
Former Apple engineer: Tim Cook made Apple a 'boring operations company' - bangonkeyboard
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/17/tim-cook-made-apple-boring-operations-company--former-engineer.html
======
John23832
I don't get why people are so surprised that this is the Apple we're seeing
under Tim. Tim was the COO... he knows operations. He's not a creative, he's
not a tech guy. He knows operations, and he knows them well.

While the creative/user facing side has been lack luster (depending on if you
ask the average consumer or a techie), the operational side is booming. Their
product line has slimmed, they have clear and concise build processes, they've
improved their services roll out and are still sitting on a mound of cash.

I think Tim has accomplished what he was put in place to do. People act like
Steve Jobs, the guy who put Tim there, didn't know Tim at all. Jobs knew Tim
very well. He knew what Tim was good at, and I'm sure they talked about what
Tim should do in the future. This is the established course for Apple. Take it
or leave it.

~~~
rapsey
> Their product line has slimed, they have clear and concise build processes,
> and are still sitting on a mound of cash.

The mac line is regressing in terms of hardware and software. While they used
to have one of the best mobile dev environments, they now have the worst
development environment. XCode is a bigger mess every release. Every macOS has
more bugs then the last.

~~~
tptacek
The Mac line is regressing according to people who bought the first iteration
of a new Mac product, violating a cardinal rule in place since the Titanium
Powerbook. To my eyes, this is more like adherence to a time-honored Apple
tradition.

~~~
msabalau
Fair enough, but for many people love for Apple has always been a combination
of admiring the solid design of an individual product alongside the brand of
"think different" innovation. If you feel that Apple hasn't really done
anything astonishingly innovative since 2010 (the iPad, and the iPhone 4, i.e.
Retina), you are losing the brand identity half of the value prop.

That Apple, as if they were making washing machines or minivans, cares about
Consumer Reports recommendations is far more damaging to their mystique than
getting not getting a CR recommendation.

~~~
apercu
I think that's true for those that look at products as some sort of cultural
artifact, but for many of us it was simply easier to replace the current
laptop with the new model and know you'd have quality components.

The same could not be said for most popular non-apple laptops (HP, Dell,
Compaq, etc...).

You might buy a Compaq and two years later buy the same model and have
completely different (usually terrible) video card, screen, etc...

------
omouse
Nobody can be bothered to quote the most important part of the article?

> "At Apple in 2007, organizationally it was the wild west," Burrough said. "I
> was hired under a particular manager, but for the first two years worked on
> projects that had virtually nothing to do with that manager's core
> responsibility. That's because the organization wasn't the priority, the
> projects were the priority. It was the exact opposite of 'not my job.' It
> was 'I'm here to solve whatever problems I can, irrespective of my role, my
> title, or to whom I report.' It was wild. But it was also very rewarding,
> because everything you did had maximal impact on the product." > > But
> today, the "dynamic has clearly and distinctly changed," and Apple is much
> closer to his job at Palm, said Burrough, who most recently founded a 3D
> printing company called Bilt It. > > "Working at Palm, the teams were highly
> organizational, [hierarchical] and responsibilities were siloed," Burrough
> said. "There was a clear sense that each person had a clear responsibility,
> and rarely deviated from it. When you went to someone for help solving a
> problem 'not my job' was a common response."

Is this something for startups to be worried about, introducing hierarchy and
silo'ing and a culture of "not my job" especially as they grow rapidly?

~~~
iaw
There's a balance, too little silo'ing and you get thrash/overlap. Too much
silo'ing and you get tunnel-vision products/unhealthy competition.

I don't know how you can strike the right balance.

------
bangonkeyboard
Clicking through to the original tweetstorm [0] is recommended; it goes into
more depth, and there are some continuing showers at this time.

It jibes with this page that I found striking, from a book of interviews with
ex-Apple executives:
[http://i.imgur.com/dGmHcqv.png](http://i.imgur.com/dGmHcqv.png)

[0]:
[https://twitter.com/bob_burrough/status/821085627084984320](https://twitter.com/bob_burrough/status/821085627084984320)

------
tptacek
Before we all speculate about this ourselves, can we take a second and ask who
this former Apple engineer is and what makes him an authority? There are
thousands of engineers at Apple.

~~~
vosper
His LinkedIn says that he "Changed the world by developing the most successful
products of all time: iPod, iPhone, and iPad." though his actual title was
apparently Software Development Manager. His website tag line says he's a
"revolutionary" and he credits himself as having "Built the most successful
products of all time at Apple".

But yeah, seems just some run-of-the-mill dude who used to work at Apple and
who's a bit disgruntled with management. There must be loads of them at
companies of Apple's size. I guess he just went on the record, and lazy news
orgs picked up this non-story.

------
adventured
This was by design, in that Jobs intentionally chose Cook because he wanted
someone that could keep Apple running well and stable during the iPhone boom.
It was obvious a few years into the life of the iPhone, that it was going to
be a monster product and generate immense profit (although I seriously doubt
many expected $40b in annual profit). Jobs didn't believe Apple needed another
product guy to come in so soon and tamper with that setup. Cook's job was
almost solely to shepherd the iPhone and the supply chain through its growth
phase. The guy that comes after Cook, will have to be the next product guy and
in theory he'll have immense resources to work with.

------
untog
I'll believe it. But on the other hand, I remember when iCloud was an
incredibly unreliable service, when iMessage went down... Apple needed to
improve its operations. Preferably not at the expense of being an interesting
company, though.

~~~
smrtinsert
Reliable, innovative. Pick 1.

~~~
TeMPOraL
With that much cash, they could probably afford both at the expense of
reducing scope a bit.

So maybe: reliable, innovative, big - pick 2.

~~~
ethagknight
To expand a bit, the well known Project Management triangle is Scope, Cost,
and Schedule, pick 2; Scope envelopes reliability and innovation, and schedule
is critical as well, so Apple is left with high cost, which they can certainly
handle.

------
EGreg
Apple is sitting on so much cash. I never understood why they couldn't throw a
couple BILLION dollars at a long term project to eliminate bugs from its
software. Instead they have had tons of regressions with almost every major
release. This hurts their bottom line and reputation.

Apple developed Swift and GCD, they could have pioneered new levels of
reliability and revived Dijkstra's focus on provably correct practices. They
could have gotten their reputation for "it just works" back and then some. Why
don't they? Do they care anymore?

Other areas:

* Network and social. Why not get this right? Ping was their best attempt, seriously?

* Voice. They let others own this space after buying Siri? Why? You are rolling out interfaces for cars and homes and you don't care about people associating you with "smart and natural interfaces"? What happened to the Mac standing out for being easy to interact with?

Instead they invest it in some shadowy fund that makes safe investments. At
least use 1% of your money on this every year you guys! What is wrong with
you? Haven't you learned from every other company that has stopped innovating
along the lines of what they were _known_ for?

~~~
brianwawok
I don't think a Billion dollars would make a dent in the bugs on OSX and
iDevices. Look at the NASA cost per line of code. Now look at the lines of
code in just OSX alone. (Ignore iTunes etc). Frankly, people aren't willing to
pay $5000 for a music app when the free iTunes one works. Or $9000 for the
"bug free" word processor with 100 features, then the $100 buggy word
processor from microsoft with 1000 features exists.

~~~
EGreg
Are you serious? A billion dollars wouldn't make a dent in the bugs on OSX and
iDevices?

They used to have far fewer bugs. At the very least – and this costs far less
than a billion dollars – you can massively expand your regression testing.
Have more automated regression tests. Do testing in more environments. I mean,
it's not that hard to realize that the Wifi is borked, or that the Message
Composer in all iOS apps are now broken. Some of the new Apple bugs are just
unbelievable. It makes Antennagate seem like masterful execution.

Ask anyone, Apple's reputation as "it just works" and "the most natural to
use" has greatly diminished. They were far more interested in changing
everything over to "flat" interfaces (which made it far more ambiguous where
you can tap, etc.) and thin fonts (which made it harder to read). OK great, so
Apple is now a follower.

No, a Billion dollars can do a lot if you have the right people. This ain't
healthcare.gov .

~~~
brianwawok
> Are you serious? A billion dollars wouldn't make a dent in the bugs on OSX
> and iDevices?

yes.

> They used to have far fewer bugs.

They also had far fewer features. Bugs are proportional to features^2

> No, a Billion dollars can do a lot if you have the right people. This ain't
> healthcare.gov .

Microsoft has billions. How much better is windows 10 than windows XP?
Literally billions have been spent on that upgrade.

------
thegayngler
I think that Apple's lack of structure is why their software and services were
largely lacking under Steve Jobs. Maybe there is a way to have your cake and
eat it too. IDK, something like Apple Pay under Steve Jobs probably would've
had a messy rollout.

Software and services require stability and predictability. Tim Cook is the
yang to Steve Jobs' ying. I think TC is looking for the optimal balance.

~~~
charlesism
> software and services were largely lacking under Steve Jobs

Software? It's a first to hear that Steve's Apple had a problem with software.

~~~
Mtinie
iTunes.

~~~
valarauca1
Has been shit under everyone. I really think there are core issues with that
product not a question of leadership.

~~~
Mtinie
Right, but the comment I was replying to implied that software problems under
Jobs were unheard of. iTunes never "just worked", even when Jobs was running
the show.

The leadership issue was not expecting the same level of polish and ease-of-
use that the rest of the product line offered for iTunes that was lavished on
the iPod and iPhone lines. Whether or not it was bad architectural decisions
at the beginning, an unfamiliar toolkit, or something else, as a primary
application for the OS X and iOS platforms, I have always expected it should
be vastly better than what it is.

~~~
charlesism

        > software problems under Jobs were unheard of. 
    

Software problems are never unheard of anywhere. But it's absurd revisionism
to take Steve Jobs - the guy behind Mac OS and iOS - and state that Apple had
problems releasing good software under his leadership.

    
    
        > iTunes never "just worked"
    

Yes, it did!

Either your memory is playing tricks on you, or you aren't old enough to
remember early versions of iTunes.

iTunes wasn't born bad. It became bad.

~~~
Mtinie
Probably my memory then. Your criticism is fair.

I'll try to mentally split iTunes into two epochs -- Before-iPhone and After-
iPhone.

iTunes worked reasonably when it was simply a music library and store, with a
simple integration to connect your iPod.

Since 2007, meh...

~~~
charlesism
2007 sounds about right to me, too. The last great feature I recall was
"podcasts", which wikipedia says was 2005. By 2010 they were adding crap like
"Ping".

------
WhitneyLand
I don't think an ops ceo dooms a company to be boring. More important is how
good the ops ceo is at recognizing the importance of innovation/ vision and
clearing a path for that to happen.

------
ape4
That video seems to be saying VR is the future. I'm not so sure about that.

~~~
simonh
VR has been the future for 20 years or more.

------
mark_l_watson
I am frustrated with some of Apple's web services. iCloud is better than it
used to be but I find Siri to be inferior to Google Now.

That said, I love my MacBook and iPad Pro devices. Also, it is easy enough to
use the Google app on iPhones (which I don't have) and iPads.

For consumers, I think the MacBook is a good direction to go: excellent
battery life and screen, and compact form factor. I use a 16 core, 60GB ram
VPS for development so the MacBook being a little weak in the CPU department
is fine with me.

So, I think Apple is going in a good direction, but I would like them to ramp
up investment in web services.

------
1024core
I think Apple under Cook will have the same fate as Microsoft under Ballmer.

~~~
iaw
Ballmer was a political leader for Microsoft (looking back on his statements,
they were all designed around keeping the stock price up not prognosticating
the future of tech/Microsoft).

I give Cook a lot more credit than Ballmer, he may not be able to attain a
Jobs/Gates level performance for the company but let's not insult the man.

------
kirykl
Maybe that's just the reality distortion field wearing off. I think a large
impact Steve had at Apple keynotes has gone missing. The product managers just
can't replicate his RDF

------
emehrkay
Whats the over/under on Scott Forestall coming back in a Job-ish way to help
"win" back mindshare?

------
mentos
The iPhone bridged an enormous gap putting the world in everyone's pocket.

What gaps are left?

------
ctdonath
All these comments about innovation vs lack thereof, and no mention of Jonny
Ive?

------
jstewartmobile
Because the little jails they made under Steve Jobs were "exciting"!

[https://stallman.org/apple.html](https://stallman.org/apple.html)

~~~
fallenshell
What does free software vs. proprietary software have to do with this? Low
quality comment.

------
DoodleBuggy
>>> "There was a clear sense that each person had a clear responsibility, and
rarely deviated from it. When you went to someone for help solving a problem
'not my job' was a common response."

Yikes. Perhaps that explains some of the software quality lately.

~~~
shapov
You are taking that quote out of context. The full quote:

    
    
      "Working at Palm, the teams were highly organizational, [hierarchical] and responsibilities were siloed," Burrough said.
      "There was a clear sense that each person had a clear responsibility, and rarely deviated from it.
      When you went to someone for help solving a problem 'not my job' was a common response."
    

He is clearly talking about his previous experience at Palm.

~~~
Thetawaves
It is still a valid comment. "If working at Apple is as bad as working at Palm
.... "

