Daisuke Wakabayashi / Wall Street Journal:
Apple says it sold 74.8M iPhones, up under 1% year-over-year, the slowest growth pace ever — Apple Reports Slowing Growth in iPhone Sales — Company sees revenue in current quarter declining at the steepest rate in 15 years — Apple Inc. said iPhone sales grew at the slowest pace since …
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/apple-reports-slowing-growth-in-iphone-sales-1453843920-lMyQjAxMTA2NTI5NjQyNDYzWj

2015 was an incredible year for the smartphone manufacturers with so many high end models flooding the shelves. OPPO credited as the brand responsible for designing some of the best looking smartphones in market has sold 50 million smartphones in 2015.

Facebook started 2016 with the bold claim that it intends to eradicate phone numbers and replace web browsing, but the Social Network has a mountain to climb before Facebook Messenger becomes the centre of our online world.

That’s the stated intention of the Zuckerberg empire – to replace all our myriad internet communication systems with one interface.

Facebook claims that its Messenger app has been installed 800 million times

If Facebook is going to recruit the shops, taxi companies and airlines it needs to make Messenger a one-stop internet shop it will need to get the app installed across the demographics before Microsoft (with Skype) steps in to take the cream.

The medium is the Messenger

With that in mind, Facebook Messenger was forked from the main Facebook mobile app back in 2011, but messaging remained possible in the main app until 2014. These days, the Facebook app will notify you that a message has been received, but if you want to read that message then you’ll have to download and install Facebook’s new Trojan Horse.

Every month, 600 million Chinese are using Weixen, Tencent’s WeChat client, to book taxis, check into flights, play games, buy cinema tickets, make doctors’ appointments, and even manage bank accounts, all without touching the web browser.

In China, messaging has become the platform of choice for accessing a wide variety of services, and Facebook plans to replicate that model in the rest of the world – with it owning the messaging platform, obviously.

Walled garden of Zuck

In Facebook’s brave new world, everything is done through Facebook Messenger, and Facebook takes control of the delivery channel, removing that irritating “Open in Web Browser” which takes so much control away from the Social Network.

But that brave new world is predicated on the idea that people will install Facebook Messenger, rather than relying on the website, and email notifications, to stay in touch. Our research, in partnership with Celltick, looked at the top 10 applications installed on different handsets, and shows that while many low-end handsets do have Facebook Messenger installed, the application is almost invisible in handsets costing more than $200.

In high-end phones, Skype consistently rates top – well above the main Facebook application – and Facebook Messenger isn’t even in the top 10.

If you don’t spend a few hours of your day staring at a screen, then statistically, you’re a digital freak. Nearly 90% of Americans use their devices for at least two hours a day.

And a growing number of us—70%—are glued to multiple screens at once. All that eyeballing comes at a cost, according to a new survey by the Vision Council.

The survey polled more than 10,000 adults and found that 65% of Americans experience digital eye strain—physical discomfort, like getting dry, irritated eyes, blurred vision, headaches and neck or back pain—after staring at a screen for hours.

But people who used just one device fared better than those using multiple screens: only 53% of them had symptoms of digital eye strain, compared to 75% of digital multitaskers.

“What we’re finding is that Millennials especially are very comfortable working on multiple screens and multiple devices,”

Several factors contribute to digital eye strain, including how close you are to your screen. People typically hold small devices 8-12 inches away from their faces, a closeness that decreases blinking rates, the report says. “Blinking is crucial to keeping the ocular surface well protected from environmental assaults and our eyes from drying out,” Bazan says. “They’ll become dry and irritated, and vision will become blurry as well.” That’s where the urge to rub your eyes at the end of a long workday comes from.

Blue light, the high-energy visible light emitted by your digital devices, is another contributor. “That light is so close to ultraviolet, which has been known to cause damage on the cells of the eyes for years now,”

“When we look at ink on paper, our eyes know at what distance the ink and paper is and we can lock the focus on.” Pixels on a screen, on the other hand, are hard points of focus and compete for our eyeballs, he says. “Since a pixel is a hard target, we see that our focusing system is always in a state of trying to find exactly where the pixel is. That constant focusing causes strain.”

What is Digital Eye Strain?
https://www.thevisioncouncil.org/content/digital-eye-strain/adults

On average, nearly nine in 10 adults (88 percent) spend more than two hours each day using a digital device, with one in 10 people spending at least three-fourths of their waking hours on a digital device. This constant exposure to technology is a shock to our eyes with 65 percent of Americans reporting symptoms of digital eye strain, such as dry, irritated, eyes, blurred vision, eye fatigue, neck and back pain and headaches.

China’s Xiaomi Under Pressure to Prove Value to Investors
Once the world’s most valuable technology startup, the smartphone maker is now facing strain of expectation
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/chinas-xiaomi-under-pressure-to-prove-value-to-investors-1452454204-lMyQjAxMTE2NjE3MDUxNDAwWj

Microsoft is building its own SIM card for Windows
http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/7/10734648/microsoft-sim-card-cellular-data

Microsoft is planning to make LTE access a little easier soon, thanks to its own SIM card. The software giant is currently testing a cellular data app that lets Windows 10 devices connect to various mobile network operators without a contract. The cellular data app has been published to the company’s Windows Store, but Microsoft has not yet announced its plans for the service.

The app is designed to work on Windows 10 and “requires a Microsoft SIM card,” according to the listing. It’s not immediately clear which markets Microsoft plans to launch its SIM card in, and the pricing of the cellular data. Microsoft is planning to sell plans through the Windows Store, so the data will be tied to a Microsoft Account.

Samsung Sees Mild Recovery for Fourth Quarter, but Warns of Tough 2016
In its search for new avenues of growth, the South Korean tech giant aims to learn from Silicon Valley
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/samsung-electronics-sees-mild-recovery-for-fourth-quarter-but-warns-of-tough-2016-1452213840-lMyQjAxMTE2ODA0ODkwODg2Wj

“If we only work within ourselves, we can’t really keep up with the speed of change,” Mr. Yoon said Wednesday, pledging the company would seek to strike more deals and work more closely with startups. “With our own efforts, we cannot address everything.”

After a nearly two-year slump in earnings, Samsung showed signs of a recovery in the third quarter as the company pared the number of smartphone models it sold and as profit from chip sales hit a record high on robust demand and tight supply.

“The global economy will continue to see tepid growth while uncertainty will grow in emerging markets,”

“This year’s aim for Samsung will likely be about minimizing the damage from tough business conditions,” said Lee Seung-woo, an analyst with IBK Securities in Seoul.

At the CES trade show in Las Vegas, Samsung executives touted services that would help it build what it described as an ecosystem of software and services, including a mobile-payment service, Samsung Pay, that it introduced last year, as well as new Internet-connected home appliances.

In a sign of increased emphasis on software

Samsung’s top executives are increasingly talking about learning from Silicon Valley, an attempt to adapt to a fast-changing market by taking a page from nimbler upstarts like SmartThings, a U.S. business it acquired in 2014.

“If you go to Silicon Valley, you realize change is taking place much faster than we imagine,”

Mr. Yoon also praised Silicon Valley’s “tolerance of failure,” an attribute he said he hopes to foster at Samsung.

He acknowledged that changing the culture at a company as large as Samsung wouldn’t be easy,

Samsung employs 320,000 people in 84 countries.

Apple developing revamped, cord-free Beats with charging case ahead of iPhone 7
http://9to5mac.com/2016/01/08/iphone-7-wireless-headphones-beats/

With its resources from the 2014 acquisition of headphone maker Beats Electronics, Apple is prototyping a completely new set of Bluetooth earphones with the potential of launching the accessory alongside the iPhone 7 this fall. The new earphones are said to be completely wireless, which is to say that they do not even have a cable connecting the left and right ear pieces. Sources say that the headphones are similar in concept to the Motorola Hint headset (pictured above) and Bragi’s new Dash headphones that were shown at CES this week.

It’s expected that the in-development accessory will include a noise-cancelling microphone system, enabling phone calls and communication with Siri even without Apple’s prior in-line microphone and remote.

Media, Productivity & Emojis Give Mobile Another Stunning Growth Year
http://flurrymobile.tumblr.com/post/136677391508/stateofmobile2015