How Anker Is Beating Apple and Samsung at Their Own Accessory Game
Nick Statt (via Hacker News):
Steven Yang quit his job at Google in the summer of 2011 to build the products he felt the world needed: a line of reasonably priced accessories that would be better than the ones you could buy from Apple and other big-name brands. These accessories — batteries, cables, chargers — would solve our most persistent gadget problem by letting us stay powered on at all times.
[…]
Most Anker charging products have one signature: the PowerIQ logo. Launched in 2013, the company’s proprietary charging standard is now present on nearly all of its batteries and wall plugs. The technology, carried by a small chip inside each charger, identifies whatever device is being plugged in, be it an iPhone 7 Plus, Google Pixel, or an iPad Pro 9.7-inch, in order to detect and deliver the maximum current the product allows. Anker says the technology can shave hours off the amount of time it takes to reach a full charge.
[…]
Building this system gave Yang invaluable insight into how third-party selling on Amazon functioned. He discovered what worked and what didn’t, and how entire brands could crop up overnight and fade into obscurity the next day. Anker thrived by borrowing infrastructure from Amazon and relying on engineering and support in China.
I don’t really like the headline, since it seems clear that Apple and Samsung have bigger fish to fry. However, I’m a big fan of Anker, which always seems to offer quality USB products and good service at reasonable prices.
