Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Untitled topic

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 259 posts

Re: undefined

#101

Post by Apocryphon »

Bud wrote: post #93
killion wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely, I don’t see a way you could elevate someone to the level Steve was at. I think the plan was to have Jony Ive be the final word on design person. But with iOS 7 Ives showed he didn’t get software and the “design is how it works” concept.

Not really. iOS 7 is an insignificant blip. Hundreds of other times, Ive showed that he was the best in the entire world at the "design is how it works" concept. Ive was the embodiment of that for his entire time at Apple. Jony Ive is the person who made it possible for Steve Jobs to say that without being laughed at. Don't diss Jony Ive. He is the man.

iOS 7 was absolutely huge at the time, it was Apple shifting away from skeuomorphism and the industry soon followed. Granted, Google Material Design seemed to have been independently invented in the same timeframe, but iOS 7 led the charge.

For good or for ill, iOS 7 is not to be discounted for its significance.

Re: undefined

#102

Post by dkonofalski »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #87
microtonal wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overall software quality has dropped markedly at Apple and the hardware more uneven since he left. Mostly on the Mac. The butterfly keyboard and how Apple handled it, were terrible. And macOS quality had gone down release after release. But I have never had any serious software or hardware quality issues with the iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods or any other products. It seems that they had just lost focus on the Mac…

Have you used the new Podcasts app? It can’t even do the fundamental job of a podcast app - “show me the episodes I haven’t listened to yet”

What? There's a toggle to hide episodes you've already listened to. If you have that turned on, it only shows you episodes you haven't listened to yet.

Re: undefined

#103

Post by zamalek »

animanoir wrote: post #80
basisword wrote: post #30

This thread reminds me of the last Steve Jobs related thread. So many people bashing Jobs based on stories they’ve read having never met him and knowing little about him. People seem to think they even know his private medical history based on only public reports. So much judgement and criticism and it feels completely unnecessary. It’s the kind of pointless outrage type comments we tend not to find very often on HN,…

This "contributions" you're talking about someone elsewhere would have done it, and we can just imagine how better the world would be if those contributions would be for the benefit of the world and not for a company.

And even if someone else had made these "contributions," the nature of the them is dubious at best. The world is not a better place because of a phone, or a laptop, or a desktop.

His one and only innovation was the ability to say "no." "No" to superfluous features, and "no" to tracking. That is a rare quality, but hardly unique. Apple (under his leadership) even attempted to trademark ideas that were not their own.[1]

It is very worrying that society continues to fawn over this greedy man, while quickly forgetting those who made genuine contributions.[2]

[1]: https://lizerbramlaw.com/2011/10/12/apples-multi-touch-and-t... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_English_(computer_enginee...

Re: undefined

#104

Post by adventured »

nostromo wrote: post #92
microtonal wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overall software quality has dropped markedly at Apple and the hardware more uneven since he left. Mostly on the Mac. The butterfly keyboard and how Apple handled it, were terrible. And macOS quality had gone down release after release. But I have never had any serious software or hardware quality issues with the iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods or any other products. It seems that they had just lost focus on the Mac…

Mac development started stagnating under Jobs though, once the iPod and then iPhone really took off. It's well known that Jobs was basically bored with the Mac and spent all of his time focusing on the iPhone. This is where having a single visionary in charge of everything (including small decisions) breaks down. There are so many days in the week and you can't be everywhere at once. Cook is the better CEO, and Jobs…

I disagree about Cook being the better CEO. He's the better chief operating officer, which is the ideal combination with Jobs as CEO. A product person should always lead a company like Apple, if you can find one good enough to do the job. If you don't have that eventually you'll miss a critical inflection and the company will tip over. Cook will extract maximum profit from the product and ecosystem foundation that Jobs left him, which is exactly what he has been doing for a decade now. Jobs installed Cook in that role because he knew that operationally Cook wouldn't screw up the product map that was already primed. However Apple will need a product person after Cook.

Re: undefined

#105

Post by Apocryphon »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #87
microtonal wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overall software quality has dropped markedly at Apple and the hardware more uneven since he left. Mostly on the Mac. The butterfly keyboard and how Apple handled it, were terrible. And macOS quality had gone down release after release. But I have never had any serious software or hardware quality issues with the iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods or any other products. It seems that they had just lost focus on the Mac…

Have you used the new Podcasts app? It can’t even do the fundamental job of a podcast app - “show me the episodes I haven’t listened to yet”

I thought Podcasts was derided even when it was first released within a year after Jobs' passing, so it being a bad app is continuity from that era if anything

Re: undefined

#106

Post by GDC7 »

burnished wrote: post #84
GDC7 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think Apple would be an even more interesting company if he were still around There is no way Jobs would have been at the helm of Apple, even if he was still alive. He'd have been canceled, matter of fact he'd have been one of the first people to get canceled given that he'd be occupying a spot wanted by basically everybody, plus he had made so many enemies....and finally let's not dabble around it: guy had so ma…

You're talking about the idea of some one who hurts and abuses other people no longer being allowed to be a part of polite society, and the people that want that to be the case, like its a bad thing. It is just mind boggling. Do you read your own comments?

> You're talking about the idea of some one who hurts and abuses other people no longer being allowed to be a part of polite society, and the people that want that to be the case, like its a bad thing.

No , the bad thing is that when somebody is dragged out in the court of public opinion all the positive contributions of that particular individual are not taken into consideration.

I am now a wide eyed utopian, I am a very practical person. As a practical person I tell you that if society doesn't let the good things that one does offset the negative flaws that one might have....then people will ask themselves if it's worth to do good things at all.

The SJWs I mentioned (and suspect also you) would retroactively cancel Richard Feynman because he grabbed by the waist some Brazilian dancer while he was teaching in Rio. Even if that meant succumbing to Hitler's Nazi Germany.

Dick Feynman earned the right to dance with as many Brazilian girls as he wanted.

Re: undefined

#107

Post by nodesocket »

microtonal wrote: post #54
killion wrote: post #23

I think that Apple suffers from not having that person at the top with taste who was willing to say “this is shit”. The overall software quality has dropped markedly at Apple and the hardware more uneven since he left. There were misses under Steve like the Cube where there wasn’t a market. But the product was great. Now there is a market but the product is middling like the Watch. Yes the watch was started when he w…

The overall software quality has dropped markedly at Apple and the hardware more uneven since he left. Mostly on the Mac. The butterfly keyboard and how Apple handled it, were terrible. And macOS quality had gone down release after release. But I have never had any serious software or hardware quality issues with the iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods or any other products. It seems that they had just lost focus on the Mac…

I am also waiting for the new 16" MacBook Pro (Apple Silicon) with great enthusiasm. I expect it to bring back Mac back to their glory days.

Re: undefined

#108

Post by agloeregrets »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #56
killion wrote: post #23

I think that Apple suffers from not having that person at the top with taste who was willing to say “this is shit”. The overall software quality has dropped markedly at Apple and the hardware more uneven since he left. There were misses under Steve like the Cube where there wasn’t a market. But the product was great. Now there is a market but the product is middling like the Watch. Yes the watch was started when he w…

The guys at Pontiac who had this power with the Aztek probably thought they had taste; who defines this? Jobs never cared about the type of non-functional quality that we typically do in the software world; there are plenty of cases where he picked design aesthetics over performance, reliability, and everything else.

In full fairness, the Aztek was actually a great car with really decisive styling that wasnt a hit. The same designer actually penned the Corvette C7 and Camaro as well, obvious hits. Taste is defined by society and by those who push to create a wave with their splashes in the pond. It's really a 'You know it when you see it" kind of thing. I think that many in the software world also get lost on how to make good things by getting lost in the tools and insider baseball. For every one of his "silly" omitted functional design elements...there were actually brilliant chopped concepts that made way for the future. The iMac's lack of a floppy drive and Apple I/O, the iPhone's lack of a keyboard, the Macbook Air's lack of a Disk drive. All of these are the type of thing a more feature and function-focused product would not remove but in removing them the product was freed to be a better product. Not that all of his choices were good, but generally he really hit the nail on the head. Functionally the MacBook Air in 2008 with the optional SSD is the template for the modern thin laptop today and differs very little internally from say, a Surface laptop 4.

Re: undefined

#109

Post by GDC7 »

downandout wrote: post #76
GDC7 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think Apple would be an even more interesting company if he were still around There is no way Jobs would have been at the helm of Apple, even if he was still alive. He'd have been canceled, matter of fact he'd have been one of the first people to get canceled given that he'd be occupying a spot wanted by basically everybody, plus he had made so many enemies....and finally let's not dabble around it: guy had so ma…

You are correct that Steve, like most high profile CEOs, would have been vulnerable to the cancel police. I think this is one reason that many high net worth Bitcoiners choose to stay under-the-radar: not being vulnerable to the whims of the social media masses seems like the ultimate luxury. Bill Murray, the actor, had a prescient quote about this in an interview that occurred before metoo and the rest of the cultur…

Oh for sure. Being famous today in the US is not worth it.

Given how litigious the US is and how every surface of attack is exploited by the mob (offline or online) is simply not worth it.

My prediction is that people have a natural desire to be appreciated , so Americans might look to find some social relevance in other countries.

English speaking countries which are less litigious such as South Africa, Dubai, Singapore, New Zealand, the Caribbean etc.

Re: undefined

#110

Post by diego_moita »

What I remember the most about Jobs' death are 2 things:

1) Most of the media did an heavy coverage of his death and legacy.

2) Exactly 1 week after his death one of my personal heroes died too: Dennis MacLister Ritchie. Almost no one paid attention.

From computers to micro-controllers, from satellites to abs breaks, Ritchie's legacy goes far deeper and wider than Jobs'. Almost every programmer today touches some of his legacy every day at work. However very few magazines and newspapers mentioned him. I suspect that, even here at HN, many programmers don't even know who he was.

I think that's sad...

* Edit: Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson created the most influential, revolutionary and innovative software system in history, the Unix operating system. He also created the most influential of all programming languages, C.

Post reply on HN