Apple

When we wrote about why Apple deserved a one trillion dollar valuation in May 2017, we argued that “design remains [Apple’s] unique core competency.” That core competency — the one thing that Apple does better than any other company —…

Apple has confirmed an Axios report that they have acquired autonomy startup Drive.ai. Apple has hired “dozens” of Drive.ai hardware and software engineers and will receive some intellectual property and hard assets, including vehicles. Drive.ai, which has been seeking a…

WWDC and Google I/O set the direction for developers for the upcoming year and give insight to the trends Apple and Google are actively moving forward. The developer conference keynotes are the newsmakers but are only one event in a…

It’s still too early to determine how the US/China trade dispute will impact Apple. That said, since the May escalation of the US/China trade and Huawei disputes, we’ve been monitoring Apple-related Chinese online media to gauge the frequency of negative…

Toys facilitate the imagination. They replicate and blend some elements of reality and some elements of fiction, equipping us to pretend. We’ve been considering the benefits of toys that incorporate novel technologies, from playful robots to LEGO sets with augmented…

Lost in the breadth of this year’s WWDC announcements was an update to CarPlay. That’s to be expected, given just under 1 minute of the 136-minute keynote and only 1 of 153 developer sessions were related to CarPlay. Despite the…

We’re updating our estimates for stand-alone smart speakers and tuning our model based on more historical sales figures. Bottom line: this market remains in high growth mode. We estimate more than one-third of all US households will have a smart…

In May, Samsung was the first manufacturer to ship TVs with Apple TV integration. Vizio, Sony, and LG have also signed on to this effort and are expected to release TVs later this year. Our takeaways: Four years ago, our…

The Loup Frontier Tech Index tracks the performance of publicly-traded companies that influence the future of technology including AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles, computer perception, and virtual and augmented reality. We will be publishing periodic pieces to highlight specific companies in…

Apple is in talks to acqui-hire the team of a well-known self-driving vehicle startup, Drive.ai, according to The Information. The company has raised $77M and was last valued around $200M. In our view, Apple is not after brand or even…

At WWDC 2019, each of Apple’s software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and now iPadOS — took a step forward, focusing on continuity and privacy. But all of this starts with the developer. The company is making life easier…

Apple begins its annual developer conference on Monday. We think that most of the headlines around the announcements are widely known, so we’re preemptively shifting from “preview” mode to “take away” mode. History suggests investor disappointment will follow the event…