IPhone Was a Small Mac; iOS Mirrors macOS
The funny thing about people saying the MacBook Neo is just an iPad or an iPhone is that under the hood iOS is fundamentally the same thing as macOS, and indeed when Apple launched the iPhone they said explicitly that ‘it runs macOS’.  The iPhone demolished the existing handset industry because it wasn’t another phone ‘but with multitouch’ - it was a small Mac. and now the chips in that small Mac have caught back with their big brother.
Apple’s New Gemini Siri Can’t Fix the Liquid Glass Mess
Apple will launch a new Gemini-powered Siri soon, but half of the time I think fixing 'Liquid Glass' would be a bigger benefit. Just look at this mess. How did this ship?
Hidden Stripe Fees Lurk Beyond Dashboards
I wonder how much of Stripe’s margin comes from junk fees that aren’t on any of the pretty dashboards, only the CSV that takes 24 hours to generate.
OpenAI's Dilemma: No Core Product, Competing Everywhere
The strategic problem for openAI is that if the input box isn’t the product, then either the product is dozens of new apps or dozens of features in existing apps, and that means they’re competing with every startup on earth...
AI Now Dominates Tech: 2025 Macro Trends Unveiled
Twice a year, I produce a big presentation exploring macro and strategic trends in the tech industry. New in November 2025, ‘AI eats the world’. https://www.ben-evans.com/presentations
OpenAI Lacks Platform Power Without Network Effects
Posit: OpenAI’s fundamental problem is that it cannot become a platform company as long as the models it wants to use as a platform have no network effects and remain pure commodities. People had to use Windows, but there is...
AI Hype May Be a Bubble, yet Results Prove Usefulness
It’s quite possible there is a bubble in AI… But looking at the last week’s results you’d have to be just completely delusional to claim that none of this works, none of it is useful and no-one is using it.
OpenAI Targets $1 Trillion Annual Compute Spend
OpenAI clarifies it has about 30GW of infra committed now. And aspires to a run-rate of one new GW/week at $20bn/GW, meaning (say) $1tr/year
