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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?"
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 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?
It's a cute notion, like the way children believe in Santa Claus. But corporations are not compatible with any real sense of community. Corporations are perfect tyrannies. Real community means people who share, it's a give-and-take that enriches everyone who participates. Corporations seek only to enrich themselves. All of them, not just Apple. That's why they have to spend so much money on marketing to appear otherwise. It is not their natural undisguised apperance at all.
Fanboys aside, pragmatists aren't very fond of Apple. Pragmatists aren't suckered by hype. That is why they realize how strongly Apple resembles Microsoft in its heyday. Apple is perhaps worse - until recently Microsoft didn't so strongly control what could run on Windows the way Apple controls their walled garden. Apple is just more talented at appearing innocuous. Their marketing is more effective. No one proudly sported Windows the way some Apple fans show off their iDevices. Still doesn't change the nature of the corporation though.
And the way this cult of personality surrounding Jobs lives on long after the man's death is just plain disturbing. He was an abusive control freak and generally not a very nice guy at all. He didn't design anything. His only genius was making money. I don't see investment bankers getting this kind of love and adoration, for good reason. People like him being in charge of everything is part of why the world is so fucked up. Now lots of emotionally puerile types get all upset when you throw cold water on their hero fantasies and dare to suggest that their idol wasn't the first perfect person, that a man who appeared larger than life was still just a man. So be it.
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.
Fanboys aside, pragmatists aren't very fond of Apple. Pragmatists aren't suckered by hype. That is why they realize how strongly Apple resembles Microsoft in its heyday. Apple is perhaps worse - until recently Microsoft didn't so strongly control what could run on Windows the way Apple controls their walled garden. Apple is just more talented at appearing innocuous. Their marketing is more effective. No one proudly sported Windows the way some Apple fans show off their iDevices. Still doesn't change the nature of the corporation though.
Have you ever considered the possibility that some people actually *value* a walled garden? Like nearly everyone who isn't a tech geek? Which is like 99% of the people buying these devices?
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
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!
--
I've heard iphone users complain that they can't get swype and can't get Google Maps or turn-by-turn navigation or any number of things that are on Android...
They have so much money it's sinking the ship.
You can and have been able to get turn-by-turn on iOS for years, just not from the default maps app.
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!”
In all fairness it was GOOGLE refusing Apple to use the Turn-by-Turn results in the App that Apple made for Maps and paid money to Google on behalf of users. GOOGLE wanted "more control".. Read it what you will, but they obviously wanted more information from/ about users than Apple was willing to share (on top of money).
Google rocked the boat FIRST by WITHHOLDING features from iOS versions while Apple was a PAYING CUSTOMER of the service. (To give its own pony an advantage) Apple did what any of US would do. Find another vendor ASAP.
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
I've heard iphone users complain that they can't get swype and can't get Google Maps or turn-by-turn navigation or any number of things that are on Android...
iOS 6 turn-by-turn navigation puts Garmin's app to shame.
Have you ever considered the possibility that some people actually *value* a walled garden?
Some people highly value smoking crack. This alone is not proof of merit.
Like nearly everyone who isn't a tech geek? Which is like 99% of the people buying these devices?
If you are claiming that only "tech geeks" could possibly appreciate unrestricted freedom of choice, that is interesting. I would be willing to entertain your reasoning, but so far I haven't seen it. Personally, I think it's a nice euphamistic way of saying that most people are far too stupid to be trusted with choices. The funny thing about that, is that if stupidity is universally expected, it tends to become the norm. When it's viewed as pathological, it tends to be limited to only the few who really can't do better.
I also have doubts that it's healthy to design everything for the absolute beginner, rather than viewing "newbie" as a transitory and most temporary stage along the path to at least some small degree of competence. But it's difficult to have this conversation around here. Few seem to recognize that "small degree of competence" does not mean "expert" due to some strange tendency to go to extremes. It's a bit mysterious, since it's inconsistent with any contact with reality and its myriad shades of grey.
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.
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/
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...
Or retaliation for the Android lawsuits? Apple wanted more control and felt Google was getting rich off all their users. True and they could have renogiated for another year until ios 7.
Or go to Microsoft. Microsoft? Yes, they hate Google more than Apple. They are releasing office 2013 for iOS and even porting skydrive. Bing is a loss leader and big customer like Apple would help generate some revenue and hurt Google as it is the largest source of red ink at Redmonton.
The failure is on the project manager of IOS for agreeing it could be done without proper research. It was also a failure of Cook. I mean what does he do all day? A good CEO manages everything and knows exactly what everything is going on all times.
http://saveie6.com/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No, they didn't want "more information on top of money". It's been explicitly stated what they wanted - google branding on the maps application, and latitude support. Apple said no. Google is in NO WAY at fault, Steve Job's ego is the sole reason that turn-by-turn never made it into IOS.
I sold computers at one of the largest universities in the continental united states.
Someone's parents blew the computer money on a nice 17" HP laptop from Costco.
They then came in and asked me for the Windows version of Final Cut Pro - and being film majors, Final Cut Pro was an absolute requirement at the time.
I tried very hard not to laugh at them.
I think I succeeded.
"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.
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
Using CAPITALS to emphasize RANDOM words in your POST doesn't make the post any more USEFUL. Apple DIDN'T want to PAY (alright, enough of that) for a feature from a service Google sells, Apple was paying for the mapping, but not paying for turn-by-turn navigation and wanted that data for free. Google set a price for this (obviously quite valuable) service, and Apple decided to sacrifice pretty much their entire design philosophy rather than pay Google anything, and released a half-baked clusterfuck.
Google didn't withhold anything from Apple, just set prices for various aspects of their service. If Apple didn't want to pay and instead piss off their own customers with an inferior replacement, that's all Apple's doing. But you'd have to lack any kind of business sense to think that Google should have just given Apple this data for free.
I would have kept Google Maps, as would have most rational businesses concerning a major feature of their core product that works great and is exactly what the customers want, rather than move it in-house and release it before it's ready on a new flagship product.
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.
(%i1) factor(777353);
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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.
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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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've been working with unix since the early 1980's. almost every engineer i personally know from that era is using a mac. it has nothing to do with being a fanboy... it's about the best non-server unix environment.
If we were to replace the word "computer" with the word "washing machine" or "refrigerator," then you might start to see how people don't even _want_ to seek even the smallest amount of computer competence. You're essentially asking them to re-install the OS on their washing machine, or re-wire the heating coils of their dryer for some abstract goal of "increased knowledge" and "freedom".
The computer is an appliance. You press a button, it sends an e-mail. You press another one, it plays music for you. If it breaks, you call someone to fix it or you toss it to the curb and get a new one. I'm not saying these people are stupid, I'm just saying they have different priorities.
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.
Actually, the story I've heard from fairly authoritative sources is that what Google wanted was the text "Google" on the Maps display so that people knew that the data was coming from Google.
Apple did not like that and it was a deal breaker for them.
No sig. Move along - nothing to see here.
"Skeuomorph" has popped up on Slashdot and other sites so often that I'd be surprised if anyone was still unfamiliar with the term.
It's a stupid term, sure, but it shouldn't be unfamiliar.
(I still think that pseudomorph would be better; easy to understand and more accurate.)
Required reading for internet skeptics
The "smart money" thought the same thing when the stock was at $50. Now its north of $500. The smart money aint too smart.
We apologize again for the faults in iOS 6. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.
Microsoft is/was evil.
Google only knows evil because of their advertising mindset.
Apple is evil because you can't do whatever the hell you want.
Linux sucks because there's no unified vision of how things are supposed to work (both in UIs and APIs).
What am I supposed to use? FreeDOS? WebOS? AmigaOS?
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.
Yes, but most of us aren't willing to give up the lack of concern over malware, having a single trusted source of vetted apps,etc.
The walled garden is 2 edged, and imho the benefits currently outweigh the drawbacks.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
No, such people often consider the benefits to be worth the trade-offs. We've had 25+ years of machines getting owned by unsigned code able to be run from any source with the windows desktop. Android is heading that way already.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
+1. plenty of network engineers i know who aren't muppets are running macs too.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
And most people recognize that it's odd that tech geeks care so much about choices other people make, and about products they don't own.
Apple and Microsoft couldn't give a flying fuck about the average person figuring out the full range of possibilities that computers offer. Any more than the head of Maytag stay up at night with nightmares of everyone suddenly deciding to become washing machine mechanics in their spare time.
There is no conspiracy. There is no great shadow hovering above and preventing people from waking up to what their computer can do. Most of them have a pretty good idea of what computers can do. They often don't have the vocabulary or means to make it happen, but if you have ever dealt with a user figuring out a new task they tend to have a very realistic idea of what is possible (at least in the abstract) and then once they figure out their new thing that go back to ignoring everything else.
Because there is an opportunity cost to computers. And most people don't enjoy paying that cost. They get far more enjoyment out of playing in a local baseball league or building model trains or learning to cook or take dance lessons or just watching movies with friends.
Every single possible roadblock could be removed and the vast majority of the population would not care and could not be made to care. Because they are busy doing more interesting (to them) things. And for people who are already interested in computers there are no roadblocks worth speaking of.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVGINIsLnqU
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
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.
Unfortunate end to Apple's head of software
Apple didn't have a "head of software". It had a head of iOS software (Forstall), a head of OS X software (Federighi), and possibly a head of "Internet Software and Services" (Cue) (alas, I don't have a copy of yesterday's http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/, just some old June 2012-vintage stuff from the Internet Archive). It now has a head of Software Engineering (Federighi), and a head of Internet Software and Services (Cue), so....
As Steve Jobs said software is the soul of the products.
...and Apple still has people in charge of it.
We NEED to support people who think different!
Thinking differently is a means to an end. The end is to think better, which may require thinking differently, but merely thinking differently is insufficient to think better.
The Apple Washing machine will only allow you to wash blue jeans and black turtlenecks. You can buy an extension in the store to wash white T-Shirts. The app for washing black jeans or red turtlenecks was rejected because it was a conflict of interest for Apple.
Linux sucks because there's no unified vision of how things are supposed to work (both in UIs and APIs).
There are no UIs in Linux.
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.
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.
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?
I've heard Android users complain that they can't tell which of thirty apps with intentionally deceptive names is the actual app they're trying to get, and that their 6 month old handset only supports a year-old version of Android.
Walled gardens and totally open platforms each have their advantages and disadvantages, and users will have different preferences based on their needs. What a shock, right?
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
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.
Well, what I would have done, if I had a war chest the size of Apple's, is buy a maps database that is in much better shape than the one they have gone with. There are lots of companies who have great maps that don't use google...
Apple is sitting on a mountain of cash and could have eliminated most of the problems with Maps by doing this.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
To technical people, the average /.er, the computer is a tool. You code something, the computer does it.
Well said. But consider that to average people, the average /.er is a tool.
Not everyone finds spending their time geeking out on their phone to be rewarding, interesting, or something they have any real interest in doing. That isn't smoking crack, it's simply a different priority.
Most people limit the amount of cognitive overhead they have to shoulder when it comes to things they don't find terribly interesting or important. In the case of people who prefer a walled garden for their devices, this can be one of those things. One place to go for software, one pace to go for support, and they don't have to waste time thinking about all those options.
Some people do this with clothing or food. I know a lot of geeks who wear essentially the same outfit on a daily basis because they just don't care enough about clothes to bother thinking about it past "does it pass the sniff test?" I know a lot of people who eat roughly the same thing for breakfast every day because they just want fuel for their body and don't want to have to think about what they're eating. There's nothing wrong with doing this, and we all actually do this to some degree or another,
Let me throw a challenge to you: I want you to think about the clothes you're wearing. Think about the materials used - where did they come from? How are they made? Why were those materials chosen instead of some other set? What about the design - who designed each piece, and why did they make the choices they did (buttons vs. snaps, handling of seams, style of collar etc.)? What were their influences - what was the evolution of each item and how it came about from a series of iterations throughout the history of couture? What about the colors - what kind of dye did they use and why? What was your decision process when you bought it, what about your decision process when you picked it out to wear today?
Is it fair for me to say you're smoking crack because you probably don't geek out on fashion?
To you, I'm guessing clothing is just something you wear because you have to and you don't want to think about much.. To people who prefer a walled garden for their various devices, gadgets are just something they use because they need something to do that stuff, and they don't want to think about much.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
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.
Might also have something to do with Samsung posting record profits, thanks to smartphone business.
There are no UIs in Linux.
Only if you think that the kernel is the only thing that is the OS, or if you think that the only part of a Linux-based system that should be called "Linux" is the kernel.
Everyone else just thinks you're a dimwit.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
There are no UIs in Linux.
No, but there is at least one in every Linux distribution. As to the AC GP, I feel sorry for the guy, standing in the grocery store trying to figure out whether he wants Maxwell House, Folgers, or the store brand coffee. God help him if he ever decides to buy a car!
This "there's too much choice in Linux" is just brain-dead stupid.
Free Martian Whores!
Walled gardens are not so bad if there is a door out.
With Google Play you have the app store, but you can also run arbitrary code if you want. Same with Ubuntu: there is the default repository, which has vetted packages that may have everything you will ever need. But it might not, and if so there is gcc.
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.