Live data from Hacker News

Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

money.cnn.com

371–380 of 407 posts

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#371

I have to say, I stopped by a university computer store today and they had the three new mac book pros on display. When I went to test out the keyboard I was horrified. How does anyone think that having sub millimetre key-action is acceptable? The things barely move! Same with the touchpads. Maybe I'm biased coming from thinkpad keyboads, but even compared to the previous generation of mac keyboards (which I have enc…

> When I went to test out the keyboard I was horrified.

Really though? I prefer a particular type of keyboard but I could easily get by using the absolute worst $10 garbage keyboard too. The vast overwhelming majority of computer users are using terrible keyboards with Dell and HP logos on them. Is it maybe possible that you're 'can't evening' a tiny bit?

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#372
post #57

To step away from sales, since everyone seems so focused on headphone jacks/MBPt. I think a lot of the uproar this year will subside over the next 1-2 years and the decisions Apple made will make sense. Apple has always made controversial decisions of this fashion in its history, many today don't remember because they weren't Apple customers then. I think those who said Steve Jobs wouldn't have let these decisions ha…

[deleted]

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#373
post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VR has a massive hurdle to get over. You can't expect people to drop $600 on a headset _and_ (at least) $1k on a machine that can run it. Costs will come down, but 2017 won't be the year. I expect VR to grow, but only in the gaming market.

I have a computer that can run vr (i7-6700k + 1080) enough disposable income to afford a headset and I'm still not interested. There just hasn't been anything released for vr that doesn't seem like a gimmick.

Have you played one yet? I thought the same thing, argued with people, etc. Played at a friends house and ordered one the next day.

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#374

How is Tim Cook still CEO of Apple? Forget sales for a moment and just consider the damage Apple's brand is suffering. $300 books, headphone jacks, unreliable cloud services, missed product launches. In may ways Apples becoming the butt of jokes, a symbol of ignorance. Apple's in total disarray right now and the most loyal followers, myself included, are either jumping ship or seriously considering. The mistakes bein…

The company you say is in "total disarray" still made $45.7bn in profit in 2016, and grew its share price by 10%. Those are the facts. Outside of the technology bubble, most people don't know or care about many of the issues you cited, or what "loyal followers" on internet forums think. Major investors, who are the only people who could force Cook out, care about the numbers. And while Apple's revenue declined this y…

[deleted]

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VR has a massive hurdle to get over. You can't expect people to drop $600 on a headset _and_ (at least) $1k on a machine that can run it. Costs will come down, but 2017 won't be the year. I expect VR to grow, but only in the gaming market.

I know I'm probably a minority of HN users and other tech enthusiasts on this issue, but I'm totally uninterested in VR. I've tried it a few times and my general impression was, "Neat." That's a far cry from an impression like, "OMG this is the most amazing thing ever!" which is what I was kind of expecting to think. I'm more interested in AR, personally. But it's hard for me to articulate why exactly because honestl…

You're not alone.

I work at an AEC firm. We give money and some privilege to 2-3 people at work to experiment with VR. It's interesting to some degree but, beyond being a marketing tool, I don't really see it being useful as a professional tool any time soon.

These things are hard to call though, like anything in future tech (or the future in general). They consider it revolutionary new tech whereas I'm on the side of "shiny new toy" and "wait and see" but the powers that be have no issue spending the money on it while I see some of core competencies and actual training for the future being ignored (transitions to BIM and training in better 3D modeling programs).

Not my company or money though.

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, remember Maps? Such a useless app. Can't cache anything, and no updates since ever.

Actually, maps has improved dramatically which is why it's the one complaint about Apple that is rarely repeated.

No cache at all is horrible mobile experience

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#377

Apple's share price for the last year is up by about 10%, despite problems with disatisfation over MacBook Pro, no earphone jack, etc. Personally, the only thing I am really disappointed with is slow progress on web services. I was considering moving on from Apple myself, but decided that I like their hardware and my workflow is good on macOS and iOS (on a iPad Pro). I just bought a MacBook and when my Android phone…

I moved onto a Surface after a few years of being on Macs. While there are some minor, yet key, areas that the Surface, and Windows, are behind in (touchpad, power consumption), I think that the gap between them is closing very quickly. Windows has Ubuntu built into it. The kernel goes through a Windows subsystem, so there is a thin layer of syscall translation involved, but it's more or less complete and is highly usable. I use it daily, and between native sshd and PuTTY, I have a "real" terminal that closely resembles the setup I had going on my Macs. Being able to use the screen as a notebook or tablet is HIGHLY convenient for my meetings and research materials. The Touch Bar is convenient, but very lacking in this regard, and the macOS team is very steadfast in avoiding the development of something similar (that we know of).

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#378
post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say it "gets better": I have the 12" MacBook. I only have a USB-C port. I have an iPhone. I need a USB-C cable to connect my MacBook to my iPhone. So far, so good! But, I only have one USB-C port. I also want to charge my laptop. So I have a ludicrous dongle from Apple that lets me plug HDMI, USB, and power (over USB-C) at one time. But, the USB port on the dongle is USB-A, and I need to use the USB-C port to…

I hear this argument a lot but for some reason i never plug my iPhone into my laptop for charging, mainly because its a lot slower than using an outlet. 95% of the time i charge it at night and that's fine for the day. In the rare cases where i need to charge on the go i use an outlet or a small powerbank i always have with me.

I do not understand your comment as I almost never plug my iPhone into my laptop for charging: I plug my iPhone into my laptop as USB is a much faster and more stable transfer conduit than bluetooth (for tethering) and is essentially required for doing most development work.

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The headphone jack is beautifully simple, DRM free, sounds good enough even for audiophiles and has been around for over 100 years. Buying a decent pair of headphones with a jack is a worthwhile investment. Buying "lightning" anything, much less so.

You don't necessarily have to buy lightning headphones (I wouldn't) or stop using the audio jack. Audiophiles have already been using lightning to audio jack DACs, even when the iPhone still had a jack port, for superior audio quality. You can also connect your jack headphones to a clip-on bluetooth DAC. So nothing wrong with the audio jack, it's just that exporting it from the phone usually makes for a better user e…

> So nothing wrong with the audio jack, it's just that exporting it from the phone usually makes for a better user experience.

I feel like "usually" is a kind of a big leap here, since there's been exactly one phone to do this, and the verdict is still out about whether it's a "better user experience".

> Ultimately earphones should not be tied to a device but thought of as tied to your head and be able to switch between your devices seamlessly.

That's exactly what we had before when every single device had a headphone jack. I'm not sure having my headphones work normally on most devices but then randomly need a dongle for another is "seamless".

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They've been burned several times. I see a fundamental shift has taken place at Microsoft under Satya's direction. Open-sourcing the core technologies that act as the foundation for Microsoft is a huge deal. Surface Studio uncompromisingly for pros (a big problem for MS hardware in the past is that they try to hedge their bets- try to jam stuff in there for everyone). When you think about how quickly this has chang…

That's what I thought too about Satya's tenure. I had heard great things about win10, and then I saw the ads and freemium paywall ware that lines the standard install of win10. Hard pass.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN