4 ms·

Apple relents? There's no way this would have happened on Steve Jobs's watch

by dlss 15y ago

udp 15y ago
What about when they finally relaxed the iOS app store restrictions on third party tools last year?
- kristiandupont 15y ago
  Wow, just this moment I realized exactly what a hard time Tim Cook is in for! People are going to forget that Apple ever made any mistakes under Steve although they were obviously testing boundaries aggressively and often retracting decisions. Poor guy!
  - ugh 15y ago
    It's all so extremely hard to judge. I don't plan on ever taking small decisions like this one into account when I evaluate Cook. Not because it's not valuable information, I just feel that you would have to be Steve Jobs to judge whether something was right or wrong and I'm no Steve Jobs. Tim Cook is closer to being Steve Jobs than I will ever be. More often than not reversals are probably not a sign of Cook's poor performance. But sometimes they could be. There are times when it pays to be stubborn. How am I supposed to judge whether Tim Cook is exactly the right amount of stubborn? I think the only (more or less) good way of evaluating Cook is to look at Apple's financial performace and even that is hard. Limitless growth is likely not possible, so when Apple's growth inevitably slows or stops, is that a sign of Cook's poor performance or would that have happened anyway? I think I should right now write down some criteria by which to judge Cook or else I'm in danger of endlessly shifting goalposts. Truly, we need a second universive with a healthy Jobs to compare.
    - dlss 15y ago
      > I just feel that you would have to be Steve Jobs to judge whether something was right or wrong and I'm no Steve Jobs This quote made by day, thanks.
benr 15y ago
Ha! I'm guessing you're being sarcastic? I just finished listening to John Siracusa on Hypercritical who was making the point that it won't be long until people start saying "there's no way this would have happened on Steve Jobs's watch". It's easy to see the sarcasm when Steve's only been gone from Apple for a week, but give it a year and people will start forgetting that Apple lead by Steve would go back on decisions when they released they'd made the wrong call. Another example of this that John gave is when they prematurely removed Firewire from the 13" Macbook. While Steve was CEO they realized that the market wasn't ready for that so they put it back in. And everyone was happy. In 6 months, if Apple concedes they were wrong on something, will the market think Tim Cook is weak and Apple is doomed?
- dlss 15y ago
  > Tim Cook is weak and Apple is doomed Sarcasm aside, that's probably true (ignoring your hypothetical person doing poor inference). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_class_forecasting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_class_forecasting
- masklinn 15y ago
  > Another example of this that John gave is when they prematurely removed Firewire from the 13" Macbook. While Steve was CEO they realized that the market wasn't ready for that so they put it back in. And everyone was happy. A much better example is iMovie, because the exact same events unfolded as with FCP: * Apple has iMovie HD 6, a product with its roots in iMac DV but well understood and liked by its users. * Apple releases iMovie '08, a complete rewrite of iMovie lacking many of HD6's features and completely panned by critics, HD6 is not available anymore * Apple makes HD6 available as a free download to all iMovie '08 owners
- homosaur 15y ago
  I'm not sure the market even knows what the hell FCP is. If they start putting keyboards on the iPhones, then we can talk.
gurkendoktor 15y ago
Fixing the iPad rotation lock switch was pretty big IMHO. It didn't target pro users or developers. They admitted to the broad mass of end-users that their decision was not satisfactory.

Apple relents? There's no way this would have happened on Steve Jobs's watch

by dlss 15y ago

Apple relents? There's no way this would have happened on Steve Jobs's watch

udp 15y ago

What about when they finally relaxed the iOS app store restrictions on third party tools last year?

kristiandupont 15y ago
Wow, just this moment I realized exactly what a hard time Tim Cook is in for! People are going to forget that Apple ever made any mistakes under Steve although they were obviously testing boundaries aggressively and often retracting decisions. Poor guy!
- ugh 15y ago
  It's all so extremely hard to judge. I don't plan on ever taking small decisions like this one into account when I evaluate Cook. Not because it's not valuable information, I just feel that you would have to be Steve Jobs to judge whether something was right or wrong and I'm no Steve Jobs. Tim Cook is closer to being Steve Jobs than I will ever be. More often than not reversals are probably not a sign of Cook's poor performance. But sometimes they could be. There are times when it pays to be stubborn. How am I supposed to judge whether Tim Cook is exactly the right amount of stubborn? I think the only (more or less) good way of evaluating Cook is to look at Apple's financial performace and even that is hard. Limitless growth is likely not possible, so when Apple's growth inevitably slows or stops, is that a sign of Cook's poor performance or would that have happened anyway? I think I should right now write down some criteria by which to judge Cook or else I'm in danger of endlessly shifting goalposts. Truly, we need a second universive with a healthy Jobs to compare.
  - dlss 15y ago
    > I just feel that you would have to be Steve Jobs to judge whether something was right or wrong and I'm no Steve Jobs This quote made by day, thanks.

benr 15y ago

Ha! I'm guessing you're being sarcastic? I just finished listening to John Siracusa on Hypercritical who was making the point that it won't be long until people start saying "there's no way this would have happened on Steve Jobs's watch". It's easy to see the sarcasm when Steve's only been gone from Apple for a week, but give it a year and people will start forgetting that Apple lead by Steve would go back on decisions when they released they'd made the wrong call. Another example of this that John gave is when they prematurely removed Firewire from the 13" Macbook. While Steve was CEO they realized that the market wasn't ready for that so they put it back in. And everyone was happy. In 6 months, if Apple concedes they were wrong on something, will the market think Tim Cook is weak and Apple is doomed?

dlss 15y ago
> Tim Cook is weak and Apple is doomed Sarcasm aside, that's probably true (ignoring your hypothetical person doing poor inference). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_class_forecasting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_class_forecasting
masklinn 15y ago
> Another example of this that John gave is when they prematurely removed Firewire from the 13" Macbook. While Steve was CEO they realized that the market wasn't ready for that so they put it back in. And everyone was happy. A much better example is iMovie, because the exact same events unfolded as with FCP: * Apple has iMovie HD 6, a product with its roots in iMac DV but well understood and liked by its users. * Apple releases iMovie '08, a complete rewrite of iMovie lacking many of HD6's features and completely panned by critics, HD6 is not available anymore * Apple makes HD6 available as a free download to all iMovie '08 owners
homosaur 15y ago
I'm not sure the market even knows what the hell FCP is. If they start putting keyboards on the iPhones, then we can talk.

gurkendoktor 15y ago

Fixing the iPad rotation lock switch was pretty big IMHO. It didn't target pro users or developers. They admitted to the broad mass of end-users that their decision was not satisfactory.