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Steve Jobs Sometimes Lies to You

zachholman.com

71–80 of 133 posts

Re: Steve Jobs Sometimes Lies to You

#71

There are plenty of (insert absolutely any apple product here)-killers that are loudly touted by the manufacturer, and any apple-hater that we have never heard of since. Do we whinge that there hasn't been more proof that the iphone/etc are best? Silence isn't incriminating, it's silence. How open is Honeycomb, or Ice Cream?

> How open is Honeycomb, or Ice Cream?

Do you have any idea how much crap they are getting for that? People made a stink, and they learned their lesson.

Re: Steve Jobs Sometimes Lies to You

#73

My wife: "Will you take the trash out?" Me: "Yeah, for sure. I'll take it out tonight." Tonight rolls by and the next day she tells me "You didn't take out the trash. You lied." Did I lie? Or did I have honest intentions of taking out the trash with circumstances getting in the way? Maybe I just forgot? I don't presume to know Jobs' intentions but without a history of lying during presentations I'm going to assume hi…

To be honest, I have a hard time believing that Apple doesn't have an internal protocol spec for FaceTime and created the protocol willy nilly. Which makes me question how hard it could possibly be to submit an open draft to a standards body. Changing your mind is usually okay, but when you push being open as a big feature and then don't pursue it, people can't help but feel baited and switched.

Re: Steve Jobs Sometimes Lies to You

#74

' “Open” isn’t just a buzz word. People like the word “open”. Marketers love it. ' A very valid point, everyone these days in jumping on the open bandwagon. This problem isn't limited to just Apple unfortunately - several companies have been guilty of twisting open to suit their needs (HTC not releasing some modified Android code which was under GPL a while ago, and Google not releasing the Honeycomb source come to m…

What I heard on the Google/Honeycomb was that they released it earlier than intended. Part of it was the Xoom driving it, some was to compete with iPads, but it wasn't so much of a planned release. Google actually requires you to sign a license agreement if you want to release a 3.0 device, from which I've heard, requires for you to not change your hardware for X years. The next release, 3.1 Ice Cream Sandwich, is the planned release and will be open source.

Re: Steve Jobs Sometimes Lies to You

#75

What are your thoughts on this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facetime#Standards It would appear that FaceTime is built on top of open standards, is Steve more explicit than that in the original presentation (for example, does he say that access to Apple's FaceTime servers will be available openly, etc.)?

This can be said of almost every single video implementation ever. Nearly every single one utilizes H.323, SIP, RTP, H.2XX codecs, NAT traversal (ICE, STUN, etc), SDP, ISDN, etc.

Each one of those protocols has many optional characteristics and properties that don't operate together unless they're planned or someone has created the super-stack which is fully compliant with every deviation from the specification. Even then, many of the specifications aren't truly specifications (SIP), and even some of the specifications have portions for customization (SIP) that don't require adherence to specification (recommendation).

This literally means nothing other than you could probably reverse engineer it and create something that would work with it. Until they change it.

Re: Steve Jobs Sometimes Lies to You

#76
post #74

' “Open” isn’t just a buzz word. People like the word “open”. Marketers love it. ' A very valid point, everyone these days in jumping on the open bandwagon. This problem isn't limited to just Apple unfortunately - several companies have been guilty of twisting open to suit their needs (HTC not releasing some modified Android code which was under GPL a while ago, and Google not releasing the Honeycomb source come to m…

What I heard on the Google/Honeycomb was that they released it earlier than intended. Part of it was the Xoom driving it, some was to compete with iPads, but it wasn't so much of a planned release. Google actually requires you to sign a license agreement if you want to release a 3.0 device, from which I've heard, requires for you to not change your hardware for X years. The next release, 3.1 Ice Cream Sandwich, is th…

Which is just as damning. "This software is so bad we won't show you the source code."

Re: Steve Jobs Sometimes Lies to You

#77

My wife: "Will you take the trash out?" Me: "Yeah, for sure. I'll take it out tonight." Tonight rolls by and the next day she tells me "You didn't take out the trash. You lied." Did I lie? Or did I have honest intentions of taking out the trash with circumstances getting in the way? Maybe I just forgot? I don't presume to know Jobs' intentions but without a history of lying during presentations I'm going to assume hi…

You either lied or failed at your commitments, which are effectiveley the same thing when addressing the public, in a professional capacity, on behalf of a large corporation.

Re: Steve Jobs Sometimes Lies to You

#78

My wife: "Will you take the trash out?" Me: "Yeah, for sure. I'll take it out tonight." Tonight rolls by and the next day she tells me "You didn't take out the trash. You lied." Did I lie? Or did I have honest intentions of taking out the trash with circumstances getting in the way? Maybe I just forgot? I don't presume to know Jobs' intentions but without a history of lying during presentations I'm going to assume hi…

It took me too long to figure this out. There are some people to truly, and passionately, believe something they say to you, and realistically they personally can't make it happen so you can't really bank on that 'promise.'

I used to think those people were lying to take advantage, but as I've gotten older I have come to recognize that these 'yes' people get promoted a lot. And for some of them, they really do believe what they are saying.

As an engineer I've found that once I can 'calibrate' someone's 'yes-ness' I can then work with them, understanding that they only make 'wishful' commitments rather than 'reasoned' commitments.

So when someone, like Steve Jobs, says "we're going to make it an open standard!", my first question then is "Great, I've got your support in making this an open standard so I can count on you to wield your position influence to aid me when folks line up against that effort, right?" If the answer that that question is no, then they were lying.

The difference is subtle of course but important. Steve clearly doesn't go to standards meetings and vote etc, but if Manager Bob gets push back from accounting that he's going to exceed his travel budget by sending 5 guys to the Open Video Chat Working Group which is championing the Facetime protocol as an open standard, then Manager Bob goes to Steve and says "I need your help here, these 5 guys are needed to argue this standard and keep it from being turned into a turd by the 5 guys from Google who are going to attend." and then Steve whips off a one liner to accounting that says "Get off this guy's back we need this." Then its all good. If on the other hand he says "We gotta save money, send one guy." well in that case I'm more sympathetic to the accusation of prevarication.

Re: Steve Jobs Sometimes Lies to You

#79

My wife: "Will you take the trash out?" Me: "Yeah, for sure. I'll take it out tonight." Tonight rolls by and the next day she tells me "You didn't take out the trash. You lied." Did I lie? Or did I have honest intentions of taking out the trash with circumstances getting in the way? Maybe I just forgot? I don't presume to know Jobs' intentions but without a history of lying during presentations I'm going to assume hi…

To be honest, I have a hard time believing that Apple doesn't have an internal protocol spec for FaceTime and created the protocol willy nilly. Which makes me question how hard it could possibly be to submit an open draft to a standards body. Changing your mind is usually okay, but when you push being open as a big feature and then don't pursue it, people can't help but feel baited and switched.

I have a hard time believing that Apple doesn't have an internal protocol spec for FaceTime and created the protocol willy nilly.

You can design something very intentionally without ever having compiled a spec for it. There are certainly design notes, e-mail conversations, and, of course, the code itself to document the protocol for internal purposes.

Which makes me question how hard it could possibly be to submit an open draft to a standards body.

Assuming FaceTime has an internal spec, that does not mean it is in any shape ready for public consumption. For example, the spec could leave unspecified various things that Apple's particular implementation did not have to address. It could be written very informally. It could have fallen out-of-date as the protocol evolved.

None of this would mean that FaceTime was designed "willy nilly." There are processes less than ideal but still perfectly acceptable.

Re: Steve Jobs Sometimes Lies to You

#80
The author of this blog post is a known loud-mouth, a know-it-all, yet wrong 99% of the time.

There's got to be a way to block these ignorant kids and their bullshit, ignorant blog posts. They are stuck in a 12-year-old mindset, and don't know why the tech world operates like it does.

Seriously... look at all of his bullshit blog postings. I'm glad he's focused on that, instead of using his stupidity to harm others. Usually it can be ignored (unless it pops up on 'Hacker-Wannabe-Script-Kiddie-Failed-Businessman' News)

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