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I don’t understand that about Apple. They’re able to hire the best. And the best people don’t get emotional. Apple’s heavyhanded actions against Epic have the i

I don’t understand that about Apple. They’re able to hire the best. And the best people don’t get emotional. Apple’s heavyhanded actions against Epic have the image of an emotional, irrational, vengeance-seeking person at the helm. The best lawyers working at Apple would (I assume) direct Apple’s management towards the best course of action - including keeping the company out of any legal trouble. I don’t know a fraction of the things Apple knows - but from what I do know Apple had zero rational reason nor cause to do anything beyond pulling Fortnite from the App Store for breaking the rules (fair-and-square). Everything - and anything - beyond that in a high-profile case like this runs a tremendous risk of PR backfire. In their position as custodians of their walled-garden that needs to attract developers to generate revenue Apple needs to project an image closer to Mister Rogers than Mister Burns. Apple doesn’t need to be petty or combative - it they’re the /good guys/ they sure aren’t acting like it. As I don’t know all the facts my mind is racing to speculate a reason for their capriciousness and I come up blank. If Apple’s playing some long-con to screw-over Google, perhaps by announcing some surprise 0% fee for IAP for “good citizens” on their platform or some alternative scheme then they’re going about it very poorly. I agree with the other GP posters that at this point Apple is actively doing harm to their own platform by both scaring-off major software publishers like Epic and reminding the rest of us devs that Apple giveth and Apple takeawayeth. I imagine a progressive EU state will pass legislation prohibiting walled-garden owners from abusing their position to extract excessive rent - and from inconsistent application of their own review guidelines, which will have a viral effect within the EU’s single market - which will severely mess-up Apple’s strategy because within the EU single market the rules mean that Apple cannot decide to withdraw from a single country that it doesn’t like but not the rest of the single-market (but before people point out that Apple is a US company remember that Apple’s tax-advantaged Irish corporation is central to their worldwide operations).

dragonwriter 6y ago
> They’re able to hire the best. They are probably fairly able to hire the people they want the most, that is, the best from their perspective, sure. > And the best people don’t get emotional. Perhaps that's how you define best, but not what Apple filters for or intends to filter for.
saagarjha 6y ago
I feel like someone else is running legal these days, because from the period of 2012-2017ish Apple never got involved in these petty spats. Then Spotify, Facebook, Google, Epic came along and now Apple is always complaining to the press about whatever troubles them…
- Nullabillity 6y ago
  Remember when they sued Samsung over rounded squares? Or the swipe-to-unlock patent?
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    They stopped doing that for the most part for a while.
- lern_too_spel 6y ago
  Remember when Steve Jobs threatened IP lawsuits against Palm for poaching his employees? Of course, he had to back off because the iPhone (along with every other smart phone today) uses almost all of Palm's IP. Getting involved in spats is part of Apple's DNA, originating in its founder.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    There's a reason I started that time period with 2012.
bastardoperator 6y ago
Y'all should see how some apple folks act in meetings. Best is subjective. Apple is extremely petty and combative. They will dump on people if they don't get their way. They're great at what they do, but the way they do it is questionable at the least.
jml7c5 6y ago
>I don’t know a fraction of the things Apple knows - but from what I do know Apple had zero rational reason nor cause to do anything beyond pulling Fortnite from the App Store for breaking the rules (fair-and-square). IANAL. My suspicion is that rescinding the developer account was done solely as part of Apple's legal strategy, as a way to strengthen some argument in their side of the coming court case. Keeping a walled garden is enormously important to the company, so a gaggle of lawyers would be scrutinizing all decisions in order to maximize the chance of success.
- guscost 6y ago
  I'm pretty sure it was also sending a message to other companies with big apps - stick to the agreement or we will retaliate. On the other side, keep in mind that Epic is also an enormous company with an army of lawyers. They probably guessed this was a possibility, and they may yet succeed in trapping Apple in a retaliation/breach-of-contract quagmire.
alexashka 6y ago
> They’re able to hire the best. And the best people don’t get emotional. A players do their best to hire A players. B players hire C players. C players hire D players, etc. It takes a few B players at the top to ruin the whole thing. If being able to do something was the limiting factor, governments would hire the best and yet, the opposite seems to be universally true. All groups fall prey to B players running things and ruining everything which is why we have this wonderful renewal mechanism of birth and death, so that things don't stagnate too much :)
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  > If being able to do something was the limiting factor, governments would hire the best and yet, the opposite seems to be universally true. But governments generally aren't able to hire the best because their smaller hiring budgets mean they can't always (but sometimes can) offer industry-competitive salaries. A few departments are able to hire the best people though - especially when they're for "force-multiplier" positions, like the US Digital Service, for example - which was started by former Google engineers.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
fxtentacle 6y ago
> They’re able to hire the best. Certainly not. Out of the best programmers that I know personally, roughly half feel very strongly about Apple limiting their rights to tinker with their hardware. So I would assume that there are lots of people that Apple would like to hire, but they just don't like Apple anymore.
- scarface74 6y ago
  Yes because the “best programmers you know” is a representative sample.
hombre_fatal 6y ago
Maybe "the best" person behind these decisions wasn't making an emotional play but a business decision that will pay off. Maybe (and very likely) your armchair analysis just makes a lot of presumptions that aren't accurate. By drafting this kind of analysis with your comment on "the best", you've basically claimed that you're the best, and you're scratching your head why Apple isn't making decisions that seem obvious to you as an HN reader who is well-read in the articles about Apple. Not trying to be mean. It's just a weird read like those long financial analysts back-splaining or predicting stock performance based on a graph. "Well here we have a barfing camel that will need to leap high to get over that resistance wall at $1000!" Sounds like someone high off the smell of their own farts.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  > you've basically claimed that you're the best, and you're scratching your head... I did preface my assessment with an outright admission that I don't know anything about what's going-on inside Apple's legal dept or exec team. Even if Apple does have a cunning plan under wraps for coming out on top from this whole episode, it's demonstrable that Apple is directly harming their relationship with the wider developer ecosystem through their deliberate handling of Epic's case. We both agree that now all of Apple's movements with Epic are calculated and and directed from the top echelons of the company. I feel you're saying that Apple's more aggressive and perceivably heavy-handed and retaliatory tactics have been deemed necessary and in the best-interests of the company - whereas I feel they're unnecessary and actually put the company in legal jeopardy (e.g. for contract-law retaliation, etc) which is definitely not in the company's best-interests. How can we reconcile our two different beliefs? > ...but a business decision that will pay off. As an AAPL shareholder, I sure hope so!
znpy 6y ago
> I don’t understand that about Apple. It's simple: you retaliate very heavily on one to educate/scare the others. Think of the nazis that used to retaliate by killing ten people for every german soldier killed during the occupation of foreign countries. I know it's a strong comparison, but really it's pretty much the same psychological tool, to convince unwilling people to cooperate.
- youareignorant 6y ago
  You are comparing people who committed genocide to Apple. It's not a strong comparison,its a completely stupid comparison
shadowgovt 6y ago
> And the best people don’t get emotional There's an awful lot of human history that disagrees with that assertion. Technical competency and emotional intelligence are (possibly completely independent) axes a person can be measured on. Steve Jobs himself was a notorious hothead, and companies tend to attract people similar to the founders, or at least the kind of people the founders think make good employees (due to the founders acting as an initial filter and setting standards).
jokethrowaway 6y ago
I doubt all the "best" (what does that even mean?) people in the world are happy to trade their time for millions. Some of them? Sure, but I'm sure a big portion of them is spending time building something they value

dragonwriter 6y ago

> They’re able to hire the best. They are probably fairly able to hire the people they want the most, that is, the best from their perspective, sure. > And the best people don’t get emotional. Perhaps that's how you define best, but not what Apple filters for or intends to filter for.

saagarjha 6y ago

I feel like someone else is running legal these days, because from the period of 2012-2017ish Apple never got involved in these petty spats. Then Spotify, Facebook, Google, Epic came along and now Apple is always complaining to the press about whatever troubles them…

Nullabillity 6y ago
Remember when they sued Samsung over rounded squares? Or the swipe-to-unlock patent?
- saagarjha 6y ago
  They stopped doing that for the most part for a while.
lern_too_spel 6y ago
Remember when Steve Jobs threatened IP lawsuits against Palm for poaching his employees? Of course, he had to back off because the iPhone (along with every other smart phone today) uses almost all of Palm's IP. Getting involved in spats is part of Apple's DNA, originating in its founder.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  There's a reason I started that time period with 2012.

bastardoperator 6y ago

Y'all should see how some apple folks act in meetings. Best is subjective. Apple is extremely petty and combative. They will dump on people if they don't get their way. They're great at what they do, but the way they do it is questionable at the least.

jml7c5 6y ago

>I don’t know a fraction of the things Apple knows - but from what I do know Apple had zero rational reason nor cause to do anything beyond pulling Fortnite from the App Store for breaking the rules (fair-and-square). IANAL. My suspicion is that rescinding the developer account was done solely as part of Apple's legal strategy, as a way to strengthen some argument in their side of the coming court case. Keeping a walled garden is enormously important to the company, so a gaggle of lawyers would be scrutinizing all decisions in order to maximize the chance of success.

guscost 6y ago
I'm pretty sure it was also sending a message to other companies with big apps - stick to the agreement or we will retaliate. On the other side, keep in mind that Epic is also an enormous company with an army of lawyers. They probably guessed this was a possibility, and they may yet succeed in trapping Apple in a retaliation/breach-of-contract quagmire.

alexashka 6y ago

> They’re able to hire the best. And the best people don’t get emotional. A players do their best to hire A players. B players hire C players. C players hire D players, etc. It takes a few B players at the top to ruin the whole thing. If being able to do something was the limiting factor, governments would hire the best and yet, the opposite seems to be universally true. All groups fall prey to B players running things and ruining everything which is why we have this wonderful renewal mechanism of birth and death, so that things don't stagnate too much :)

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
> If being able to do something was the limiting factor, governments would hire the best and yet, the opposite seems to be universally true. But governments generally aren't able to hire the best because their smaller hiring budgets mean they can't always (but sometimes can) offer industry-competitive salaries. A few departments are able to hire the best people though - especially when they're for "force-multiplier" positions, like the US Digital Service, for example - which was started by former Google engineers.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

fxtentacle 6y ago

> They’re able to hire the best. Certainly not. Out of the best programmers that I know personally, roughly half feel very strongly about Apple limiting their rights to tinker with their hardware. So I would assume that there are lots of people that Apple would like to hire, but they just don't like Apple anymore.

scarface74 6y ago
Yes because the “best programmers you know” is a representative sample.

hombre_fatal 6y ago

Maybe "the best" person behind these decisions wasn't making an emotional play but a business decision that will pay off. Maybe (and very likely) your armchair analysis just makes a lot of presumptions that aren't accurate. By drafting this kind of analysis with your comment on "the best", you've basically claimed that you're the best, and you're scratching your head why Apple isn't making decisions that seem obvious to you as an HN reader who is well-read in the articles about Apple. Not trying to be mean. It's just a weird read like those long financial analysts back-splaining or predicting stock performance based on a graph. "Well here we have a barfing camel that will need to leap high to get over that resistance wall at $1000!" Sounds like someone high off the smell of their own farts.

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
> you've basically claimed that you're the best, and you're scratching your head... I did preface my assessment with an outright admission that I don't know anything about what's going-on inside Apple's legal dept or exec team. Even if Apple does have a cunning plan under wraps for coming out on top from this whole episode, it's demonstrable that Apple is directly harming their relationship with the wider developer ecosystem through their deliberate handling of Epic's case. We both agree that now all of Apple's movements with Epic are calculated and and directed from the top echelons of the company. I feel you're saying that Apple's more aggressive and perceivably heavy-handed and retaliatory tactics have been deemed necessary and in the best-interests of the company - whereas I feel they're unnecessary and actually put the company in legal jeopardy (e.g. for contract-law retaliation, etc) which is definitely not in the company's best-interests. How can we reconcile our two different beliefs? > ...but a business decision that will pay off. As an AAPL shareholder, I sure hope so!

znpy 6y ago

> I don’t understand that about Apple. It's simple: you retaliate very heavily on one to educate/scare the others. Think of the nazis that used to retaliate by killing ten people for every german soldier killed during the occupation of foreign countries. I know it's a strong comparison, but really it's pretty much the same psychological tool, to convince unwilling people to cooperate.

youareignorant 6y ago
You are comparing people who committed genocide to Apple. It's not a strong comparison,its a completely stupid comparison

shadowgovt 6y ago

> And the best people don’t get emotional There's an awful lot of human history that disagrees with that assertion. Technical competency and emotional intelligence are (possibly completely independent) axes a person can be measured on. Steve Jobs himself was a notorious hothead, and companies tend to attract people similar to the founders, or at least the kind of people the founders think make good employees (due to the founders acting as an initial filter and setting standards).

jokethrowaway 6y ago

I doubt all the "best" (what does that even mean?) people in the world are happy to trade their time for millions. Some of them? Sure, but I'm sure a big portion of them is spending time building something they value