I think the biggest thing missing from this article - or really this mindset - is that Apple's biggest success was disrupting the phone business. True, they innovated with the iPad. But their best moves have come when a market for a product already existed, and they rewrote the rules. I don't know how many markets exist like that right now.
Great writeup. Consensus is important, but total dependence on agreement can water down solutions and lead to gridlock. Plus, settling on a solution (however modified) that one person has advocated from the start helps them own it. So long as mistakes aren't lorded over anyone, this is a great way to help people develop professionally; you learn best from your mistakes, and from the initiatives you spearhead.
In such ways, let's say there's a team of 10 people working on a product. How do you avoid the "too many cooks spoils the meal" problem? Jane wants things open-source, Reggie wants the problem to be super-simple and will sacrifice features for simplicity, Joe wants infinite configurability... Without someone to over-rule the group and set the definite course, you could spend days/weeks/months along this track. You can make good arguments for any of these things, but there is no real "right" answer after infinite arguing sometimes. It comes down to what is best for the company, and people can disagree on that all the time.
In my (granted, limited) experience, I've preferred having someone set a definite course than have to deal with a group-think version of a decision.
This is where a mission and values come into play. Leadership sets the tone and provides a framework (people should have input during this process of course), then gets out of the way so its people can make their own decisions inside that model. You make it safer for people to take risks this way, and try something that not everyone might agree upon.
I totally agree with having lively discussion within a framework defined by the leadership. But it seems that the mission and values are usually at a pretty high level - so high that they don't necessarily help in coming up with a single solution. It still seems that someone ??in a non-leadership role?? needs to be empowered to make the final decision - and to know when to make it. Maybe the framework you're thinking of, while influenced by the higher-level mission and values, has the "who" and "when" built in. And it certainly wouldn't have to be the same "who" all the time.
"And it certainly wouldn't have to be the same "who" all the time."
Totally agree. And this is the hard part for leaders -- letting their people make big decisions, because the mistakes will be attributed to the team leader, and not their teams. As it should. But great leaders will make that situation a reality, otherwise you have a bunch of unmotivated people working for you who will eventually look for a job elsewhere that empowers them to grow into larger roles.
So leadership has to guide the process, and occasionally just decide. But hopefully only occasionally.
The problem with that process is that it ends up being half-assed.
"Yeah I value your opinion, all of your opinions, I'd like to hear your ideas... but we're not going to implement any of them. I like to feel good about being a good leader who listens to my minions. "
or
"Yeah I listened to one of your ten ideas, and it ended up sucking, lets ignore the facts that that idea had dependencies and contingencies on the other nine ideas in order to be amazing"
I rather prefer that the leader took a role that dictated the vision of the product and these days I prefer that particular leader to be the founder and/or CEO. Also hopefully someone who is part of the implementation (preferably code).
It'll be interesting to see if there is a convergence, though. As iPads get faster & Apple invests more in the iOS versions of their software, the iPad will naturally become a competitor to traditional laptops. The lack of a keyboard is a real drawback to that, though. The idea of Microsoft as the plucky upstart in that regard seems ridiculous enough to be plausible.
Personally, I think Canonical is heading in the right direction with regards to convergence, with Ubuntu Phone and Ubuntu Desktop running off of the same kernel and device. I suspect that it's going to be hard going for at least another two or three years, though, especially since they'll have to target existing off-the-shelf hardware, and virtually all of the latest-and-greatest devices have proprietary binary drivers for the graphics chips. (For a while, Google couldn't even release the binary graphics driver for the 2nd-gen Nexus 7, let alone an open-source one.)
At this point, I think a converged device would only hurt Apple's profitability and brand. Why would you buy a Macbook and an iPhone if you could get away with just one? Plus, we'd have to deal with the differing instruction sets. (It's one thing to write an app targeting mobile and compile it for ARM; it's another to suddenly expect 3rd-party developers to start cross-compiling desktop apps for ARM and phone hardware isn't fast enough to emulate Intel chips the way Intel chips emulated PPC during the last architecture transition.)
I know Microsoft has been trying to appear more vibrant with their university recruiting efforts; they often play up the opportunities to work on Windows Phone and XBox. At the end of the day, though, developers there still have to deal with the bureaucracy and code that hasn't been touched in decades. Microsoft has often been one to explore new form factors (Windows CE; XP-based tablets, XP-based media centers), and I'm sure they still pour lots of R&D into it even today. Making products that are good enough for users and priced low enough for people to buy them, however, is still a challenge, I think.
"Why would you buy a Macbook and an iPhone if you could get away with just one?"
I agree, but I also see this as the moment their product line would start to calcify. I don't worry about Apple's ability to make the smart moves, but it seems like this will come to a head.
I saw this from another HN post, a quote from a Microsoft VP:
"Let’s be clear – helping folks kill time on a tablet is relatively easy. Give them books, music, videos and games, and they’ll figure out the rest. Pretty much all tablets do that.
"But helping people be productive on a tablet is a little trickier."
Really curious to hear how this works out. I don't recall ever seeing a paid newsletter signup form; most authors/email list owners use email as a free lead gen tool to sell something else (a book, an online course, etc). It'll be interesting to see if people will pay for the email medium itself.
So far after 8 hours, one of HappyLetter's customers has 13 subscribers. They've only announced their letter on Twitter and ADN. Many of the Gruber-inspired school of bloggers try to minimize ads and rely on direct support from their readers. I think newsletters are a (classy) way that their readers can support them.
The realization that a new notebook is on the way in a month would probably prompt me to write more, just to use up the notebook. That would be a great way to force me away from my little glowing screens for a little decompression time.
It's also a response to google docs. Introducing collaboration on iWork is a good first step to address to the shift towards shared docs. I imagine we'll see that expand significantly in the future.
I just wish they'd gone ahead and made iWork free across the board (or perhaps for Mavericks users), rather than only with the purchase of a new device.
This likely has to do with GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles).
iOS updates used to cost a nominal amount of money because new features have to have new revenues. (Why? Imagine you are selling a physical good, and promised a 1 year warranty - you have to reserve some revenue to cover the costs of honoring that warranty. If you didn't it would artificially inflate profits now by hiding future liabilities.)
So what Apple does to get around this is reserve a bit of revenue from each new iPhone and realizes it on the balance sheet to cover the ongoing costs of iOS updates. I imagine this is what they are going to do with Macs too to cover OS X costs, and if this is correct it will likely be mentioned at next week's conference call.
I think the GAAP part of it is that Apple has to be consistent with their previous revenue recognition strategies.
GAAP itself doesn't force similar companies to recognize revenues in the same fashion that Apple did with the iPhone, i.e., you can make a phone and provide software updates that provide new features for free.
Financial transparency FTW. I've worked for two companies that were extremely transparent. It's made me feel like a) the company knows I am a big kid and can take the good & the bad news, and b) views me as a partner in the work, not a cog in the machine. And if declining finances leads some people to leave, that's infinitely easier than having to let them go.
Apple definitely removed as many affordances as possible with each screen, almost to the extreme. Now, have I figured out how each screen works? Yes. Do I think the UI would be improved with a few more visual hints (button backgrounds, consistent color choice for actions)? Yes.
iOS 7 is such a large reset from previous iOS versions, and I would expect to see this new design language evolve over future releases. The best comparison I read: think of the changes between OS9 and OSX.
You nailed it. Dribbble excels at featuring and sharing solutions to visual design challenges. Icons. Logos. UI components that show effective affordance (as best you can tell from a small screenshot).
I think Dribbble is somewhat a victim of success; everyone wants in and uses it as they see fit.
