{"id":18111,"date":"2017-06-04T21:03:01","date_gmt":"2017-06-05T01:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=18111"},"modified":"2017-06-04T21:03:01","modified_gmt":"2017-06-05T01:03:01","slug":"how-anker-is-beating-apple-and-samsung-at-their-own-accessory-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/04\/how-anker-is-beating-apple-and-samsung-at-their-own-accessory-game\/","title":{"rendered":"How Anker Is Beating Apple and Samsung at Their Own Accessory Game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2017\/5\/22\/15673712\/anker-battery-charger-amazon-empire-steven-yang-interview\">Nick Statt<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=14394465\">Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2017\/5\/22\/15673712\/anker-battery-charger-amazon-empire-steven-yang-interview\"><p>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 &mdash; batteries, cables, chargers &mdash; would solve our most persistent gadget problem by letting us stay powered on at all times.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Most Anker charging products have one signature: the PowerIQ logo. Launched in 2013, the company&rsquo;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.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Building this system gave Yang invaluable insight into how third-party selling on Amazon functioned. He discovered what worked and what didn&rsquo;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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I don&rsquo;t really like the headline, since it seems clear that Apple and Samsung have bigger fish to fry. However, I&rsquo;m a big fan of Anker, which always seems to offer quality USB products and good service at reasonable prices.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &mdash; batteries, cables, chargers &mdash; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[19,1530,38,452,31,30,280,175],"class_list":["post-18111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-amazon","tag-anker","tag-apple","tag-hardware","tag-ios","tag-mac","tag-power","tag-usb"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18112,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18111\/revisions\/18112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}