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Q. I hear you no longer work for Apple; is that true? A. Correct. I joined Apple in January of 1997, almost twenty years ago, because of my profound belief tha

Q. I hear you no longer work for Apple; is that true? A. Correct. I joined Apple in January of 1997, almost twenty years ago, because of my profound belief that “the power of the computer should reside in the hands of the one using it.” That credo remains my truth to this day. Recently, I was informed that my position as Product Manager of Automation Technologies was eliminated for business reasons. Consequently, I am no longer employed by Apple Inc. But, I still believe my credo to be as true today as ever. Because who needs or expects anything remotely 'pro' at Apple any more?

mc32 10y ago
>"I was informed that my position as Product Manager of Automation Technologies was eliminated for business reasons" At one of my former employers, when they wanted to get rid of someone nicely, that is provide them their due retirement benefits, etc. They'd eliminate the position. Few months later they'd come up with a new position with similar function with a new person in charge. At least they were nice about it, I suppose, but appeared quite transparent.
endgame 10y ago
>“the power of the computer should reside in the hands of the one using it.” A great vision, and one that I share. But I think that it's also a vision that is completely incompatible with Apple.
- Razengan 10y ago
  Automation in macOS appears to be remaining as strong as ever. What makes you think it has suffered? In fact, I believe macOS gives you more control than Windows.
  - tedmiston 10y ago
    As strong as ever? Script Editor is practically abandoned... The guide about providing scripting definitions (making your program accessible via AppleScript) was last updated in 2008. [1] https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ScriptableCocoaApplications/RevisionHistory.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40002164-CH2-SW1 https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Co...
    - Razengan 10y ago
      It received an entire new language, and it still works, how is it abandoned? The state and currency of Apple's documentation is a different matter altogether. It's seriously outdated in a lot of places and in a need of a major overhaul.
      - tedmiston 10y ago
        The editor application itself has remain essentially unchanged over the past decade. I have a strong premonition that JavaScript was added to potentially discontinue AppleScript. The revision history of the AppleScript docs is the third reason.
        Razengan 10y ago
        > The editor application itself has remain essentially unchanged over the past decade. In what ways does it need changing? What improvements do you have in mind? I can only think of autocomplete, but the object browser/dictionary helps in its stead.
        tedmiston 10y ago
        I'm not sure if you're serious or trolling me, but without being pedantic, it's a learning environment that lacks standard IDE features, including such basic things as line numbers and a context click for go to function definition. As far as I'm aware there is no third party package ecosystem for extending its limitations either.
        hhas01 10y ago
        They'd need to rewrite the AppleScript compiler and interpreter to support all that. It's pretty much a non-starter for building full modern tooling on top. There just aren't the hooks in either AppleScript or the OSA component API (which is the middleware that apps like Script Editor have to call through to interact with AS itself) to drop those in. And why would Apple invest a ton of capital doing that when there aren't any users for it anyway! ... Re. the missing library ecosystem in particular: AS didn't even have a built-in module loader until 10.9! And having landed that, the AS team didn't even bother to provide any standard libraries to go with it! How do they expect a full third-party ecosystem to spring up all around it overnight when they don't even bother to show AS users what the point of the damn thing is? See also: openradar.appspot.com/28465563, which is my third (and absolutely final) attempt to bootstrap either a third-party package ecosystem (impossible in a culture that doesn't even know what a "library" is or why they should care) or even just get a basic AS stdlib bundled in macOS so I don't have copy-n-paste a goddamn TIDs-handler every single time I want to do a simple find-and-replace. Feel free to dupe it, or even just d/l the libs for your own personal use—it's still far better AS code than ever emitted from Apple Inc's own walls.
  - pritambaral 10y ago
    I believe your parent was talking more from a hardware perspective.
    - endgame 10y ago
      Both hardware and Stallmanism. I'm a showered and beardless dirty free software hippie.
  - protomyth 10y ago
    It has been broken in the Finder since Mavericks. I've filed radars, but its not as strong as ever.
mikeyouse 10y ago
Just for fun / boredom, if he was granted $100,000 worth of shares every year since 1997 and reinvested his dividends after they started paying out, he'd have somewhere near 800,000 shares today worth nearly $85 million.
- hueving 10y ago
  Holding onto shares you are granted is one of the most reckless things you can do financially. Whenever you are granted shares, ask yourself the following question. If you were given the equivalent amount in a cash bonus, would you use that cash bonus to buy stock in a single company? For every Apple example, there are 100+ cases where people held onto their shares and rode them right into company bankruptcy, at which point they lost all of their bonus AND their job.
  - astrodust 10y ago
    The highway of failures in Silicon Valley is littered with burned out husks of companies. They should put up little memorials to them. You could reflect on these things while coming into the lobby. "Huh, Pets.com and Flooz both had office space here once..."
    - techdragon 10y ago
      Perhaps they could be a sort of memorial highway, every few miles "sponsored"/"in memorial of" a different dead company... so all the employees can be reminded what might await them at the the other end of their commute.
    - aptwebapps 10y ago
      Maybe an AR app with overlays of old signage ... makes me wonder if anyone's done much with AR with historical data. Could be neat.
- Johnny555 10y ago
  Does Apple give anyone that's not a senior executive nearly that many shares? If they do, I need to go return a recruiter call immediately.

mc32 10y ago

>"I was informed that my position as Product Manager of Automation Technologies was eliminated for business reasons" At one of my former employers, when they wanted to get rid of someone nicely, that is provide them their due retirement benefits, etc. They'd eliminate the position. Few months later they'd come up with a new position with similar function with a new person in charge. At least they were nice about it, I suppose, but appeared quite transparent.

endgame 10y ago

>“the power of the computer should reside in the hands of the one using it.” A great vision, and one that I share. But I think that it's also a vision that is completely incompatible with Apple.

Razengan 10y ago
Automation in macOS appears to be remaining as strong as ever. What makes you think it has suffered? In fact, I believe macOS gives you more control than Windows.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  As strong as ever? Script Editor is practically abandoned... The guide about providing scripting definitions (making your program accessible via AppleScript) was last updated in 2008. [1] https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ScriptableCocoaApplications/RevisionHistory.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40002164-CH2-SW1 https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Co...
  - Razengan 10y ago
    It received an entire new language, and it still works, how is it abandoned? The state and currency of Apple's documentation is a different matter altogether. It's seriously outdated in a lot of places and in a need of a major overhaul.
    - tedmiston 10y ago
      The editor application itself has remain essentially unchanged over the past decade. I have a strong premonition that JavaScript was added to potentially discontinue AppleScript. The revision history of the AppleScript docs is the third reason.
      - Razengan 10y ago
        > The editor application itself has remain essentially unchanged over the past decade. In what ways does it need changing? What improvements do you have in mind? I can only think of autocomplete, but the object browser/dictionary helps in its stead.
        tedmiston 10y ago
        I'm not sure if you're serious or trolling me, but without being pedantic, it's a learning environment that lacks standard IDE features, including such basic things as line numbers and a context click for go to function definition. As far as I'm aware there is no third party package ecosystem for extending its limitations either.
        hhas01 10y ago
        They'd need to rewrite the AppleScript compiler and interpreter to support all that. It's pretty much a non-starter for building full modern tooling on top. There just aren't the hooks in either AppleScript or the OSA component API (which is the middleware that apps like Script Editor have to call through to interact with AS itself) to drop those in. And why would Apple invest a ton of capital doing that when there aren't any users for it anyway! ... Re. the missing library ecosystem in particular: AS didn't even have a built-in module loader until 10.9! And having landed that, the AS team didn't even bother to provide any standard libraries to go with it! How do they expect a full third-party ecosystem to spring up all around it overnight when they don't even bother to show AS users what the point of the damn thing is? See also: openradar.appspot.com/28465563, which is my third (and absolutely final) attempt to bootstrap either a third-party package ecosystem (impossible in a culture that doesn't even know what a "library" is or why they should care) or even just get a basic AS stdlib bundled in macOS so I don't have copy-n-paste a goddamn TIDs-handler every single time I want to do a simple find-and-replace. Feel free to dupe it, or even just d/l the libs for your own personal use—it's still far better AS code than ever emitted from Apple Inc's own walls.
- pritambaral 10y ago
  I believe your parent was talking more from a hardware perspective.
  - endgame 10y ago
    Both hardware and Stallmanism. I'm a showered and beardless dirty free software hippie.
- protomyth 10y ago
  It has been broken in the Finder since Mavericks. I've filed radars, but its not as strong as ever.

mikeyouse 10y ago

Just for fun / boredom, if he was granted $100,000 worth of shares every year since 1997 and reinvested his dividends after they started paying out, he'd have somewhere near 800,000 shares today worth nearly $85 million.

hueving 10y ago
Holding onto shares you are granted is one of the most reckless things you can do financially. Whenever you are granted shares, ask yourself the following question. If you were given the equivalent amount in a cash bonus, would you use that cash bonus to buy stock in a single company? For every Apple example, there are 100+ cases where people held onto their shares and rode them right into company bankruptcy, at which point they lost all of their bonus AND their job.
- astrodust 10y ago
  The highway of failures in Silicon Valley is littered with burned out husks of companies. They should put up little memorials to them. You could reflect on these things while coming into the lobby. "Huh, Pets.com and Flooz both had office space here once..."
  - techdragon 10y ago
    Perhaps they could be a sort of memorial highway, every few miles "sponsored"/"in memorial of" a different dead company... so all the employees can be reminded what might await them at the the other end of their commute.
  - aptwebapps 10y ago
    Maybe an AR app with overlays of old signage ... makes me wonder if anyone's done much with AR with historical data. Could be neat.
Johnny555 10y ago
Does Apple give anyone that's not a senior executive nearly that many shares? If they do, I need to go return a recruiter call immediately.