Om Malik and John Gruber disagree on a couple of issues including the perception of Apple executives, and whether Apple should buy Netflix. They both have good points. I’m friends with both of these guys, and they themselves are friends—it’s great watching two intelligent people having a conversation like this.
Gruber vs. Malik
It’s not that they disagree, its that what Om said was factually wrong. Eddie Cue work for Steve Jobs for about 20 years. That’s a bit more than ‘never would have lasted’ under Steve Jobs.
I think that’s the real point. Eddie Cue isn’t just some guy, he’s been at Apple for 27 years and he’s been a big part of what’s made the company great. To imply that he’d be fired for being at an NBA finals game during some online services outage is ridiculous.
Using the example of some guy getting fired over antenna gate as supporting evidence is just silly. SVPs are all working very hard and all take pride in their jobs, and they don’t generally get fired on a whim. Look how bad the Maps rollout had to be to get Forstall shown the door, and he wasn’t even that popular within Apple.
Apple clearly thinks that some restructuring needed to take place and has done that. Probably the biggest problem is that they actually need a lot more, not less employees to power all of the services that they are trying to offer.
This entire dealio is a click-bait publicity stunt to promote Om’s new site.
Gruber’s right.
“attending a game when a division you are responsible for is down for six hours is a clear lack of apathy for the customers”
He either meant “a clear lack of empathy” or “a clear display of apathy.”
Om is so far off the mark here. The fact is that Om doesn’t get technology the way Gruber does.
Maybe it’s his way of admitting defeat in the debate.
Yup. Gruber can have blinders, but in this case Malik is just being bloody ignorant.
Yea, his responses to Gruber just dig deeper into the crazy.
I sent him a tweet about it. He updated the article.
The back and forth continues. I’ve got the popcorn out for this one.
I expect the next Talk Show will have Om Malik as a guest.
Om is correct. His job doesn’t revolve around kissing Apple’s. Apple’s Cloud services are C+ at best.
Cue hasn’t done shit. App store sucks. iLife is dead and he went down in flames publicly trying to negotiate “skinny bundles” with Hollywood.
I like Gruber for entertainment but he’s an Apple teddy bear. Dalrymple is more direct than Gruber (read his frustrations about Apple music for example)
Apple needs to refocus. The the iPhone is all they have. They don’t have a Mac business to keep them stores running. They don’t have a car business…they don’t have a production company churning out Emmy award winners.
Om is not wrong by saying that Apple needs some services to be better. That is Gruber’s argument I believe. Om is wrong for thinking that This new production direction is taking away from Apple’s focus. How does he know that it is taking away from their focus. How does he know that Apple hasn’t hired this out or doesn’t have a team of non-engineers to do this. I don’t understand why this line of thinking doesn’t make sense to some people. What is Iovine there for? What is Dre there for? What is Reznor there for? Who says they haven’t inked deals with other production companies and managers to do this stuff and has an executive appointed that doesn’t need resources to go to engineering? Eddie Cue might be overseeing the rollout or buildup of this new direction but taking up all his time? Probably not.
The Apple hardware/software engineering teams and executives are not the ones producing content. Does he really think that Tim Cook is either (no matter what that ridiculous rumor suggests)!?!? I mean let’s be real. People are pissed because Apple, again, hasn’t made anything super awesome and up to their (the people complaining) standards in a while (holding watch judgment aside) and are getting antsy. They are slowly coming around with cloud services to be on par with major players (sure they could probably use some better and faster work), but they are doing it. Their cloud services work just fine for hundreds of millions of people.
They might not have the best productivity software out there, but who says they need/want it!?! Who says that that is what they need to or want to focus on? Just because a few bloggers say that Apple needs better productivity software and they complain that iLife died doesn’t mean that it makes the majority of the Apple using population any less Bullish on Apple!
If Om thinks that Apple is moving in the wrong direction or has some valid proof of his argument other than Cue being at a ballgame, he needs to present it. Otherwise he just sounds whinny.
nonsense. if you don’t believe gruber criticizes Apple then you clearly don’t read his blog or listen to his podcast.
he just happens to be very smart, and very good at writing. more so than the other bloggers. and it’s why he’s usually right.
your opinions on Cue just show your own ignorance. Cue is one of the most successful execs at the most successful tech company in human history, while you’re an anonymous nobody on a rumor site — you have no idea what goes on in those offices every day. none. Cook does.
troll on, dude. (you left AI after getting blasted too many times, didn’t you?)
I tend to agree. But, I’d say that while Cue is very successful, Apple services under him have a checkered history. It’s not a coincidence that Schiller has taken over the App Store. I expect more services to be re-distributed, leaving Cue to do what he seems to like most – making deals. Lest we forget, each senior VP at Apple is an expert at he is in charge of. Ive is in fact a designer. Schiller is a marketing professional. Federighi is a software architect. Cue, however, has limited history in large scale online services. Yes, he got the original online sales system going. But he is not an architect of cloud services. That is showing up to be a problem, IMHO.
OK. Knock it off with the personal insults. They have no place here.
LOL why would I be a Troll.
Again. Dalrymple had many posts about his frustrations with Apple Music and he didn’t spare Apple. Where can you point me to anything that Gruber has written with the same tenor?
As for Cue what exactly has he done? iLife, iTunes, the app store are all either defunct or in poor shape.
Developers are back to rolling their own cloud service infrastructure (i.e Day One, DevonTech, Panic,Omnigroup and more) because of lack of features for iCloud.
I really can’t think of one Apple made app that is performant and just an amazing piece of software. Can you?
Perhaps Gruber and friends should spend less time critiquing Om and fix that mess of an app Vesper that they’ve essentially abandoned.
Have a great weekend
Om’s point about the BBall game is on point. I remember reading about how Apple had some sales issues in China and Tim Cook made one of the key personnel leave that meeting, go to the airport get on a plane before the meeting had ended. If that’s the “get it done” culture at Apple then Cue has ZERO reason to be whooping it up at sporting events when his product is non-functional. My Google Fu is strong here’s the article
http://www.theverge.com/2011/08/24/tim-cook-apples-ceo
Malik’s a pundit who seems to feel a need to sensationalize non-issues in order to stir up conversation. Gruber’s an analyst who picks apart faulty reasoning, and keeps his enthusiasms checked by rational thinking.
Gruber is wrong. His Apple apologist stance on everything pollutes everything he says regarding Apple topics. He doesn’t really rebate Malik. He gives the same old, “you’re wrong” stuff and then hides behind his smug commentary.
Apple is grown up company that shouldn’t have to rely on shills like Gruber to get their marketing message across.
Oh, and Malik is a real journalist.
Whether Apple’s culture would require an executive on-premises during an emergency is certainly a topic for speculation, but Malik’s attention-seeking presumption with this non-issue makes him sound more like a BGR commenter than someone I’d go to for tech analysis.
I respect Gruber’s ability to communicate in a way that neatly straddles nerdom and regular folk. That being said he’s “is” a well known Apple apologist so you have to take what he says about Apple with a tiny grain of salt.
Apple Execs are highly compensated. It’s ok to be demanding. I mean Angela Ahrendts was hired almost three years ago and the Apple stores still look the same. I’m sure she’ll prove her worth eventually.
When Jobs delivered his Quadrant of computers and iLife these simple message resonated with people. Today’s Apple is technologically all over the place and it’s harder to make sense of where the company is and where it’s headed. It wouldn’t be an issue if the HW lineup wasn’t all delayed and their software lineup getting rather moldy.
“Angela Ahrendts was hired almost three years ago and the Apple stores still look the same. I’m sure she’ll prove her worth eventually.” That literally makes no sense. Do you think Arendts was hired to redo the look of the stores? That that is where her value lies?
It’s hard to say. The Apple retail stores are IMO well done entities I really don’t think there’s a lot of room for improvement other than increasing the floorspace of smaller stores. The Apple Stores have persisted in design and function despite seeing the transition from Ron Johnson to John Browett to Angela. It’s understandable to ask what Apple has gotten for it’s 70+ million?
http://time.com/3680242/apple-watch-store-angela-ahrendts/
I think it speaks volumes that neither of us can articulate exactly what impact she’s made
You’re making assumptions. I never said I couldn’t articulate what impact she makes. I wasn’t trying. That wasn’t the point.