5 ms·

You would never seen something like "Labs" from Apple, and everyone applauds them for "focus".

rdouble 15y ago
Apple did have "labs." One of the first thing Steve Jobs did when he returned was shut it down. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Technology_Group http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Technology_Group
- viscanti 15y ago
  That explanation misses a lot of context. It comes across as a criticism, as if Jobs just didn't see the benefit of research. That's not the case. He wanted to shrink the things they focused on, so they could put their 'A' team on every project (which required less projects). The end result was having a bunch of really talented guys focusing on things that drove business value.
  - rdouble 15y ago
    I didn't intend it to be a criticism, just a factual remark. Then again, I shouldn't have really compared the two. Google labs wasn't really a dedicated research wing at Google, more like cool stuff people from various teams worked on in their spare time.
- msbarnett 15y ago
  Of course, Apple shut the ATG down in the context of the company bleeding money and having maybe 90 days of life in it at then-current spending levels. The optics in this case are somewhat different.
zdw 15y ago
Anyone who has been to WWDC and seen their engineering staff present will know that they're given a bit of leeway in the design of the products they work on. Real artists ship - the expansion and creation of new API's in their software shows this. Just because they can't work on whatever with 20% of their time doesn't mean it's a no-creativity nose to the grindstone environment.
georgemcbay 15y ago
I'm about as much of a Google fanboy as you can be and unfortunately zdw's words ring true. Also, in spite of Apple's success I'm not sure Google would do well to emulate them. I (and I would guess many others) have loved Google because they aren't Apple, though unfortunately they do seem to be inching that way at an increasing rate.
- mkr-hn 15y ago
  Are you talking about their recent UX trend of turning everything into a minimalist interface with a lot of whitespace?
  - georgemcbay 15y ago
    No, I was talking more about their business side -- killing off everything that isn't a direct profit center and moves towards unopenness (no Honeycomb source code, etc). In regards to UI, I wouldn't mind if they copied Apple more there but only if they copied the good (great defaults) without copying the bad (no ability for power users to modify the defaults).
_frog 15y ago
Apple certainly does a lot of experimentation, but their approach differs greatly from Google's. The main reasoning behind Google Labs as far as I can determine is to expose projects to the broader world and determine which are best through some form of natural selection. A form of market research if you will. Apple on the other hand has been very much against market research, preferring to experiment internally, killing of bad ideas before the world even hears about them and presenting a polished final product to the outside world when it's done and ready. Both approaches certainly work, Google's works great for improving their existing suite of products whereas Apple's works better for incubating new products that consumers don't even realise they want yet.
- shareme 15y ago
  Apple has never been against market research, its only done internally with internal employees as the volunteers under NDA so we never see those workings..
dingle_thunk 15y ago
Hardware requires focus. Software requires experimentation.
- dpe82 15y ago
  Steve Jobs said it himself several times: Apple is, at it's core, a software company. It just puts it in a really pretty box.

Apple did have "labs." One of the first thing Steve Jobs did when he returned was shut it down. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Technology_Group http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Technology_Group

viscanti 15y ago
That explanation misses a lot of context. It comes across as a criticism, as if Jobs just didn't see the benefit of research. That's not the case. He wanted to shrink the things they focused on, so they could put their 'A' team on every project (which required less projects). The end result was having a bunch of really talented guys focusing on things that drove business value.
- rdouble 15y ago
  I didn't intend it to be a criticism, just a factual remark. Then again, I shouldn't have really compared the two. Google labs wasn't really a dedicated research wing at Google, more like cool stuff people from various teams worked on in their spare time.
msbarnett 15y ago
Of course, Apple shut the ATG down in the context of the company bleeding money and having maybe 90 days of life in it at then-current spending levels. The optics in this case are somewhat different.

zdw 15y ago

Anyone who has been to WWDC and seen their engineering staff present will know that they're given a bit of leeway in the design of the products they work on. Real artists ship - the expansion and creation of new API's in their software shows this. Just because they can't work on whatever with 20% of their time doesn't mean it's a no-creativity nose to the grindstone environment.

georgemcbay 15y ago

I'm about as much of a Google fanboy as you can be and unfortunately zdw's words ring true. Also, in spite of Apple's success I'm not sure Google would do well to emulate them. I (and I would guess many others) have loved Google because they aren't Apple, though unfortunately they do seem to be inching that way at an increasing rate.

mkr-hn 15y ago
Are you talking about their recent UX trend of turning everything into a minimalist interface with a lot of whitespace?
- georgemcbay 15y ago
  No, I was talking more about their business side -- killing off everything that isn't a direct profit center and moves towards unopenness (no Honeycomb source code, etc). In regards to UI, I wouldn't mind if they copied Apple more there but only if they copied the good (great defaults) without copying the bad (no ability for power users to modify the defaults).

_frog 15y ago

Apple certainly does a lot of experimentation, but their approach differs greatly from Google's. The main reasoning behind Google Labs as far as I can determine is to expose projects to the broader world and determine which are best through some form of natural selection. A form of market research if you will. Apple on the other hand has been very much against market research, preferring to experiment internally, killing of bad ideas before the world even hears about them and presenting a polished final product to the outside world when it's done and ready. Both approaches certainly work, Google's works great for improving their existing suite of products whereas Apple's works better for incubating new products that consumers don't even realise they want yet.

shareme 15y ago
Apple has never been against market research, its only done internally with internal employees as the volunteers under NDA so we never see those workings..

dingle_thunk 15y ago

Hardware requires focus. Software requires experimentation.

dpe82 15y ago
Steve Jobs said it himself several times: Apple is, at it's core, a software company. It just puts it in a really pretty box.