The PC is dying while people fall in love with their tablets!

This infographic comes from ComScore as part of a great report on tablet usage and user satisfaction. Some interesting facts:

• Apps, price, and brand are most important in consumer decisions; not whether or not it is the same vendor as their phone/computer.
• iPad owners and Kindle Fire owners differ in one major way: iPad owners care more about the app selection and Fire owners care more about the price. (surprise?)
• Satisfaction of owners ranks 8.6 out of 10 compared to 8.1 of 10 for smartphones

Check the infographic for a nice summary.

ComScore infographic: Today's U.S. Tablet Owner Revealed.

(Credit: ComScore)

 

Meanwhile, an article by CNN Fortune says the PC is not just losing a battle to Apple; it dying completely. Slowly but surely. Whether it is from lack of innovation, the economy, or the tablet, one thing is sure – PC sales are down.

Market research firm IDC reported that sales were down last quarter 0.1%. Doesn’t seem like much until realizing just how far below the anticipated 2.1% growth that number actually is.

Could the PC make a comeback? With Windows 8 set to ship in October we may see a surge of PC sales, but Microsoft is marketing Surface tablets more than conventional PCs or even ultrabooks like the MacBook Air competitor, Dell XPS13. Is this an indication that even the PC company Microsoft is set to move in a different direction? I don’t believe we will be rid of PCs any time in the next few years, but with sales slowing like this and all signs pointing to more mobile, light-weight computing devices, the days of a huge tower sitting under your desk may be gone.

Check out the whole story here: SOURCE CNN Fortune

Five Secrets Of Companies That Build Great Teams

From an article featured on Techcrunch back in the middle of June, here are five secrets that companies use to build great teams.

1. Aggressively seek out passive candidates.

“…they (talent war winners) know that they have to go find top talent, not the other way around.”

2. Obsess about the “top of the funnel”.

“…recruiting is a numbers game and the most important number just might be the number of qualified people at the start of their pipeline.”

3. Give candidates a strong reason to engage with the company.

“The company’s jobs page is an obvious one but these companies also pay attention to the overall candidate experience.”

4. Obsessed with metrics.

“They track everything…and use the metrics to continually improve their processes and better allocate resources.”

5. Make recruiting their top priority

“They invest in the right tools and make sure their teams are fully staffed for the challenge in front of them. Recruiting high-quality candidates is not a “nice to have” for them. It’s an absolute must have.”

Check out the full article at Techcrunch

Apple Removes YouTube App From iOS

The YouTube app on iOS has been one of the native apps since the iPhone first came out. That is no more. Starting with iOS6 Beta 4, YouTube is not included on the device.

According to Apple’s official statement, “our license to include the YouTube app in iOS has ended, customers can use YouTube in the Safari browser and Google is working on a new YouTube app to be on the App Store.”

The YouTube app was created and kept up (or not kept up) by Apple, not Google. Users can still go to YouTube.com to watch videos and I have no doubt that the Google app will be far better than Apple’s version. This could turn out to be a good thing for iOS users who don’t have to live with a sub-par YouTube app that never gets updated and is outshined by the web version of YouTube.

Depending on what you believe, this could be more of Apple’s crusade to eliminate Google from the picture. Or it could be Google wanting to monetize their YouTube videos, which they can’t do through an app built by Apple. Either way, the iPhone seems to be just one step away from becoming an entirely Google free phone by default.

What Happens When Your Products Just Work?

You don’t have to spend money on marketing and promotion. None.

According to marketing chief Phil Schiller’s testimony on Friday in the Apple vs. Samsung patent trial, Apple relies on two strategies:

• Rely on the media to create buzz for its products through positive reviews
• Product placement in TV shows and movies

When the iPhone was launched in 2007, the company didn’t do any advertising for a period of time. They didn’t have to.

Mass media reports, reviews, and pop culture buzz alone was enough to lift the iPhone to the forefront of public mindshare around mobile device technology. This should come as no surprise, but I find it fascinating that this strategy was successful before anyone even knew how much this phone would change the world.

Read more at Business Insider

Apple Considered Creating An iCar?

Loads of crazy stuff coming out of the Samsung vs. Apple trial. Basically Apple says Samsung has ripped off their designs and the court proceedings are to either prove that or to show that Samsung products are not, in fact, Apple clones.

One of the more interesting pieces of information was revealed by Phil Schiller on the stand. According to Nick Bilton’s tweet, Schiller said Apple was having discussions around making a camera or a car – quote, “crazy stuff.”

What would an iCar look like? Maybe a car will fully integrated electronic links between computers, iPods, and radio? Something similar to Sync technology?

-Designer, Franco Grassi, Concept Design

Interesting to think about…and probably a better business strategy to get into iPhones instead.

Hood ornament image borrowed from: DVICE.com

Goodbye Hotmail…

Yesterday Microsoft announced the end of Hotmail.com. Over the next few months, they will be rolling out the new and improved Outlook.com.

Hotmail users can already start using the new service at Outlook.com. It features social networking tie-ins and you can see friend’s status updates and tweets right from an email from the same person. The interface is very “Metro-like” and is right in line with using new Windows 8 and Office 13’s UI elements.

From Microsoft’s blog:

Webmail was first introduced with HoTMaiL in 1996. Back then, it was novel to have a personal email address you could keep for life - one that was totally independent from your business or internet service provider. Eight years later, Google introduced Gmail, which included 1 GB of storage and inbox search. And while Gmail and other webmail services like Hotmail have added some features since then, not much has fundamentally changed in webmail over the last 8 years - though yesterday's frustrations about the small size of inboxes are now things of the past. At the same time, email is becoming less and less useful as inboxes become cluttered with newslettersand social updates, and people increasingly keep up their personal connections in social networks instead of their email address books. All of this has led many to hope for a better solution so you don't have to settle for today's webmail.

With the social connection features, sure to be expanded to services like LinkedIn or possibly Google, this new Outlook.com is more focused on being social. Skype functionality will be built in and is coming in the next few months as well. This may just be enough to get me back and away from Gmail…

Read more at Microsoft’s Blog site.