Dan Frommer

Twitter, which has seen no shortage of drama in its short life-span, is at a fascinating point in its history. When it went public last November the markets rejoiced, then its share price collapsed as reality set in, and now it has increased again, up one-third in value since late May. Over the next year or so, Twitter will show whether it can continue its transformation into a huge, highly functional, independent company—or whether it is destined to merely become the social media division at Google.

While new gadget categories—such as the supposedly forthcoming “iWatch”—could fetch Apple plenty of attention this year, and take some pressure off CEO Tim Cook, the bulk of its growth is more likely to come from a familiar source: The iPhone, which will be 7 years old this weekend.

Google presented its vision for smartwatches—one of the first waves of wearable computers—this week at its I/O conference in San Francisco. It was…mildly inspiring.

Google unveiled its new Android TV platform today at the I/O conference in San Francisco. It’s Google’s second take on a smart TV operating system, after its cumbersome Google TV platform, which debuted in 2010, never took off.

Google’s Android operating system—which the company is updating today at its I/O conference in San Francisco—has come to dominate the smartphone industry in sales, both globally and in its home US market. But despite Android’s audience size advantage over Apple’s rival iOS, app developers still aren’t making Android their priority platform.

Apple is “ramping up” on two new iPhone designs with bigger screens, Bloomberg reports. This has been widely anticipated, as Google Android phones with larger displays have become popular, especially in Asia.

As Apple’s product line matures and growth slows, it is easy—perhaps too easy—to criticize Apple CEO Tim Cook for not being enough like Steve Jobs, his legendary predecessor. But that misses the real story: Since taking over as CEO, Cook has made several key moves—including some Jobs might never have considered—to set Apple up for its next big thing.

Amazon had an opportunity to shake up the wireless industry with radical pricing for its new Fire Phone. But it’s actually quite conventional.

Amazon’s Fire Phone is here: CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled the company’s first smartphone at an event today in Seattle. Details are still rolling in, but Bezos has already made one thing clear: This is a shopping device.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is expected to unveil the company’s first mobile phone tomorrow at an event in Seattle.

Amazon—which is set to unveil its first smartphone this week—is smart to continue investing in its Prime subscription service: A recent survey by RBC Capital Markets, summarized today in a research report, suggests it’s working.

Advertising companies hoping to attract attention at this week’s Cannes Lions advertising festival on the French Riviera have chartered yachts and helicopters, among other excesses. Twitter, meanwhile, has a drone, rigged to take “dronie” (drone + selfie) videos for posting to Twitter’s new @Dronie account.

The Vessyl is a $100 glass cup with companion smartphone app that can supposedly detect what liquid you’ve poured into it, describe it, and identify nutritional information such as calories, sugar, and caffeine.

The Priceline Group is in the news today for buying OpenTable, the digital restaurant reservations service, for $2.6 billion. Its long-term stock chart is worth a longer look for two reasons:

Google said today that it will spend $500 million in cash to acquire Skybox Imaging, which produces high-resolution images with its own satellite.

Apple, whose advertising campaigns over the decades have generated both critical acclaim and commercial success, is starting to bring more marketing functions in-house. Under CEO Tim Cook, the company is “madly building an internal agency that it’s telling recruits will eventually number 1,000,” Ann-Christine Diaz and Maureen Morrison wrote for Advertising Age.

Facebook has hired PayPal president David Marcus to run its messaging business, the company announced today. Marcus won’t oversee WhatsApp—Facebook’s potential $19 billion bet on mobile messaging—but will instead manage Facebook’s other messaging efforts. These include the standalone Facebook Messenger app, which is already one of the largest messaging services in the world, with some 200 million active users.

Apple shares started trading this morning on an adjusted basis, following a 7-for-1 stock split. What a run it has been since Apple’s last stock split in February of 2005.

It turns out Apple didn’t fail at the cloud. It was just taking a while to wind up.

Amazon says it will introduce a new product—likely its first smartphone—at a Seattle event on June 18. A bizarre teaser video suggests the mystery device has a unique technical feature, possibly a simulated 3D display and interface.

Apple didn’t announce any new, must-buy gadgets today at its Worldwide Developers Conference. And from a user’s perspective, the iOS updates it revealed were mostly evolutionary—tuck-in improvements and features ”borrowed” from other companies, such as Snapchat-like self-destructing messages.

After a quiet winter and spring, Apple will unveil its first new products of the year Monday, June 2, at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco. While a big surprise is always possible with Apple, expectations are best kept subdued. Unless the company has achieved its best leak control in years, nothing crazy seems imminent. Watchers are mostly expecting updates to the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems.

Prepare for the things on your computer screen to look a lot different soon—if you’re using a Mac, at least. One of the new products that Apple is expected to reveal next week is a radically redesigned version of OS X, its Mac operating system.

Now that Apple is definitely acquiring Beats, the music streaming and headphones company, what’s next?