Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Untitled topic

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 259 posts

Re: undefined

#91

Post by passivate »

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…

It takes years to develop stuff, and a final gatekeeping step will certainly prevent them from shipping junk, but doesn't teach people how to create something that isn't junk.

Re: undefined

#92

Post by nostromo »

microtonal wrote: post #54
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…

The overall software quality has dropped markedly at Apple and the hardware more uneven since he left. Mostly on the Mac. The butterfly keyboard and how Apple handled it, were terrible. And macOS quality had gone down release after release. But I have never had any serious software or hardware quality issues with the iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods or any other products. It seems that they had just lost focus on the Mac…

Mac development started stagnating under Jobs though, once the iPod and then iPhone really took off.

It's well known that Jobs was basically bored with the Mac and spent all of his time focusing on the iPhone.

This is where having a single visionary in charge of everything (including small decisions) breaks down. There are so many days in the week and you can't be everywhere at once.

Cook is the better CEO, and Jobs was the better founder / early CEO in my view. I'm thrilled with the M1, and I'm not sure that would ever be something Jobs would have developed.

Re: undefined

#93

Post by Bud »

killion wrote: post #68
duxup wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Definitely, I don’t see a way you could elevate someone to the level Steve was at. I think the plan was to have Jony Ive be the final word on design person. But with iOS 7 Ives showed he didn’t get software and the “design is how it works” concept.

Not really. iOS 7 is an insignificant blip. Hundreds of other times, Ive showed that he was the best in the entire world at the "design is how it works" concept. Ive was the embodiment of that for his entire time at Apple. Jony Ive is the person who made it possible for Steve Jobs to say that without being laughed at.

Don't diss Jony Ive. He is the man.

Re: undefined

#94

Post by [deleted] »

snek_case wrote: post #13
animanoir wrote: post #5

Mixed feelings about him honestly. I still can't forget how he betrayed Wozniak.

Having read multiple Jobs biographies, it also seemed to me that he may have been bipolar, but unmedicated because of his stance on medication. Sometimes very hard to work with or be around. People ascribe incredible genius to this guy, but forget that he could be a very impulsive, arrogant and sometimes cruel human being. Regarding Steve Wozniak, that's another big issue. Not only the betrayal, but it betrays a divi…

[deleted]

Re: undefined

#95

Post by bigtones »

paxys wrote: post #19
animanoir wrote: post #5

Mixed feelings about him honestly. I still can't forget how he betrayed Wozniak.

He screwed over a ton of Apple employees. In Jobs' mind he truly deserved all of the credit and profits for their success because he was the vision guy. Woz and the rest of the team were just doing the boring implementation stuff.

He didn't just screw over Apple employees - Pixar employees and founders too.

Re: undefined

#96

Post by pico303 »

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…

Every time I see some usability flub in Mac software—like the new Safari tabs—I think that Steve is just a little more gone. Despite his flaws, he really understood how people interact with computers in a way not many others do.

Re: undefined

#97

Post by blowski »

killion wrote: post #60
LewisVerstappen wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used iOS 15?

Agreed. Even a little thing like Safari having the close button on the wrong side in iOS 15 would have gotten someone fired. Multitasking in iPadOS is also a good example of non-Mac software being near unusable.

> Even a little thing like Safari having the close button on the wrong side in iOS 15 would have gotten someone fired.

In which case, it sounds like a good thing they have a more sustainable culture. But I'm not sure your comment is true anyway.

Of course, Apple made all sorts of mistakes under Steve Jobs. In such a creative company, only a culture of freedom to make mistakes could produce extreme success. But now, because of a nostaglic cult of personality, any mistake meets with howls of "this would never happened under Steve!". That hero worship is a bigger problem for Apple.

Re: undefined

#99

Post by Apocryphon »

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…

Another interesting what-if: what if Wozniak remained at Apple after 1985? How would the company have proceeded, especially after Jobs was removed- if he was?

Re: undefined

#100

Post by takahisah »

Ten years ago I was at Infinite Loop, when Apple held a special event in memory of Steve. Everybody was wearing sunglasses to hide their tears, even Tim and Jony. I remember Jonys speech quite vividly as it showed how truly close they were. He joked about how he would never unpack his bags upon arriving at a hotel because Steve would call him and say the hotel is shit so they had to move immediately after checking in. I think it’s those human connections he made that made him so great. Lots of people have their Steve Jobs story. I don’t know of many other people that make that kind of connection with people on such a deep level. Thanks Apple for posting this and thanks for remembering and celebrating him. I’m no longer an employee, but always a fan. May your best inventions be in your future.
Post reply on HN