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Apple: Losing Out On Talent and In Need of a Killer New Device (theguardian.com)
mspohr writes with a link to an interesting (and rather dour) take at The Guardian on the state of Apple, which holds that: "Despite its huge value, Silicon Valley developers are turned off by [Apple's] 'secretive, controlling' culture and its engineering is no longer seen as cutting edge." From the article: "Tellingly, Apple is no longer seen as the best place for engineers to work, according to several Silicon Valley talent recruiters. It's a trend that has been happening slowly for years – and now, in this latest tech boom, has become more acute. ... Or as Elon Musk recently put the hiring situation a little more harshly: Apple is the "Tesla graveyard." "If you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple," Musk recently told a German newspaper. The biggest issue for programmers seems to be a high-stress culture and cult of secrecy, which contrasts sharply with office trends toward gentler management and more playful workdays."
The other Steve was what made Apple technically great
Umm... care to inform us what Apple has done marketing-wise but to claim they reinvented the wheel every time they came out with a new device?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Not sure why I am bothering to reply to an AC, but ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
$76B in revenue and $18B in profit in the LAST QUARTER.
For a doomed company, that ain't bad. If you disagree, please point out another company that made more profit in 2016. Hint, that's rhetorical, there isn't one.
Apple may need "another killer device" to continue to grow to that predicted "1 trillion dollar company". But holy fuck, how is not going from the biggest market cap in the world to the even biggerest market cap in the world "doomed"?
...never having to say your sorry.
When the P to E is high, that means the stock is a bubble and everyone should sell. When the P to E is low, that means there's no confidence in earnings and everyone should sell. Meanwhile they are compared to Facebook's 109 P to E in a completely serious manner.
Still increasing sales of desktop computers means the non-phone side of the business is being ignored.
Moving 8 iPhones for every Windows Phone means the former is dead and the latter is a viable product.
Apple's non-iPhone revenue is comparable to Microsoft's *total* revenue. The impact to Apples revenue due to just currency fluctuations is comparable to Facebook's *total* revenue. Maybe a case could be made that that is a business in decline, but no one seems to be doing so.
Apple is doomed in the same way that Microsoft has been doomed for decades. Very profitable doom with very significant market share, but if you're not on an exponential growth trajectory then people think of you as as a stale relic.
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Look at the macmini, for instance...... This used to be expandable with additional ram (to 16GB), two hard drives, and came with quad core i7 processor. Amazing.... really, I have one that has been running my website for the last 4 years, and it has given me no trouble at all.....
And apple canceled it. They replaced it with a soldered ram, duel core, which isn't as powerfull as something you could buy 4 years ago. For fuck sake Apple - this is what Commodore did, releaseing the Amiga 600, several years after the Amiga 500, which was no more advanced....... and we all know what happened to Commodore!!...
Apple can't do any of that stuff. They don't invent tech, they popularise it by selling to early adopters willing to pay over the odds for something shiny.
Take "retina" displays. Apple didn't invent them, they never made them. Sharp and LG pioneered the technology, and Apple was just one of the first to use it.
Synaptic developed the touch wheel. Siri was someone else that Apple just bought. Apple Maps was built in Nokia mapping technology. They bought that fingerprint scanner company. They use the same Sony cameras as everyone else, just with custom software that gives the output that photoshopped, unreal look.
Apple has two problems now. First, they are running out of interesting stuff to buy, and secondly everyone else cottoned on to their gimmick and started to out-innovate them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Actually, Musk's statement is not incorrect. Tesla is a company that has a different management style and goal compared to Apple. Apple exists solely for profit and returns, Tesla exists solely to create scientific advancement, innovation, and push for technical/engineering projects that nobody else will do. Tesla is subsidized on the merit of advancement rather than returns.
It is only a logical conclusion that Tesla will have all the engineering/science talent, while Apple will have all the marketing/design psychology talent.
Well, let's see, Apple is a high-pressure workplace, to which people go when they cannot make it at Tesla. Wait, what???
The article is mostly based on the opinion of a single hipster jackass who felt that he was too good to apply at Apple, backed up by the opinion of a few other people who don't want to work there, and a recruiter. Note the lack of information from anyone who has actually ever worked there.
What a load of shit. How about engineers are more attracted to companies that respect a healthy work/life balance. That's it. Really. I'll come to work, bust my ass for 7-9 hours and go home, 5 days a week. You can keep your foosball, cafeterias, yoga, happy hours, . I'll take the perk where you pay me to go on vacation though.
Old data is just that...old data. Apple needs to become much more price competitive if it is going to succeed in today's marketplace. Your name can only get you so far.
Exactly. Look at all the high end products that are no longer with us because they refused to join the race to the bottom.:
Rolex watches - gone, should have made a swatch like $1.99 digital watch.
Lamborghini - too bad they didn't copy the Yugo or Ford Pinto. Now they are on the dustheap of history
Rolls Royce - A sad story. Gone out of business because they just didn't realize that the only metric in cars is cheap.
The entire diamond industry collapsed because people know that it's just overpriced glass in those rings.
So many more examples where industry has found out that only attending to the lowest common denominator is the only path to profit. If you want cheap, buy cheap. Just don't assume that everyone does.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Microsoft has a subscription model. You buy a new version of Windows every one or two years. Except they blew that one up by constantly changing the GUI layout rather than simply polishing the fonts and theme to take advantage of higher resolutions.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
They're buying them for aesthetics and user friendliness.
And reliability, and security, and because of the third party app support, and because if they do have any problems they can go into an Apple store and have their problems solved without being conned or fleeced.
should not invoke learning curves.
That's the worst. As the techie in the family (including the families of friends and distant relations), even though my job has nothing to do with computers other than I use them at work, I'm constantly bombarded with questions like why won't my internet work. Fine, I'll help, should take 20 seconds and save someone from a lot of misery. Wait, where did all of the settings pages go? Google for ten minutes, wrong version, google another ten minutes...an hour later the internet is working again. W.T.F. The only thing these people use a computer for are solitaire and chrome.
Google pulls the same crap. Yes, I can figure it out. Yes, I have much better things to do than learning a new interface for zero productivity gain. People have been using the same interface to drive a car for the last 100 years. If car companies operated like software companies, besides being all dead now we would have gone through joysticks, paddle wheels, slider buttons, push buttons, hand gestures, foot pedals, voice control and mice just to make a right turn. And the left turn would have yet another interface. And they would alternate between them on different models.