"“The biggest worry for me is, are we getting too locked in a formula?” asks Schiller. He recalls the 2002 Worldwide Developers Conference, at which Steve Jobs delivered a eulogy for Mac OS9, complete with cheesy organ music, a smoke machine, and a casket rising through the middle of the stage. “We haven’t done anything quite that outlandish in a long time. It may be part of being a bigger company, not this small upstart. We feel a little uncomfortable being too strange and getting too far away from ourselves.”"
The article was clearly written before today's announcement, given its detail.
This means that Apple's PR team is behind this piece, giving this reporter early access then framing the story around the touch device which is the big feature of the iPhone 6s launch.
The article may be good, but it puts into question the independence and neutrality of the article since its an article that was clearly initiated by Apple's PR team.
The entire piece reads as a promotion piece for people trying to evaluate Apple stock, emphasizing how Apple's design team within its corporate structure has a unique process that allows it to deliver the kind of innovations that produced the iPhone.
That may well be true, but read the article and there is no hint of a single criticism or critique of Apple's description of its design team. There is little external evaluation of the claims that are being made about how they operate. There is no meaningful 3rd person analysis from the reporter about the "truthiness" of any of the claims being made here about Apple's design team.
It's a fascinating article, but the OP has a point in saying this is clearly an article whose content has been carefully crafted by Apple's PR team. That doesn't mean it's not informative, but we should be aware still of how an article like this gets produced. This is precisely the kind of in-depth coverage that Apple needs for boosting their stock price amongst market investors. It reassures them that Apple's "still got it" when it comes to producing big wins into the future.
I was left with the exact opposite impression (perhaps because I read it till the end).
"It also means that every few years it has to bet its future on the instincts of a few people with strong opinions about how things should work [...] its business plan, basically, is to trust that he and his team are right."
That is extremely harsh criticism in my book and should make all kinds of bells ringing in the heads of people responsible for putting money in Apple's stock.
> “There’s a tax that comes with interoperability and what can be seen as complexity, which is it can actually be an impediment to innovation.”
Yes, it's possible that standards can become too complicated. Rather than refusing to participate, as Apple has done with pointer-related designs, why not join the group and give rational reasons for simplifying the design? Every thing Apple has reinvented here is already supported by W3C Pointer Events as far as I can tell.
The article is confusing, I believe Ive was talking about Apple and its product line, not about outside standards. He seems to be saying that keeping compatibility within a product family can stifle innovation.
"Are we getting too locked in a formula" -- hard to tell what prompted this sentiment, over "we are geniuses for inventing this". I imagine middle management was the biggest hindrance to making something cross-cutting like this happen at a company like Apple. Perhaps it's becoming too crystallized. Who is there to slowly grind away to maybe be a VP someday, and who is there to build epic sh*t?
12 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 44.2 ms ] thread"“The biggest worry for me is, are we getting too locked in a formula?” asks Schiller. He recalls the 2002 Worldwide Developers Conference, at which Steve Jobs delivered a eulogy for Mac OS9, complete with cheesy organ music, a smoke machine, and a casket rising through the middle of the stage. “We haven’t done anything quite that outlandish in a long time. It may be part of being a bigger company, not this small upstart. We feel a little uncomfortable being too strange and getting too far away from ourselves.”"
The video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1SLCAiGkVQ
This means that Apple's PR team is behind this piece, giving this reporter early access then framing the story around the touch device which is the big feature of the iPhone 6s launch.
The article may be good, but it puts into question the independence and neutrality of the article since its an article that was clearly initiated by Apple's PR team.
That may well be true, but read the article and there is no hint of a single criticism or critique of Apple's description of its design team. There is little external evaluation of the claims that are being made about how they operate. There is no meaningful 3rd person analysis from the reporter about the "truthiness" of any of the claims being made here about Apple's design team.
It's a fascinating article, but the OP has a point in saying this is clearly an article whose content has been carefully crafted by Apple's PR team. That doesn't mean it's not informative, but we should be aware still of how an article like this gets produced. This is precisely the kind of in-depth coverage that Apple needs for boosting their stock price amongst market investors. It reassures them that Apple's "still got it" when it comes to producing big wins into the future.
"It also means that every few years it has to bet its future on the instincts of a few people with strong opinions about how things should work [...] its business plan, basically, is to trust that he and his team are right."
That is extremely harsh criticism in my book and should make all kinds of bells ringing in the heads of people responsible for putting money in Apple's stock.
> “There’s a tax that comes with interoperability and what can be seen as complexity, which is it can actually be an impediment to innovation.”
Yes, it's possible that standards can become too complicated. Rather than refusing to participate, as Apple has done with pointer-related designs, why not join the group and give rational reasons for simplifying the design? Every thing Apple has reinvented here is already supported by W3C Pointer Events as far as I can tell.