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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

#301

Post by nicoffeine »

simonh wrote: post #295
10000truths wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s “low end” right up until you have no access to it. When it comes to national security, you don’t want to be in a position where the majority of your manufacturing output is at the mercy of a foreign country’s blessing. Your R&D is worth nothing if you can’t actually build.

That boat sailed a long, long time ago. The era where any country, even a giant like the US can make everything and be entirely self sufficient is long gone. What kind of future would realistically result in no access to foreign manufacturing or resources? If the risk is seen as China particularly, they only do the lowest value lowest skilled work. Pretty much by definition that's the easiest to relocate. Samsung doe…

> If we end up in an actual war, we'll have more to worry about than not getting the latest iPhone for a few years.

This is a supply issue with silicon/electronics in general. At this point, it would be more of a disaster for any country to lose access to electronics than to oil. I'm not sure where you heard that manufacturing electronics is low skill, but I definitely don't agree.

The point is that there's no difference between the US and some country that has oil resources but no refining capacity. We can dig silicon out of the ground but we can't make anything with it.

The other thing you may be failing to consider is automation. If another economy gets there first, they won't be just building chips. If you're afraid of China becoming the fastest at bringing technology ideas to market, we are already there. And not just some ridiculously useless SV "x but for uber" product. A real piece of reality that turns on and can perform work.

This is even before you get into the national security argument about a trustable supply chain.

Re: How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs

#302

Post by astrange »

MperorM wrote: post #230
astrange wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't work so well for him either, he got fired. When he came back, he was different, because he'd gotten married. The terrible official biography of him actually notices that he was better the second time around and totally ignores it, but this is the reason.

What other things were terrible about the biography? It's my favorite biography of all time. I'd love to know better what important parts were left out.

It doesn't enquire into anything technically, directly misquotes people (Bill Gates at one point says a disk drive has "too low latency"), ignores his wife, and seems to be really invested in embarrassing his kids. One of his sons Reed is quoted like three times and every time he's making a dick joke.

Re: How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs

#303

Post by prox »

Thlom wrote: post #242
prox wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent comment makes it sound like a bad thing, but I kind of enjoy the current way of not feeling the need to buy the latest and greatest every year.

Chugging along with my iPhone 8. Screen is cracked and battery is getting worse, but the phone itself I have n problems with. If I could get the battery and screen replaced for relatively cheap I would, but as it stands that would cost me way to much compared to a new phone.

If it phones and you can use the web a bit or an app, it’s all good in my book.

Re: How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs

#304

Post by Jetrel »

908B64B197 wrote: post #26
rektide wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Years of snapping up brilliant companies/minds[1]! * PA Semi, 2008 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.A._Semi * Licensing then hiring most of the Imagination Technologies GPU engineers, including setting up an office down the street from them in St Albans, 2017-2020. * some of Dialog Semiconductor, 2018 * Intel's smartphone division, 2019 * Intrinsity, who had some cutting edge chip design, 2010 There's also an unbeliev…

> But I also just am so very very sad to see so much talent disappear off the open market, distressed that the lead seems to only grow & grow over everyone else. All that talent was up for grab: What were the other players waiting for?

In a lot of cases, it was probably something more insidious, as indeed is the case for a lot of acqui-hires in the software space: most of them probably didn't have anyone using their stuff (relatively speaking). A lot of these companies that produce these things are building things that simply aren't useful unless "deployed" or "applied" at scale.

The best way to put it is it's the difference between designing an AK-47, and designing a battleship. Most techies look at things, and assume they're like a AK-47; if the big players don't use it, DIY guys can still home-craft their own AKs and it'll have a profound impact on the world. But with many of these sorts of tech firms that are getting acquired, if they aren't actually having their stuff used by one of the big guys, it may as well not exist. If you design a battleship, and there's not a nation-state interested in building it, despite having what may be an excellent design, you've got ... nothing. Nobody can DIY that like they can a design for a rifle.

A very good analogy here would be graphics cards. If I come up with a software innovation, like a new rendering technology, it's viable for anyone to slot into a game engine somewhere and play with. If I come up with a new hardware design, and it doesn't get applied by one of the actual hardware vendors out there, it may as well not exist.

Re: How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs

#305

Post by hackissimo123 »

someperson wrote: post #248
hackissimo123 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it hard to believe that people are choosing Apple products over competitors because of anything to do with "racial equality". Especially since most of the components are manufactured in China, therefore by buying an Apple product (or basically any other piece of modern consumer electronics), you're helping to fund a racist ethnostate that's currently committing genocide. What has Apple done to promote racial e…

It's worth noting that 80% of Samsung smartphones are manufactured in Vietnam these days. Something people often forget even in today's geopolitical environment. I wish Samsung used that fact in their marketing, I think it would really play well.

Vietnam might not be as bad as China but it still doesn't exactly have a stellar human rights record.

Re: How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs

#306

Post by Jetrel »

simonh wrote: post #288
rektide wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Years of snapping up brilliant companies/minds[1]! * PA Semi, 2008 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.A._Semi * Licensing then hiring most of the Imagination Technologies GPU engineers, including setting up an office down the street from them in St Albans, 2017-2020. * some of Dialog Semiconductor, 2018 * Intel's smartphone division, 2019 * Intrinsity, who had some cutting edge chip design, 2010 There's also an unbeliev…

On the other hand, how many of these companies would have faded away and never been heard of again if Apple hand't stepped in? Was Samsung or Huawei about to invest in these technologies? Even on this thread I see people saying phones are commoditised now and the new models aren't interesting. Apple's competitors believe this, they aren't about to invest millions on these small technical innovations and improvements…

This. This right here.

If it didn't get forcibly put into people's hands, it probably would have died on the vine.

One of the things apple's always understood is the idea of "across-the-board" availability. Take some specialist part, like, oh, say, a mouse, or a sound card, and make it so that all of your machines ship with it, period. It's the new "lowest common denominator". We had mice back in the DOS/Apple II era; good mice, even, it's just that nobody wrote anything that supported them (outside of a few specialist apps like some art programs), because only a few really rare people had them.

When apple made the mac, they'd learned this lesson, and made it mandatory - this is actually why they initially refused to put a CLI into the thing, even though their own MPW dev tools had one: they wanted to make it more difficult to do cheapass ports of stuff like VisiCalc than it would be to build a new, gui-based program to solve the same problem from scratch. (Amongst other things, this open-field helped a certain company launch a new gui-based spreadsheet app called Excel, which has done rather well for itself.)

Re: How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs

#307

Post by vlovich123 »

baybal2 wrote: post #266
vlovich123 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charger blocks are not $88 retail let alone BOM. 1 cent in BOM translates to 5-7c in MSRP if I recall correctly. The charger itself is probably a dollar or two so you’re looking at 2-5% of the total charger cost. Maybe not a talent thing on the part of the engineer (although could be contributory) so much as getting pressure from management to cut BOM across the board without management specifying any kind of thresho…

Chargers used to be way more expensive, proprietary ones in particular. Branded siemens, and ericsson chargers for phones were $100+ circa 2001

That's true but you have to look at shipped volume & BOM cost (bill of materials), not MSRP from a charging block 20 years ago.

If this charging block was from the Kindle, you're looking at significantly higher volume & several years of advances that drive the cost down. Additionally, since everyone has shifted to stock USB chargers, all chargers have gotten drastically cheaper due to scaling. You can buy a wall USB (C or A) charger for a few $ MSRP which means it costs like 20-50 cents for the components that go into it.

Re: How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs

#308

Post by vlovich123 »

andrewnicolalde wrote: post #274
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny thing is Apple internally use Anker cables as they're much more resistent than their own. It's well known that Apple prioritizes thinness, aesthetics and industrial design over function and reliability which is ironic given how stupid the magic mouse looks when it's charging.[1] How Jonny Ive green-lit that is beyond me. [1] https://i.stack.imgur.com/WxNgu.jpg

> Funny thing is Apple internally use Anker cables as they're much more resistent than their own. Source? Sound interesting!

That does sound like an interesting claim & one that doesn't line up with my experience. When I worked there ~6 years ago that certainly wasn't the case. Maybe some groups did but I didn't observe that for the coworkers that sat around me.

Re: How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs

#309

Post by laurent92 »

baybal2 wrote: post #111
gonehome wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 e…

Believe me or not. Big retailers don't like Bluetooth mouses because they have huge returns from them. Usually they will place a few unconspiciously in the corner, but otherwise give most of shelf space to non-bt mouses. Why so? People can't freaking press the PAIR button, even if you slap a big red sticker on it. This is also the reason retailers insist on having batteries inserted into the mouse at factory, or have…

There is no “pair” button on the mAgIk keyboard or mouse. I’m an Apple fan but, when you have 6 macs in an office and you administer them, you have to carry around a PC keyboard and mouse to tell your iMac which mouse to connect to.

They are getting ridiculous.

I like MX mouses better, but none of the mice on the market has... horizontal scrolling. Horizontal, true, scrolling.

Re: How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs

#310

Post by simonh »

nicoffeine wrote: post #301
simonh wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That boat sailed a long, long time ago. The era where any country, even a giant like the US can make everything and be entirely self sufficient is long gone. What kind of future would realistically result in no access to foreign manufacturing or resources? If the risk is seen as China particularly, they only do the lowest value lowest skilled work. Pretty much by definition that's the easiest to relocate. Samsung doe…

> If we end up in an actual war, we'll have more to worry about than not getting the latest iPhone for a few years. This is a supply issue with silicon/electronics in general. At this point, it would be more of a disaster for any country to lose access to electronics than to oil. I'm not sure where you heard that manufacturing electronics is low skill, but I definitely don't agree. The point is that there's no differ…

Making the high value parts, the CPU, flash memory, camera module, sensors, Gorilla Glass, display panels, etc is high value. Do you know how many of the components on that list are made in China? None. They’re all made in the USA, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Only low value parts and final assembly are done in China yet it’s the low skill final assembly worth only a few dollars in value that counts as “manufacturing”.

I think the flash used to be made in China for a while, but the fancy new stuff is South Korea (Samsung) and Japan (Toshiba). The camera modules are made by Sony in Japan. The CPUs are TSMC in Taiwan. Back in the early years over 40% of the value in the Bill of Materials of an iPhone was made in the USA, including the CPUs by Samsung in Texas, Gorilla Glass by Corning in NY state, I forget all the rest, only about 10% of the cost of manufacture was added in China. It’s probably a bit more now.

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