From a certain perspective, what is happening to Apple this week is unfair. Both OS X and especially iOS are more secure than their competitors, and Apple has regularly prioritized security over features that customers have demanded. For example, Android has long supported custom keyboards, but Apple is only adding them in iOS 8. The […]
Articles
The iPhone 6: From Louis Vuitton to Chanel
The iPhone 6 is going in the opposite direction that Apple’s critics think it should: more expensive, not less. It will work because Apple owns the high-end.
Amazon: Not an E-commerce Company
Let’s start with the premise that Twitch, the video-game watching network, is the next ESPN – you know, the jewel in Disney’s crown that, by itself, is worth $50.8 billion. Like ESPN, Twitch is about live competition, and, like ESPN, Twitch does exceptionally well in the highly desirable young male demographic.1 Obviously this is the […]
Games and Good Enough
Two months ago I wrote How Apple TV Might Disrupt Microsoft and Sony. Then, about a month later, I went and bought a Wii U. And, a month after that, I bought a 3DS. And now I’m writing another article about gaming, and I think I’ve changed my mind. Still, it’s always dangerous to write […]
Is BuzzFeed a Tech Company?
It’s telling that Chris Dixon, in a blog post explaining Andreessen Horowitz’s $50 million investment, goes out of his way to explain that BuzzFeed is not really a media company, but a technological one: We see BuzzFeed as a prime example of what we call a “full stack startup”. BuzzFeed is a media company in […]
How Technology is Changing the World (P&G Edition)
P&G is cutting product lines, the plethora of which made far more sense in the retail world than online. More change is coming.
Pleco: Building a Business, not an App
This past week has not been the first outbreak of independent developer angst over the app store, but it feels like it has been one of the more intense. The pump was primed by the news that Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is on pace to make $200 million this year, news that was in stark contrast […]
Losing My Amazon Religion
Benedict Evans asks a good question: If you were running this business, why would you slow down to take profits? pic.twitter.com/mbMNfbyZT4 — Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) July 28, 2014 The growth curve is impressive enough, even before you notice that the scale is logarithmic. And to be sure, Amazon has had doubters from the beginning: few […]
Big Blue and Apple’s Soul
I hope you’ll forgive my writing about week-old news,1 but I find it striking to compare the paucity of words written about Apple’s partnership with IBM, at least relative to what was written when Apple acquired Beats. After all, the IBM partnership is a much bigger deal. It certainly seems that Tim Cook feels the […]
It’s Time to Split Up Microsoft
To understand why so many serious Microsoft observers were encouraged by Satya Nadella’s week-ago memo Bold Ambition and Our Core,1 it’s useful to go back 10 years and read Steve Ballmer’s 2004 memo Our Path Forward. It was around this time that cracks were first starting to appear in the Microsoft machine: the stock had […]