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The Time I “Interviewed” At Apple

hunterwalk.com

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Re: The Time I “Interviewed” At Apple

#21

Post by dannyr »

replicatorblog wrote: post #18
dannyr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Even the Android hegemon, which supposedly poses an existential threat, could easily fracture if Samsung decides to go their own way." I highly doubt Android would fracture if Samsung goes its own way. A number of manufacturers (Motorola, ZTE, even Xiaomi) would fill the void if Samsung leaves Android. I highly doubt Samsung would do it. Samsung doesn't know platform. Microsoft does but it still struggles to convinc…

Maybe, but I'd be surprised if Google didn't port their apps over to this imaginary platform. My larger point is that now that a rich UI is becoming a commodity, non-software/platform factors will become increasingly important e.g. manufacturing, distribution, etc.

Why would Google do that? They would be helping another rival platform get market share.

Google is releasing iOS apps because there's no way Apple is going away soon.

Re: The Time I “Interviewed” At Apple

#22

Post by dannyr »

replicatorblog wrote: post #14
dannyr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at people's IPhones. A lot of its users use apps not built by Apple. Search, Mail, Social Network, Maps, Photo-sharing, etc. Yeah, Apple will always make tons of money but IPhone/IPad will become just a device that hosts these apps. If most of the apps people need are available in another platform, the costs of switching is going to be low.

For sure, but can't the same be said of their Mac lines? I'm sure iOS will always be a minority in terms of market share, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are the dominant player in the part of the market where people actually PAY for their product compared to free Android phones. The tablet market is a good example of this, aside from Kindle's no Android tablet has really taken off and I think it's because of som…

"no Android tablet has really taken off"

FYI, Android tablet has larger market share than the IPad now.

If you're narrowing it to just one brand/model, you're right. But Android tablets in general are selling a ton.

Re: The Time I “Interviewed” At Apple

#23

Post by dannyr »

martin_bech wrote: post #19
dannyr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at people's IPhones. A lot of its users use apps not built by Apple. Search, Mail, Social Network, Maps, Photo-sharing, etc. Yeah, Apple will always make tons of money but IPhone/IPad will become just a device that hosts these apps. If most of the apps people need are available in another platform, the costs of switching is going to be low.

Many of these apps, have no equal on other platforms.

Like what?

Re: The Time I “Interviewed” At Apple

#24

Post by danso »

> Despite knowing going in that this wasn’t likely going to lead to anything, I’m still glad I took the time – you learn a lot by observing how companies hire. Driving away from their HQ I left thinking how difficult consumer services were going to continue to be for them if they insisted on perfection before release. I still think of this every time I use Dropbox instead of iCloud, Sunrise instead of Calendar, Mailbox instead of Mail and so on. Even when I look at iMessage and wonder why the fastest growing apps are chat-related (don’t tell me it’s just cross platform, I think Apple could have been way more aggressive with evolving and opening iMessage up).

Hmmm...when I use the aforementioned services, I have the opposite assumption...that Apple is not at all insisting on perfection before release...and is sometimes OK with substandard releases. It's the promotion of these services as being perfect that Apple seems to be better at...or at least readying these services so that in many/most use cases, they seem perfect to the casual end user.

But I think developers who have worked with iCloud, for instance, would argue strenuously that iCloud was not released in a robust state.

As another anecdotal point...buying an iPod 5 made me realize how perfection is not necessarily Apple's goal, even in hardware. The previous iPod touch, and the iPhones, all had ambient light sensors...this was dropped in iPod 5...this seems like a minor feature but only if you don't go in and out of buildings during the day. Unless I remember to jack up the brightness on my iPod before going out during the day, I literally will not be able to see anything on the iPod screen, unless I go back inside or the day gets darker. Moreover, switching the brightness has been moved out of the quick-nav and buried in Settings.

This is such a massive inconvenience that I can't help but think that Apple was on deadline and for some reason, couldn't fit in the ambient light sensor, and then said, "fuck it, just ship it"

Re: The Time I “Interviewed” At Apple

#25

Post by diydsp »

replicatorblog wrote: post #7

I wonder if this notion that Apple needs to "get" web services to survive will really matter in the long run? It's the conventional wisdom, just like that they "lost" the PC wars even though they've been the most profitable PC maker for a decade now. There haven't been many web services that have lasted for a decade or more in a dominant position. Might Apple's best long term strategy to... 1. Support/innovate the he…

Apple is in the position Sun Microsystems was 20 years ago. They supplied finished, working solutions, which were really "just" high-quality versions of what the other guys did. Eventually, services got so widespread (Lintel) that customers got less picky and Sun's peculiar quality didn't matter anymore.

However, that won't be how Apple will die out (if they do...), because there is already a huge market of people with lesser quality standards than Apple (Android). Instead, Apple's threat is another company who takes the time to give extraordinary quality for novice users. This isn't happening right now, b/c everyone is fighting for the disruptive (low) end of the market.

So, Sun could have extended their business by diversifying to serve specific high-volume customer markets. Java was an epic half-step. They gave away their ability to add value to customers for nearly free, while focusing ever harder on custom unix hardware and software (UltraSPARC!).

If Apple wants to avoid a Sun-like fate, they'll need to properly diversify beyond custom hw and sw and extend into the spaces of large customers where they can add value. You see _some_ of this in their supporting multimedia Bitflingers, but they'll need to incur much deeper and much more specifically into the multimedia and small office spaces.

Perhaps the Cyanogen corporation could morph into a "luxury" distro?

Re: The Time I “Interviewed” At Apple

#26

Post by Patrick_Devine »

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #10
redthrowaway wrote: post #3

I really can't see Apple adopting a more iterative approach to product development. "Perfect the first time" is so deeply engrained in their corporate identity that the CEO feels the need to personally apologize when they don't achieve it (see: Apple Maps). Compare that to the new Google Maps, which was pretty shitty when it went to open beta but has been getting progressively less so. Google's users cut Google the n…

Apple does plenty of iteration, just in a different way. Think about copy and paste on iPhone, MMS messaging, multitasking, etc. They work depth-first rather than breadth, so instead of dozens of half-working features, you get one or two complete features. I think it opens Apple up to more criticism, especially combined with their secrecy, but the criticism and even trolls only help contribute to more buzz.

I'm looking at the Dock at the bottom of my MacBook Pro and I can't help but think that most of the apps are half baked and most of them I don't even use.

I've replaced Safari with Firefox. I haven't fired up iChat in a while because I just use GMail chat instead. iTunes is really wonky when you want to play music off of an NFS server. I've never fired up FaceTime or PhotoBooth. The X11 app is so buggy it's ridiculous. I use Terminal all the time, but it's got some serious memory leaks. Time Machine breaks half the time in unexpected ways. Calculator works pretty well, although I find myself using the R console more and more instead.

I feel like the Mac software side of things just doesn't get any love anymore. Apple is so focused on iPhone/iPad that the OSX applications are stretched completely thin and rarely get any love and attention. The machine has really just turned into a glorified terminal and browser where I run the occasional Linux virtual machine or the odd game in Steam. Any serious heavy lifting is left for Linux, and most applications have migrated to the web.

Re: The Time I “Interviewed” At Apple

#27

Post by untog »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #12

> I was skeptical ... Namely, I was used to web speed: iterative, launch before perfection, leverage your community. If that's not a one-sentence summary of the iPhone's release history, I don't know what is.

I certainly don't think something that changes once a year is 'iterative' in the way he was referring to.

Re: The Time I “Interviewed” At Apple

#28

Post by crazygringo »

> ...how difficult consumer services were going to continue to be for them if they insisted on perfection before release. I still think of this every time I use Dropbox instead of iCloud...

There's a big difference between startups iterating, and giants like Apple. I think we all remember how they were excoriated on the Maps release, which certainly wasn't perfect. Because of their scale, Apple doesn't have the kind of flexibility that unknown startups do -- not just because of their scale, but also because most of their software isn't solely web-based, but is tied into software that is sold with hardware which is released yearly.

I agree that they have a difficult time with a lot of consumer services. But I don't think it's nearly as simple as the author suggests.

Re: The Time I “Interviewed” At Apple

#29

Post by xvolter »

I believe Apple fanboys are those who always have the latest Apple products, as hunterwalk describes he has. Seems to me he is just a closet fanboy. Apparently he doesn't actually care if Apple opens up at all, he'll stick with them and support them regardless.

Re: The Time I “Interviewed” At Apple

#30

Post by sfall »

dannyr wrote: post #21
replicatorblog wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but I'd be surprised if Google didn't port their apps over to this imaginary platform. My larger point is that now that a rich UI is becoming a commodity, non-software/platform factors will become increasingly important e.g. manufacturing, distribution, etc.

Why would Google do that? They would be helping another rival platform get market share. Google is releasing iOS apps because there's no way Apple is going away soon.

while google loves android, they live off traffic, if it comes from android, ios, windows, etc they don't care they built google apps for all those platforms
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