> 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"
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"