Apple unveiled the rumored 12" MacBook with Retina Display this week. The leaks Mark Gurman reported were largely accurate, but another report claiming it would include a Touch ID sensor was not. I don't believe Apple will ever include a Touch ID sensor on MacBooks because it doesn't make strategic or financial sense to do so.

I'm a happy iPhone 6 user, but every now and then I think about getting an Android phone again to play around with and use as a small tablet. Whenever I consider doing this I can't decide on which phone to buy, and I believe that's a problem for Google and the Android ecosystem.

Until recently, I bought each of my devices for a specific purpose and chose which vendor I thought was the best.  There were some small things tying smartphones, tablets, and laptops together, but we weren't missing out on much if we had an iPhone and Windows laptop, or Android phone and a Macbook.  However, Apple and Google have both made recent announcements aimed at making their devices work better together.  It's becoming clear that to get the most out of our gadgets they will all have to be running an operating system from the same company:  Apple, Google, or Microsoft.

There are several different screens you may have on your smartphone depending on its operating system:  a home screen of static app icons, a contextual home screen, a lock screen, app drawers, and the all important notification screen.  I think the notification screen is fast becoming the most important and most used screen on our mobile devices.  I find it much more useful than the iPhone's grid of app icons or the stock Android home screen, which basically just provides quick access to Google searches.

Last week Amazon unveiled its oft-rumored smartphone, the Amazon Fire Phone.  Compared to popular Android phones and the iPhone it has a familiar design and specs, some interesting new features, and the same price tag.  It will be interesting to see if the Fire Phone does enough to stand out in a crowded smartphone marketplace.  Why did Amazon make the Fire Phone, and who did they make it for?

The upcoming iPhone 6 is a huge product for Apple.  They need to knock it out of the park if they want to maintain their revenue growth and hold onto recent gains in the stock price.  There are a number of factors contributing to this: the overall health of the smartphone market, the slow-down of the tablet market, the rise of phablets, and more.  Let's get into some of the details.

Tablets were supposed to be the next great growth category for consumer electronics and personal computer companies - and they were for a few years.  However, several recent research reports and Apple's financial results have cast doubt on the category's ongoing growth.  Some analysts are even predicting iPad sales will decline this year.  So what's the deal - have tablets just hit a speed bump, or is something more significant going on?

A world without phone numbers.  That may sound ridiculous, but I think we’re actually a lot closer to it than you may think.  Now that so many of us have smartphones and tablets we're using them to communicate with our friends over the internet instead of calling or texting.

Apple keeps signaling that it doesn't care about market share, at least not enough to buy share by lowering the iPhone's price or introducing a significantly lower cost model.  Doesn't Apple see that Android's smartphone market share keeps growing, aren't they going to do something about it?  I'll focus on smartphones here, but much of this also applies to tablets.

There are several companies working to make Android 'launchers' that take over your home screen, presenting all types of useful information and giving your device a customized look and feel.  Until Apple enables widgets in iOS your iPhone will just show a static array of app icons.  But hey, at least that calendar icon shows the date!  Just kidding, I love iOS, but the home screen is getting pretty dull after using Android.