41–50 of 87 posts
Only meeting with 2 people and only spending an hour on site. This is probably the best interview process I'll read about in the next few weeks on HN.
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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 wi…
Difference between apple and sun is that apple is a consumer product. Companies make cost effective decisions. Consumers emotional factors.
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.
As I recall Apple tried to say things at the time that amounted to "you don't really need that." Every single iPhone user I knew at the time drank the Steve Jobs koolaid and talked about how yeah, they didn't need those features.
> ...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…
I think it has more to do with Apple's marketing. Every time they release even the most trivial improvement they tout it as being amazingly innovative. They also charge premium prices. This creates an expectation with their users that everything will be perfect from the beginning.
> ...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…
Good point, and Maps is a good example. Apple's whole image is around "it just works", so things are expected to just work. "If you're not embarrassed by it, you waited too long to release it" doesn't really work in Apple's case.
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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 ridiculou…
I don't believe those applications are half-baked as much as your needs are more advanced than the target of those applications. Those applications work extremely well for the typical mac user. Firefox would just confuse my sister, and she wouldn't even know what an NFS server is. Linux would just make her stop using a computer. And how is iChat half baked because you use Gmail chat? I could say the same for Gchat wh…
I think the point I should have made was that I don't find a lot of the apps to be that useful because there are good web equivalents (mail, chat, docs, etc.) and I don't find the other apps that compelling. I would suspect, even being the "power user" that I am, that most other people are of the same opinion. That, or they're just using a tablet or their phone instead.
As for Firefox, I'm not sure how it would confuse your sister any more than Safari does, unless she finds it confusing for web sites to render correctly and not crash constantly.
> ...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…
Isn't the author comparing Google's approach to Apple's? Google has more market share than Apple in just about every software category, so if Google can iterate, than why can't Apple? I think it has more to do with Apple's marketing. Every time they release even the most trivial improvement they tout it as being amazingly innovative. They also charge premium prices. This creates an expectation with their users that e…
Google is known for no customer service because you are the product, Apple while not being perfect, it is clear that their users take precedent over advertisers and even developers.
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…
Software companies, especially ones that are service-based, have a distinct advantage in deployment.
Apple is fairly unique in that its product is both hardware and software.
> ...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…