
Working Backwards to the Technology - webwielder
http://daringfireball.net/2014/02/working_backwards
======
smacktoward
I would generally agree with the overall thrust of the post, that successful
products come from looking at the customer's problems first rather than what
technologies you happen to have on hand to sell them. But the bit about how
basic, non-product-oriented research is a distraction and a waste of effort
leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Look at one of the cited examples:

 _> AT&T had Bell Labs, created Unix, and never made a successful product out
of that work._

Which, sure, OK. But on the other hand, ask yourself where Apple (since we're
talking about them here) would be today if Bell Labs had never existed. Bell
Labs invented UNIX; no UNIX means no BSD, which means no NeXTSTEP, which means
no OS X. Bell Labs invented C; no C means no Objective-C. Bell Labs invented
the freaking _transistor_ , without which the idea of a "personal computer"
would have been utterly ridiculous. These are all fundamental inventions that
made entire generations of tech businesses possible.

So one way to look at it is Gruber's way, that skipping out on R&D means that
Apple is "focused." Another way to look at it would be that Apple is a
freeloader. That they cheerfully take useful things that are only available to
them due to the generosity of others to build products on, without seeing a
need to ever be the generous ones themselves -- to replenish the commons that
made their own fortune possible.

That's probably good business, at least in the near term. If there's a pile of
gold sitting out in the town square, you'd be a fool not to grab as much of it
as you could for yourself. But unless _someone 's_ throwing new gold onto that
pile, eventually it's going to run out. And if you've used the gold to set
yourself up as a goldsmith, that's going to be a pretty bleak day for you. You
know?

~~~
simonh
That's a good argument for publicly funded research, the products of which
become available to be leveraged by business across the economy. That doesn't
mean that vertically directed, product focused research within companies is a
bad thing. Without it smartphone tech would be years behind where we are
today, and the Mac would never have happened which means Windows may never
have happened, at least when and in the form that it did.

This is also an argument against a strictly enforced and restrictive patent
system. If inventors are incapable of turning their inventions into viable
products, then the broader economy and public interest may actually be best
served by allowing others to make use of those inventions without punitive
licensing terms. I'm not anti-patent, but it seems to me the current patent
system is far from optimal.

------
cromwellian
Someone has to do the basic research. If everyone was "product focused", there
would be no long term research. Sometimes researching stuff just for the hell
of it yields serendipitous benefits, positive externalities for all of
society, including your competitors.

Gruber spends an awful lot of time trying to justify and enshrine every action
Apple takes. My guess is, if Apple got an Advanced Tech Group again, we'd have
a blog article talking about how it's a masterful bit of Apple strategy.

The other thing is, is Apple reallty so different? We see on the Patently
Apple website, that Apple is constantly patenting all kinds of crazy stuff
that never becomes products.

The only difference between Apple and Google here is that Google will expose
the prototype to the public and let people play with it, and Apple will just
file patents on it.

~~~
jccc
_> Gruber spends an awful lot of time trying to justify and enshrine every
action Apple takes. My guess is, if Apple got an Advanced Tech Group again,
we'd have a blog article talking about how it's a masterful bit of Apple
strategy._

"This is such bullshit it hurts my head." [...] "The point isn’t about what
Apple can do but what they should do. And they shouldn’t be doing this."
[http://daringfireball.net/2008/09/podcasters_rejection](http://daringfireball.net/2008/09/podcasters_rejection)

From an imaginary app-store reviewer diary: "Rejecting all of them,
consistently, would in fact be no good at all. The feeling of being part of
the monolith — of being the monolith — really only surges when I use my
position to act capriciously. To act fairly would be to follow the rules. To
act capriciously is to be the rules."
[http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/diary_of_an_app_store_revi...](http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/diary_of_an_app_store_reviewer)

"Translation" of Apple PR into English: "We decided from the outset to set the
formula for our bars-of-signal strength indicator to make the iPhone look good
— to make it look as if it 'gets more bars'. That decision has now bitten us
on our ass."
[http://daringfireball.net/2010/07/translation_iphone_4](http://daringfireball.net/2010/07/translation_iphone_4)

~~~
cromwellian
The exceptions that prove the rule.

------
gilgoomesh
Apple's approach since 1997 has shown where Apple thinks "Advanced Technology
Group" technology should be developed: small startups. When Apple need that
type of technology, they acquire smaller companies.

Apple made just 5 acquisitions in 20 years to 1997. In the 17 years since,
they've made 49.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Apple)

And that's not counting open source adoptions or developer hirings like LLVM,
KHTML, CUPS, etc.

This makes sense when you think about it. Large companies are too expensive,
too inefficient, too concerned about their existing market and too risk averse
to lay the groundwork in interesting technology. But large companies do have
lots of money and can afford to pay small, innovative researchers and
developers handsomely when they need the technology.

------
logicallee
The problem is that engineers, including the people here, hate elegance.

If step 1 is identifying a customer problem. (I still have to cook myself eggs
every morning.)

Step 2 is identifying a solution. I know - what if a robot can cook breakfast.

Step 3 is proof of physical concepts - is it possible for a roomful of
expensive equipment to cook eggs? How do you even cook eggs - I've never
really thought about it... I just kind of do it.

step 4 is prototyping - how could we get this down to something integrated
that still works

step 5 is even more prototyping - can we make this any simpler?

step 6 is simplifying - how could we make this EVEN simpler and more
foolproof. We need a breakthrough.

step 7 is wowww is that ever elegant.

steps 8-10 are simplifying even more and getting down to the smallest thing
that could possibly work.

step 11 is sourcing market-available chips and components

steps 12-15 are programming them.

Then you announce step 15. It's just a magic fucking box that cooks you
breakfast in the morning.

Then the tech reaction will be - "This is just a hot plate in a minifridge -
the electronics are just a temperature sensor, and power relay, driven by a
$0.50 8-bit chip. It's probably less than 200 lines of code. Cute, but worth
maybe $1.5 over the cost of a hot plate and a minifridge, if we're generous.
This thing maybe takes an hour to make†. Now what was done by Doc Brown in the
intro to Back to the Future - 29 years ago; THAT is cool. That actually had
motors."

† copy

Solution? Stop at step 3, back when it was a complicated solution with stepper
motors and pumps. Or if step 3 wasn't complicated enough, abandon project - as
it's obviously trivial.

On the other hand, if it involves a novel application of a completely
impractical physical phenomenon - maybe directed 2.4 Ghz radiation while
backscatter levels are monitored.

Well that, you can announce.

~~~
parasight
> The problem is that engineers, including the people here, hate elegance.

... and all the year I considered myself an engineer ;) What am I if I love
elegance?

~~~
logicallee
a product designer :)

------
Marazan
Remember, in Daring Fireball world when Apple repeatedly rejects an idea
before embracing it then that's demonstration of their incredible savvy. When
"Apple competitor" rejects an idea before embracing it then that's claim
chowder.

~~~
gjm11
There is no instance in this post of Apple repeatedly rejecting an idea before
embracing it, nor of an Apple competitor rejecting an idea before embracing
it.

How is your criticism in any way related to the OP?

(Also: the great majority of the instances I can recall where Gruber has
called something "claim chowder" have _not_ been about an Apple competitor
rejecting an idea, let alone subsequently embracing it. Top results for me on
Google right now: (1) Henry Blodget saying the iPhone is dead -- not an Apple
competitor; (2) someone at "Fast Company" saying Google Plus is going to have
lots of users -- not an Apple competitor, not rejecting an idea; (3) someone
at The Register predicting that Apple will launch a phone and it will fail
within a year or two -- not an Apple competitor, not really rejecting an idea;
(4) lots of people, mostly not Apple competitors, being unimpressed by the
iPad in various ways; (5) BGR claiming that Apple were going to launch a new
version of the Apple TV OS -- not an Apple competitor, not rejecting an idea.
I'll stop there but the next few were also not Apple competitors rejecting
ideas.)

(Yeah, Gruber is a zealot and not perfectly impartial between Apple and
Apple's competitors. That is not news. If there's something he's actually done
wrong on this occasion, let's hear it. If not, what's the point of irrelevant
criticisms?)

------
e28eta
When I see R&D spending comparisons, I wonder if certain companies are more
liberal about what they account as R&D.

Every year at work we fill out a survey where we estimate what portion of our
time was spent on R&D vs other things like maintenance. We're told it's
important because there's a tax credit for R&D. My (probably faulty) memory
says that our guidelines classify all development on new features and
products, as well as any research necessary in executing my job, as R&D. Which
is very different from something like Bell Labs or ATG.

There're clearly also companies with divisions purely focused on advanced
technologies unrelated to products for this year or the next, and I'm curious
where the majority of spending falls.

Edit: or, maybe it comes down to very different numbers of employees making
products. A quick browse online suggests that Nokia has more employees, does
some (all?) of their own manufacturing, and that many of Apple's employees
work in the retail stores.

------
nyrulez
This blog post is a slap in the face of all the inventors who may not be good
businessmen or may not have a good product sense. Being an apple fan boy and
all I understand, but discounting things that Apple doesn't do or doesn't have
the capabilities/inclination to do is just retarded.

Apple would be no where without the technologies it DID NOT invent or work
backwards for all of its products. Standing on the shoulders of other giants
and making good products on top should be acknowledged and something to be
grateful for, not minimized so arrogantly.

If only Steve Wozniak could comment on this, I feel he would violently
disagree with Gruber.

------
scj
I prefer ESR's take on the subject:
[http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch20s05.html](http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch20s05.html)

------
himangshuj
Another POV could be that since the death of proper R n D at apple, they have
made amazing products but they have not created anything that advances the
technology landscape. Google is making self driving cars, they are working on
quantum computers. Apple has created an ipod which gave lots of profits for
half a decade.

~~~
gress
Google proclaims a new sci-fi project every other week, but hasn't delivered
any amazing products to users since Maps. Apple doesn't proclaim anything but
consistently changes people's lives by making new and useful product
categories.

------
xzkakjel
Not for me. It makes sense business wise but I need to come from the
technology side and then find a problem to solve it. I'm a dabbler
unfortunately. If I look at problems first I lose interest pretty fast.

------
somid3
This is one of the best blog articles I've read. Thank you.

~~~
adamnemecek
What part exactly did you enjoy if I may ask? Or are you being sarcastic?

~~~
parasight
I enjoyed it too. It didn't teach me anything new. Apple's focus on the
product is old news. I enjoyed it because it reminded me of what a great
performer Steve Jobs was on stage.

