Real Seniors lack essential technology – who will make it happen in 2019?

When Pew stops tracking senior adoption, does that imply a market saturated? Rant on. Note this Fact Tank aggregation of technology adoption statistics (tech overall among seniors, last reported in 2016) – and the most recent data cited on Internet use, seniors were quoted in a 2016 survey, 44% of responders did not use the internet users. Of those that do, older adults aged 65+ said they had little to no confidence in their ability to use electronic devices to perform online tasks.  Let’s think about their non-confidence (not broken down into the 65-74) and the 75+ who are the Real Seniors. 

Does that fear imply lack of training? Or too much media reporting about scams, breaches, and identity theft – most of which it is difficult to detect and nearly impossible to prevent? Who knows, since Pew appears to be largely done – after all, they note, 89% of Americans are online and they do not survey all questions each time. AARP published a survey last year that included responders in their 70s -- we stay tuned for the next update.

Are those who should care about this not doing enough? Here are questions to ponder moving into 2019 for those whose job, business, or non-profit organization is explicitly to help seniors go online (you know who you are):

• For seniors, why is there a problem with non-use?  Note the research from Michigan State cited in an AARP article: "Greater technology use was associated with better self-rated health, fewer chronic conditions, higher subjective well-being and lower depression." The study also found that technology use reduced feelings of loneliness. And let’s not forget how many services can be discovered and accessed online, including scheduled food delivery, transportation requests, buying tickets and signing up for local events. And have we mentioned online banking, accessing Social Security information, buying savings bonds – all online.

• Are there still senior centers or organizations that do not have high speed internet?   You know where they are – maybe they haven’t figured out the right source of grants, like, for example, Grantmakers in Aging? Senior centers are partially funded by the Older Americans Act – which also provides Meals on Wheels. But there is nothing in the Act (beyond partial funding of senior centers) that specifies professionally delivered training of seniors on technology use or supporting seniors in their usage.  

• Why isn’t technology training of seniors required to be delivered by professionals?  Is it because it is viewed as non-essential because it is ‘free’?  The Geek Squad isn’t free, but why is there no magnanimous donor focused on helping seniors who could fund a regular visit of several hours to a library, senior center or other community center who could help individual older adults during designated hours with their devices?  AARP pays for training it offers in its regional workshops, which is free to participants.  Presumably organizations like OATS, expanding outside of NYC (but still reaching a small percentage of seniors), must use grants to pay trainers to do the offered training, which is free to attendees.

• So why isn’t ‘volunteer’ training good enough? Because at today’s pace of technology change, it can’t be. Read the list of Geek Squad services again.  Or look at another nationwide competitor, HelloTech (ads bash Geek Squad) or Bask or many paid services in various geographies. You hopefully get what you pay for. Free training may be well-intentioned – and it is appropriate in stores of carriers who provide the connectivity. But it is very expensive to stay current with the myriad of always-shipping new devices and OS variations and upgrades, required to keep a device secure. Add the difficulty (and costs) of getting an operational router, high speed internet printing from multiple devices, streaming from devices. 

• Smart phones for seniors: why can’t every Real Senior have one? And no, it’s not to read text messages heads down and fall into a manhole – nor is it about the social media company that cannot be named. Smartphones are useful in so many ways that without one, day-to-day life and flexibility are circumscribed.  GPS turn-by-turn directions, research about what’s nearby when traveling, renting a car, checking reviews before eating in a restaurant or checking into a hotel, for starters.  And that doesn’t count emergency advice from WebMD or Mayo Clinic.  So that brings me to:

• Why isn’t there a senior discount to get a smartphone?  No, I am not talking about the cell phone plans.  Senior discounts are offered in at least 180 categories. But what about 50% discount an iPhone or Galaxy S9 – to get them into the 21^st century of their grandchildren, assuming that other infrastructure is available to help them (in-store training, upgrade assistance, and on and on.) 

•  When will everyone have a voice-activated TV remote?  Voice-activation and control will surely be standard for smart TVs, but sites that cater to seniors aren’t sources for finding them.  Nor is there any apparent interest in re-engineering older remotes to support voice input. Why not?

Baby boomers cross 73 in 2019, becoming Real Seniors in 2 years.  They will likely live, on average another 10-15 years or more.  For the next 18 years, the growth in the number of Real Seniors will continue.  Shortages of in-home care workers are worsening, new, hopefully tech-enhanced services are already forming. Senior living firms, meanwhile, are over-expanding to accommodate them, hopefully in communities with high speed internet and WiFi access everywhere. For all of the Real Seniors to be, now’s the time to tech-enable their future, don’t you think? Let’s not keep having this conversation for the next 18 years. Rant off.

category tags: 

Seniors, seniors and aging policy, computers, internet and social networking, cell phones, smartphones

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/real-seniors-lack-essential-technology-who-will-make-it-happen-2019

From Phishing to Smishing -- a scam for all seasons

Scammers are creative – each cell phone number is 'smishing' opportunity.  How about a text message with a picture of the sender, someone you know, pitching a fund-raising and time-limited opportunity – in a category the recipient knows well.  Except that it is fake, finding the phone number because it is widely distributed. And as an added bonus, the sender extracts the picture from now-accessible contacts (easily scraped from LinkedIn, press releases, Gmail messages, etc.).  Scammers seize the opportunity and send you a very believable text message.

Après the hoax, naturally, the deluge of advice. Naturally, there is new advice on avoiding scams via text messages on cell phones (charmingly called Smishing). Inc. offers up some advice, and a USA Today article offers some even more ad-ridden advice “you’re sharing your phone number too frequently." But 53.9% of Americans are wireless-only homes. What other number are people going to share? For the rightfully suspicious, check out Hoax-Slayer (!) advice to work harder to verify the identity of the sender. Alas, here are previous blog posts about scams, perhaps the ultimate in "peak-innovation." Read again and reflect:

Robocalls and scams – a phone-based war against us all. Many years ago, when the phone rang, we eagerly picked it up. That was then. For good or ill, families want to text, message and chat. And the phone call has turned into a source of harassment and scams. Robocalling is a modern torment, sometimes multiple back-to-back dials from the same source, often spoofing our own cell phone numbers – where answering the phone puts us on a ‘sucker list’ sold to other scammers. Is it Rachel from Cardmember Services or the IRS Phone Scam,  a fake carpet cleaning offer or worse, the disabled veterans scam, or the grandparent 'this is your grandson' scam? Read more.

Scaring seniors – the hyping of falls, fraud, and weather.  Not just the weather scares -- how about scams and fraud?  Last month, Investor Protection Trust released a survey of attorneys, most of whom have encountered some type of elder fraud in their practices. The organization asserts that more than 7.3 million Americans over 65 had already been victims of fraud. In June, In June, AARP's Fraud alert expert blogger, Sid Kirchheimer, noted that a robocall scam has geared up to offer money saving coupons and a free Medical Alert device, courtesy of AARP -- if you just provide address and credit card. In March, AARP published Caught in the Scammer's Net, a great title that was actually not limited to the AARP demographic, surveying only 77 people (women and men) that were aged 75+. What was useful in that survey, however, was the correlation between feeling isolated and lonely as one of the risk factors for participating in online scams.  My guess -- though I found nothing to prove it -- that is a risk factor for telephone, door-to-door and scams of all types. Read more.

Protect seniors from anonymous companies, products, and services.  On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. Although the cartoonist did not intend it, that 1993 New Yorker cartoon predicted the future and so it came to pass – and then some. So much of what’s on the web masks an entirely different reality. And so little when you search online has anything to do with what you want to find. Most people do not scroll down to the second page of search results if irrelevance rules: the Internet is filled with an ocean of junk web pages and misleading ads, masquerading as legitimate commerce. Talk to our friendly representative (photo of woman wearing headset). Call NOW! As seen on TV! As mentioned in TIME Magazine! Misleading information or scare tactic pictures on websites targeting seniors -- to me, these rank with phony telephone credit card and financial services scams. Read more.

Had your identity stolen lately?  Oh well, you probably did. A few months ago, California’s Anthem Blue Cross admitted that someone had stolen 80 million health records, complete with name, address, SS # and more. A certain amount of self-congratulation can be found in its letter to the 80+ million: "The information accessed may have included names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, health care ID numbers, home addresses, email addresses, employment information, including income data. We have no reason to believe credit card or banking information was compromised." What a relief. But with the ‘minimal’ data stolen, the thieves got busy and filed for tax refunds from the IRS, which helpfully encourages direct deposit of the refund. TurboTax halted its electronic filing process recently due to likely fraudulent filing. And the IRS, which admits to weak fraud detection tools, will issue refunds as a result of this travesty. Read more.

 

category tags: 

fraud protection, baby boomers, Seniors, computers, internet and social networking

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/phishing-smishing-scam-all-seasons

Recapping the most-read blog posts from 2018

Fewer platforms, but new and more interesting offerings.  Two major changes happened in 2018 that are having and will continue to positively impact older adults. First the significant uptake of voice-enabled technology was forecast to be transformative, and so it was, in senior living, in the homes and families of seniors, and as an interface in newer cars to make giving and hearing directions easier.  Not so newsworthy, but perhaps more important, the hearing technology industry and audiologist specialty were disrupted in favor of self-service and offerings at a significantly lower cost.

Fewer senior-specific hardware items. Second, the proliferation of gadget introductions targeting seniors appears to have slowed down, and the use of standard platforms (smartphones, tablets, computers, smart speakers and smart watches) ramped up. This is good – too many companies arrived and departed over the past decade because their senior-unique offerings never ramped up to low enough cost or profitable volumes. And investors have regularly run screaming from the ‘older adult’ category, preferring to view the whole bucket as ‘health’. Whatever. Here are the most-read blog posts from 2018 – take another look if you missed them.

What technology matters for older adults? (Feb, 2018). Technology utilization among older adults grew.  According to Pew Research, smartphone adoption in particular grew among older adults.  Interestingly in a later survey, those with Amazon Echo or Google Home devices and apps used their smartphones less.  Self-driving technology was a big topic in 2017, much of the hype including mention of benefits for older adults.  Still not clear why an Uber driving itself is better than a Lyft or Uber with a driver – unless it is the well-publicized incidents about Uber drivers. Read more.

2018 Market Overview of Technology for Aging in Place was published (March, 2018). Technology and tech-enabled services matter for older adults. The marketplace for technology to assist aging adults in the Longevity Economy is expected to grow to more than $30 billion in the next few years, according to the updated report by Aging in Place Technology Watch -- more likely to be based on customization of standard software, using existing platforms than creation of senior-specific products. The report provides predictions about key technology trends for 2018 and beyond. Families, caregivers, and seniors will acquire new tech-enabled services that improve the quality of their lives. The 100-million-strong 50+ market is increasingly aware of technology alternatives and providers know it. Read more.

Caregiving technology came into focus (July, 2018).  What newcomers have entered the market?  Besides ‘longevity market new media’ like Stria (former Next Avenue) that provided a splash of cold water for startups and investors in the older adult space.  Although there is little evidence that any investors are bullish about the general older adult market – despite AARP documentation and various books to the contrary, innovators continue to create new offerings to help older adults live better lives.  Here are five recent and soon-launching offerings to help – content is from the websites of the firms or articles about them.   Read more.

Ten technologies from the 2018 Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit (June, 2018). Two sets of pitches, ten finalists across the competitions. The first five are finalists in the 2018 Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit Business Plan competition. The Business Plan Competition features companies pitching their ideas to a diverse panel of judges for feedback, funding and a $10,000 prize.  The second five are finalists in the AARP Innovation Labs Pitch Competition for companies focused on providing peace of mind to family caregivers through the use of VR, AI and other disruptive technologies. The winning team will go on to the AARP Innovation Pitch Event in Washington, DC, in October of 2018. Read more.

Now Hear This: Hearing-related technology for older adults and caregivers (June, 2018).  Uncorrected hearing loss isolates and harms older adults.  One in three between age 65 and 74 has hearing loss, and nearly half of people aged 75+ have some significant level of hearing loss.  Note that hearing loss has been linked to dementia and to social isolation – and that in turn has been connected to poorer health outcomes.  Furthermore, wearing hearing aids has been linked to fewer hospital visits. According to studies, among adults aged 70 and older with hearing loss who could benefit from hearing aids, fewer than one in five (20 percent) has ever used them. Why such a small percentage? Experts believe that it is a combination of denial, belief that hearing loss is not severe enough, perceived stigma associated with wearing hearing aids, and a perception that they cost too much. Read more.

Best Buy Acquires Great Call – What’s it Mean for Best Buy (July, 2018)?  First take – this links together multiple Best Buy initiatives, starting in 2011.   Look at the history of Best Buy. First a dabble with the now departed Wellcore in 2011 – clearly the time was not right – the oldest baby boomer turned 72 in 2018, but at 65 in 2010, consumers could not comprehend the utility of a wearable fall detector. But Best Buy executives saw the opportunity and decided to learn more.  More significant in 2011, Best Buy became a founding consortium member in a ‘living lab’ Charter House in Rochester, Minnesota (along with Mayo Clinic). "We believe technology has the potential to foster healthy, productive lives by enabling easier access to information and medical care," says Kurt Hulander, then senior director of health platforms at Best Buy.  Read more.

The Apple Watch and Fall Detection – What’s it Mean (Sept, 2018)? When Apple speaks, a puzzled market listens. When Apple announces, industries crane their necks to hear. Last week they announced two features of a new watch, ECG monitoring and fall detection. In July, Tim Cook apparently did not want to get into the world of FDA regulation. Well, that was then – or he just wasn’t saying. In this new watch, both the ECG feature and fall detection have received FDA clearance within 30 days of applying, startling some observers who noted that closer to 150 days was more typical for a medical device.  Healthcare observers are concerned that false positives from ECG readings could propel people unnecessarily to already-overloaded Emergency Rooms. To date, the Apple Watch may have been of greatest interest to 40 year old males. Interestingly, 70% of cases of atrial fibrillation are among the 65+ population.  Does Apple really want the 65+ population to buy an Apple watch? Read more.

[NOTE TO READERS:  If you receive this blog in an email, please click here to see the full post on Aging in Place Technology Watch website. Thanks.]

category tags: 

hearing loss, Voice First/AI technology, wearables, smart watch, Boomer-Senior Tech Business

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/recapping-most-read-blog-posts-2018

Six offerings from The Washington Innovation in Longevity Summit

Networking is critical to entrepreneurs.  And most critical? Network with non-entrepreneurs -- those who can understand the offering and see a practical context into which it fits. The 2018 Washington Innovation in Longevity Summit, led by Mary Furlong, provided that opportunity. Entrepreneurs presented, exhibited, and networked with senior leaders from AARP, NCOA, as well as executives from government agencies and leading age-focused firms. Here are six of the companies that presented and/or exhibited at this event.  All information is taken from the websites of the companies and the list is in alphabetical order:

• Because Market Incontinence Products. "Incontinence affects 25 million people in the US, and half of women over 50. You know someone who deals with it- someone who can’t always make it to the bathroom in time or get through the day without a leak. But chances are they’ve never talked about it with you or anyone, which usually means nobody is helping. That needs to change." Learn more at  Because.

• Blue Star Senior Tech. "Solutions for seniors to stay at home. We make life better for seniors by providing them with what they want: freedom, independence, dignity, and choice. Our name, BlueStar SeniorTech, reflects our passion, focus and commitment to improving the lives of seniors, veterans and their families. It encompasses our promise to deliver only the very best and to continue doing our duty – proudly serving with honor!"  Learn more at Blue Star Senior Tech.

• Lacuna Health.  "A new voice in care management. Lacuna Health offers a proven care engagement service for patient-centered care. Our 24-hour RN-led human and data intelligence capabilities identify gaps and enable coordinated and personalized care across the continuum." Learn more at Lacuna Health.

• Miigen. "Our older adults have a wealth of knowledge and stories stored in shoeboxes in attics across the world. Miigen captures this information for you and your family as a digital time capsule. The shoeboxes are the story of a life, a family and a community. Let us not leave it until a family member passes away to learn about their life.  Upload their memories in to Miigen and keep them alive forever."  Learn more at Miigen.

• MyFamilyChannel.  "The Family Channel is a special TV channel that allows family to send messages and photos directly to their loved one’s TV from any smartphone or computer.  Residents are also able to view the activity calendar, dining menus, and other information from staff on their TV.  The system was designed in collaboration with geriatric specialists to be simple and senior friendly." Learn more at MyFamilyChannel.

• StoriiCare. "The mission of StoriiCare is to improve quality of life for those in care. After more than a year of planning, work began on StoriiCare in early 2016. Initially focusing on social inclusion and reminiscence, it soon became apparent that there was a need for a solution that would also support a wider range of care operations." Learn more at StoriiCare.

[NOTE TO READERS:  If you receive this blog in an email, please click here to see the full post on Aging in Place Technology Watch website. Thanks.]

category tags: 

aging in place, senior living, Boomer-Senior Tech Business

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/six-offerings-washington-innovation-longevity-summit

How the media loves to talk about loneliness among older adults

Shall we take this WSJ article at face value? Rant on. From yesterday’s Wall Street Journal – pops up a dramatic headline, The Loneliest Generation, describing how baby boomer Americans, more than ever, are aging alone. Did you know that ‘social isolation’ has become a named baby boomer health condition, spiking Medicare costs by an additional $134 per enrollee – tucked into the list that includes arthritis (+$117 of cost) and diabetes (+$270), source AARP?  Most of that additional spend was on nursing facilities and additional hospitalization.  Hmm.  What’s wrong?

Mulling the numbers. Okay, let’s remind ourselves that baby boomers make up the population ranging in birth year from 1946-1964.  Only those born in 1953 or earlier are Medicare-eligible (that is, roughly 49 million people aged 65+).  So aside from the fact that social isolation is, as of 2016, a billable diagnosis (who knew?), please note that the ineligible younger boomers are generally not costing Medicare any money. And one more snarky point: this ‘new’ observation about loneliness among older adults is unchanged from 2008 or any of the previous cited research.

Moving on to the twisted topic at hand. From this WSJ article “Americans More than Ever are Aging Alone,” what’s it say? 8.3% of baby boomers (born 1946-1964) reported often feeling lonely, per the 2014 census data, in comparison to 7.2% of the silent generation, born before 1946. Those boomers -- seems like a bigger number, right? Hold on, statistics alert!  Surviving baby boomers add up to around 65 million as of that census. There are only 30 million that make up the ‘silent’ and ‘greatest’ generation that were even alive to be counted. Granted that loneliness and social isolation are health hazards akin to smoking 15 cigarettes per day (AARP again). But approximately 33% of baby boomers are obese, only 8.3% identified as lonely. The WSJ article then hammered the point, finding people who are estranged from their relatives and with one to talk to, are left on the floor in a doorway, unable to yell loud enough to be heard, or they are home alone decorating for the holidays, which brings us to…

…Technology to help the lonely feel connected and safe. As the numbers make somewhat clear, generationally, nothing has really changed. Part of the problem with articles like these is that they become inferential instruments for mission-motivated vendors to use in a pitch. “We have a [choose one: fall detector, radar sensor, smart wearable, medical alert, home sensor, smart speaker, virtual assistant] that will solve the aging loneliness epidemic as detailed in the Wall Street Journal. (We don’t have much tech to mitigate the more significant boomer problem of obesity, though, so we won’t bring that up.) 

PERS or Dorot’s University without Walls? A modicum of technology can go a long way to improve safety and social connection. One person in the article holds up what appears to be a MobileHelp medical alert wrist button, and notes that he now sleeps with his cellphone – a good start, though if he has that much wherewithal, more tech could be helpful. Ironically, social networking technology has more recently been shown to make people feel even lonelier, so loneliness among the elderly won’t be mitigated by more time spent on Facebook.  Perhaps for those in the WSJ article, someone by now has reached out to them, invited them to join a club, go to a meeting, showed them how they can participate in a phone-based discussion forum. Rant off.

category tags: 

social isolation, social media, PERS

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/how-media-loves-talk-about-loneliness-among-older-adults

Why talk to devices? Because it is both possible and compelling

Who can and will be talking to their technology?  Quite a few people will, though it is hard to get a real number – which is ironic, since Amazon, Google, Apple, Samsung, etc. all know how many they have shipped. And they also know how many devices are back-ordered.  Maybe believe this one: could there be 50 million smart speakers in US (possibly with some homes having more than one)?  On the other hand, according to Pew Research, only 66% of the 65+ (46 million) are broadband (that is, high enough speed) users to enable a smart speaker in the home. Perhaps non-users are in rural areas. Or are part of regions, according to Microsoft, that are significantly overstated by the FCC as having broadband.

Which device/software will they ask and why? For many simple interactions, there is almost no difference in capability between Amazon and Google offerings. Some could query Google Assistant on smartphones or in their cars with Apple CarPlay (via Siri) or Android Auto. With these tools, drivers can have text messages read aloud in the car and dictate the response. According to testing, Google Assistant is smarter, so for some uses, out and about with cars and smartphones, that may be more optimal – especially with recent new features for maps. Back in the home, it is feasible to have an established, if often misunderstood, and possibly, even absurdly continuing dialogue with smart speakers. We can wander around requesting streaming radio stations, now possible with devices in multiple rooms all playing the same song if you’re crazy enough to want that.

There is no going back – the genie is out of the bottle. There are some concerns – though privacy invasions are not, according to experts, as worrisome as data theft from hotel or credit bureau sites. Older adults and those who serve them may worry (a bit) having an always-listening device in a senior’s home, ready instantly to misunderstand commands, and possibly screw up the response with actions or accidental purchases. Perhaps tapping the microphone off on a nearby smart speaker while watching TV (commercials) should become standard practice. Checking out a report on smart speaker usage categories, people apparently are NOT using them, ironically, to purchase goods. Whew, that's a relief.

Who is NOT going to enable a voice first interface?  That answer is simple. If it can be enabled (one way or the other), it will be, even in the health provider/insurer segment, where the experiments are numerous and sometimes silly. But we know that doctors hate interacting with EHRs and that voice assistants will migrate further into the health ecosystem, the experiment phase will come to an end, and voice interactions will support personalized information exchange – your HIPAA-compliant answer to ‘when is my next appointment, for what and with whom?’  If the slow-to-change senior living industry sees the opportunity to improve service and operations, what is NOT possible?

NOTE: Upcoming conferences – will you be there to meet in person?

Next week: Innovations in Longevity in DC

January 8-9, 2019: Digital Health at CES in Las Vegas

January 15-16, 2019: Alexa Conference in Chattanooga

category tags: 

Voice First/AI technology, Boomer-Senior Tech Business, Seniors

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/why-talk-devices-because-it-both-possible-and-compelling

Four Health and Aging Technology Blog Posts from November 2018

A short month saw plenty of food – and provided food for thought.  Many (54 million!) traveled during the US Thanksgiving holiday, according to AAA.  It was month to think further about concepts introduced in October about caregiving technology – why is it so unclear what it is, who makes it, what is the form factor for presenting it and how should people be using it?  (More on that in future posts.)  Meanwhile, some thoughts about living to 100 – despite the endless repetition about shrinking life expectancy in the US, those that live past age 65 may last another 30 years…or more.  Perhaps this is a major factor in why older adults defer making moves to senior living?  (Just a thought.) More from the month:

Living to 100 – will technology matter – and for whom? What is the likelihood of living to 100 for older adults? Greater than you think – can you imagine that that by 2050, the number will grow from 72,000 to 1 million in the United States – in Canada, centenarians are the fastest-growing age group.  Today there are 450,000 centenarians worldwide – with the longest disability-free life expectancy found in Okinawa, Japan. Is society ready to accommodate double the number of seniors who will be living to 100 and beyond?  What will the experience be like – today’s centenarians offer a clue to how they came to live as long – genetics, healthy lifestyle, marital status. What these individuals were not, however, is socially isolated, as many of today’s boomers may be.  Read more.

That Time of Year – Considering Technology Gifts for Older Adults. Warning -- this is not a blog post about what to give to seniors. There are plenty of click-bait websites topping the search list, like Holiday Tech Gift Ideas or the lengthy Amazon tech gift list or even a list described as The 7 Best Tech Gifts to Buy for Seniors -- really? Maybe these are the perfect gifts – or perhaps for some family members, the DailyCaring list is appropriate. Among all these lists, there might be some intriguing items that could be welcome, if not necessarily practical. Don’t forget a set of portable batteries – extremely useful for all these devices during power outages. Okay that is enough about the What – and For Whom. Read more.

Apple’s Walled Garden Bites the Wallet, but is free better?  Check out this startling sampling of Apple user complaints...Rant on. ZDNet published a list of Apple complaints posted on Reddit (which has an Apple forum of more than 800K members) – the list was eye-opening and filled with rage about (storage, connector, power) limitations. Oddly, in the center of the online article was an iPad ad. One commenter compared the Apple customer experience to buying a high-end Audi and discovering that the price did not include tires. Today Apple has 44.3% market share phone ownership – compared to Android’s 54.5% (led by Samsung and LG).   Users feel locked into Apple's ecosystem, but some commenting said it was easier to switch than people believe. Phone replacement cycles are lengthening, due to high prices for new phones coupled with apparent (or fixable) durability of existing devices. Read more.

Interested in innovation in the age-related market?  You are based in the west coast or needed to be there to do other business?  Then you may have attended Aging 2.0’s annual Optimize event this week in San Francisco to hear Dr. Joseph Coughlin of the MIT Age Lab describe his insights about the Longevity Economy. And you may have viewed the pitches for partners, spoken with investors, and learned about Aging 2.0 progress in meeting its 2017-identified Grand Challenges -- augmented in 2018 with two additional, Care Coordination and Engagement. In addition, OhmniLabs won the Global Startup Competition. With that as context, here are five startups that exhibited at Aging 2.0 this week – all material is drawn from the firms' own sites. Read more.

NOTE TO EMAIL RECIPIENTS OF THIS BLOG:

You are receiving this blog post from the website Aging in Place Technology Watch – which tracks the market of innovation that can serve an aging population and includes trend reports, press releases, related news articles and more.

category tags: 

cell phones, smartphones, Boomer-Senior Tech Business, baby boomers

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/four-health-and-aging-technology-blog-posts-november-2018