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How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs

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Re: How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs

#71
post #32
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy Apple products and I don't use a smartphone. But in 2014 I borrowed an iPhone 5 from a friend and I found it truly well designed. Thickness and weight were very satisfying for 1-handed operation. I haven't found the successors to be anywhere close.

The 12 mini is comparable in size and weight.

I can use a 5 one-handed.

The mini I cannot.

Re: How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs

#72

For what it's worth, I don't think Steve Jobs would have ever allowed the charging port for the Magic Mouse to ever be on the bottom and forced the user to have to leave the mouse on it's side to charge.

Jobs wasn't perfect - rumor was the one button mouse exists because he picked it from an unfinished mock. The magic mouse also sucks (though I do like the large trackpad). I think their argument for the charging port on the bottom is because they didn't want people to be able to use it plugged in (so people wouldn't just leave it plugged in), it was intentional.

I thought the reason (for the one-button mouse) was so that you'd never have to think about which button to click.

Re: How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs

#73
post #35

For what it's worth, I don't think Steve Jobs would have ever allowed the charging port for the Magic Mouse to ever be on the bottom and forced the user to have to leave the mouse on it's side to charge.

It's so retarded. I have 2 magic mice. One is always charging so I can swap them out

I loathe wireless keyboards and mice. If the bluetooth isn't giving me trouble, the batteries are.

Re: How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs

#75
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And its probably going to go away and future minis sidelined, as its sales are poor.

I feel like the story would have been different if they made it the size of the 4... Right now the “mini” would have still been considered a large phone in the 3GS days.

That would make things even worse. A lot of people only use smartphones for computing and they want large screens. Making the screen even smaller would have doomed the mini even harder.

Re: How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs

#77
post #43
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 12 mini is comparable in size and weight.

And its probably going to go away and future minis sidelined, as its sales are poor.

Doubt it just yet. People aren’t moving yet, people lost jobs. So if the market properly recovers, it will stick around.

Re: How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs

#78
post #6

I think the biggest change Tim made from Steve is that Tim’s decision and management style seems more committee/group based, whereas Steve was much more autonomous; this is how it is now do it. I know he didn’t want everyone thinking what would Steve do, but I do often wonder what someone with Steve’s authority would do.

The impression I got was that Steve operated in a way that 'seemed' autonomous, but in terms of the results he was still letting folks around him do their thing, even if it went through him. Maybe it was the case of a strong personality / operational style that seemed more autonomous than it was? I find that people often seem to read strong personalities as sort of autocratic by default, even if they're not. Often wh…

That seems like a failure to express intent properly. You can have a strong personality and powerfully seek feedback or clarification. Not mutually exclusive.

Re: How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs

#79
I worked in, and around OEM electronics since 2007.

I've seen many guys like Tim Cook, most worse off ones.

He squeezes suppliers, and know what he is doing.

Others squeeze suppliers, and don't know what they are doing.

On one of my first jobs, I've been witness to one such negotiations down to single cents, and microns of plastic for a few million units customized charger order.

The order was such a whopper for a small sourcing agency, that higher ups were willing to do just anything to not to spook the client.

Our guys quickly understood that the consultant guy doing negotiations on behalf of the client was a round idiot with a level of engineering knowledge of a first year dropout.

He kept insisting on completely bizarre design changes, and ridiculous cost cutting on design like using 2 cheaper through hole diodes in parallel instead of one a cent more expensive (did not believe my ears, the guy failed EE101 right here,) dispensing with NTC inrush limiters, removing safety caps (he did not know what they are for) and asked us to redo the mold 6! times in order to save some grams of plastic per run.

We managed to at least push back on safety critical parts, on a point that it will fail the certification.

Many years later I found out that the design of the first Kindle charger exactly matched the one we did in everything, but having an extra label.

And 5 years ago I learned that Kindles had multiple issues with melting chargers, and safety recalls.

9 out of 10 companies in the supply chain will just shoot themselves in the foot if they go on doing it like that.

Nobody will point how unreasonable your demands are if you are a giant multinational corporation, moreover so in China. If you do this, and don't know yourself if you are asking a for something stupid, who will know? No one will.

Re: How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs wasn't perfect - rumor was the one button mouse exists because he picked it from an unfinished mock. The magic mouse also sucks (though I do like the large trackpad). I think their argument for the charging port on the bottom is because they didn't want people to be able to use it plugged in (so people wouldn't just leave it plugged in), it was intentional.

I thought the reason (for the one-button mouse) was so that you'd never have to think about which button to click.

"Farag recalls a prototype presentation meeting with Jobs where he and the design team presented possibilities for what would be the next Apple mouse. The team had several versions to show Steve, some of which "were fully done, with all the parting lines cut in for buttons and different plastic parts, and all the colors just right," according to Farag. At the last moment the team decided to include a prototype that echoed the look of the previous gen Apple mouse, but it was not finished and didn't include cut-outs for the buttons.

“We were going to put that model into a box so people wouldn’t see it.” Farag said.

Jobs darted right for the unfinished one saying, “That’s genius…We don’t want to have any buttons,” according to Farag.

As one would expect, someone from the design team quickly jumped up and agreed with Jobs as if that was one of the options all along."

https://www.techspot.com/news/55958-how-a-misunderstanding-w...

As far as not thinking about a button to click - that only works if the idea of 'right-click' doesn't exist. In the real world where it does now you just have to know to control-click, which seems strictly worse.

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