Tech Tips: Big Three battle for your attention

You may find that mixing and matching what’s in your pocket, on your desktop and in your home is advantageous to suit specific needs. Ultimately, buying technology based on a combination of features, hardware quality and cost still is worth it, even if that means abandoning a few fun features along the way.

– WEARABLES

Wearables are designed to work with applications that range from fitness to productivity, and these devices are gaining popularity among both consumers and business users. Apple leads the pack with its Apple Watch. Apple recently released Series 2 of the watch, which now features a brighter screen, a dual-core processor, improved water resistance and better battery life, along with a built-in GPS chip.

Google has Android Wear, the wrist-wearable operating system supported by multiple watch vendors. As a result, integration among software, watch and phone isn’t as tight as Apple’s ecosystem. Version 2 of Google’s software won’t ship until early next year.

Microsoft is faltering in this category. The firm introduced its Microsoft Band product, a wearable that’s heavily focused on fitness, in 2014. The firm followed up with a second-generation version, but recently pulled it from the firm’s online store and deleted the software-development kit that allowed companies to develop software applications for the device.

– SMARTPHONES

Microsoft hasn’t been doing too well on the smartphone side, either. The firm slashed 12,700 jobs relating to its mobile operations in 2015 and 2016, and wrote off its 2014 acquisition of Nokia Corp. As well, Microsoft has downplayed its flagship Lumia mobile phone brand and seems unlikely to ship more of them.

Beijing-based Lenovo Group Ltd., one of Microsoft’s biggest supporters, has reported that it won’t release Windows 10 phones because it doubts Microsoft’s commitment.

Apple is doing far better, although it saw sales slip by about 12% this year.

Google, meanwhile, launched its first self-built phone recently, the Pixel. Google’s previous flagship Nexus models were produced by other vendors; Google now has complete control over its pocket hardware and software, putting Apple squarely in Google’s sights.

– TABLETS AND COMPUTERS

Apple’s domination of tablets is changing slowly, especially with new functionality available from other vendors. Apple has rested on its iPad laurels, refusing to create a hybrid device that can double as a laptop. Instead, Apple is promoting its 12.9-inch iPad Pro with a “smart” keyboard and a split-screen view in its Safari browser as an alternative, but this product still is basically a tablet rather than a laptop replacement.

On the other hand, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows platforms both have decent support from two-in-one hybrid device vendors. Systems such as Lenovo’s forthcoming Yoga Book are innovative in hardware design, while Microsoft now makes its own hybrid device in the form of the Surface and Surface Book.

–HOME AUTOMATION

Once the domain of hobbyists, home automation is turning into a battleground. Vendors are positioning their technologies as controllers for an array of third-party home devices ranging from TVs to “smart” lights, thermostats and door locks. And for that, these vendors need their own automation standards.

Google sells the Nest “smart” thermostat and has an initiative called Works with Nest designed to get other manufacturers working with its hardware. This initiative battles Apple’s own framework, called HomeKit. Of course, neither standard supports the other.

Microsoft is behind the curve, promising Windows 10 support for devices supporting a new, open standard next year.

In the meantime, Amazon.com Inc. and Google are duking it out in another key area of home automation: speech.

In October, Google launched Google Home, a “smart” speaker with a built-in digital assistant that eventually will talk to other devices in your home, enabling you to play music, control lighting, and more, with your voice. The assistant also will be built into Google’s Pixel phone and other devices with Google software. This technology mimics Amazon’s Echo speaker, which includes a built-in digital assistant called Alexa, designed to answer your questions and control your home’s devices.

Apple reportedly is working on its own speaker device, but, for the time being, users will have to be content with asking Siri to turn the lights on.

– CLOUD COMPUTING

All of these battlegrounds tie back to the cloud, which serves as the “glue” for each vendor’s ecosystem. Each company wants you to put all of your data in the cloud so that each firm can take the opportunity to sell you more services. Apple has iCloud, Google has Google Drive and Microsoft has OneDrive.

How much do you need to buy into a vendor’s ecosystem to ensure that you use one device across all of these domains? Doing so matters more in some areas than others. Your smartwatch and your smartphone must use compatible operating systems, for example.

Companies are designing some features that work only on their own platforms. Apple’s Universal Clipboard lets you copy text or images from your Mac to your iPhone and vice versa, but the feature only works on Apple platforms. Microsoft has worked hard to unify Windows 10 across all of its systems, even down to its XBox gaming console, but its poor mobile showing makes that less important than it was.

Vendor ecosystems don’t matter as much as you might think in the cloud, either. Microsoft and Apple, in particular, configure their tablet and desktop operating systems to support their own cloud offerings seamlessly, but using one vendor’s cloud from another’s operating system is possible for the most part. Many resources, such as email and calendars, can be relatively independent of each other. For example, your Windows 10 PC or iPhone both can fold your Google calendar appointments into its native calendar app.

BEYOND THE DESKTOP

Apple Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are expanding in their mission to be absolutely everywhere in your life. They soon will be competing in the following areas:

– TRANSPORTATION

Relevant technology is in development, and two companies – Apple and Google – are likely to vie for a place in your garage. Google has been testing self-driving cars for several years now. Recent reports suggest that Apple, like Google is now, is more interested in licensing software that guides the cars than making the vehicles themselves.

– VIRTUAL REALITY

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) immerse the user in a 360° environment and promise to be important display technologies in the future. (Whereas VR presents an artificial, three-dimensional image, AR shows a digitally enhanced version of the real world.) Google had a rocky start with its ill-fated Google Glass project, which projected digital images onto the user’s eye. Now the firm has Daydream, a VR platform linked to Google’s smartphone, and has invested in AR startup Magic Leap. Microsoft is pushing forward with its Hololens smartglasses project. Apple still is in the weeds on the VR front, with nothing announced yet, although the firm has several investments in VR and AR companies.

– ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Microsoft, Facebook Inc., Apple, Amazon.com Inc. and Google all are pioneering artificial intelligence (AI) technology, and they have a priority: make speech and software assistants a primary interface for tomorrow’s users. Google’s new Assistant (an evolution of Google’s voice search), along with Microsoft’s Cortana and Apple’s Siri, are designed to listen when users speak. These AIs apply machine learning to understand – and, in some cases, anticipate – what users are asking for. These firms are connecting their AI assistants to other online resources – such as email, messenging, calendar services and home-automation devices – to make them more useful.

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