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Wow. Hopefully, Ternus will bring what he brought to Apple's hardware to their software. The hardware is leaps and bounds ahead of anything else, but their soft
by oofbaroomf 6mo ago
Wow. Hopefully, Ternus will bring what he brought to Apple's hardware to their software. The hardware is leaps and bounds ahead of anything else, but their software gets worse and worse every generation. I'm glad to hear this.
- foobiekr 6mo agoHardware people, in my very direct experience, are terrible at software. But we can hope.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- mihaelm 6mo agoIt's more the hope that he can bring the culture embedded in the hardware division over to software, which hopefully results in better software.
- relaxing 6mo agoWhat they need is a culture of UX focus, and I don’t think it’s present in the hardware team either. They’ve coasted too long on consistent visual identity, and even that’s been slipping. Time to focus on actual user needs.
- trsohmers 6mo agoSoftware people, in my very direct experience, are terrible at hardware... While in jest, I do think most software engineer's understanding of hardware abstractions is pretty poor and does disservice to the hardware they run on. I know between Moore's Law and Gate's Law which one I would prefer to be the industry standard... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_and_Bill%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_and_Bill%27s_law
- freedomben 6mo agoGenerally speaking, I think both are true. Most people seem to have an affinity for either hardware or software, but rarely for both. Those who do are extremely unique. I don't mean that as an insult to anyone, just as an observatin having worked in both (and personally am much better at software than hardware, even though I enjoy both).
- cogman10 6mo agoI find both interesting but have been working in software for over a decade now. Honestly, the thing that pushed me into software dev was the fact that hardware tools were absolutely garbage. Verilog felt like a joke of a language designed to torment rather than help the user.
- buildbot 6mo agoVerilog is not the best and that’s not even the worst part - tools like ISE/Vivado and Quartus are even worse! It’s really amazing that at least there are some fully open flows for FPGAs these days, unfortunately they don’t support system Verilog. (I think this is still the case?)
- jamesfinlayson 6mo agoYeah at university we had to do some hardware stuff in our software course. I know there were better debug tools available as some students purchased them but playing with microprocessors was no fun.
- jamesfinlayson 6mo agoI agree - at university there were software people and hardware people and a small number who studied mechatronics (hardware and software). But even the mechatronic people were really hardware people who just tolerated software.
- friendzis 5mo agoHardware and software have VERY different deployment cost functions and lifecycles. Having "affinity" for one requires a mindset not really suitable for the other and being able to juggle mindsets, especially short vs long term focus is rare in itself.
- Fr0styMatt88 6mo agoThis is actually one thing I think will be great as AI coding agents get better. Companies whose main expertise is hardware might start producing better software. There are so many little bugs in consumer-facing apps that hit the ‘sweet’ spot of being incredible little annoyances that just aren’t worth putting an engineer on for a week to fix, but which are totally worth having an engineer throw an agent onto them.
- elzbardico 6mo agoYeah, like fixing a annoyance while introducing one or two SEV-1 for sure is going to be great progress.
- nottorp 6mo agoHow? Coding agents are trained on every copy of every tutorial that skips error checking and implements the least resistance path.
- Fr0styMatt88 6mo agoI mean I would hope at least one person actually reviews the code before it goes out, but yeah we all know what hope does :)
- ezst 6mo agoThis is actually one thing I think will be great as AI coding agents get better. Companies whose main expertise is code reviewing might start producing better software.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- saagarjha 5mo agoI find that the code AI likes to write actually checks for “errors” too often when often you wouldn’t even want to do that. You don’t need to check every dictionary access and come up with a default value for example
- coldtea 6mo agoThe whole idea of (good times) Apple was hardware and software made coherently by the same people though.
- al_borland 6mo ago“People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware" —Alan Kay
- cogman10 6mo agoWell, and aspect of hardware dev that lacks in software dev is testing. A mistake in hardware is much harder to correct once it leaves the factory vs a mistake in software. A large portion of hardware budget is ultimately spent on QA. I have to think some of that attitude would be good for apple's software division. It's not as if ternus will be writing code directly, he's managing managers. Hopefully that means he'll demand and budget more for QA.
- drob518 6mo agoIn many cases, yes, but it really depends a lot on the person. I have a computer hardware degree but have led both software and UX teams. If you have a hardware background, you’re going to have to acquire a software background before you can lead software teams. What you can’t do is lead a software team like a hardware team (or vice versa).
- e40 6mo agoI've worked for 40+ years with a hardware guy and he's great at software, for one reason: attention to detail. In hardware, you have to test, test and test. There's no "fixed it later with a patch" (for the most part). I don't have a lot of samples, just one. So, YMMV.
- theodric 5mo agoBodge wires in shipped products beg to differ!
- Kon5ole 5mo agoTernus is foremost a manager though. Maybe he is also a hardware guy and that's the secret behind the success he had with Apple's hardware team, but I hope it's transferable to getting the most out of the software teams too.
- necovek 6mo agoI tend to disagree to a point: their laptops have great internals but are terrible from a usage perspective — I like to imagine their system board in a Thinkpad X1 Carbon chassis with native Linux! But HW is at least improving (eg. they added anti-reflective screen option), and SW is very much not.
- iluvcommunism 6mo agoHow do you feel about their trackpad? I think they’re the best on the market.
- seba_dos1 6mo agoThey're pretty good, but you can find other good trackpads too. The main thing about Apple is that their trackpads are consistently pretty good, while with other brands it can be hard to figure out what you'll be getting until you try it yourself. There's also software component. It has improved by now, but early libinput was giving some good trackpads bad rep.
- dang 6mo agoI wish the trackpad on my macbook were smaller, because my thumbs constantly hit it and smite me into a different reality.
- crooked-v 6mo agoShort-term, I'm just hoping this means the AirPods Max (and Vision Pro too, I guess) get a redesign that ditches all the uncomfortably heavy metal shells.
- crims0n 6mo agoGranted I have a big ol' head, but I like the metal frame in all its heft - they feel ultra durable and I don't worry about throwing them in a bag.
- LexGray 5mo agoThey were touting ultralight ultra light thin metals for a while there, but never really followed up past the SIM ejection tools. The main reason I haven’t purchased a Vision Pro is they have all sorts of glass on the front. I live alone and don’t need to share my eyes with an empty room, and even I did I would rather have a screen I could control to make a funny mask with. That screen is a step too far with not giving users control.
- btown 6mo agoTernus recently gave an interview where he said this about the initial flop of Apple Maps: > “When we started out with maps, it was an ambitious undertaking. It was bumpy,” said Ternus. “But the team had just been over the years just pushing and pushing and pushing. And Apple Maps today is absolutely amazing. If you have the vision and you're persistent and you keep working at it, you can take something you know that has a rocky start and turn it into something great.” Here's hoping he recognizes that Apple's current generation of software is in the "rocky start" phase, not the "pushing and pushing" phase and definitely not the "absolutely amazing" phase. Time will tell... https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/apples-joz-and-ternus-on-smart-glasses-the-macbook-neo-and-whats-next-for-ai https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/apples-joz-and-ternus-on...
- calf 6mo agoWhat technological advance is there for high quality complex software? The advances that made Apple Silicon possible were, fundamentally, TSMC and ARM. These were the material conditions that had to exist in order for a tech company to capitalize on a new generation of vertically integrated chip design. Now what's the conditions for next generation Mac OS? What research advances or software engineering paradigms that are mature enough for adoption? The state of Apple software isn't just due to mismanagement, it is, but the success of the hardware entails technology nodes as a confounding factor.
- saagarjha 5mo agoAI?
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- UltraSane 6mo agoThe Apple Vision Pro hardware is remarkable.
- jinushaun 6mo agoI really hope they fire whoever is in charge of Liquid Glass. Whoever is leading Apple software has run out of ideas. Of all the countless things they could be doing in software, we got the useless Liquid Glass refactor.
- DANmode 6mo agoRegardless of your opinion of its present iteration, the whole push is for their AR/VR layered UI/UX shift - not just another random redesign they threw at the wall.
- junaru 6mo agoVR/AR is a gimmick. Gimmicks have no place on a work tool (macOS). No one is gonna use VR/AR with a laptop. Liquid Glass is Apples Metro UI. I'm still on 18.x thats insecure by now and switching to Asahi as soon as something breaks.
- wiseowise 5mo ago> VR/AR is a gimmick. Gimmicks have no place on a work tool (macOS). No one is gonna use VR/AR with a laptop. Liquid Glass is Apples Metro UI. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
- DANmode 5mo agoI’ve come back to this thread a few times, and I’ve gotta say it: this is off-topic. Post a link to a recent comment of someone using glasses as a display. That’s on topic.
- carlosjobim 5mo agoAR will be extremely useful for real world jobs where people deal with physical reality. As opposed to office jobs, where people deal with computers and communication. Having blueprints and 3D models and info overlayed onto what you see in the real world can be very useful for farming, construction, infrastructure, and much more. Not to mention military application.
- imhoguy 5mo agoThis. I just want Freeform usable on iPadOS again. Since 26 upgrade it is unusable with 100+ notes. It looks like they merged iOS variant with Macos one. Constant freezes, random unsaves, device gets boiling hot. No fix with factory reset. I love the HW but SW needs more love.
- torginus 5mo agoWhen I bought a Macbook M1 years ago, then was forced to switch back to a PC and wanted to have something similar in quality - I realized there's NOTHING that compares at ANY price point, let alone $1000.
- alluro2 5mo agoI switched from M1 MBP to Asus Zenbook S16 with Ryzen HX370. A bit better performance, better screen, design, comparable battery, ok keyboard... I switched mostly because I was missing my previous Linux setup. But that was only possible several years afterwards, and if you try to compare it to the M5 Pro...
- Quothling 5mo agoI've got the smallest version of the m1 macbook air when they came out. It's still my daily driver when I'm not on my corporate T14 gen 6 I7 with 32gb of ram, and while it no longer outperforms my corporate computer it keeps up well enough while being cold to the touch and noiseless. It's also significantly lighter and has better battery life despite being old, though corporate does kill a lot of that on the pc. Not being able to feel that it's turned on is basically the primary feature of a laptop for me. I've wanted to switch my personal device to linux for a while, but there just... isn't... one. I know I could run linux on the macbook, but the point here is that there is nothing which compares, not even at higher prices.
- apatheticonion 5mo agoMy only hope, however unlikely, is that Apple will recognise that power users, engineers and gamers would really really appreciate running Linux on Macs and they write some drivers for it. There are literally no PC laptops with the quality or hardware offered by even the cheapest MacBook - the software, while fine for general consumers, creators, and some developer workloads, tragically holds back its potential something fierce.
- schnebbau 5mo agoWell, that certainly would be one way to wipe billions from their share price overnight. The only way Linux on Mac will become a reality is if it's legislated.
- gjvc 5mo agoit would likely do the opposite as linux users gravitate to the best hardware for their preferred OS => more hardware sales for Apple
- schnebbau 5mo agoThe value of the walled garden FAR exceeds a single digit hardware sales bump.
- trueno 5mo agothe bulk of their sales is, in fact, hardware sales. there is a strong case to be made that such developments wouldn't land people in squarely linux-as-the-only-OS-on-the-device territory either, but rather dual boot ie those users also participate in the walled garden on the mac os side. we've seen this before in the intel mac era.
- rjrjrjrj 5mo agoWhat do mean by the Mac walled garden? Using the App Store is optional on the Mac.
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- puelocesar 5mo agoI also feel burned by that, but to be fair, is there any software in the world that's not getting worse and worse?
- uyzstvqs 5mo agoI'm hoping that they'll finally ditch the sleazy anti-consumer tactics, and just focus on providing real value through real quality. They're definitely in a position where they can do so. Right to repair with aftermarket parts and app installs from any source without Apple's permission. Then I'll consider using an iPhone.
- giancarlostoro 5mo agoAgree, Microsoft needs to be next in my eyes. They have really degraded Windows. I do not know how Bill Gates uses a computer and doesnt lose his colossal shit at how garbage it is on high end Microsoft made devices.
- giancarlostoro 5mo agoFor context, I have been a Microsoft fanboy for years, a .NET Developer for over a decade, my one Windows machine (I also love Linux ;) is a Microsoft made product, with all factory defaults, because Windows in the past has always been very stable for me if I don't go around tweaking things. For some reason however, my Windows copy on an official Microsoft device has been slowed to a crawl for like 3 years now, which is a bit concerning because I had it for a good 2 years before that. None of my Linux devices have this problem, and when I install Linux on any formerly Windows device, it brings new life to the device, and they last way longer than if I had just kept Windows.
- YmiYugy 5mo agoI don' really understand where people's enthusiasm for the hardware comes from (aside from the chips). They have corrected many of the functional compromises of the Ive era, but it seems otherwise unambitous. The recent Pro iPhones have a certain unflattering chunkiness. MacBooks have also grown to an uncomfortable weight and lost some of the elegance of prior design. They also suffer from an unnecessarily huge notch. On top of that there are a number of products whose usability concerns never got addressed. AirPods Max and Vision Pro are too heavy to wear for a long time and the ergonomic travesty of using and ridiculousness of charging the Magic Mouse remain unaddressed. Apple Watches got a tenth of the standby time of Garmin and other sport watches. It's not that the hardware is horrible, but I think if it weren't for the ecosystem and chips most Apple products would seem quite unremarkable.
- ksec 5mo agoI really think Craig needs to go. I can't remember a single software decision under his tenure that is good. Having said that I don't know who can replace him. Bertrand Serlet, Avie Tevanian, Scott Forstall were all great with software directions. Craig feels like a people pleaser. Which may be great for modern or current Silicon Valley where everything has a softer approach. But pleasing everyone means there is no unity and direction. Software stack that is less cohesive. I still to this day do not believe Swift is the right path, in both technical and philosophical approach.