Penny Can
Home Entertainment Center => Hardware => Topic started by: Neumatic on April 08, 2015, 10:06:51 pm
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There was an interesting article on Digg and Reddit, a blog post by a former Apple employee describing how terrible the work environment was there (http://roadlesstravelled.me/2015/04/06/why-steve-jobs-motivated-me-to-quit-apple/). Honestly, I'm shocked, especially after reading Nolan Bushnell's book about Steve Jobs, but honestly I think this might explain why computers seem to be stagnating. Particularly in the world of hardware.
Is there a middle point between dismayed and shocked? When I was looking at laptops yesterday, it was SD'ed by the options, because there were basically two: either a smaller version of what I had before, or one the same physical size but with no disc drive, HALF the hard drive space (HALF!) that I had before, and a thousand more. On top of this, the newest MacBook coming out will have ONE port and that's it, ONE, Thunderbolt (not USB), so you can't plug anything in while it's charging. It's part of this trend where they're making the things as sleek and small as possible that they're just trimming down instead of building up, not just shrinking hard drives, but also using iPad chips instead of laptop chips, etc.
It just feels like Apple stopped designing, you know? They're slimming down the parts as much as they can, but there hasn't been a proper device they've done in ages that's made me take notice. The laptops all look the same, the iMacs look... they look like they can't stay up, the iPhones all look the same (and like the iPads).
This seems like an unrelated rant but honestly, reading that blog makes this all make sense. I mean, what kind of output do I expect from a company that functions like this?
Maybe I'm being a bit too critical, maybe I'm pushing too much of my own standards and desires onto them, but they're the leaders, everyone follows them, copies their design aesthetic or tries to operate counter to them. I just feel like I'm hungry for something to turn my head again. I might also be biased because I'm binging "Halt And Catch Fire" and they're all on about reinventing the PC, so...
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I can't imagine a more hostile work environment that came under Steve Jobs. As for Apple itself, I have never owned anything Mac-related. The closest I came was a few months ago when I was actively searching for an iPod. But that never came to pass because it was just too much money for a used product. As for laptops, I know what I want out of my next system and I thought I was going to get it with Surface Pro 3. That didn't pan out. Waiting to see what SP4 will offer. If that too fails, at least there are more alternative Hybrids out there now to level the playing field. That's where I am at the moment.