How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong 413
An anonymous reader writes "Wired has a look at how the good and bad of Apple, their Yin and Yang, have come together to form a company that actually works. The piece looks at Steve Jobs' unusual and abrasive management style, otherwise known as 'Management Techniques From the Dark Side'. It's essentially a list of counterintuitive, suspicious-seeming and downright evil management techniques that work - for them."
What a silly article (Score:5, Insightful)
The author tries to come up with ways that Apple is evil, but really winds up taking jabs primarily at Steve Jobs. As a newfound mac user, I don't give a crap about Jobs, I care about using a computer that matches my needs and does what I want. For me that's Mac. And for most of the other 6-7% of the Mac marketshare it's a pretty similar situation.
Re:What a silly article (Score:5, Interesting)
My favorite bit from skimming it: "even WIRED got it wrong" (referring to telling Apple to get out of the hardware business).
This from the magazine whose cover story was "The Long Boom" the month that the internet bubble burst.
Wired hardly ever gets anything right (not entirely its fault, since it makes lots of predictions), but still.
Re:What a silly article (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, yes and no: Apple is more a hardware packager than maker, since it now just takes utterly standard components and puts them together. At one point it used unusual chips, had its own peripheral standard, etc., so Apple has taken many of the suggestions from others and conformed itself more to standard PCs.
In addition, it's not clear whether Apple would be even more successful if it licensed its operating system to other companies willing to make less expensive boxes.
Re:What a silly article (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What a silly article (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, that is clear - since they once did, and almost went under because of it. One of the first things Jobs did when Pepsi-Sculley was out and he was back was to cancel all deals with companies like Power Computing.
Re:What a silly article (Score:4, Insightful)
EULA aside, anyone can build a mac clone that will run OS X. All it takes is to buy compatible components, which are only slightly less ubiquitous than win-compatible stuff, and a functional Apple logic board (or, if you're really resourceful, just the ROMs from it). Mac lovers of modest means have been doing it from the beginning, same as PC users. Sure is amazing how so many people who've never owned a Mac know all the drawbacks.
Someone sure has drunk some kool-aid...
Re:What a silly article (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What a silly article (Score:5, Insightful)
LoFormat ck-in? (Score:4, Interesting)
Near as I can tell, after using iTunes since 2002 and an iPod since 2005, there is no such thing as lock-in on the platform. The only pain I've ever felt was using up machine authorizations on stuff bought from the iTunes store, and I quickly fixed that problem by freely stopping my purchases and freely taking my business somewhere else. Later Apple themselves fixed that problem by offering DRM-free material, which is great, but my buying habits have migrated elsewhere and there's no punishment from Apple.
The iTunes store certainly encourages purchase of a large class of their material in a locked format. But there's no punishment for operating outside of that, and it's really not even particularly difficult to unlock the DRM'd stuff.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What a silly article (Score:5, Insightful)
This meme is annoyingly false.
I am an old-school Unix sysadmin and developer, who went Mac back at 10.1 because it is the exact *opposite* of what you claim. All the hard-core Unix nerds were early adopters back then, because we didn't give a fuck about backwards compatibility issues with OS9, and all the Unixy goodness seemed to be fully supported, with a few Apple quirks that for the most part seemed like really good ideas once you got used to them. The standard unix development suite was included, preconfigured for you by Apple. Most Gnu apps seemed to work with little more than a recompile. X-windows was included out of the box. Apache is preconfigured and running in the basic system. Same with CUPS. As delivered by Apple, your laptop was a running LAMP server (AAMP? MAMP?). (These days the dev tools are a separate free download, but that wasn't the case in earlier versions.) Industry-standard file formats were all built in, and often (eg. with PDF) to a degree that puts all other OSes to shame. It even ran those annoying Microsoft apps for those situations when people insist on sending you proprietary files. The Apple apps, proprietary or not, are a mere footnote to all of the above. You can treat them as a nice little bonus, or you can drag them to the trash. Your call.
The only reason you're stuck with Apple, is that nobody else does all this in one box.
Re:What a silly article (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What a silly article (Score:4, Insightful)
I run various Linux distros professionally, so I'm well aware of what is possible with Ubuntu. But it's still several years behind (on the desktop), because like all modern Linuxes, it is targeting Microsoft, not Apple, and Microsoft is typically 5-10 years behind the state of the art so it's a slow-moving target. (Linux was a better OS when it was targeting the major Unixes, but that's just my perspective as a Unix guy.) And none of Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, or various other major software houses make their major apps available for Ubuntu. The fact that a skilled nerd can make some of these apps work under Ubuntu is no more interesting than the fact that a skilled nerd can run OSX on his Dell.
Re:What a silly article - Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Interesting)
I also noticed that the people bitching about Jobs were "former" employees. Well holy shit...someone who left or was fired is going to bitch about their former boss for some media facetime? This is a 5 page article?!
And maybe I didn't read enough, but "micromanaging" has nothing to do with demanding exacting detail from the output. Anyone who calls that micromanaging has NEVER been micromanaged and its an insult to anyone who has suffered through a real micromanaging boss.
Re:What a silly article - Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Interesting)
Quite possibly the reason only former employees ever comment is because the current ones are terrified of their boss.
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Re:What a silly article - Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
well, it is silly, but not in the way you think (Score:2)
I think, that his way is successful as long as there are many similar bosses, but when his workforce tends to drift away, you will be left without your Mac.
And then, you might give a crap about Jobs, or just buy something else.
Re:well, it is silly, but not in the way you think (Score:5, Interesting)
Another company that used to work that way was Palm. Their flagship pilot was built to be something that the CEO would to carry around with him. There is a well-known story about him getting a block of wood cut which would fit in his jacket pocket and giving it to the designers as a maximum size for the device.
Re:well, it is silly, but not in the way you think (Score:5, Insightful)
*nod* Most good software I've ever seen was designed to solve the specific needs of a very few people, often needs the software author h(im/er)self had. I think the focus group method is practically guaranteed to lead to mediocre or poor designs. There is nothing specific it's really trying to do, and it's hard to get enthusiastic over something and do a really good job on it when no individual seems all that excited over it.
Re:well, it is silly, but not in the way you think (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a step back and try to understand what you just said.
Why is this true? I would suggest that the software is good because both the developer and the customer are the same person. There is no need to argue or communicate because you are the same person in both roles.
I would say poor requirements engineering will lead to poor designs; you cannot design something for which you don't completely understand. To make things worst, most customers do not understand engineering and sometimes they may not even know exactly what it is they want. But they will insist that they need something to solve their problem.
It is practically impossible to get the requirements right the first time. I have found that the only way to remain on track is to continuously verify the resulting implementation against the customers. But this is an expensive process and everyone has been trying to find ways to make this process cheaper or use alternative methods. Apple it seems has an expert customer who happens to also be the CEO. Therefore verifying the design and implementation is actually fairly cheap (or required) for them.
Re:well, it is silly, but not in the way you think (Score:5, Insightful)
completely ignorant (Score:5, Interesting)
The author seems blissfully unaware of Apple's free software use. GCC, Darwin, Khtml and what not punch a few large holes in their central thesis.
Re:completely ignorant (Score:5, Informative)
Re:completely ignorant (Score:5, Interesting)
KHTML, Cups, etc all fall into that category. While Apple routinely publishes it's open source code back as it is required under the GPL, the software that is BSD based doesn't get published as often. Where is the Darwin version for the iPhone? If it really is running a custom version of OSX then it exists, but you will never see it.
Re:completely ignorant (Score:5, Insightful)
People said the exact same thing about the Intel version of Darwin, yet they did release the Intel versions of Darwin!
Re:completely ignorant (Score:5, Interesting)
You seem blissfully unaware that the BSD gave them this right in the first place, and you should be so lucky to see them repost any of their work at all. The fact is, it works out better for Apple to submit patches because that's one less thing they have to keep track of inside of their own infrastructure. In a sense, they're becoming a software company that's modeled around how most major Linux distributions work today; take from the community, put a tiny spin on it, push it as their own. Anything to lessen their workload and let them put their effort on fixing their own self-made software.
This is why Apple submits to the LGPL and the GPL where applicable. It works very well for them because it's one less thing for them to have to worry about. Webkit would be KHTML: Qt-specific half-legible C++, unusable squaller to the greater community which now includes Google, Nokia, and several smaller software companies working on reintegrating it with GTK+ and Qt.
Microsoft also has taken a ton of code from the BSD community, including their original TCP/IP stack. Do you think you'll ever see Microsoft release any of that code? And furthermore, why do you care so much? They've got their own reasons for keeping their code closed (bug fixing, internal documentation, huge gaping unimplemented sections, etc.), they don't particularly care about anything else at this time.
They could do this very same thing with Linux if they wanted to, it would just have taken them much, much longer to get to market. Apple's playing book says "Get to market now, fix the bugs later." Whether or not you subscribe to the "with enough eyes, all bugs become shallow" law of software development, having thousands of developers come in and start asking hundreds of thousands of questions affects their ability to just Write The Damned Code.
Re:completely ignorant (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is supposed to count against Apple... how, exactly?
If the authors of the BSD-licensed software used in Apple products were that concerned about getting every single bit of code contributed back by everyone who touches their software, then -- guess what? -- they would have licensed that code under the GPL instead. They are not only meeting, but actually surpassing, their pseudo-contractual obligations for use of the code.
I'd say the fact that Apple continues to contribute anything back to these projects speaks well of them. Not that the company doesn't have its own faults, of course, but let's give credit where credit is due...
Re:completely ignorant (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
(Silly question around here, I know.)
How is it "not very" open source? (Score:3, Interesting)
Darwin is not very open-source
The Darwin source code [apple.com] is made available under the APSL [apple.com], which is OSI-approved [opensource.org].
Meh. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to call that "Evil" I suppose you can. I think, however, that design by committee only produces piles of steaming crap. There is definitely something to be said for a guy who has vision, and the force of personality to see it through.
Re:Meh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Meh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Meh. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Meh. (Score:5, Insightful)
But again, this sequence does nothing for proving that this success is due to Jobs' aggressive, dictatorial style. It is equally plausible that Jobs made some small positive change such has hiring some bright engineers upon his arrival. Or maybe made a decision that all products should be sleek and devoid of buttons and sharp edges and come in pretty colors. Either of those decisions could account for their success, both could be effective despite micromanagement or abusive management. One could argue that you should imagine how much better the products from these people would have been had Jobs had a different attitude. That, as the original respondent said, apple is succeeding despite Jobs.
I have worked for aggressive, dictatorial people before. I am fully convinced that, while they might be able to establish a stable of employees with parental-appeasement issues that work hard and produce to gain the appreciation of an authority figure, there is nothing that will be produced that couldn't be with a fair, comfortable management environment.
Should Jobs get the praise for whatever decision he made that did make apple a success? Of course. Should his management style be adopted by others? No. Not until it's proven that it was the reason for success. I don't believe that proof has been provided and there are far too many other companies such as Google that demonstrate that success is not tied to an abusive management style and thus provide a counter-example sufficient to suggest looking towards other reasons for apple's success.
Re:Meh. (Score:5, Insightful)
I love Apple design. But that delicious, creamy center is wrapped up in all the corporate avarice, control-mongering (DRM, lawsuits etc), and nastiness that the contemporary corporation is capable of. I think that they are actually worse than Microsoft in this regard.
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That's very unrealistic. Apple's product design was pretty good in the late nineties too, but nobody wanted to buy their computers back then. Frankly, this was because the computers were slow and the operating system was crap.
Their recent success has had far more to do with the underlying technology than with design or the success of the iPod (although the iPod certainly didn't hurt). The influence of OS X's FreeBSD / NeXTSTEP underpinnings cannot be overstated. Just about every clique and every socia
Re:Meh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Meh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, pretty is a part of it, but "because shit just works" is a far greater part of the equation for most people, in my experience.
And to whom do people turn, when they're considering getting a new computer and they want to know which particular brand of shit just works the best? The same kind people who switched to Macs in droves a few years back, solely because of OS X. Such solicited recommendations have been the driving force behind Mac sales among most of my friends.
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Apple's "asshole system of management" doesn't rise to that level. For one thing, too many firms have "nice" management for the university-
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Re:What a silly article (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the author missed a lot. Was pretty far off base in a lot of areas. I have mainly worked large corporations and *none* had anything resembling worker empowerment..
Take this phrase from the article:
"Apple's successes in the years since Jobs' return -- iMac, iPod, iPhone -- suggest an alternate vision to the worker-is-always-right school of management. In Cupertino, innovation doesn't come from coddling employees and collecting whatever froth rises to the surface; it is the product of an intense, hard-fought process, where people's feelings are irrelevant."
Umm.. I have yet to work anywhere where even technical merits win hard-fought processes.
And I have never seen the worker-is-always-right attitude *anywhere*. If you have technically literate management, you *might* get a chance to pitch your side. Mostly not though. Then you run it by 10, or more, people whom all have the ability to veto, but not approve, your proposal.
I would hazard a guess that large corporations tend towards "worker as cogs" as an overall style. Look at the number of people the last few years that have received notices that their jobs were going to India in 4 weeks. Not exactly worker as individual talent there, ya know. Some try to buck the trend, but they are the exception, not the rule. Smaller companies use different styles. Another line form the article said "More than anywhere else I've worked before or since, there's a lot of concern about being fired". Shoot, the author needs to get out more. A lot of larger corporations will lay off entire departments or outsource them. At least at Apple, the implication seems to be that doing a good job means you keep your job. Many people these days are working under far greater concern of being fired and there is no productivity or metrics for them to meet to change that outcome.
Jobs is good at what he does. He spots future development and goes for it. That isn't a management skill. That talent at the level of a CEO would work under most management styles. And, his vision works because he does not have anyone to veto his proposals. You stick Jobs 2-3 management layers down in any large corporation and you would have all the problems of dealing with someone with his management style, but most of his ideas would be shot down by people who either did not like him, or his ideas.
Basically.. "Jobs is Jobs. You aren't." should be the lessons here. He's a CEO. You aren't.
Re:What a silly article (Score:5, Funny)
Partnering with Microsoft is the kiss of death. Period. Microsoft will do legal & illegal things to fuck you, and then worry about the consequences later.
Apple doesn't do this; so even though Apple is a brutish sort of company, they're easier to do business with. Lawful Evil > Chaotic Evil
Its not hard - most managers are tools (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Its not hard - most managers are tools (Score:5, Funny)
Hey! I resent that. And I can prove it's not true. I've got a 70-page presentation that I'd like to share. I'll read through every single slide and, to keep you interested, it's got all kinds of text that flies in from the left and fades out and
Handicapped (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Handicapped (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Handicapped (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
if only we could make our own mod options..
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
ZING! I'll be here all week! Be sure to tip your waitstaff, they're working hard for you tonight.
mod -1, Flamebait
Re:Handicapped (Score:5, Insightful)
He needs to get towed a few times. (Score:5, Insightful)
Jobs needs to make a few trips to the impound lot to bail out his car. He would probably create his own reserved parking place, but at least that would put an end to the myth of the egalitarian parking lot policy.
Re:He needs to get towed a few times. (Score:5, Insightful)
To Steve Jobs, the hundred dollar fine he'd pay here for parking in a handicapped spot is akin to my putting a quarter in a parking meter. Chump change not worth worrying about.
Fines should be based on net worth, or at least income. Since they're not, the richer you are the less the law applies to you.
Re:He needs to get towed a few times. (Score:5, Funny)
Could be worse. When I first read that statement, I misread it as "I _own_ a mortgage company". Which is WAY worse nowadays.
Re:He needs to get towed a few times. (Score:5, Informative)
He can indeed park in the front entrance, on the sidewalk, or on the front lawn. But, he can't park in a handicapped space unless he is handicapped. That's the law.
The law also requires a certain number of handicapped spaces. The formula varies by state -- maybe someone knows the details of CA law, as it would apply to Apple. So, Jobs couldn't just convert a handicapped space to his personal parking space, unless they are currently exceeding the requirements of the law.
Re:He needs to get towed a few times. (Score:5, Insightful)
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They Be The Opposite (Score:5, Insightful)
With that said, Apple helps keep Microsoft out of even more legal hot water, for example, by directly backing Apple. It's a CYA tactic on the legal front.
Bottom line: Don't just drink the Kool-Aid on the Apple story without taking 1-2 steps back to look at the marketplace, cultures, and end users.
Re:They Be The Opposite (Score:5, Funny)
Apple has pulled their share of disasters as well, but when you look at Apple's competition, their products are often mind-numbingly BAD. VISTA? Earlier online music purchasing systems? Dell and Gateway computers?
Apple isn't all that great, it's just that the competition sucks. I mean when the Asus eee-pc is the most encouraging thing you've seen come to the tech table in awhile...
Re:They Be The Opposite (Score:4, Informative)
The option you describe sounds suspiciously like the Repair install option that's been part of Windows since at least Windows 2000.
Wow, guess it's not just me (Score:2, Interesting)
Dr Spok told millions of Americans the 'right' way to raise their kids. Turns out he got rich doing it wrong too. According to the investors, Apple is doing it right, management style be damned. I don't even like App
Evil Works (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point in allowing many different people to tackle a problem is to eliminate single-point-of-failure. If one company's product blows, we can choose another's. This is very important, both to the consumer, and to the market as a whole.
But when one company is the best at what they do, people stop thinking about choice. If apple makes the best mp3player/music store, why go anywhere else? If their operating system is so good, who cares if it only runs on their hardware... as long as their hardware is great, too?
Unfortunately, even evil geniuses sometimes fail. For instance, the iPhone SDK... I honestly don't see that going anywhere, unless the current license agreement is modified to something less draconian.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And if you don't see the iPhone SDK going anywhere, you don't have much vision. Just sayin.
Re:Evil Works (Score:5, Insightful)
that it can work for anyone else. It also may not work for any other
company. It happens to work for Jobs and Apple (apparently).
On a similar note, there are plenty of people that are "google wannabes".
They will pick up on something they've heard about Google's management
style. They will try to implement it and be full of themselves. It ends
up being a big fiasco of course because such people are just kidding
themselves. They don't have the talent to be managers at Google or
Apple.
Re:Evil Works (Score:5, Insightful)
In short, Wired is trying to make Steve Jobs' business management methods into something that can work for everybody, which is complete and utter idiocy. If they'd have any experience with business management, they'd know that. What we have here is a person who is good enough with product development, deal making and personal leadership that he can overcome his absolutely craptastic management skills. Jobs is not a manager, he is a dictator. Just because he is a good one doesn't mean that you become good by emulating him. You need the rest of his skills as well.
I also agree that what works for Google is unlikely to work across the board for others. You create management strategies around the people you have. If you can't do that, you need to hire people who fit your management style. But you cannot impose management strategies on people who don't respond to those strategies. That's just a disaster in the making.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The idea behind the US Constitution was to put in place a system that would have a good chance of working no matter what idiots were at the helm.
Yeah, but at what happens when you put actual idiots at the helm.
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Ends do justify the means if the result is good enough.
Better Link (IMHO) (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-04/bz_apple?currentPage=all [wired.com]
So much better than flipping, flipping, flipping through pages and waiting for reloads. It's the print version, so you can use it that way too -- long article so print and read offline.
* = Assumes you plan on actually reading the article.
I should think so.... (Score:2)
Differences with Google are oversold (Score:5, Insightful)
To be a large, public, consumer company you have to keep some things secret for a variety of reasons. You don't want to telegraph strategy to your competitors. You want to release things with a splash to earn unpaid media coverage. You don't want to be held legally liable for stock price movements based on R&D projects that might never get released. etc.
Apple is very closed and secretive about some things, but quite open about others. Like Google their core OS kernel is open source. Like Google they employ commonly available technologies--http, MP3, H264, AAC, Unix, USB, ATA, 802.11, etc.--but put them together in unique ways to create new products.
Re: (Score:2)
OTOH, the process of doing this can be rather annoying. Ensuring that all of your
video data will "play nice" with Apple can be a considerable chore rather than
just having Apple be accomodating enough to handle whatever you throw at it.
Homage disguised as a Story (Score:2)
I want the minutes back I wasted on that story.
Success isn't deterministic (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't think you can call the iPod a reliable result of make'em bleed management style. Yes, it can and did happen. But I doubt as likely as under a more open system.
Re:Success isn't deterministic (Score:5, Insightful)
the iPod is not their saviour product. The problem is very few people get exposed to the Apple line. I recently let a big customer borrow my apple TV for a week. He's a huge Microsoft fan and has Media center PC's in every room.
When I went to his house yesterday to install a new 58" set in his bedroom and asked if I can pick up my apple Tv he said. "How many of those do you have in stock?" He is buying 12 of them for his home replacing the media center PC's as the appleTv product kicks the ever living crap out of windows Media center.
The fact you can "rent" a HD movie for $4.99 was his biggest love of the device. His wife loves that she can "buy" lost right away as well.
If Apple had more exposure to people so they can actually TRY their stuff, they would kill Microsoft and everyone else overnight.
Problem is, Apple doesnt have a "try it for a week for free" program, and your experience at the apple store is sanitized at best.
Drink the Kool-Aid (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
At least, I HOPE you know where "Drink the Kool-Ade" comes from...
Leadership, not totalitarianism (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a fan of Apple, nor of Mr. Jobs, but he has some serious leadership skills. The fact that he's also a dick is not a factor in his success. Apparently his leadership can outshine his dickishness.
Fortunately Mr. Jobs decided to start a computer company instead of a religious cult in Guyana. Who knows what Jim Jones' "Kool-Ade OS" might have been like had he chosen a different path.
Been there (Score:5, Interesting)
Didn't make it past the first page (Score:2)
The real difference (Score:3, Interesting)
If CxOs are thinking of being the "the red-faced, tyrannical boss" they better not forget that important point. They're not going to do much good if they do the tyrannical part without the taste part. In fact to emulate Apple I bet the tyrannical part is optional, the taste part isn't[1]. And the taste part is _hard_ to emulate.
Jobs knows the difference between good and great. Whereas most CxOs (or people in general) can't even seem to tell the difference between good and bad
The typical committee might take weeks to tell you whether a piece of chocolate tastes good or not, much less even get around to the way it _looks_.
The Techs? Many of the good ones might come with great _technical_ architectures and designs - but when the customer looks at it and tries to use it, it IS a piece of crap from their PoV.
So even if the Techs at Apple don't like his abusive micromanagement, I bet they _respect_ it because Steve Jobs has taste.
They can be confident that even if he's deciding on the "curve of a monitor's corners":
1) The decision is based on making an "insanely great"[2] product (not a crony richer, or more powerful)
2) He is 90% likely to be right about what the market will like.
3) If he yells at you, it's not _just_ because he's an asshole, deep down you know know he is right - that what you just showed him is only suitable as "blah stuff" from Dell...
Many (not all) techs can accept assholes who are right most of the time.
Thing is I wonder whether it's a bit like abused spouse syndrome for them
[1] That said, I think a lot of people with taste AND an obsessive eye for detail tend to get very upset when stuff misses the mark.
[2] Yes I know their products aren't really insanely great.
charlie and the chocolate factory (Score:5, Funny)
Re:charlie and the chocolate factory (Score:4, Funny)
First of all, it was Blueberries that errant employees of Willy Wonka turned into. Not Snozzberries. Snozzberries were an item on the lickable wallpaper, where Mr. Wonka announces that 'we' are the music makers, and 'we' are the dreamers of dreams.
But speak of a reality-distortion field. Who the hell has a freaky waterfall tunnel in the factory workplace that you need to travel through by paddle boat, showing pictures of chickens getting decapitated and worms on peoples' faces? What OSHA committee endorsed that?
And don't forget testing experimental pharmaceuticals and novel synthetic candies on live Oompa Loompas. I believe this is what you were referring to in your comment. Putting Oompa Loompa after Oompa Loompa to a first-hand experimental safety test of the dinner gum, even after they have consistently turned into blueberries.
How did Oompa Loompas ever stand to work for this guy? Oh yeah, that's right, the convenient displacing of thousands of Oompa Loompas from their native homeland, exploiting their addiction to cocao beans, playing upon their fear of the native fauna by promising them safety, and literally paying them beans for their extended labor in extremely unsafe work condictions.
Yeah, it's pretty obvious I saw that Gene Wilder movie a few dozen times too many as a kid (read the book a whole bunch too). BTW, IMHO, Gene Wilder was a way better Willy Wonka than the Michael Jackson-esque Johnny Depp in the remake. And I say this as a huge Depp fan.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Apple is in the console business (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't compare Apple with Dell. Compare it with Sony or Nintendo. Those companies are equally closed and secretive. Akio Morita (1921-1999) was Sony's founder and the equivalent of Steve Jobs. Sony hasn't been doing too well since Morita died.
funny thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Jobs' management style (Score:5, Insightful)
For some this approach is extremely effective. For others is intolerable.
Douche (Score:3, Insightful)
Everything in the article points to battered employee syndrome.
What kind of research did they do? (Score:5, Informative)
Amazon's DRM-free downloads started last September.
Apple's DRM-free downloads started last April.
Did the author of this piece do ANY research?
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They also tend to look like crap. OSS projects with really good interfaces are rare.
Apple doesn't actually tend to break much new ground. What they do is recognize a need that's being filled by an inferior product, and ma
Re:They don't understand because they are wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
Right. Pushed from on high. In other words, designed by committee.
No, it's because they actually make cool stuff. The lightest girl in a roomful of fat chicks is still a fat chick.
If by "consistently" you meant "rarely," then I totally agree.
Hahaha. OK, I just got you were being satirical. Well done!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Management" is not "Evil" (Score:4, Informative)
They made it "SMOOTH!" (Score:4, Interesting)
Plus I have a machine that is running the same chips and the same apps (Word, InDesign, PShop) as they are, and it's smoother, faster, quieter, larger, thermally cooler and looks great dominating my desk. Take a look at Dell's "The One" and see precisely why Apple succeeded.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a PC. Watch me knock this shit out.
I'm a Mac. Please have a cup of tea while we soothe your eyes with the impressive stylings of the Apple art design team.
I appreciate the Apple styling, but it's not the way my mind works. If someone asks me a math question, I'm like, "BAM! 5.125!" I don't see a graphical sequence of numbers dancing in my head. So that's how I like my programs to work-- not participate in water ballet. =P
Yep, it's a muddle... (Score:3, Interesting)
Mic
Useless negative bile (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple has succeeded primarily because they have some brilliant marketing folks working for them. While I personally cannot STAND Apple ads (and any ad targeted towards my ag