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John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

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Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#51

Post by jondubois »

m0zg wrote: post #16

It's just unbelievable to me that the company sitting on a quarter trillion dollars is unwilling to spend a small fraction of that hoard to hire the best of the best in order to fix the very thing that will kill their cash cow in the next 5 years. I'm on iOS myself (and have been faithful since the first iPhone), but $30 Google Home puck feels like it's from the future. Understands me perfectly, comes up with decent…

Apple cannot hire 'the best of the best'; those people are freaks and are probably not publicly presentable. The shareholders would not approve.

Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#52

Post by saagarjha »

goatherders wrote: post #48
Despegar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take that bet. The iPhone is going to keep printing money for the next 15-20 years at least. Apple is a 40 year old company, and they're still raking in the dough from their original product category.

Any amount you want to bet...ill take the side that there will not be an "iPhone 25."

They might just rename it before that point to just “iPhone”.

Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#53

Post by pazimzadeh »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #43
Despegar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take that bet. The iPhone is going to keep printing money for the next 15-20 years at least. Apple is a 40 year old company, and they're still raking in the dough from their original product category.

15-20 years? How are you SURE that smartphones will still be a thing in 20 years? Let alone that Apple will still be the hip premium brand? 20 years is a LONG time. The average lifespan for an S&P 500 company is less than that these days.

Think about all of the things that you don't have to carry with you if your smartphone is good enough: camera, wallet, keys, pieces of paper (containing printed maps/directions, emails etc).

It's notable that a combination of Apple Watch + Airpods can fulfill most of these needs, with the exception of being a high quality camera and a few other things that require a larger screen. But that just shows you that if anyone is going to disrupt Apple, it's going to be Apple.

Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#54

Post by cft »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #43
Despegar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take that bet. The iPhone is going to keep printing money for the next 15-20 years at least. Apple is a 40 year old company, and they're still raking in the dough from their original product category.

15-20 years? How are you SURE that smartphones will still be a thing in 20 years? Let alone that Apple will still be the hip premium brand? 20 years is a LONG time. The average lifespan for an S&P 500 company is less than that these days.

Because Moore's law has ended.

Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#55

Post by m0zg »

danso wrote: post #44
m0zg wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about both. Google, Microsoft, and Facebook both pay their researchers very well and let them publish extensively. That's why they have world-leading research organizations, and Apple does not.

If Google’s strategy is to be emulated, then why is hiring someone who was part of that strategy a bad move on Apple’s part?

I'm not saying it's a _bad_ move. It's just insufficient. And until they unclench wrt publishing nothing is going to change for them. And even after they do that, it will take a lot of convincing (and large wads of cash) to hire the best talent that can not only get Siri to catch up to Google, but overtake it.

My problem is not with Giannandrea's new position, it's with the lack of urgency on Apple's part. My patience has been wearing thin as of late.

Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#56

Post by smileysteve »

starshadowx2 wrote: post #29
e1ven wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can't just throw more random people at the problem - Adding too many developers can slow projects down and make them less likely to work. (9 women can't make a baby in a month, and all that..) The guy this post is about just came from Google, where he lead on the stuff you're praising. He can push these efforts in the right direction, and help make other strategic hires.. Isn't this exactly what you want?

9 women can't make a baby in a month but 9 women can make 9 babies in 9 months instead of 1 woman making 1 in 9 months. More people can work on more/different things in the same period of time, thereby increasing total work done. (Parallel vs sequential and all that..)

Sure, but then you try to make the children be playmates, and only 3 might work for a while, 1 might be a jerk that hurts the others; and 5 years down the road, you move anyway, so you only have 1 baby.

^ Sticking to the analogy when it comes to integrating into business; competing products, and which one actually maintains adoption.

9 babies in 9 months is basically what Google has done with its messaging apps.

Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#57

Post by rabidrat »

Despegar wrote: post #47
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

15-20 years? How are you SURE that smartphones will still be a thing in 20 years? Let alone that Apple will still be the hip premium brand? 20 years is a LONG time. The average lifespan for an S&P 500 company is less than that these days.

Shifts in computing paradigms are incredibly rare. The smartphone is unlikely to be replaced for a long time to come. There will be plenty of head fakes along the way no doubt (smart speakers and voice bots come to mind), but the smartphone is simply too good and has too much utility to be easily challenged. And you also have to make a bet that Apple won't come to dominate that area as well (even if they aren't first…

> Shifts in computing paradigms are incredibly rare.

They've only happened every decade so far: 1960 (IC), 1970 (DARPA), 1980 (PC), 1990 (GUI), 2000 (Internet), 2010 (smartphone).

Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#58

Post by threatofrain »

scarface74 wrote: post #10
threatofrain wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After so many years Siri still doesn’t do “take me to the nearest McDonald’s” like Google Assistant can. And whenever Siri isn’t “confident” it just launches Safari, but it’s often not even the best starting point, and Siri sometimes gives up silently without feedback. Also for a bit of fun, ask Siri for the population of Buffalo NY. I noticed because Siri also tells you that Buffalo is big, and then goes on to say..…

I just tried “take me to the nearest McDonalds” and it replied “which local business, tap the one you want” with a list from nearest to farthest and when I click on it, it gives me directions to the one I choose. As far as the second question - yeah that one was weird. It said that the population was 69 but the text summary that it displayed was 269,000. It’s the only city that displayed that bug.

Did you see how Google Assistant handles the nearest McDonald’s request? Google doesn’t ask you which McDonald’s is the closest one, tap the one you want.

Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#59

Post by scrollaway »

m0zg wrote: post #16

It's just unbelievable to me that the company sitting on a quarter trillion dollars is unwilling to spend a small fraction of that hoard to hire the best of the best in order to fix the very thing that will kill their cash cow in the next 5 years. I'm on iOS myself (and have been faithful since the first iPhone), but $30 Google Home puck feels like it's from the future. Understands me perfectly, comes up with decent…

> $30 Google Home puck feels like it's from the future

Is it? Is the $30 puck better than the Home assistant or does it just suck that much more in French than it does in English? (Not being snarky, genuinely asking)

It doesn't understand followup commands, the Hue integration is rotten bad, and the commands definitely have to be rigid. Things like "What were my meetings on the 12th of December" aren't understood.

Also having to say "OK google" and not being able to change that is so bad. At least "Hey Siri" is natural.

Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#60

Post by woolvalley »

psychometry wrote: post #49
m0zg wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about both. Google, Microsoft, and Facebook both pay their researchers very well and let them publish extensively. That's why they have world-leading research organizations, and Apple does not.

Do you have evidence that Apple pays AI researchers less than those other companies? Honestly I'm not sure that you even understand the argument you're trying to make. The rest of us here certainly don't.

In my experience, the offers that google, fb & netflix give are better than the offers that amazon, msft & apple give on a consistent basis. 'Special' people will get special offers, but we would have to compare their offers of what they would get elsewhere, and if their special skill would be equally valued at other companies.

Apple has an institutional memory of almost dying, so they can be a very 'cheap' company under the hood when they can get away with it. It reflects in their pay.

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