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Charted: The Rise of Mobile Device Subscriptions Worldwide

by Carmen Ang
This post is by Carmen Ang from Visual Capitalist

Charting Two Decades of Mobile Phone Subscriptions

Charting The Rise of Mobile Device Subscriptions Worldwide

There were approximately 8.6 billion mobile device subscriptions worldwide as of 2021, more than there are people on the planet.

Yet, while mobile phones, tablets, and other devices have become extremely common across the globe, access still varies greatly from country to country.

Using data from Our World in Data, this chart by Pablo Alvarez tracks the rise of mobile phones across the globe, showing the discrepancies in mobile phone subscriptions in select countries.

The Evolution of the Mobile Market

Before diving into the present-day divide, it’s worth quickly explaining how the overall cell phone market and mobile devices in general have evolved over the last three decades.

Below is a summary of the history of the mobile market since its onset in the early 90s.

The 90s and Early 2000s: The Beginning

The first mobile device hit the market in 1983, with Motorola’s launch of the DynaTAC 8000X. This clunky analog phone cost nearly $4,000 and needed to be recharged after 30 minutes of use.

By the early 1990s, innovation in the industry had somewhat taken off, with various manufacturers like Nokia and Sony starting to launch their own devices.

While this gave consumers more product options to choose from, the technology was still fairly new, and mobile adoption was relatively low compared to today’s figures.

2007 and Onwards: Apple Opens Up the Market

Though many companies introduced mobile phones, and a few launched early tablet devices like the PalmPilot (Read more...)

The iPad Mini (2021) Review

by Om Malik
This post is by Om Malik from On my Om

After five days of using the iPad Mini, it became obvious: sometimes an iPad is not just an iPad. Confused? 

***

If you are a regular reader, then you are familiar with my workflow. I switched my entire workflow to the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. I own a Mac Mini (attached to an XDR Display) because I use Photoshop to edit my photos. Adobe Photoshop is subpar on the iPad.

Unlike many who find faults in the iPad and its OS, I am quite satisfied with my own device. Big screen, big battery, great camera, great speakers, nice external keyboard, ability to use a Pencil as an input device, and most importantly, built-in LTE connectivity. 

The Mega iPad does everything I need to do — from Zoom calls to writing documents, answering emails, reading articles, watching videos on various streaming services, and indulging in Twitter.

The availability of alternative browsers such as Brave and Firefox allows me to use most of the services I previously used on the MacBook. The newest version of the iPadOS has some solid improvements that have made me appreciate my iPad Pro even more. 

And you can see that most of my iPad use during the day (and sometimes in the evening) is akin to a traditional computer — keyboard-based inputs, and very rarely using alternatives such as Pencil. In the evening, I remove the keyboard, put on the softcover, and watch some YouTube, baseball, cricket, or an occasional TV series on Amazon Prime or Apple (Read more...)

Equity Monday: Big iPads, and Ballmer-era Google

by Alex Wilhelm

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here.

First, happy belated birthday to Chris Gates, one of the founding members of the show. His birthday was yesterday, and while he’s on vacation for two weeks, we still wanted to give him a shoutout. Chris is a very good person, a good friend, a good father, a good partner. He’s kind, supportive, and hilarious. And he has a very good beard.

But Equity waits for no single person, regardless of their merit, so on we went! Here’s today’s show:

The Equity crew is back on Wednesday for our deep-dive, this week focusing on the creator economy which should be good fun. (Read more...)

The Paradigm Shift

by Om Malik
This post is by Om Malik from On my Om

You might have read the news that the University of Nevada, Reno, will give its incoming freshman class an iPad Air (with a keyboard and a pencil.) In itself, it isn’t much of a newsworthy of attention, but it does hark back to something I have been thinking about for a long time: a paradigm shift in how we compute, today and in the future. 

Apple once was a much-beloved part of the US education system. Lately, Google’s Chromebooks have been taken over, which are cheaper, and perhaps more affordable for the cash-strapped school systems. (By the way, kudos to Sarah & Ev Williams for giving $10 million towards helping the SF school system.)

Now, suppose we can forget the politics of Google versus Apple. I don’t care either way. Chromebooks (like their Apple or Microsoft counterparts) are simply an extension of the old paradigm of computing — one that is heavily reliant on keyboard and mouse. Sure, Chromebooks live on the cloud and benefit from the cloud, but it is still pretty much the traditional way of computing. Whether it is Google Docs or Google Slides, it is not remarkably novel. 

Essentially, the kids in school are getting trained on the classic model of computing — keyboards, mouse and a semi-tethered state. At home, many of the same kids are growing up with touch devices — iPads, iPhones, and Androids. They are also growing up talking to (mostly) Alexa, (maybe) Siri, or (sometimes) Google Assistant. Every time I interact (Read more...)

Mighty Networks raises $50M to build a creator economy for the masses

by Mary Ann Azevedo

Mighty Networks, a platform designed to give creators and brands a dedicated place to start and grow communities, has closed on $50 million in a Series B funding round led by Owl Ventures.

Ziff Capital Partners and LionTree Partners also participated in the financing, along with existing backers Intel Capital, Marie Forleo, Gretchen Rubin, Dan Rosensweig, Reid Hoffman, BBG Ventures and Lucas Venture Group. The investment brings Palo Alto-based Mighty Networks’ total raised since its 2017 inception to $67 million. 

Mighty Networks founder and CEO Gina Bianchini — who started the company with Tim Herby and Thomas Aaron — is no stranger to building nurturing environments for community building. Previously, she was the CEO and co-founder of Ning, where she led the company’s rapid growth to three million Ning Networks created and about 100 million users around the world in three years. 

With Mighty Networks, Bianchini’s goal is to build “a creator middle class” founded on community memberships, events and live online courses.  

“Basically we have a platform for people to create communities the way that they would create e-commerce stores,” she told TechCrunch. “So what Shopify has done for e-commerce, we’re doing for digital subscriptions and digital payments where the value is around a community that is mastering something interesting or important together, and not just content alone.”

The company’s flagship Business Plan product is aimed at new creators with the goal of giving them an easy way to get started with digital subscriptions, Bianchini said. Established brands, (Read more...)

Forget the piggy bank, Till Financial’s kids’ spend management app gets Gates’ backing

by Mary Ann Azevedo

Today’s children and teens want more power and control over their spending.

And while there are a number of financial services and apps out there aimed at helping this demographic save and invest money (Greenlight being among the most popular and well-known), one startup is coming at the space from another angle: helping younger people also better manage their spend.

Till Financial describes itself as a collaborative family financial tool that aims to empower kids to become smarter spenders. The New York-based company’s banking platform is designed to encourage “open and honest” discussions between parents and their kids. And it has just raised $5 million to help it advance on that goal.

A slew of investors put money in the round, including Elysian Park Ventures, Melinda Gates’ venture fund Pivotal Ventures with Magnify Ventures, Afore Capital, Luge Capital, Alpine Meridian Ventures, The Gramercy Fund, SM Ventures (the family office of the founders/CEOs of Stadium Goods) and Lightspeed Venture Partners’ Scout Fund. Also participating were angel investors such as the founders of fintech Petal, the founders of alcohol marketplace Drizly, the president of Transactis, and the president of 1800Flowers.

Part of Till’s goal is to help kids “learn by doing” and gain confidence in spending decisions. It arms them with a bank account, digital and physical debit card and goal-based savings. For example, say a teen wants to buy an iPad, they can set up an account that they can save toward that iPad and give family members (such as grandparents, (Read more...)