundane and tedious tasks health care providers have to deal with. This could help them spend their time more ef iciently and in places that matter most. It can also help bring peace of mind for loved ones knowing that an elderly relative can reach out to them with a simple voice command if needed. For other populations, such as new parents, Alexa could be built out to act as a robust resource for the many questions and concerns one typically has with an infant. Paired with the appropriate smartphone apps, client portals, and personnel, Alexa could prove useful in the health care space— and for Amazon, it doesn’t hurt that that endeavor could also be quite profitable.

https://slate.com/technology/2018/05/amazon-echo-integrating-health-and-wellness-into-alexas-future.html 3/7 9/20/2019 Microsoft, Amazon, other tech giants forge ahead on healthcare data sharing pledge – GeekWire

Microsoft, Amazon, other tech giants forge ahead on healthcare data sharing pledge

BY JAMES THORNE (HTTPS://WWW.GEEKWIRE.COM/AUTHOR/JAMESTHORNE/) on July 30, 2019 at 10:00 am

Executives from Amazon, Google, Microsoft and IBM on stage at the CMS Blue Button 2.0 Developer Conference in August 2018. From left: Dean Gareld, Alec Chalmers, Mark Dudman, Peter Lee and Greg Moore. (Microsoft Photo)

This past August, executives from Microsoft, Amazon, Google, IBM, Oracle, and Salesforce banded together (https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/amazon-google-ibm-microsoft-oracle-and-salesforce-pledge-remove-interoperability- barriers) to promote data sharing in healthcare. Nearly a year later, the world’s largest tech companies aren’t showing any signs of slowing.

Today, the tech giants renewed their commitment to healthcare data sharing standards with a new joint statement that highlighted the past year’s progress. They also put their weight behind a regulatory eort (https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact- sheets/cms-advances-interoperability-patient-access-health-data-through-new-proposals) to update rules governing health data by the Oce of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“As a technology community, we believe that a forward-thinking API strategy as outlined in the proposed rules will advance the ability for all organizations to build and deploy novel applications to the benet of patients, care providers, and administrators alike,” the companies wrote in their shared pledge, which you can read below. 9/20/2019 Microsoft, Amazon, other tech giants forge ahead on healthcare data sharing pledge – GeekWire

But the tech heavyweights aren’t just promoting data sharing standards — they’re helping to dene them.

“My team is looking at gaps in the interoperability landscape and capabilities that organizations are still missing,” Josh Mandel, chief architect at Microsoft Healthcare, told GeekWire. Once identied, Mandel said the team can start to address those gaps through the development of new standards. As an example, they’re looking at ways to improve how streaming data is captured from medical devices.

Update, July 30, 3 p.m. PT: In addition to the pledge, a coalition of companies and healthcare industry names — including Apple, Humana, and the State of Washington — today announced that they would be testing new standards (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/30/apple-amazon-microsoft-google-sign-on-to-carin-claims-data-standard.html) that give patients access to their claims data. The idea is to let people access their past healthcare information on the app of their choice, which they can use to inform new providers or make decisions related to insurance coverage.

The tech giants have much to gain from opening up healthcare data. As proof of this, the joint statement was preceded by news that (EHR) vendor Cerner named Amazon Web Services its preferred cloud provider (https://www.cerner.com/blog/cerner-leads-new-era-of-health-care-innovation). That’s a major win for AWS, since Cerner controls (https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/ehrs/klas-epic-cerner-dominate-emr-market-share.html) more than a quarter of the market for EHR systems, which serve as the nexus for patient data within hospitals. Cerner said that modernizing its platform would clear the way for more that can be built to leverage healthcare data.

Microsoft has been competing ercely (https://www.geekwire.com/2019/microsoft-healthcare-gets-ready-prime-time-cloud-ai- products/) to convince developers in the healthcare industry to build on its platforms. The company built an Azure API for FHIR, which is a set of standards that codify how healthcare data should be structured. Last month, Microsoft hosted a developer’s conference focused on FHIR (https://www.geekwire.com/2019/microsoft-backed-universal-blood-test-start-diagnosing-disease- within-small-number-years/), and it has also contributed open-source software that makes it easier to implement these standards.

Progress highlights from the other companies include:

Google launched (https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/healthcare-life-sciences/announcing-the-cloud-healthcare--beta- improving-data-access-and-shareability-across-organizations) a beta version of its Cloud Healthcare API.

Salesforce continues to grow (https://www.salesforce.com/company/news-press/press-releases/2019/02/190213-g/) its Health Cloud oering.

Oracle has leveraged (https://blogs.oracle.com/health-sciences/enabling-digital-clinical-trials) FHIR standards to collect data for clinical trials. 9/20/2019 Microsoft, Amazon, other tech giants forge ahead on healthcare data sharing pledge – GeekWire

As healthcare evolves across the globe, so does our ability to improve the health and wellness of communities. Patients, providers, and health plans are striving for more value-based care, more engaging user experiences, and broader application of machine learning to assist clinicians in diagnosis and patient care.

Too often, however, patient data are inconsistently formatted, incomplete, unavailable, or missing – which can limit access to the best possible care. Equipping patients and caregivers with information and insights derived from raw data has the potential to yield signicantly better outcomes. But without a robust network of clinical information, even the best people and technology may not reach their potential.

Interoperability requires the ability to share clinical information across systems, networks, and care providers. Barriers to data interoperability sit at the core of many process problems. We believe that better interoperability will unlock improvements in individual and population-level care coordination, delivery, and management. As such, we support eorts from ONC and CMS to champion greater interoperability and patient access.

This year’s proposed rules focus on the use of HL7® FHIR® (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) as an open standard for electronically exchanging healthcare information. FHIR builds on concepts and best- practices from other standards to dene a comprehensive, secure, and semantically-extensible specication for interoperability. The FHIR community features multidisciplinary collaboration and public channels where developers interact and contribute.

We’ve been excited to use and contribute to many FHIR-focused, multi-language tools that work to solve real- world implementation challenges. We are especially proud to highlight a set of open-source tools including: Google’s FHIR protocol buers and Apigee Health APIx, Microsoft’s FHIR for Azure, Cerner’s FHIR integration for Apache Spark, a serverless reference architecture for FHIR APIs on AWS, Salesforce/Mulesoft’s Catalyst Accelerator for Healthcare templates, and IBM’s Apache Spark service.

Beyond the production of new tools, we have also proudly participated in developing new specications including the Bulk Data $export operation (and recent work on an $import operation), Subscriptions, and analytical SQL projections. All of these capabilities demonstrate the strength and adaptability of the FHIR specication. Moreover, through connectathons, community events, and developer conferences, our engineering teams are committed to the continued improvement of the FHIR ecosystem. Our engineering organizations have previously supported the maturation of standards in other elds and we believe FHIR version R4 — a normative release — provides an essential and appropriate target for ongoing investments in interoperability.

We have seen the early promise of standards-based APIs from market leading Health IT systems, and are excited about a future where such capabilities are universal. Together, we operate some of the largest technical infrastructure across the globe serving many healthcare and non-healthcare systems alike. Through that experience, we recognize the scale and complexity of the task at hand. We believe that the techniques required to meet the objectives of ONC and CMS are available today and can be delivered cost-eectively with well-engineered systems.

At Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Salesforce, we are fortunate to work with many teams and partners that draw on experiences across industries to support and accelerate the delivery of FHIR APIs in healthcare. Moreover, we are committed to introducing tools for the healthcare developer community. After the proposed rule takes eect, we commit to oering technical guidance based on our work including solution 9/20/2019 Microsoft, Amazon, other tech giants forge ahead on healthcare data sharing pledge – GeekWire

architecture diagrams, system narratives, and reference implementations to accelerate deployments for all industry stakeholders. We will work diligently to ensure these blueprints provide a clear and robust path to achieving the spirit of an API-rst strategy for healthcare interoperability.

As a technology community, we believe that a forward-thinking API strategy as outlined in the proposed rules will advance the ability for all organizations to build and deploy novel applications to the benet of patients, care providers, and administrators alike. ONC and CMS’s continued leadership, thoughtful rules, and embrace of open standards help move us decisively in that direction.

Signed,

Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Salesforce 9/20/2019 Amazon Is Working on a Device That Can Read Human Emotions - Bloomberg

Technology Amazon Is Working on a Device That Can Read Human Emotions By Matt Day May 23, 2019, 5:00 AM EDT Updated on May 23, 2019, 6:56 AM EDT

Described as a health product, it would work with a mobile app Machines that can understand emotions are a sci-fi staple

Amazon Wants to Help With Your Emotions

Amazon.com Inc. is developing a voice-activated wearable device that can recognize human emotions.

The wrist-worn gadget is described as a health and wellness product in internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg. It’s a collaboration between Lab126, the hardware development group behind Amazon’s and Echo smart speaker, and the Alexa voice software team.

Designed to work with a smartphone app, the device has microphones paired with software that can discern the wearer’s emotional state from the sound of his or her voice, according to the

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-23/amazon-is-working-on-a-wearable-device-that-reads-human-emotions 1/4 9/20/2019 Amazon Is Working on a Device That Can Read Human Emotions - Bloomberg documents and a person familiar with the program. Eventually the technoloy could be able to advise the wearer how to interact more effectively with others, the documents show.

It’s unclear how far along the project is, or if it will ever become a commercial device. Amazon gives teams wide latitude to experiment with products, some of which will never come to market. Work on the project, code-named Dylan, was ongoing recently, according to the documents and the person, who requested anonymity to discuss an internal matter. A beta testing program is underway, this person said, though it’s unclear whether the trial includes prototype hardware, the emotion-detecting software or both.

Amazon declined to comment.

The notion of building machines that can understand human emotions has long been a staple of science fiction, from stories by Isaac Asimov to Star Trek’s android Data. Amid advances in machine learning and voice and image recognition, the concept has recently marched toward reality. Companies including Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and IBM Corp., among a host of other firms, are developing technologies designed to derive emotional states from images, audio data and other inputs. Amazon has discussed publicly its desire to build a more lifelike voice assistant.

The technoloy could help the company gain insights for potential health products or be used to better target advertising or product recommendations. The concept is likely to add fuel to the debate about the amount and type of personal data scooped up by technoloy giants, which already collect reams of information about their customers. Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that Amazon has a team listening to and annotating audio captured by the company’s Echo line of voice-activated speakers.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-23/amazon-is-working-on-a-wearable-device-that-reads-human-emotions 2/4 9/20/2019 Amazon Is Working on a Device That Can Read Human Emotions - Bloomberg A U.S. patent filed in 2017 describes a system in which voice software uses analysis of vocal patterns to determine how a user is feeling, discerning among “joy, anger, sorrow, sadness, fear, disgust, boredom, stress, or other emotional states.” The patent, made public last year, suggests Amazon could use knowledge of a user’s emotions to recommend products or otherwise tailor responses.

A diagram in the patent filing says the technoloy can detect an abnormal emotional condition and shows a sniffling woman telling Alexa she’s hungry. The digital assistant, picking up that she has a cold, asks the woman if she would like a recipe for chicken soup.

A second patent awarded to Amazon mentions a system that uses techniques to distinguish the wearer’s speech from background noises. Amazon documents reviewed by Bloomberg say the wearable device will take advantage of such technoloy.

Amazon’s work on a wearable device underscores its ambitions of becoming a leading maker of both cutting-edge software and consumer electronics. The Echo smart speaker line and embedded Alexa voice software have popularized the use of voice commands in the home. The company has also added voice control to Fire-branded video streaming devices for television, as well as tablets.

But Amazon’s efforts to create smartphone software to rival Apple Inc. or Google have failed. So the company is trying to make Alexa ubiquitous in other ways. Bloomberg reported earlier this year that Amazon was developing wireless earbuds, similar to Apple AirPods, that are expected to include the Alexa voice software. The company has begun distributing Echo Auto, a dashboard-mounted speaker and microphone array designed to pair with a smartphone, and says it received 1 million pre-orders.

Amazon has also been working on a domestic robot, Bloomberg reported last year. Codenamed “Vesta,” after the Roman goddess of the hearth, home and family, the bot could be a kind of mobile Alexa, according to people familiar with the project. Prototypes of the robot can navigate through homes like a self-driving car.

— With assistance by Mark Gurman

(A previous version of this story corrected the spelling of Asimov.)

In this article

AMZN AMAZON.COM INC https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-23/amazon-is-working-on-a-wearable-device-that-reads-human-emotions 3/4 9/20/2019 Amazon's Alexa Accelerator introduces its third startup class | VentureBeat

AI Amazon’s Alexa Accelerator introduces its third startup class KYLE WIGGERS @KYLE_L_WIGGERS JULY 24, 2019 8:00 AM

Above: Amazon Alexa Image Credit: Shutterstock https://venturebeat.com/2019/07/24/amazons-alexa-accelerator-introduces-its-third-startup-class/ 1/4 9/20/2019 Amazon's Alexa Accelerator introduces its third startup class | VentureBeat A year to the day after Amazon revealed the companies selected to participate in the second annual Alexa Accelerator, a 13-week program that grants 10 startups access to Amazon employees and mentors from the AI community and Techstars incubator network, the tech giant and Techstars today announced the third cohort.

This time around, Amazon and Techstars sought early-stage rms in health care, tness and wellness, enterprise collaboration and productivity, property tech, and machine learning services verticals. (The rst cohort honed in on games and interactive experiences, while the second cohort was largely focused on more practical applications, such as water conservation and accessibility.) Over the course of roughly six months, they narrowed down the list of applicants to nine companies that address challenges in retail, management, education, gaming, and a raft of related segments.

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“The 2019 Alexa Accelerator, powered by Techstars, oers another glimpse into how Alexa can make customers’ lives easier, more productive, and more entertaining,” Amazon said in a press release. “[These] early-stage startups [will receive] the support they need to grow their network, gain traction, incorporate Alexa, and engage with investors.”

https://venturebeat.com/2019/07/24/amazons-alexa-accelerator-introduces-its-third-startup-class/ 2/4 9/20/2019 Amazon's Alexa Accelerator introduces its third startup class | VentureBeat Companies selected to take part include:

• Ambit.ai: Founded by Greg Lok, Ambit is developing a product that quanties vocal patterns during team meetings and provides actionable insights and data on how communication behaviors impact team dynamics and business outcomes.

• Anycart: Grocery planner Anycart — which was cofounded by Rafael Sanches, Silvia Curioni, Renato Peterman, and Payman Nejati — lets users search for meals they wish to cook and surfaces relevant recipes, adding the ingredients to their preferred grocery delivery service cart and providing step-by-step video cooking instructions, along with other recipes that can use excess ingredients. It has amassed over 2 million installs and 1 million monthly active users to date.

• Ejenta: Rachna Dhamija’s and former NASA engineer Maarten Sierhuis’ company aims to provide AI-driven remote care technology for the millions of patients living with chronic conditions.

• Ex-IQ: Ex-IQ — the brainchild of Army Ranger and Delta Force Veteran Chris Donohoe, along with Darren Ward — turns digital documents into interactive audio les, allowing students and employees to highlight and tag written content and dictate notes via voice through a mobile app or an Alexa skill.

• Midgame: Jason Shen’s and Wayne Gerard’s Midgame builds video game-specic interactive agents that allow gamers to keep track of in-game activities, query for specic insights, and log achievements hands-free using voice.

• nFlux: Seyed Sajjadi, another NASA veteran, cofounded nFlux with Anton Safarevich and Danny Pena to create a system that ingests large amounts of unstructured data (like video) and generates contextual insights that can be queried through natural language. It has already participated in the Alexa Fellow Fund at California State University, Northridge.

• TogethAR: Former Amazon engineers Elena Zhizhimontova and Andrew DiLosa, who helped launch Alexa on Fire TV, are developing an AI and augmented reality technology that can enrich conversations by presenting relevant information and content pertinent to the topic of the conversation.

• VoiceHero: Amazing Race participant Joseph Truong cofounded VoiceHero with Jacob Chen to build out a suite of tools to launch and market voice skills.

• YourIKA: YourIKA — short for Your Intelligent Knowledge Assistant — was cofounded by University of Waterloo AI Institute codirector Dr. Fakhri Karray, Dr. Shady Shehata, and Rob Henderson with the mission of transforming the way the world learns by using AI to solve the “most signicant problems” in e-learning.

https://venturebeat.com/2019/07/24/amazons-alexa-accelerator-introduces-its-third-startup-class/ 3/4 9/20/2019 Amazon's Alexa Accelerator introduces its third startup class | VentureBeat The 2019 program will take place between July and October, Amazon says, culminating in a Demo Day on October 15.

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The Alexa Accelerator is part of Amazon’s $200 million Alexa Fund, which launched in 2015 and has contributed venture capital to more than 35 startups, including Rachio, Vesper, Owlet, Adero, , Sphero, Twine, and Hatch Baby. Amazon and Techstars invest an initial $20,000 in each company for a 6% equity stake, with potential for an additional $100,000 convertible note.

https://venturebeat.com/2019/07/24/amazons-alexa-accelerator-introduces-its-third-startup-class/ 4/4 6/3/2019 Is Apple Losing Its Innovation Edge? - Knowledge@Wharton

INNOVATION Is Apple Losing Its Innovation Edge?

Oct 30, 2018  North America

Consumers have greeted Apple’s latest slate of , and the newest connected Watch with solid interest, but not the high enthusiasm from years past. Since the iPhone’s debut in 2007, public excitement soared in the early years but then has steadily dipped as the novelty wore o. According to Statista, global search interest for iPhones has been falling since 2012, after peaking with the iPhone 5. Citi analysts also noticed the same shift over time: “We suspect this is because of a slowdown in innovation and the saturation of iPhone in the addressable market.”

Is Apple falling behind on innovation compared to other tech giants such as Amazon, Google, Tesla and a revived Microsoft? At an event in Brooklyn this week, the company unveiled revamped versions of the iPad Pro, and MacBook Air, including what it’s calling the biggest refresh of its signature tablet since it was introduced eight years ago. But people point to the merely incremental changes made on iPhones and the late introduction of a connected watch — after Google and Samsung already launched theirs — as signs that Apple is no longer

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/apple-innovation-edge/ 1/10 6/3/2019 Is Apple Losing Its Innovation Edge? - Knowledge@Wharton

the innovation leader. And yet as skepticism lingered, Wall Street went the opposite direction by making Apple the rst company in the world to be worth $1 trillion. How can a company supposedly losing its innovation edge get such a high valuation?

The answer is that Apple remains innovative today, according to Wharton experts, and any doubts about it stem from a limited understanding of what innovation entails. Wharton management professor Paul Nary said it is important to distinguish between invention and innovation. Invention is the creation of a new idea or opportunity while innovation “generally means a successful commercialization of a new technology or a new business model, usually by recombining it with other pre-existing elements, and making the possibility, stemming from the invention, into a market reality.” From this viewpoint, he said, Apple is innovative.

“It has been generally more successful than many of its rivals in incorporating novel features and technological solutions in its products while making them very attractive to a broad set of customers,” said Nary, an expert in technology and innovation management. “Apple’s competitors may argue and claim that they were the rst to introduce this or that feature, or to invent it, but that doesn’t change the fact that Apple was often the one to commercialize it with the greatest degree of success.”

By this measure, tech giants such as Google and Facebook can be seen as similarly innovative, despite not having invented their core products. “Facebook was not the rst social media website and Google was not the rst search engine,” Nary said. “The open secret of the tech industry is that none of the tech giants are actually inventive or even innovative enough on their own to keep up with the demands of their own growth. In order to innovate, these rms aggregate and integrate inventiveness and innovative eorts of other organizations. This is not because there aren’t enough inventors, creatives and new ideas inside rms like Google and Apple, but rather because of the sheer complexity and interdependence of modern technological ecosystems.”

For an iPhone to function properly, for example, it needs many components and technologies provided by Apple’s suppliers to work well, Nary said. Also, complementary products and services such as social media apps and accessories need to work in harmony to bring about a good user experience. “All of the innovative eorts of Apple or Google or Amazon would be useless without those of other rms within their respective ecosystems,” he noted. “What companies like Apple have to do is to continuously shepherd and harvest technologies, products and capabilities that they may need from other rms,” often through acquisitions.

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/apple-innovation-edge/ 2/10 6/3/2019 Is Apple Losing Its Innovation Edge? - Knowledge@Wharton

“The open secret of the tech industry is that none of the tech giants are actually inventive or even innovative enough on their own to keep up with the demands of their own growth.” –Paul Nary

Saikat Chaudhuri, executive director of the Mack Institute for Innovation Management, added that it is important to put things in perspective. “No successful company that we’ve seen throughout history has been able to come out with revolutionary, category-creating products every few years,” he said. “Rather, the key to sustainable success over time is to balance incremental innovation that leverages existing products with investing in revolutionary innovations that periodically disrupt the market. In the process, a rm needs to keep adapting and transforming itself, which includes shedding businesses that may have been cash cows in the past or even tied to its origin.”

‘Old’ Apple vs. ‘New’ Apple

Wharton management professor Ra Amit denes innovation as the introduction of a product, process or business model that is new to the market where it operates. “Apple has been an innovator not just in introducing novel products to the market, but in addition it has innovated the way it does business — in a profound way that has aected its revenue, its prots and its market capitalization.” What separates Apple from its rivals is that it innovated both its devices and its business model.

For example, in Apple’s old business model, it designed the hardware, software and contracted with manufacturers to make the products. Apple sold the gadgets online or through retail stores and they also sold wholesale as a computer reseller. “They contracted some things out; some things they did themselves and sold [the products], and basically that was it,” Amit said.

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Copyright Raf Amit But with the introduction of the iPod music player, Apple innovated its business model as well. Former Apple CEO convinced the record labels to allow sales of individual songs on iTunes, not just by the album. “That really was the beginning of a revolutionized business model,” Amit said. “Every time [consumers] downloaded songs, Apple made money. The innovation here is they made money not just by selling the device, but now they started making money by the usage of the device.”

To be sure, Apple wasn’t the rst to use this business model. For example, Gillette sells razors cheaply and makes money on the blades, which are expensive, Amit said. Apple sold an expensive device but charges low prices for songs. But it sold a lot of songs. Apple did the same thing with movies. Then with the introduction of the iPhone, iPad and the , the company made money on device sales and also on the apps themselves.

The impact of this change in business model by Apple has been dramatic. “For many, many years, the revenue and the prot were pretty constant,” Amit said. After the business model change, revenue and prots jumped.

Apple’s stock price also took a similarly big leap. Amit compares Apple’s phenomenal share performance to that of rival HTC, a Taiwanese handheld device maker. “HTC is very innovative. It produces fantastic products, but it did not innovate the business model,” he said. As a result,

HTC’s stock price growth is attish while Apple’s is explosive. The point is that “it’s not just about innovating the product,” Amit said, “but more importantly it’s to innovate the business model side by side with the product.”

Copyright Raf Amit https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/apple-innovation-edge/ 5/10 6/3/2019 Is Apple Losing Its Innovation Edge? - Knowledge@Wharton

Copyright Raf Amit

Creative Imitation

Martin Ihrig, adjunct management professor at Wharton, looks at innovation through three lenses: customer-driven innovation, knowledge assets or strategic knowledge management, and planning under uncertainty. An example of customer-driven innovation is a drug company — after realizing that it’s getting harder to churn out blockbuster drugs and with generics eating into its business — that decides to meet the needs of its stakeholders by branching into other health products and areas. “It’s not only just about selling pills, but there are so many other [ways that] pharmaceutical companies can help people become healthier,” he said.

Knowledge assets are such things as patents and copyrights, as well as the experience of key employees, Ihrig said. Leveraging them can lead to innovative activities. Finally, planning under uncertainty means innovating for the future, which could include moonshot projects that could later become feasible such as driverless cars. “You don’t know what’s going to be next. It’s really coming up with little experiments where you invest a little bit of money and see what the outcome is.”

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Apple is an expert in the rst two lenses of innovation. “They deeply understood the customer and they deeply understood the ecosystem,” noted Ihrig, who teaches strategy, entrepreneurship and innovation. Apple takes great care in providing customers a good experience — from downloading the content to ease of use on its devices. “It is really important for companies these days to see the journey of a customer, not only to help them with one little thing, but also with an entire solution.”

Importantly, Ihrig said, a company doesn’t have to be the rst with a product or service to be innovative. They can use what he calls “creative imitation.” “You take something that already exists, but you adapt it and further develop it and implement it in a context where it hasn’t been [used] before.” That’s not the same as being a pure copycat. “What Apple is doing is looking at what works and integrating it into its ecosystem.” So even if rivals like Samsung come out rst with new phone features, Apple can stay ahead. “You don’t have to be the rst to do a 1,000- meter waterproof cell phone,” he said. “You just have to see what the customer wants and what’s technically feasible.”

Insurmountable Network Eects?

Amazon and Google also are innovators, but in dierent ways. Amazon has transformed itself from an online bookseller to one that sells groceries, electronic gadgets, movies and other merchandise, and it also provides cloud services and operates retail stores. “In terms of technical and business model innovation, Amazon is really out there,” Ihrig said. As for Google, not only is it innovative, but it also can draw on network eects to stay on top. With network eects, the more people use a product or service, the more useful it becomes. Google came out with a better search engine that attracted more users and advertisers. As Google gained users, its search engine became more valuable — making it tougher for rivals to overtake it.

“Apple has been an innovator not just in introducing novel products to the market, but in addition it has innovated the way it does business — in a profound way that has affected its revenue, its prots and its market capitalization.” –Raf Amit

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Apple’s iTunes and the app store give it the network eect. The more people use the apps, the more developers are attracted to the , which results in more apps being created and more users. Google also did the same with its Android play store. This network eect of Apple means it likely won’t go the way of the BlackBerry or Nokia, once the kings of mobile phones. “Apple is in a position that is very dierent in that they have built a whole ecosystem that is very powerful,” Ihrig said. “They’re much more networked than Nokia or BlackBerry ever were.”

Wharton management professor Anoop Menon said Apple also has an edge in two areas that give it a “signicant innovative advantage.” One is inroads into wearables with the Apple Watch. “This could dovetail nicely with its big push into the burgeoning (IoT) domain — for example, its HomeKit — and open up a whole new space of innovative products that t well with its well-known capability of delivering great design.” Second, Apple is known for its strong stand on privacy. “Data privacy is fast becoming one of the central issues of the modern economy, and governments are scrambling to draft adequate responses to privacy breaches.” As Apple pushes into wearables and IoT, its strong privacy image will boost business. “These two directions of innovation can be seen as being quite synergistic.”

Horizon 1, 2 or 3

Wharton professor Christian Terwiesch, who is also co-director of the Mack Institute for Innovation Management, denes innovation as a “novel match between a solution and a need that creates value.” He categorizes innovation activities into three levels — Horizon 1, 2 or 3. Horizon 1 activities are those in which a company uses existing technology to cater to current customers. For example, the iPhone model goes from 7 to 8, the Apple Watch from version 3 to 4. It also can refer to process improvements, such as Apple ne-tuning store operations or manufacturing (through China’s Foxconn) to get costs down. “They are incremental innovations, but they’re very important,” he said.

Think about BMW coming out with new Series 3 vehicles every few years, or Google constantly rening its search algorithms, or Budweiser coming up with a beer with lemon. “We’re not ying to the moon; we’re not going from regular combustion engine to a Tesla, but these Horizon 1 innovations are the bread and butter of every rm,” Terwiesch said. “If we don’t do those, we’re just not going to stay in business.”

Horizon 2 activities are those in which a company uses new technology to potentially go to new markets. An example would be Apple going from the iPod (music), to the iPhone (phone) to iPad (tablets) and Watch (timepieces, tness). “It’s not more of the existing [product line],”

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Terwiesch said. “It’s something where you sit together with the product development team, and in two to three years you create a new product line.”

Moonshots and Beyond

Horizon 3 innovations are the truly revolutionary, such as the rst time someone invented the technology behind the . At the beginning, though, many Horizon 3 eorts fail. “These are technologies that were in the lab … that never saw the light of day because they turned out not to be feasible,” Terwiesch said. So when Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, it was a Horizon 2 innovation because it did not invent the mobile phone technology. Apple then maintained the product line through Horizon 1 activities — releasing a new model yearly.

“It’s a lot easier to be innovative when you have unlimited money. Google lays a golden egg every morning.” –Christian Terwiesch

Horizon 3 activities are typically relegated to the research center of a company, such as Google’s X, which works on moonshot products. Its Project Loon, for example, seeks to broaden a cell tower’s range by putting antennas in stratospheric balloons that expand the coverage area. Google had to design a balloon that could last more than 100 days even in inclement weather. It also built an autolauncher that could shoot these special balloons high up into the stratosphere, above airplanes and birds.

While revolutionary innovations can pay o, “we typically caution [companies] not to do too much in Horizon 3,” Terwiesch said. One reason is that the track record of success isn’t great. Most incumbents usually aren’t skilled in coming up with moonshots, especially if these projects can threaten their existing businesses. “It’s very hard to do internally,” he said. “Think about the birth of Tesla. Tesla didn’t come out of General Motors. Tesla came out of a startup.” So Horizon 3 projects are best in startups backed by venture capitalists who know they’re placing wild bets. It only takes one big win, say spotting the next Facebook, to get their money back.

Google — like Apple, Amazon and other deep-pocketed tech giants — is in a unique position to engage in Horizon 3 activities. “It’s a lot easier to be innovative when you have unlimited money,” Terwiesch said. “Google lays a golden egg every morning.” The amount of money it

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makes on search, he noted, lets Google spend even just 1% of revenue to make a serious run on moonshots. Apple’s gigantic prots from the iPhone give it the same nancial gun powder, Terwiesch added.

But whether or not Horizon 3 projects succeed, they bring other benets. One is recruiting power. “It’s very hard to go out to Stanford or Penn or Wharton and say, ‘Hey guys, help us make the search engine 1% more ecient so we can basically make more money on advertising,” Terwiesch said. “But if you tell people you are building a car that can y to the moon and back … that creates the buzz to hire the best and the brightest,” even though many realistically will end up working on more routine Horizon 1 activities like improving search algorithms.

Another Horizon 3 benet is what Terwiesch said his colleague Wharton professor Dan Levinthal calls “absorptive capacity.” That means a company can engage in Horizon 3 projects not just for the purpose of eventually commercializing these products, but also to learn from them. So when they see a startup working on the same moonshots, they are better able to judge whether it would be a good acquisition or not, Terwiesch said.

So when Apple’s critics lament that the tech giant is merely doing Horizon 1 and 2-type changes to its products, that doesn’t mean the company is lagging behind in innovation. “Apple was the rst company to be worth $1 trillion in the world,” Amit said. “Do you think investors are stupid? I don’t think so. Why would investors value Apple at $1 trillion if they think it is dead meat? … I, by no means, would write o Apple as an innovative company.”

All materials copyright of the Wharton School (http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/) of the University of Pennsylvania (http://www.upenn.edu/).

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8,852 views | Jan 14, 2019, 09:10am 3 Signs That Apple Has Lost Its Innovation Mojo

Peter Cohan Contributor Markets

CUPERTINO, CA - APRIL 08: Apple CEO Steve Jobs speaks during an Apple special event April 8, 2010 in Cupertino, California. Jobs announced the new iPhone OS4 software. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) GETTY

If I were to meet with its third largest institutional shareholder, Warren Buffett, I'd tell him that he's made a bad bet on Apple (in which I have no financial interest).

The reason, I'd argue, is that just because the name of the company is the same, its strategy has changed for the worse under . And that shift in strategy

translates into a low chance that Apple will be able to grow faster than investors expect.

I'd agree with Buffett that Apple has plenty of customers who like its products. Sadly for Buffett, Apple does not have a strategy for turning that "stickiness" into faster-than-expected revenue growth.

And that, after all, is what sends stock prices up. Conversely, the failure to do so sends stock prices down -- indeed that explains why Apple has lost $380 billion in stock market value since October 3 -- costing Buffett $19 billion, according to YahooFinance. https://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2019/01/14/3-signs-that-apple-has-lost-its-innovation-mojo/#9b60f856784c 1/6 6/3/2019 3 Signs That Apple Has Lost Its Innovation Mojo

Before getting into that, let's review Buffett's Apple holdings. Berkshire Hathaway owns 5.32% of Apple shares -- behind Vanguard (7.14%) and Blackrock (6.23%). While Apple constitutes less than 3% of their holdings, it's a whopping 25.79% of Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio, according to Morningstar.

Why is Buffett's concentrated wager on Apple a bad idea? Tim Cook is replacing Apple's strategy of innovating its way to success with a strategy of milking a dying product. Old Strategy: Innovating Your Way To Success When I started my consulting firm 25 years ago, one of my first clients was a huge Asian telecommunications firm that asked me to investigate why some U.S. technology companies were able to survive waves of new technology and most were not.

Out of that project came my first book, The Technology Leaders: How America's Most Successful High-Tech Companies Innovate Their Way to Success. That subtitle was inspired by Steve Jobs who said "innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."

While that is a nice aphorism, investors care about how that idea gets translated into faster-than-expected revenue growth. The way Apple innovated its way to success was easy to describe and difficult to do.

Jobs targeted a large existing market and invented a product that consumers liked much better than the ones incumbents were offering. Jobs did this with MP3 players (iPod), cell phones (the iPhone), and tablets (the iPad).

Jobs also recognized that a killer application was an essential prerequisite to making hungry to buy the hardware.

To that end, he transformed the market for music and video by creating the iTunes store in collaboration with content products. And he did the same thing with developers of iPhone apps through the App Store. Apple sold that content at a very low price, gave most of the proceeds to the content providers, leaving minimal profit for the company.

Thanks to great marketing, Jobs was able to convince people to pay a premium price for the hardware. Through its world-class supply chain, created by Tim Cook, Apple was able to make that premium-priced hardware for a very low cost -yielding gross margins north of 70%.

Jobs recognized that these industries went through life cycles. He would target mature industries and enjoy rapid growth in the Apple hardware he sold. Yet, he knew that this growth would slow as the market matured.

And he recognized that to maintain ite leadership, Apple would need to repeat this strategy of innovating its way to success.

New Strategy: Milking a Dying Product

Apple has stopped innovating at the same scale -- depending too heavily on the Chinese market for iPhones (now a 12 year old product).

To be fair to Cook, Apple has milked an extraordinary amount of growth from that product. Since taking over as CEO in August 2011, Apple has added $469 billion to its stock market capitalization -- up 187%. https://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2019/01/14/3-signs-that-apple-has-lost-its-innovation-mojo/#9b60f856784c 2/6 6/3/2019 3 Signs That Apple Has Lost Its Innovation Mojo

While he has offered lip-service to the idea that Apple's next great innovation is right around the corner, most recently in this Jan. 2 letter to shareholders, Cook has taken abandoned Jobs's idea that Apple needs to innovate its way to success.

Here are the three most recent signs that Apple has lost its innovation mojo.

1. Playing Catch Up With iPhone Rivals

Apple's iPhone success attracted rivals. And those rivals are now ahead of Apple which is trying to play catchup.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Apple announced that it would develop an iPhone with three rear-facing cameras.

But that's not innovation -- Apple is just trying to catch up to rivals. In 2018, Samsung released the Galaxy A9 with four rear cameras and Huawei’s 2018 Mate 20 Pro and P20 Pro have three rear cameras, according to the Wall Street Journal.

What's more damaging to Apple's brand is that Apple is trying to copy a feature that doesn't matter much to consumers. Atsushi Osanai, a professor at Waseda University in Tokyo told the Journal

"What we want from Apple is something that makes us emotional, even unconsciously—say, truly beautiful and sophisticated design that we can’t resist. Beefing up functional value, like expanding camera features, isn’t attractive because everyone else is doing the exact same thing."

2. Giving Away Its Killer App

Apple is abandoning its strategy of offering proprietary killer apps at cost to sell more of its highly profitable hardware.

To that end, Apple is partnering with other hardware makers to bring iTunes and to competing gadgets, according to CNBC.

After failing to win market share with the HomePod -- its own version of Amazon's Echo smart speaker -- in November Apple announced a partnership to "bring Apple Music to Echo devices and let users control playback using Alexa," according to CNBC.

Samsung has convinced Apple to write an iTunes TV app based on Samsung's operating system. And Sony's new TVs run on Android -- enabling Siri to control Google software.

To be sure, Microsoft abandoned its walled garden strategy when Satya Nadella took over as CEO. In so doing, Microsoft was able to expand business demand for its Azure cloud services which have considerably boosted its revenue growth and stock price.

Can Apple really hope to make up for declining iPhone sales by selling more services? I don't think so.

In fiscal 2017, Apple generated about $141 billion in iPhone sales and nearly $30 billion in services revenue -- up 3% and 23%, respectively from the year before. If those growth rates continue unchanged, by 2026, services will surpass iPhone sales -- with $193 billion to $184 billion in 2026 revenues, respectively.

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But I think this scenario is overly optimistic. 33. Suffering China iPhone Price Cuts If Cook's strategy for milking the iPhone was right, you would expect Apple to be able to sustain its higher prices. This matters most for investors is China where in the past, Apple derived a significant amount of profit from selling iPhones. But Apple is not holding its high price point -- consumers there can get more of what they want from Apple rivals at a much lower price. So Chinese retailers are discounting Apple products. As CNBC reported, Chinese retailer Suning cut the price of the 128GB version of the iPhone XR 17% from $1,036 to $858. That discounting is pervasive. "Sunion, an Apple re-seller, was advertising 700 yuan off for both the 128GB and 256GB versions of the iPhone XR. E-commerce site , which allows third-parties to sell products, also had hefty discounts across all of the latest iPhone models," noted CNBC. Jobs was right. Apple has to innovate its way to success. Cook can't. Buffett should take his lumps on Apple before it rots further.

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Why Apple Is The World’s Most Innovative Company In this exclusive interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook, he explains the culture and approach that led to iPhone X, Air Pods, Apple Watch 3, and HomePod.

“Our North Star is making the best products in the world,” says Apple CEO Tim Cook.[Photo: ioulex]

BY ROBERT SAFIAN LO N G R E A D

The only things more impressive than Apple’s financial are the products that generated them. For a company routinely slagged for not having had a hit since 2010’s iPad, Apple, which as of mid-January was valued at more than $900 billion, had a heckuva 2017: Its wireless AirPods became ubiquitous from Brooklyn to Boise, and can now be paired with the best-selling , which has GPS and cellular connectivity, for a meaningful, new consumer experience. Developers embraced ARKit, Apple’s augmented-reality framework, like nothing since 2008’s App Store (which paid out $26.5 billion last year). After a year of whining about what the new iPhone might offer, most skeptics were blown away by the iPhone X, with its facial recognition, camera quality, bezel-to-bezel screen, and new user interface. Now, HomePod, first announced last June, offers a fresh take on the intelligent speaker. These category-redefining products don’t just defy the adage that scale hampers agility and creativity–they obliterate it. During a January 10, 2018, conversation at the newly opened (itself an impressive product launch), Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down with Fast Company to discuss the overarching philosophy behind Apple’s ever-evolving universe and what unites its ambitions and endeavors.

Fast Company: What makes a good year for Apple? Is it the new hit products? The stock price?

Tim Cook: Stock price is a result, not an achievement by itself. For me, it’s about products and people. Did we make the best product, and did we enrich people’s lives? If you’re doing both of those things–and obviously those things are incredibly connected because one leads to the other—then you have a good year.

FC: Do you look back at some years and say, Oh, that was a good year, that year wasn’t as good?

TC: I’ve only had good years. No, seriously. Even when we were idling from a revenue point of view–it was like $6 billion every year–those were some incredibly good years because you could begin to feel the pipeline getting better, and you could see it internally. Externally, people couldn’t see that. With the iPod, before it came out, we didn’t really know that it would become as big. But it was clear it was changing things in an incredibly good way. Of course with the iPhone it was clear that that was a huge change, a category definer, but who would’ve thought [it would have impact] to the degree that it [did].

FC: We forget that the iPhone wasn’t immediately embraced by everyone.

TC: [People said] it could never work because it didn’t have a physical keyboard. With each of our products there’s that kind of story. Over the long haul, you just have to have faith that the strategy itself leads to [financial results] and not get distracted and focus on them. Because focusing on them doesn’t really do anything. It probably makes the results worse because you take your eye off what really matters.

FC: So what does matter?

TC: It’s always products and people. The question at the end of every year, or every month or every week or every day, is, Did we make progress on that front?

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FC: Given the relentless pace of change in the world, how do you prioritize what Apple is going to spend its time on, which things deserve attention and which things are distractions?

TC: There is more noise in the world than change. One of my roles is to try to block the noise from the people who are really doing the work. That’s tougher and tougher in this environment. The priorities are about saying no to a bunch of great ideas. We can do more things than we used to do because we’re a bit bigger. But in the scheme of things versus our revenue, we’re doing very few things. I mean, you could put every product we’re making on this table, to put it in perspective. I doubt anybody that is anywhere near our revenue could say that.

You have to make sure that you’re focused on the thing that matters. And we do that fair ly well. I worked at a company a while back, many years ago, where every hallway you go in, you would see their stock price being monitored. You will not find that here. And not because you can get it on your iPhone.

FC: Do the investment markets make innovation harder? Or does Wall Street motivate change?

TC: The truth is, it has little to no effect on us. But we are an outlier. More generally, if you look at America, the 90-day [measuring results by each fiscal quarter] is a negative. Why would you ever measure a business on 90 days when its investments are long term?

FC: And the payoff doesn’t necessarily happen on that kind of cadence.

TC: No, of course not. If I were king for a day, that whole thing would change. But when I really get down to it, here, it affects a few of us because we have to do a quarterly call and so forth, but does it affect the company? No.

AirPods [Photo: Celine Grouard]

FC: So what compels you to wow consumers year after year with new products?

TC: What drives us is making products that give people the ability to do things they couldn’t do before. Take iPhone X, the portrait-lighting feature. This is something that you had to be a professional photographer with a certain setup to do in the past. Now, iPhone X is not a cheap product, but a lighting rig– these things were tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And an iPhone X does more than just take pictures. There are so many parts. With ARKit, we created something that essentially took the heavy lifting with [augmented reality] and put it in the operating system, which empowers thousands of developers eventually to be able to build AR into their apps. Some will be very profound, life changing. There is no doubt about that in my mind.

FC: Sometimes Apple takes the lead, introducing unique features–Face ID, for instance. Other times you’re okay to follow, as long as you deliver what you feel is better, like HomePod, which is not the first home speaker. How do you decide when it’s okay to follow?

TC: I wouldn’t say “follow.” I wouldn’t use that word because that implies we waited for somebody to see what they were doing. That’s actually not what’s happening. What’s happening if you look under the sheets, which we probably don’t let people do, is that we start projects years before they come out. You could take every one of our products–iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch–they weren’t the first, but they were the first modern one, right?

In each case, if you look at when we started, I would guess that we started much before other people did, but we took our time to get it right. Because we don’t believe in using our customers as a laboratory. What we have that I think is unique is patience. We have patience to wait until something is great before we ship it.

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Apple Watch [Photo: Celine Grouard]

FC: So this differentiation I’m trying to create between Face ID on one end and HomePod on the other, you don’t see it that way.

TC: I think about things from a core technology point of view. If you look at the core technology in each of our products, we had to start working on it years before the product shipped. With iPhone X, for example, if you look at the Bionic chip, we started working on that many years before it came out. Because we [design] our own silicon, it puts a level of discipline in our planning process. Now it also gives us an incredible advantage from a product point of view, because we can do things that others can’t.

FC: In the magazine business, the issue doesn’t ship when we’re done with it, it ships when we have to print it. Sometimes that enforced discipline is valuable in pushing people. On the one hand, you’re patient, but on the other, you have to set deadlines, to create a forcing function somehow.

TC: You have to have a forcing function. For us, on the product side, we have to come up with our silicon requirements three, four-plus years in advance. So we’ve got things that we’re working on now that are way out in the 2020s.

You also want to have the flexibility to go right up until the last minute so that you are continuing to explore and use the product and discover more things that you want to do. There has to be a balance. If we try to allow that kind of flexibility in the silicon piece, we’d never ship a product.

[A product] is like a train–the train leaves the station, and if you have a great idea after that, it’s going on the next train. You’re not going to call this one back to the station.

We have events, other things, that give us goals, shipping by a certain time. But ultimately the question is, Is the product great? Is it ready? And if it’s not, we delay.

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iPhone X [Photo: Celine Grouard]

FC: How do you factor in outsider opinions? Some people complain, “Oh, Apple isn’t coming out with anything new,” and others will say, “Oh, there is so much new that we’ve reached Peak Apple.”

TC: You’re grinning. We don’t have a tin ear. We definitely listen. But because we know what’s happening inside the company, we just have to find another channel to listen to and tune out the noise.

FC: What about critiques that you get from consumers? https://www.fastcompany.com/40525409/why-apple-is-the-worlds-most-innovative-company 6/13 6/4/2019 A 360-degree tour of Specialized Bicycles’ innovation lab TC: Customers are jewels. Every day I read a fair number of customer comments, and they vary widely. Some are writing positive things about a store experience, an employee who did an incredible job for them. Some are saying, “Hey, I want a feature that’s not in the product right now.” Some are saying this feature should work this way, some are saying they had a life-changing experience with our product. I can no longer read all of them, but I read a bunch of them, because it’s sort of like checking our blood pressure.

FC: Is there some pattern you’re looking for?

TC: I tend to weight the ones that are most thoughtful. That doesn’t mean polite—I don’t mind people saying I’m ugly or whatever. It’s just, what level of thought is it? I care deeply about what users think.

FC: There’s a lot of talk right now at big tech companies about the unintended consequences of technological advances. How do you keep your ear open to those potential things without slowing down the machinery of change?

TC: I’m very sensitive to that. Our products are all about the people who use them. What comes with that is trying to anticipate not only the great things that people can use your products for but those things that might not be so good, and try to get out in front of those.

We implemented something in iOS 11 where it detects if you’re in a car and will shut off your and notifications. That isn’t us playing Big Brother. That’s us giving you a tool to help you do the right thing. You can override it; you may be a passenger instead of the driver, and that’s okay. But we would like to try as many of those as possible so that we help people do the right thing. Back in the day, giving people the ability to buy music digitally. That was about doing the right thing in a simple and straightforward manner because at that time everybody was ripping music off. Essentially, music was becoming free. We really try to think through these things.

FC: Music has always been part of the Apple brand. Apple Music has had a lot of user growth, but streaming is not a major money maker. Do you think about streaming as a potential stand-alone profit area, or is it important for other reasons?

TC: Music is interesting because it inspires people. It motivates people. There is a deep emotional connection. Apple was serving musicians with a back in ’84–’85. So it’s something that’s deep in our DNA.

Music is a service that we think our users want us to provide. It’s a service that we worry about the humanity being drained out of. We worry about it becoming a bits-and-bytes kind of world, instead of the art and craft.

You’re right, we’re not in it for the money. I think it’s important for artists. If we’re going to continue to have a great creative community, [artists] have to be funded.

I look at my own life, and I couldn’t make it through a workout without music. I don’t go to the gym for the fun of it. You need something to push you, to motivate you, and for me, that’s music. It’s also the thing at night that helps quiet me. I think it’s better than any medicine.

https://www.fastcompany.com/40525409/why-apple-is-the-worlds-most-innovative-company 7/13 6/4/2019 A 360-degree tour of Specialized Bicycles’ innovation lab

HomePod [Photo: Celine Grouard]

FC: Other home-speaker devices have not emphasized listening to music the way the HomePod does. They play up the digital assistant. It’s an interesting choice you’ve made, to go the other way.

TC: Yeah. Think about the production that goes into a recording of a song. Great artists spend enormous time thinking about every detail. If you get this little squeaky speaker, all of that is gone! All of the art and craft of music is gone. [HomePod] is the realization that that is important. Part of the enjoyment in music is hearing the full sound.

FC: What do people misunderstand or underappreciate about Apple?

TC: For a casual observer who hasn’t been a user of our products, the thing that they might miss is how different Apple is versus other technology companies. A financial person just looking at revenues and profits may think, They’re good [at making money]. But that’s not who we are. We’re a group of people who are trying to change the world for the better, that’s who we are. For us, technology is a background thing. We don’t want people to have to focus on bits and bytes and feeds and speeds. We don’t want people to have to go to multiple [systems] or live with a device that’s not integrated. We do the hardware and the software, and some of the key services as well, to provide a whole system.

We do that in such a way that we infuse humanity into it. We take our values very seriously, and we want to make sure all of our products reflect those values. There are things like making sure that we’re running our [U.S.] operations on 100% renewable energy, because we don’t want to leave the earth worse than we found it. We make sure that we treat well all the people who are in our supply chain. We have incredible diversity, not as good as we want, but great diversity, and it’s that diversity that yields products like this.

We’re all very different. You could walk down this aisle and talk to 10 people, and they’d be totally different, but we all have the same common purpose. That’s the thing that joins us all together. And it’s that goal that drives everybody to keep working ungodly hours and trying to do the best work of our lives.

Apple is No. 1 on the 2018 World’s Most Innovative Companies list. Check out all 50 companies here.

A version of this article appeared in the March/April 2018 issue of Fast Company magazine.

A B O U T T H E AU T H O R https://www.fastcompany.com/40525409/why-apple-is-the-worlds-most-innovative-company 8/13 6/3/2019 Apple - 39 Year Stock Price History | AAPL | MacroTrends

Apple - 39 Year Stock Price History | AAPL

Historical daily share price chart and data for Apple since 1980 adjusted for splits. The latest closing stock price for Apple as of June 03, 2019 is 173.30.

The all-time high Apple stock price is 230.27, which is 32.9% above the current share price. The Apple 52-week high stock price is 230.27, which is 32.9% above the current share price. The Apple 52-week low stock price is 141.58, which is 18.3% below the current share price. The average Apple stock price for the last 52 weeks is 190.43.

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Home / Market Insight, Financial Articles / Gadgets, & Tech / 10 Times Apple’s Hardware Failed Consumers — And Hurt Its Business Services are increasingly important, but most of AAPL’s revenue -- and a big part of Apple stock value -- is still tied to hardware

By Brad Moon, InvestorPlace Contributor Apr 30, 2019, 12:40 pm EDT

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has built a reputation for designing class-leading hardware and historically, it has been able to charge a premium for its products based on that. With smartphone sales softening globally, AAPL’s hardware revenue growth lately has been fueled largely by the company getting away with hiking prices to make up for slowing unit sales. To reduce the hit Apple stock took from declining iPhone sales, the company simply raised the price — and for a few quarters at least, that strategy saw iPhone revenue increase, despite fewer actual sales. However, over the past several years a number of issues have called Apple’s design and quality chops into question, across all its divisions. The danger is that if AAPL continues in this direction, those premium prices it charges for iPhones, and iPad Pros and other hardware will not longer be sustainable. And that would spell trouble for revenue and Apple stock. Throttling iPhones The first example here is a classic: . Last year, Apple admitted to intentionally slowing the processors in older iPhones, a move made in secret to help make the devices more stable as their batteries depleted. The problem was consumers were suspicious that AAPL was throttling iPhones in order to reduce performance to encourage upgrading to a new iPhone. In an attempt to reduce the PR black eye it received over the issue, Apple offered significantly reduced battery replacements to iPhone owners. The move is estimated to have cost the company $8 billion in forgone iPhone purchases — plus the $50 a pop the company ate on 11 million battery replacements.

https://investorplace.com/2019/04/10-times-apples-hardware-failed-consumers-and-hurt-its-business/ 1/6 6/3/2019 10 Times Apple's Hardware Failed Consumers -- And Hurt Its Business | InvestorPlace

Cancelled AirPower Wireless Charger No product in recent memory has made Apple look more foolish, or hurt its reputation for engineering more than one that was never released: the AirPower wireless charge mat. Apple announced the AirPower alongside the iPhone X in 2017 — perfect timing as key Apple products including the iPhone and Apple Watch supported wireless charging. However, the AirPower’s release date slipped to “coming in 2018” and then after the 2018 iPhone event it was scrubbed from Apple’s website. At the start of April, the company officially cancelled it, citing an inability to meet its quality standards. The AirPower was trying to do more than most wireless chargers, but the fact remains that with hundreds of competing wireless chargers already on the market, AAPL’s hardware design reputation took a big hit when the company gave up on the AirPower. MacBook Keyboard Lawsuits

Apple’s reputation has taken a big hit over the butterfly keyboard. There’s a perception the company emphasized thinner design at the cost of usability, then its engineers were unable to fix the keyboard’s design flaws — despite being on the third revision. At this point, Apple is trying to deal with the growing crisis by promising 24-hour turnaround on MacBook keyboard repairs.

iPhone Cameras The iPhone camera was considered the gold standard for many years. There was a reason photos shot with an iPhone dominated online photo sharing sites like Flickr.

That’s no longer the case, though. Alphabet’s (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASAQ:GOOGL) smartphones use AI to blow away the iPhone’s low light capabilities. Samsung, Huawei and other manufacturers are popularizing smartphones with three or more cameras for more effective wide range and telephoto shots.

The iPhone camera is still decent, but Apple is no longer seen as a pioneer and no-one is going to buy an iPhone because it has the best camera. Falling Behind on 5G

Apple stock has been under pressure from softening iPhone sales, so the last thing AAPL needed was the possibility of being years behind its rivals in adopting the new ultra high-speed 5G cellular standard.

But that’s exactly what’s happened. Feuding with Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM), Apple turned to (NASDAQ:INTC) as its iPhone modem supplier. But Intel fell behind and then threw in the towel on 5G. Apple was forced to quickly settle with Qualcomm (paying an estimated $6 billion) in order to get 5G capability for the 2020 iPhones. But it’s probably too late for this year’s release.

https://investorplace.com/2019/04/10-times-apples-hardware-failed-consumers-and-hurt-its-business/ 2/6 6/3/2019 10 Times Apple's Hardware Failed Consumers -- And Hurt Its Business | InvestorPlace shipped slightly bent. The company claimed this was “normal” and its hardware reputation took another hit. Stuttering iPad Pro Displays As is bending wasn’t a big enough problem, Apple is now dealing with reports of 2017 and 2018 iPad Pros suffering from stuttering displays. In addition, the affected have issues responding to touch input.

Considering the iPad Pro starts at $799 and Apple has spent considerable time touting its Liquid Retina display as being “the most advanced on the planet,” this issue is far from good news. Killing the Headphone Jack The iPhone 7 was a well regarded iPhone, especially the new dual camera system on the iPhone 7 Plus (probably the last time an iPhone camera was considered an industry leader).

But AAPL earned the ire of many potential buyers by eliminating the headphone jack. The company claimed the move was the cost of improved water resistance, but other companies like Samsung have been able to waterproof their smartphones and still keep the headphone jack.

There are two popular theories for why Apple killed the headphone jack. Either Apple’s hardware chops aren’t on the same level as Samsung, or the company killed that jack to boost sales of accessories like its wildly popular AirPods. AAPL comes out looking bad either way… Sealed Hard Drives in New

drive will be significantly slowing the iMac’s performance, despite its speedy new processor. Hard drives also have much higher failure rates than SSDs, and the iMac is a completely sealed unit — so when that hard drive fails (and it will), the owner faces a very expensive repair that involves lugging the computer to an where the display will need to be removed to access the dead drive. Swelling Apple Watch Batteries The Apple Watch has turned into a success story for Apple. That’s good news as the company turns to wearables to take the pressure off iPhone revenue and to provide future Apple stock growth.

However there is some bad news in there as well. The company is now dealing with a class action lawsuit over a hardware issue with the Series 2 and Series 3 Apple Watch. There have been numerous reports of swelling batteries popping off the Apple Watch display or even cracking it. Either way, the owner is left with a repair so costly they often choose simply to buy a new one instead.

With the Apple Watch being touted as a crucial product that could also be key to AAPL’s entry to the lucrative healthcare market, this is not the kind of headlines the company — or its investors — want to see.

As of this writing, Brad Moon did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.

https://investorplace.com/2019/04/10-times-apples-hardware-failed-consumers-and-hurt-its-business/ 4/6 6/3/2019 Cook confirms iPhone upgrades are on the decline as users 'hang on' to hardware for longer periods Cook confirms iPhone upgrades are on the decline as users 'hang on' to hardware for longer periods By William Gallagher Tuesday, January 29, 2019, 03:43 pm PT (06:43 pm ET)

During Apple's quarterly financial results call, CEO Tim Cook reported that iPhone sales are down in part because of existing users who were on subsidized contracts are now finding unbundled prices too expensive.

Asked by analysts about why iPhone sales were lower than expected, Cook revealed that the time between users upgrading their phones has lengthened. He said that this increased time means that some users now looking to upgrade were only now coming off previously subsidized contracts that had made the initial cost of iPhone much less.

"We do design our products to last as long as possible," Cook said. "Some people hang on to those for the life of the product and some people trade them in and then that phone is redistributed to someone else. The upgrade cycle has extended, there's no doubt about that."

Cook thinks price is a factor and that this was especially true outside the U.S. He said that comparing the pricing of this year's iPhones to last year's, at least in America, shows "actually a pretty small difference." Outside the continental U.S., though, he said that some countries were affected by currency exchange fluctuations which meant Apple needed to "essentially absorb part or all of the foreign currency moves."

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However, while acknowledging the importance of the sales price, Cook stressed that he thinks "the subsidy is probably the bigger of the issues in the developed markets."

"Even though the subsidy has gone away for a period of time, if you're a customer whose last purchase was a 6S or a 6 or even in some cases a 7, you may have paid $199 for it. Now we're in the unbundled world, it's obviously much more than that," he said.

Cook revealed that Apple has "a number of actions to address that, including the trade-in and installment payments."

"So where it goes in the future, I don't know," he concluded. "But I am convinced that making a great product that is high quality, that is the best thing for the customer. We work for the user and so that's the way that we look at it." Topics:

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6,032 views | Feb 1, 2019, 05:10pm Tim Cook Is Right: Why Differentiating Apple From Other Tech Giants Is Such A Smart Move

Roger Trapp Contributor Leadership Strategy

Apple CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly voiced concerns about use of consumers' data. (Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg) © 2018 BLOOMBERG FINANCE LP

We have grown accustomed to seeing the companies that play such a large and influential part in our lives as a homogenous bunch — Big Tech, Fangs and the rest. But it is arguable that all that changed this week, when Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple, revoked certificates that allow the social media giant Facebook to use its iPhone apps for internal testing and research without going through the

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogertrapp/2019/02/01/tim-cook-is-right-why-differentiating-apple-from-other-tech-giants-is-such-a-smart-move/#10324e4… 1/3 6/3/2019 Tim Cook Is Right: Why Differentiating Apple From Other Tech Giants Is Such A Smart Move usual formal reviews process, and then did the same thing with Google. The spark was reports that Facebook had been secretly distributing a Facebook Research app to members of a program that allowed the company to collect data on how they used their devices. Of particular concern were the claims that users as young as teenagers were being paid to install an information-collecting app on their phones. Google was reportedly operating a similar program called Screenwise Meter that also skirted Apple’s rules. The bans were lifted after a few hours, but not before employees of both companies apparently experienced great difficulties in going about their daily tasks. But the point had been made: Apple was not going to be dragged into the growing controversy over privacy and use of data in the tech world.

To be fair, Cook has been hinting at differentiating his company from the others for some time. He recently wrote an opinion piece in Time magazine calling on US regulators to protect consumer data and - in what was seen as a thinly-veiled attack on Facebook - complained of companies "irresponsibly amassing he user profiles, data breaches that seem out of control and the vanishing ability to control our own digital lives."

Last year, after it emerged that Facebook improperly shared consumer data with political research firm Cambridge Analytica, Cook warned that Apple viewed privacy as a “human right” and a “civil liberty.” He said: “The truth is we could make a ton of money if we monetized our customer, if our customer was our product. We’ve elected not to do that.” Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook, has clearly been irritated by Cook's assertions, saying in another Time magazine article: “A frustration I have is that a lot of people increasingly seem to equate an advertising business model with somehow being out of alignment with your customers. I think it’s the most ridiculous concept. What, you think because you’re paying Apple that you’re somehow in alignment with them? If you were in alignment with them, then they’d make their products a lot cheaper!”

Clearly, it is not possible to suggest that Cook is entirely on the side of the angels here. Only this week, Apple encountered its own issue, when it emerged that a

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogertrapp/2019/02/01/tim-cook-is-right-why-differentiating-apple-from-other-tech-giants-is-such-a-smart-move/#10324e4… 2/3 6/3/2019 Tim Cook Is Right: Why Differentiating Apple From Other Tech Giants Is Such A Smart Move bug on its FaceTime feature enabled people to eavesdrop on others even if they never answered a FaceTime call. But it does not seem to be in the same disarray as Facebook, which is rarely out of the headlines for all the wrong reasons (being used in disinformation campaigns in political elections and, just this past week, under fire in the U.K. over the alleged role of Instagram in the suicide of a teenager) and seems unable to do anything concrete to change perceptions. The appointment late last year of the U.K.'s former deputy prime minister, Sir Nick Clegg, as head of global affairs and communications is obviously a part of that. But Clegg is no seasoned public relations professional and his decision to join the Conservatives in a coalition government in 2010 and then run against them in the next election is hardly evidence of sound judgment. In the meantime, the fact that Facebook's financial results earlier this week appeared to show little sign of public disenchantment with the company may only embolden the management in its approach.

But that would be a mistake. Cook is right to see that views about the role being played in our democracies and in wider life by the big technology companies are changing. This is especially true in Europe, where regulators have not been afraid to take them on. And there are signs that such an approach may be taking hold in the U.S. as well. Making sure that the world sees that you are different from your so-called peers before action is taken is a smart decision.

I am a journalist with a special interest in all aspects of management, but especially leadership.

Roger Trapp Contributor

I am a U.K.-based journalist with a longstanding interest in management. In a career dating back to the days before newsroom computers I have covered everything from pop... Read More

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27,292 views | Sep 17, 2018, 06:50pm iPhone XS Highlights Tim Cook's Failure To Innovate

Ewan Spence Senior Contributor Consumer Tech Storyteller exploring digital worlds, mobile, music and podcasting

When you step back and look at the details in last week’s iPhone launch event, it tells you everything you need to know about Apple. It cannot grow iPhone sales, there is very little different between iOS and Android’s feature set, and the strategy is reliant on extracting more money from its current user base.

Tim Cook is building a pressure cooker that delivers more revenue every year, but pressure cookers don’t last forever. What’s his exit plan for Apple to change onto a more secure long-term path?

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CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 12: Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple, speaks during an Apple event at the Steve Jobs Theater (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

As Andrew Orlowski points out at The Register, the launch of the iterative iPhone XS, XS Max and XR confirms Cook is not going to change the strategy of trying to squeeze as much money out of every user. “ iPhone revenue is up 20 per cent year-on-year with unit growth of just 1 per cent. A quarter earlier, we saw the X effect as ASP rose from $628 to $728. Apple commands the lion’s share of profit in the high-end flagship, but iOS is losing ground to Android in the market place every single day. With reports that iPhone XS pre-orders are sluggish and below expectations, the initial joy of the 2018 iPhone family may not be felt in increased sales, but be restricted once more, to an increase in average selling prices of the handsets.

Given the removal of the iPhone SE at the bottom end of the range, you’ll have to spend $100 more to buy the entry-level handset - the iPhone 7. Price wise the iPhone XR sits between the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus, arguably adding $50 to the base price of the ‘cheapest newest handset’ compared to 2017. And if you (ahem) max out the iPhone XS Max, you’ll be looking at a $1500 sticker.

I’m pretty sure Apple’s revenue will rise in the next few quarterly reports, and that the services side of Apple will show another increase.

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CUPERTINO, CA - SEPTEMBER 12: , Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, introduce the company's newest smartphone, the iPhone Xs, (Karl Mondon/Digital First Media/The Mercury News via Getty Images)

The problem with this strategy is that increasing the average revenue per user (from both the handset sales and the ongoing services) is extracting more from a finite resource, and the level is surely approaching the top of the curve. How much more blood can Tim Cook get out of a stone?

This is a vital question for the trillion-dollar company. What happens when you have tapped out your users for as much spare cash they have each month? The business answer would be to grow the user base to have more stones to squeeze. This has been Tim Cook’s challenge for many years, and arguably it’s one that he has failed.

Apple’s annual sales have effectively stayed flat since the launch of the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus in late 2014. For many the 6 Plus, Apple’s first , triggered a ‘super cycle’ of consumers who had been waiting for a new iPhone with a large screen. A close analyse of the supply chain suggests that Apple was looking to the iPhone X to perform the same magic last year.

Instead the 2017 cycle delivered effectively the same sales as the 2016 and 2015 cycles.

Tim Cook’s Apple has increased Apple’s revenue, has pushed it over the trillion-dollar line, and woven the brand into the fabric of American culture. His one ‘new’ success is the Apple Watch but the smartwatch category has not proven to be a primary revenue driver. If it was, the symbiotic relationship between the Apple Watch and the iPhone would be reflected in sales. Instead the Apple Watch seres the goal of maximizing revenue from existing users, not bringing in new users.

Cook has brought in the short-term revenue (by the barrel load), but the lack of annual growth in iPhone sales, no matter what technical wizardry is packed into the new handsets, is a blot on his copybook. Hiding inside the increased revenue is the kernel of failure. The lack of significant growth over the long-term is a warning sign about Apple’s long-term prospects.

Behind the shiny power points and clichéd script, September’s launch focused on raising the baseline price of the iPhone, reinforced Apple’s approach of iteration over innovation, and played to the geekerati already locked into the ecosystem. That works for today. That likely works for tomorrow. But it’s not a strategy that is stable and secure for long-term growth over many years.

Tim Cook’s strategy has a built-in cliff-drop just after the peak of success. As the new iPhones gather plaudits and dollars, they continue the inevitable march towards that cliff.

Now read how Apple redefined the word ‘edge’ to market the new iPhones…

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2018/09/17/apple-iphone-xs-max-iphone-xr-revenue-share-strategy-failure-mistake/#6663a8bd9dc8 3/5 6/3/2019 Apple’s health strategy: Democratizing health information | MobiHealthNews Apple’s health strategy: Democratizing health information

A chat with Apple VP of Health Dr. Sumbul Desai. By Jonah Comstock (/content/jonah-comstock) February 22, 2019

It’s fair to say that Apple isn’t just dipping its toe into healthcare anymore. This past year the company announced its first two FDA clearances including a De Novo clearance for a built-in Apple Watch ECG feature that went live in December. It also announced numerous hospital partners for Apple’s Health Records initiative, including, most recently, the Department of Veterans Affairs. And in interviews, CEO Tim Cook hasn’t downplayed Apple’s health efforts. On the contrary, in January he told Mad Money’s Jim Cramer “I do think, looking back, in the future, [you’ll say] Apple’s most-important contribution to mankind has been in health.”

MobiHealthNews had the opportunity this week to sit down with one of the top Cupertino executives involved in making this big move into healthcare happen: Dr. Sumbul Desai, Apple’s VP of Health (and an actively practicing physician) who joined the company back in 2017. While Desai wouldn’t tell us about Apple’s future plans, she did talk a lot about how the different pieces of the tech giant’s healthcare strategy fit together, who they build their health products for, and the company’s much-speculated-on relationship with the FDA.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

https://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/apple’s-health-strategy-democratizing-health-information 1/19 6/3/2019 Apple’s health strategy: Democratizing health information | MobiHealthNews

Desai: I would preface by saying that it’s anecdotal.

Listen, as a doc I’m cynicaltoo. It’s part of the DNA of being a physician — we [tend to worry] about a lot of things.

… We were very concerned about ‘What is the impact this is going to have on the medical community?’ Because we don’t want to add to the burden. I mean, many of us are physicians and we still see patients. So this isn’t a group of doctors who don’t actually practice anymore. So we were very thoughtful about that.

The feedback has been pretty decent so far. I’ve heard some cardiologists say ‘Yep, I started getting ECGs mailed to me right away.’ And their biggest frustration isn’t around so much getting the ECG, because they’ve found that helpful, but it’s that the health systems are still figuring out the right way to handle that type of incoming.

But the customer stories have actually been really amazing. We’ve gotten a number of letters to Tim where we have customers saying ‘I took an ECG. I found this issue of atrial fibrillation. I went into the emergency room. They confirmed my ECG was indeed atrial fibrillation and I had X, Y, Z happen and my physician told me that had I not come in at that time I actually could have had a worse outcome or it could have been serious.’

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MobiHealthNews: So that idea of doctors saying maybe their health system doesn’t know exactly what to do with the data, ... that’s a nice segue into the other thing I wanted to ask about, which is Health Records. I think on the consumer side, the ECG is the thing everyone’s excited about but when I talk to doctors, Health Records is where they see the real change that Apple is inspiring happening. So how do those two pieces fit together?

Desai: How the two fit together is we think that empowering a customer and really democratizing the information for a customer to use and a patient to use so that they can engage in their health more effectively is really what we’re trying to do. So both of those features do that. By putting the ECG in someone’s hand and having the PDF [file] that’s designed for the physician so it’s not a whole different way of looking at things, [it] is really a way for you to engage with your physician in a different way.

Similarly with Health Records — and we’re really proud of what the team has done with the VA recently as well — Health Records now allows you to have all of your records, if you go to different systems in particular, in one place.

And I will tell you, as a physician I’ll see patients in the ER … and a lot of times the questions we ask are ‘What kind of medications are you on?’ … So now to have an area where I can look at all of that is very helpful. We’re very early in that journey … but there’s a lot of potential there and we’re really excited about what we can do. And we’re really excited that the medical community is excited about it.

https://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/apple’s-health-strategy-democratizing-health-information 4/19 6/3/2019 Apple’s health strategy: Democratizing health information | MobiHealthNews

MobiHealthNews: There’s a bidirectional aspect to it, right? If people are recording personal health data in HealthKit, can they put that into their record?

Desai: So it depends on the health institution. Some health institutions do allow you to put data from HealthKit into your actual record. But what’s really cool about what’s going on right now is we’ve had a few — I’ve actually heard this from a few of my physician colleagues anecdotally. They’ll have a patient who will show them what was happening on their HealthKit in terms of their heart rate. And then they’ll look at the medication that they were on in Health Records, when it was started, and then figure out what trajectory they were on. And one physician, and this is again anecdotal, shared with me that he was able to get someone out of the hospital sooner because he had those pieces of information together.

MobiHealthNews: Interesting. So even if they’re not interoperating inside the box, just having them both when you’re in the office with the patient is a step forward, right? More data is better.

Desai: Right. Well, more data that’s actionable is better.

MobiHealthNews: One thing I’ve heard about both ECG and fall detection when I’ve spoken with others in this space is this idea that the demographic that most stands to benefit from this stuff — older folks, over 65, over 70 — is not necessarily the demographic that has Apple Watches. … How does that sit from Apple’s perspective?

Desai: There’s a few things I’ll say. One, we build our products for everyone. We don’t ever sit and say ‘Hmmm, what demographic are we building this for?’

With regards to fall detection, I know that was the immediate place that people took it, but if you look at the stats, falls are one of the most common reasons for people to go into the emergency room across all age groups. So you can imagine, and this has happened to me, going up on your step stool to try to

https://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/apple’s-health-strategy-democratizing-health-information 5/19 6/3/2019 Apple’s health strategy: Democratizing health information | MobiHealthNews

get some flour or sugar, no matter what age group you’re in, and having a fall. And that happens. And so we really built fall detection for everyone.

With atrial fibrillation, it is true that the highest prevalence you see is in the older population. However, … there’s also a lot of studies being done in the cardiology community of what really is the prevalence of a-fib [in younger populations], and that’s not known yet. So that’s what we’re doing with the Apple Heart Study, where we’re looking at an undiagnosed population.

And again, [we’re] very early in the journey. We’re in the first inning when we think about where we are with health. [But hopefully we] will understand potentially, or at least it will give us a clue potentially, of what is the occurrence of atrial fibrillation across all populations. And then the next question is ‘What do you do with it?’ And that’s where we work with the healthcare community. Once you understand that someone has atrial fibrillation, what is the right pathway for them? We know for older populations what the right pathway is, but the question is for those that are in the middle.

And we’re still partnering with the medical community to learn that, but the way we look at it is that we are driving the conversation around heart health for people that don’t know they have a condition. And atrial fibrillation is one of those conditions that affects everybody. There are a lot of people,

https://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/apple’s-health-strategy-democratizing-health-information 6/19 6/3/2019 Apple’s health strategy: Democratizing health information | MobiHealthNews

even in the letters that we have, that are much younger, and it has been meaningful for them to understand that they have this condition.

MobiHealthNews: Because those are the people who aren’t likely to detect it any other way?

Desai: Yeah, and a-fib’s one of those conditions that doesn’t always have symptoms. So sometimes it’s useful to learn that you have a condition that you didn’t know you had.

MobiHealthNews: I want to talk about the FDA a little bit. I think a lot of people were surprised or excited that you were moving into the realm of FDA-cleared products, and I think there’s a question of ‘What’s next?’ Do you have an ongoing relationship with them, do you have more products in the pipeline and what do you want to do going forward?

Desai: [laughing] Good try on trying to figure out our future roadmap. I will not be giving you that answer, but I commend you for the attempt.

MobiHealthNews: Gotta try.

Desai: We obviously are very interested in the health space and so we’ll continue to do great work in that space. And we’re very committed to it.

With regards to the FDA, we have been working with them for years and we have developed a relationship. … So we have a good relationship with the FDA. However, they held us to task. I mean, they asked us really hard questions and, given the size and impact we had, were very critical of our products and making sure that we’re doing the right thing and thinking about the user first and the customer’s safety first — which they should do.

They have an incredibly hard job and I think we’re very respectful of the job they have and we have found them to be very thoughtful in their thinking about these technologies and

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what’s the right way to innovate, but also maintain the customer’s and patient’s safety.

So I commend what they do and we’ve had a really good experience in terms of learning from them. We’re early in the space so we’re very humble about what we know, and they have been very helpful about educating us as we go through the process.

MobiHealthNews: Do you think that Apple gets treated differently from anyone else at the FDA?

Desai: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. If anything, I think … we were asked a lot of really tough questions and we had the answers for them.

MobIHealthNews: I know Tim Cook has brought up health a lot recently, oftentimes when he wasn’t specifically asked about it, when talking about the big picture of the future of Apple. I think he said something recently like ‘In the future people will look back and say that’s the most important thing Apple did.' So I was hoping you could talk a little bit about that. How do you see how important health is to the big picture of everything Apple does?

Desai: I think it’s exactly what Tim said. We think health is an area where we can have incredible impact and meaningful impact. And how do you not work in a space, at the scale that we’re at, and not have impact? So that is what drives us. What drives us is hearing from our customers that we’ve had an impact in terms of their health and we’ve really moved towards thinking about how do we democratize data, health and education, and really democratize being well for everyone.

We’re excited about the work we do and there’s a lot of exciting things ahead, but we take it day by day. I think Tim has also said that we’re in the first inning, and I think we all recognize that as well.

https://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/apple’s-health-strategy-democratizing-health-information 8/19 9/20/2019 At its Core, Apple Is No Longer Innovative

61,520 views | Jun 7, 2019, 05:18pm At its Core, Apple Is No Longer Innovative

Greg Petro Contributor Investing

FILE- In this Monday, March 25, 2019, file photo, Jennifer Bailey, vice president of , speaks about the at the Steve Jobs Theater during an event to announce new products in Cupertino, Calif. Apple is hoping a cred card will entice more iPhone owners to use Apple Pay. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar, File) ASSOCIATED PRESS

Apple (NYSE: AAPL) has built its success upon a steady consumer appetite for buying every iteration of the company’s latest and greatest products - i.e. iPhones mostly. However, with iPhone sales falling, the iconic company is starting to resemble others in the retail industry whose complacency has pushed them to the wrong side of the demand curve. https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregpetro/2019/06/07/at-its-core-apple-is-no-longer-innovative/#3b8e11d3196d 1/5 9/20/2019 At its Core, Apple Is No Longer Innovative It’s no secret that I’ve been down on Apple for a while. In January, I predicted that increasing prices on devices void of big innovation was not a sustainable way to continu to grow the business. We have seen very little variation from this trend, in fact, quite th opposite. Just this week at Apple’s much touted WWDC 2019, the company unveiled - you guessed it - more mundane updates to its iOS software for iPhone and iPad, promoting a new (hardly exciting) “dark mode”, as well as new apps for the phone and watch as it tries its hand as a “service” company to make up for tepid phone sales.

As I mentioned in January, what we are experiencing is the slow and steady decline of Apple. The current situation was actually predicted by Steve Jobs himself early in his career, when he foresaw Apple would likely follow in the footsteps of Xerox and IBM if the company “got away from the innovation that made them so successful in the first place.”

Today In: Money

Yes, some things may be out of the company’s hands when it comes to phone sales, specifically the impact of regulation. Tim Cook noted in a letter to investors in January that sales were low because of slow growth in developing markets, and he specifically called out trade tensions caused by the current U.S administration. But the letter also references developed markets in which “iPhone upgrades also were not as strong as we thought they would be.”

The truth of the matter is that at its core, Apple’s woes go far beyond their ability to sell their flagship smartphones. The company’s challenges surround one simple fact: Apple is not innovative anymore across any category. Apple is failing to bring anything new to the table in smartphones, apps, smart devices, or even their retail stores. And until they find a way to do so, we will continue to watch this company unravel.

Here’s a look at a few of the most visible places Apple is falling down:

The Folding Phone

The company is falling woefully behind rivals in several categories, including hardware Earlier this year, Samsung and Huawei unveiled the first folding phones, with the new Galaxy Fold on sale in April. And while Apple still promises a folding iPhone, and did https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregpetro/2019/06/07/at-its-core-apple-is-no-longer-innovative/#3b8e11d3196d 2/5 9/20/2019 At its Core, Apple Is No Longer Innovative put forth a “concept image,” himself said during an interview with Bloomberg he is concerned about Samsung’s two-year lead. “[Apple] is not the leader in things like the folding phone and that worries me because I really do want a folding phone. You know, it’s one of those new technologies that does catch my attention,” Wozniak said. Goldman Sachs agrees, and recently described the Galaxy Fold as “the main potential challenge” for Apple.

AI and Smart Technology

Even as consumers become more reliant upon voice-commanded smart technology, according to this recent piece, Siri still doesn't match up to the assistants from Google and Amazon. Michael R. Levin, co-founder of market research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, agreed, pointing to the tiny share of the smart speaker market Apple's HomePod has carved out. "Apple is not in danger of falling behind. The have already fallen way behind."

Retail Stores

Apple’s recent retail fumble was their announcement that the head of its retail division , was leaving for an undisclosed reason. While nobody is directly sayin whether she was fired, it has been implied by those in the industry that a change was needed. “It was clear that Apple needed new strategies and a potential change on this front to catalyze demand in and outside the all-important retail stores for Apple,” Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives said after the news was announced.

Angela Ahrendts was hired to take Apple stores "to the next level" and have a greater impact on surrounding communities, according to this piece. Ahrendts says she felt her tenure at Apple was incredibly successful, attempting to position redesigned stores to b more like town squares and gathering places, and redrafting roles and new zones in stores for education on Apple programs. But it may not have been enough. In light of slowing sales and fewer customers, her departure could be a sign that Tim Cook may be moving to change up or cut costs in retail stores, whether it’s closing stores and/or cutting headcount, as this Venturebeat article predicts.

The Apple Watch

https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregpetro/2019/06/07/at-its-core-apple-is-no-longer-innovative/#3b8e11d3196d 3/5 9/20/2019 At its Core, Apple Is No Longer Innovative Apple is still the undisputed leader in digital wearables, shipping 12.8 million Apple Watches out of almost 50 million wearables in the first quarter of this year according to CNET story. However, Huawei is hot on Apple’s tail. While the company shipped 5 million wearables in the first quarter of the year (well less than half the number of Appl Watches), that was 282.2 percent more wearables than the same quarter a year ago, according to market researcher IDC. In comparison, Apple's year-on-year growth was 49.5 percent as reported by IDC. Apple is clearly trying to hang onto its leadership position by launching a dedicated app store for Apple Watch apps this week at WWDC. Time will tell, no pun intended, but the eventuality of Huawei catching up cannot be ignored.

Apple as a Service

Much is being said about Apple’s clear 180-degree shift on its business strategy - dismantling its iTunes store and morphing into more of a service-based structure by streaming music, movies and through three separate apps. "This is a pivotal shift for Apple and in our opinion the biggest strategic move since the iPhone was unveiled in 2007," Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities told Bloomberg. "There i massive pressure on Cook and Apple to deliver on services, with streaming content a potential linchpin of growth."

To me this feels like yet another example of Apple being disorganized and late to the game. While they already have a following for these services, to be successful, they’ll need to carve away market share from other established technology leaders (think , Pandora, and ), and that requires real innovation.

For Apple to continue to maintain its leadership and reputation as a technology innovator, it’s going to take more than tweaks and upgrades, me-too products and recategorizing of existing services. Apple will need to introduce and own an entirely new product category nobody knew they could live without -- and fast. While it’s likely that many die-hard Apple supporters will hang on for a little while longer, Apple is the hous that innovation built. Without innovation, there will be no more Apple. From early on Greg realized there was a better way for retailers to make decisions, and devoted himself to revolutionizing the retail industry. With decades of experien... Read More https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregpetro/2019/06/07/at-its-core-apple-is-no-longer-innovative/#3b8e11d3196d 4/5 9/20/2019 Innovation Was a No Show at This Year's Apple Event | Digital Trends

Mobile

By Innovation Only? The Apple event barely showed us anything new

By Simon Hill September 11, 2019 8:11AM PST

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/apple-event-where-is-the-innovation/ 1/18 9/20/2019 Innovation Was a No Show at This Year's Apple Event | Digital Trends

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends The hype for Apple events always spirals out of control and looks a little silly in the cold light of reality. If I’ve learned anything from covering Apple events over the last few years it’s that they rarely deliver on expectations. There are always a few rumored devices or features that don’t make the final cut. This year it was Apple’s supposed tracking tags, the lack of which will have Tile breathing a sigh of relief. Rumors also insisted that we’d get reverse wireless charging, sleep tracking on the Apple Watch, and support for the iPhone. A 16- inch MacBook Pro was never likely, at least not at this event. It’s not a crushing disappointment that none of these things materialized, but there wasn’t much to get excited about in what Apple did deliver.Improvements to stay competitive Leading with and Apple TV+, two subscription services that cost $5 per month each, was a slow start. But surely CEO Tim Cook was just warming us up for some stunning new hardware? As it turned out, we got a slightly better entry-level iPad, a slightly better Apple Watch, and three slightly better iPhones. The headline was camera updates, which are quite simply necessary if Apple wants to keep up with the field.

There are a plethora of Android smartphones with triple-camera setups, and while we’ll have to wait to see if Apple’s implementation is better, the feature itself isn’t innovative. The same can be said for the new Night mode. The video camera upgrades are noteworthy, and it likely remains the fact that the iPhone is the best camera to buy if you frequently shoot a lot of videos. But the crop of updates felt like the bare minimum. Not that there’s anything wrong with just slightly improving great devices, especially when you execute as well as Apple does, but you should manage expectations. By Innovation Only For an event that Apple hyped with the name “By Innovation Only” this line-up fell woefully short. The name changes for the iPhone hinted at exciting possibilities. The flagship iPhones had Pro added to their titles, but they may as well be called the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Max because and XS Max. Apple had a real opportunity here to take inspiration from the iPad Pro. I don’t care about Apple Pencil support in a phone, but an iPhone 11 with a USB-C port and 120Hz refresh rate for the screen would have been noteworthy, and it would certainly help qualify the Pro name. You can get the OnePlus 7 Pro for $679 and enjoy a bezel-less screen with a 90Hz refresh rate that makes everything feel fluid.

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Storage also seems like an important thing for a “Pro” device, but the base models of all the new iPhones have just 64GB when 128GB should be the minimum, as it is with most of the competition. How about throwing in some cloud storage then? Nope, sorry you’ll have to pay extra if you want more than the paltry 5GB of iCloud space you get for free. I’m glad Apple has added a proper fast charger in the box for the iPhone 11 Pro models, but it should always have been there, and it should be added to the iPhone 11 as well.

The iPhone 11 is clearly the evolution of the iPhone XR, and perhaps the message here is that the affordable iPhone is the iPhone for everyone now. But the only really exciting thing about it is the$699 price. I can’t help wondering if the name will confuse some people, misleading them into thinking that the iPhone 11 is the flagship. If anyone “upgrades” from an iPhone XS or even an iPhone X to the iPhone 11 they’re going to get a nasty surprise.

While the iPhone 11 Pro is undoubtedly a good phone that lots of people will buy and enjoy, and the iPhone 11 is aggressively priced by Apple standards, it’s a stretch to suggest there’s anything truly innovative here.

The same rings true for the . Yes, it’s the best smartwatch you can buy, but the changes from the Series 4 to the new model are small. An always-on display does improve the watch’s usability, but always-on displays have been available on for ages.

One more thing

Not every event, or even every annual update, can be a winner. But if ever an Apple event could have used a “one more thing” reveal, it was this one. Though the phrase really belongs to a fictional homicide detective, Columbo, unleashed to apply psychological pressure to the killer in every episode, it was used effectively by Steve Jobs. It was his way of saying, often at the end of a long list of impressive reveals, that Apple had more to show. It suggested that there was so much innovation at Apple it could barely be contained.

It’s a stretch to suggest there’s anything truly innovative here.

The last time we heard “one more thing” at an Apple event was from Tim Cook just before the iPhone X reveal in 2017. He has only used the phrase twice before that, for the Apple Watch in 2014 and Apple Music in 2015.

There are lots of good reasons for him not to use that phrase anymore — it harks back to Apple’s past, it’s strongly associated with Jobs, and Apple rarely unveils anything that hasn’t been widely leaked before the event nowadays. But it’s not just that. While Jobs uttered that phrase before some big reveals from color iMacs and the iPod Shuffle to the MacBook Pro and the Apple TV, people have forgotten that he also said it before many lesser announcements. Now, it’s expected to precede something truly awe-inspiring.

For Cook to rekindle that excitement with the famous phrase it would have to be something big, like the Apple Watch, and there was simply nothing worthy at this year’s event. We can only hope there is at the next one.

The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not reflect the beliefs of Digital Trends.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/apple-event-where-is-the-innovation/ 7/18 9/20/2019 Apple's By Innovation Only event established Samsung as the trailblazer | VentureBeat

MOBILE OPINION

Apple’s By Innovation Only event established Samsung as the trailblazer JEREMY HORWITZ @HORWITZ SEPTEMBER 11, 2019 7:31 AM

While Apple’s media events are always polished, Samsung’s can be downright hard to watch —awkward pacing and confusion are practically a given. Yet even as a long-time Apple user, I must concede that the companies’ respective events have rmly established Samsung as the consumer electronics innovator to watch in 2020, largely thanks to an unforced error on Apple’s part that could mark a turning point in its public perception going forward.

Anyone familiar with Apple’s history of aggressive self-promotion knew that titling yesterday’s event “By Innovation Only” was either a declaration that something really big was about to be unveiled or the ultimate act of hubris for a company that has already had a rough year. obvious, and as the event began Apple CEO Tim Cook doubled down on the theme, promising viewers a “huge morning” with “some truly big announcements.” What followed was anything but huge. Apple began with underwhelming demos of new subscription services that appeared to justify their atypically low prices, followed by an uninspired update to the basic iPad, the smallest Apple Watch hardware upgrade thus far, and new iPhones that were “S”-caliber in everything but name. Particularly ugly cameras and modestly longer battery life will be remembered as the biggest iPhone advancements of the event. Despite the theme and Cook’s excitement, big innovations were actually so few and far between that many viewers left the broadcast asking, “Is that it?” To address one possible o set, Apple can’t blame advance leaks for either spoiling huge reveals or setting expectations too high. The event’s theme was chosen only two weeks ahead of time, and Apple had every opportunity to show imaginative new products or make the case for big innovations inside. Instead, it delivered a message that has now been made far too many times: Buy our new o erings so you can enjoy features our rivals debuted months or years ago. There’s no getting around the fact that Samsung’s new phones and watches set the bar this

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Samsung’s Galaxy Note10 is ahead of Apple’s curve in multiple technologies.

As a brief aside, this was a particularly weird event for Apple’s chip division. The Apple Watch Series 5 launched with a brand new S5 processor that got no stage time, no web details, and apparently no major performance improvements over the S4 — a shock, given that year-over-year speed doubling was previously an S-series focus. Apple’s A13 became the third chip in a row to use the “Bionic” su x and received a confusingly bifurcated introduction that failed to sell its advantages. Hardware component issues are only part of Apple’s problem right now. Yes, Samsung and others beat Apple to triple rear camera systems (to say nothing of quadruple, time of ight, and 48/64-megapixel cameras), Night mode, and other tentpole photography features. Sure, an Apple Watch with an always- on screen seems positively quaint compared to … well, plenty of wrist wearables at this point. But Apple should really be concerned about Samsung’s increasing competence at leveraging advanced hardware with software. At the last Galaxy Unpacked event, Samsung demonstrated an augmented reality camera feature that used Galaxy Note 10 hardware to 3D-scan a real stu ed toy, turning it into a digital puppet that the user could instantly control with body motions. If you missed that moment, check it out here, because it’s breathtaking. In less than three minutes, Samsung showed consumers something they had never seen before: a rare, seriously cool example of next-generation augmented reality hardware and software. Even if you’re not wowed by that particular example, there are plenty of other features —bidirectional charging, ultrasonic ngerprint scanning, and 5G cellular support — where Apple’s devices are now a generation or more behind an increasingly impressive pack of competitors. Samsung fans will say this isn’t anything new. Going forward, Apple has a clear choice. It can stop overpromising huge news when it doesn’t have the announcements to match the hype or actually start delivering on its lofty claims of innovation. The correct solution is certainly not to keep marketing small steps forward as giant leaps for mankind. People are getting tired of two “S”-caliber updates for every big one, regardless of what the products are called, and the result is a combination of disappointment and delayed upgrade cycles. While I suspect Apple is going to have more exciting products to show in late 2020, it now gets to spend the 2019 holiday season and following months hoping that more aggressively priced midrange offerings and financing plans are enough to win over customers as a full-scale trade war with China looms In the meantime, I’ll be tuning in to Samsung’s next event to get a sense of where the rest of the market — and probably Apple — will be headed next.

https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/11/apples-by-innovation-only-event-established-samsung-as-the-trailblazer/ 9/20/2019 Apple Collapses from #1 to #17 in 'Most Innovative Companies' Rankings How Apple Lost Its Edge: 'Most Innovative Companies' Rankings Dethrones iPhone Maker from #1 to Dismal #17

Apple isn't innovating like it used to in its heyday of leading technological trends and it's showing. | Source: REUTERS/Yves Herman It’s been a rough year for Apple. iPhone sales are down 15%. The stock price got crushed. And now the company has lost its top spot on Fast Company’s list of the 50 Most Innovative Companies.

The iPhone maker is replaced at number one by Chinese “super app” Meituan Dianping. The top ten is rounded out with notable appearances from , Square, and Disney.

So how did Apple, the world’s biggest company on the planet, lose its edge?

Apple’s Lack of Product Innovation Apple was once the leader of product innovation. The iMac, iPod, iPad, and iPhone were all inspiring products of their time. The tech giant forced entire industries to change and follow their lead. Even last year, Apple topped Fast Company’s list because of product development:

In 2018, the well of inspiration dried up. This time around, Fast Company could only praise a microchip: “Apple’s most impressive new product of 2018 wasn’t a phone or a tablet, but a chip: the A12 Bionic… Faster performance, lower power , and more raw muscle for intensive applications such as AI, AR, and high-end photography.” Of course, technology is a core part of Apple’s offering, but they need to package it into a brand new, killer product. Stiff Competition from Samsung and Huawei When it comes to pushing the boundaries of next-generation smartphones, Samsung is stealing the crown from Apple. Yesterday, Samsung unveiled the new Galaxy Fold, a futuristic folding smartphone. With a price tag of $2,000, it’s not about to replace the average phone. But it’s an example of imaginative innovation. The kind of innovation once synonymous with Apple.

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In the same announcement, Samsung revealed the new Galaxy S10, complete with a crypto wallet. Samsung is looking to the future, leaving Apple to play catch up.

A recent CNBC report suggested that Huawei is also gaining ground on Apple and Samsung thanks to cheaper products.

Lack of Focus on Brand

Apple used to sell products by positioning itself as the most desirable smartphone maker. It sold a brand, not a product.

Now, Apple’s marketing seems to focus on technology and product details. Apple needs to go back to inspirational messaging to hook the next generation.

The Cupertino-based giant can get its edge back. As CCN reported, the is starting to look beyond the iPhone. It has put vast resources into developing streaming services capable of competing with Netflix and Spotify.

positioned to dominate a handful of industries.

Fast Company’s “50 Most Innovative Companies” With Apple falling to #17, the top spot is claimed by Meituan Dianping. The Chinese company is described as a “transactional super app” that offers on-demand services in everything from food to hotels to movie tickets. Think of it like an -for- everything. Elsewhere in the top ten is payments company Square at #8 which is praised for its new Square Terminal product. Twitch is featured at #10 for breaking ground beyond the gaming community. And Disney features at #4 for positioning itself to take on Netflix.

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