Apps, Agents, and Aggregation | Stratechery by Ben Thompson

[music] Apps, agents, and aggregation was published on Monday, September 28th, 2026. Three revolutionary products, you know the line. A widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communications device. That was how Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone. >> Today, we're introducing three revolutionary products of this class. The first one

is a widescreen iPod with touch controls. [cheering] [applause]

>> The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. [applause]

And the third is a breakthrough internet communications device. [applause] So, three things, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communications device. an iPod, a phone, [laughter] and an internet communicator. An iPod, [laughter] a phone. [cheering] Are you getting it? [applause] These are not three separate devices.

This is one device. [applause] and we are calling it [applause] iPhone [cheering] today. [applause] Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone. I've linked to this snippet before, usually to note how the audience didn't really understand what an internet communications device was, even though that was the iPhone's most revolutionary capability. The phrase I'm

thinking of right now, however, is, "Are you getting it?" Are you getting that messaging chat bots now, natural interfaces later or how we will communicate with AI? Are you getting that not only will we not program computers, we won't use them, AI will. Are you getting that pre-built UI write once, run everywhere for everyone is