8 ms·
Another Day Has Come
- _d3p9 6mo ago[flagged]
- colesantiago 6mo ago[flagged]
- simonw 6mo agoWhat's the grift? By "rebuke" do you mean the thing where they didn't send any of their execs to be a guest on his WWDC podcast episode, presumably in retribution for his "Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino" post? I don't see how that makes him irrelevant - I think it strengthens his credibility as someone willing to hold Apple accountable when he disagrees with their direction.
- _d3p9 6mo ago[flagged]
- jmull 6mo agoThe comment asks what’s the grift? How is he irrelevant? You ignore the questions and respond with ad hominem attacks. Obviously, you’ve got a beef with Gruber. That’s fine. But you’re acquitting yourself well here (and make us suspect that whatever happened between you and Gruber, you might have had a significant hand in it).
- _d3p9 6mo ago[flagged]
- simonw 6mo agoHow does he get paid by Apple? I thought he earned his living from $11,000/week blog sponsors and whatever he earns from the podcast. If Apple are paying him to cover them then yes, that's a grift. Is that happening? (I know they send him review hardware because he discloses that in his posts.)
- _d3p9 6mo agoAs I said, this is not something I will discuss publicly. But what I can say is that Apple wouldn't be the first tech company to pay for certain stories to be written, as I'm sure you're aware. There was a time when Apple needed John (along with his apparent "unbiased" takes). John's blog was critical for a period of time.
- replwoacause 6mo agoI found this exchange both entertaining and informative. Appreciate you sharing an insider's perspective (while also acknowledging I have no possible way to verify if any of this is even true).
- _d3p9 6mo agoHeh... thanks. I don't expect anyone to just believe this information verbatim; as you said, I'm just some rando on HN. But I did offer to discuss it privately with @simonw.
- simonw 6mo agoWhy should my opinion of how credible he is as a writer about Apple be affected by people who work at Apple not liking him?
- _d3p9 6mo agoBecause there are very specific reasons why people (who actually know his relationship to Apple) don't view him as credible. I don't know how else to communicate that point.
- colesantiago 6mo ago[flagged]
- simonw 6mo agoI have genuinely no idea how I'm sealioning here. The answer to my question appears to be "it's a secret, I'll tell you in private, everyone at Apple thinks like this". I know at least one person who works at Apple who respects Gruber, so I'm already suspicious of the confidence being expressed here.
- colesantiago 6mo agoThis person is more credible than your unknown source and he knows many that doesn't like Gruber. and Simon you're a indie journalist, why don't you contact him and find out?
- _d3p9 6mo ago> The answer to my question appears to be "it's a secret, I'll tell you in private, everyone at Apple thinks like this". Because that is the truth. I have no intention of sharing confidential information publicly. Your take is "someone won't betray their previous employer publicly, so they must be lying." I offered to share my thoughts, work experience, and other details with you privately. I've lost all respect for you as a journalist.
- colesantiago 6mo agoApple prefers tech influencers / YouTubers like Marques Brownlee and the like who actually resonate with audiences (and don't harp on about Trump every week) rather than irrelevant bloggers. > I don't see how that makes him irrelevant - I think it strengthens his credibility as someone willing to hold Apple accountable when he disagrees with their direction. ??? Accountable to what? Do you actually think Apple cares now about a random blogger who makes a living critiquing them? That is the grift and by the looks of it I would say he is irrelevant since Apple declined his invitation. Gruber needs Apple more than Apple needs him.
- simonw 6mo ago> Do you actually think Apple cares now about a random blogger who makes a living critiquing them? Yes. I mean, they clearly care enough to pull their execs from his podcast supposedly in response to something he wrote. So is "the grift" the fact that he makes a living writing a blog? Who are the victims of this particular grift?
- pazimzadeh 6mo agoyou met john gruber at apple?
- _d3p9 6mo agoMany times, yes. He's on campus a few times a year and almost always attends WWDC, the private parties, etc.
- pazimzadeh 6mo agogo on, spill the beans
- turtlesdown11 6mo ago[flagged]
- tomhow 6mo agoWTF? You can't post personal attacks or abusive names for people like this on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html´ https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html´
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- turtlesdown11 6mo agothe bias in moderation action on HC is astounding, and starting a moderation comment with "WTF" just illustrates the lack of professionalism
- tomhow 6mo agoOur bias is towards the HN guidelines, no matter who or what the topic or “side” is. We often don't know and it's never the point. This site is for curious conversation, not low-substance, ideologically-charged venting. We have to ban accounts that continue to treat this place with disrespect.
- tomhow 6mo agoPersonal attacks like this are not acceptable on HN, no matter who or what they're about. The guidelines are clear that we expect better than this... Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer... Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes. Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- _d3p9 6mo agoYou might want to perform a few searches for "Elon Musk", "Donald Trump", "rapist", and "pedophile". High-profile people are attacked constantly on HN. If you don't like a comment, report it; that's what the feature is for. I spent many years at Apple, dealing with Gruber directly. If I want to call him an asshole, I will do so. Lastly, I can't find a single comment in your history that materially adds to the conversation. It's like you believe it is your job to police HN. Hint: it isn't.
- tomhow 6mo agoI'm a moderator here. It's my job to uphold the guidelines. Personal abuse of anybody is against the guidelines, not because of what we think of any of those individuals, but because of what kind of site HN is meant to be and the kinds of people we want to be. The whole reason this is a place where people want to participate is that we've had guidelines since the start and we uphold them daily. Having known someone personally doesn't make a difference to whether the guidelines apply; indeed, it matters more to make the effort to follow them when it's a topic that is upsetting to you.
- _d3p9 6mo ago
- dsign 6mo agoI was thinking about the upcoming regulation about replaceable batteries in the EU, and couldn't help but think that if I were Apple's CEO this would be a great time to make an orderly exit. Make no mistake, I'm not a fan of i-Devices' non-replaceable batteries, but I can't remember a single device with a lid for batteries on the back that was aesthetically in the same league as an iPhone.
- stetrain 6mo agoAs far as I know it should be pretty easy for Apple to comply with the regulation. The battery needs to be replaceable with standard or freely available tools and without adhesives. Many of Apple’s devices already meet this standard. Edit: I'm not sure on the adhesives part. Apple uses an electrically-releasable adhesive in some of their newer products. The MacBook Neo doesn't use battery adhesive at all. There are considerations in the law for water proofing, device safety, and battery durability (maintaining 80% capacity at 1000 cycles, which Apple already does). They do not require a pop open battery door on every device like it's 2005 again. Apple already provides repair tools, guides, and replacement parts both to end users and third party technicians. These regulations are complicated, but they aren't new and Apple isn't being blindsided with some catastrophe here.
- hilariously 6mo agoWhat? Which? Huh? Absolutely not. So many of them have adhesives I dont think almost any of them meet your criteria.
- simonw 6mo agoI don't think any of the iPhone or iPads do. Their design is pretty tightly coupled to weird shaped, permanently attached batteries, from what I've heard.
- stetrain 6mo agoI don't know whether the newer electrically-releasing battery adhesives would count, but they do allow cleanly removing and replacing the battery without proprietary tools.
- keybored 6mo agoI don’t know what I would be need to be paid (via ad income or whatever means) to be a life and times of Big Tech X chronicler.
- ragazzina 6mo agoLick a butt that you like and you will not need to work a day in your life.
- keybored 6mo agoVery true. :) But I’m afraid the initial phase of tolerated negativity is over for this thread. Now we ought to nurture some corporate positivity. I’ve recently expanded my meditation routine to sending gratitude and love to investors. I call it Mutual Profit Meditation. I visualize myself in a state of lovingly implementing whatever I’m currently doing at work (currently this is internal surveillance software, but that’s just arbitrary). I visualize myself in a Flow State, implementing tickets with ease and grace; meanwhile my manager is also thriving with whatever he is doing (currently managing implementing internal surveillance software, but this is arbitrary—could be anything); and I imagine investors in a Flow State golfing while their personal assistant says their stocks just went up. A better world is possible. You could also not have to work a single day in your life.
- cindyllm 6mo ago[dead]
- taffydavid 6mo agoSo long Tim Apple
- INTPenis 6mo agoHello John Apple.
- rvz 6mo agoHello John Appleseed.
- baal80spam 6mo agoPlease. This is the reason why I don't read r/Apple.
- Robdel12 6mo ago> “When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don’t consider the bloody ROI.” I just have to call out how much this impacted my mom’s life. She’s 100% blind and has access because of her iPhone and iPad. Yes she learned JAWSs and literally took classes to do it. Every single windows update has made it so she’d have to retake this class. The iOS updates a rocky but she isn’t literally hamstrung. My dad, damn near 80, is still happily using his 2012 i7 Mac mini I set him up with before moving away. Anyway, excited for the future of Apple under Ternus and a hardware guy at the helm. What kind of a11y does robotics have? https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/elegnt-expressive-functional-movement https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/elegnt-expressive...
- xuki 6mo agoThe first time I saw a blind person using an iPhone, I was blown away. I follow some Apple engineers who work on accessibility, and they all seem very passionate about their work. It’s an area where I truly believe Apple is doing it to help people, not just for profit.
- ClawsOnPaws 6mo agoBlind person using Apple products here, and at least for phones, I agree. I wouldn't say it's exclusively because of iPhone, but a large part of my independence is definitely it. There have been problems, bugs that go unfixed for years, MacOS VoiceOver is quite a disaster even though I do still use and enjoy the platform overall, and anything worth using can be criticized I think. But iOS has so many features built in that help me every single day. VoiceOver, but also all of the features utilizing vision like door detection, OCR, etc. they're in the magnifier as well so you don't need VoiceOver enabled to play with them, and I think a number of them also require a lidar sensor? Anyway, my phone is such an important companion wherever I go that I keep several magsafe batteries on me whenever I leave the house for a significant time. It has made an absolutely huge difference in confidence. It is definitely one of the single most important assistive tech devices I have together with my computer.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6mo ago
- throwanem 6mo agoUntil now Apple hasn't addressed the mass market in nearly two decades. That's one human generation, and it is also the span of time between when something first hits and when it sees its first retro revival. That isn't a coincidence. I'm starting to get a little excited! This is going to be quite a decade.
- someguyiguess 6mo ago> Apple hasn't addressed the mass market in nearly two decades What a wild take. I guess that explains the massive and growing popularity of iOS over that same time period.
- mistersquid 6mo ago> What a wild take. I guess that explains the massive and growing popularity of iOS over that same time period. Wild take, indeed. I seem to recall something about Apple releasing a sub-$600 laptop so popular that weeks after it was announced it's backordered for more than 30 days. Something something MacBook Neue or other…
- throwanem 6mo ago[flagged]
- replwoacause 6mo agoYou ok bro?
- throwanem 6mo agoMuch better than you, hon.
- dreamcompiler 6mo agoThey're now building the best cheap laptop ever made. That feels mass market to me.
- hardlianotion 6mo agoThat is a generous assessment of Tim Cook’s reign at Apple and especially of his character. I found it a real pleasure to read.
- bossyTeacher 6mo agoIs it an accurate one though?
- reagan83 6mo agoThis guy has also been generous, and incredibly wrong, about other leaders too. Go look at his glazing posts of someone throughout Q3/Q4 of 2024, especially on Nov 3rd.
- hardlianotion 6mo agoAs far as I can tell, there isn’t a post in the Daring Fireball archive on Nov 3.
- saurik 6mo agohttps://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/11/03/iowa-harris-ahead https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/11/03/iowa-harris-ahe...
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- jimmydoe 6mo agoPeople want peaceful transfer of power :)
- baxuz 6mo ago[flagged]
- simonw 6mo agoHow does that link discredit what Gruber said there? It seems to me to back it up.
- dreamcompiler 6mo agoRegardless of whether you agree with his opinions, Gruber invented Markdown. The world would be a very different place today without it.
- colesantiago 6mo ago> Regardless of whether you agree with his opinions, Gruber invented Markdown. The world would be a very different place today without it. So? And also...with substantial contributions from Aaron Swartz. Not solely Gruber. Gruber is only known for his Daring Fireball blog amongst everyone important, only techies care about his Markdown 'invention'. Markdown is just a side project for him.
- bombcar 6mo agoI had no idea Markdown had an inventor (but obviously someone had to do it) - I guess I thought it evolved from usenet on its own. And I only knew of Gruber as "the Mac guy" and (am embarrassed to admit) that I thought the daring fireball was another Mac guy.
- rob 6mo agoI have to give props for him for keeping basically a simple blog with the same layout and still consistently pulling in over $40,000/month in weekly sponsorships after 20+ years. No drama, never in the spotlight much nowadays, just posting on his blog and raking in insane money.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- an0malous 6mo ago> “When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don’t consider the bloody ROI.” This made me sad. I moved out to Silicon Valley a few months after Jobs passed. I remember feeling so hopeful and inspired that technology could make the world a better place, and I saw the same in other founders. Today I look around and feel ashamed of the tech industry. The founders don’t talk about changing the world anymore, they just have dollar signs in their eyes. It’s been a long time since I saw any technology that felt inspiring the same way it used to feel.
- INTPenis 6mo ago[flagged]
- piker 6mo agoI read two steps as a physical metaphor—i.e., it was following him closely—and not like a chess metaphor—I.e., two moves ahead.
- simonw 6mo agoHere's the full context of that quote: > In August 2011, Steve Jobs was sick. For years he’d managed to stay a step, sometimes two, ahead of the pancreatic cancer he’d been battling since 2003, but no more.
- zug_zug 6mo agoI agree that I have no idea why people read this guy... Like in a "I must be genuinely out of the loop" type way. I feel like it's really romanticizing or fanboying. Like I enjoy my apple products, and I'm sure glad Apple wasn't run by a psycho like Musk, and didn't put Ads in the OS like Microsoft. But I don't think any of this is heroic or anything. Like if anybody's a hero it's probably the open-source guys who do it for no money at all.
- simonw 6mo agoI read him because I frequently learn useful things from him that I didn't learn about anywhere else, and I enjoy his writing style.
- tiltowait 6mo agoPrior to 2016, he was better. Since then, he regularly posts about Trump, and whatever you think of Trump, those posts are seldom more than random ranting: devoid of substance or insight. Other times, they're just links to someone else's random, substanceless Trump rant. It's a real shame, because he can be genuinely insightful when it comes to computing topics (and Apple in particular, obviously). That said, I do find his podcast much more bearable. Not zero-Trump, but less Trump.
- 6mo ago
- jshaqaw 6mo agoCook was an able steward of Apple. Under his leadership the hardware side continued to iteratively improve nicely. Apple Silicon is good stuff. I am firmly embedded in the entire Apple ecosystem and have no reason to leave. I do wish Apple used some of its massive cash hoard and market power to do better in software. The iPad remains my favorite form factor to use in lots of my day but Apple never invested in killer app software optimized for it. Same with VisionPro although maybe that story is just early. The VisionPro store demo was the closest I felt to tech magic since I was a kid in the 80s. The price was high but not prohibitively so. Rather, I could tell that there was just no reason to use it day to day because there wasn't enough software optimized for it. I've lost track of the Apple Cash hoard which was insane some years ago but it would have been better for Apple to proactively invest in developing killer apps/uses for it's admirable hardware versus going into producing TV shows and movies because Hollywood people are fun to hang out with. Cook did his job. Apple's supply chain didn't collapse and almost kill the company like in the 90s. But I hope we see some of the old innovative spirit come back. I want that "wow" moment again where I don't just get an iteratively improved version of what I already have but something new!
- benoau 6mo agoThe TV shows and stuff were never in competition for their money, they spent over $700 billion on stock buybacks in the last decade that's where it went, and they certainly could have spent a miniscule portion of that to ignite the iPad and AVP software scene. It will be interesting to see if they change approach with the folding iPhone, the rumour mill says it won't support iPad apps so it is primed for the same problem.
- proggy 6mo ago> versus going into producing TV shows and movies because Hollywood people are fun to hang out with I disagree with this take quite a bit. Yes, software could be better, but Apple TV+ has given dozens of shows the budget and freedom to produce some truly generation-defining art. Ted Lasso, Severance, and For All Mankind are huge stand-outs in their scope, depth, and ambition. For instance, the latter is produced by Sony, yet you see nearly zero product placement, which has been a hallmark of the studio for over a decade now. Putting gobs of money into storytelling yields purer, and therefore more compelling, narratives that will hold up well over time and represent the best of what we are capable of. At the same time, Apple TV+ as a subscription service is also a very convenient way for Apple to weather any ups and downs in the physical product categories.
- benoau 6mo agoTim Cook, 2014: > When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don’t consider the bloody ROI Tim Cook, 2023: > Lawyers suggested Cook himself was involved with how the warning to App Store customers would appear, recommending an update to the text that appears when the external links were clicked. In one version, that link warned customers they were “no longer transacting with Apple.” Later, the link was updated to subtly suggest there could be privacy or security risks with purchases made on the web. https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/24/apple-exec-phil-schiller-testifies-that-he-raised-concerns-over-app-store-commissions-on-web-based-sales/ https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/24/apple-exec-phil-schiller-t...
- post-it 6mo agoCould you clarify your intended meaning in placing these quotes side by side?
- benoau 6mo agoHe micro-managed minimizing the cost of developers using third party payments in apps, so his nonchalance to ROI is likely overstated - or changed significantly since 2014.
- tines 6mo agoThat’s a pretty non sequitur. Nobody said he wasn’t concerned with ROI. He’s said that not every decision is based on ROI.
- tshaddox 6mo agoSeems like they're just mentioning one action from Tim Cook take they personally didn't approve of.
- apparatur 6mo agoBy "one action" you mean the systematic war against 3rd party app stores and payments in the EU and elsewhere? By actions like this they made them so unappealing they basically destroyed any chance of success. Very anti-competitive and nasty behaviour, I think.
- jhatemyjob 6mo ago[flagged]
- rdiddly 6mo agoAs an outsider I still can't believe anybody gets this emotional about Apple.
- Keyframe 6mo agoI snicker at it as well, but then I also get emotional when people mention SGI, Commodore, Nintendo, SEGA.. so, there's that. Key difference, from my angle, is mostly the lack of people idols in the latter vs the former. Yes, there _are_ key people, but emphasis is more on products they made. Who knows. Interesting phenomenon in any case.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- themafia 6mo agoI can understand a "deeper bond with the product." This is just blandly glazing a CEO. "Cook has transformed Apple in his own image. The company is much more predictable now than it ever was, or could have been, under Jobs." Not precisely what I would call "praise."
- Lendal 6mo agoI get emotional whenever I see anyone with enough good sense to pass the baton at the proper time rather than die in office, letting it drop and clatter to the ground.
- ignoramous 6mo agoFind it comical to read things like He is the ultimate company man at the ultimate company.
- bitwize 6mo ago"Good guys, bad guys, and explosions, as far as the eye can see..."
- fumeux_fume 6mo ago
- keeda 6mo ago> The transition Apple and Tim Cook announced today is entirely different. No one’s hand was forced. I don't follow Apple very closely, but given this is coming right after the AI leadership shakeup and at a time where Apple's AI story is being debated, the thought did pop into my mind... This reminds me of Ballmer leaving Microsoft. Strictly by the numbers, he was a very good steward of the company at the time, but for various reasons (in his case, at least partially related to optics) he was considered unsuitable to lead Microsoft in its cloud era, and so he left and cleaned up a lot of house in the process. I honestly don't know what the best AI story is for Apple, but I appreciate that they are pushing the envelope on on-device inference, however under-utilizied it may be at the moment. I think this is going to be essential to keep AI widely accessible in the long term, because everyone else is incentivized to try to lock it up in their data centers.
- throwpoaster 6mo ago> The transition Apple and Tim Cook announced today is entirely different. No one’s hand was forced. There is nothing unpleasant. Tim Cook is a master of supply chain logistics and was the perfect choice to scale Apple into global production. As global supply chains collapse; as Apple fights for fab space with Nvidia, and loses; and as Apple releases products like the five-core Neo, which can monetize a stock of six-core phone chips with single-core faults, and they're still stocking out; transitioning to a CEO with a hardware background will enable a different set of strategic choices. Mr. Cook is jumping before Apple is pushed, but that's not the same thing as a move being unforced.
- Lendal 6mo agoNow if only members of our representative government would follow his lead to voluntarily retire when it's time, hand off the baton to a new generation, we'd all be so much better off.
- dmillar 6mo agoYou know it's big news when Gruber makes the HN homepage.
- antryu 6mo ago[dead]
- antryu 6mo ago[dead]