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"If GE can build jet engines, tidal energy farms, freight rail data systems, mining equipment, and medical devices, how is it that the world’s most valuable com

"If GE can build jet engines, tidal energy farms, freight rail data systems, mining equipment, and medical devices, how is it that the world’s most valuable company can’t find the time to make a full line of personal computers and PC peripherals alongside its market-leading smartphones and tablets? " The answer is simple. It's because they don't want to, and they don't have to. Yet another Vox media article that illustrates how poorly they understand Apple. One of the first things that Steve Jobs did was scale back the number of product that Apple was shipping. There were probably 200 different SKUs for the Performa series alone. It was insane! Instead of asking "Why is Apple discontinuing the Airport series?" maybe we should ask "Why would they keep making them?" The market for SOHO wifi stuff is crowded. Same with the market for monitors. When Apple makes something like that, people cry "what about the third party market? Apple is trying to monopolize things!" yet when Apple says "We're not going to make these things, y'all keep making them" then it's "omg what's wrong with Apple?"

hga 10y ago
"[...] how is it that the world’s most valuable company can’t find the time to make a full line of personal computers and PC peripherals alongside its market-leading smartphones and tablets?" The answer is simple. It's because they don't want to, and they don't have to. Errr, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these personal computers the only platform one can, and from a minute with Google, contractually the only platform one is allowed to develop software for their iOS systems? Elsewhere in another current discussion, it was mentioned, in the context of declining iOS quality, that software is a third class citizen at Apple (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13050844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13050844). Which I'll add it typical of hardware companies. The upshot is that even though regularly updating desktop Macs should not be that difficult, objectively speaking, it tends not to happen in part because it’s not anyone’s job to make it happen. The functional organization values collaboration on top corporate priorities above all else, and that means basically everything comes ahead of desktop Macs.... But it does raise the question of whether persisting with functional organization is really compatible with the company’s growth aspirations. Or I say existence, since their fancy hardware requires really serious software, and a healthy 3rd party ecosystem, and we've seen over the decades a number of companies go out of business because they essentially lost their ability to write software that works. That Apple's functional structure, at least according to this article, means there's no people high enough in the corporate structure to make sure of this, well....

hga 10y ago

"[...] how is it that the world’s most valuable company can’t find the time to make a full line of personal computers and PC peripherals alongside its market-leading smartphones and tablets?" The answer is simple. It's because they don't want to, and they don't have to. Errr, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these personal computers the only platform one can, and from a minute with Google, contractually the only platform one is allowed to develop software for their iOS systems? Elsewhere in another current discussion, it was mentioned, in the context of declining iOS quality, that software is a third class citizen at Apple (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13050844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13050844). Which I'll add it typical of hardware companies. The upshot is that even though regularly updating desktop Macs should not be that difficult, objectively speaking, it tends not to happen in part because it’s not anyone’s job to make it happen. The functional organization values collaboration on top corporate priorities above all else, and that means basically everything comes ahead of desktop Macs.... But it does raise the question of whether persisting with functional organization is really compatible with the company’s growth aspirations. Or I say existence, since their fancy hardware requires really serious software, and a healthy 3rd party ecosystem, and we've seen over the decades a number of companies go out of business because they essentially lost their ability to write software that works. That Apple's functional structure, at least according to this article, means there's no people high enough in the corporate structure to make sure of this, well....