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Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

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Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#211

Post by epistasis »

zenapollo wrote: post #47

I don't think Cook gets enough credit for this [0] - Book: Apple in China. (Author Interview [1]) It's an undisputed damning account of how Cook was used by China to train millions of Chinese electronics manufacturers, managers, and engineers. The US took the most advanced industrial electronics manufacturing tech, and handed the expertise on a silver platter it to a long term strategic enemy. Frankly, he shouldn't l…

> he shouldn't legally have even been able to do this

What law do you want to write to make it so that knowledge can't be transferred to other countries?

In the mid 20th century, the Green Revolution, partly led by Norman Borlaug, fed billions, and was a huge transfer of knowledge to other countries, and hugely beneficial for all of humanity. (The critiques, well they exist but they are refinements, not critiques that would justify not doing the Green Revolution).

In the case of Apple in China, this was not a one-sided transaction, both sides benefited massively.

Now I do think we should be encouraging the US to compete more, which was what the Biden administration was really good at getting going. But mere ban of commerce, and not providing the industrial policy for US industry to catch up China's excellence, leave us in a world where we are all poorer, both the US and China.

The world is not a zero-sum place, capitalism and technological change are in fact quite positive sum, and when we act like everything is zero-sum we are all worse off.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#212

Post by tsunamifury »

iwontberude wrote: post #167
ComputerGuru wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but recovered nicely afterwards After Ives was fired/forced out/decided to leave to pursue his creative vision.

I love that he instantly flopped repeatedly and showed it was actually Apple that was great all along.

This is, by far, the most insane take i've ever heard.

The guy litterally built modern apple from the ground up in equal with Jobs.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#213

Post by wtallis »

reaperducer wrote: post #142
foobarian wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of missteps, there was a period in late 2010s where MacBook Pros really took a bad turn IMO chasing some "thinness" fetish, but recovered nicely afterwards. My M4 is a glorious device built like a tank

Speaking of missteps, there was a period in late 2010s where MacBook Pros really took a bad turn IMO chasing some "thinness" fetish It wouldn't be HN if someone didn't dredge up a decade-old axe to grind.

It's not exactly a decade-old issue when the problem started a decade ago and persisted for half a decade. The MacBook Pros from the tail end of that era are only just now starting to reach an age where they can reasonably be considered obsolete and due for replacement, because that kind of machine absolutely should be usable for 5+ years. From the perspective of Apple's current product offerings those laptops are many generations back, but from the perspective of the actual user base they're still recent history.

Reputational damage always outlasts the defective products. There's nothing HN-specific or even nerd-specific about that phenomenon.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#214

Post by barrkel »

spongebobstoes wrote: post #123
barrkel wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an element of revisionism to this perspective. It used to be thought that integration with the global economy would gradually bring more alignment with Western values as well. The ideas was that a rising middle class would demand more say in running the country. That elites would need to become accountable to the people, ideally via democracy. That geopolitical competition would be positive sum.

I don't see these ideas too much anymore. I wonder if it's because America doesn't seem to hold elites accountable to the people even still, China has westernized a lot over the last 20 years, both in quality of life and in social values regardless of values, offshoring valuable skills is a way to bring about more equality, but not a way to ensure American dominance I don't know that American dominance is a good thin…

Hegemony is great for peace, but I think it inevitably turns into a kind of imperialism, even when well-intentioned.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#215

Post by dismalaf »

alex7o wrote: post #183
vel0city wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the touch bar was a neat idea with a lot of potential but IMO they should have kept the row of physical function keys as well.

The thing is I have never used the function keys on my laptop so that was not a problem form me, but also some of the custom functions I hard can just be mapped to fn keys so it is bit like it it us a huge loss

Fn keys usually double as media keys so I use them a lot, as do most laptop users I know.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#216

Post by pie_flavor »

vel0city wrote: post #201
alex7o wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is I have never used the function keys on my laptop so that was not a problem form me, but also some of the custom functions I hard can just be mapped to fn keys so it is bit like it it us a huge loss

I don't necessarily use the numbered function keys all the time (as in F1-F12), but I use those physical buttons constantly. Brightness, volume, play/pause, mic mute, are all buttons I press a good bit. Many of those I'd rather just have be a single quick button, especially things like speaker or mic mute.

Volume and brightness are exactly the place the touchbar shines: tap and start dragging and you're adjusting a slider, which is much better than mashing a button.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#217

Post by pohl »

a012 wrote: post #117
foobarian wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of missteps, there was a period in late 2010s where MacBook Pros really took a bad turn IMO chasing some "thinness" fetish, but recovered nicely afterwards. My M4 is a glorious device built like a tank

And dont forget the scissor keyboard and the fucking touchbar

I suspect that the touch bar served its likely real purpose: to ship an ARM CPU with a secure enclave in the machines so that we could have Touch ID without needing to wait for Apple Silicon. Everything other than that was gravy, an interesting experiment.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#219

Post by layer8 »

kilroy123 wrote: post #124
monkeydust wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What big hardware bets are people expecting him to take?

AR glasses that eventually replace the iPhone.

That’s not going to happen. Most people don’t like having to speak out loud in order to message, AI-chat, or use voice commands in public, and many not even in private.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#220

Post by triceratops »

reaperducer wrote: post #142
foobarian wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of missteps, there was a period in late 2010s where MacBook Pros really took a bad turn IMO chasing some "thinness" fetish, but recovered nicely afterwards. My M4 is a glorious device built like a tank

Speaking of missteps, there was a period in late 2010s where MacBook Pros really took a bad turn IMO chasing some "thinness" fetish It wouldn't be HN if someone didn't dredge up a decade-old axe to grind.

MacBooks can last almost that long. People still own and use them.
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