
The Time I “Interviewed” At Apple - nikunjk
http://hunterwalk.com/2013/10/04/the-time-i-interviewed-at-apple/
======
crazygringo
> _...how difficult consumer services were going to continue to be for them if
> they insisted on perfection before release. I still think of this every time
> I use Dropbox instead of iCloud..._

There's a big difference between startups iterating, and giants like Apple. I
think we all remember how they were excoriated on the Maps release, which
certainly wasn't perfect. Because of their scale, Apple doesn't have the kind
of flexibility that unknown startups do -- not just because of their scale,
but also because most of their software isn't solely web-based, but is tied
into software that is sold with hardware which is released yearly.

I agree that they have a difficult time with a lot of consumer services. But I
don't think it's nearly as simple as the author suggests.

~~~
the_bear
Isn't the author comparing Google's approach to Apple's? Google has more
market share than Apple in just about every software category, so if Google
can iterate, than why can't Apple?

I think it has more to do with Apple's marketing. Every time they release even
the most trivial improvement they tout it as being amazingly innovative. They
also charge premium prices. This creates an expectation with their users that
everything will be perfect from the beginning.

~~~
MikeCapone
People pay for Apple products, so they expect something that works well and
looks good.

The switching costs are also much higher with hardware than software. You
don't want to pay for a phone and find out it's half-baked, while if a 'free'
web service doesn't work, it's easy to switch.

It's also about branding and culture, people expect different things from each
company. That has pros and cons.

~~~
what_ever
Just staying with the Google example, I don't remember any major Google
product having a major failure. The new Google Maps may be. I know many people
complain about the new GMail but it's just about choices of design they made
and not about some bugs in the product. So again, Google products are
iterative and not buggy irrespective of whether people pay for them or not.

~~~
Teckla
Start watching a YouTube video. Pause it. Come back hours later. Hit play.
It'll play a few more seconds and then fail to continue. I'd call that a major
Google product with a major failure, though our definitions for major may
differ.

Google Chrome for iOS crashes on a regular basis. It also fails to start
YouTube videos a lot. Again, I consider those major products with major
failures.

Gchat-in-Gmail has issues on a regular basis.

Also, non-major Google products have plenty of bugs. Google Groups digest
emails have been broken forever. Once in a while one randomly trickles into my
inbox, and I think for a second it may be fixed. Nope, still borked. Despite
quite a bit of effort, I've never managed to communicate with any actual human
Googler about it.

I've often had to authenticate twice, for unknown reasons, while getting into
Gmail from Chrome, when trying to get in via their Gmail app icon.

I like plenty of Google products and services, and use them daily, but they
seem to have their fair share of bugs.

------
replicatorblog
I wonder if this notion that Apple needs to "get" web services to survive will
really matter in the long run? It's the conventional wisdom, just like that
they "lost" the PC wars even though they've been the most profitable PC maker
for a decade now. There haven't been many web services that have lasted for a
decade or more in a dominant position.

Might Apple's best long term strategy to...

1\. Support/innovate the heck out of browser/web connectivity software

2\. Push the boundaries of input devices and make the best hardware

3\. Secure content deals with popular artists

4\. Continue to expand their retail/service footprint

5\. Let the various waves of social networks rise and fall, but make money on
every device sold?

Even the Android hegemon, which supposedly poses an existential threat, could
easily fracture if Samsung decides to go their own way.

Apple's position would be better with a firm control of key web services, but
I'm not sure it's a requirement.

~~~
dannyr
Look at people's IPhones. A lot of its users use apps not built by Apple.

Search, Mail, Social Network, Maps, Photo-sharing, etc.

Yeah, Apple will always make tons of money but IPhone/IPad will become just a
device that hosts these apps. If most of the apps people need are available in
another platform, the costs of switching is going to be low.

~~~
replicatorblog
For sure, but can't the same be said of their Mac lines? I'm sure iOS will
always be a minority in terms of market share, but I wouldn't be surprised if
they are the dominant player in the part of the market where people actually
PAY for their product compared to free Android phones.

The tablet market is a good example of this, aside from Kindle's no Android
tablet has really taken off and I think it's because of some of those points I
enumerated above.

~~~
dannyr
"no Android tablet has really taken off"

FYI, Android tablet has larger market share than the IPad now.

If you're narrowing it to just one brand/model, you're right. But Android
tablets in general are selling a ton.

------
redthrowaway
I really can't see Apple adopting a more iterative approach to product
development. "Perfect the first time" is so deeply engrained in their
corporate identity that the CEO feels the need to personally apologize when
they don't achieve it (see: Apple Maps). Compare that to the new Google Maps,
which was pretty shitty when it went to open beta but has been getting
progressively less so.

Google's users cut Google the necessary slack to allow them to release
imperfect products and improve on them. Apple's do not.

~~~
rmrfrmrf
Apple does plenty of iteration, just in a different way. Think about copy and
paste on iPhone, MMS messaging, multitasking, etc. They work depth-first
rather than breadth, so instead of dozens of half-working features, you get
one or two complete features. I think it opens Apple up to more criticism,
especially combined with their secrecy, but the criticism and even trolls only
help contribute to more buzz.

~~~
Patrick_Devine
I'm looking at the Dock at the bottom of my MacBook Pro and I can't help but
think that most of the apps are half baked and most of them I don't even use.

I've replaced Safari with Firefox. I haven't fired up iChat in a while because
I just use GMail chat instead. iTunes is really wonky when you want to play
music off of an NFS server. I've never fired up FaceTime or PhotoBooth. The
X11 app is so buggy it's ridiculous. I use Terminal all the time, but it's got
some serious memory leaks. Time Machine breaks half the time in unexpected
ways. Calculator works pretty well, although I find myself using the R console
more and more instead.

I feel like the Mac software side of things just doesn't get any love anymore.
Apple is so focused on iPhone/iPad that the OSX applications are stretched
completely thin and rarely get any love and attention. The machine has really
just turned into a glorified terminal and browser where I run the occasional
Linux virtual machine or the odd game in Steam. Any serious heavy lifting is
left for Linux, and most applications have migrated to the web.

~~~
modfodder
I don't believe those applications are half-baked as much as your needs are
more advanced than the target of those applications. Those applications work
extremely well for the typical mac user. Firefox would just confuse my sister,
and she wouldn't even know what an NFS server is. Linux would just make her
stop using a computer.

And how is iChat half baked because you use Gmail chat? I could say the same
for Gchat when I use iChat. (Not saying that ichat can't be improved, but your
line of logic doesn't follow.)

~~~
Patrick_Devine
In re-reading my post, yeah, I guess it's a little "power user" centric.
You're right in that most people wouldn't be comfortable with Linux, an NFS
server, or even R.

I think the point I should have made was that I don't find a lot of the apps
to be that useful because there are good web equivalents (mail, chat, docs,
etc.) and I don't find the other apps that compelling. I would suspect, even
being the "power user" that I am, that most other people are of the same
opinion. That, or they're just using a tablet or their phone instead.

As for Firefox, I'm not sure how it would confuse your sister any more than
Safari does, unless she finds it confusing for web sites to render correctly
and not crash constantly.

~~~
modfodder
My sister probably would have trouble finding and installing firefox, and then
wouldn't get more out of it than she would Safari. I'm not sure what websites
you have problems with, but I can't remember the last time I had Safari crash
on me (anecdotal I know, plus I bounce back and forth between Safari and
Chrome).

And I agree that there are better versions of Apple's free software, but it's
free, and does exactly what it should, which is lubricate the novice user's
experience. Once you pass novice, it's easy to go find software that fulfills
your needs.

And I would disagree that most other people are of the same opinion. My guess
is that you live in a bubble of mostly experienced computer users (as do most
of us on HN). Go spend a day at an Apple store somewhere besides the Bay area
and you'll see most of the people that make up the bulk of Apple's user base.
They, like my sister, probably don't even know there are other options out
there (some are using iPad and iPhones, sure, but plenty are still using iMacs
and Macbooks).

------
JonFish85
> And how they’ll need to change the questions they ask of potential senior
> execs in order to bring in some of the mentality required to iterate towards
> excellence in public as opposed to behind closed doors.

I feel like, with possibly the exception of the iPhone, Apple's magic sauce
has been to let others launch first and learn from their mistakes, iterate in
private until they have their product as close to perfection as they can, then
release it.

They weren't the first computer. They weren't the first MP3 player. They
weren't the first place to buy songs online. They weren't the first to make a
smartphone. They weren't the first to make a tablet.

Granted these weren't software services for the most part, they were hardware.
But in the same sense, Apple does a lot of development in the background
almost by design, so they can storm the set and have a polished product ready
to go (with some exceptions, notably Mobile Me).

This "iterating on the fly" web thing is a software mentality. I'd argue that
Apple is first & foremost a hardware company. Once you release the hardware,
you're stuck with it for better or worse. There's no such "ship it before it's
ready and fix it later" mindset in hardware.

~~~
twrkit
>I'd argue that Apple is first & foremost a hardware company

I would argue that Apple is primarily a software company. Sure, they do offer
nice, polished hardware touches like Retina display, TouchID, unibody aluminum
enclosures, but the actual components are the same as commodity PC hardware.
Further, companies like Samsung are making phone with bigger screens and
(ostensibly) faster processors. What people are paying a premium for is the
Experience (well, and the Brand) - in OS X, things "just work," and the OS is
generally more stable and user friendly than Windows. Similarly with iOS, at
least before iOS7, the design choices that were made by Ive and Co allowed the
mass market to intuitively use a smartphone.

------
codelust
Going through the comments (and most of the HN comments on platforms that tend
to divide people), I still find it deeply distressing that even geeks/nerds
chase hard after the one-true-way approach. You don't see one true type of
bread, you don't see one true type of car, you don't see one true type of
anything. Yet, when it comes to things like mobile phones and platforms, we
behave like absolute twerps.

People have different circumstances, levels of understanding and fifty to the
power of three other factors that determine their choices in life. We want to
ignore all of that and dismiss every person who does not see the same merits
that we do. And that is sad beyond what can be expressed in words.

Can you imagine in a world in which it makes sense to have both the Apple and
Google approach? If you cannot, you should step out and see a lot more of the
real world. Choices, no matter how disagreeable or flawed, are welcome in a
more open world. I hope we will all, eventually, understand that, even if we
don't like what that understanding allows for.

------
lostlogin
Someone is proud of the YouTube UI? I avoid it if I can. There is the intro
advert I can't skip for 10 seconds, the banner, the ones down the side. How
could anyone claim users drove that development?

------
NDizzle
Only meeting with 2 people and only spending an hour on site. This is probably
the best interview process I'll read about in the next few weeks on HN.

~~~
mikestew
Don't get your hopes up. The rest of us grunts still get to spend an entire
day in front of a whiteboard at Apple, at least as of about a year ago.

~~~
hunterwalk
ha! well, it was only an hour w two people for both sides to mutually figure
out I wasn't a good fit. Probably would have taken longer if it went forward
:-)

------
YeeHaw
I'm happy that at least one company tries to get it right BEFORE unleashing
its products on the public. From my experience, the iterative approach often
means that a bunch of casual users are given as much input into a design as
the designer who devotes months or even years to trying to solve a problem
holistically. Iterative design usually means Frankenstein design, that is, a
product with way too many unnecessary features, a lack of cohesion and just
plain ugliness. The iPhone could not have been created iteratively, and even
if it had been, it certainly wouldn't have had the design impact it did. I
don't think Google is even on the same planet as Apple, design-wise.

------
nfoz
God I hope Apple doesn't start releasing shoddy beta-quality software like
we've all been forced to expect from the web.

------
CamperBob2
> _I was skeptical ... Namely, I was used to web speed: iterative, launch
> before perfection, leverage your community._

If that's not a one-sentence summary of the iPhone's release history, I don't
know what is.

~~~
untog
I certainly don't think something that changes once a year is 'iterative' in
the way he was referring to.

~~~
CamperBob2
The original iPhone got better at a very rapid pace, through iOS updates.

------
vitd
Reading this leaves me feeling like the author has some enormous cognitive
dissonance going on:

"And finally I defended some of YouTube’s UX elements by demonstrating how it
needed to feel like the community’s fingerprints were on the site, not just
some experience they lean back and watch but don’t touch."

Every Google service is an experience where Google just leans back and watches
but doesn't touch. They have no tech support, not even an email to write to in
most cases. What a baffling statement to make.

------
danso
> _Despite knowing going in that this wasn’t likely going to lead to anything,
> I’m still glad I took the time – you learn a lot by observing how companies
> hire. Driving away from their HQ I left thinking how difficult consumer
> services were going to continue to be for them if they insisted on
> perfection before release. I still think of this every time I use Dropbox
> instead of iCloud, Sunrise instead of Calendar, Mailbox instead of Mail and
> so on. Even when I look at iMessage and wonder why the fastest growing apps
> are chat-related (don’t tell me it’s just cross platform, I think Apple
> could have been way more aggressive with evolving and opening iMessage up)._

Hmmm...when I use the aforementioned services, I have the _opposite_
assumption...that Apple is not at all insisting on perfection before
release...and is sometimes OK with substandard releases. It's the _promotion_
of these services as being _perfect_ that Apple seems to be better at...or at
least readying these services so that in many/most use cases, they _seem_
perfect to the casual end user.

But I think developers who have worked with iCloud, for instance, would argue
strenuously that iCloud was not released in a robust state.

As another anecdotal point...buying an iPod 5 made me realize how perfection
is not necessarily Apple's goal, even in hardware. The previous iPod touch,
and the iPhones, all had ambient light sensors...this was dropped in iPod
5...this seems like a minor feature but only if you don't go in and out of
buildings during the day. Unless I remember to jack up the brightness on my
iPod before going out during the day, I literally will not be able to see
_anything_ on the iPod screen, unless I go back inside or the day gets darker.
Moreover, switching the brightness has been moved out of the quick-nav and
buried in Settings.

This is such a massive inconvenience that I can't help but think that Apple
was on deadline and for some reason, couldn't fit in the ambient light sensor,
and then said, "fuck it, just ship it"

------
throwaway1979
Best post I've read on HN in a while!

I think there is a fundamental difference between building hardware+system
software vs. building web services and apps. In the former case, you have to
get it right and then release. In the latter case, you can afford to iterate
for a while as you keep getting better.

Some of the hardware I've bought from Google has made me feel like I'm beta
testing it. I don't get that feeling when I buy Apple hardware.

This makes me wonder if other players in the Android space are following
Apple's playback. The specific player I am thinking about is Samsung. Why are
they doing so well where other Android manufacturers are doing just okay?

~~~
hunterwalk
yup - the Apple way works well on hardware and even on operating systems. My
post is more about my own experiences on how they'll either embrace different
styles (or not) for software application development.

------
001sky
_I walked them through my opinion of how technology was changing media and
creating open, global platforms._

------
auctiontheory
While I have three Apple products within arm's reach of me, including the one
I'm using to type this post, none of them is "perfect!"

------
Create
Hunter Walk 99% Humble, 1% Brag

The Time I “Interviewed” At Apple Posted on October 4, 2013 by hunterwalk

 _I’m writing this from my latest gen macbook air. And I have a 5S coming
(goldie baby)._

\-- No BS like HBS

------
xvolter
I believe Apple fanboys are those who always have the latest Apple products,
as hunterwalk describes he has. Seems to me he is just a closet fanboy.
Apparently he doesn't actually care if Apple opens up at all, he'll stick with
them and support them regardless.

