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Tech Jobs Are Replacing Tech Jobs in Silicon Valley
An anonymous reader writes: More than 22% of the jobs in Silicon Valley are now in the technology sector, reports the San Jose Mercury News, while the area has lost nearly 156,000 factory jobs over the last 15 years. But 59% of those lost manufacturing jobs were at tech companies, indicating that "the hardware has faded in importance compared with the software," says economist Christopher Thornberg. "It's all about the applications these days." Over the last 15 years employment gains happened in "information" areas characterized as mobile/internet/social media as well as software and tech services -- for example, at companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Salesforce -- and at hotels and restaurants catering to high-tech workers. "It's not just that tech is replacing other industries," reports the San Jose Mercury News. "Tech is replacing itself."
It's just being built in China now; cheaper labor, fewer environmental regulations. (Obviously)
I'm not sure about 2005, but I totally agree with you. All three major operating systems (Windows, OS X, Linux) started going downhill when style became more important than function. Looking at Apple, it was an incredibly huge mistake to let an industrial designer in charge of user interface design. They're two totally different fields that require completely different skill sets and knowledge.
The end result is barely adequate hardware used to display flat graphics in washed-out pastel colours resulting in user-hostile interfaces with small fonts rendered with insufficient contrast.