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Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

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Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#161

Post by coldtea »

nostrademons wrote: post #135
coldtea wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if "some aspects of Larry Page's life are unenviable", what part of "he can quit anytime" doesn't still hold? Some parts of everyone's life are unenviable. That said, I don't think it makes much sense to comparmentalize working lives into "enviable" and "unenviable" parts. The end result is what matters, and the bottom line is that he has billions to show for it, can work as little or as much as he wants (the ot…

haberman's point still holds: nothing's really stopping a poor single working mom from being a starving woman in Africa, or a captive suffering torture and indignity. There are plenty of starving people elsewhere in the world who literally risk their lives to be a poor single working person in America.

>haberman's point still holds: nothing's really stopping a poor single working mom from being a starving woman in Africa, or a captive suffering torture and indignity. There are plenty of starving people elsewhere in the world who literally risk their lives to be a poor single working person in America.

That's not much of a point though.

Sure, it's a spectrum instead of being a binary "has it good/has it bad". Nobody said otherwise.

But spectrum or not, Page is on the very very very top end of the spectrum. He is in the very end of the "has it good" category, with miles to spare from the rest 99.999% of the population.

That doesn't change because an American 2-shift working 20K/year single mom has it better than an African modern-day-slave.

Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#162

Post by k-mcgrady »

freyr wrote: post #82
kkhire wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

inherent problem with the watch is that it's not a standalone device, its an extension of the phone. but you're right, there's alot of revisionist history when it comes to apple product success during Jobs era. iPhone didn't become this massive product til 2010 when the 4 was released. that device changed everything for them

> iPhone didn't become this massive product til 2010 when the 4 was released If we ignore the iPhone 3G, which was the top-selling mobile phone of 2008. Revisionist history indeed. The original 2007 iPhone was hugely successful out of the gate within the smartphone category, which it shaped and then dominated for the next few years. 2010 was a tipping point for people abandoning feature phones for smartphones, and th…

>> "If we ignore the iPhone 3G, which was the top-selling mobile phone of 2008. Revisionist history indeed."

>> "The original 2007 iPhone was hugely successful out of the gate within the smartphone category"

And the Apple Watch is by far the best selling smartwatch. The market just isn't that big.

I think the 3GS was when I started seeing iPhone's everywhere in the UK at least and that was definitely the first really solid device where there weren't glaring feature omissions and performance problems. The market had also come to accept the high phone prices smartphones ushered in by that point too. Everyone I knew had a great PAYG deal back then so convincing them to go to a contract and pay 3-5x what they were used to took a few versions. I think with watchOS 3.0 the software is now at that point and we're just waiting on the hardware to offer something really compelling (which I think will be health related).

Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#163

Post by k-mcgrady »

digi_owl wrote: post #65
k-mcgrady wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I think they will be able to make it more and more standalone as the technology for that becomes available (battery life is probably the main reason they can't now). I see it as similar to the iPod being Mac only at the start.

Nah, the iPod thing was managerial, not technical.

It was both. You could only manage it using a Mac and developing iTunes for Windows was a technical roadblock. With the Watch you can only manage it using iOS and opening it up to other phones or making it work standalone is technical.

Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#164

Post by ewzimm »

coldtea wrote: post #161
nostrademons wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

haberman's point still holds: nothing's really stopping a poor single working mom from being a starving woman in Africa, or a captive suffering torture and indignity. There are plenty of starving people elsewhere in the world who literally risk their lives to be a poor single working person in America.

> haberman's point still holds: nothing's really stopping a poor single working mom from being a starving woman in Africa, or a captive suffering torture and indignity. There are plenty of starving people elsewhere in the world who literally risk their lives to be a poor single working person in America. That's not much of a point though. Sure, it's a spectrum instead of being a binary "has it good/has it bad". Nobod…

The point is "has it good" isn't something that can be distilled into a score, as in Larry Page's 99.999 compared to starving child #42's 1.001. Many people would rather live as a poor child on a relaxed island rather than have the life of Larry Page. One of the great things about modern life is that you don't need to be a billionaire to have the things most people want: modern medicine, meaningful work, endless entertainment, access to a supportive community. You can buy jets and eat endangered sharks, but how much does that really improve your life? The tradeoff of endless stress is only something certain people are willing to accept.

Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#165

Post by freyr »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #162
freyr wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> iPhone didn't become this massive product til 2010 when the 4 was released If we ignore the iPhone 3G, which was the top-selling mobile phone of 2008. Revisionist history indeed. The original 2007 iPhone was hugely successful out of the gate within the smartphone category, which it shaped and then dominated for the next few years. 2010 was a tipping point for people abandoning feature phones for smartphones, and th…

>> "If we ignore the iPhone 3G, which was the top-selling mobile phone of 2008. Revisionist history indeed." >> "The original 2007 iPhone was hugely successful out of the gate within the smartphone category" And the Apple Watch is by far the best selling smartwatch. The market just isn't that big. I think the 3GS was when I started seeing iPhone's everywhere in the UK at least and that was definitely the first really…

> And the Apple Watch is by far the best selling smartwatch. The market just isn't that big.

Right. The fact that the smartwatch market is currently small doesn't exclude the possibility that it will grow huge, as happened with the smartphone market.

But if we want to continue with the analogy, there are other key differences between the Apple Watch and the early iPhone. I'll point out two.

First, even with the first-gen iPhone's feature omissions (its most commonly cited feature omission? No physical keyboard), the iPhone made the immense utility of the smartphone immediately obvious to most people who used it. Many people loved it. By contrast, the reaction to smartwatches from early adopters ranges mostly from cool to lukewarm.

Second, the first iPhone differentiated itself by nailing features that mattered most to most people. Compared to its leading competitors, the iPhone has 8 hours talk time vs 5 hours, 4+ GB memory vs 64 MB, 2 MP camera vs 1.3 MP, Wi-Fi vs no Wi-Fi, twice the screen size, built-in iPod functionality, etc. Nothing really came close in terms of its core features. The glaring feature omissions people complained about (no memory card slot, no physical keyboard (!), no third-party apps, no copy & paste) either turned out to be inconsequential or were obvious ways to make a great product even better. By contrast, the Apple Watch failed to identify key features that make it categorically better than the competition, and people are scratching their heads trying to think of "glaring omissions" that could make the smartwatch more essential.

The Apple Watch might have a future yet, but comparing it to the iPhone really doesn't work out in the Watch's favor.

Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#166

Post by dekhn »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #146
dekhn wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this such a funny example. Because you know, driving immediately to the airport and buying a ticket is really going to make a difference. No- not really. That's not a logical request at all. It's just demanding.

Why do you say that? There are situations where a single part of the supply chain is holding up an entire launch, and minutes passing can cost a company millions of dollars.

Failure to plan is planning to fail. In this case, they should have addressed that earlier. All this guy did was fall on his sword for Cook.

Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#167

Post by coldtea »

thewhitetulip wrote: post #139
LargeCompanies wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, I mentioned Google Now vs. Siri where Google Now is light years ahead. It understands all my spoken requests and that's a big deal when driving! Overall, I want waterproof.. wireless charging... Google Now type AI vs. Siri. Their competitors have this .. iPhone 7 should have all or some of these features yet it won't. Only good thing about the iPhone is it's more secure then Android. Putting my credit on an And…

Not to be nitpicking, but light years is a measure of distance and not of time :-)

Not to be nitpicking, but parent didn't say it was a measure of time :-)

"Light years ahead" is a common expression meaning "much more advanced".

And there's nothing that says it refers to time (except if we insist on the idea that technology advances with time, so every related analogy must refer to time).

But as an analogy it just as well means "it's much further ahead", as if we were speaking of a race.

Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#168

Post by jamisteven »

Its gona be very, very lonely if he actually lets them turn the MB Pro into this HP-esq touch screen crap ive been seen floating around, as that will be the death of Jobs design philosophy on which this great company was built. Protruding cam lens and round edges on the Iphone6 were bad enough.

Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#169

Post by thringsaround »

ewzimm wrote: post #164
coldtea wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> haberman's point still holds: nothing's really stopping a poor single working mom from being a starving woman in Africa, or a captive suffering torture and indignity. There are plenty of starving people elsewhere in the world who literally risk their lives to be a poor single working person in America. That's not much of a point though. Sure, it's a spectrum instead of being a binary "has it good/has it bad". Nobod…

The point is "has it good" isn't something that can be distilled into a score, as in Larry Page's 99.999 compared to starving child #42's 1.001. Many people would rather live as a poor child on a relaxed island rather than have the life of Larry Page. One of the great things about modern life is that you don't need to be a billionaire to have the things most people want: modern medicine, meaningful work, endless ente…

Except that if you are Larry Page but you would rather live as a poor islander you can do that, but if you are a poor islander and you would rather live as Larry Page you are still forced to live as a poor islander.

This is nowhere close to difficult to score. Larry Page 1, poor islander 0, won in regulation.

Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#170

Post by rhizome »

hyperbovine wrote: post #147
rhizome wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he has a writer credit, does he? I thought he was under "script consultant" like Matt Cutts and other industry peeps, who I imagine get calls and say "yeah do that," or "you should include X."

No, he is much more involved than that. http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/how-silicon-va...

I dunno, from what's described it sounds like his input was on par with Andreesen's, except he wanted to be more involved. He's not mentioned after the first third of the article.
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