Their bet is wrong. Ai is definitely the future, but people dont want Ai driving everything they do, people want control, they feel liberated when they can control something so much from ones hands, this is half the reason adoption of smart watches is so small. Its not held in the hand, but worn. The steering and control of a powerful vehicle, boat, car etc, we dont want these things automated. Apple is on the wrong track, I agree with that but dont believe the reason to be a lack of adoption in the Ai arena. Apple's design choices since Jobs checked out have been inferior to its previous conceptions, that will be their downfall, and that has no comparison to Balmer.
Another point the author fails to see is that Apple is not so much an innovator as much as they are a good perfectionist. They didnt create the OS, the Smartphone, the Mobile OS, etc. They simply waited for these things to pickup mass user adoption, they looked closed at refining the points that users complained about, then they created their own version of said product, should they choose to go into Ai, this is how it will be done, after the world has spoken its gripes on the current Ai offerings.
Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple
271–280 of 307 posts
Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 do…
>Which is exactly my point
Which is what? It was not just the case, the guts are also different. I never claimed they are unique, but they surely are different. You can downvote me all you want, but saying the current Mac Pro is iteration/just a case and not a different product is wrong.
>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?
I know I've said this before, but if you go to http://apple.com/mac-pro/, you can clearly see how it is more capable compared to older generation.
Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple
#273Earlier 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.
>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…
I hate this argument that companies are completely void of all emotion. You could just as easily say that no one cares about privacy and that taking a stand is a bad financial decision. Given the amount of bad press Apple got for their stand against the FBI, that doesn't seem like a very difficult argument to make.
So given that it's not very hard to make the arguments that standing up for privacy might be or might not be a good financial decision, why would you think the decision Tim Cook chose had absolutely nothing to do with his life experiences?
EDIT: Another comment chain had this quote from Tim Cook in a shareholders meeting that I think illustrates my point. From https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/tim-cook-soundly-rej...:
""When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind," he said, "I don't consider the bloody ROI." He said that the same thing about environmental issues, worker safety, and other areas where Apple is a leader."
Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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…
I hate this argument that companies are completely void of all emotion. You could just as easily say that no one cares about privacy and that taking a stand is a bad financial decision. Given the amount of bad press Apple got for their stand against the FBI, that doesn't seem like a very difficult argument to make. So given that it's not very hard to make the arguments that standing up for privacy might be or might n…
It's a completely legitimate argument actually. If ever his personal agenda lead him into conflict with the interest of shareholders in a fashion that was detrimental to Apple's profits, the board would remove him. Simple as that.
Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple
#275I 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.
The new keyboard on macbook and external keyboard has a different layout of arrow keys [1] vs the older macbook pro keyboard [2]
[1] - https://www.evernote.com/l/ABV1fPm7JnBO76pqevjy990uALmIK39uZ...
[2] - https://www.evernote.com/l/ABVer15u9rhODaV3U5QafcRx8eVu3HVq6...
As for the touch ID - try double clicking the home button with a finger that has no touch ID, it does not show a PIN entering screen. I used to double tap all the time before to quicker unlock the phone and swipe to enter a pin, now its' quite annoying and not as fast.
Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple
#276The article is short on details why he thinks Tim Cook is like Steve Ballmer, except for saying that Apple is slowly missing the boat on AI. I don't know what Amazon does for AI, I haven't seen anything convincing from them, but I'll trust the author that they are working on it. However it's tough to beat Google in this space, because AI and machine learning is what Google has focused on since their beginnings . Goog…
> 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…
Amazon's recommendation engine more or less falls under the umbrella of AI, it's just not one that consumers are really even aware they are interacting with.
Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which doesn't matter, at all, because the device charges in a few minutes. As everyone who actually uses one knows. BTW, there WAS a redesign...it's just that you don't like the redesign, which is different. Some of us like the fact that the Lightning port is hidden and not sticking out the side of the device in some ugly way. This is a vast improvement which saves all the waste and inconvenience of throw-away batter…
Is there some unsolvable engineering dilemma related to port position, or was it cost-motivated? This is the point. If an engineer had shown this piece of work to Steve, do you think they'd still work at Apple?
> If an engineer had shown this piece of work to Steve, do you think they'd still work at Apple?
Yes. And it would not have been an engineer, it would have been the industrial designer. The whole point of the design is beautiful seamless surfaces and curves. That's why the charging port is underneath. Which is exactly where the battery door was, BTW.
Steve Jobs is the guy who added a useless pointless screw (it literally connected to nothing) to one side of the iBook to match a (necessary) screw on the other side.
Steve Jobs is the guy who told people complaining about the iPhone 4 "don't hold it that way."
Steve Jobs is also dead, which is convenient for all the folks who like to invoke His Presence to support their personal opinions.
Incidentally, from an engineering perspective, Li battery devices are not supposed to be plugged in all the time. This design very neatly prevents that from happening.
Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple
#278Earlier 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…
While all this is true, it is also true that this trajectory looks a lot like IBM's after their heyday. It might just be a somewhat more gradual slide down to irrelevance. For example, I couldn't actually figure out if Tay.AI was an example of supreme idiocy or supreme hubris. Their repeated botching of Windows 10 auto-updates is not getting much attention because the profits have moved towards the cloud, but that it…
> "In the same leaked Microsoft internal 'Challenges and Strategy' memo, Gates outlined a solution to the problem: "patenting as much as we can. A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high: Established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors.
The opportunity costs this guy and his company added to the whole of society through the 1990s and early 2000s are huge, hope he'll finally reach some form of repentance at some point. Maybe what he and his wife are now in doing in Africa will help him in that regard.
Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hate this argument that companies are completely void of all emotion. You could just as easily say that no one cares about privacy and that taking a stand is a bad financial decision. Given the amount of bad press Apple got for their stand against the FBI, that doesn't seem like a very difficult argument to make. So given that it's not very hard to make the arguments that standing up for privacy might be or might n…
It's a completely legitimate argument actually. If ever his personal agenda lead him into conflict with the interest of shareholders in a fashion that was detrimental to Apple's profits, the board would remove him. Simple as that.
There's a difference between a decision being made for a moral/ethical reason that happens to be in line with shareholders and a decision being made only to appease shareholders. Given how hard it is to determine if any one decision is truly good for the short/long-term health of the business, it seems silly to say that the first case never happens.
Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
I referenced the articles for the facts therein. Are you disputing that Windows 10 bizarrely has two different control panels? Or that it has trouble moving applications between high-DPI and regular-DPI settings? It's okay to "not be perfect" when it comes to extra features or marginal functions. But stuff like text display, configuration, and power management are things that an OS needs to get perfect.
The article you linked to is talking about a new feature, per-thread DPI awareness, which is something that macOS has never had—NSHighResolutionCapable is per-app (in the Info.plist) and always has been. It seems strange, then, to claim that this feature is needed for HiDPI to not be "broken". Rather, the problem here is that legacy APIs, which Windows has a lot of, are not HiDPI capable, and attempts to retrofit the…
The article is also talking about non-client area scaling which is not a per thread issue. Also, it gives the example of the print dialog in Notepad not scaling. That's a first party app!
Sure, Carbon doesn't scale. It was effectively deprecated almost ten years ago when it wasn't ported to 64-bit. Apple rapidly rewrote its first-party apps and they've been scalable for years. Basic first party apps in Windows 10 don't scale properly. I don't know what you can call that other than a disaster.