Makes a lot of sense - over paid, has no value to add so she spews BS to try and look valuable. What I have noticed at our local Apple Store is that it is far less crowded and very little excitement is observed. Several years ago you could barely get in the door and the passion of things Apple was palpable.
If Apple retail is moving online than why are they building out so many stores?
Oh dear. Your personal anecdote is nullified by mine.
I don't find it less crowded, but business is conducted much more efficiently; I get in and make my purchase faster. My store in Reno has been in operation since March 2006, and I go there about 4 times a year; a couple of major purchases, and usually a quick stop for an accessory or cable. It's always fast if you know what you want, and I have never seen any of the tables for consultations or diagnosis empty.
There would be less excitement of course than when the store opened, but then again, I'm part of the customer base for the store for the last decade. Younger customers likely have a "more exciting" experience.
Working for an Apple store is not the same as working for Apple as a developer or engineer, which is what this article is about, as stated in its opening sentence.
Good point - and with all these world class engineers you would expect an impressive pipeline rolling out by now - which it is not.
Because as any world class engineer – which you're clearly not – would know, complex product development takes time, effort and in many cases taking steps back before you can move forward.
Exactly. ( Although the workforce retention is referencing Retail only, which is incredibly high for those who are unaware in high end retail product. )
As the article suggest, if these talents ( developers ) only wanted money, get a job, do some work because they were told to, and enjoy their lifestyle. Then may be they dont fit Apple very much. Pretty much everyone joining Apple has a sense of purpose, a bigger value in life. As Steve Jobs like to say " Who has time for Golf ?" You can spend your time traveling, and enjoying yourself as much as you want once you retire, but I guess when you are in Apple. It is Battle mode. It is a battle against the world, the world views of things, and how they moves thing forward despite being rejected a million times. As Johnny Ive put it
"Enjoying the defeat of cynicism. The rejection of reason. The rejection of being told 100 times, ‘You can’t do that.’ "
I remember their was a quote from some former Apple devs, "it is not how long you have worked at Apple. It is how many times you worked at Apple."
It's The Guardian, one of the UK's most biased left of centre publications. They don't have much good to say about anything or anybody who isn't a bleeding heart Socialist.
I would really love to work for Apple, I have extensive experience and have applied many time, but not successful. I do feel there is a diversity issue at Apple, every time I had phone screen with them I am dealing with people who do not want a diversity.
Slamming down the race card, eh?
Well, I don't know for sure; it is possible you could have been discriminated against, but can I ask if command of English was a requirement for the job?
"A pain point for a lot of people with Apple is they can't talk about what they're working on, which hinders your social status in a way," Sultan said. "You want to put on your LinkedIn that you're working on the latest iPhone, but you absolutely can't. It's interesting Apple can retain top talent at all. I don't know how. They keep you sort of locked up."
Surely the secrecy is a bonus. "Oh you work at Apple, what do you do there?" "Well I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."
Most people I find that brag and big themselves up about their position or status at work are exaggerating or talking sh*t anyway. Maybe not the type apple wants to employ.
"A pain point for a lot of people with Apple is they can't talk about what they're working on, which hinders your social status in a way," Sultan said. "You want to put on your LinkedIn that you're working on the latest iPhone, but you absolutely can't. It's interesting Apple can retain top talent at all. I don't know how. They keep you sort of locked up."
Surely the secrecy is a bonus. "Oh you work at Apple, what do you do there?" "Well I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."
Most people I find that brag and big themselves up about their position or status at work are exaggerating or talking sh*t anyway. Maybe not the type apple wants to employ.
Code breakers at Bletchley park had to keep their work secret for decades (work that helped end the war) and those people are whining about not putting what they work on on LinkedIn.... Oh My!
Oh The Guardian, it must be true! The UK's pseudo intellectual, anti capitalist, anti US trash rag for wannabe Marxists has never strung a factual sentence together in it's entire existence.
"A pain point for a lot of people with Apple is they can't talk about what they're working on, which hinders your social status in a way," Sultan said. "You want to put on your LinkedIn that you're working on the latest iPhone, but you absolutely can't. It's interesting Apple can retain top talent at all. I don't know how. They keep you sort of locked up."
Surely the secrecy is a bonus. "Oh you work at Apple, what do you do there?" "Well I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."
Most people I find that brag and big themselves up about their position or status at work are exaggerating or talking sh*t anyway. Maybe not the type apple wants to employ.
Code breakers at Bletchley park had to keep their work secret for decades (work that helped end the war) and those people are whining about not putting what they work on on LinkedIn.... Oh My!
The survival of a free state and the lives of many thousands of people at stake - there is not the slightest parallel.
Is it a coincidence that this report is coming out around the time that Apple reported earnings that were a mixed bag and Tim Cook guided a first ever drop in iPhone sales?
Nope. I remember back in 2013 when the Guardian ran a hit piece from a former Apple employee (I think his name was Michael Lopp), I think this was around the time everyone was freaking out over Samsung being the next big thing.
Makes a lot of sense - over paid, has no value to add so she spews BS to try and look valuable. What I have noticed at our local Apple Store is that it is far less crowded and very little excitement is observed. Several years ago you could barely get in the door and the passion of things Apple was palpable.
If Apple retail is moving online than why are they building out so many stores?
I agree with you. I found the 60 Minutes story very revealing. This is Tim and Jony's Apple now and everyone else is just a minion working to earn their pleasure. Those minions, whether it's Eddie or Angela or the other people at that conference table that were never introduced; are all just "Yes" men.
I wonder if Angela ever made that important new display decision she was working on?
A side note about the current look of Apple Stores. They are too stark. No longer having decorations in the windows. The muted colors are just too bland. The lighting is just too even. There is no sensationalism or attention grabbing. Jony Ive's House does not make the best retail environment.
Good point - and with all these world class engineers you would expect an impressive pipeline rolling out by now - which it is not.
Seriously? Point to a tangible product that any of the large tech companies put out that is impressive, groundbreaking, and not evolutionary. Just because Google publicly announces its research projects, doesn't mean Apple's engineers aren't doing anything. Just because Facebook increased their revenue last quarter doesn't mean that they are revolutionizing the technology space. Other than the Echo (which is a cool product from what I have read), Amazon has their online store and AWS, which aren't a part of this conversation. The only thing that comes to mind is the Oculus Rift and rumor is that Apple has been pretty active in the space, especially with some recent high profile hires. The Rift was also a very long development cycle and is only just about to be released.
Ultimately, there are a lot of things at play. Other than Samsung, no other hardware company is operating at the scale that Apple is. Not even close. Even if Apple comes up with the greatest thing since sliced bread, their manufacturing partners need to be able to make them at their scale. 75 million iPhones in 3 months is bananas. Most of Samsung's phones are their lower end models. Most cutting edge technology wouldn't even be able to hit those yields. I'd add that the iPad Pro is a great product. The Pencil is something that no other product can compete with right now, and with it being some complicated, they are still hitting yield issues. Apple hasn't released sales numbers, but Watch and the new Apple TV are having a material impact on their revenue less than a year in. These are early products. People forget that the first iPhone didn't have an app store, or 3G, or MMS, or copy & paste, etc. The first iPad barely had enough RAM.
We are at a bit of a technological transition for consumer tech right now. A lot of money is at stake in the future and legacy companies are holding on for dear life to stay relevant, and tech companies have different incentives than those legacy companies. There is a lot of stuff at play.
I'd close with this. We are also hitting up against some genuinely complicated technology barriers from batteries to processors and many other extremely tough hurdles. Look at how hard it has been for Intel to hit their roadmaps. Intel has probably been a huge crimp in Apple's Mac product roadmap.
You can have the best engineers in the world and that will only be a part of a much larger pie.
This. Plus Apple is very secretive about it's pipeline. It's easier for Apple to not look innovative because we don't really know what they're working on. Bryan Chaffin, who writes for the Mac Observer and has contacts in SV says he knows Apple is working on stuff that has never been rumored about. He's heard this from people who have seen stuff. They didn't give any hints to what this stuff is, just that it exists. Jony Ive has said 80% of what Apple works on will never ship so it's understandable why Apple keeps most of this stuff secret. But unfortunately it leads to memes like this story.
What I find really disingenuous though is this notion that when Steve Jobs was around Apple had all this amazing stuff they were cooking up and everyone knew it and now everyone assume the pipeline is completely dried up. I think that's looking at history with rose colored glasses. Someone in my Twitter feed posted historical stock charts from Apple. In 2000 Apple stock lost 80% of its value in 8 months. In 2007/8, after iPhone 3G the stock lost half of its value. The Apple of then and the Apple of today aren't really that different except Apple is selling A LOT more product now than they did then. In this last holiday quarter Apple sold roughly 34,000 iPhones an hour or 570 per minute. That is absolutely nuts. To me that's what's most incredible about the company right now. Nobody, except maybe Samsung is manufacturing at a scale like that. How is that not innovative?
Makes a lot of sense - the over paid empty skirt has no value to add so she spews BS to try and look valuable. What I have noticed at our local Apple Store is that it is far less crowded and very little excitement is observed. Several years ago you could barely get in the door and the passion of things Apple was palpable.
If Apple retail is moving online than why are they building out so many stores?
I agree with you. I found the 60 Minutes story very revealing. This is Tim and Jony's Apple now and everyone else is just a minion working to earn their pleasure. Those minions, whether it's Eddie or Angela or the other people at that conference table that were never introduced; are all just "Yes" men.
I wonder if Angela ever made that important new display decision she was working on?
A side note about the current look of Apple Stores. They are too stark. No longer having decorations in the windows. The muted colors are just too bland. The lighting is just too even. There is no sensationalism or attention grabbing. Jony Ive's House does not make the best retail environment.
Really? Aside from not currently having a window display my Apple stores don't look any different than they did 2, 3 years ago. Though the artwork they currently have up inside the store is really nice. I think the new store in Brussels is absolutely gorgeous.
And boy people like Eddy Cue and Jeff Williams sure get paid of money for just being someone else's yes men. Of course it all nonsense just like this Guardian hit piece.
"Knight's view of Apple, assumedly from sources in the know," also, it seems Knoght doesn't like coming to work till 11:00 or sometimes not at all. I have had fired talented employees with that attitude.
i have a acquaintance that has worked at both Apple and Google. In some ways, it backs up what this article says but it might be missing a bigger point. At Apple, he said it was a preseaure cooker with some serious stress. His girl friend was in manufacturing logistics and was pretty much on call 24/7. But then, when the product was released (typically to great reviews), you had this great feeling of accomplishment and extreme job satisfaction. In his case, he had worked on some of the original implementation of visual voice mail.
At Google, he was on the AdWords team. He said the entire company was very laid back. The 20% time to work on side projects was, for most people, 80% and getting your team to do their actual work was almost impossible. He had a personal belief Google could fire 95% of their engineering resource and not impact current or future growth. After 5 years, he quit because he didn't feel as if he'd accomplished anything in that time.
Makes a lot of sense - the over paid empty skirt has no value to add so she spews BS to try and look valuable. What I have noticed at our local Apple Store is that it is far less crowded and very little excitement is observed. Several years ago you could barely get in the door and the passion of things Apple was palpable.
If Apple retail is moving online than why are they building out so many stores?
Oh dear. Your personal anecdote is nullified by mine.
I don't find it less crowded, but business is conducted much more efficiently; I get in and make my purchase faster. My store in Reno has been in operation since March 2006, and I go there about 4 times a year; a couple of major purchases, and usually a quick stop for an accessory or cable. It's always fast if you know what you want, and I have never seen any of the tables for consultations or diagnosis empty.
There would be less excitement of course than when the store opened, but then again, I'm part of the customer base for the store for the last decade. Younger customers likely have a "more exciting" experience.
Let me ask you a couple questions about your quarterly visits to Jony Ive's House (your local Apple Store) You already own one of everything they sell, correct? Your visits there are not an eye opening experience? Are you challenged ( oh that's a neat, intriguing, compelling accessory I was unaware of) at all?
My point is that for an increasing amount of people, store visits are a ho-hum experience. A lot of traffic with fewer and fewer actual purchases. Much like my last quarterly visit which was to view a very specific website (high def images of King Tut's Tomb) on a 5K monitor to see if there was noticeable difference from my 7 year old iMac at home. I surfed the website (unimpressed, no discernible difference) and walked out.
I think many people are having the same experience.
"A pain point for a lot of people with Apple is they can't talk about what they're working on, which hinders your social status in a way," Sultan said. "You want to put on your LinkedIn that you're working on the latest iPhone, but you absolutely can't. It's interesting Apple can retain top talent at all. I don't know how. They keep you sort of locked up."
Surely the secrecy is a bonus. "Oh you work at Apple, what do you do there?" "Well I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."
Most people I find that brag and big themselves up about their position or status at work are exaggerating or talking sh*t anyway. Maybe not the type apple wants to employ.
Code breakers at Bletchley park had to keep their work secret for decades (work that helped end the war) and those people are whining about not putting what they work on on LinkedIn.... Oh My!
So sad that Alan Turing didn't live long. Pure unadulterated genius, and in all likelihood would have contributed much more to the world of computing.
Code breakers at Bletchley park had to keep their work secret for decades (work that helped end the war) and those people are whining about not putting what they work on on LinkedIn.... Oh My!
The survival of a free state and the lives of many thousands of people at stake - there is not the slightest parallel.
Of course there is. It is not uncommon for people to NOT be able to talk about their work. I had an avionics software bug I discovered recently that made Fox, CNN, SlashDot, The Verge, ArsTech... The whole lot.
Reading the comments in the comment sections were a hoot and frustrating because lots and lots of people know tons about nothing. I couldn't speak up.
Comments
I don't find it less crowded, but business is conducted much more efficiently; I get in and make my purchase faster. My store in Reno has been in operation since March 2006, and I go there about 4 times a year; a couple of major purchases, and usually a quick stop for an accessory or cable. It's always fast if you know what you want, and I have never seen any of the tables for consultations or diagnosis empty.
There would be less excitement of course than when the store opened, but then again, I'm part of the customer base for the store for the last decade. Younger customers likely have a "more exciting" experience.
Because as any world class engineer – which you're clearly not – would know, complex product development takes time, effort and in many cases taking steps back before you can move forward.
Exactly. ( Although the workforce retention is referencing Retail only, which is incredibly high for those who are unaware in high end retail product. )
As the article suggest, if these talents ( developers ) only wanted money, get a job, do some work because they were told to, and enjoy their lifestyle. Then may be they dont fit Apple very much. Pretty much everyone joining Apple has a sense of purpose, a bigger value in life. As Steve Jobs like to say " Who has time for Golf ?" You can spend your time traveling, and enjoying yourself as much as you want once you retire, but I guess when you are in Apple. It is Battle mode. It is a battle against the world, the world views of things, and how they moves thing forward despite being rejected a million times. As Johnny Ive put it
"Enjoying the defeat of cynicism. The rejection of reason. The rejection of being told 100 times, ‘You can’t do that.’ "
I remember their was a quote from some former Apple devs, "it is not how long you have worked at Apple. It is how many times you worked at Apple."
Slamming down the race card, eh?
Well, I don't know for sure; it is possible you could have been discriminated against, but can I ask if command of English was a requirement for the job?
Try to expand your thinking a little.
Geeks do their tech research online; normal people go into shops and ask people.
Secondly, normal people like to go into shops to play with tech gadgets and ask questions before dropping three grand on a new toy.
Thirdly. A retail presence, especially a posh one, is an aspirational advertisement if done right.
Fourth. It's a good place to have your kit delivered.
Fifth. It makes it easier to get your kit repaired.
Sixth. They can run training courses in store, where as well as training adults, they can indoctrinate future generations into the Apple way.
Shall I go on, or would you like to get back to your banjo?
Surely the secrecy is a bonus. "Oh you work at Apple, what do you do there?" "Well I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."
Most people I find that brag and big themselves up about their position or status at work are exaggerating or talking sh*t anyway. Maybe not the type apple wants to employ.
The UK's pseudo intellectual, anti capitalist, anti US trash rag for wannabe Marxists has never strung a factual sentence together in it's entire existence.
Is there any media in UK that's anti-Apple more than The Guardian?
I wonder if Angela ever made that important new display decision she was working on?
A side note about the current look of Apple Stores. They are too stark. No longer having decorations in the windows. The muted colors are just too bland. The lighting is just too even. There is no sensationalism or attention grabbing. Jony Ive's House does not make the best retail environment.
What I find really disingenuous though is this notion that when Steve Jobs was around Apple had all this amazing stuff they were cooking up and everyone knew it and now everyone assume the pipeline is completely dried up. I think that's looking at history with rose colored glasses. Someone in my Twitter feed posted historical stock charts from Apple. In 2000 Apple stock lost 80% of its value in 8 months. In 2007/8, after iPhone 3G the stock lost half of its value. The Apple of then and the Apple of today aren't really that different except Apple is selling A LOT more product now than they did then. In this last holiday quarter Apple sold roughly 34,000 iPhones an hour or 570 per minute. That is absolutely nuts. To me that's what's most incredible about the company right now. Nobody, except maybe Samsung is manufacturing at a scale like that. How is that not innovative?
'nuff said. Useless anti-Apple rag when it comes to tech reporting.
And boy people like Eddy Cue and Jeff Williams sure get paid of money for just being someone else's yes men. Of course it all nonsense just like this Guardian hit piece.
i have a acquaintance that has worked at both Apple and Google. In some ways, it backs up what this article says but it might be missing a bigger point. At Apple, he said it was a preseaure cooker with some serious stress. His girl friend was in manufacturing logistics and was pretty much on call 24/7. But then, when the product was released (typically to great reviews), you had this great feeling of accomplishment and extreme job satisfaction. In his case, he had worked on some of the original implementation of visual voice mail.
At Google, he was on the AdWords team. He said the entire company was very laid back. The 20% time to work on side projects was, for most people, 80% and getting your team to do their actual work was almost impossible. He had a personal belief Google could fire 95% of their engineering resource and not impact current or future growth. After 5 years, he quit because he didn't feel as if he'd accomplished anything in that time.
He was wishing for a happy medium.
My point is that for an increasing amount of people, store visits are a ho-hum experience. A lot of traffic with fewer and fewer actual purchases. Much like my last quarterly visit which was to view a very specific website (high def images of King Tut's Tomb) on a 5K monitor to see if there was noticeable difference from my 7 year old iMac at home. I surfed the website (unimpressed, no discernible difference) and walked out.
I think many people are having the same experience.
Reading the comments in the comment sections were a hoot and frustrating because lots and lots of people know tons about nothing. I couldn't speak up.
secrecy in your work is not just military.