Google made some interesting announcements yesterday that could have a profound impact on the existing app interaction model and even how we think of apps. Google search now has the ability to search for app-only content, an outcome of Google's app indexing efforts over the past two years. More importantly, Google announced an experimental program to "stream" a limited set of apps directly from the Google app. This appears to be an attempt to make apps behave more like the web, in effect removing friction from the existing app paradigm.

I have long been a critic of the "Peak Google" argument because it is based on a flawed premise -- that deep engagement and consequently "brand advertising" are somehow a threat to Google's model of transactional engagement. While I strongly disagree with that line of reasoning, there are other threats that Google faces within the transactional realm.

A few months ago, I wrote a post comparing the early sales of smartwatches to those of tablets and modern smartphones (early iPhone and Android models). As I expected, the numbers didn't bode well for smartwatches. Now that we have another year's worth of data to play with (from Canalys this time), we have an opportunity to test the validity of my previous analysis.

Benedict Evans recently wrote an insightful piece exploring new questions for the mobile industry. Among the 5 questions he brought up, I believe that the evolution of interaction models and messaging will end up being the most important. I don't have anything to add there as think Benedict's analysis here was excellent. However, I do think that three of his questions could benefit from deeper analysis. I also think that he may have missed a crucial question brought on by the scale of the mobile industry.

Finland's Nokia made a surprising move this week as it announced a new Android 5.0 based tablet, coined the Nokia N1. Just to be clear, this is from the company that remains headquartered in Finland and not the "Devices & Services" division that was sold to Microsoft (now called Microsoft Mobile). This announcement caught most observers off guard and could have some interesting implications.

Yesterday, Apple announced a minor refresh to their iPad portfolio, with improvements mostly focused on Touch ID and a thinner footprint. In many ways, this did feel like this was a "placeholder" upgrade. The new iPads would certainly appeal to loyalists, but they don't seem to target the primary reasons behind the recent slowdown.

Despite the hype surrounding them, I have been skeptical about the potential of "wearables" as a mass market product category. Most of my analysis focuses on the primary use cases targeted by these devices, which still remain unclear. However, we haven't seen any data on sales that would give us an adequate understanding of market conditions. Of course, this is partially because these are still early days. That said, I thought it would be interesting to compare the early shipment performance of these devices with what we saw in the smartphone and tablet markets.

The smartphone market saw an interesting dichotomy this week that reflects a changing basis of competition. Samsung announced a revenue and profit decline, while Xiaomi's Q3 sales grew 20% sequentially (and 300% annually). For Xiaomi, this continues a pattern that I highlighted earlier this year.

With the iPhone 6 (and 6 Plus) launch just around the corner, this may be a good time to review smartphone market share and usage share trends around the world. As these data points reflect the tail end of the iPhone's product cycle, we should expect a market share bounce over the coming months. On the other hand, movements in usage share are unlikely to be as sharp.

IDC announced their smartphone shipment estimates for Q2 2014 last week, but the chart above seems to have captured all the attention. Regular readers may already be aware that I am a proponent of usage-based segmentation, rather than price-based segmentation. However, data can always be useful when interpreted correctly.

Source: ABI Research

A report from ABI Research estimates that Android devices held 86% of the smartphone market in Q2 2014. Of this, forked Android or AOSP devices (without Google services) accounted for 20%, while the rest were devices certified by Google (with Google services preloaded). Some analysts see this as a threat to Google and Android. In reality, there is virtually no competition between these two categories.

Canalys just reported that Xiaomi became China's largest smartphone maker by shipping 14.99 million units in Q2 2014. This data point is interesting for two reasons -- the first deals with their success in China, and the second deals with the state of their international expansion.

Flurry just posted some interesting data comparing Xiaomi's users to those of the iPhone and other Android smartphones. We already know that Xiaomi's users download roughly twice as many apps as iPhone and Android users, but now we also have comparative data on engagement and user demographics. This data paints a picture that is very different from the popular narrative surrounding Xiaomi, i.e. it only caters to low-end, price sensitive customers.

According to a report from Endeavour Partners, "more than half of U.S. consumers who have owned a modern activity tracker no longer use it and a third stopped using the device within six months of receiving it". This trend is symptomatic of a larger problem -- the job that a wearable device does is still unclear to most consumers. This is the crux of the problem I see with wearables, as they exist today.

Yesterday, Xiaomi announced that it sold 26.1 million smartphones in H1 2014, totaling $5.3 billion in revenue. Xiaomi's goal is to sell 60 million smartphones and generate $11.2 billion in revenue by the end of the year, but these figures seem too conservative when compared to their current performance.

This year's Google I/O covered just about every major application of consumer technology -- mobile devices, wearables, TVs, automobiles, etc. It would be difficult to go through every single release, so I'll restrict myself to the major announcements. Google clearly made some huge strides this year, but a few announcements also left me puzzled.

I've gone back and forth on the prospects for Amazon's smartphone, and yesterday's launch of the Fire Phone hasn't really helped me make up my mind. Apart from the heavily rumored 3D interface, most of what Amazon announced was a surprise to me. It's difficult to ignore the fact that Amazon holds some distinct advantages, but there are also certain areas where they seem to be fighting an uphill battle.