Mike Elgan

You may have heard the news: T-Mobile announced a new mobile phone plan this week that involves no contract, and no phone subsidies. What’s most interesting about this news, and what nobody is talking about, is that other carriers don’t have subsidies, either. What is a subsidy? The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines a “subsidy” as […]

Everybody loves Android and hardly anybody loves Google’s Chromebook line of cloud-based laptops. Android is the amazing alternative to Apple’s iPhone, dominating world market share and providing an open and stable platform for the creation of hundreds of thousands of apps. So why do I think Chromebooks or Chromebook-like cloud devices are the future of […]

“Do you have a business card?” I wince every time somebody asks me this, as happened recently at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. When I exchange business cards with someone I feel like I’m engaging in quaintly obsolete ritual — like using a spittoon or listening to one of those ancient, hand-cranked record […]

It looks like Google and Apple might launch their own subscription streaming music services. Fortune published an exclusive this week that Google will launch a subscription music service later this year, a service based on YouTube and similar in functionality to Spotify. That move would place Google into direct competition with Muve, Pandora, Spotify, Soundcloud […]

The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona has become the most important technology trade show. And the reason is that smartphones have become the most important technology product. While attending the show this week, it became obvious to me that even products that are not smartphones must become like smartphones — or must connect to smartphones […]

‘UglyGorilla’ represents the latest trend in global business. Mr. Gorilla, who also goes by the name Wang Dong, is one of the three Chinese hackersnamed by a US security firm this week as being involved in a massive cybertheft operation. The other two are “Superhard” (Mei Qiang) and “Raith.” (“Raith”? What kind of a boring […]

Rumors have been flying this week about a possible Apple wristwatch. Facts are few and speculation rampant. The rumors are based on credible reports in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. Because everybody goes nuts over Apple rumors like this, let’s stop a moment and separate fact from fiction. Here’s a […]

Facebook plans to unveil a user-tracking app next month. Bloomberg News reported this week that “two people with knowledge of the matter” confirmed the plans. The app would enable users to find friends who are nearby—and probably enable advertisers to offer location-specific advertising either immediately or eventually. Presumably, the app is similar to Apple’s Find […]

Apple’s little iPad is clobbering its big iPad in the market. And the smaller Android tablets are vastly outselling the larger ones. Users, it seems, love a smaller tablet. So why am I so bullish on the future of tablets much bigger than the big iPad? And why is the entire industry so bullish? No, […]

People don’t wear wristwatches like they used to. And the reason is clear: Since everybody’s got a mobile phone, and the phone tells the time, a watch is unnecessary. But the mobile phone has always been an insatiably greedy platform — it needs more features, more power, more convenience and, above all, more pixels. Get […]