This is the fifth installment in my series in which I publish product concepts.

There’s a fascinating startup story that most people have forgotten, buried somewhere in the graveyard of early virtualization experiments. But perhaps it’s time to resurrect it — because the technological infrastructure has finally caught up with the original vision, and the timing might finally be right.

The Mighty Precedent: The Renaissance of the Thin Client

Remember Mighty? The $30-per-month virtualized Chrome browser that ran entirely in the cloud? Their technical approach was elegant: instead of your local device processing websites and running JavaScript, you streamed a remote browser session. All the computational heavy lifting happened on powerful cloud servers, while your device simply received a video stream of the browser interface and sent back user inputs.

For users with older or constrained hardware, this delivered genuinely faster browsing performance than their local machines could provide. The value proposition was compelling — until it wasn’t.

The M1 Moment: When Hardware Leapfrogs Infrastructure

Mighty’s demise offers a crucial lesson in infrastructure timing. As one observer noted: “I think it really was the M1 chip that killed Mighty. The product itself looked like it was working great. Before, the value proposition was good.”

The M1 fundamentally changed the performance baseline for consumer devices. Suddenly, even entry-level MacBooks could handle intensive web applications smoothly, eliminating much of Mighty’s core value proposition. They had built the right solution for the wrong hardware generation.

But here’s the critical insight: we might be at a similar inflection point with AI — just moving in the opposite direction.

The Local AI Arbitrage Opportunity

Today’s AI computational requirements are where web browsing was in 2018: intensive enough that most consumer hardware struggles, creating an opportunity for computational arbitrage. But instead of virtualizing browsers in the cloud, the opportunity lies in locally hosted AI models with rental access.

Consider the value proposition: instead of purchasing a new PC with an expensive NVIDIA graphics card, you rent access to an AI-powered browser running a sophisticated, uncapped local model for approximately $30–$50 per month. The browser would have not only access to the latest AI chatbots but also integrated agent use cases.

Why Local Beats Cloud This Time

The real comparison point isn’t traditional browsers — it’s ChatGPT’s Pro $200 monthly subscription. Against that benchmark, local models have structural advantages:

• Speed: Local models can deliver Google-search-level response times without cloud roundtrips.
• Privacy: Processing happens entirely on the rental hardware, ensuring architectural privacy.
• Reliability: No cloud dependency means no service outages.

Until recently, “local AI” mostly meant running smaller, weaker models — good for experiments, but nowhere near the quality of leading cloud offerings. That changed with the arrival of GPT-5-class models capable of running locally on sufficiently powerful hardware. For the first time, local execution can match or even exceed the quality of top-tier cloud models, without their cost or dependency.

Of course, installing Ollama, downloading 120GB models, and configuring interfaces is technically feasible — but practically prohibitive for most users.

And yes, getting potent hardware isn’t cheap. Such a system could easily put a $15,000 hole in your pocket.

The Infrastructure Arbitrage Play

That’s where BaaS — Browser as a Service — comes in. A centralized service can maintain the Docker image better than any individual user.

The rental model works because it pools computational resources efficiently. Instead of everyone buying high-end hardware for occasional AI tasks, users get access to sophisticated capabilities without the capital expenditure, while providers maximize hardware utilization.

From a cost perspective, $40 per month is far cheaper than upgrading your current hardware.

Agent X: The AI + Browser Multiplier

A BaaS (Browser as a Service) model is more than a fast browser with access to fast AI. You’ll also get a “full” browser, with extensions and Userscript support. Something that is hard to come by in case you want to browse the web on an iPad.

But the real advantage comes from integrating AI capabilities into the browsing experience itself.

Tools like the Perplexity Comet hint at what this could look like: screen-aware assistants that can read across tabs, extract structured data, compare options, and maintain persistent context. This isn’t incremental improvement — it’s a new category of interface.

To illustrate: in a recent travel-planning session, Comet was tasked by me with identifying hotels in a specific region for a defined date range, applying constraints absent from most booking platforms (for example, carpeted vs. hardwood floors), and recording results in a Google Sheet. While the current implementation was slow, buggy (required manual restarts), the path forward is clear — automation can handle multi-step, cross-site tasks that currently require human time and attention.

These capabilities expand the browser’s role from “portal to the web” to “active research agent.” Once reliability and speed match potential, use cases will range from competitive market analysis to automated compliance checks — executed while the user is engaged elsewhere.

The Open Chromium Dividend

None of this ecosystem would exist without Google’s decision to open-source Chromium. That single architectural choice enabled a wave of browser experimentation — most notably Arc. That’s now colliding with advances in local AI, see Dia.

From Mighty to Now

Mighty demonstrated that a virtualized browser could be technically robust, but the market timing was wrong. Today, the inverse conditions apply: hardware performance for AI is lagging consumer demand, creating an opening for rented local hardware to deliver a step-change in capability.

With infrastructure, economics, and a clear differentiator in integrated AI, the pieces are aligned.

One candidate to make this real could be Shadow, the French startup best known for delivering high-performance cloud PCs for gaming and creative work. They already have the virtualization infrastructure, subscription billing, and expertise in streaming high-complexity workloads. Extending their model to AI-native browsers would be less a pivot than a strategic expansion — one that could put them years ahead of any greenfield competitor.

What’s missing: AI Browser Streaming was originally published in hyperlinked on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Last week’s story in the Apple community was if and how Apple should buy the entertainment company Disney. The discussion was triggered by a speculation from a “veteran Hollywood executive”.

The article goes into the why, citing the “special relationship” between Disney and Apple.

The benefit for Apple seems obvious: More content to boost services revenue and to create nice service bundles.

And of course Apple got $62 billion in cash sitting around. Financially Disney would be a small fish to Apple.

But — and this starts my list of counterarguments to the aqusition — financially speaking Apple could buy almost any company in the world, including the ones in their supply chain.

Apple has spent more money on stock buybacks (buying back shares from the public) in the last 4 years than VISA is worth. In other words, they could have bought VISA without batting an eye and still had 100 billion in cash reserves. Just for perspective, VISA is the 11th biggest company on earth by market cap.

Apple makes acquisitions, but they’re very small in size and they choose companies that aren’t in the headlines (yet).

In terms of supply chain, Apple tends to invest in their suppliers instead— so that the supplier can stem the upfront investment to ramp up to the huge Apple numbers.

Wouldn’t it be easier to own the supply chain outright? Safer, maybe. But it would come with enormous administrative overhead and not easy to answer questions like what should the bought factory produce if for example the displays in need are no longer wanted.

Critically, it isn’t certain that economically it would be of benefit to own the factories. “Commoditize your complement” applies:

the pattern of “commoditizing your complement”, an alternative to vertical integration, where companies seek to secure a chokepoint or quasi-monopoly in products composed of many necessary & sufficient layers by dominating one layer while fostering so much competition in another layer above or below its layer that no competing monopolist can emerge, prices are driven down to marginal costs elsewhere in the stack, total price drops & increases demand, and the majority of the consumer surplus of the final product can be diverted to the quasi-monopolist.

Apple stays out of the operational complexity and still gets the best prices, thanks to cut-throat competition with perhaps a bit of loss leading strategy on the supplier side.

The same can be observed with Apple Card: Of course Apple could have bought its way there, but it chose to partner with Goldman Sachs. Now Apple Card was apparently responsible for at least $1 billion in pre-tax losses at Goldman between 2021 and 2022 — Goldman wants the deal to end.

I think in the longterm Apple wants to be in the same position regarding content for TV+: Suppliers bending over backwards to be on the streaming platform. Why should it own the studios then? To get bad press for being involved in Hollywood?

I see the prestige and marketing factor of getting a big name like Star Wars on Apple TV+, but maybe the way to get there is a license deal with Disney.

The problem with Disney being, that Disney+ is a relatively small and loss producing part of the company. Matthew Ball called it a cog in the Disney machine.

According to the theory, it makes sense for Disney to loose money in Streaming, because the increased brand loyalty will bring back the customers to buy merchandise, go into Disneyland or on Disney cruises.

If you rip out one part, the system can no longer feed on each other and falls apart.

And I don’t see Apple having interest in running theme parks that cannot scale like their other products do.

But let’s disregard the flywheel and say Apple buys only the Streaming part from Disney:

• Disney would be in a lot of trouble explaining to Wall Street how their future looks like. Cable makes money, but like drilling oil, the end of the cash cow is on the horizon.
• Apple would need to find a way to integrate Hulu, TV+ and Disney+. If you abandon the Disney+ or Apple TV+ brand, you leave money on the table, because both brands have their value. If you let the services continue on their own, do you tell your customers they have to switch between three apps to get all the content they own?

The only thing that makes sense in my mind is Disney selling Hulu to Apple, alongside some of the more adult content that is currently on Hulu. This would boost the content library of Apple while giving Disney some much needed cash. But that’s far from the dream weeding Apple pundits think of.

Furthermore, if such a thing made sense, why wasn’t it pursued before launching Disney+? I imagine Iger saying back then, “look folks, we made a new Joint Venture with Apple. They bring the tech and the distribution, we will bring the entertainment and content skills to the table. The result will kill Netflix. The service will be bundled with Apple One.”

But no such thing happened and in the meantime Apple prove to the world that it indeed can build watchable content on its own.

Andi on Twitter: "The Apple TV+ Originals are on average much better than they should be. / Twitter"

The Apple TV+ Originals are on average much better than they should be.

To summarise, the deal would go against

• how Apple deals with M&A and their suppliers
• the business model of Disney
• the timing

If you want to dive deeper on the Disney question, I can recommend the podcasts ATP and Upgrade.

You read the headline, you know what’s coming next: Apple should think about buying Nintendo.

Like with Disney, Apple shares some cultural values with Nintendo:

• Family-friendliness
• striving to be the best experience to the customer (in comparison to a good enough solution)
• strong, founder-like culture that obsesses over quality
• Valuing end user experience over tech specs (although Apple regressed on that point regarding the iPad)
• To my dismay, the ‘I-know-what’s-best-for-you’-attitude
• An ingrained love of simplicity
• Design-led engineering
• Innovation (at least in input methods)

(Doc Ayomide goes into greater detail than I can for this post, please read his article.)

Gaming as an entertainment category is big:

Not only that, it shows the most growth and will create new entertainment formats in the future — some call this vague idea Metaverse. I prefer not to initiate the conversation about ‘Metaverse’ at this time, but it seems obvious to me that Gaming has more future growth in it than watching TV.

The basic logic of the merger would look like this: While in TV, Apple has found its own way and only has to wait till someone like Paramount falls over and licenses out its content to others, Apple has no sound strategy in Gaming.

Apple Arcade has not made cultural splashes like its TV sibling has created. Most gaming enthusiasts are disappointed by Apples lack of engagement in that sector.

Partnerships and Nintendo’s experience in the gaming industry would be immensely helpful for Apple in the gaming area. Nintendo has a very strong brand and good relationships with gaming studios that Apple can leverage. Apple could use Nintendo’s resources to bring exciting gaming experiences to iOS and increase engagement with customers, especially since Nintendo has not utilised the mobile device landscape very well.

Nintendo has only one third of the market value of Disney — yet it has its own iconic IP: characters that are so long with us, we parents hand the love down to our children. The ability to combine nostalgia with innovation is a beautiful recipe for success.

Gaming is the first handheld device most of us owned before getting a smartphone. It makes perfect sense as an entry point for the iPhone lineup. Hence the now discontinued iPod Touch. The iPod Touch was not up to the gaming task, because Apple does not understand Gamers. Nintendo does.

Looking at stationary devices, the Apple TV lost the battle of being the device of choice to the cheaper Fire TV sticks in many homes anyway. Apple had all pieces in place for delivering console grade gaming with the Apple TV. But it never happened.

Apple does not understand Gamers. Nintendo does.

A hardware device that combines gaming aspects with streaming video (let’s call it Nintendo TV) could bring Apple back into the game (no pun intended) with a serious USP. With Nintendo, Apple could enter the gaming console market. It would use its existing supply chain to quickly deploy an ARM-based console. The graphical power of the M1 chip is considerably more powerful than the current Nintendo Switch.

Note, gaming consoles are no small market. In the last 6 years Nintendo sold more Switches than Apple sold Macs.

Plus, the merger would add a new category to Apples services-led product strategy. Nintendo Switch Online lets users play against each other over the internet for a yearly fee. Perfect for monetising the many casual gamers on Apples App Store.

And bringing AAA-titles to iOS would allow Apple and indie gaming studios to break away from the $0.99 price tag. Console games today enjoy very good margins.

Like with the rumored Disney aquisition, of course the Nintendo brand and operations would exist alongside Apple. The brand and the culture of Nintendo are a long-term asset, and Apple should allow it to flourish and keep it pristine in order to develop the next generation of gaming assets. Maybe the geographical divide would be of benefit in this case, letting Nintendo stay true to itself.

The skill overlap between the two companies is much more complimentary than with Disney. All the wile Gaming is closer to the techy homebase of Apple.

Again, the synergies are obvious.

Apple won’t buy Disney, but they should think about Nintendo was originally published in hyperlinked on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

First things first, I’m by no means a Musk fanboy — quite the opposite.

And what he’s currently doing at Twitter can be described as wrecking havoc. Running that thing that we love in the ground. In such a record speed that some folks assume he must be doing it on purpose. I won’t go too deep into this, others chronicled the painful way Twitter has been on.*

Even folks who support his draconian micromanagement leadership style have to see that this overshadows what he has in mind for Twitter the product. That’s a shame.

From all the bits and pieces that get thrown around, I think I was able to form a cohesive product vision that focusses on keeping the ship afloat.

About Advertising

Mkbhd is one of the proponents of an ad-driven future of Twitter. Citing the known facts that a) people don’t like to pay for not physical stuff on the internet and b) for advertising to make sense, it needs to address the broadest possible market.

I’m not disputing that, it makes total sense for a social network to keep the barriers of entry as low as possible by making it free to use.

What I am increasingly questioning is if Twitter should be seen as a social network / social media. It fits under the common definition, but maybe we need a new dichotomy:

Andreas Stegmann on Twitter: "It's time we end the umbrella term "Social Media".Entertainment-based social & digital interactions (TikTok, Twitter, YouTube) are very different from Messaging-based social & digital interactions (WhatsApp, Facebook, Snapchat). / Twitter"

It's time we end the umbrella term "Social Media".Entertainment-based social & digital interactions (TikTok, Twitter, YouTube) are very different from Messaging-based social & digital interactions (WhatsApp, Facebook, Snapchat).

For Messaging interactions every one of your family and friends needs to be there to make the group chat useful.

For Entertainment or let’s say Information-based interactions you don’t need Aunt Anna or your neighbor. What you are interested in are the top 10 individuals in the world in the craft you want to know more of.

Turns out, as of today, if these people have an online presence, the highest chances are on Twitter.

Seeing it through this lens it makes sense that Twitter isn’t growing its user base and lives off its highly engaged users.

Eugene Wei:

I believe the core experience of Twitter has reached most everyone in the world who likes it.

Eugene coined the term “infovore” in the same article. I don’t care if you see these highly engaged users in a negative framing (addicted, neurotic, attention-driven) or in a positive framing (global, open-minded, intellectual elite). But what I would do is to market the service as *the* tool for the latter.

The goal of getting new and more users was therefore an uphill battle. By extension the advertising business model as well.

Not that Elon exactly helped to make Twitter a safe place for advertisers.

By the way, if the professionals at Meta can’t figure out a way to make growth with ads, I think it’s hopeless for Twitter.

A better Subscription Model

So as Twitter you want the infovores, the brands and the influencers on your platform.

There is willingness to pay for being able to get a message across in an easy and straightforward way to your crowd / fans / circle.

Make no mistake, the top 5% of users get insane value out of using the platform and therefore would be willing to pay insane amounts for it.

I had the idea to charge whales back in 2020 when I saw Elon (who else?) not being able to hold himself back from using the platform. In 2021 I added the pricing tier of 1k followers.

Let’s combine this with WhatsApp’s funding model in the beginning and we get something like this:

0 - 999 followers = $1 per month
1.000 - 2.000 followers = $2 per month
2.000 - 3.000 followers = $3 per month
...
10.000 - 11.000 followers = $11 per month
...
> 100.000 followers = $100 per month

Every account holder would pay at least $12 per year (upfront billing) while it scales with the amount of value a VIP can extract.

The subscription could be spiced up with other features. Somewhere on the ladder, I would say at $5, verification is included.**

Yes, not every viral account has the cash (yet). At some point we need to establish a cap. Twitter should build grace periods into the system. And the option to let followers pay the subscription fee (after all they want the creator on the platform). If the creator chooses to make the account private, it would behave like a paid Substack membership.

Zack Hargett had some great mockups in his thread how advanced creator tools and monetization options we know from YouTube or LinkedIn would look like.

Of course this would reduce the number of signed up users. But maybe as Twitter you don’t want them that badly anyway. The Signal/Noise-Ratio should go up.

What certainly goes up is the status attributed to being an active Twitter user. Not so different from the Blue Bubble vs. Green Bubble debate.

Keep in mind that the people who left Twitter are not suddenly outside of its cultural influence: They can still read tweets (beloved Google Reader was read-only too).

More importantly News Media businesses are happy to monitor and translate the Tweets of VIPs to articles and TV segments for the “normal” folks.

Charging baseline $12 should be doable by the global elite of infovores while it’s a massive hurdle if you have hundreds of bot accounts. This move won’t eliminate all scammers or spam bots and you will still need staff if you want to keep up the fact-checking service. But it’s a very efficient addition to the content moderation service (which can only act when the harm has already being done).

When the tech bubble thinks of Twitter’s glory days, it had a) a lot less users and b) public APIs that enabled a flourishing ecosystem. Understandably this had to go when you chase ad dollars (3rd party clients filter or manipulate ads). With a membership model, Twitter could open up again.

Payments

Another big benefit of charging users directly: Twitter gets the payment details of all its users.

• Direct payments are made possible. Think the PayPal profile page or Buy me a coffee-button.
• Building on top of the Revue acquisition a Substack competitor would be possible.***
• Twitter could offer 3rd party services billed over its platform. Think TIDAL from our buddy Jack 10% cheaper via Twitter Payment.

Payments on Twitter are especially powerful because it has the identity part already.

The option to “Log in with Twitter” was one of the first of its kind.

Furthermore, a lot can be explained by glancing at the timeline of a given profile. From Twitter’s lost opportunities:

When I want to get to know a person in tech, it’s almost always the best way to start with their Twitter profile page. Instantly I have posting frequency, tone, connections, authority (based on the follower / following ratio).

The thing is, the sidebar with bio and links is treated very poorly. What if we add certain kind of information like job title, skills you think you have and things you are interested in (in hashtag format)? Exactly, we get a barebone, not-so-dusty LinkedIn competitor.

Now, remember what makes Big Tech “Big”: It’s the ability to build an ecosystem around identity (including billing).

A Big Tech company wants to be the One Stop Shop for your digital life. Services from this company are the epicenter for other online activities.

End Notes

A shift from ad-driven to subscriber-driven is worth a shot for Twitter.

1. Fix the business model
2. Now it’s easier to fix hate speech and other content moderation problems
3. Become a paid-for protocol by opening up the APIs
4. Become a ecosystem player by enabling payments
5. Finally, fix the UX issues

This could all go wrong at every corner of the journey. Hearing about the morale from inside Twitter HQ doesn’t make me exactly bullish. It’s also a different Twitter than the one we got used to.

If I were in Elon’s shoes, I would make sure that I communicate my product vision as clearly as possible, so that everyone could rally behind it. Then leave the operational details to a competent Chief Product Officer.

If Twitter could pull this playbook off, it would finally be entering the Big Tech hall of fame — with less users, but more influence.

* From a tech perspective it’s a tension-packed thriller: When will the first things break? Sooner or later? Time for Popcorn if I wouldn’t use the service everyday.

** The verification process has to stay optional. Twitter has great anonymous accounts that have legitimate reasons to stay anonymous. (Another difference to Meta.)

*** Rumor is Elon will shutdown Revue. I mean, adding long-form content with expandable tweets could work as well.

Here’s Elon’s Product Vision for Twitter. Or at least what it should be. was originally published in hyperlinked on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’ve looked up what I wrote after last years WWDC. I can repeat it this year almost exactly:

Tablets like the iPad are a combination of very capable hardware with very incapable software, we’ve discussed this already.

A big chunk of the letdown of iPadOS comes down to Multitasking — the software interaction system to handle multiple jobs at the same time.

It’s not that Apple doesn’t notice Multitasking as a glaring downside of using the iPad. Every year they tweak it a little bit. This time we got Stage Manager.

This doesn’t reform the whole concept of window management on iPadOS (or macOS), it just adds another tool besides the ones already being in use. Now we have a “bunch of stuff without coherent vision” like John Siracusa said.

Ok, we don’t get a new paradigm or the paradigm I laid out before. But is the new tool at least a helpful addition?

Steve T-S has a nice Twitter thread with GIFs why Stage Manager is not the answer to the decade long search for better multitasking.

Steve Troughton-Smith on Twitter: "So, Stage Manager on iPadOS 16. I'm coalescing my feelings about it, which so far are a net negative for b1, so bear with me.I hate that it shuffles/resizes windows on me.It also unhelpfully decides which side of the window you're allowed resize from via touch (but not mouse) pic.twitter.com/tLv8QDOoT8 / Twitter"

So, Stage Manager on iPadOS 16. I'm coalescing my feelings about it, which so far are a net negative for b1, so bear with me.I hate that it shuffles/resizes windows on me.It also unhelpfully decides which side of the window you're allowed resize from via touch (but not mouse) pic.twitter.com/tLv8QDOoT8

Or take a look at Luke Miani’s video. His verdict: “iPadOS is becoming an increasingly convoluted mess.”

The point of this article is not to get into the UI/UX nitpicks about this or that implementation. I want to go deeper this time.

My frustration is not so much with the particular feature. As a Product Owner / Product Manager in a big corporate I know that (looked at it honestly) most software projects fail. For every successful feature change there are three others that made things more complicated for the user without reaching the stated goal of getting the user to do job X easier or more often.

Let’s assume that due to Apple’s uniqueness and rigorous product development process their ratio is better, like 1 out of 2 features. Still a lot of failure.

So you can be mad at Apple that they didn’t figure out the best solution or you can be, like I am, mad that they reduced the chances of us users getting good Multitasking by not allowing others to take a shot at the goal.

What is needed are public API’s for system-wide features on iPadOS.

That way we wouldn’t be dependent on Apple being the sole savior. Apple would see niches being catered do without lifting a finger. Apple wouldn’t be under this pressure to deliver. Apple itself could be more bold with its ideas. Apple could (in typical monopolist fashion) observe what enhancements gain traction and sherlock them for themselves. Or Apple could really use the opening to improve their messy developer relations: Every new API is an opportunity to make a compelling product and therefore money for developers.

I understand that in most situations opening up API’s is not the solution. Linux is open and we haven’t seen groundbreaking innovations. API development takes lots of ressources if you’re a young or struggling company. And even if you have the API published and well documented, someone needs to use it before the platform sees a benefit. That’s why it makes usually more sense for a new platform to get into vertically integrated use cases to get a critical mass of usage.

But again, Apple is unique. They have:

• a mature platform
• enough engineering ressources
• long time horizon
• tons of users (demand)
• tons of developers (supply)

They just would need to allow the supply to meet demand.

But, you say, even Apple is constrained by the lack of talented software engineers.

Then we have to prioritize: Apple’s job as the platform owner is the maintenance and enhancement of the platform. They need to do the stuff that can’t be outsourced to the developer community first. Only if those things are addressed, Apple can go into enduser App development as well.

Things like the new Freeform app are nice to have, but they are not fundamental to the platform’s prospects. There’s nothing in the app that couldn’t be done by a 3rd party development studio. (And if there is, it shouldn’t be.)

I sense that a lot of the features presented are to strengthen the integration of hardware with services revenue and not for the health of the underlying platform.

Would open API’s complicate the user experience to a degree that my mother wouldn’t want to open her iPad anymore? If done poorly, yes. But not necessarily. I bet that 90% of all iPad users aren’t using the current additional tools like Splitscreen or SlideOver. Why should it be different with stuff that isn’t installed by default.

I used Multitasking as an example because it’s obvious to most that there is a better solution out there. But with freedom to alter the OS in ways Apple doesn’t control, we could see all kinds of innovation.

In an alternate reality we would have gotten the next computing revolution already. Candidates like AR smart glasses or ubiquitous Voice frameworks aren’t possible without Apple playing ball.

Innovation happens when there is freedom to tinker and to explore. A closed-down Windows would have shut the door to everything we value today, including the iPhone.

There was a time in the earlier days of iOS where each year we saw a new API. I’m talking API’s for contacts, notifications, location or audio access in the background, geofencing etc. Those concessions date back to iOS 4. A lot has changed since then, but Apple’s pace for releasing new developer API’s has slowed down if not fizzled out in certain areas.

What are the chances of Apple opening up to a degree I would like to see? Very, very low. One level higher in the stack, Apple’s own apps get preferential treatment with private API’s. And even on the more open macOS there are no API’s for easy building. Developers and users need to jump though hoops to alter the default window management. Just like with Services, the Apple culture is a culture of walled gardens. The whole industry has become obsessed with “thin” platforms.

I don’t see Apple opening up unless they are forced to because of Antitrust regulation. I don’t see Antitrust addressing such issues down the software stack neither. But let me close with a quote from Platform Neutrality:

Platform companies wouldn’t be hurt by such regulation, they’re just pushed in the right direction they should have chosen anyway if they would see the long term consequences. This is regulation that doesn’t destroy their economics, rather it is enabling others to build on top of their platforms, therefore increasing the total ecosystem valuation.

Apple’s Silver Bullet in scaling iOS: Open up API’s was originally published in hyperlinked on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

After a 5-month encounter with Android (Sony Xperia Z3 compact) I switched back to the iPhone (6s).

My reasons would fill an article by its own, but let’s just say both operating systems have their pros and cons — the perfectionist in me has decided he needs the feeling of tidiness, more polished user experience and superior app quality that comes with the Apple ecosystem and hardware.

While I would say the ecosystems getting closer and closer, the gap in hardware is still relevant: The incredible fast fingerprint sensor, new possibilities in touch interactions and the top-of-the-notch camera with natural looking images are reasons on its own.

But: As hardware features get more and more commoditized, Apple will need to play their biggest differentiator — the integration of hardware and software. In fact you can see this strength at work with the afore mentioned 6s features. Now enter the cloud department.

Here ist the list of services (or jobs to be done) and how I substituted them on my iPhone.

Replaced Apple services:

• Apple Mail — Google Inbox App
• Calendar — Google Calendar App
• Contacts — FullContact App
• Safari — Google App (when I open the browser manually it’s in almost all cases a Google search)
• iCloud Photo Library — Google Photos & Flickr
• iCloud Drive — Google Drive & Dropbox
• iTunes Match — Google Music
• Apple Music — Amazon Prime Music (good enough for me)
• iCloud Notes — Evernote
• iTunes Movies — Amazon Prime Instant Video
• iBooks — Amazon Kindle
• Apple Maps — Google Maps

Remaining Apple services:

• iCloud Backup
• Find my iPhone

Apple Services that are part-time replaced (meaning they get used alongside):

• Siri — Google Now
• FaceTime — Google Hangouts
• iMessage — WhatsApp & Facebook Messenger

It was surprising for me how many Apple services are disabled now. The service distribution looks like 75% Google, 10% Amazon, 10% Facebook “conglomerate”, 5% Apple.

Not using Apple services on an Apple device results in a lot of disadvantages. For example I’m not able to control my music with Siri or make a lot of shortcuts with Workflows. Despite that I favor the added benefits and features above the deep integration — this should be a huge warning sign for Apple.

Dear Tim Cook, how could/should you react?

1. Make your services best-in-class and reliable (they’re probably working on that right now)
2. Make your services accessible anywhere, preferably with native apps (they’re probably not working on that, except Apple Music)
3. Let the user decide which service they want to use and offer APIs at the system level (they’re probably not working on that)

Don’t get me wrong, I think with an Apple device you can get the most complete package at the moment — but some strategic decisions should be rethought for the long-term future — otherwise you’ll see (at least) me switching again.

Originally published on November 15, 2015.

Hey Apple, you need to move away from your strategic walled garden approach was originally published in hyperlinked on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I picked up a reading on a Kindle again and it’s the unsung hero in my gadget repertoire.

Andreas Stegmann on Twitter: "Big Tech's best hardware products:Amazon KindleGoogle Nest HubApple AirPodsFacebook Portal / Twitter"

Big Tech's best hardware products:Amazon KindleGoogle Nest HubApple AirPodsFacebook Portal

Here I am praising a technological device despite this blog has a history of doing the opposite. Why’s that?

I don’t think it’s because the Kindle has no flaws (more on that later). I think it’s because I don’t think of my ebook reader as technology.

It’s not a gadget like the rest. Well, of course it is from a technical standpoint. But here are some characteristics that help to set it apart:

• It’s rather robust. When it falls on the floor, the screen won’t break.
• The display doesn’t glow (better for the eyeballs and a spouse who wants to sleep).
• It needs to charge only once a month.
• It fulfills its core job without needing access to the internet.
• UI and UX stay more or less the same for years if not decades.
• It doesn’t decay as fast as consumer technology does usually (a Kindle from 2012 does its job still very fine).

I see the Kindle Paperwhite screen as a very different one compared to laptops/tablets/phones. E-Ink looks dull and not very exciting, while OLED can become a really enticing window in the world. If you want to focus on one task, this can be bad.

Ebook readers are one-job-at-a-time machines. A purpose-built product by the most motivated and best-positioned service provider.

But the biggest advantage is the Kindle’s lack of any good use other than reading. When I pick up a Kindle, I read.

The KISS principle in action.

It seems to be the only way I get around to some longreads piling up in my Pocket account. While I avoid reading articles longer than 10 minutes in the browser because they seem too long, they look rather short on my Kindle — next to books (everything is relative and a lot can be explained with expectation management).

It boils down to:

< 5 minutes reading time: Smartphone

5–10 minutes reading time: Browser

> 10 minutes reading time: Kindle

On my ebook reader I read that Microsoft had a Kindle prototype in 1998. But Amazon won the market with the strategy of building the “Toyota Camry” of e-readers (everyone would buy one and hold onto it for years).

In large parts I’m happy with Amazon. They sell the hardware for cheap and host reliable services. I haven’t had a problem sending a long web article to the device for example.

But let’s face it, Amazon has not the upmost attention on the Kindle lineup (it’s the Apple TV of Amazon in that regard). Alexa gets 10k engineers while the Kindle starves.

Look at the Notes and Highlight features: What a shame that I can’t send my web article highlights directly to Twitter. I have to plug in the device via Micro-USB (!), copy a txt-file to my computer and do all the manual legwork.

That the Kindle has become a synonym for e-readers has its advantages, though. Some of the missing features are being built from passionate 3rd parties. I’m sure you heard of Calibre, the swiss army knife when it comes to managing and converting ebooks. Let me point out three more niche services:

P2K aka Pocket to Kindle automatically delivers new items from the Read-It-Later service into the Kindle reading list.

Kindle4rss does the same even one step earlier by feeding it the raw RSS files from selected websites.

In the absence of a startup that prints out your most important digital content subs and mails you a physical copy of your very personal magazine, these are wonderful stand-ins to get close to the same experience.

clippings.io is a useful organizer and manager of Notes and Highlights.

Of course, the functionality would be better integrated in case Amazon did it on its own (or bought these services).

But in this instance I won’t complain, I will shut up and read, just read.

In Praise of the Kindle was originally published in hyperlinked on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When I think of my childhood, the first toy that comes to mind is the LEGO system. Me and my brother had the whole city with things like a Police Station or the Space Shuttle and other themes like Western or Pirates.

At one point we sold all of it in a rather professional manner on eBay. I still have the Excel sheet how much fees we paid and how much net profit we made on every item.

For example, this Western set had an RSP at its release in 1996 of $85. We sold it in 2004 for $33.

Today you would get for that amount only the packaging and the instructions — the whole set is at least 7 times as expensive as we got in 2004. The “part-out value” (meaning if you sold the bricks separately) is usually even higher.

My brother (who also studied economics and is currently working in banking) tells me that is was still the right decision to sell: Putting the profits into a stock index would have worked out almost as good.

I reply

1. We didn’t do that. Heck at that time I didn’t even know of the existence of ETFs (lack of financial education in schools is a problem).
2. There were a few opportunities to panic and sell in times of a crash. Then liquidity works against you and can’t be seen as an advantage.
3. Besides the accrued value on paper, there is value in being able to look at those sets or play.

Getting back into the Game

I only researched this because I recently got back in touch with LEGO. The reasons are a) my son is slowly reaching the age where he can handle LEGO and b) my wife had a certain set based on the movie Home Alone on her Christmas wish list.¹

She got her wish and I don’t regret it. The set is incredibly detailed and full of little gimmicks. We’re building it right now, it’s fun!

Having said that, with €250 it’s expensive. That’s if you get it at one of the rare times it is in stock. I had to pay the “scalper fee” to get it duly for Christmas.

L(uxury)EGO

I’m stunned by the prices in general. Maybe limited editions targeted at adults can be pricy — but all the regular offerings like the LEGO City line (which don’t have to pay a license fee) are as well.

Keep in mind that a LEGO brick is at its core nothing else than formed plastic. You won’t find “Legonium” on the periodic table of elements. I was well in my 30s till I realized that, I just never thought about it before. It’s even more absurd to pay premium for plastics when with all other toys we pay premium to get them in wood (instead of plastic).²

From what I read the sole costs for materials are diminishingly low. What’s capital intensive are the machines to stamp out the bricks. Meaning, it’s a scale game. Well, LEGO is the biggest toy manufacturer of the world and in the universe of — for the lack of a better word — “Lego bricks”, competitors are too small to make a dent in market share statistics.

But instead of passing savings to the customer, it seems that the LEGO group wants to dial their monopoly rent to 11. Here is a comparison video of the standard helicopter set from 2018 with the one from 2021. The new one has 33% less pieces for the same price.³

It seems to me that in the last 20 or so years in which I lost sight about the Danish company, LEGO has become a sort of luxury item, comparable to Swiss watches: Retail pricing doesn’t reflect cost, it reflects demand.

Why LEGO wins

So, why is demand at an all time high in 2022?

Of course, Childhood nostalgia is a big driver. Kids from then are now having money, buying what their parents probably never wanted to buy them. LEGO is so old, it can reference itself.

Matthew Ball did a great job explaining why people love some franchises in a very sticky fashion in the context of movies: Star Wars can screw up three cinema releases in a row — and yet fans rush to praise The Mandalorian shortly after. The same mechanics are at play with toys.

Exacerbating this trend are the plethora of licensing deals. You can build playgrounds where Marvel super heroes fight alongside DC super heroes against Super Mario alongside Sonic in Hogwarts.⁴

The nostalgia of LEGO combined with the nostalgia of Home Alone was too hard to resist to, at least for 90s kids like my wife and me. That license deals saved the company from the dead makes therefore all the sense in the world.

Additionally we’re both knowledge workers, we don’t have the built-in satisfaction of doing something with our own hands for a living. A great part of the LEGO appeal is to build something nice looking just from pieces. Yes, with a manual building is not that complicated — it’s painting by numbers in 3D. But still, the completed structure transfers a sense of accomplishment.

Asset Bubbles everywhere

On to the financial motivation. Examples like my Fort Legoredo are extrapolated into the future. Most have heard that some LEGO Star Wars sets cost as much as a car. These products can be classified as Veblen good: LEGO charging more for sets targeted at adults makes them more desirable.

In a way scalpers who purchase sets only to sell them the next day on eBay drive up prices. Not only do they introduce an unnecessary middle-men that wants to get paid, LEGO likely notices that a set is sold out in 15 minutes and concludes “I need to raise prices so I don’t leave money on the floor”. That’s not bad per se, it’s capitalism.

Naturally, the cost basis back in my day was way different. You can say one paid the “intrinsic” value. By that I mean prices were predominately correlated with gaming value. Today you pay the intrinsic value + the speculative value of further price increases. Sort of like with housing nowadays.

It’s no coincidence that LEGO rose in par with other asset classes. Zero interest rates and bored markets in Covid times have left their mark. It would be funny if a Gamestop rich kid “diversified” into LEGO sets.⁵

“Builders of Tomorrow”

As with all luxury goods brand value plays an important role. You wouldn’t dare to let your kids play with something unproven and probably unsafe, right?

It’s interesting that “Lego” describes a certain category of toys (brand name = category). That’s true in popular other products as well, but for sought-after hardware there is usually a noname alternative. But where is the Amazon Basics “toy bricks” product? Why can’t I walk into Costco and get a bunch of stones for the cheap from the store brand?

The marketing department is on fire over at LEGO. Over the years there have been some very memorable ad campaigns.

In a way they had an easy message to get across: Buy LEGO toys for your kids and they will become more creative and use their imagination more. I think this clashes with reality when 90% of customers only build according to the instructions, and modern sets don’t have enough pieces to get creative to begin with. But marketing-wise it’s very clever.

Branching out into other entertainment genres like games and movies is also a testament of that. I really like the LEGO movies with their meta commentary and sense of humor. I haven’t seen the Ninjago TV show, but I have heard kids love it. This manifested LEGO as a universally understood cultural icon.

Competition is for Losers

This established standing is hard to beat. I have found competitors (namely Cobi, Blue Brixx, CaDA).

Note, it’s perfectly legal to offer bricks that are compatible with LEGO and look and feel the same. The patents exclusivity period is over. More interestingly, the LEGO brick was itself a copy of a British toy manufacturer.⁶

But given what we know about the brand and their market dominance, why should a franchise choose something else? And given that we know that folks want to play with their loved franchises, why should a (grand)parent choose something else?

I don’t see how you can break the entrenched, monopolistic rule by simply offering a copy of the original but slightly cheaper.

A business model that has been around for 60 years is proven. But a business model from that era has at least one attack vector: the Internet.

Unbundle LEGO!

The best challenger strategies are asymmetric — they go after what the incumbent would never change. I think in the case of the LEGO group that’s the bundle of hardware (bricks) with intellectual property (model design instructions).

Like with other things we still find it hard to pay for intangibles. I know iPhone users who are stingy with 99 Cent Apps or Tesla drivers who wait in front of free chargers. That’s why the bundle works so great for LEGO.

Unbundle this and customers would notice the absurd pricing for plastics.

It’s true that the creative work that goes into constructing sets is immense and deserves to be paid well. The model designers LEGO employs are most often (like in the case of Home Alone) doing fantastic work.

By splitting the designs from selling the actual bricks, we could unlock potential in the value chain. Brick manufacturers concentrate on fabricating the bricks while lots of amateur model designers from around the world compete on the best designs.

LEGO model designer is a dream job for many. As of today only a handful of people located in Denmark can make their living with it.

A decentralized⁷ Creator Economy

What I think of is a platform where every hobby designer can upload their custom builds and manual. Users can download the manual as PDF or open them in an App with step-by-step instructions.

The needed bricks can be brought over from already purchased sets, bought somewhere else, or bought right next to the manual on the website. The advantage in the latter case: The pieces are exactly what’s needed for the particular build.

In addition to the respect of the community I would let the creator choose how to monetize. Either they charge a fixed fee per download⁸ or they charge a percentage of the revenues made from selling the custom brick packs. The commission is preferred since it alignes incentives very well. Creators bring traffic to the platform. The more traffic, the more sales.

The platform would be part of the so called Creator Economy: Individuals create something and monetize it via an online network/marketplace. Li Jin also dubbed it the Passion Economy, which is especially fitting with LEGO.

Half-baked is better than nothing?

LEGO is not unaware of the potential of the crowd. In 2019 the company bought BrickLink, a fan made site that hosts a gallery of designs.

More popular is LEGO Ideas, where amateurs can send in designs. When a model hits more than 10,000 supporters, it enters the “Review” phase. At that point it’s up to the LEGO managers to pick the selected few winners. The winner will get 1% of total net sales. Now that’s something!

But the selection process can seem very arbitrary and disregards lots of popular builds. I don’t think LEGO is to blame for most of the downsides when you consider surrounding conditions like limited production capacity, needed profit margin, kid-friendliness. Nevertheless there here and also include:

• It’s winner-takes-all, runner-ups don’t get much of a return.
• It’s only applicable where LEGO can get the IP rights.⁹
• The candidates also go through a redesign — the finished set on sale doesn’t have to look anything like the submitted one.

I think there is still room for a similar platform in which the community takes full ownership. I’m almost certain that a site run by fans without artificial limitations develops a different dynamic and produces 10x or 100x the output of great models.

One could draw analogies to my article about Netflix vs. YouTube: The judgement power of the masses and the willingness to thrive of the many individual players will outcompete a (planned) central identity most of the time.

An Attention Booster & Expansion Stage

Remember this little ML App that went viral on Twitter a while ago?

Kostas Penlidis on Twitter: "The Brickit app, is just insane!@LEGO_Group buy the man a lambo...https://t.co/WCf9zTXVUI pic.twitter.com/QBMHg1gzGN / Twitter"

The Brickit app, is just insane!@LEGO_Group buy the man a lambo...https://t.co/WCf9zTXVUI pic.twitter.com/QBMHg1gzGN

How cool would it be if the App could tap into a vast pool of free instructions. An integration into our new platform would be beneficiary for both parties.

If we look a few years in the future, we can predict a step change in our business model. Just like Uber starts to make sense once the driver is automated away with self-driving cars, technology could replace a certain part in the value chain for the platform as well: In this case it’s selling 3D printers into every home that can download the instructions and print the needed bricks. Then the platform would offer a Nescafé Espresso-like model: Buy our printers subsidized and we make money on every printout.

3D prints would introduce a new kind of freedom to think of all different sizes and pieces — economies of scale are not important anymore. This brings us full circle: a product that fosters creativity, achievable for everyone. Just like the original LEGO was.

This is the fourth installment in my series in which I publish product concepts.

Why not keep the idea for myself? I believe in the power of open communication. There’s a great chance somewhere, someone has a related thought — if so, or in case you have other feedback, let’s connect and learn from each other. Contrary to public perception, ideas on its own are worthless if not paired with the right execution (hard).

[1] She is also responsible for the Nintendo Switch in our household. My father was big with PCs and saw consoles as a distraction to learn how to deal with PCs. Also I had to learn to type with ten fingers.

[2] Leaving aside environmental issues with plastic. For those interested, alternatives based on wood exist.

[3] The LEGO group is my goto example that the bad side of “shareholder capitalism” can also be experienced if the company isn’t publicly listed.

[4] I would love to see a massive online world game (or Metaverse as it’s called now) filled with all the license figures. The blocky aesthetics on the characters would make the different franchises feel cohesive and part of a bigger world. Also: Minecraft would have been a really great fit.

[5] For sure, if I’m someday somehow a millionaire, to gather the perfect LEGO town would be nice hobby where I would spend my money. Because you can share it with your children.

[6] Not that this hinders LEGO at suing competitors and fans left and right.

[7] Note that “decentralized” isn’t an architectural decision about Blockchain or Web3. It could help with distributing value to creators, though.

[8] I would not recommend charging per download because a PDF is very easily pirated.

[9] In theory this applies to the envisioned platform, too. But just like on YouTube, copyrighted material might fall through the cracks and built the initial critical mass of content.

What’s missing: Creator Platform for LEGO Bricks was originally published in hyperlinked on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Almost to the day 4 years ago I mused what I really want out of my computing device. I summed it up with Desktop-like productivity & Tablet-like ease-of-use. Examples:

I want to be able to write in my Note Taking-App with keyboard and with pen.

I want to play first person shooters with mouse and board games with touch in local multiplayer mode.

I want to use macros in Excel and flick through mails with my finger.

I want a web browser where I can install extensions and read my saved articles on the couch.

I want to edit my pictures with multitouch and the photo files to sync onto the device automatically without opening an app first.

In a better world the iPad would have evolved to solve such tasks. I consider the attempts with the Surface line and the iPad line as very different in their conceptual approach but very alike in their failing to deliver.

It’s frustrating to notice all the building blocks that are right there, all in one company, but that company [Apple] doesn’t want to combine them — mainly for business bottom line reasons.

It’s even more frustrating when you are desperately waiting for a breakthrough (from the Microsoft or Apple ecosystem) year after year at least for a decade.

Going back to what I really want:

From a conceptional perspective I want to use my device like Samsung Dex: Touch-first on the go, Desktop-first (keyboard, mouse, monitor) when docked in.

For once, Samsung kept improving their custom-added feature — Dex got better. Huawei, LG, Xiaomi and recently Motorola jumped on the Desktop Mode bandwagon. There seems to be demand! Prediction: In the next 12 months Google will add this to stock Android.

But it’s not where I see the future. The different Desktop Modes don’t add new capabilities besides “Apps are in floating windows you can drag around”. Visual familiarity over function. It looks like you get the power of a desktop while that’s only true on first glance.

Pro stuff like shell access or a desktop grade browser are not part of the deal.

Which is the segue to Chrome OS.

I think most people already know the Operating System based on the Google browser and that it’s popular with schools. Mainly because of price (cheap hardware bundled with free classroom software).

While the OS got more convoluted over time, I’m still admiring the (initial) design of reducing layers of interaction to a minimum.

Maybe that’s what got me into buying the Lenovo Duet Chromebook when it was on Black Friday sale.

Anyway, I’m impressed that only 4 GB of RAM are sufficient for Chrome on ARM (not so much for Android apps to be honest, but I don’t have the need to use them a lot). The more important point why I like the device is that I didn’t need to change my workflow.

Consider me old school, but 90% of my daily computing usage can be fulfilled with a desktop class web browser.

• I rather open a new tab and search in [cloud sync provider of your choice] than opening the finder.
• I prefer instacalc.com to any built-in calculator.
• I like twitter.com more than their native client because I don’t like switching between the app and the browser on opening a link.

“Desktop class” is more than changing the user agent and being able to access the latest web apps. Fundamentally it’s being able to form my personal web experience. Be it with inspect tools, extensions, custom search engines, custom styles or custom shortcuts. On a browser where I don’t have the right to do so I feel severely limited and not at home.

In a sense every time I visit a website I renegotiate the terms: I interact with content or functionality but I am allowed to alter the functionality or hide certain content (like ads). On mobile I’m the consumer and only the consumer, while on desktop I can choose to step up and become something more.

The iOS app ecosystem is one hell of a moat. Yet, if I had to decide between it and the “full” web I would pick the latter.

I need to say Apple beat Google in bringing extension capability to their mobile browser. A narrative violation to the whole Apple is hindering the web (good post by Alex Russell). I’m starting to wonder if Google is very motivated to push web apps on Android. Why doesn’t the Play Store search show webservices?

Chrome OS runs on ARM machines. Chrome has a specialised build for M1 Macs. Why is there no real desktop Chrome available on Android? Not even on something like Samsung Dex?

If Google had a competent program management they would let Android for tablets die and go with Chrome OS only. Android tablets copied another mistake from the iPad: It’s the same conceptual model of the smartphone just on a bigger screen.

Back to the trend of Desktop Modes. The correct way for Google to implement such a mode would be to launch Chrome OS when plugged into a monitor.

Not only would the user get the full web experience with the advantages listed above. Chrome OS is built on Linux. And unlike Android or iOS you don’t need to jump through hoops to access the command line. Learning about it makes daily life so much easier on a Chromebook.

It seems absurd, but you can even go so far to install (real) Firefox on Chrome OS. Like any good product it doesn’t need to hinder competition from entering the platform.

The refreshing things about Chrome OS:

• It builds on what folks already know about how to use computers.
• It works both with Touch / Stylus or Keyboard / Mouse reasonably well.
• It has a built-in “Pro” mode that unlocks more use cases.

To paraphrase Bushnell’s law: It’s simple to begin with, but hard to master. A stark contrast to modern operating systems which dumb down and enclose the user without a switch that would set the device “free”.

There will be kids that tinker around with the CLI and they will become software engineers later. Apparently we need every single one of them.

Why Desktop Modes are bad but Desktop Browsers are good was originally published in hyperlinked on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

• Apple is hardware seller first, which means the smartphone slowdown hit hard
• (Maybe because of its hardware-centric approach) Apple has shown a lot of shortcomings in the software & services department
• Visionary leadership of Tim Cook got into question
• And, most recently, Apple got attacked for what’s supposed to be their key strength: hardware products

There have been a lot of recaps of Apples “Hello again” event, but the overall majority of commentators at least feel disregarded.

Andreas Stegmann on Twitter

Let's face it: Apples new "Pro" definition starts now at "it can do more than iOS" - cutting out a lot of pro niches https://t.co/0D17TzxfaU

It boils down to the question “Who is the audience for Apple today?” Is it still with the creative, the artsy, the performance-hungry developer? Or is it with the “normal people”, “translating” technical advances in everyday use cases?

I would guess Apple sees itself catering for both audiences, but for me it’s as clear as it can be, that they don’t have the capacity to satisfy both. Apple of course does not want to alienate its best customers — but their products get neglected automatically by treating products with money flowing in (iPhone) first.

As a product manager myself, the current line-up of macOS computers hurts my eyes: I am counting 9 different laptop models alone. Leaving aside the question when does the MacBook end and where does the iPad begin. Then there are signs pointing in the direction of no new Desktop Macs whatsoever, which would be dangerous on many levels.

The next “construction site” is around peripherals: No love for AirPorts (while even Google gets into the game), an asymmetric monitor made by LG and Thunderbolt adapters/docks made by Belkin only?

Over at iOS I have a different kind of problem: Apple differentiates features based on display size. Do you want an iPhone SE-shaped design with the zoom (portrait) lens? No luck for you. Same goes for an iPad mini regarding the Apple Pencil or the TrueTone display. If you pick a factor by which you sort features — why should it be display size, where people are still arguing which size is best?

I don’t blame anybody for this, all products base their existence on something historical, meeting a certain price point, holding Apple margins up, and so on… But some of these reasons are very frightening for Apple, a company that praised itself to only act in the customers interest, financials aside. Put another way: For Apple to justify their high margins, they have to create the best possible product. Period. This mantra is showing first cracks for a while now.

I tried to take my complaining one step further: Designing an alternative Apple product portfolio.

Simplicity has great power. When Jobs came back to Apple, he famously cut the portfolio from 13 lines to only 4. I think in 2017 it is time for another radical cut.

My theoretical Apple portfolio had three goals:

1. Don’t let too much customer needs or whole target groups behind,
2. reduce the amount of variants to a manageable degree,
3. by orienting at todays lineup (and not some unrealistic dream scenario).

The result: One logic rolled out across all major products.

For every category you can choose which size you want and which feature-set. You get to say if you need the Basic, Plus or Pro variant. Higher versions differ in performance, storage size and/or exclusive features.

If you combine the feature-sets with the available sizes you get only 36 variants for the above shown categories. Not too bad, compared to todays confusing lineup.

Apple did such a line-up regarding the Apple Watch. They introduced two new versions, Series 1 and Series 2. Yesteryears model (“Series 0”, the naming is confusing people) is still around, for a cheap entry-point. All variants can be combined with both sizes (38mm & 42mm).

Additional details

• Simplicity in naming is important as well. Product names should be $category $modifier $releaseyear, e.g. MacBook Plus ’17. (iPhone 82S sounds silly in comparison.)
• Hardware in a certain category should be renewed every year round about the same time. Having the same price for 1,000 days (and counting) is ridiculing the fundamentals of tech.
• To release pressure in internal roadmaps, Apple OS software could move to a Rolling Release distribution model like some UNIX siblings practice it. Since Apple seldomly does revolutionary overhauls and updates are free for quite some time now, this outweighs the loss of marketing shows.
• I’m aware that offering the same feature-set in a smaller casing is not always technically feasible, but it’s still a fundamentally different model than offering new tech only in big casings. It should be about choice, not compromises.
• New hardware should replace the old one, selling old stuff should be reserved for emerging markets (e.g. India). If you want a cheap entry level model, then build one. People don’t care if the interior is a year old, but nobody likes buying fashion (the exterior) from last season.
• There are also certain hardware features Apple needs to bring to the entry level model sooner than later. Examples would be TouchID on macOS (for enabling a PayPal competitor) or the new TouchBar (you want developers to have a large addressable user base). For these strategic reasons Apple should forego a slice of their margin.
• Apple should keep the directly related peripherals in house. This is an important strength of their vertically integrated strategy, see iPad Smart Cover or AirPods. But: If you do a certain hardware, you need commitment. So no more 3 year old AirPort Extremes or Battery Cases for just one size of iPhone.
• There would be no reason for Apple to ditch the Mac. You just need two rectangle boxes with the latest and greatest Intel Chipset etc.. And while Apple would never sell something with the marketing claim that one could upgrade the interior parts, they did sell Macs in the past where you could do so. (You lost the warranty, but people were still eager to do it.)
• The iMac is absent from the lineup: People can buy the small Mac and slap it behind the Apple display (with a special mount), making the system interchangeable. And really nobody cares about the added thickness.
• The other product category I’m worried about is the iPad, caught between a big iPhone and a small MacBook. But the fix is relatively easy: Give the iPad OS its own software capabilities. Split View is a very humble start, what about input device support or Homescreen organisation?.
• I cut down the available MacBooks to nine variants. It’s only when the iPad is a solid laptop alternative on its own, that this lineup makes sense. Everybody who buys a MacBook One today because it’s small and light, should be better off with an iPad & keyboard combination.
• Focus would also mean to let go of certain categories Apple can’t fit in their schedule. The iPod comes to mind. Also (and I dislike the thought of it) the Apple TV. Of course the living room has great potential. Apple could have blown Amazon Echo out of the water by integrating Siri. But this place needs attention — either you do it wholeheartedly or you do nothing at all, there is no place for hobbies.
• Product Engineering is and will ever be in search of the best trade-off between form and function. While the rest of the industry errs on the side of putting features and technical specs first, Apple is on the other side of the spectrum, putting form over function in way too many cases.
• It is important for all the pundits out there: I know it hurts that the company you love wouldn’t do all the flavours you like anymore. But I rather would get fewer variants with a verbal commitment that these products are sure to stay relevant in the midterm, than a puzzled portfolio where you hope from year to year that eventually something’s coming.

You can argue with me if the proposed plan has rough edges and hiccups. This post got way too long anyway.

The bottom line is this: Apple isn’t the sympathetic underdog anymore. They need to structure their portfolio in some way or another to regain simplicity (internally and externally) and customer trust by delivering the best product in a foreseeable logic.

The state of Apple Hardware and a Product Portfolio Proposal was originally published in hyperlinked on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.