Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
The odds are that Apple isn’t going to change anything; the App Store is extremely profitable, and Apple is probably going to win its court case. Why give up a single dime? At the same time, the constant wave of controversies have to be wearing on the company, from a morale perspective if nothing else. Apple can be legitimately accused of profiteer... See more
Ben Thompson • Rethinking the App Store
A lot of companies start the design process by blocking things out with wireframes, like, the contact list goes here, and there’s a big wireframe with an X through it. Apple would start with these gorgeous mock-ups in Photoshop and Flash—or Shockwave at the time. There’s no code behind it, and you can only do one thing, but you get the feel.
Max Chafkin • Design Crazy: Good Looks, Hot Tempers, and True Genius at Apple
Taste figures much more prominently when it comes to Apple Music and other similar endeavors. The DJ-focused Beats 1 “radio” station, for example, is clearly intended to make certain songs popular, not simply identify popularity after it is already attained. This in particular is a natural fit for Apple, and is the part of Apple Music I am most int... See more
Ben Thompson • Curation and Algorithms
Such hierarchically restricted access to the CEO can’t be too different from what happens with other large companies, but the way to get admission to these high-level meetings at Apple had much less to do with your place on the org chart and much more to do with your ability to make the products better.
Ken Kocienda • Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs
Finally , the commentariat exclaims! Apple is in danger of falling dangerously behind! The fact they are partnering with OpenAI is evidence of how desperate they are! In fact, I would argue the opposite: Apple is not too late, they are taking the correct approach up and down the stack, and are well-positioned to be one of AI’s big winners.
Ben Thompson • Meta Blocks News in Canada, LK-99, YouTube and TV Advertisers
Provide access to increasingly large amounts of non-dilutive capital.
Packy McCormick • Stripe: The Internet's Most Undervalued Company
In this case, Apple should both allow ClassPass to sell its classes via a webview (i.e. loading a webpage within its app), and also offer in-app purchases for, say, 10%; yes, that’s more expensive than credit card processing fees (which are ~$0.30+2.5%~2.9%, or around 6% of a $10 purchase), but the superiority of the user experience may convert eno... See more
Ben Thompson • Rethinking the App Store
In contrast to the podcast example above, where any platform that adopted RSS could instantly have the supply side of the chicken and egg problem solved, Substack did the opposite: it solved the demand side by ensuring all of its consumers already had a way to read newsletter content. This is a really smart strategy, and so as a platform, it has ta... See more
Michael Mignano • The Standards Innovation Paradox
…this is one of the most classic examples ever of low-end disruption. You have the big thing that the enterprise people are buying with these companies that need every single last feature of Office, even though any given person only uses 5% of it. Most of them use the same 5%, but you need all those features because that's how you get the big enter... See more