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Tig Bitties

macrumors 603
Original poster
Sep 6, 2012
5,329
5,430
I am just linking this thread I saw on AC today, but I found it very interesting what this guy had to say in regards to Apple, and how they've stopped innovating and become all about sales and marketing #1.


As the title implies. I am an ex Apple engineer who is let go after refusing to use the iPhone as my main phone.
My project manager kept getting on me about using an iPhone. He always complained about my phone, as every time he wanted to try out I new process i never had my iPhone on me and would always complain.
One day he called me into his office and asked me why I didn’t use an iPhone like the rest of the team. I explained to him that I really didn’t like our part product that much, and I was being blunt with him and then I felt we were going in the wrong direction and not moving the software in the right direction. and that we were moving backwards.
He he decided to put me on leave as he felt I was not being a team player and would put me back on the team as soon as my attitude changed.
I said that’s OK I quit anyway. And walked out.

Some backround about Apple and why i feel they are in big trouble going foward.

Most senior engineers are being demoted to reduce pay. Apple is all about money. That is no 1. User experience is way down the list.

i was a former product manager. Who did excellent work. Made enough money over 25 years to partially retire. They decided to demote me in place of a kid who they paid half as much. Then force me out. This is happening across the company.

A few engineers are going else where like Oppo, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. But most are going to Samsung. I got an offer but turned them down as I am older and wanted to partially retire.
Right now Samsung has the best software engineers on the mobile side as well as on the hardware side.

Apple is a master at cost cutting and tricking the public into inferior products. Their marketing team basically run the company. They retained the best, kept their experienced managers and even hired more.
The opposite of what happened to me happened to their marketing managers.

This led to massive profits. So Apple figured why put so much money into the products when we can undercut the product still sell so many anyway.

One of their biggest blunders was using stainless steel in the X and pro models. Jonny Ive left the company over this. He and Tim Cook didn’t get along very well.

Stainless steel is cheap. Surgical grade is slightly more expensive but still relatively cheap. 7000 series Aluminum is more expensive and a much better substrate of metal. It was developed as an alternative to Titanium and is used in Spacecraft, Fighter jets, Satellites etc. Basically the aerospace industry.

Most high end phones on the Android side use it.
Apple thought they could cut costs, while tricking the buying public into thinking its more expensive because its heavier. And in the US it worked, and worked well.

But now its backfiring as Apple is now forced to use Titanium. A more expensive metal and are set to lose millions. They were warned SS would be too heavy as the more features they added the heavier the phone would get.

This is just one example. There are many more.
 

Scepticalscribe

macrumors Haswell
Jul 29, 2008
64,057
46,509
In a coffee shop.
I am just linking this thread I saw on AC today, but I found it very interesting what this guy had to say in regards to Apple, and how they've stopped innovating and become all about sales and marketing #1.


As the title implies. I am an ex Apple engineer who is let go after refusing to use the iPhone as my main phone.
My project manager kept getting on me about using an iPhone. He always complained about my phone, as every time he wanted to try out I new process i never had my iPhone on me and would always complain.
One day he called me into his office and asked me why I didn’t use an iPhone like the rest of the team. I explained to him that I really didn’t like our part product that much, and I was being blunt with him and then I felt we were going in the wrong direction and not moving the software in the right direction. and that we were moving backwards.
He he decided to put me on leave as he felt I was not being a team player and would put me back on the team as soon as my attitude changed.
I said that’s OK I quit anyway. And walked out.

Some backround about Apple and why i feel they are in big trouble going foward.

Most senior engineers are being demoted to reduce pay. Apple is all about money. That is no 1. User experience is way down the list.

i was a former product manager. Who did excellent work. Made enough money over 25 years to partially retire. They decided to demote me in place of a kid who they paid half as much. Then force me out. This is happening across the company.

A few engineers are going else where like Oppo, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. But most are going to Samsung. I got an offer but turned them down as I am older and wanted to partially retire.
Right now Samsung has the best software engineers on the mobile side as well as on the hardware side.

Apple is a master at cost cutting and tricking the public into inferior products. Their marketing team basically run the company. They retained the best, kept their experienced managers and even hired more.
The opposite of what happened to me happened to their marketing managers.

This led to massive profits. So Apple figured why put so much money into the products when we can undercut the product still sell so many anyway.

One of their biggest blunders was using stainless steel in the X and pro models. Jonny Ive left the company over this. He and Tim Cook didn’t get along very well.

Stainless steel is cheap. Surgical grade is slightly more expensive but still relatively cheap. 7000 series Aluminum is more expensive and a much better substrate of metal. It was developed as an alternative to Titanium and is used in Spacecraft, Fighter jets, Satellites etc. Basically the aerospace industry.

Most high end phones on the Android side use it.
Apple thought they could cut costs, while tricking the buying public into thinking its more expensive because its heavier. And in the US it worked, and worked well.

But now its backfiring as Apple is now forced to use Titanium. A more expensive metal and are set to lose millions. They were warned SS would be too heavy as the more features they added the heavier the phone would get.

This is just one example. There are many more.
Fascinating post.

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to write this and share it with us here.
 

Tig Bitties

macrumors 603
Original poster
Sep 6, 2012
5,329
5,430
He continued;

Ask yourself. What is the last mobile product from them to show real innovation?
it was the X. Facetime was a true game changer, as well as their OLED implementation with curving the panel electronics under the edges of the phone. This panel trick was duplicated by the rest of the industry.


A VR headset that cost $3500? 😄 Dynamic island? Hahahaa. I almost choked on my coffee when they announced that one. It was duplicated practically the next day in software on the Android side within 48hrs.


Samsung is innovating. Really innovating. Foldable phones are the future once they are perfected in my opinion. They seem like a beta product now. Once the figure out a screen with the same durability and clarity as gorilla glass and make them thin enough and light enough its game over.


But i feel like that is a while off. Their Galaxy tab S9 Ultra with its 14.6 inch Amoled at 5.6 thin is innovating.
Apple will announce a 14.5 inch ipad and say its the largest screen ever on a tablet and everyone will clap. 😄👍
 
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Tig Bitties

macrumors 603
Original poster
Sep 6, 2012
5,329
5,430
And;

Innovating will come at smaller steps, but software isn't any good without innovative technologies to run it on. But you are correct that it has reached a stagnation point.

Yes i know alot of things which i cannot disclose because of an NDA. Such as a 14.1 inch ipad pro that was in the works but canceled or put on hold because of panel availability. 😉


To correct myself from earlier. The Iphone X was the last innovative product they released. But Apple really didnt do the innovating except for the panel.


Face ID was not developed by Apple. It was developed by a startup company called Primesense started by a Mr Aviad Maizels back in 2005-6. Funded by Microsoft and was a co-founder in the company. They did this as Microsoft wanted to remain anonymous To keep the technology a secret.


This development led to the Microsoft Kinect. Yes, that Kinect. The same technology is used in face ID. It is now used in Windows Hello As Microsoft has rights to the patent, just not rights to capri which was developed for smartphones.


Primesense was developing a miniature version called capri for smartphones In conjunction with Microsoft. In 2013 Samsung was well under way in developing a IR camera for face unlock to combat Apples Apple ID Fingerprint recognition.


Apple got news of this and tried to develop their own facial recognition with little success. In 2012 is when Apple replaced a good portion of their engineers with cheaper younger versions.
So what they couldn’t develop they bought. Apple bought Primesense under Microsofts nose in 2013 and four years later face ID was born.


So the last product they really innovated on was the Apple watch? Or did they buy that too? 😉
 

tbayrgs

macrumors 604
Jul 5, 2009
7,345
4,869
Some interesting info but the title isn’t exactly true. He basically quit because he didn’t want to use an iPhone as required by his employer, which is entirely his right. You probably shouldn’t stay a job if you don’t believe in the product you’re making or the company making it. But I also don’t find it unreasonable either for Apple to expect him to use the product that his job pertains to.

I know a guy who’s a retail manager for Apple—his primary personal phone preference is also a Samsung phone. He also doesn’t wear an Apple Watch most of the year except when Apple is doing some sort of challenge, usually fitness related, as he prefers big mechanical watches. But he also does own an older model iPhone that he uses while at work or working.
 
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Bananasaurus

Suspended
Aug 16, 2023
753
2,631
because we all have these great sounding professional user names on forums.... right bananasaurus?
Man. Where is this shade coming from?

giphy.gif
 
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JoeG4

macrumors 68030
Jan 11, 2002
2,845
518
Requiring them to use the company issued iphone for work things is totally reasonable. Requiring them to use the company issued iPhone for personal things is totally unreasonable.
 
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avro707

macrumors 68000
Dec 13, 2010
1,764
1,003
If you are working, then required to use a corporate phone is entirely reasonable.

A personal phone however, that's not the business of the company.
 
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ofarlig

macrumors 6502a
Jun 23, 2015
866
1,053
Sweden
I love how he is claiming Samsung has the best software engineers. My experience with Samsung software is summed up perfectly by their web store, trying to login to it from anything like their Student discount portal or any other portal greets you with a “multistore.fail.confirmation” and has done that for around 5 years or so. The software experience on Samsungs are extremely janky tbh.

They do have fun hardware though but using them requires patience.
 

GMShadow

macrumors 68000
Jun 8, 2021
1,805
7,416
He's correct that stainless steel costs less than aluminum, but if it was purely a cost cutting ploy they'd have changed it on the lower-end devices too. It was done because the public sees stainless as fancier, and Apple was trying to push upmarket and charge $999+ for a flagship. The problem with aluminum is that it's pretty common, and Apple uses it on everything.

But now its backfiring as Apple is now forced to use Titanium. A more expensive metal and are set to lose millions.

A low-end engineer definitely knows component costs and the P&L. 😄
 
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nicho

macrumors 601
Feb 15, 2008
4,216
3,210
Samsung is innovating. Really innovating. Foldable phones are the future once they are perfected in my opinion. They seem like a beta product now. Once the figure out a screen with the same durability and clarity as gorilla glass and make them thin enough and light enough its game over.

Such as a 14.1 inch ipad pro that was in the works but canceled or put on hold because of panel availability. 😉

Samsung can 'innovate' because they are basically small fry nowadays.

The second quote highlights Apple's problem: they make a product that so many people want, that there's a limit to how much they can innovate or push the envelope with their phones... it has to be something that can be physically made, at a MASSIVE scale.
 

ThomasJL

macrumors 68000
Oct 16, 2008
1,606
3,542
He continued;

Ask yourself. What is the last mobile product from them to show real innovation?
it was the X. Facetime was a true game changer, as well as their OLED implementation with curving the panel electronics under the edges of the phone. This panel trick was duplicated by the rest of the industry.


A VR headset that cost $3500? 😄 Dynamic island? Hahahaa. I almost choked on my coffee when they announced that one. It was duplicated practically the next day in software on the Android side within 48hrs.
Dynamic Island is not innovation—it's a notch. If the notch didn't exist, it would be very easy to implement the exact same black information bubbles that change in size.

What is innovative is how Apple's marketing team can get people to believe something as laughably absurd as the notion that Dynamic Island is innovative.
 

Heat_Fan89

macrumors 68030
Feb 23, 2016
2,549
3,251
Samsung can 'innovate' because they are basically small fry nowadays.
Huh? Come on now, you can't be taken seriously with a comment like that. Samsung is a global tech giant. They are into appliances and everything in between. They supply display panels, memory chips etc to manufactures around the world. They are the largest smartphone maker followed by Apple.



Quarterly smartphone market share worldwide by vendor 2009-2023​

Published by
Federica Laricchia,
Aug 12, 2023
Samsung held the largest slice of the global smartphone market by shipments during the second quarter of 2023, followed by Apple. Xiaomi has taken a tight grip on the third position, accounting for a market share of 12.5 in the second quarter of 2023.
 

nicho

macrumors 601
Feb 15, 2008
4,216
3,210
Huh? Come on now, you can't be taken seriously with a comment like that. Samsung is a global tech giant. They are into appliances and everything in between. They supply display panels, memory chips etc to manufactures around the world. They are the largest smartphone maker followed by Apple.



Quarterly smartphone market share worldwide by vendor 2009-2023​

Published by
Federica Laricchia,
Aug 12, 2023
Samsung held the largest slice of the global smartphone market by shipments during the second quarter of 2023, followed by Apple. Xiaomi has taken a tight grip on the third position, accounting for a market share of 12.5 in the second quarter of 2023.

OH NO you're absolutely right! How could I forget the time I had to wait four weeks for my fridge to be delivered because they took the handles to put on the latest Samsung Galaxy phone!

/s <- Since you probably needed that.

Pointing to Samsung's overall smartphone sales as a reason I'm wrong... LOL. The vast majority are low cost, play it safe, middle of the road devices which use years-old technology. Innovative.

Samsung's flagship sales are small fry.


An impressive 2.77 million in a month... WORLDWIDE.

iPhone 15 order figures reveal which one Apple thinks you're ... - i…

15 Pro Max alone had preorders of 31.8 million devices. For one variant of the new lineup.



So yes, samsung flagship devices - where the innovation supposedly is, like their folding phones - absolutely are small fry in comparison. There are things they can do that Apple simply could not on the required scale, even if cost be damned.



edit:
https://www.gizchina.com/2023/05/24...million units from 12.8 million units in 2022.

For more context, the entire folding phone market this year is expected to be 20 million phones - including all of Samsung's Chinese competitors.

Do you think if Apple made the Pro Max a folding phone less people would want one? Or would they suddenly need 1.5 x the materials etc. that the rest of the industry needs in a whole year, just to satisfy their pre orders?
 
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