
Henri Lamiraux, iOS Engineering Vice President, leaves Apple after 23 years - protomyth
http://9to5mac.com/2013/11/03/henri-lamiraux-apples-top-ios-engineering-vice-president-leaves-company/
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sirkneeland
Sounds like more of a story of "he's retiring" (with a massive pile of money
from riding AAPL stock to the top) than any sort of story of internal turmoil
or schisms in the iOS dev team.

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yoda_sl
Henri is a great guy: I never worked directly with him but rather with some of
his direct reports many years ago around the time the 1st iPhone was launched.
We were in various meetings to flush out various details and API that will be
used and I could tell that he had great engineering skills, and was well
respected by his team. The iPhone team was working full speed under his
direction and we got many things moving forward because Henri was supporting
us and pushing the right buttons so both team could get their job done.

In a way I am not much surprise to see him retiring: I am sure the last 8/9
years since the beginning of the iPhone projects have had a lot of up and
down, including stress. He did achieve a lot during his time at Apple and wish
him the best retirement possible -which I am sure will not be an issue.

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jroseattle
"The executive also led feature-implementation across the operating system,
and he managed both bug-fixing processes and feature distribution to
consumers."

This statement is interesting to me. My understanding of Apple's
organizational structure is that individual leaders are given broad
responsibility for specific things. As I read this, my impression is that Mr.
Lamiraux was the buck-stops-here guy for any and all bugs that come through
iOS. (Among other responsibilities.)

Inside Apple, is it that literal? I contrast that with other software
companies, where those responsibilities are largely delegated out to many
different people, but there is rarely a single person who is accountable. For
example, I could never imagine a single, go-to individual at Microsoft who
would be responsible for the bug-fixing process in Windows 8.

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drewcrawford
I file an unusually large number of bugs with Apple so I am familiar with
their process, or as familiar as someone on the outside can be. There are
definitely a lot more than one engineer involved in fixing bugs on ios.

That said, Apple is a fraction of the size of MS, so it would not at all
surprise me if I learned that he has seen my name on bug reports.

I interpret this "managed bug-fixing processes" statement to mean "used Radar
(Apple bug tracker) often enough to identify specific process improvements for
radar which he then designed and led implementation".

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jroseattle
Heh, I didn't mean to imply he's the only individual involved in bug
resolution. Rather, it's his job to ensure bugs are resolved, whether he or
some entire division of engineers are working on the problem.

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bsaul
a bit off topic but does anyone here knows what Scott Forstall has become ?

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general_failure
I would like to know this too.maybe he starts his own company?

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caycep
From what I read about his personality, I can't see him as anything but either
this or he takes over at CEO.

Microsoft is an interesting thought. He could certainly wrangle the reputed
"warring factions" but would he want to? If he is as individualistic as they
come, he'd want to start out as the de-facto leader and visionary. And he has
the funds to do it. Why bother with Microsoft?

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derefr
Individualistic; leader; visionary... but possibly (guessing on reasons for
this shift) getting too old to have the constant energy to execute directly on
that himself.

Maybe he'll become a VC?

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caycep
I don't know, I think it was more he lost the power struggle against Jony Ive,
so he may have one more stint in front of him. Hard to top building iOS
though...

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gbog
I have heard there was a French mafia inside Apple, was he part of this? His
name sounds French.

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yoda_sl
There is in fact such "French Mafia" inside Apple, it was in fact started at
NeXT and it did continue internally at Apple. The NeXT French mafia was a lot
smaller back then.

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gonzo
is jlg part of this (or rather, was he?)

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yoda_sl
Nope! As I mentioned the French Mafia started at NeXT while jlg was already
running BeOS...

