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The Curse of Culture

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Re: The Curse of Culture

#41

Post by pohl »

mrep wrote: post #37
snowwrestler wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Watch and Music have barely been out for a year; it's a bit early to say they haven't succeeded. Likewise, it's a bit early to high-five Google on the Deepmind aquisition. The Go achievement is great, but how will it help Google's business? IBM holds the previous big AI-beat-human trophies (Deep Blue and Watson) and neither has done much to help their bottom line. And of course Microsoft Research did a bunch of…

Have you used apple music? If you'd like to see how you shouldn't design your UX, then try it out. It's by far the worst design I have ever used.

It's terrible, I agree. They could easily fix this problem in iOS 10, though. If they don't, I'll be worried.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#42

Post by astrange »

eropple wrote: post #36
siyer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Within pharma, Derek Lowe has been blogging for many years, with a mix of posts focusing on new developments as well as broader strategic questions. http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/ The comment section there is also typically informed.

Derek Lowe also has the tremendous "Things I Won't Work With", which is laugh-out-loud funny.

It hasn't updated in nearly two years. Wonder when people will stop recommending it.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#43

Post by hinkley »

Jerry2 wrote: post #10

I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Both are biz guys who inherited companies from technology visionaries with massive revenue streams and yet they both lacked vision and tech expertise to create successful new products. Ballmer tried it numerous times and Cook has tried it with Watch, Music and so on. Neither of them have succeeded. Apple's now beco…

I have some of the same concerns you do, but remember that the common complaint about Apple is that they "Don't come up with anything original, they just copy everybody else."

Their MO is that they bake other people's half-baked product ideas, and then make a killing on them while naysayers sit around scratching their heads trying to figure out why everybody else is acting crazy.

Whether Cook and Ive can do that I think remains to be seen. But just because they're producing a 'Me Too' product doesn't mean the party is over.

For me, I'll have my answer when version 3 of the apple watch comes out. If it's a flop, we're in big trouble. If it sells like crazy, then I'll know they still have it, or at least some of it.

If in the meantime they manage to pull off haptic touch screen interfaces or a curved phone, then I'll have my answer early.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#44

Post by blister »

wangii wrote: post #14
bluedino wrote: post #6

>> I’m worried for Apple…If the landscape shifts to prioritize those big-data AI services, Apple will find itself in a similar position as BlackBerry did almost a decade ago: Maybe Apple is betting that AI won't be achieved in the next 15-20 years.

I'd bet the same.

Wow, I wouldn't. We are on the cusp of a major paradigm shift. Some of the smartest people in the world are tackling small edges of an impressive graph of capabilities. As more and more of these edges are solved, general purpose computing inches ever closer to our grasp.

If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on 10 years or less.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#45

Post by wwweston »

Steko wrote: post #38
Jerry2 wrote: post #10

I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Both are biz guys who inherited companies from technology visionaries with massive revenue streams and yet they both lacked vision and tech expertise to create successful new products. Ballmer tried it numerous times and Cook has tried it with Watch, Music and so on. Neither of them have succeeded. Apple's now beco…

I think you've oversold the similarities between Jobs and Gates and undersold the fact that Tim Cook is doing basically the same job at Apple that he did during most of 2004-2011 when a number of hit products were developed and launched. I also think you're underselling the Watch et al and forgetting about lots of underwhelming products that Jobs introduced. Is Apple Music a failure compared to Ping or MobileMe ... o…

>undersold the fact that Tim Cook is doing basically the same job at Apple that he did during most of 2004-2011 when a number of hit products were developed and launched.

Oh, no question Tim Cook is doing the same job: operations, supply chain. And being good at that is nothing to sneeze at.

But it doesn't look like that job was "visionary," R&D, or product development. The question is: who's doing that at Apple now?

Re: The Curse of Culture

#46

Post by optimuspaul »

mrep wrote: post #37
snowwrestler wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Watch and Music have barely been out for a year; it's a bit early to say they haven't succeeded. Likewise, it's a bit early to high-five Google on the Deepmind aquisition. The Go achievement is great, but how will it help Google's business? IBM holds the previous big AI-beat-human trophies (Deep Blue and Watson) and neither has done much to help their bottom line. And of course Microsoft Research did a bunch of…

Have you used apple music? If you'd like to see how you shouldn't design your UX, then try it out. It's by far the worst design I have ever used.

I use it and I love it. I often find myself following down new and interesting rabbit holes discovering and rediscovering music. Could it be better? Probably. It is clear that it is geared towards the top 40 listener on one end and the explorer willing to click around to discover things on the other, but not much in the middle.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#47

Post by optimuspaul »

wwweston wrote: post #45
Steko wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've oversold the similarities between Jobs and Gates and undersold the fact that Tim Cook is doing basically the same job at Apple that he did during most of 2004-2011 when a number of hit products were developed and launched. I also think you're underselling the Watch et al and forgetting about lots of underwhelming products that Jobs introduced. Is Apple Music a failure compared to Ping or MobileMe ... o…

>undersold the fact that Tim Cook is doing basically the same job at Apple that he did during most of 2004-2011 when a number of hit products were developed and launched. Oh, no question Tim Cook is doing the same job: operations, supply chain. And being good at that is nothing to sneeze at. But it doesn't look like that job was "visionary," R&D, or product development. The question is: who's doing that at Apple now?

Jonny Ive?

Re: The Curse of Culture

#48

Post by jacobsenscott »

optimuspaul wrote: post #47
wwweston wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>undersold the fact that Tim Cook is doing basically the same job at Apple that he did during most of 2004-2011 when a number of hit products were developed and launched. Oh, no question Tim Cook is doing the same job: operations, supply chain. And being good at that is nothing to sneeze at. But it doesn't look like that job was "visionary," R&D, or product development. The question is: who's doing that at Apple now?

Jonny Ive?

He innovates at pretension for sure, but that's not what apple needs.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#49

Post by niketdesai »

argonaut wrote: post #13
Jerry2 wrote: post #10

I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Both are biz guys who inherited companies from technology visionaries with massive revenue streams and yet they both lacked vision and tech expertise to create successful new products. Ballmer tried it numerous times and Cook has tried it with Watch, Music and so on. Neither of them have succeeded. Apple's now beco…

DeepMind is probably losing Google tens of millions a year. Now, it may pay off financially in the future, but it's hard to disentagle its effects given that Google already had a deep learning research group, Google Brain.

I think having multiple approaches was the key here. Worse case scenario these teams converge, but the true best case scenario is discovery of different methods to solve Google's ambitions.

In some ways, the depth of the search team needs to be replicated by their AI-research groups. As you stated, what is unclear is if the investments will be obviously lucrative (as search has been).

Re: The Curse of Culture

#50

Post by mistermann »

snowwrestler wrote: post #27
Jerry2 wrote: post #10

I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Both are biz guys who inherited companies from technology visionaries with massive revenue streams and yet they both lacked vision and tech expertise to create successful new products. Ballmer tried it numerous times and Cook has tried it with Watch, Music and so on. Neither of them have succeeded. Apple's now beco…

Apple Watch and Music have barely been out for a year; it's a bit early to say they haven't succeeded. Likewise, it's a bit early to high-five Google on the Deepmind aquisition. The Go achievement is great, but how will it help Google's business? IBM holds the previous big AI-beat-human trophies (Deep Blue and Watson) and neither has done much to help their bottom line. And of course Microsoft Research did a bunch of…

> Also, what successful new products has Nadella personally delivered with his "vision and tech expertise"? The biggest thing he has done for Microsoft is help them get over the loss of the Windows monopoly.

Well, the culture of the company has completely changed, although, that culture was probably present but forbidden and just needed someone to greenlight it.

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