There is a concept in user interface design called the Principle of Least Surprise, where you want to design systems in such a way that they surprise their users least. I think a similar concept applies to subscription pricing. The ideal (from a user friendliness perspective, not best business perspective) system for customer subscriptions should never surprise the customer with a charge. The customer should always be happy to see a charge appear on their credit card. In other words, their subscription payments should always be Intentional.via David Smith…

Branding Apple is clearly solidifying the  prefix branding for its new products. (The “i” days are long behind us now.) At the same time, they seem to be introducing + as a suffix. (Suddenly, Teleprompt+ feels ahead of its time.) tv+ actually gets both. How long before we just get +? Seriously. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. Come up with one monthly figure. Admittedly, it would be high. Probably a three or four hundred bucks or so. For that, you get everything Apple does: iCloud, News+, Apple…

One common argument I hear from the Apple community against subscriptions is that most customers don’t know how to manage their subscription settings. It’s difficult, they say, to explain in a customer support interaction how a customer can cancel or alter a subscription. And because customers are confused about how to cancel or manage subscriptions, many customers may be afraid to start an auto-renewing subscription in the first place. These are fair points. I definitely agree Apple could do a better job of exposing subscription management settings in…

INT. AN OFFICE BUILDING SOMEWHERE IN CUPERTINO. SITTING AT THE CONFERENCE TABLE ARE TIM COOK, PHIL SCHILLER, AND JONY IVE. THEY ARE BEGINNING TOP SECRET DISCUSSIONS ABOUT THE NEXT ITERATION OF MACBOOK PRO. TIM: We have the latest data. Developers want a thicker laptop with the fastest processor possible. They’d rather have more battery life than a thinner profile. And for sure, it absolutely needs to max out at 32GB of RAM. Oh, and it should be upgradable, so they can buy a new one even less frequently than…

A few quick takeaways from Apple’s Hello Again event: Accessibility is one of those things that makes Apple stand out as a company. They’ve cared about it for a long time, but they’ve upped their game even further in the Tim Cook era. Just as they have on environmental issues, diversity, social justice and equality, and on and on. They have a long way to go before they are perfect, but they strive to be better than what they are. And you can’t deny their impact…