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Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

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Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#261

Post by taurath »

roymurdock wrote: post #250
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Apple's stance on privacy has everything to do with the personality and life experiences of Tim Cook. Stop for a moment to imagine what being a homosexual teenager in 1970's Alabama was like. Also it's well known that his career at IBM was torpedoed over a gay "glass ceiling." Tim Cook is a man who understands that privacy is a human right.

Maybe. I don't know Tim Cook personally, so I'm in no position to judge his character. I'd like to believe his case for privacy is a moral one, grounded in his own challenging personal experiences. That would certainly be refreshing. What I do know for a fact is that he is the CEO of a public company, and as such he has a duty to maximize shareholder value. This isn't a judgement of his character, it's simply a descr…

You can maximize shareholder value by aligning your company to make money while doing the right thing. There's plenty of salable arguments that a CEO can make about the benefits of not acting like a cutthroat psychopath business - just because CEOs like Trump loudly and proudly flout their ability and willingness to fuck over anyone they can in the pursuit of more wealth doesn't mean he will actually succeed.

Building loyalty with both customers and employees is not something that shows up on the balance sheet every quarter, but when you have the loyalty you can do a lot more things than someone who doesn't. I'm planning to buy a macbook pro this thursday at well over $1000 over the price for similar hardware by ASUS/Acer/Lenovo etc because of the perception that Apple has the consumer in mind.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#262

Post by strictnein »

vaishaksuresh wrote: post #239
strictnein wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in the slightest. The iPhone's UI was far superior, as was its hardware. What's special about the Mac Pro other than its case design? And what would change in how the Mac Pro functions if its guts were instead in the old Mac Pro case? All of the guts are just an Intel processor, AMD video cards, etc. There isn't some custom magical chip in there.

You should really look at http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/ You cannot just add the components to any case and get the same thing.

There's literally nothing here that you can't put in a normal case: http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/

Intel Processor

AMD video cards

PCIe Storage

Again, what magic does the case add?

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#263

Post by 1_2__3 »

robotresearcher wrote: post #93
bischofs wrote: post #10

Tim Cook is a "Bozo" - He has moved the focus away from computers and the companies core professional users and turned Apple into a fashionable health services company. They will coast for a while on their dominant mobile market share but eventually the stagnation and lack of new products will catch up to them. He built a watch, which was a "me too" product and answered a question that no one asked. Jobs would never…

> looking at the needs and demands of users inside the computing industry where apple should be focused. That approach would not have yielded the iPod, iPhone, or Music Store.

I would actually argue with on on the iPod. Back when they came out digital music players were still considered a kind of cutting-edge gadget, not something you'd expect a random punter to carry. It was in many ways the iPod's success that created that environment.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#264

Post by vaishaksuresh »

strictnein wrote: post #262
vaishaksuresh wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should really look at http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/ You cannot just add the components to any case and get the same thing.

There's literally nothing here that you can't put in a normal case: http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/ Intel Processor AMD video cards PCIe Storage Again, what magic does the case add?

For starters, there is the core that acts like a heatsink. Then there is also the smaller profile. I don't know if you've seen the previous Mac Pros, but they were huge.

Also your argument does not add up! Are you saying it is not great because the components are off the shelf? Going by that logic, all the modern cars have the same IC engine. The Mac Pro clearly has more capable hardware, why is that not enough? why does it have to be a magic chip?

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#265

Post by criley2 »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #167
roymurdock wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know what Amazon does for AI The Alexa/echo ecosystem. > However it's tough to beat Google in this space...they also have a lot of data on users... Agreed, the amount of data is key. This is where Apple will struggle when looking to upgrade Siri/AI capabilities in coming years. > Tim Cook's Apple is making a stand for privacy and security, which is actually quite rare to witness in this day and age. He's a…

I disagree. Apple's stance on privacy has everything to do with the personality and life experiences of Tim Cook. Stop for a moment to imagine what being a homosexual teenager in 1970's Alabama was like. Also it's well known that his career at IBM was torpedoed over a gay "glass ceiling." Tim Cook is a man who understands that privacy is a human right.

>I disagree. Apple's stance on privacy has everything to do with the personality and life experiences of Tim Cook.

Stop focusing on feelings and personality.

It would be a violation of his role as Chief to lead the business on purely emotional grounds, making decisions based on his experiences growing up.

He has an obligation to return value to his shareholders.

Privacy is a Business Moat[1] for Apple, it's something they can offer to differentiate themselves from their competitors, and frankly: nothing more.

It's a clever moat because Google's moat is the actual opposite. Google says we will take your private data, reorganize it and return it to you in more useful ways. This is a powerful moat because consumers demonstrate that they like the convenience of Google's features.

Apple chose the exact opposite moat: we will respect your privacy and not run advanced intelligence against the dataset of you. It's clever because it turns a disadvantage (Google is waaaaay better at it) into an advantage (Not doing it is a good thing).

You can rationalize the calculus with feelings but that doesn't change the fact that Apple isn't a business run on emotions it's run on rational decisions, like market differentiation to create a perception of value.

[1] http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/economicmoat.asp

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#266

Post by sctb »

floopidydoopidy wrote: post #74
Certhas wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Azure seems to be doing well and some people expect it to overtake AWS sooner rather than later in market share. The talk that Microsoft is irrelevant is a bit hilarious, given that they beat google on revenue and income last year. They have morphed from a company that is front and center to one that provides the infrastructure for the digital side of non-tech business. Microsoft Office is absolutely pervasive, and i…

Like cancer.

Please comment civilly and substantively here or not at all.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#267

Post by SysArchitect »

jasonsync wrote: post #164
alexpersian wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mac Pro and MacBook Pro are still very capable, solid, and focused machines. Go into any dev shop on the planet and you will see that's true. The only point your comment is right on is the Pro moniker being attached to an iPad.

I'm one of those devs and I'm sure every dev shop has been itching for a significant Macbook update for quite some time. Macbook PRO hasn't seen a significant update since 2012. Just minor speed bumps and force touch in 2015. So we're getting one next week - but why not sooner? That was one of the takeaways from this article. Pace of innovation has slowed under Tim Cook.

Part of the problem is that Intel has been having issues with delivering new CPU's on time. Intel used to be much better about following their tick-tock model and delivering new CPU's regularly, but over the past couple of years things have been really more miss than hit.

The only thing that Apple could have done is bump the CPU, which would have not gained anything in terms of power savings or any other changes, and means now you have one more model you have to stock replacement parts for.

This has been an issue not just for laptops, but also for their Xeon line-up in servers. Due to manufacturing delays the v4 for the Xeon line-up was released earlier this year, and didn't really get started shipping until April.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#268

Post by strictnein »

vaishaksuresh wrote: post #264
strictnein wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's literally nothing here that you can't put in a normal case: http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/ Intel Processor AMD video cards PCIe Storage Again, what magic does the case add?

For starters, there is the core that acts like a heatsink. Then there is also the smaller profile. I don't know if you've seen the previous Mac Pros, but they were huge. Also your argument does not add up! Are you saying it is not great because the components are off the shelf? Going by that logic, all the modern cars have the same IC engine. The Mac Pro clearly has more capable hardware, why is that not enough? why…

My original statement was that the Mac Pro was a fancy computer case, nothing more. You state:

> "For starters, there is the core that acts like a heatsink. Then there is also the smaller profile."

Which is exactly my point.

> "The Mac Pro clearly has more capable hardware, why is that not enough?"

In what way? Seriously. You said it was "off the shelf" components and then it somehow has more capable hardware? How does that work? Because it has a unique cooling mechanism?

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#269

Post by SysArchitect »

usaphp wrote: post #165

I noticed that Apple lost track of usability since Cook came after their release of a new keyboard at first, new arrows buttons on it are completely unusable, on older keyboards they had spacing between the left/right and buttons on top, now they extended left/right buttons and it makes it incredibly hard to "feel" where they are, and the fact that MacBooks pros still have an old layout makes it a night mare to switc…

What keyboard has the arrow buttons you are talking about?

When I place the wrong finger on my touchID and press the home button once, it shows me the pin entry to get into the phone. No multiple presses, nothing. First bad read, shows the pin entry.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#270

Post by alanh »

doodpants wrote: post #242
alanh wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the kids out there: “original Surface” isn’t what you think. It was a “smart table” and its most compelling use case was to present a menu right underneath your place setting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxk_WywMTzc

Don't forget this classic parody video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZrr7AZ9nCY

There’s a distinct trend of YouTube commenters who believe that the Surface (tablet) is somehow a descendent of the Surface table, just because their names are the same. Interesting.

Funny video — thanks for sharing.

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