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Apple's Tim Cook Shares What He Learned From Steve Jobs (businessinsider.com)
Speaking at Oxford, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared a lesson learned from the "spectacular" commercial failure of the Power Mac G4 Cube in 2000 -- and from his mentor Steve Jobs. An anonymous reader quotes Business Insider:
"It was a very important product for us, we put a lot of love into it, we put enormous engineering into it," Cook said of the G4 Cube on stage. He calls it an "engineering marvel." At the time, Cook was Apple Senior VP of Worldwide Operations, recruited personally by then-CEO Steve Jobs... While the design was a hit, it was $200 more expensive than the regular Power Mac G4, a more traditional-looking PC with very similar specs. And some Cubes would develop cosmetic cracks in the acrylic cube casing due to a manufacturing flaw. In his talk, Cook says that Apple knew the Cube was flopping "from the very first day, almost..."
Ultimately, Cook says, it was a lesson in humility and pride. Apple had told both employees and customers that the G4 Cube was the future. And yet, despite Apple's massive hype, demand just wasn't there, and the company had to walk away. "This was another thing that Steve [Jobs] taught me, actually," says Cook. "You've got to be willing to look yourself in the mirror and say I was wrong, it's not right." In a broader sense, Cook says that Jobs taught him the value of intellectual honesty -- that, no matter how much you care about something, you have to be willing to take new data and apply it to the situation.
He advised his audience to "be intellectually honest -- and have the courage to change."
And the article points out that today there's a small but enthusiastic community who are still hacking their Power Mac G4 Cubes.
Ultimately, Cook says, it was a lesson in humility and pride. Apple had told both employees and customers that the G4 Cube was the future. And yet, despite Apple's massive hype, demand just wasn't there, and the company had to walk away. "This was another thing that Steve [Jobs] taught me, actually," says Cook. "You've got to be willing to look yourself in the mirror and say I was wrong, it's not right." In a broader sense, Cook says that Jobs taught him the value of intellectual honesty -- that, no matter how much you care about something, you have to be willing to take new data and apply it to the situation.
He advised his audience to "be intellectually honest -- and have the courage to change."
And the article points out that today there's a small but enthusiastic community who are still hacking their Power Mac G4 Cubes.
So... do we get a proper tower mac pro back now?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
iPods and iTunes saved the Mac Book lines and iMacs yet Timmy killed the iPods save the Touch and will soon kill iTunes because of all the free stuff like internet radio in preference for his subscriptions model.
Selective honesty is Mr. Timmy Cook's name.
"I'll keep it short and sweet. Family, religion, friendship. These are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business. When opportunity knocks, you don't want to be driving to a maternity hospital or sitting in some phony-baloney church. Or synagogue."
Wait, now I actually read it.
""This was another thing that Steve [Jobs] taught me, actually," says Cook. "You've got to be willing to look yourself in the mirror and say I was wrong, it's not right.""
Steve Jobs, the archetypical narcissist, taught him that? Did he teach him that by providing an example of what not to do?
The Cube and Can are my two favorite machines becasue they fit into my desktop, esthetically. Differentiation in the electronics, NSM.
The processing power of each meant that the cube didn't last that long there, and the Can will eventually go. The cube CPU upgrade make it noisy (had a fan), and that constant annoyance was that about that. The Can is still sitting on my desk, and is perfect for what it is. But it's now 3yrs old, and simulations are taking hours to run again...
Both are Geek toys. Nothing wrong with that. But if Tim learned anything, perhaps it was that the Can would sell a certain number, and that is a 'success' in it's own right. But not a break away financial one.
Oh. And thanks, BTW, for both machines.
Here's exactly what Cook learned from Jobs: "not enough".
I'm simply disgusted with the changes to the latest macbook pros. I'm using a mid-2015 right now and I would have upgraded already if there were any actual "upgrades" available. Each model newer than mine is a downgrade in various ways - fewer ports, stupid touch bar thing replacing the function keys and escape key (I'm a vi user - ugh!), different power adapter (WTF?!?!?), etc. In addition to these literal downgrades there are no real upgrades to be had. I have 16GB of memory, I think they might have 32 now but, geeze, come on. Drive space? Not only do I have to pay out the ass for a flash drive, I can't easily connect external hard drives now since the ports are screwed up.
Just, stupid.
Apple led the way back when it made sense - getting rid of floppies (the time was right), getting rid of DVD drive (the time was right). But this is no longer leadership, it's just stupidity. People are still going to use external drives for some time - people like will likely use them indefinitely. I use a laptop with an external monitor (in my case a 49" UHD TV) - I need extra ports.
I've invested a ton in Apple hardware over the last 10 years, but when I have to buy another computer it's probably going to be running Linux. I have to keep a Mac or Windows machine around for Photoshop and such.
Do you have ESP?
So when are we getting a touchbar-less MBP?
Our current society rewards the selfish and conceited but the laws of physics don't give a shit about that.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
How to protect oneself from HIV while recieving anal sex, while not protecting yourself from prostate cancer :)
Too soon?
Steve Jobs valued humility and admitting it when wrong? He literally told everyone experiencing a real, flawed antenna design in their phones that *they* were holding it wrong.
First link for "you're holding it wrong": http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/mobile/06/25/iphone.problems.response/
This is a bullcrap attempt to further deify Jobs, reality be damned. Thank heavens some of us have and always will be immune to the supposed distortion field.
Captcha: conjure
I think you need to look yourself in the mirror again, Mr. Cook, on the matter of those pesky 3.5mm headphone jacks.
-- Look to the Rose that blows about us--"Lo, Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow..."
Had one -- and for me, it was worth the $200.
I was buying into the form factor myself. Loved it.
And compared to "normal" computers -- it was silent.
Of course I beat the hell out of it. And heat WAS a issue. Ended up putting two blower fans on the back of it to force a ton of air through it to keep it cool. A SSD today would go a long way, but CPU heat was a issue too. It wasn't so silent any more...
I'll pay extra for the form factor -- love my stealth.com system I use today for my Linux box. I could have gotten about the same thing for a 1/3rd of the cost, but it would be your normal big computer box. I can stick the stealth in the ceiling and just use it...
The Cube's motherboard finally gave out altogether. Gutted it and stuck a light in it for the stairwell...
All companies do it. Not saying that makes it right, but don't single out Apple as if they're the only ones doing that.
You know what's written on the CPU fan of my intel i5? Foxconn.
#DeleteFacebook
You've got to be willing to look yourself in the mirror and say I was wrong...
So can we get the headphone jack on our iPhones back?
and suing for hundreds of millions of dollars, insisting that it's a bonafide invention and that their sales will hurt. Is that the kind of intellectual honesty he is speaking of?
Don't let Jony Ive run amok with your "Pro" laptops.
#DeleteChrome
How many other people think like I do - that Woz was a creative genius and Jobs was a self aggrandizing hack? Without Jobs, Woz would have done genius level work somewhere in Silicon Valley. Without Woz. Jobs would have been a middle manager, car salesman or insurance agent.
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
Erm... you can keep on selling VHS and see if your company survives.
Keeping a product that was was hugely important 15 years ago but is no longer profitable for nostalgia is not the best business plan.
Fanboys (or ex) need to wake the fuck up about feeling betrayed by companies for culling products that are outdated.
Apple is always going to say whatever their new thing is is the way of the future, they are pretty much obligated to say that. Whether that is the G4 Cube, the Trashcan Mac, Magsafe, Firewire, styluses (styli?), the port-variationless Macbooks or iPhone face unlock but ultimately it is up to the customers to make the distinction whether that is true or not. The rabid fanboys will defend whatever they do and whatever they say anyway but ultimately they are a for-profit corporation and the market decides when they backpeddle and when they don't.
Some things have turned out to indeed be the way of the future, some haven't and some we don't yet know. It's obviously ridiculous to defend and parrot that XYZ is the way of the future just because Apple (or any company or person for that matter) says it is when they are trying to sell it to you.
Back in my management days, I used to regularly regurgitate some variation of the following to all my employees: "I expect you to make mistakes. I'll be happy to share a few of the many mistakes that I've made throughout my career, if you like. The one unpardonable sin that I will not tolerate is to not openly and honestly acknowledge any mistake that you make, because that shows me that you cannot/will not learn. We learn 10X++ more from our mistakes than from banging out a standard project spec. Just tell me what you learned."
The manufacturing flaw he was referring to was the complete absence of any cooling fans. The cracks were the result of the high heat. As far as learning from his mistakes Jobs wasn't very good at that as he made the same mistake years earlier with the Apple ///. His stubborn opposition to cooling fans doomed both.
Not very much. Apple is just as doomed without Steve now as, well, it was doomed without Steve before.
I LOVED it. It was the first time in my career that my office was perfectly silent, no fan noise.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Oh, okay. So instead of doing what Steve Jobs taught you, i.e. "You've got to be willing to look yourself in the mirror and say I was wrong, it's not right." you're telling us we're the ones who need to change?
Update the Mac mini, really update the MacBook Air and hurry up with the new Mac Pro already. Releasing hardware without headphone jacks and making all the UIs flat as shit isn't innovating, it's moving stuff around to give us the impression that you're doing anything at all.
#DeleteFacebook
If you want proof that they still haven't learned, look at the upcoming iMac Pro. Yes it has incredible specifications on paper, but cramming all that powerful hardware in a thin-for-no-reason all-in-one computer? Disaster waiting to happen and an insane sticker price to go with it.
#DeleteFacebook
I've done the Hackintosh thing, it's ok, but it's not complete. A lot of functions don't work that you have to have a real Mac for. Some chip on the motherboard handles a bunch of the iCloud/messages magic.
Admittedly, I hadn't tried using iCloud on my Hackintosh before, but I just tested it and it seemingly works fine. Same with iMessage.
I've been using a Hackintosh desktop (custom built) and laptop (Dell XPS 15 9550) for a few years now because my university is heavily Apple-centric. There are a few minor issues, but they seem to have less problems than "real" Mac hardware. I recently upgraded one of the two video cards in my desktop and moved to Sierra to enable the Pascal GPU support. The process was trivial, and something that's impossible to do with an iMac (ignoring the possibility of external GPUs).
From my perspective, I get the best of both worlds. Better and upgradeable hardware without paying the Apple tax. It's not for everyone, but even my mother is now using a Hackintosh desktop.
Say hello to Threadripper.
Can even stop hoping for Apple and just jump straight in immediately.
Relatinship != friendship. Just ask any brothel madam.
Judging by the changes made I'd say they were small superficial changes at best; nothing that would risk meeting the level Tim Cook claims Steve Jobs set out for himself, Cook, or Apple as a whole. Respecting a user's software freedom (the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify published computer programs) is apparently not something Apple's leaders have the "intellectual honesty" or "courage to change".
After his first stint with Apple Steve Jobs headed up NeXT. NeXT distributed an OS and development software which included GCC (then the GNU C Compiler, later the GNU Compiler Collection because it compiles more languages than C-like languages). NeXT was GCC's first commercial copyright infringer, according to Brad Kuhn (former Executive Director of the Free Software Foundation).
NeXT needed a compiler for its new system, GCC was practical and extensible. NeXT extended GCC to compile Objective-C, a programming language used to make applications for NeXTSTEP (the OS on NeXT's computers). The problem came when NeXT distributed its developer system with only object code to its GCC variant, not the "complete corresponding machine-readable source code" GCC's license (GNU General Public License version 2) required. Fortunately for NeXT the Free Software Foundation (GCC's copyright holder) sought compliance with the license over litigation and stopping NeXT from further copyright infringement, so NeXT was allowed to continue distributing their GCC derivative only if they complied with the GNU GPL v2. NeXT eventually complied by distributing said complete corresponding source code (on a large set of ED floppies, if memory serves).
Steve Jobs likely never forgot that smaller non-corporate copyright holders can enforce their license. I believe he developed a perverse hatred of the GNU GPL which he carried back to Apple. Apple distributed MacOS X which came with a number of GPL-covered programs (the Common Unix Printing System or "CUPS" for printing support, GNU's Bourne-again shell or "bash", Apple's GCC derivative to name a few) but some years later (particularly after GPL v3 came out) Apple set out to remove and/or avoid GPL-covered programs from their proprietary (user-subjugating) OS. Apple takes a few different strategies to this end: Apple is replacing GNU GCC with a compiler licensed under a pushover license (a non-copyleft free software license which allows non-free derivatives) so Apple can have the power to distribute a proprietary variant of that compiler and not contribute changes back. Apple bought CUPS from Easy Software Products, CUPS' initial copyright holder, thus making Apple CUPS' copyright holder and switching Apple from being a GPL licensee to a GPL licensor (Apple can litigate the GPL over others but doesn't have to worry that anyone can do the same to it regarding CUPS). Apple ships an old version of GNU bash licensed under the GNU GPL v2.
But respecting a user's software freedom isn't on the list of changes Apple's higher-ups are willing to make. No matter how many insecurities remain in Apple's software (such as one that allowed spying for years), no user (even willing technically-skilled users) should be allowed to inspect the vast majority of Apple's software to figure out what's going on, fix problems and/or improve the software to meet their needs, distribute copies of the software to help other
Digital Citizen
Now, can we get them to admit removing the headphone jack was an awful idea and put it back?
"It just works." -> "It just doesn't really work _for_me_ any more."
I suspect you've been around the computer industry at least as long as I have. If so, that makes you a power user who has a very well-established set of tastes for the way things should behave.
You and I have not been the target market for Apple for about ten years now. Basically ever since the iPhone came out and Apple realized that it was a digital appliance company and Steve dropped the " Computer" off the name "Apple Computer". It wasn't a subtle move; he did it in front of the largest press event Apple hosted, directly following major product announcements.
For ten years Apple has been veering away from the customer base it always had. You and I have taken a journey, from VIP seats at the restaurant, with the ear of the maître d' ... to a bench in the back alley next to the dumpster, waiting for scraps.
Or hey, let me put it in even stronger terms. We're the engineers working at the local mill. Apple used to love living in our modest home and folding our laundry exactly the way we like it. But then, on a whim, she took part in a variety show, and Ed Sullivan happened to be in town, and he put her on live TV for five minutes and she wore a killer dress and sang with an incredible voice and now, ten years later, we are a long distant memory, still punching the clock at the local mill, while Apple lives in Beverly Hills behind a very tall fence designed to keep her millions of ravenous fans at bay.
That is our situation.
You can call the current range of Apple products "disappointing in terms of actual usability", but that strikes me as the perspective of someone who is used to interacting with their machines a certain way to do certain things, and doesn't actually care about all the other zillion things people use their machines to do.
The Apple restaurant no longer cares about our tastes in food. The Apple girlfriend no longer cares about what we do at the steel mill. She's gone, man. We can watch her sing on TV and hopefully enjoy that and wish her well, and recognize that it doesn't matter that she can't fold laundry worth a damn any more, because her laundry days are done. But that's the extent of our involvement here.
Even a MILLION geeks, all screaming in unison about the headphone jack, ... is irrelevant now. Last year Apple passed the one BILLION mark for iPhones sold, before introducing the iPhone 7. Then, in the ensuing year, they sold A QUARTER BILLION MORE. Those devices are "working", for many people. It's senseless to even try arguing the other way. But are they working for us? For you and me?
Well, perhaps if we get docking stations. And if bluetooth audio quality stops sucking...
Since that headphone jack was removed, the iPhone 7 has sold well over 200 million units.
The iPhone 8 and X together will sell not even God knows how many more before the end of this year alone, and lo and behold, the Google Pixel 2 doesn't have a headphone jack either. (And whereas Apple has included a jack adapter for free in every box, just in case you want to use it, Google has the brass balls to charge you 20 fucking dollars for one.)
If you don't want to give up your headphone jack, then don't ditch your 6s. It's only about one year old. Personally, I just snapped the dongle that came with the 7 onto my headphones, and have stopped worrying about it. (Frankly I'm surprised the little thing hasn't broken, after a year of very heavy use.) The water resistance is worth the very minor hassle.
Sure. All you need to do is travel to an alternate dimension where Mr. Cook was actually wrong about the headphone jack.
Interesting that the one thing Jobs gave everyone at his memorial, that one small book, is not even talked about in this article.
Is that stubbornness in a bad way, or a good way?
Because I dunno about you, but I am really grooving on the fact that I am typing this on a two pound MacBook that will remain absolutely silent, even while it's still fast enough to edit HD video in Final Cut Pro...
I think his real mistake back then was to attempt to please CPU-hungry users and quiet-hungry users with the same machine. A "MacBook Pro" without any fans would be repeating the same mistake for sure.
The modern Apple Cube is the Mac Mini -- not updated for 2 years, apparently on its deathbed.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
I always found the G4 Cube a pretty machine. In fact a while ago I was thinking: wouldn t it be fun to find a cheap broken one, strip the internals and put a raspberry pi with power supply and little audio system in it. Did anyone here try that?
They confirmed earlier this year their intent to reboot (pun not intended) the Mac Pro line by releasing a new design for the Mac Pro in 2018 that focuses on modularity. In the meantime, they did a minor spec bump and price drop, while also announcing an iMac Pro model due for release later this year that actually has decent specs for lots of pro work, though it’s obviously lacking in expandability.
Fruit juice and meditation can't do shit about cancer and only hipster morons think so
First, the iPods really have not been selling. iPod sales have been down for the past 10 years. The iPhone killed the iPod. That has been true since the iPhone was released, and Apple's sales reports bear that out.
Second, the iPod wasn't killed. The iPod was end of lifed - most likely the PortalPlayer CPU that powers them was out of production years ago, and Apple finally exhausted all the leftover parts from the very last production run of them. There are simply no more parts available.
It's why the iPod Classic died years ago - Toshiba stopped making the hard drives required when it became obvious that SSDs were rapidly gaining in capacity. Today, you can upgrade your iPod Classic with flash-based storage for not very much money.
The iPod was an anomaly - it's clear the product was long obsolete, so Apple having it hang around was highly unusual. Perhaps Apple bought up all the spare parts without realizing just how long they would last.
The iPod Touch is around because it's not relying on an obsolete SoC to power it - it's u sing Apple's own SoC and Apple can dictate when they will stop production of that chip.
As for iTunes, well, Apple knows less and less people use it with their iPhones and stuff, so why maintain a piece of software that everyone hates and doesn't use anymore? Granted, they quietly released an update to 12.6.3 that keeps all the functionality, but less and less people were using iTunes anyways for downloading and backing up iPhones (even though it allows the most complete backups).
I hope he hasn't.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
intellectual honesty suggests that the entire computer part of the company suffers from intellectual silliness. MacBook Pro with a huge number of dongles hanging off of it is not a design win for me the consumer. Overpriced hardware that doesn't appear to be any better than the competition. Suggesting that not having ports to connect devices and a lack of simple things like headphone jacks is "brave". IMHO this makes the buyer a ninny!
Yes, we will see what that actually means. Technically speaking, the trashcan is "modular", inasmuch as you can connect modules to it (all over your desk.) That was a terrible idea. It remains to be determined if they're willing to admit that and fix it, or if they're going to keep doing "courageous" things to their users without lube. Recent idiocy like removing the 3.5mm audio jack does not bode well for future design decisions.
In their discussion, they were mostly talking about how the design was thermally limited and that bit them in the GPU / CPU upgrade path. Of course, that was stupid too, but if that's the only focus, and they still think cables everywhere is a "good" idea, then we're back to square one: the only good Mac Pro is a pre-trashcan mac pro.
Drives, memory, graphics and other cards - all of these need to be secure inside a sturdy, upgradable and serviceable chassis. Short of that, the pooch has been well and truly screwed, and the PC makers will eat the market.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Where did you read that they are killing off iTunes?
Honestly, that POS has had a good run but it desperately needs to be taken out behind the barn and shot before it gets any worse.
But what would they replace it with?
Burma shave!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I thought the holder of that title was the Lisa.