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Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary

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Re: Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary

#71

Post by zem »

Evbn wrote: post #68
zem wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's interesting how company cultures evolve. i work for google and have a friend at microsoft, and remarked to him once that our team meetings tend to have the underlying theme of "how can we make the user go 'whoa! they did that?!'". he noted that his team meetings tended to be more along the lines of "how can we crush the competition" (not in a monopolistic sense, just a very competitive view of technology). he ac…

Not working on Android or G+. I infer. Not fixing that typo, because my Android keyboard is insurmountably glitch.

no, working on search. i agree the android and g+ teams have a somewhat different focus, if only because they're attacking entrenched market leaders rather than getting to lead the market.

Re: Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary

#72

Post by _delirium »

gwern wrote: post #47
its_so_on wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a terrible environment, but I bet being a supreme court Justice is also a terrible environment. It also brings out profound conclusions and vision. When Apple says that battery-life is important in mobile devices, they mean it. If Samsung says it, maybe a year later they will turn around and bring out an eight-core phone that you can play a game on for forty-five minutes before having to plug it in again. Apple…

> It's a terrible environment, but I bet being a supreme court Justice is also a terrible environment. In the books I've read on the topic like _The Nine_, it's sounds like a terrific environment. You are incredibly respected by everyone you meet, you have a light workload which is self-chosen and also extremely important and you can see the consequences of your work without doubt, you work with other highly competen…

In addition, it appears that in general it's not personal. For example, Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who often strongly dissent from each others' opinions in court, are personal friends outside of court.

Re: Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary

#73

Post by huggyface »

eropple wrote: post #67
huggyface wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a Macbook Pro, you get one of the lightest laptops of its size Samsung series 9 notebook - 2.8lbs. Macbook Pro - 4.4 - 5.6lbs. Apple is a remarkable organization, but they are still using the same Intel processors and chipsets, SSDs and wifi chips as everyone else. Where they have a longer battery life it usually is because they filled every crevice with battery, as with the new Retina Macbook Pro. It could have…

You're comparing a 15.4" mobile workstation with a 2.3GHz or 2.6GHz Ivy Bridge Core i7, 16GB of RAM, and a GT650...to a 13.3" notebook with an Intel IGP, a ULV Core i5, and a max of 8GB of RAM. They don't even come close to filling the same role. If you want to compare the MBP 15" to the Series 9 15", you're looking at a ULV Core i5 at 1.7GHz in the Series 9, still a maximum of 8GB of RAM, still a crappy Intel IGP, a…

Enjoyable response given the fact that you brought up the ridiculous notion that the MBP was the lightest laptop of 'it's size'. Of course you are carefully amending the claims now ("lightest of its size using a 3rd generation core i7 with a nvidia 650M GPU and..."), unsurprisingly, but the original point was one hundred percent wrong.

You were wrongly saying?

Re: Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary

#74

Post by yters »

hef19898 wrote: post #22
simonh wrote: post #14

At my last company we had one project everyone knew was in crisis, but it was 'strategic' and mandated from on high. At one meeting the product manager wanted to focus us on the highest priority issues - it turned out to be a list of more than 10 poorly defined issues. Great job, great people, but management wanted everything and they wanted it now. Nine months later and I've just finished my probation period at a sm…

My guess is that when things really get critical it is easier for some people not ot focus on them. And not because focus is scary but what you will see when you focus is. These are the moments where you see if your management consists of (war) leaders or administrators. I say leader for lack of a better word for it. What I have seen is that there are some people that are really good in tough, critical situations and…

Yes, the military does this too. It is called situational leadership.

Re: Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary

#75

Post by freehunter »

philwelch wrote: post #69
freehunter wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thought: what would we gain from a phone market without the iPhone? You'd be able to buy a phone with a stylus if you wanted (some people do want one) and a phone you can use with gloves or wet hands. Keyboards would be more common (rather than being a very small niche). There might be more mainstream hardware variety, rather than flagship phones all looking exactly alike. We might have seen true pocket computers (th…

If that was truly better, then it would have won against the iPhone in the market.

Who said anything about better?

Besides, it's a false dichotomy. The best products don't always win, the most popular products win. Popularity can be influenced by marketing and agitprop. And what's better for one market isn't what's better for another market. The problem right now is that the smartphone market only caters to one audience. You can't say that's "better".

Re: Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary

#76

Post by freehunter »

LokiSnake wrote: post #63
creamyhorror wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonderful reply. Apple won the smartphone market, and certainly raised overall ease-of-use standards in the market, but that doesn't mean that smartphones would have been objectively worse otherwise - just different, possibly better or worse. We would possibly have much more freedom in terms of app stores. The fact that Apple stamped its mark on the global phone market and is making huge profits is absolutely not an…

Before the iPhone, the smartphone was still a very niche device though. The closest thing to mainstream is the BlackBerry, but it was mostly used for texting and email. There was already a marketplace, but the user experience was horrible. The web was barely usable. Thing is, everything has been in that state for quite a while. The smartphone market had a chance to evolve, but it wasn't really going anywhere.

So we went from having a very low end computer in our pocket in a market that appealed to the people who really needed a smartphone to having a powerful toy of questionable real value to the original smartphone audience.

I'm not saying the iPhone didn't change the market. I am saying I don't believe it changed it for the better, where "better" means improved for the original smartphone owners. Look at the casualties from the iPhone: Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Palm, Nokia. 4 devices made for business, durable and professional.

Has there been any more substantial advancement in the smartphone market in the 6 years the iPhone has been on the market than in the 7 years between Windows Mobile and the release of the iPhone? Sure the iPhone changed the market... half a decade ago. And ever since, all its influence has brought us is more of the same.

Re: Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary

#77

Post by eropple »

huggyface wrote: post #73
eropple wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing a 15.4" mobile workstation with a 2.3GHz or 2.6GHz Ivy Bridge Core i7, 16GB of RAM, and a GT650...to a 13.3" notebook with an Intel IGP, a ULV Core i5, and a max of 8GB of RAM. They don't even come close to filling the same role. If you want to compare the MBP 15" to the Series 9 15", you're looking at a ULV Core i5 at 1.7GHz in the Series 9, still a maximum of 8GB of RAM, still a crappy Intel IGP, a…

Enjoyable response given the fact that you brought up the ridiculous notion that the MBP was the lightest laptop of 'it's size'. Of course you are carefully amending the claims now ("lightest of its size using a 3rd generation core i7 with a nvidia 650M GPU and..."), unsurprisingly, but the original point was one hundred percent wrong. You were wrongly saying?

I never actually said the lightest laptop of its size, I said it was one of the lightest laptops of its size, and I kind of assumed you wouldn't be disingenuous enough to compare underspecced ultralights with workstation machines.

So I think I'm done with you. HAND.

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