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Yeah screw that. I typically loathe Apple criticism - it’s usually so confused and biased. But this makes me ask, as a former employee: Why is Apple loosing it

Yeah screw that. I typically loathe Apple criticism - it’s usually so confused and biased. But this makes me ask, as a former employee: Why is Apple loosing its way again? Is this what happens when Steve is gone for long enough? Get back to your roots!

valleyer 4y ago
I'll answer, also as a former employee. Craig and Tim figured out that there was a lot of slack in Apple's software quality. That is, they could skimp on quality, favoring a strict schedule and flashy if half-baked features, and adding user-unfriendly stuff like ads, and nothing bad happened to them or to the company. Therefore, they're going to continue to probe in that direction until they meet resistance. Also: Craig and Tim, and probably some other execs, have started to make Apple decisions with an eye toward burnishing their personal brands. This is why we get annual OS releases presented by a freshly-hairstyled Craig putting himself into Web-meme-ready poses. This is why we get Tim waving the flag at a Formula One race and being obsequious toward Donald Trump.
- i_like_apis 4y ago
  I never minded Craig really. Yes they are all politicians though. At least Craig’s org has the real hardcore engineers. I assume the majority of this stuff falls under Eddie’s org. (Speaking of flashy personalities)
  - valleyer 4y ago
    As someone who worked in Craig's org, I can assure you that there is plenty of non-"hardcore" engineering going on (whatever that means, anyway). Plenty of bullshit. Plenty of incredibly smart, creative people (engineers and managers both), too.
    - i_like_apis 4y ago
      Oh yeah you're right there. It's not all hard engineering, that's for sure. But, that is also the org where a lot of those folks live. and I just mean - very talented people building hard things: WiSE (lot of crap mixed in there too), operating system people, some hardware people. Smart engineers with 5-25+ years of experience and special knowledge.
pzo 4y ago
Looks like there are to make stockholders happy and forced to keep growing revenues instead of making great products. - their biggest revenue (iPhone) stalled in the last few years. Each year it's around 250 millions sales. Whoever wanted to have/switch to iPhone it already bought one. - people upgrading iPhones less often, because there is not much innovation or devices are good enough. It's similar like with PC market - between 1995 - 2010 there was a lot of innovation in PC and few years your desktop improved a lot. Then later you could have ~10 years old laptop that was good enough for most people. I'm still using 4 year old iPhone XS that is good enough. And my old Macbook Pro 2012 still good enough for my mother. - number of internet users also almost saturated from 2 billions in 2012 to 5 billions in 2022 so that's ~65% of users. It will never be 100% because toddlers and kids <5 years old don't/own use smartphones. - those kids are more likely to be given android tablet first because it's cheaper for parents, such as Kindle Fire. Once they get used to android they will be less likely to switch to different OS. In similar way apple has great potential to increase sales of MacOS devices but probably just most people are used to Windows.

valleyer 4y ago

I'll answer, also as a former employee. Craig and Tim figured out that there was a lot of slack in Apple's software quality. That is, they could skimp on quality, favoring a strict schedule and flashy if half-baked features, and adding user-unfriendly stuff like ads, and nothing bad happened to them or to the company. Therefore, they're going to continue to probe in that direction until they meet resistance. Also: Craig and Tim, and probably some other execs, have started to make Apple decisions with an eye toward burnishing their personal brands. This is why we get annual OS releases presented by a freshly-hairstyled Craig putting himself into Web-meme-ready poses. This is why we get Tim waving the flag at a Formula One race and being obsequious toward Donald Trump.

i_like_apis 4y ago
I never minded Craig really. Yes they are all politicians though. At least Craig’s org has the real hardcore engineers. I assume the majority of this stuff falls under Eddie’s org. (Speaking of flashy personalities)
- valleyer 4y ago
  As someone who worked in Craig's org, I can assure you that there is plenty of non-"hardcore" engineering going on (whatever that means, anyway). Plenty of bullshit. Plenty of incredibly smart, creative people (engineers and managers both), too.
  - i_like_apis 4y ago
    Oh yeah you're right there. It's not all hard engineering, that's for sure. But, that is also the org where a lot of those folks live. and I just mean - very talented people building hard things: WiSE (lot of crap mixed in there too), operating system people, some hardware people. Smart engineers with 5-25+ years of experience and special knowledge.

pzo 4y ago

Looks like there are to make stockholders happy and forced to keep growing revenues instead of making great products. - their biggest revenue (iPhone) stalled in the last few years. Each year it's around 250 millions sales. Whoever wanted to have/switch to iPhone it already bought one. - people upgrading iPhones less often, because there is not much innovation or devices are good enough. It's similar like with PC market - between 1995 - 2010 there was a lot of innovation in PC and few years your desktop improved a lot. Then later you could have ~10 years old laptop that was good enough for most people. I'm still using 4 year old iPhone XS that is good enough. And my old Macbook Pro 2012 still good enough for my mother. - number of internet users also almost saturated from 2 billions in 2012 to 5 billions in 2022 so that's ~65% of users. It will never be 100% because toddlers and kids <5 years old don't/own use smartphones. - those kids are more likely to be given android tablet first because it's cheaper for parents, such as Kindle Fire. Once they get used to android they will be less likely to switch to different OS. In similar way apple has great potential to increase sales of MacOS devices but probably just most people are used to Windows.