Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

The Apple Watch Has Gotten Simpler, But That’s OK

Apple’s decision to simplify the watch speaks to a larger issue facing makers of wearables: Advanced biotracking sensors would have made the Apple Watch less of a multipurpose consumer device and more of a medical device used to diagnose diseases or track chronic conditions — which could have opened the watch up to regulation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“I don’t think Apple wants to be a health-monitoring device maker,” said Harry Wang, director of health and mobile product research at Parks Associates. “They do want to leverage their popularity on the iPhone as a device platform, integrating all health data that can be collected for different devices.”

That information is being gathered through Apple’s new Health app, a dashboard of users’ health data, and HealthKit, a developer tool that lets wellness apps share data. The watch could be populated with messages from external devices and services that track specialized health information.

From the article "The Apple Watch Has Gotten Simpler, But That’s OK" by Stephanie M. Lee.

Previously In The News

Netflix Subscribers Upgrading To Premium Service Tier

Parks Associates estimates that 30% of Netflix (NFLX) subscribers are getting the premium service tier, up from 21% in late 2017. Meanwhile, the share of subscribers getting the lowest-priced tier has...

The Challenge For Smart Home Companies: Getting A Foot In The Door

But many consumers are leery. News articles questioning the privacy and security of home networks and connected devices, including always-listening smart speakers, have put off potential buyers. The s...

How Many Streaming Video Choices Are Too Many With Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney — And More?

Consumers who dreamed of the a-la-carte TV future might soon wish for a return to the good old days when cable and other pay-TV services packaged channels of programming for them. "We're about to t...

Samsung, ADT team up on home security kit, competing with Nest

Only about 22 percent of U.S. homeowners have a professionally monitored home-security system, and most of those have been installed by the companies, said Parks Associates senior analyst Brad Russell...