When did Microsoft buy Apple?
 

That's what I've been saying for 3-4 years now, or a year or two after Steve Jobs passed away. Very little innovation, things that used to work no longer did and my Apple experience felt very little like anything from 1985 to 2012. At one time I was an evangelist on the level of Guy Kawaskai. Now I just use my computer and phone and hope for an Apple second coming.

https://hackernoon.com/the-age-of-apple-is-over-b4570e2a2955#.3zii1rb49

Bill Gates bought a large chunk of Apple back right after Jobs was hired back. Gates infusion of cash kept them for running of of cash to meet payroll. I have always wondered how much stock he owns in Apple.

Maybe Gates is helping in designs at Apple.

What is even weirder is that Microsoft employees were responsible for most of the new code (by line count) contributed to the Linux kernel last year or maybe it was the year before.

Dogs and cats living together...

That was a self preservation move.

MSFT owned so much of the market share they were being perceived by the Fed as well as foreign States as a monopoly.

If you recall there was a lot of noise about breaking up MSFT.

As Apple represented the only other commercial mass market OS, read competitor, it was in MSFT's best interest to ensure they remained viable.

It's called market saturation, does anyone know someone without at least one mobile device?

Jobs saw things others within Apple never will, there is no one there that has the kind of imagination he did.

Agreed.

I think much of Jobs wisdom came from his adoption and adherence to the Human Interface Doctrine.

Nearly everyone else creates technology that people need to learn / be taught how to use.

Apple / Jobs always approached new product from the position of, if this were something people could do today what is the natural way they would do it and designed to meet that natural inclination.

I remember my first iPod, I picked it up, spun the wheel, clicked the big center button and I had it.

My brothers b-day was coming up so I decided to get him one. Went to a big box and started picking up other mp3 players because the iPod was expensive and you could get more capacity for less with the other offerings.

Every single one had a horrible user experience. Convoluted menus, multiple buttons for seemingly redundant functions, felt cheap and fragile.

Sales guy comes over and we start talking. At one point he says, yeah they all do the same thing and the others are certainly a bargain. He pauses and says, but they are not iPods.

When the iPhone first came out I had an out of state client that I would visit for a week every other week for 6 months. Was pretty much living in the same hotel the entire time. You start to get to know the regulars.

Sitting at the bar one night having a beer and dinner and this guy I'd met comes in and sits down. UI/UX engineer for Verizon. He see's my new iPhone and starts poo pooing it, no physical keyboard, Apple, walled garden etc...

He asks to see it. Starts playing with it and he's mumbling to himself, cool, wow, nice. Played with it a good half hour.

Next night he comes in with his boss. They sit down and he asks to see the phone again. Right away he's hammering his boss, look at this, so intuitive, check this out, watch this, this is how it's done, this is what we should be doing.

That is and always was Apples thing. It was never necessarily to invent something new but about doing it right.

Personally I think Jobs would have **** all over removing the headphone jack. It's not a better UX.

Main problems are slow progress on Siri, AppleTV, Homekit.

iPhone, Mac, iPad, App Store, Apple Music, Watch are all doing very well. Name a competitor who wouldn't kill to be doing a fraction as well as Apple in these products, in revenue, market share with the valuable customers, profit.

Jobs had no problem dumping old ports and features even if that angered customers for awhile. Optical drive in MacBooks, for example. Big outcry, now it's clear that software install and music/video can be done more easily via internet. Similarly MacBooks dumped Ethernet, parallel, serial ports long before PC notebooks did. Now it is clear that wireless and USB make all of those unneccessary. Mac OS X broke backwards compatibility with prior Mac apps, while Windows tries to maintain backwards compatibility. Not a lot of people still wishing they could run OS 9 apps. Etc.

A dumb (can only carry audio, can't carry data or power) port like 3.5 mm audio jack is a logical thing to dump. Easily replaced by wireless (BT) and Lightning. So people need to buy new earbuds or use dongle. The people whining about this mostly use disposable earbuds anyway.

Excellent post. I had the opportunity to be involved in a number of "crew station working groups" the past 30 years, both as a Navy flight test guy, program manager and commercial UAS developer.

User Interface is everything. I could write a book.

Quick Sea Story.

The Saudi's were interested in buying one of the UAS I was managing, Fire Scout. I flew over to Riyadh and briefed the heads of the Saudi Navy and Army. They were very interested in the capability of the UAS...but they had a very hard time believing the Fire Scout wasn't "piloted" from the ground control station, rather it was controlled by a series of commands: The aircraft figured out the rest...we called it "fly by mouse".

I had videos, pictures, etc. but the head of the Saudi Navy in particular was doubtful.

"If this is true, it solves our biggest problem: Pilots. We as a country don't often produce the skills required to be a pilot and when we do they immediately leave for the airlines..."

I was there with the USN Admiral in charge of Foreign Military Sales and during a break I asked him, since he clearly thought I was trying to fool him, if I could have the Saudi's come to the US for a demonstration?

The Admiral agreed and two weeks later the Saudi contingent arrived (the head of the Saudi Navy in particular) for an extensive demo.

I had the Saudi Admiral sit in the GCS, which had windows so he was looking right at the Fire Scouts.

"Hit the launch button"

He does and Fire Scout lifted into a hover.

"Now hit the programmed route"

Fire Scout nosed over, added power, accelerated and climbed, ever faithful to the programmed route.

"Now click on Return and Land"

You guys know the rest.

UX was as much the revolution world wide as was the underlying technology.

Sorry for the hijack.

As much as I like my iPhone, I can't express my hatred of iTunes. That has to be the worst piece of software ever written, EVER.

Right there with you in Itunes, and Apple in general... But at the moment it's surpassed by my hatred of Microsoft's new patch model which will make my life a living hell... (new monthly updates, impossible to pick and choose, so if there' a bad patch you must roll back an entire month of protection until it's fixed)

Waiting to hear what's new on the Mac front (shortly apparently). Thing is even if it's ho-hum it won't be as bad as Win10 ! it's a race to the bottom, it seems...

The floppy drive was dropped because no one used it.

Optical drives could be dropped because a better alternative, The Apple Store, and lack of retail boxed product made it seamless.

Ethernet was not dropped, RJ-11 jacks could be dropped because you can run ethernet (as well as serial / parallel services) over other ports like USB. There is no difference in the user experience by replacing one cable with another.

And IMHO Apple have done a spectacular job at maintaining backwards compatibility. They did it through both OS as well as architecture changes. In my case I can't think of a single piece of legacy software that UI used that stopped being supported before it was grossly outdated.

Point being they have been pretty good about eliminating things that were simply no longer being used.

Sure they are providing a lightning port to 3.5 mm jack adaptor but that, unlike prior eliminated hardware, adds an additional step.

Adding steps to a process is not better UX.

What business requirement keeps you on Windows? What would it take to move to Linux on the desktop?

Jobs died and plain old suits took over. The plain old suits are always hovering like vultures to come in and grab the reins and thus the money. They kicked him out in the '80s and learned it was too soon. They waited for him to die and came back in. Suits are not bold and innovative. Suits protect the money and not always in the smartest of ways. All suits see is cost. Jobs looked like a huge cost to the suits under him but they tolerated it while Jobs was alive and making such amazing innovations and staggering profits. But it's the conservative nature of most suits to halt that and "protect" the business from risk. Apple is dull now because of that.

When optical drive was dropped, many extra steps were added for many people - if you had software on CD, watched movies on DVD, etc, you had to buy an external optical drive, re-buy your software as download, sign up for Netflix, etc. Ditto when Ethernet port was dropped - everyone who used to plug an Ethernet cable into their Mac needed to find an Ethernet-to-USB adapter or a WiFi connection. These were meaningful hassles at the time, larger than simply putting a $9 Lightning-to-3.5mm dongle on your headphone cord.

In my case my customer/user base is running Win7/10. Not a single Mac in sight. I still develop on my MBP (Java based apps) and test on a Fusion VM Win7. That said nothing gets verified for delivery until operational tests on real hardware.

Very true. That was bolstered with tightly integrated OS/Software/Hardware which promoted superior reliability vs Windows and the thousands of external vendors. Folks would stroll into Fry's Electronics and buy an external DVD player for $29.95 and complain when it didn't work or worse caused OS issues on their $299 laptop.

IMO the facade of Apple reliability is starting to fracture. OS updates on mobile devices are not without issue. Spinning beach balls are not as rare these days but trumping (oops) all of that is the very real loss of Steve Jobs imagination. Reports of Apple not paying their "fair share" in taxes may actually put a dent into their very large millennial fan base who are sporting Feel the burn tattoos.

I don't mind the elimination of the 3.5mm audio port. What I do mind is Apple providing an imperfect solution in the box for those of us that will want/need to continue using existing headphones.

The dongle included in the box provides an audio port which is good. What is bad is that you can't charge the iPhone when using the dongle. Apple should have provided a complete solution to the issue or no solution at all. It is a half-assed attempt to placate the people who don't want to lose the audio port.

Yup.

To restate /clarify my earlier position.

I'm not saying Jobs would have not eliminated the headphone jack.

I believe he would have wanted a better implementation / transition.

I hate it too.

In general i am alright with my iMac at home. Tablets and phones they are doing a great job. iTunes can get annoying if you are dealing with it once a year to back up. Once learnt it is alright.

I am not fan of any Microsoft products in the market.


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And yet I still ordered a 7.

Deal was to good to pass up.

Traded in my 6 leaving me with $65 out of pocket and my bill reduced by $20 per month.

Phone will ship 10/11 or sooner.

Yes Jobs genius was having an interface a monkey could pick up and use.

Common mistake many people make, equating difficulty of use with superiority of product.

Kind of like, "it costs more so it must be better".

While "you get what you pay for" often applies it's not true all the time.

When **** starts going wonky and gets unreliable we'll know for sure Microsoft has influence in Apple.

Agree. The soul is gone.

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Let's see. When Jobs went to Berkley to school he took a class in caligraphy on a whim. He thought the screen and fonts on a computer should work like caligraphy. That is why when the Mac first came out it was miles ahead of PC in graphic arts producing wysiwyg artwork. Which saved tons of money and time not having to do multiple printer proofs when producing printed materials.

When the Macintosh was conceived and even before it was official Apple hired Microsoft to write a Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and Database for the new Macintosh. It was called Word, Multi-plan, and Database. The information used to develop that software is where Microsoft got the code to write Windows, was sued for it and Apple won. The only things left are Word, and multiplan which is now called Excel. Everything else in Office was bought from other companies, especially Powerpoint. They didn't even bother to rename it like they did Foxpro to Access.

When Jobs left Apple for Next the Next box which is basically now the Mac did not have a floppy drive. It only had a CD re-writeable drive and ethernet.

The day after Apple announced the iMac without a floppy drive floppy manufacturers announced they were not going to produce any more floppies. At the time people were using Zip and Syquest drives that held 100mb or 500mb instead of just 1.4mb floppies.

Had a Windows 2000 phone when the iPhone came out. It had a keyboard and I was thrilled to get an iPhone to get a phone that was half as thick because the keyboard was on the screen. I still miss Graphiti for using a pen to enter text on a touch screen before the Windows 2000 phone.

As for the headphone jack...tried the first pair of ear buds that came with my first iPhone. They made my ears itch and fill with wax. Immediately found a set of good bluetooth headphones had have used them ever since. Not much of a music listener though don't really need a soundtrack to my life. Mainly only listen in the car when driving so car stereo works great.

Have a good friend that worked pretty far up at Apple in the 90s. He was the person at Apple that put up their first web site (it wasn't really public). He also worked with Microsoft to get them to write Explorer for the Mac instead of porting the Windows software (which is what they were doing with the office apps.) It was a test and was so successful they changed from porting windows office apps to the Mac (which sucked) to putting together the Macintosh Business Unit that changed back to writing the office apps for the Mac on the Mac.

His official title and job was Internet Evangelist. It was his job to keep up what was going on with the internet and put together people with their ideas with people at Apple to make things happen. Hence the Exlporer thing. He also spoke at event and trade shows on the behalf of Apple and at the stockholder meetings to inform them what was happening on the internet.

In 93 he also worked on the specifications for what he thought would be a really cool cell phone. This was just after the Newton was killed and palm pilots were very popular. It turned out to be most of the checklist used for development of the iPhone. This was pre-iPod and iTunes by 8 years. And that was just ONE of MANY employees.

Steve Job's vision wasn't all just Steve's. He was the charismatic driving force, but nothing was all his ideas.

As for what they are working on now?

I'm thinking the key word is integration. Everything working together from anywhere you want to interface with it. Communications, work, media, home, appliances, car...The only thing slowing that all down now is the IOT or Internet Of Things. Horrible secruity and too many separate systems with no basic standardization. There is a LOT of stuff out there that hobbyist can put together really cheap, but it takes a lot of work. And security is still an issue. Once security is not an issue it needs an affordable hub that integrates it all together so no matter what you have it will talk to whatever else you have. And an easy to use and understand interface (Apple's Forte).

This is a very interesting thread. I agree Apple has lost it's "It just works" mojo. Apple's NBT should be splitting iTunes up into separate apps that perform specific functions (device management, entertainment, purchases, etc).
I haven't backed up my iPhone in two years because the process is such a nightmare. I am very, very concerned about security, and this business of Apple wanting to integrate all my devices and all my data terrifies me. I do not want my bank account number available on my phone, I do not want 300 GB of work photos stored on my phone. I want to be able to easily determine what gets stored where and do not want the default to be everything everywhere.
After fixing iTunes, Apple's NBT would likely be iHome, with devices that can turn a home into a smart home without a ton of rewiring, everything from your nightlight to your TV, AV system, coffee maker, door locks, lighting, HVAC, water pressure, gas and power usage, your car's fuel and maintenance status, lawn watering, can be monitored and controlled from your phone. I would not participate until the security issues are solved and Apple has demonstrated it can make a better piece of software than iTunes, but it would be a useful function.

That trademark is owned by SDI Technologies.

One of my dearest friends is their VP of Marketing.

This, pretty well nailed it. They are riding on the coattails of Jobs' innovation and are now just followers in the marketplace. Most of the new features in iOS10 and the iPhone 7 were previously introduced on Android phones. I've had iPhones for a LONG time, along with multiple iPads. With each new iOS they move farther away from the simple, intuitive UI that made them unique. Really the only area where I still see them as leaders is in industrial design, their products still have much greater perceived quality than competitors. Though some of the recent physical interface upgrades have also given me pause, and removal of the 3.5mm jack will be a huge PITA for me. I travel frequently, and pretty much every flight will find me with my phone plugged in and charging along with my Bose noise-cancelling headphones plugged in to the 3.5mm port.

Still have two of these and hands down my all time favorite chassis.

As far as PC chassis go it is the pinnacle.

http://www.everymac.com/images/other...-open-2008.jpg

I still have one of those. I suppose I should do something with it. It was diagnosed with a hard drive issue and I didn't have time to mess with it. I replaced it with an iMac and haven't looked back.

iHouse? iDigs? iCrib?

Will we ever figure out they are all just boxes full of electronics shuffling 1's and 0's?

I work with PC's and Apples... both periodically crash... IMHO I don't see one being inherently better than the other.

Kinda reminds me of the Ford/Chevy/Dodge guys arguing about who makes the better car.

Just my two cents.

Apple died along with Steve Jobs. Its just a matter of time now.

I know someone who until recently worked under Ives in the design lab. He says its a complete cluster f*&(k there. He couldn't wait to leave.