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Re: undefined

#31

Post by FormerBandmate »

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…

Apple has moved from being an incredibly innovative company under Steve Jobs to a much more corporate, mature company that relies more on incremental growth. They don’t really have any incentive to change because of their success, and this fundamental pattern happens to every company (see GE’s history after Edison). Apple simply isn’t the company it was before, and that’s a natural part of capitalism.

Other Apples are emerging all the time, and will continue to emerge

Re: undefined

#32

Post by philwelch »

photochemsyn wrote: post #17
jedberg wrote: post #9

I think Apple would be an even more interesting company if he were still around. Maybe not as big or as profitable, but certainly more interesting. I wish he hadn't been so strongheaded about herbal remedies and whatnot. He had the more curable kind of cancer, had he taken it seriously earlier. As someone who has lost family to pancreatic cancer, it really upset me to learn that he didn't use his vast resources to do…

I think he did quite a bit out of the ordinary, according to reports like this (1): > "Through a legal, little-known practice called multiple listing, Jobs doubled his odds by getting on waiting lists in California and Tennessee. Competition was too stiff back home in California, and Jobs, his wealth and fame notwithstanding, may have died waiting. But in mere weeks he jumped to the top of the list in Memphis, ahead…

> I would have a much higher opinion of Steve Jobs if he'd have kept Apple manufacturing in the USA instead of helping gut the Bay Area's electronics manufacturing industry by outsourcing to Foxconn and others.

He did. Apple's manufacturing wasn't outsourced until well after Jobs left the company in 1985: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/business/apple-california...

Meanwhile at NeXT, Steve Jobs built a massive automated factory in Fremont: https://www.cultofmac.com/617676/a-brief-history-of-steve-jo...

None of these efforts worked out, which is probably one reason he didn't reverse Apple's trend of outsourcing after he returned in 1997. Tim Cook took charge of Apple's operations in 1998.

Re: undefined

#33

Post by GDC7 »

jedberg wrote: post #9

I think Apple would be an even more interesting company if he were still around. Maybe not as big or as profitable, but certainly more interesting. I wish he hadn't been so strongheaded about herbal remedies and whatnot. He had the more curable kind of cancer, had he taken it seriously earlier. As someone who has lost family to pancreatic cancer, it really upset me to learn that he didn't use his vast resources to do…

> 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 many personal flaws and his personal relationships are a mine field.

He'd have been #metoo'd or singled out for abusive behavior towards subordinates or some other thing.

He was the one guy who could be taken down by basically every strain of SJW. They'd have had the time of their lives dragging him in so many battlefields of the culture wars, and he'd have lost on all of them.

From a legacy standpoint death was the best thing for Steve Jobs, much like his idol John Lennon. Death freezes the public perception and stops people from digging dirt.

Re: undefined

#34

Post by microtonal »

jedberg wrote: post #9

I think Apple would be an even more interesting company if he were still around. Maybe not as big or as profitable, but certainly more interesting. I wish he hadn't been so strongheaded about herbal remedies and whatnot. He had the more curable kind of cancer, had he taken it seriously earlier. As someone who has lost family to pancreatic cancer, it really upset me to learn that he didn't use his vast resources to do…

I think Apple would be an even more interesting company if he were still around. Maybe not as big or as profitable, but certainly more interesting.

I agree. As a user of Apple products, I think Apple makes great products. And I don't believe Apple can't innovate because Jobs is gone (they basically set category standards in smartwatches, wireless earbuds, and ARM desktop computers since then).

But Apple was certainly more fun with Jobs. Many keynotes since Jobs have been cringeworthy, with the studied jokes, to slick presentations, etc. Jobs had natural showmanship and was confident enough in that to do present more spontaneously. Made the keynotes more fun.

Also I feel like product had larger design deltas. In the ten years since Jobs, Macs have mostly been aluminium/space grey (though they are definitely improving with the new iMacs), there was much more variety and evolution in the design the ten years before.

Plus, the NeXTcube was the probably most beautiful computer ever.

Re: undefined

#35

Post by xutopia »

Steve would not have allowed the godawful tabs in the latest Safari. There are so many things wrong with them!

Re: undefined

#36

Post by paxys »

FormerBandmate wrote: post #31
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…

Apple has moved from being an incredibly innovative company under Steve Jobs to a much more corporate, mature company that relies more on incremental growth. They don’t really have any incentive to change because of their success, and this fundamental pattern happens to every company (see GE’s history after Edison). Apple simply isn’t the company it was before, and that’s a natural part of capitalism. Other Apples ar…

"Mature company that relies more on incremental growth" is exactly the stage where they get overtaken and fade into obscurity. It won't happen tomorrow, but slowly there will be new kids on the block who will make their tech look dated and uncool. It seems impossible to even think about but you'd say the same about IBM a few decades ago.

Re: undefined

#37

Post by Arubis »

jedberg wrote: post #9

I think Apple would be an even more interesting company if he were still around. Maybe not as big or as profitable, but certainly more interesting. I wish he hadn't been so strongheaded about herbal remedies and whatnot. He had the more curable kind of cancer, had he taken it seriously earlier. As someone who has lost family to pancreatic cancer, it really upset me to learn that he didn't use his vast resources to do…

For better and for worse, Jobs being so strongheaded about his own health and care was just another expression of precisely the same attributes that made him such an effective innovator: convinced his taste was right, he willed reality to bend to his perception of it. That works well on humans; it's (mostly) ineffective on disease.

Re: undefined

#38

Post by agumonkey »

FormerBandmate wrote: post #31
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…

Apple has moved from being an incredibly innovative company under Steve Jobs to a much more corporate, mature company that relies more on incremental growth. They don’t really have any incentive to change because of their success, and this fundamental pattern happens to every company (see GE’s history after Edison). Apple simply isn’t the company it was before, and that’s a natural part of capitalism. Other Apples ar…

I'm sure Jobs knew about this. I'm sure he told Cook to milk the market cow wide and deep to ensure survival of Apple while maintaining a steady brand, in the event that somehow something real genuine emerges again from Apple and they're ready to fire with 200B of cash.

Re: undefined

#39

Post by duxup »

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…

I think that's true, but there's also a danger of asking someone to 'be that guy' who isn't Steve. That seems like a bigger risk.

And in the meantime Apple still has its own fairly cohesive idea of how you use their devices and software ... while places like Google cancel and re-releases apps with half the features as the one they canceled, and I don't think they have a real idea of how people use their stuff.

Re: undefined

#40

Post by smoldesu »

FormerBandmate wrote: post #31
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…

Apple has moved from being an incredibly innovative company under Steve Jobs to a much more corporate, mature company that relies more on incremental growth. They don’t really have any incentive to change because of their success, and this fundamental pattern happens to every company (see GE’s history after Edison). Apple simply isn’t the company it was before, and that’s a natural part of capitalism. Other Apples ar…

> Other Apples are emerging all the time

How so? Are other people creating closed software platforms where they charge 30% off the top for their developers? I agree that they've gone more corporate over the years, but it was only after the realization that they could exploit the market with their install-base. It's quite literally, step-for-step identical to Microsoft's old Internet Explorer parable that got them in so much trouble. They're taking advantage of a market without any other options, which is not something that an emerging company can do, much less at the scale Apple does it.

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