

Apple to set up first dev center outside of CA in Israel - maayank
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000706928

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pkaler
This can't be Apple's first development centre outside of California. I'm
sitting about half a block away from their Vancouver office. They acquired
SchemaSoft a while ago and parts of iWork for OS X and iOS are built there.

~~~
danudey
Not to mention a lot of high-end, abstract R&D. They have some serious talent
hidden away in that office.

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9oliYQjP
An Israel engineering team saved Intel in the mid 2000s from its Netburst
architecture decision. They built a higher performing CPU than the Pentium 4
that was also more energy efficient. Apple's decision is probably to just move
closer to where that talent is. I wonder if they'll actually try to poach
those Intel engineers.

~~~
jws
CPU designer poaching has a long and glorious history.

In the '90s Intel drove a pretty good stake into the PowerPC by building a CPU
design center in Austin and hiring away critical parts of the Motorola team
which was working up the street.

In the '70s MOS picked up a disgruntled Motorola team and made the 6502.

Motorola won lawsuits in both events, but lost the wars.

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adamjernst
I believe iWorks is developed in Pittsburgh (or something like that). Some of
the token-recognition code (e.g. detecting calendar events in free text) was
developed in France. So I'm not sure it's entirely true that this is the first
non-Cupertino dev center.

~~~
ugh
I know it's not as central to their business as flash memory, but as far as I
know all their music software is still being developed in Germany. (Apple
bought a German software company to get pro audio tools.)

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idan
There's a high density of good hardware engineering talent here in Israel, and
specifically flash memory expertise (see:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SanDisk> and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Systems>).

Given Apple's voracious appetite for solid-state storage, I am surprised this
didn't happen sooner.

Only thing I'm not sure of is why this is interesting news, particularly to
the wider, non-Israeli HN community. Feels like a case of "OMG LOOK ISRAEL IN
THE TITLE".

edit: Oh, just now noticing the inevitable politics in the comment thread. Le
Sigh.

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dpkendal
This is not the first dev centre outside of California. The team that
originally developed iCal was apparently based in France.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICal>

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krembo
By the article the dev center will be located in Matan which is an incredible
place located in Haifa. It's location closed to the Technion brings the best
brains to work for the dev centers of most of the international enterprises
located there. (The Technion institute brought 3 Nobel prize winners in the
last 7 years with a yearly budget of about only 200M$)

So it's like the silicon valley except the size. The size of the Matam area is
less than 2000ft^2 and in this small area there are dev centers of Intel, IBM,
Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Elbit,NDS, Philips, GE, Zoran and many more. Now,
get back 2 lines before to read about the size of the area where all these are
located in. And if this isn't incredible then I don't know what is!

~~~
maayank
By the name I assume you're an Israeli and while it's true that Matam has an
high ratio of global corporations per sqm, I think that when people (both in
Israel and outside it) think of "the Israeli silicon valley" they think more
of Tel Aviv and its surrounding area (i.e. Herzliya). If Apple will purchase
Anobit then they will have a beachhead in Herzliya... although two offices,
both in Matam and Tel Aviv/Herzliya is pretty common (i.e. Google, IBM, etc.)

~~~
endtime
As an American who's spent a little time in Israel, when I think of tech and
Israel I think of Haifa.

~~~
wyclif
It's a nice little town to live and work in. Haifa is probably my fave city in
Israel.

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guelo
That's too bad since Israel runs a repressive apartheid regime.

~~~
coolestuk
It is truly offensive to what black africans endured under apartheid, to
compare Israel with South Africa. My guess is that the people who say such
things have never visited Israel and never visited South Africa under
apartheid.

'African-American student leaders from a variety of historically black
colleges and universities took out full page ads in numerous American college
newspapers Thursday, displaying an “Open Letter to Students for Justice in
Palestine (SJP),” to convey that they were offended by SJP’s use of the term
“apartheid” at recent Israel Apartheid Week events at campuses across the
country.'

<http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=215811>

Ever wonder where a millenium of European anti-semtism disappeared to
following 1945? It transmogrified itself into prejudice against Israel.

There are countries that truly are comparable to apartheid (e.g. Saudi Arabia,
where non-muslims are not permitted to enter Mecca). But it is always
democratic Israel that gets equated with apartheid, not undemocratic,
discriminatory Saudi Arabia.

~~~
guelo
Palestinians aren't allowed to enter huge portions of the West Bank, including
big sections of Hebron where only 500 Jewish settlers live among 300,000
Palestinians. There are whole highways that are Israeli only. Jewish settlers
steal private land and then are defended by the IDF as has happened in Nabi
Saleh.

One set of rules is enforced on Palestinians and another for Israelis living
in the same area. That is the definition of apartheid.

~~~
tkahn6
'Palestinian' denoting citizenship rather than race. I can 100% assure you
that there are Druze and Bedouin checkpoint soldiers.

South African apartheid discriminated based on the race of _South African
citizens_. Israeli only roads because Palestinians are not Israeli. They are
Palestinian. The word youre looking for is occupation.

~~~
guelo
The only requirement to become an Israeli citizen is a religious claim.
Apartheid based on religion vs race is not much better.

I consider the occupation terminology BS because there has been no progress on
the two state solution for 50 years. It is one country defacto ruled by
Israel. Israel tries to claim the Palestinian territories as a weird hybrid
state, not independent but not part of Israel, just so they can claim to be
democratic, but they are not.

~~~
reissbaker
_The only requirement to become an Israeli citizen is a religious claim._

Unless you misunderstand the meaning of "requirement," you're either
misinformed or making things up. There are plenty of Christian and Muslim
citizens of Israel. There are even Muslim Israeli Arabs in the Knesset,
Israel's version of the Parliament. In short: being Jewish is not a
"requirement" of citizenship.

~~~
guelo
What I was referring to was the Israeli Law of Return that gives citizenship
to any Jew that applies.

But as far as Arab Israelis, they are discriminated against in all sort of
ways including discrimination encoded into laws. Israel proudly claims to be a
Jewish state and they intend to keep it that way by discriminating against
Arabs in any way they see as necessary.

~~~
tkahn6
> What I was referring to was the Israeli Law of Return that gives citizenship
> to any Jew that applies.

Also known as _Jus Sanguinis_ with the twist being that one can convert to
Judaism. Judaism is a remnant from a time when nation and religion were
interchangeable terms. Hence why conversion is possible.

And in case you were unaware, this isn't the only way to acquire Israeli
citizenship. Non-Jews can acquire Israeli citizenship through a typical
naturalization process.

> including discrimination encoded into laws.

I challenge you to find an Israeli law that discriminates against Israeli
Arabs. The closest you'll find are laws which specify state-funded
opportunities only provided to those who have done civil or military service.

For someone who has gone so far as to boycott Intel products because of their
connection with Israel, you are _shockingly_ ignorant about very basic facts.

~~~
guelo
I can find two laws:

\- The racist Jewish National Fund, which manages a big chunk of Israeli land
exclusively for Jews, was authorized by the Knesset to refuse to lease land to
Arab citizens.

\- Arab citizens are not allowed to obtain citizenship for foreign spouses
while Jews can.

~~~
tkahn6
With regards to the first law, you are either misinformed or simplifying:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_National_Fund#Adalah.27s...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_National_Fund#Adalah.27s_petition)

With regards to the second law, that is a result of national security
concerns. Spouses of Arab citizens are not allowed to obtain citizenship
_automatically_ (they can of course, as I stated above, go through a
naturalization process) because if that were the case it would effectively be
the Right of Return.

