Since we last posted a year ago, much has happened in the tech industry. We left you more than one year ago, in late spring of 2010. Sprint’s Evo 4G was poised to release alongside the iPhone 4, bringing 4G to the masses. Windows Phone 7 wasn’t yet a contender (and Nokia had not yet experienced whatever sort of renaissance has come of late). Palm still existed subsisted, and HP hadn’t yet run itself into the ground. Tablets… my goodness, they were just landing in stores, and those lucky few with iPads were the envy of their friends and family. Ultrabooks and other extremely slim laptops were nowhere to be found. More importantly (just kidding, the evolutions and revolutions within the tech industry trump all) I was still a student!
So what’s happened? HTC has become the largest player next to Apple in the smartphone space, with Samsung at their heels (yes, yes, I have see Q3 earnings, but when Apple releases a phone a year, you’ve got to be a special kind of chump to buy it three quarters after release). Everybody wants to build a tablet. Furthermore, hardware has become a commodity product for most companies with the exception of Apple, who have managed not only to capture ever increasing market shares but also innovate in ways that no other company is yet poised to do. Perhaps it won’t be too long before another company emerges that understands the consumer as well as the importance of selling a lifestyle and not a piece of hardware or software alone. The reader may have noticed a slight change in tone toward Apple, and it’s because our senior editor bit the bullet and purchased a MacBook Air. Now apparently it’s PBRs at happy hour if you shame his favorite brand.
So does this actually cover a year of tech news? Hell no! But it’s a start, and at least now we can begin writing about contemporary articles without feeling as though we lived under a rock for the better part of two years. Here’s to the next article, whatever you may be about…
