5 ms·

Looks like apple trying to increase those profits even further. Actually, its likely more a technical reason than a financial one. IIRC, the first generation o

Looks like apple trying to increase those profits even further. Actually, its likely more a technical reason than a financial one. IIRC, the first generation of Core 2 Duo machines shipped with 32-bit EFI, even though the processor is 64-bit. The 64-bit kernel, which is now the default and only kernel in Mountain Lion, requires 64-bit firmware which your machine doesn't have. They probably could have engineered the 64-bit kernel to work with the 32-bit EFI, or the probably could have shipped an EFI update for old Core 2 Duo machines, but those machines are 6 years old. I'm sure they felt their limited resources could be better spent elsewhere.

melvinmt 14y ago
limited resources, ha! in other news: Apple Reports Third Quarter Results: $35B/$8B profit
- avolcano 14y ago
  Yes, because we all know that money is the only obstacle to creating a product. You definitely don't need a lot of uber-talented employees focused in certain areas or anything.
  - mburns 14y ago
    They are literally the richest company in the world, and the most desired to work for company. The idea they couldn't afford or have the capacity to hire the talent they want is ridiculous. They just don't want to.
    - hollerith 14y ago
      Not trying to refute what you said, but am curious what makes you think they are the most desired to work for? Do many of your programmer friends want to work there?
      - mburns 14y ago
        Mostly the survey that got posted to HN a month or two back about Apple being the #1 reviewed place by employees, which is, admittedly, not the same as most desired place to work. http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Apple-RVW1440089.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Apple-RVW14...
    - lancewiggs 14y ago
      As the comment above infers - this is getting into mythical man month territory, where adding extra people may even slow the entire project down. Apple seems to have incredible discipline around scope, and they have delivered a series of amazing products. It's something we can all learn from.
      - mburns 14y ago
        Sure, you can't just throw money at a problem and expect it to resolve quickly. At the same time, Apple chooses which problems it wants to solve, because it has the capacity to plan for the support and engineering time required. It isn't like these support issues are a surprise to them, they just have different priorities than fixing them.
        ryannielsen 14y ago
        It isn't like these support issues are a surprise to them, they just have different priorities than fixing them. Exactly! Like I said, I'm sure they felt their limited resources could be better spent elsewhere. Supporting 6 year old hardware is a very, very low priority, so they didn't spend any resources on it. As SJ himself said, focus is about saying "no". This video discusses OpenDoc, but it could just as easily apply to supporting 6 year old hardware: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8eP99neOVs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8eP99neOVs Apple is always pushing forward. Sometimes perhaps a bit too aggressively, but they're always pushing forward.
        melvinmt 14y ago
        Different priorities indeed, it's hardly about limited resources.
    - awj 14y ago
      > The idea they couldn't afford or have the capacity to hire the talent they want is ridiculous. Actually, it isn't. Hiring people is hard, and hiring bad people is expensive. It isn't even really a problem you can pay your way out of either, judging who will do well within an organization is incredibly difficult. All that aside, I would be surprised if Apple didn't have internal budgets for their various projects. The latest version of OS X probably gets a budget on par with that group's market value, so it only has the hiring capacity of its tiny slice of the richest company in the world.
    - taligent 14y ago
      Well they didn't become the richest company in the world by being bloated, slow, bureaucratic and inefficient. It's arguably what nearly killed them in the first place.
    - jlarocco 14y ago
      How much money they have is irrelevant. They're not a charity. I'm sure they have enough data from OSX Lion upgrades and periodic software update checks to know that the cost of supporting old 32-bit systems was more than they would make from upgrade purchases.
    - ghshephard 14y ago
      ""The idea they couldn't afford or have the capacity to hire the talent they want is ridiculous." This is true to some degree. I'm certain that if Apple decided they were willing to pay $800K/year each + signing bonuses of $3 million dollars for a team of 4-5 share OS engineers, they could, in fact, resolve this. (I base the $800K on what top flight OS/Kernel consultants make - around $400/hour, plus the money you would need to pull them away from their stock/equity packages at whatever other company they were working at, sometimes known as a "Make Whole" package) The problems with that, though, is that the average Apple Sofware/OS engineer makes around $200K/year (fully loaded) - so you would end up with a $600K (+signing bonus) disparity - which would be unfair to existing employees. You can't increase the salaries of all similarly qualified engineers to $800K - that would mean increasing salaries of _all_ engineers - and Apple's R&D costs would skyrocket, and all their other salaries would be out of whack. Sometimes, even though you can buy your way out of a situation, the peripheral costs of doing so are so great, that what seems to be only a $10million problem to solve, might up ending costing you hundreds of millions of dollars. So - you suck it up, stay focussed, and do what you can with the people you have. Of course, what _most_ companies do, is instead hire some average (or, often, below average) engineers to try and do the port - they muck it up, and they ship a crappy product. Better to do fewer things better. For example - photo stream and iTunes Match have been working well for me - but I wonder what percentage of Apple Employees use iCloud.com as their principal mail client, as compared to google employees using gmail as their primary email system?

melvinmt 14y ago

limited resources, ha! in other news: Apple Reports Third Quarter Results: $35B/$8B profit

avolcano 14y ago
Yes, because we all know that money is the only obstacle to creating a product. You definitely don't need a lot of uber-talented employees focused in certain areas or anything.
- mburns 14y ago
  They are literally the richest company in the world, and the most desired to work for company. The idea they couldn't afford or have the capacity to hire the talent they want is ridiculous. They just don't want to.
  - hollerith 14y ago
    Not trying to refute what you said, but am curious what makes you think they are the most desired to work for? Do many of your programmer friends want to work there?
    - mburns 14y ago
      Mostly the survey that got posted to HN a month or two back about Apple being the #1 reviewed place by employees, which is, admittedly, not the same as most desired place to work. http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Apple-RVW1440089.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Apple-RVW14...
  - lancewiggs 14y ago
    As the comment above infers - this is getting into mythical man month territory, where adding extra people may even slow the entire project down. Apple seems to have incredible discipline around scope, and they have delivered a series of amazing products. It's something we can all learn from.
    - mburns 14y ago
      Sure, you can't just throw money at a problem and expect it to resolve quickly. At the same time, Apple chooses which problems it wants to solve, because it has the capacity to plan for the support and engineering time required. It isn't like these support issues are a surprise to them, they just have different priorities than fixing them.
      - ryannielsen 14y ago
        It isn't like these support issues are a surprise to them, they just have different priorities than fixing them. Exactly! Like I said, I'm sure they felt their limited resources could be better spent elsewhere. Supporting 6 year old hardware is a very, very low priority, so they didn't spend any resources on it. As SJ himself said, focus is about saying "no". This video discusses OpenDoc, but it could just as easily apply to supporting 6 year old hardware: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8eP99neOVs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8eP99neOVs Apple is always pushing forward. Sometimes perhaps a bit too aggressively, but they're always pushing forward.
      - melvinmt 14y ago
        Different priorities indeed, it's hardly about limited resources.
  - awj 14y ago
    > The idea they couldn't afford or have the capacity to hire the talent they want is ridiculous. Actually, it isn't. Hiring people is hard, and hiring bad people is expensive. It isn't even really a problem you can pay your way out of either, judging who will do well within an organization is incredibly difficult. All that aside, I would be surprised if Apple didn't have internal budgets for their various projects. The latest version of OS X probably gets a budget on par with that group's market value, so it only has the hiring capacity of its tiny slice of the richest company in the world.
  - taligent 14y ago
    Well they didn't become the richest company in the world by being bloated, slow, bureaucratic and inefficient. It's arguably what nearly killed them in the first place.
  - jlarocco 14y ago
    How much money they have is irrelevant. They're not a charity. I'm sure they have enough data from OSX Lion upgrades and periodic software update checks to know that the cost of supporting old 32-bit systems was more than they would make from upgrade purchases.
  - ghshephard 14y ago
    ""The idea they couldn't afford or have the capacity to hire the talent they want is ridiculous." This is true to some degree. I'm certain that if Apple decided they were willing to pay $800K/year each + signing bonuses of $3 million dollars for a team of 4-5 share OS engineers, they could, in fact, resolve this. (I base the $800K on what top flight OS/Kernel consultants make - around $400/hour, plus the money you would need to pull them away from their stock/equity packages at whatever other company they were working at, sometimes known as a "Make Whole" package) The problems with that, though, is that the average Apple Sofware/OS engineer makes around $200K/year (fully loaded) - so you would end up with a $600K (+signing bonus) disparity - which would be unfair to existing employees. You can't increase the salaries of all similarly qualified engineers to $800K - that would mean increasing salaries of _all_ engineers - and Apple's R&D costs would skyrocket, and all their other salaries would be out of whack. Sometimes, even though you can buy your way out of a situation, the peripheral costs of doing so are so great, that what seems to be only a $10million problem to solve, might up ending costing you hundreds of millions of dollars. So - you suck it up, stay focussed, and do what you can with the people you have. Of course, what _most_ companies do, is instead hire some average (or, often, below average) engineers to try and do the port - they muck it up, and they ship a crappy product. Better to do fewer things better. For example - photo stream and iTunes Match have been working well for me - but I wonder what percentage of Apple Employees use iCloud.com as their principal mail client, as compared to google employees using gmail as their primary email system?