
How Apple's Top Secret Product Development Process Works - FluidDjango
http://thenextweb.com/apple/2012/01/24/this-is-how-apples-top-secret-product-development-process-works/
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angersock
Do we have any Apple alumni here to give feedback on how this process works,
in practice?

It reads--and maybe just to me--as a work environment as miserable as it is
decadent.

The amount of cross-pollination between good engineers doesn't seem that
large, due to secrecy measures. The knowledge that your project could be
killed off on a whim, and that you couldn't talk about it--this makes even
some of the gaming sweatshops look downright friendly in comparison.

(EDIT: Don't just downvote, use your words. How is the environment of extreme
secrecy and compartmentalization one in which you'd wish to work?)

~~~
throwaway_95014
One reason you don't read many ex-Apple employees talking about the process is
that it's complicated, and simple soundbite answers are hard to come up with.

The culture of secrecy thing is greatly overplayed by the media precisely
because of the visceral reaction that you display. In reality, if someone
needs to know something, they can know it. If they need to reach out to
someone with a specific skill set, the resource can be disclosed. The need-to-
know policy is accepted and respected inside the organization because it
works, but the key point is that it does work.

The amount of cross-pollination between engineering teams is actually very
high. There are certainly areas where access to specific projects is
constrained, but in general the culture is very open. Sharing of code and team
resources rather than duplicate development is the norm, as is tight cross-
functional integration between teams. At any given time you may not know
precisely what your peers are working on, but this is different from not
knowing who they are, or being able to talk to them.

I have a hard time seeing Apple-the-engineering-environment as either decadent
or miserable. Apart from being a bit tight for office space and having rather
too much carbon fibre in the parking garages, the company is incredibly
focussed on doing the job and doing it well, which doesn't sound much like
decadence.

Likewise, it's hard to see what's miserable about working within Apple. The
company is always doing something interesting, and it's very pragmatic about
it. Projects don't get killed "on a whim", they get killed because they're a
bad idea, or they don't work, or they get shelved for a year, or three, or
more until the rest of the technology catches up. If you are obsessed with
shipping "your thing" that might be depressing, but if you want to ship
something good, knowing that you aren't going to be chained to a turkey for
five years just because some suit would lose face otherwise can be very
refreshing.

As an engineer, working for Apple is actually pretty amazing. The company has
very little of the management BS that is prevalent in other large tech
companies. Most engineering decisions (how things should work) are made by
engineers; many new features are the direct result of an engineer saying "what
if we did this?", or "if we stack this and this and this together we could do
that"; most of the engineering management team are ex-engineers and thus well-
calibrated; the toolbox and scope for attacking problems in new ways are both
enormous; "that would be hard" is not usually an excuse for not doing
something; "that would be stupid" is usually an excuse for not doing
something. Engineers, even new hires, have a very high level of personal
autonomy and corresponding responsibility; your role is largely what you make
of it.

On a routine basis, the stuff you work on turns up in real products that
people use and love. If you actually enjoy making things, that's all kinds of
awesome.

tl;dr: If you're considering working for Apple and the fear of being locked
into a box is putting you off - that's not how it is.

~~~
throwaway_95015
I'm graduating in a couple months, and just accepted an offer from Apple. I
was extremely excited at first, but then I kept getting a bit more worried
every time I read what people say about their secrecy. This perspective was
great.

The one thing I still worry about: what is it about Apple that made you unable
to post this under your real account? This seems like a very fair, honest, and
non-offensive description.

~~~
throwaway_95129
I think the fact that all of us are reluctant to post under our real accounts
says it all.

~~~
throwaway_95015
But why are you two? I'm just doing it to follow suit. Is it peer-pressure?
Actual policies to not discuss such things?

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tristan_juricek
I see two major problems being solved here:

1\. "too many cooks in the kitchen" design-by-committee crap

2\. "sunk cost" pressures to deliver on investments

What's interesting is how few people are involved in making decisions, given
the size of the company.

As an engineer, I wonder if I would feel more or less significance over my own
decisions, given the constant executive feedback, and what the relationships
with "the EPM/GSM mafia" feels like. My sense is that it's probably fine,
given the talent level of the design group.

I also wonder how many of these startups have been killed. I have to think
that keeping things secret means that the execs can halt projects without
reporting this to investors.

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jad
> I also wonder how many of these startups have been killed. I have to think
> that keeping things secret means that the execs can halt projects without
> reporting this to investors.

The advantages Apple's secrecy provides can't really be understated. As you
imply, it allows them to experiment with product ideas freely. They can
release products only when they're ready, and not to meet some artificial
deadline announced months in advance. They can (and apparently have) cut
features and made changes at the last minute, again with complete freedom
because they haven't told anyone what they're doing.

And, obviously, they get tons of free press from the rumor mill and from their
eventual "big unveil" product announcements. Consider the difference if Tim
Cook casually said at, say, CES that they're shipping the iPad 3 in a couple
months and it's going to have a retina display. How underwhelming would the
eventual announcement be? Would it get coverage on broadcast news when it's
finally announced, like iPhone and iPad announcements do now? That alone is
worth millions of dollars in free marketing.

~~~
Drbble
"overstated", that is.

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_k
I worked for a company where lots of managers and executives wanted to have
their say. Product managers, purchasing department, sales, finance and of
course the top-executives. They got the product ready more or less on time.
When it was introduced on the market, demand exploded and in a positive way.
They made hundreds of millions of dollars. Based on that, the endless
meetings, the revisions, the compromises had all been worth it, right ? Not
really. The writing had been on the wall from day one. The product looked ok
on the outside. However, they had been using cheap and low quality electronic
components that stopped working after xxx hours. And they had problems with
the grounding, due to a low-cost design decision. That made matters worse
because it damaged other components. They ended up replacing the components of
the circuit boards and rewriting the software. They did up to 3 retakes. It
was crazy expensive. And don't think for a second that was the end of it. The
customers were leasing the product and they had a purchase option after 3
years. Guess what they ended up doing ? Some no longer wanted the product and
some negotiated the price down.

The entire company took a huge loss, a restructuring took place, the division
was shut down, people were fired, some were moved to another division, the CEO
was replaced and yeah, fast forward : it's not done yet ...

Lesson learned: Cross-team communication is necessary and productive, but
you've got to know who to listen to.

~~~
jonnathanson
This is pretty key.

Nobody sets out to achieve mediocrity. Nobody actually _strives_ to put a
half-assed product into the market. Mediocrity is a byproduct, not a goal, of
designing to the downside: making every single decision about cutting corners,
reducing costs, and mitigating risks. Most companies try their damndest to
manage downside. They don't swing for the fences; they're simply trying not to
strike out.

Thing is, it's pretty hard to hit homeruns when you're not putting your weight
into your stance and swinging hard for them. I can't carry the baseball
metaphor much further without bordering on the ridiculous, but my point is
that Apple defies the conventional operating procedure in consumer product
development. Conventional wisdom says your primary concern is managing risk
and aiming for incremental gains in market share and operating profit. Apple's
strategy, by contrast, is about making fewer, bigger bets. There's bigger
downside risk in such an approach, but there's also much bigger upside
potential.

~~~
maxharris
I tried to vote this up, but I missed the button, and clicked the downarrow
instead. (Sorry!) I wish that there was a way to undo votes, or that the
arrows weren't placed so close together. I did find a couple of your other
posts that I liked, and I did upvote those. I hope that helps.

~~~
jonnathanson
LOL, thank you!

Truth be told, however, I don't lose a lot of sleep over downvotes -- be they
accidental or intentional. Life's too short. Also, I'm of the (perhaps
slightly perverse) opinion that I'm not being interesting if I'm not getting
at least a few downvotes every now and then.

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ThomPete
Apples design secret is it's almost omnipotent vertical integration.

Not to take anything away from Ives who is an amazing designer.

But he would not be doing the things he's been doing in another company. It
simply wouldn't be possible because other companies assemble components. And
that is why no one is able to make better products than apple are when looked
form a holistic point of view.

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zachrose
> Designers are treated like royalty at Apple, where the entire product
> conforms to their vision. This the polar opposite of the way it works at
> other companies. Instead of the design being beholden to the manufacturing,
> finance or manufacturing departments, these all conform to the will of the
> design department headed by Jony Ive.

Two ways to read this: 1) Designers are dictators who bend organizational BS
to their will, or 2) Designers are experts who understand process and
materials ridiculously well.

~~~
r4dius
Why not both?

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FrancescoRizzi
Very interesting to learn that they place so many barriers to cross-team
communications (when they create the 'start-up'). I see this has benefits in
regard to focus and secrecy but.. find it a bit counter-intuitive and possibly
counter-productive: if Employee X is not in the team, he won't be able to know
that he could contribute his awesome Skill Y to that team...

~~~
ajg1977
Most employees think they have an awesome skill that could contribute to an
exciting new project but fewer actually do. The last thing a new project needs
is for staffing to be based on maneuvering and people calling in favors.

If X has skills that could be of use that will already be recognized he'll be
brought inside the gates when necessary. If he has some amazing insight that
only happens when he learns about the project, well there's always version 2.

~~~
brown9-2
_If X has skills that could be of use that will already be recognized he'll be
brought inside the gates when necessary._

... in a world with perfect management.

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marcusf
It should probably be noted that 'product' in this article only means physical
products, eg the iPhone, iPad, MacBook etc.

It would be interesting to see how this relates to software. I might just have
to buy the book.

~~~
gdubs
From business week, about iOS:

" In other words, should he shrink the Mac, which would be an epic feat of
engineering, or enlarge the iPod? Jobs preferred the former option, since he
would then have a mobile operating system he could customize for the many
gizmos then on Apple’s drawing board. Rather than pick an approach right away,
however, Jobs pitted the teams against each other in a bake-off."

[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/scott-forstall-the-
sorc...](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/scott-forstall-the-sorcerers-
apprentice-at-apple-10122011.html)

So, two separate teams working simultaneously on the same problem,
competitively.

~~~
cmelbye
I loved that story of how iOS came to be. He ended up making the right
decision.

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jacques_chester
I bought the "book" some time ago.

It's not really a book. It's a magazine article, maybe 20 pages worth of
material. Basically: don't buy it. Everything of substance has already been
revealed in articles like these.

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microcentury
The <reviews on Amazon for this book are not very positive:

[http://www.amazon.com/product-
reviews/1455516074/ref=cm_cr_d...](http://www.amazon.com/product-
reviews/1455516074/ref=cm_cr_dp_syn_footer?showViewpoints=1&k=Inside%20Apple%3A%20How%20America%27s%20Most%20Admired%20and%20Secretive-
company%20Really%20Works%3A%20How%20Amerika%27s%20Most%20Admired%20-%20and%20Secretive%20-%20Company%20Really%20Works)

Anyone read it and care to comment?

~~~
yannickt
The reviews for the hardcover edition are mostly positive:
[http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Apple-Americas-Admired-
Secretiv...](http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Apple-Americas-Admired-Secretive-
Company/product-
reviews/145551215X/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1)

I've read the book. I haven't read many books about Apple and I enjoyed it;
hardcore Apple fans may have a different opinion. My major take away was
Apple's cult of secrecy. We all "know" that Apple is secretive, but I never
would have guessed the lengths they could go to prevent leaks - assuming the
author's research is accurate. I don't think I would enjoy working in that
kind of environment, personally.

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rtisticrahul
Interesting post. To develop a product in total secrecy for someone the size
of apple, is really a remarkable feat. Also like their focus on design first.
Thats what separate their products from others.

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funkah
This is more detail than I have ever seen on this topic. Is anyone sure that
this guy actually knows what he's talking about?

