John Gruber:

This dramatically changes the economics of the App Store. Until now, productivity apps could charge up front as paid downloads and that was it. Updates had to be free, or, to charge for major new versions, developers would have to play confusing games by making the new version an entirely new app. Twitter clients like Tweetbot and Twitterrific, for example, did this, to justify years of ongoing development. Now, apps like this can instead charge an annual/monthly/etc. subscription fee.

This could be the change that makes the market for professional-caliber iPad apps possible. On the Mac, there has long been a tradition of paying a large amount of money for a pro app, then paying a smaller amount of money for major updates. The App Store has never allowed for that sort of upgrade pricing — but upgrade pricing is what enabled ongoing continuous development of pro software. Paying for each major new version, however, is arguably a relic of the age when software came in physical boxes. Subscription-based pricing — “software as a service (SaaS)” — the modern equivalent. That’s the route both Microsoft and Adobe have taken.

I don't see this affecting most mainstream consumers very much; most people really only use five apps, and those apps are usually the free, popular and cross-platform ones.

But what I am excited about is how this helps power users and productivity apps. Currently, most people would never take a chance on a $20 app. But with the new subscription-based pricing and free trials, that barrier is greatly lowered. Less commitment for consumers and more sustainability for developers.

I'm optimistic about real desktop-class apps coming to iPads and iPhone.

Johana Bhuyiyan at Recode, imagining how cities will evolve with self-driving cars:

Local governments will have to reimagine how cities are designed. Will roads become shared space for self-driving cars and pedestrians? Will infrastructure like traffic lights and signs need to communicate with vehicles? And since you'll be able to automatically summon your car, from a parking lot miles away, who needs a garage attached to their house? […]

And cities may look drastically different. Sidewalks could go away, as pedestrians and cars share the roads. There will be no street parking, just parking garages outside of city centers. And traffic signs and infrastructure may disappear — replaced with smaller, cheaper equipment that only needs to communicate with cars. Their drivers will be gone.

Benedict Evans:

The development of technologies tends to follow an S-Curve: they improve slowly, then quickly, and then slowly again. And at that last stage, they're really, really good. Everything has been optimised and worked out and understood, and they're fast, cheap and reliable. That's also often the point that a new architecture comes to replace them. You can see this very clearly today in devices such as Apple's new Macbook or Windows 'ultrabooks' - they've taken Intel's x86 and the mouse and window-based GUI model as far as they can go, and reached the point that everything possible has been optimised. Smartphones are probably at the point that the curve is starting to flatten - a lot has been optimised but there's still work to do, especially around cameras and battery life, and of course GPUs for VR. That curve will probably flatten out just at the point that AR starts to start shipping.

Ken Perlin:

I was on a panel this evening about the future evolution of VR. At one point I made the argument that people who try to “make their film in VR” are getting it very wrong. In fact, I argued, VR is essentially the very opposite of cinema.

The most salient feature of a movie is that everybody in the audience sees exactly the same thing. The goal of a cinematographer, an editor, a lighting designer in movie making is, in fact, to optimize for a single viewpoint. The craft of filmmaking is built around this fundamental imperative.

In contrast, future content in VR will have far more in common with theater: Everybody will see events unfold from their own unique viewpoint. VR has even more in common with immersive theater, in which audience members are free to roam around on their own.

John Kirk:

One of the barbs most frequently hurled at Apple by its critics is that no new Apple product — whether it be Apple Music or Apple Watch or the iPad Pro, etc. — is, or has any chance of being, as big as the iPhone.

No [shit] Sherlock.

Of COURSE no new product is going to be as big as the iPhone — because there is NOTHING BIGGER THAN THE IPHONE. And that’s the point.

The iPhone dominates the most dominant tech sector of our time.

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t criticize Apple for not surpassing the profits of the iPhone without acknowledging the profits of the iPhone or the fact that no one has been able to surpass the success of the iPhone.

Saying that Apple’s success is “limited” to the iPhone is like saying:

• Henry Ford’s success was “limited” to cars
• John D. Rockefeller ‘s success was “limited” to oil
• Andrew Carnegie’s success was “limited” to steel
• Cornelius Vanderbilt’s success was “limited” to railroads

Being limited to a product with limitless potential, ain’t such a bad thing and if you have to be dependent upon something, it’s best to be dependent upon the most dependably profitable product of your time. [Emphasis mine]

Tomorrow's workforce is today's kids who grew up on smartphones and tablets as their primary computers.

When these kids grow up, a "real computer" to them will not be a traditional laptop with disc drives, removable batteries, or user-upgradeable RAM/storage. Tomorrow's "real computer" will be more like today's Microsoft Surface, iPad Pro, or controversial MacBook.

Today's smartphones still have headphone jacks. The next iPhone reportedly will not.

Some will look at it as a step backwards. Apple sees it as a step forward.

The Verge:

In a three-to-two vote, the FCC has decided to move ahead with a proposal that could drastically change the cable set-top box industry. The decision may have far-reaching consequences for how cable customers watch TV — ultimately allowing them to go through third parties for their set-top systems, rather than being tied to the same company they use for cable service. […]

Wheeler argues that if any company can build a box that can communicate with any TV service, those companies will be able to get started building cable boxes rather than having to work out other deals first. The competition, the Chairman argues, will drive down costs and improve device options for consumers. He said at the assembled meeting that "consumers have no choice today," and that the proposed rules did not make major changes for consumers. "It only creates the opportunity for them to have choice."

HUGE first step for consumers and MASSIVE potential for Xbox, Apple TV, Playstation, and others to innovate.

Benjamin Smith:

What is the second wave? The second wave is the idea that the internet goliaths of the world are now playing for the $150 or so we spend with the cable companies each month. In an effort to justify and grow the monthly price of their particular content bundle, these Goliaths will acquire, roll up, and merge anything and everything into the offering.

This is an all-out war, and it’s all about who you pay each month for all of your entertainment. […]

More than anything, content on the web will grow up, and be forced to be much better than before. Look at our television choices now. Thanks to the second wave, we’re seeing the beginning of a tel evision revolution. Look for this revolution to spread to other forms of content. We’ll also ask more from our news providers. One of the major benefits of a subscription business model is that it allows businesses to better plan and forecast. In a social media world, better planning simply means better content.

It really boils down to one simple idea. Somebody has to pay for content. In the very early days of the web, the cost of content was forced on the platform or creator themselves. That sure didn’t last for long. We then tried advertisers. Even worse results. And now, in the second wave of the web, it’s us. The consumer will pay for content. Expect life on the web to get a whole lot better, even if you are part of the Google plan, and your in-laws are part of the rival Amazon plan.

Ben Bajarin:

There is truly something happening with this generation growing up spending the bulk, if not all, of their computing time using mobile operating systems and doing new things with new tools. Being the techie that I am, I was a bit disheartened that my twelve-year-old was getting more out of the iPad Pro and pushing it further limits than I was. But she is a part of the mobile generation after all. For them, the future will look quite different and the tools they use to make that future might look quite similar to the iPad Pro.

It's easy for us older guys to dismiss the iPad Pro as "a large iPad that'll never replace my laptop". But for the mobile generation — the generation of kids who grew up with touchscreens and don't know the Save icon is a floppy disk — this is an evolution of technology they are most familiar with.