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Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary

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Re: Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary

#61

Post by throwaway1979 »

huggyface wrote: post #56
eropple wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's too bad. I use my laptops as portable desktops, seldom away from a plug. So I have to heft around a giant battery because Apple decides that only one usage model is right? False assertion. With a Macbook Pro, you get one of the lightest laptops of its size, plus very competitive specs in pretty much all areas. (This goes for the new Retina one as well as the standard one.)

With a Macbook Pro, you get one of the lightest laptops of its size Samsung series 9 notebook - 2.8lbs. Macbook Pro - 4.4 - 5.6lbs. Apple is a remarkable organization, but they are still using the same Intel processors and chipsets, SSDs and wifi chips as everyone else. Where they have a longer battery life it usually is because they filled every crevice with battery, as with the new Retina Macbook Pro. It could have…

Wouldn't the correct device to compare be the Macbook Air?

Re: Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary

#63

Post by LokiSnake »

creamyhorror wrote: post #57
freehunter wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thought: what would we gain from a phone market without the iPhone? You'd be able to buy a phone with a stylus if you wanted (some people do want one) and a phone you can use with gloves or wet hands. Keyboards would be more common (rather than being a very small niche). There might be more mainstream hardware variety, rather than flagship phones all looking exactly alike. We might have seen true pocket computers (th…

Wonderful reply. Apple won the smartphone market, and certainly raised overall ease-of-use standards in the market, but that doesn't mean that smartphones would have been objectively worse otherwise - just different, possibly better or worse. We would possibly have much more freedom in terms of app stores. The fact that Apple stamped its mark on the global phone market and is making huge profits is absolutely not an…

Before the iPhone, the smartphone was still a very niche device though. The closest thing to mainstream is the BlackBerry, but it was mostly used for texting and email. There was already a marketplace, but the user experience was horrible. The web was barely usable. Thing is, everything has been in that state for quite a while. The smartphone market had a chance to evolve, but it wasn't really going anywhere.

Re: Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary

#64

Post by zem »

kabdib wrote: post #37

“High-performance teams should be at each other’s throats” is how one person with relationships with multiple Apple executives summarized the culture. “You don’t get to the right trade-off without each person advocating aggressively for his position.” How ironic -- when I was at Apple in the 90s, our meetings were scattered creampuff things and this is how I imagined Microsoft would be. Now that I'm at Microsoft it's…

it's interesting how company cultures evolve. i work for google and have a friend at microsoft, and remarked to him once that our team meetings tend to have the underlying theme of "how can we make the user go 'whoa! they did that?!'". he noted that his team meetings tended to be more along the lines of "how can we crush the competition" (not in a monopolistic sense, just a very competitive view of technology). he actually felt that that constant sense of competition made microsoft a more interesting place to work at than google, whereas i really love how google wants to get things right rather than just better than anyone else (that's a side effect). both of us agreed that we would never work at apple, but i can see people of the right temperament thriving in that culture of obsessive secrecy and constant urgency.

Re: Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary

#65

Post by rprasad »

rimantas wrote: post #45
reedlaw wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sounds incredibly controlling, which would explain the lack of freedom on iOS and Apple's various platforms. It's not enough to own the entire ecosystem, anything outside is not allowed to run on the hardware (at least for iOS devices). Great for investors and Apple's bottom line, but horrible for consumers (e.g. this story: http://niederfamily.blogspot.be/2012/06/silencing-of-maya.ht... )

How comes that Apple products are leading in customer satisfaction surveys, if this is horrible for consumers?

In the same way that McDonalds leads fast food satisfcation survey, despite being undeniably bad for consumers' health.

Re: Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary

#66

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

redthrowaway wrote: post #32
its_so_on wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple would never release a laptop with a 1.5 hour battery (wifi web browsing). an unimaginable number of such laptops are brought out by every major brand other than Apple. (likewise apple has its standards in a phone, which is not the standard you cite, but not 45 minutes either.). Apple is opinionated on every part of the user interface and design, on usability and ease-of-use. They then go on to put their money w…

>It's very hard to find design decisions at Apple that seem to have 0 thought or discussion behind them. That doesn't mean the result of said thought was good , however: http://i.minus.com/dQhzPuq2CZUc/264182-apple-mac-os-x-lion-1...

There will always be miss-steps. But I don't think you ever achieve great design without being very opinionated. I feel that it helps to edit yourself.

I really hate all these fake textures they are going though.

Re: Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary

#67

Post by eropple »

huggyface wrote: post #56
eropple wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's too bad. I use my laptops as portable desktops, seldom away from a plug. So I have to heft around a giant battery because Apple decides that only one usage model is right? False assertion. With a Macbook Pro, you get one of the lightest laptops of its size, plus very competitive specs in pretty much all areas. (This goes for the new Retina one as well as the standard one.)

With a Macbook Pro, you get one of the lightest laptops of its size Samsung series 9 notebook - 2.8lbs. Macbook Pro - 4.4 - 5.6lbs. Apple is a remarkable organization, but they are still using the same Intel processors and chipsets, SSDs and wifi chips as everyone else. Where they have a longer battery life it usually is because they filled every crevice with battery, as with the new Retina Macbook Pro. It could have…

You're comparing a 15.4" mobile workstation with a 2.3GHz or 2.6GHz Ivy Bridge Core i7, 16GB of RAM, and a GT650...to a 13.3" notebook with an Intel IGP, a ULV Core i5, and a max of 8GB of RAM. They don't even come close to filling the same role. If you want to compare the MBP 15" to the Series 9 15", you're looking at a ULV Core i5 at 1.7GHz in the Series 9, still a maximum of 8GB of RAM, still a crappy Intel IGP, and it's less than a pound lighter (3.63 lb).

If you want to compare apples to apples, the 13" Air is a much more appropriate comparison to the original machine you were referring to. The Air has a faster processor (and an option to upgrade to an i7) and weighs almost exactly the same (2.96 pounds to 2.9--not 2.8 as you said).

So...you were saying?

Re: Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary

#68

Post by Evbn »

zem wrote: post #64
kabdib wrote: post #37

“High-performance teams should be at each other’s throats” is how one person with relationships with multiple Apple executives summarized the culture. “You don’t get to the right trade-off without each person advocating aggressively for his position.” How ironic -- when I was at Apple in the 90s, our meetings were scattered creampuff things and this is how I imagined Microsoft would be. Now that I'm at Microsoft it's…

it's interesting how company cultures evolve. i work for google and have a friend at microsoft, and remarked to him once that our team meetings tend to have the underlying theme of "how can we make the user go 'whoa! they did that?!'". he noted that his team meetings tended to be more along the lines of "how can we crush the competition" (not in a monopolistic sense, just a very competitive view of technology). he ac…

Not working on Android or G+. I infer.

Not fixing that typo, because my Android keyboard is insurmountably glitch.

Re: Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary

#69

Post by philwelch »

freehunter wrote: post #53
Angostura wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a matter of interest; what do you think the phone market would look like today if the iPhone hadn't come out. And what about the iTunes Store? Do you think you'd be able to buy a single track from album, yet?

Thought: what would we gain from a phone market without the iPhone? You'd be able to buy a phone with a stylus if you wanted (some people do want one) and a phone you can use with gloves or wet hands. Keyboards would be more common (rather than being a very small niche). There might be more mainstream hardware variety, rather than flagship phones all looking exactly alike. We might have seen true pocket computers (th…

If that was truly better, then it would have won against the iPhone in the market.

Re: Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary

#70

Post by mturmon »

xtractinator wrote: post #46
its_so_on wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a terrible environment, but I bet being a supreme court Justice is also a terrible environment. It also brings out profound conclusions and vision. When Apple says that battery-life is important in mobile devices, they mean it. If Samsung says it, maybe a year later they will turn around and bring out an eight-core phone that you can play a game on for forty-five minutes before having to plug it in again. Apple…

I'd really like to understand what hugely difficult technical issues you're talking about. Funding the development of a new higher DPI display?

Reliable trackpads, multitouch, battery life, pushing SSDs, unibody enclosures, magsafe, reliable wake-from-sleep, keyboard illumination. And I hope you don't regard the display as a minor accomplishment.
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