I had the pleasure of recording the second episode of the new Techpinions podcast with Bob O’Donnell and Ben Bajarin on Friday, and the podcast went up on Saturday May 3rd. The podcast focused mostly on Amazon’s potential entry into the smartphone market, and we mentioned a few things on the podcast which I thought would be worth linking to.

• First off, Ben’s post from this week on Amazon’s smartphone potential
• Bob referred to this chart I shared earlier this week about the upgrade rate for smartphones among the major US carriers – it’s the second one from the bottom on this piece (more analysis on some of these numbers here)
• My earlier Techpinions post on the potential impact of changing device subsidy models and how it might hurt carriers on the one hand, and help certain OEMs on the other
• A tweet from a week or two ago about Amazon’s testing of installment plans for Kindles
• You can see the number of apps on the Amazon Appstore for Android which are tablet vs. phone optimized about one scroll down in the left sidebar

I’m excited about the Techpinions podcast, because it will give the varied group of people that write for Techpinions an interesting new channel for sharing their views and insight. I’m looking forward to doing future episodes from time to time too.