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Shake-up at Apple: Forstall Out; iOS Executive Fired For Maps Debacle?
New submitter noh8rz10 writes "Apple's Scott Forstall, who grew iOS from its inception, is departing the company. Rumors say it's because of the Maps debacle, and problems with Siri as well. Jony Ive is taking a larger human interface role, which means he may kill the skeuomorphic interfaces he hates. John Browett, head of retail, is out as well; he never won the trust of the community. What does such a major shakeup say about Tim Cook's leadership?"
i don't even know how to interpret that.
Apple and the trust of the community?
Apple, so far as I have seen, is either loved unconditionally, or disliked for various reasons.
Was there a part of "the community" that was waiting to be won over? Community CUPS devs?
Hey, quit saying "skeuomorphic" in there!
Hopefully, we'll get better UI designs
Forestall does pretty good work, but he's always been too proud to listen when someone else has a better idea. He shouldn't be working on products that are used by hundreds of millions of people all around the world.
The thought of him working directly under Tim Cook, who doesn't know much about product design, has always made me uncomfortable.
Hooray for Ive, he's possibly the best engineer I have ever heard of, except for maybe Wozniak. This is a good day for Apple.
It seems more and more each day that he really was the glue that held the vision together.
The rats are being thrown off the sinking ship.
This is more like bilge water being pumped out of a ship, after the damage to the hull has been repaired.
[Apple] Steve's gone. Let's turn the page. We'll stop being dicks, no more lawsuits.
[Google] Sounds good. We'll give you maps with turn-by-turn navigation.
What does such a major shakeup say about Tim Cook's leadership?
He is going to lead and hold people accountable?
For example, the way the OS X Address Book attempts to resemble
a paper address book. This is pointless and stupid and the only
people it could possibly appeal to are idiots who probably don't
use a computer for anything more than surfing the web anyway.
This is the kind of crap that insults me when I see it on a computer I
paid a lot of money to buy.
If Ive gets rid of this crap, he will have my everlasting appreciation.
Also, and MUCH more important : Apple MUST quit trying to blend the
interface used by OS X with the interface used by iOS. The result of
such attempts at blending is stuff that is annoying and awful to use and
it is an insult to a user who has a modicum of intelligence. QUIT THIS
SHIT, Tim Cook, or your legacy will be that of the guy who fucked up
a good thing, and that is not a legacy anyone with honor wants.
...that Tim Cook has firmly taken the reins and is going to start running Apple the way he sees fit, with his team - not the team that was there when he took over.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
He's the one who designed all their successful products, after all.
I'd say that Tim Cook's leadership still has 11 years to get worse.
After reading that, I realized that this was indeed true and in fact there has been an alternate philosphy besides the skeuomorphic design which is the "war on color" in some aspects of OS X (e.g., the flat gray scroll bars, the gray linen background for the virtual desktop manager, even the world map for changing the time zone). So, now I'm wondering if the skeuomorphic faction led by Forstall has lost the debate, was Ive and the other minimalist design people behind the "war on color" and if that's true, is that what we'll see in future versions of the OS with Ive leading the interface design? I'm not sure how I feel about that, I really don't like using an OS that is drab and boring, it's depressing (I actually liked Aqua for the most part, which was also Forstall's invention I guess). Either way, it's good to know that Apple isn't afraid of rocking the boat still. That skeuomorphic crap might have been good for increasing everyone's vocabulary with regards to interface design, but it was annoying as hell to use.
Now, if only Apple would admit they screwed up the document versioning system beyond repair and give us a proper "Save As..." since the dawn of the computer (or thereabouts) I would consider Apple as having fully realized the error of their ways and moving decidedly in a less terrible direction. But alas, Federhigi is still in charge and they haven't brought Serlet back from retirement unfortunately.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Look, it's bad when people on TV use Siri and iMaps as a joke for a bunch of different shows. I've seen it on commericals, sitcoms, and of course stand up comedy.
Granted it's more Siri related, but the iMaps get said a bit also.
Siri i can understand not working, we are talking speech recognition, but a map program? That is seriously bad.
Lets see how they fix it though.
Be seeing you...
Sinking ship my ass. They are rolling in money.
It's well known that Scott Forstall didn't get along with the others. He's been called a "mini-Steve (Jobs)" and described as "maddeningly political":
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/scott-forstall-the-sorcerers-apprentice-at-apple-10122011.html
If he was ousted, it's probably due more to the others thinking he's an asshole. The Maps debacle provides a convenient excuse, but I doubt it's the real reason behind this. This is just another political backstabbing, that's all.
If you check SEC company executive stock records, one can find that Scott Forstall has sold off his Apple Stock options earlier this year, in preparation for a possible departure. His departure has actually been planned for several weeks, but was not announced until today along with the departure of John Browett, who was Sr. VP for Retails operations for Apple.
The current executive reorganization of Mr. Forstall's duties have been spread over several senior Apple executives, distributing responsibilities according to their current function. Read the press release to see the respective changes.
Some people have speculated that Scott Forstall might be the ultimate successor to Steve Jobs, since he came with Steve from NeXT computer back to Apple in 1997. He has been involved in the development of Mac OS X, including heading the Leopard OS development and development of the Aqua user interface in OS X, along with leading the development of iPhone and later iOS system software since 2004.
I don't know what Scott Forstall plans to do, but there is some speculation that he might be involved a project with a former Apple engineer. Needless to say, he probably has a non-compete clause with Apple, he will have respect for a while given his critical involvement with key Apple products like the iPhone, iPad and iOS system software.
I would not be surprised to see Scott come back to Apple sometime in the future, but he has earned a well-earned sabbatical given his recent efforts.
Scott has been messing up. The interface designs are getting out of control on iOS and OS X, and hopefully Ive will fix that. Maps and Siri still don't work as advertised (though they are getting better all the time). I don't think Scott will be missed. It makes a LOT of sense to reorganize how they did, though Mansfeld though should have retired......
The other guy, good riddance. His managing of the Apple Stores is questionable to say the least.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
They have so much money it's sinking the ship.
From Wikipedia: "[Interfaces that emulate] objects in the physical world."
Don't lie and say you knew what that meant. You didn't...
This means Jack Shit, it's standard mokey politics for an incoming boss, sack a few high profile monkeys and the other monkeys will fall into line. A boss who isn't noticed and can't hand pick his entorage is a figure head, not a leader.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Oh I don't know, Steve was fairly slimy. His treatment of Chrissann Brennan, for example, or how he cheated Woz out of money when Steve was at Atari.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Apple has already produced it's best ever products and it is on the way down now. Nothing new or exciting will come out of Apple in future.
From the pictures I saw, I know of one ship (if you can call it that) that should be sunk.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
They have so much money it's sinking the ship.
More to the point they have so much money a nuke couldn't sink their ship.
This means Jack Shit, it's standard mokey politics for an incoming boss, sack a few high profile monkeys and the other monkeys will fall into line. A boss who isn't noticed and can't hand pick his entorage is a figure head, not a leader.
When you are insecure and/or can't earn the genuine respect and admiration of those around you by means of your talent, expertise, and inspiring leadership, I suppose you might become desperate enough to resort to such Machiavellian tactics as this.
If he can't be better than a monkey, he wants to be the biggest monkey. What a shame that so many don't understand this is not real respect. Not even close. Of course it's not realistic to expect basic wisdom from the kind of dehumanized sociopaths who tend to run corporations, but I can dream.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Down 15% in 6 weeks. Apple definitely qualifies as a sinking stock. As to whether the ship itself will sink... one can only hope. Realistically I expect that we will be stuck with Apple and its bad acting for quite some time to come. However a humbled, smaller Apple will definitely be easier to tolerate that the current arrogant, destructive corporate bully.
Continuing the ship analogy, Apple board would be wise to make Tim Cook walk the plank without delay. But it is a safe bet they will continue to act their typical, domesticated and irresponsible selves and just keep banking that free money for showing up at the annual meetings with their mouths zipped shut. Which is great for the rest of us, because that's the absolute worst thing that could happen to Apple.
While I'm in here, some advice to Tim Cook: lose the black turtleneck. Steve Jobs could pull it off, you can't.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
To be fair, nukes don't so much sink ships as move the surrounding ocean above them.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Remember that the dehumanized sociopaths running companies are competing against other sociopaths. If a new CEO shows any weakness, the other sociopaths will conspire to oust them. Just as Kim Jong-Un had to purge a bunch of his father's old advisers in order to solidify his grip on North Korea, so too must new CEOs purge a board member or two in order to prove they're the boss.
It's not about what's best for the company. People who genuinely have the company's interests at heart won't be able to compete in that world. When you realize what sort of people these are, and what sort of world they live in, it's utterly unsurprising that their actions make no sense to us. They're practically a different species.
A boss who isn't noticed and can't hand pick his entorage is a figure head, not a leader.
I'll call that pure spin. It is readily apparent that Apple has made a string of costly bluners lately, shareholders aren't happy and victims had to be found to pay the price. But since they didn't sack those actually responsible (Tim Cook, we're looking at you) I am confident that the blunders will continue.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Almost every level of a publicly elected official come with his own monkeys. Look at any president and his cabinet. Sometimes it's faster to come with your own folks than trying to convince others of their loyalty/ trust/ unified vision.
Down 15% for good reason, it was overvalued. The entire market is. The Dow shouldn't be above 10k as long as unemployment is above 8%.
OR we do not really know what happened are are making an assumption?
We do know that IOS 6 sucked. It had power issues, maps were unusable, and Sirii still has issues. To this day people love putitng pics on facebook of IPhones misinterpretting things in embarrasing conversations.
I would fire several people too. Not to show who is boss and be a badass, but because that should not have been released PERIOD. Did they do any QA at all? WTF. I could be wrong too and Cook could have demanded it and ignored issues but this would be likely a good termination ... well except for the guy who got canned.
http://saveie6.com/
I don't think apple, just like most big business, ever really recognized actual work. Steve Wozniak never got the recognition he deserved back in the 80s so I doubt Jony Ive will get his. As long as Tim Cook manages to put up a show and keep numbers like 5 million iPhones pre-orders, he will be the boss. By the way, some current bad choices, such as Siri current low capabilities and the use of skeuomorphic interfaces, were made when Jobs was still alive.
Here we go. I saw something like this coming from Apple. Steve was the glue that held the helm. No doubt Apple's market experience has been tough with all the battles going on, but the color of Apple is changing. Expect more I'm affraid... For the record, I'm just an Oracle. I know nothing...
That there's no way they will do a smaller iPad... Tim Cook says... "Yes, we can!"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Can we have NewtonOS back now please?
But is he a leader? He is in essence Apple’s blacksmith, the blacksmith of all time.
"The iShip is syncing..."
Down 15% because the wall street analysts are playing shenanigans. Amazon posts a $274 million LOSS, and there isn't a single article in the news about it. Apple posts profits that are a little bit less than the made up numbers the analysts pulled out of their asses, and all the news sources practically shit themselves over the 'disappointing' news, conveniently ignoring the fact that the record 8.2 billion in profits happen to be 26% up over the year ago quarter and their best 4th quarter ever.
I heard it was because of a conflict with Bob Mansfield. Looks like after the Maps debacle, Forstall's asshole attitude didn't last.
Notice Bob Mansfield came straight out of retirement and got new responsibilities out of this little incident.
It's funny most slashdotters are saying "oh look, this must be bad for apple" and most of the apple websites are saying "good riddance"
I would imagine the gesture only required one finger to execute. ;)
Forstall sounds like he was kind of a cancer and his excess skeumorphism ruptured an otherwise seamless aesthetic that is a big part of why a lot of people but Apple products. Browett had a bad record and was never a good fit for Apple IMO and his idiocy with trying to draw down clerk hours to save a few bucks demonstrates a cultural disjoint between him and Apple's obsession with customer experience. If your customers don't feel special they will not pay premium margins. A discount retail approach would convert their hugely powerful retail outlets into cost centers.
The Maps issues aren't related to anything but the quality of data as far as I'm aware. I have no idea if that's his fault, or if it was his fault to put Maps on prematurely, but strategically I think Apple had to divest Google from their platform there at some point.
(%i1) factor(777353);
(%o1) 777353
These people were able to rise above old Steve Wonder Jobs' "There them a new one" daily attitude, and he knew enough not to piss them off enough to watch them depart. Whatever they brought to the job, Jobs wanted. Tim Cook is cheerful enough to start tossing people under the bus/over the edge. "We have enough money, we don't need to put up with these people anymore." So some people go, and they try to hire people to replace them. We don't need any more of those geeky engineer types, we could use more sales people. Hello Apple. You are on the same track as HP, Sun, Apollo, etc. You have millions, and you are circling the drain.
Down 15% for good reason, it was overvalued.
A superficial claim devoid of analysis. A company that consistently turns in 20% annual growth would normally be rewarded with a far higher earnings multiple than Apple's current 14. This is a clear signal: the smart money does not expect Apple's earnings to continue to grow at anything like that. In fact, even 5% annual growth would be worth a multiple of 25 to 30 if there was any confidence it would continue. A multiple of 14 in fact reflects a significant perception that Apple's earnings will shrink. I'm with that camp, and that's not just wishful thinking, it's because Android and at-cost products from Google and Amazon mean the high margin party is over. This is plain enough to see.
BTW, that's all just elementary risk/reward analysis. It's not hard. Everybody who consistently makes money trading stocks understands it well.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Not to show who is boss and be a badass, but because that should not have been released PERIOD. Did they do any QA at all? WTF..
Seriously? From the debacle that is the product just released at $work, with huge rounds of all-levels-of-management congratulations for getting the product out the door, I'd say that nothing matters other than the date. Not functionality, not quality, not employee retention (12-16 hour days, 7 days a week, for 3 months?). Nothing other than that date. It was going to be delivered come hell or high water.
If it doesn't pan out, someone may lose their job. Maybe a few people. But probably not the same people who decided to deliver on a particular date regardless of readiness.
If Apple is anything like this, it doesn't matter whether QA was finished their job or not. A particular event was scheduled, an announcement had to be made, the product had to be delivered, whether ready or not.
That makes ZERO sense. Stock price is effectively a wager on projected future earnings, it has little to do with unemployment. DJI is just an index. Corporate profits are way up, so stock prices are up, so indexes are up. Apple continues to break earnings records and has a relatively low P/E ratio, particularly measured against AMZN and GOOG. The stock MAY be overvalued (or not), but it certainly isn't as overvalued as its peers.
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As soon as I heard this I was happy. I am a computer user. I don't gaze at my computer fondly and I don't use it to access content and I could give a rat's ass if it looks like some 1920s calendar (unless there's a Vargas girl on the front!). I want the computer to help me do my job and otherwise get the (expletive deleted) out of the way. I am hoping this will mean some time and effort spent on fixing some of the oddball things that haven't worked right in OS X for far too long. Let the Content Eaters get their rocks off on their iPads and iPhones, but a desktop machine is made for heavy-duty work, be it graphics design or down-to-the-metal coding. I don't want pretty and I don't want cute - I want works and doesn't need constant maintenance (which is why I'm off the Linux desktop). I'm probably reading in to this more than I should, but I hope at least some of what I'm reading is right.
I wouldn't say that.
What I would say is the rats are being pushed out from overcrowding...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Tim Cook has all the qualities of a man who could survive in a company led by Steve Jobs. These qualities are not necessarily the same qualities needed to run a company after Steve Jobs.
and the Apple ecosystem (for the last three years) and that has worried about Apple without Jobs (and even more after the maps fiasco), this reassures me. Love the move, and just saw Tim Cook climb on my respect ladder.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
13.68 P/E... I wouldn't write them off just yet, the holiday season could do interesting things to the stock.
(%i1) factor(777353);
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Most of the world is not going to care about this complete non-issue. I'm sure most /. readers wouldn't even know about it if Soulskill didn't keep bringing it up every few months. I have been hearing claims that GUIs are going to escape from the bonds of skeuomorphic design as people become more tech-savvy, but somehow we have to continue to tolerate the whining. Apple has always tried to appeal to the fountain-pen-never-used-on-the-desk market and has embraced that asthetic in its GUI decorations. If anything, this is an asthetic which is seeing a resurgence with the rise of 'hipsters' who want to make digital pictures look like 70s era polaroids. Non-skeuomorphic designs are available to replace pretty much everything on any of these devices, so if you want it so bad, go get it and incentivise people to cater to your whims, but please stop cluttering /. with this long, pretentious word.
Not only that, but the guys he wouldn't dare fire, namely Jony Ive (the genius industrial designer behind iEverything who basically saved Apple) must be indulged in doing whatever the hell they want, even though they probably shouldn't, namely control the GUI, otherwise they will come into early conflict with the new boss.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
I have no idea what you think they should get for "recognition" that they already haven't gotten. Ive has been knighted, given wheelbarrows full of awards, and will retire a very, very wealthy man. Wozniak -- I think he got all the recognition he wanted. He was a big player back when floppy disk drives were a new technology, and is (so I hear) still on good terms with the executives at Apple. But he left almost 30 years ago.
If I were Ive I wouldn't budge from my position. He's basically in the heart of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, with any toy, process, tool, material, and workforce he needs to get something done, and essentially no responsibility for some of the more tedious parts of running the business. And now he's got the software side of things, so hopefully we see the end of some of the more...creative...apps and back to something that's more functional.
Both of which he seemed to make up for later in life when, you know, he grew up.
Apple needs to stop the thin on the desktop
Come on one of the new imacs systems does not even have user ram door?? and 5400 RPM HD's? with no cd / dvd??? I can see it on the mini but the imac AKA something that apple is pushing for PRO use does not have one?
And the mac pro is very out of date but at least do a price cut or some out with a desktop with a desktop cpu / desktop video card (yes the adobe apps do use video cards) / and more then 1 HDD slot. External enclosures are a mess and take up a lot of desk space.
As Steve Jobs said software is the soul of the products.
And this is problem with putting business people in charge of tech companies. Or putting a generic CEO in charge of a car company. If any company should have learned how devastating a non-technologist like John Sculley is: he nearly destroyed Apple. You've got to love what you do.
Instead the new CEO throws down a useless gauntlet to sign apologies instead of taking the blame himself. Coward.
I'm sure Tim Cook could have coded the iPhone OS and the MAP app himself before his morning work-out. HA!
We NEED to support people who think different! Rather than throw them under the bus.
The "smart money" thought the same thing when the stock was at $50. Now its north of $500. The smart money aint too smart.
WWJD
What Would Jobs Do
We apologize again for the faults in iOS 6. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.
I like your dream, but at the end of the day you are fighting millions of years of evolution and the basic human fact that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Maybe our species can supress those instincts one day, like when slavery and genocide went out of fashion, but I doubt I will live long enough to see more than glimpses of your dream in the world around me.
Also daydreaming can get you killed. To many, many, people, fear is the equivalent of respect. If they didn't think that way, then gun control wouldn't be an issue in the US.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Well of course you reward your loyal monkeys that have been with you all the way, it would be foolish to kick down your own ladder when you get to the top. ;)
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You misunderstand me, until today I had no idea who Tim Cook was. The fact that it is a story about Apple is irrelevant, I made the comment because I have seen a lot of monkeys in my time and I'm familiar with their behaviour.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You don't understand the first thing about stocks, do you? Of course the pricing of the company will follow all the information about the company, not just the formal quarterly earning announcements.
Amazon, for instance, told everybody that they were spending massive amounts of money in expanding its infrastructure (mostly, building large warehouses near urban areas, instead of shipping from Nevada to San Francisco for instance).
It's not a shenanigan, it's just people quite sensibly pricing the stock to match the news. For instance, Amazon let people know about the expansion plans, the news was widely disseminated and analyzed, etc.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Don't look at the tree. Look at the forest.
At the time of Jobs death the stock was around $380 and going up steadily over the last years.
Exactly after his death the stock started moving up much more aggressively to reach its peak of $700 on year later with the introduction of iPhone 5.
Call me a conspiracy theorist but what I read is the Wall Street boys holing AAPL realized that Apple without Jobs isn't going to be Apple and decided to drive the stock up in order to get rid of their stocks.
I bet you Apple will be down to 300 in 6 months to a year.
I believe that within Apple, it's called "Real artists ship"?
I gotta admit, this is somewhat interesting.
Remember the original iMac and Mac OS X 10.1? The original iMac had these lines in the plastic. Mac OS X 10.1 also had these lines. As Apple hardware went more metalic, so did the interface.
I wonder if we'll see more of that "integrated whole" type of thing.
I know I really shouldn't complain about this, but my flippant little remark here isn't worthy of the highest moderation available on slashdot. I was simply expressing my frustration that this man hasn't been in charge of software up until this point. Apple's software may be on par with the best available software, but it's not up to their hardware standards. Not by a long shot. Which is especially confusing because it's a one time cost, while more expensive hardware adds to the cost of every unit sold.
Actually, no. Stock price is simply an instantaneous measure of the relative attractiveness of a stock vs it's peers.
Historically, potential attractiveness is measured by some folks as proportional to projected future earnings (PE ratio), but that is a created reality, not anything fundamental. Simply because others think that is an appropriate measure, it becomes a somewhat usable measure (in that it approximates the "attractiveness" utility function of people competing to buy the stock). In the '90's bubble, when net earnings per share for some hot companies weren't high enough to justify high prices via the PE metric, the stock papperazzi dug up an old out-of-favor metric called Price Earnings to Growth (PEG). By dividing by growth, the that made these low PE, high-growth companies suddenly appear more attractive. That didn't work for firms with negative net earnings, so they made up new ways to measure potential earnings (e.g., normalized revenue with sustainable margins). This just goes to show that the measures of attractiveness of a stock can and will change over time.
Another big factor in a stock price is the total amount of money being invested in the stock market. As more money pours in, stocks get boosted somewhat in proportion to their relative attractiveness, so even in projected future earnings are the same, the stock price will go up. As 401k and pension funds have more money to invest or if say bond interest rates hover at all time historic lows, more money will pour into the stock market. In this environment, stocks will go up regardless of changes in measures of earnings (same supply of stock, more demand results in higher prices). To help satisfy this demand more companies will issue stock (e.g., IPOs, secondary offerings, etc) to attempt to sastify demand.
Of course a stock price or and index has little to do with unemployment, but because of money flow pressures, a stock price does bear some relation to an index (which is a rough measure of money flow into a basket of stocks). If you believe that a stock is priced "efficiently", projected corporate profit is "built-in" to the stock price and thus it's relative attractiveness. Only if stocks "crush" or "miss" their projections, is there a forcing function to change attractiveness.
13.68 P/E... I wouldn't write them off just yet, the holiday season could do interesting things to the stock.
Yes, like maybe put a lot of Nexus Sevens and Nexus Fours under the Christmas tree. I know this is certainly the case amongst the folks I know, and these are not geeks. The geeks, they aren't waiting for Christmas.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I bet you Apple will be down to 300 in 6 months to a year.
I would take your bet, not because I have any confidence in Apple governance (quite the contrary) but because it takes a while for the air to leak out of an operation that big. Just look at Microsoft. Or even Nokia, pre-Elop.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Yep. Who wants to carry a GPS around? There's a lame one with a lousy touch-screen interface in my car, but my phone's is better, even witht the mistakes that apple maps has. In fact, they've got the Radisson correctly placed in La Jolla, while Google maps had it screwed up (and one street / half-mile away) for years. So I'm actually not forgiving of Apple for screwing up their map transition; I want everything with me all at once. And working. And Apple is screwing up their once-held reputation of "it just works."
Seriously? From the debacle that is the product just released at $work, with huge rounds of all-levels-of-management congratulations for getting the product out the door, I'd say that nothing matters other than the date. Not functionality, not quality, not employee retention (12-16 hour days, 7 days a week, for 3 months?). Nothing other than that date. It was going to be delivered come hell or high water.
This, precisely, brought Nokia to where it is now. Failure to acknowledge quality slips early and take action to fix the dysfunctional development culture that caused them. Any company that allows it will destroy itself in the long run.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
Institutional memory and big bold huge egos on both sides (of the table / of El Camino Real / or both sides of the 101, goog east at mountainview, appl west at cupertino) mean that those scenarious would never occur. Why would either side stop thinking of the other as an enemy? (enemy = competitor in the business world)
I'm not surprised that you got modded so highly for the old 'everyone above me on the corporate ladder is a sociopath' meme, as it certainly sits well among the 'downtrodden' Engineering types so common around these parts.
Could it also be possible that when part of a hierarchical organization fucks up really badly, someone near the top of that part of the organization should be ultimately held responsible, because it was that person's *job* to ensure that they'd hired the right people under them and put the right processes in place in order to avoid publicly embarrassing failures?
Or does believing that bit of 'business common sense' also make me a sociopath?
Not in the "doomed" sense, but in the code complete sense. A guy driven to innovate that isn't going to be happy maintaining it. You need a whole other KIND of guy for that. If you can't give that guy a new mountain to climb he will wander off in search of it himself.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
When you are insecure and/or can't earn the genuine respect and admiration of those around you by means of your talent, expertise, and inspiring leadership, I suppose you might become desperate enough to resort to such Machiavellian tactics as this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
We shall have to see this holiday season if their legendary supply chain can keep up with the legendary bottomless demand. Apple makes good margins against apparently unlimited demand, so the only question is their production capacity.
Losing Samsung as a component supplier may crimp their style. Samsung doesn't have that problem because not only do they make their own stuff, they invent it too. And now Samsung makes the Nexus 10.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Obligatory 'toon
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
1. that some people go so deep with the skeuomorphic concept as to almost make the UI like a mechanical device, comprising all the complexity a real apparatus would truly have and
2. the knee jerk reaction of some others saying they hate skeuomorphic when this is really not possible: skeumorphic is our middle name, from the spoons which mimic our hands to the bowls which follow natural vases (like cocoa and calabash).
IMHO, being human is being tied to skeuomorphism, and attempts to eliminate it are at best exercises on futility.
That said, I agree too much sugar on my coffee makes it unbearable -- as is the case with bitter sugarless coffee.
It's been clear that the Era of Tim is one where Litigation trumps Innovation. Apple is rapidly devolving into the world's biggest patent troll and therefore no longer has to design, create, make or sell anything.
The iSheep is singing
factor 966971: 966971
Where is this (%i1) prompt from?
I usually factor from the *nix command line.
factor 966971: 966971
THe value of the dow, and more specifically, the value of the companies thaat are its components, has nothing to do with the unemployment rate. Its all to do with earnings of the enterprises, and companies now are more profitable than theyve ever been before. On top of that, theyre holding more cash than theyve ever held before.
For a couple of years now, people have claimed that the stock market recovery is fake, because, they point out, unemployment is still so high. when you look at factors that actually do tie into corporate valuations - earnings ratios being the most important, youd see that fore most the recovery, the market has been valuing companies far too cheaply.
that doesnt help people who are un- or under-employed, but its the truth. Unfortunately for them (and for any of us if we lose our jobs), the fortune 500 is quite happpy to make monstrous profits even without full workforce participation.
its more that the smart money, along with all the rest of the money, already own Apple. The people who could make big enough purchases to move the price to the next level are equity mutual funds, but theyre hampered by the fact that month after month, they're facing net cash outflows, as investors continue to pull money out of the market.
you understand that makes no sense at all, right?
Jobs died, Wall Street thinks apple will flop, so they make apples stock double and hit all time highs in order to make their sales?
really?
"I bet you Apple will be down to 300 in 6 months to a year."
That is a put option.
How much do you care to bet, per share? i would be more than happy to take the otherside of this trade, to be your counterparty..
Common mistake of people who know nothing about leadership and management.
Ive may be a fantastic lead designer. That doesn't mean he would be a good CEO. Or even a mediocre one. Don't promote people because they are excellent at their current jobs - only promote people if you think they will be excellent at their new job.
We would have a lot less incompetent fucks in middle-management if that principle were followed more often.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
CEO's are employed by the board - its the board who has the power to remove the ceo, not the ceo who can purge board members who arent to their liking. The only people who can fire board members are the shareholders.
While I agree with your assessment I think you are missing a major part of why that assessment still fails: Amazon's P/E is ridiculously high. Spending money to make money can make sense but Amazon has repeatedly said that it is making smaller margins and large outlays of capital are not going to increase those margins (in fact likely the opposite). Furthermore, I believe what the parent is getting at is that basing YOUR valuation on a small subset of analysts predictions which have been shown time and time again to be wrong is just crazy. Sure it is "pricing the stock the match the news" but the value of that news needs to be discussed. Analysts do appear to be pulling numbers out of thin air and the market is pricing stocks based on those numbers, it is no wonder that the stock market is overvalued given the short sighted methodology people are using to make their stock price determinations.
That a big chunk of the "cool" (which was a very big chunk of Apple's allure) went away with Jobs. While he was still a part of the company, it still had (deserved or not) at least some street cred as an innovator competing against "the man". Those days are long gone, Apple has lost what little vision it still had, and now it's rearranging the deck chairs. Oh, and suing competitors who come up with better stuff.
If you're going to play the "I know about stocks better than you" card I suggest you look at Amazon's balance sheet, they're doomed unless they can fix the business. All Amazon is doing now is juggling the expenditure vs income to make itself look better in the eyes of investors but they are not fixing core issues.
Check the balance sheet, check its history and u can see the grave being dug deeper and deeper ...
Might also have something to do with Samsung posting record profits, thanks to smartphone business.
It might be very easy to use but even idiot users are smarter than the OS, that's why even your regular 'dummies' are using Android phones now.
Any old regular manager can operate a blackberry, sure it might take 2 days to get used to, instead of 2 hours but it's not much for such a powerful device. So to make it clear, beat with me here. Proper run of the mill, non technical people can completely operate a device with a trackball / select button, back button, submenu (right click / context) button, home (end) button and a green dial button.
The classic 9000 series is a 5 button device yet in thousands of hours of support, usability is exceedingly rarely an issue after a day or two
Then you pick up an iphone - you go into an app and want a context menu to come up, so you can choose for example to correct spelling, or choose a contact to email to, or switch an address book, perhaps paste - but no, Apples method is to hide /somewhere/ on the screen - in a NON.CONSISTENT.LOCATION the menu button. Android* and blackberry have this in a consistent location and frankly - for more than just basic tasks, it makes for a more consistent experience when trying to do more advanced functionality.
So yes, Apple wins in simple, open app, go home, open new app, but more than that and it starts becoming tricky. Menus and settings being wherever the dev wants, instead of under consistent buttons, is illogical - no matter how apple slice it.
That's just the beginning of the shortcomings of the OS which has completely stagnated for the last 2 years, I heard they finally copied Android with a drop down notification menu - mind you if you want to quickly access brightness, wifi, gps, 3G (4G) data, bluetooth options, you still need to go 7 pages deep into the bloody settings instead of the lovely and simple power bar in Android. - sorry but it's just more logical and more convienient.
ios will continue to be popular, of course - but when I'm starting to see retirees tapping away on a Galaxy S3 or Galaxy Nexus on public transport, plus a heap of young people, male and female using Android - well, having an iphone is simply not cool anymore.
If I owned AAPL I'd seriously consider selling - once at the top, where else can you go? Especially with this stagnation.
* NOTE: Google have ditched the dedicated menu button to a /roaming location/ settings button like Apple and instead focused on a dedicated app switch / multitask button (I NEVER use this!) I have absoloutely no idea why they think this frankly, stupid idea is good - but as part of the point of my post, users can still quite easily navigate Android with dedicated back, home, multi-task buttons at least as well as the quickpower bar menu for quick access to turning things on and off.
(NOTE NOTE: Don't send me links why the dedicated task switcher is good, it's not - it's a fucking idiotic change, sorry)
Just as Kim Jong-Un had to purge a bunch of his father's old advisers in order to solidify his grip on North Korea, so too must new CEOs purge a board member or two in order to prove they're the boss.
I think it's a little early to be holding that up as a historical example of how to take power. He could be a puppet, he could be on his way out. Tomorrow we could read that Kim Jong-Un has been executed by being drowned in lemon juice after having his skin ripped off for the crime of not actually being Kim Jong-Il's son and this new guy who happened to be a general before is actually the true son and dear leader. And the people would absolutely accept that as true.
At any rate, I don't like apple and think much of what they do is utter nonsense and am disappointed by what their citizens/consumers are willing to accept from the management, but comparing Apple to North Korea is probably not fair to one or both parties.
Well, Apple is still a Phase 2 company*, so I suspect there is still a reasonable amount of dedication to the original vision left, and therefore some level of genuine accountability. If anything as the article stated this shows that without Jobs at the wheel there isn't the same unifying voice, and re-forming management consensus is part of the natural transition into a Phase 3 company*.
If a more mature company made this decision I'd be more inclined to agree with the assertion that this was a more cynical power play. There is a form of accountability in a Phase 3 company - ultimately if you mess up THAT badly then you risk awaking the shareholders, and the CEO is forced to take action. This is purely for self-preservation, not any sense of duty to shareholders. Apple is still in Phase 2, and I suspect that the leadership really does want to make good products.
*Phase 2 company - a company governed by the founder's hand-picked successor.
*Phase 3 company - a company governed by a CEO selected by the executive search team and a bunch of consultants.
"Android and at-cost products from Google and Amazon mean the high margin party is over."
Based on what data? Apple does not compete with at-cost products. Google can soak up all the bottom feeders but that's not Apple's market never has been.
Apple can control costs they way other companies cannot. With Apple's large cash reserves they can lock-in supply venders into low price contracts and guarantee supply lines.
Analysts are predicting Apple's stock to go up not down. You're analysis is worth a dime.
Why? The value of the DOW is just the sum of the stock values of a handful of companies. All the DJIA tells you is whether or not investors think that those companies are profitable investments. It has nothing to do with employment. In fact, high unemployment usually translates to lower labour costs, which in turn can translate to higher corporate profits, and thus a higher DJIA value.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
The "smart money" thought the same thing when the stock was at $50. Now its north of $500. The smart money aint too smart.
If you think the stock is going to go up, don't snark about it here: invest! Put your money where your mouth is...
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
The long term moving average of stock prices follows profits pure and simple. Shorter term emotions like optimism and pessimism can accelerate or retard stock prices. A 14 month run up is being brought back to earth.
Stock prices are also predictive. The current price slowdown anticipates predicted revenue slowdowns from falling international sales next year.
... and the sky is NOT blue, water is NOT wet, the bear does NOT poop in the woods, and the Pope does NOT pray. In other news ... juvenile ranting fanboys and haters invade /. and make intelligent conversation obsolete as they derail threads with innuendo, fantasy and opinion not backed up by facts or references.
Says you. I bet you ain't rich. I suggest you go start playing the stock market tomorrow, using your life's savings. In a few weeks you won't have a pot to piss in, if that isn't already the case of course. You will be dirt poor and miserable but at least you might not be as much of an ass.
First, you're the ass in that conversation--overreaction and name calling to someone who pointed out the failings of many when it comes to analyzing AAPL.
Second, I've been playing the market for decades, and doing well at it. AAPL has easily a couple more years of this growth rate. But of course between now and when it hits $2,000 a share, you'll continue to claim it's overvalued, and I'll continue to make money. You'll probably also continue to be angry and easily provoked, and I'll be mellow ;-)
Not "everyone above me", and I'm not at all "downtrodden", so please don't put words in my mouth. But if you had any experience dealing with C*O-level employees, and their interwoven boards of directors, you would recognize that they really aren't like normal people. They'll be all smiles and handshakes to a person's face, right up until the "resign or you're fired" conversation comes. Behind the scenes they'll be talking to their allies, trading favors, and getting votes to force out a longtime "friend". Not all of them are like this: some are yes-men, some are Peter-principle beneficiaries trying to cover their asses long enough to build a nest egg, and occasionally you even get a really good manager. It's more like a reality show than any normal human interaction.
Is it possible that Mr. Forstall simply fucked up and needed to be fired? Sure. But I doubt it. The Maps "debacle" was just a funny little meme for a couple weeks, no different from people laughing about autocorrect. Slashdot talked about it a lot, because wars between Apple fanboys and Apple haters are good for the site's revenue. I don't know a single person in the real world who even seemed to care.
Yes, because designing minimalist looking containers is such a great qualification for developing an operating system.
Well, I suppose for Apple it is.
That would work, but it runs into the class system at most companies, where it's a nearly iron-clad rule that your place on the org chart is a key determinant of your salary, not your skill. So companies stop giving salary increases to people really good at their jobs and instead require them to get promoted in order to earn more money.
You could have some employee X who is really good at their job, is highly knowledgeable, reliable, long term of service but "can't" pay that person more money because they would then be earning more than their manager.
So you end up with a system where people who are really good at their jobs are more or less forced to "go into management" to continue to get salary increases beyond the middling COLAs most companies offer.
IMHO, there's a lot of pretty ridiculous and toxic ideas tied up in this. It seems to imply that the workers, regardless of their talents, really aren't responsible for their work and that their boss is somehow responsible for everything. This of course trickles up which is why you have CEOs telling you how indispensable they are, as if one person was responsible for getting everything of value done at a multinational corporation.
I read somewhere (Job's biography?) that Forstall is a dick who could hold his own with Jobs in dickatude. Might have been more of a personality problem.
We love to build up and tear down. Not long ago the press is gushing over Apple. Talking about how their stock it going to $1000 a share. Now they are calling for people's heads. Sure, the Maps thing was a bit of a fiasco but it's not as if it doesn't work at all or the App crashes. From what I understand it's a few places that are not done well. The rest seems to work fine. Remember, Google's map app wasn't very good when it started either.
The problem was the way it was rolled out. It should have been presented as a Beta, not a ready-for-prime-time App. Cook had no choice, he had to do something to save face. I'm not sure how much, if any, blame he shares in this but clearly heads must roll and roll they did.
Apple has had a lot of hits and are under tremendous pressure to keep it up. Android has caught up on features, some might say they have surpassed the iPhone. What Apple still has going for it is a rabid fan base and a reputation for quality hardware. Another slip up could cost them dearly. Time will tell.
Maybe the maps debacle was funny to you and your friends, but if you were running a company and this kind of thing was allowed to stand with a wink and an 'ah shucks you'll do better next time' pat on the back, then I can assure you, you will be in charge of a failed organization faster than you can draft your resume.
I do have much experience with C-level executives and I've got to say it's a pretty mixed bag. Sure, you absolutely have a few sociopaths, but I just don't see how you can be so certain that the Forstall firing is a result of sociopathic scapegoating. If I was in charge of the company, I'd be looking for the root cause of the failure. Without knowing first hand, I suspect there were dozens of warning signs months ahead of the launch that there were problems, but if there was one job that Forstall should have been focused on as the leader of that division, it would have been to make sure he had fostered a culture of honest communication up the chain, not a bunch of CYA, pass the buck middle managers, which is what I suspect it got to. The only sane way to remediate culture starts with making changes at the top.
Actually, Amazon believes these capital outlays will increase their profitability. They are shooting for next and same day shipping which they believe will allow them to poach business from brick and mortar retailers.
You're out of your element and shouldn't try to come off like you have any idea what you're talking about. You mean the balance sheet where they made a profit every quarter for I think 12 quarters in a row, and in their latest quarter took a large hit because of one-time infrastructure expenditure that expanded their business?
If they were doomed, honestly doomed, their stock price would reflect it. Financial experts would leave that sinking shop and the company would be valued at cash on hand, rather than $107B. People involved with Amazon would try to sell off the assets for as much as they could. This is how stocks work. Their valuation is not entirely based off the latest quarterly earning report.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Just as Kim Jong-Un had to purge a bunch of his father's old advisers in order to solidify his grip on North Korea, so too must new CEOs purge a board member or two in order to prove they're the boss.
A Kim-style board member purge would certainly make for a quite a show:
Kim Jong-un Orders North Korean Army Minister To Be 'Executed With Mortar Round'
On the orders of Kim Jong-un to leave "no trace of him behind, down to his hair," according to South Korean media, Kim Chol was forced to stand on a spot that had been zeroed in for a mortar round and "obliterated."
Sociopaths feed the world. What are we to do?!
Life is not for the lazy.
Sorry, it was early in the morning. I missed the sarcasm and the "yeah like this would ever happen" point of your post. My sarcasto-detector needed a few more awake hours to get up to running speed. Mea culpa.
Year: Total Assets VS Total Liabilities
2008-12-31: 8,314.00 vs 5,642.00 (67.86%)
2009-12-31: 13,813.00 vs 8,556.00 (61.94%)
2010-12-31: 18,797.00 vs 11,933.00 (63.48%)
2011-12-31: 25,278.00 vs 17,521.00 (69.31%)
Problem seems pretty straight forward from here and considering that some of the assets which include very little long term items. Goodwill factoring in 2bn of that 25bn and most of their assets are server farms and property you have to consider and without doing any deeper checks it's current liabilities are not too bad against prior years.
This isn't a sign of a company "growing" because they have very little or NO _long term_ items. This is all short term stuff is quickly depreciable and the bigger the company gets the bigger the liabilities. 7% slump is a lot over 12 months, it's enough to scare people.
I may not be a finance expert as you said but I know how to run a business and I know i wouldn't allow such a basic level of business mechanics fail so easily and allow it to continue to fail for a while 12 months. Something is wrong and they aren't fixing it.
The trick in investing is to know which companies are going to defy gravity and go against "common knowledge", and which are going to go exactly as everyone thought.
Buying Apple stock at $50 and selling it at $500 would have made you a very rich man. But it's easy to know that's what you should have done with hind sight. Did you know it at the time? Did you know with any certainty that Apple was going to go through the roof, while Palm or RIM were for the can?
If Apple stock climbs now from $500 to $800, people would say "ah, you should have known Apple would keep going up!". But if they plummet from $500 to $200, people would say "ah, those suckers who bought stock at such a massively overinflated price!". Short of a crystal ball, you can't really do anything but guess.
You're out of your element and shouldn't try to come off like you have any idea what you're talking about. You mean the balance sheet where they made a profit every quarter for I think 12 quarters in a row, and in their latest quarter took a large hit because of one-time infrastructure expenditure that expanded their business?
Um...you're calling him out of his element and then refer to the quarterly profits on their balance sheet?
Vote Quimby.