Apple Allowing Select Employees to Devote Time to Special Projects [Updated]

Banjhiyi said:

Would not surprise if Jony has been working on the UI and it's much more advanced than we thought.

Don't think this 20% is new to Apple at all (just taken a while to come out/be speculated on).

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Makes me wonder if Ive hated th software UI for a long time but had no power to do anything about it when Steve was around. If you read Adam Lashinsky's book Steve wasn't one for allowing employees to move around the company. If you were good at something that's all you did.

sensorian said:

So little information, yet so much cynicism and apparent expertise. I'd love to know more so I could form an informed opinion.

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Informed opinion? This is the internet. We take one small piece of speculation and we run wild. It's like streaking...only you don't get arrested.

iAco said:

In other words, Apple is losing it's innovation, so it lets a small group of its creatives play around which they hope will strike gold for Apple.

Normal. And who wouldn't do this?

Just like Netflix publishing a public challenge with a million dollar reward because Netflix's employees were too incompetent to solve the problem.

Some professors in Isreal ended up providing Netflix the optimal algorithm to their challenge.

It's normal.

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Netflix didn't implement the winning solution; it didn't solve the business problem and was too complex to implement in production. Nobody actually supplied them with an optimal algorithm.

Netflix did base some production systems on submitted entries (at the Progress Prize stage), but considerable effort was required to make these work in practice by the employees.

This isn't really a reflection of the ability of Netflix development team, but one method to test a large range of potential solutions for moderate cost before investing effort those most likely to be effective in production.

FourMoreYears said:

Steve Jobs would have done this under his rule if this idea had any merit. Tim Cook, you may very well be the next Ballmer.

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Listen, I miss Jobs as much as the next guy, but this is nuts. You can't claim that this is a bad decision based on the fact that Steve never reportedly made it. That's absurd.

I personally like this idea and imagine most others do too, promoting creativity is a good thing.

macuser1232 said:

Apple doesn't automatically own rights to the employee's projects. Remember a long time ago when Woz was deciding whether he wanted to develop his project for HP or Apple. In the end he decided to share his ideas with Apple.

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I remember Woz bringing the project to HP to see if they would bite on the idea, and take over ownership of the IP, or if Woz would be able to use the project for Apple.

Good thing HP has been making poor decisions like that for 30 years now.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/10...ered_first_computer_design_to_hp_5_times.html

You can bet someone's devoting their special time to making Safari snappier.

zbarvian said:

Listen, I miss Jobs as much as the next guy, but this is nuts. You can't claim that this is a bad decision based on the fact that Steve never reportedly made it. That's absurd.

I personally like this idea and imagine most others do too, promoting creativity is a good thing.

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chill, just one of the many newbs spreading bile in every single thread. you'd think they were paid.

they all own lots of apple gear so i guess they are.

Oh my gosh Jobs would have never let employees do this. Fail Tim Cook you are destroying Apple!

Special Project #1 should be iTunes 11

Using Google's 20% time???
LAWSUIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

but seriously, i guess this is good...time is always the decider

Sky blue? iCloud? Or tv related?

Belly-laughs said:

chill, just one of the many newbs spreading bile in every single thread. you'd think they were paid.

they all own lots of apple gear so i guess they are.

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I'm quite chill

FourMoreYears said:

Steve Jobs would have done this under his rule if this idea had any merit. Tim Cook, you may very well be the next Ballmer.

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If you were Apple's boss, you would apply your logic to avoid making even the tiniest change, which in about 5 years time would make Apple irrelevant, and in 10 years time bankrupt.

Belly-laughs said:

chill, just one of the many newbs spreading bile in every single thread. you'd think they were paid.[/COLOR]

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I hear that sometimes, but how stupid would one have to be to pay for that kind of nonsense?

snebes said:

I remember Woz bringing the project to HP to see if they would bite on the idea, and take over ownership of the IP, or if Woz would be able to use the project for Apple.

Good thing HP has been making poor decisions like that for 30 years now.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/10...ered_first_computer_design_to_hp_5_times.html

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Oh yeah your correct. Forgot about that!

Cali Fornia said:

win-win-win (company, consumer, the guys who now own +1M), if you asked me.

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That's how it works.

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AlmostThere said:

Netflix didn't implement the winning solution; it didn't solve the business problem and was too complex to implement in production. Nobody actually supplied them with an optimal algorithm.

Netflix did base some production systems on submitted entries (at the Progress Prize stage), but considerable effort was required to make these work in practice by the employees.

This isn't really a reflection of the ability of Netflix development team, but one method to test a large range of potential solutions for moderate cost before investing effort those most likely to be effective in production.

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Trust me. What I said IS what they had in mind.

That was just one example of MANY.

I stand by my first comment. Apple has lost its edge.

There is no reason for you to allow your employees to work on side projects when you have work to assign them.

I wish my company would do that ... Having some time to "play" without a direct strong business case will allow more creative ideas and innovation. Still some light reporting should be done to avoid abusing but that can be defined case by case.

ChristianJapan said:

I wish my company would do that ... Having some time to "play" without a direct strong business case will allow more creative ideas and innovation. Still some light reporting should be done to avoid abusing but that can be defined case by case.

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Last sentence nailed it. Too many people would simply write off 20% (or whatever the number is) each week and move on without producing anything of value.

It will be interesting to see if this new program yields any notable results in the next few years.

"Blue Sky" is the name of this program, really? It's essentially to let employees work on new innovations. Sounds nothing like "Blue Sky", the mantra used by Disney's Imagineering department which basically means the "sky is the limit" for their innovations/ideas/inventions. Come on, guys.

FourMoreYears said:

Steve Jobs would have done this under his rule if this idea had any merit. Tim Cook, you may very well be the next Ballmer.

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Oh great, more "Steve Jobs would never have done this!" junk.
Steve Jobs smoked weed and took other harmful drugs at certain points in his life. Please don't tell me you're going to try to follow him.

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topmounter said:

Special Project #1 should be iTunes 11

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No. If I had a choice, I'd still be at iTunes 7...

camnchar said:

I wonder if Apple will own the rights to all of these "personal projects," or if they just maintain right of first refusal.

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They're not going to make the same mistake HP made with Woz

The company i work for does something like this as well,probably not nearly as interesting or cool as apple but productive and fruitful imo.

Patriot24 said:

Last sentence nailed it. Too many people would simply write off 20% (or whatever the number is) each week and move on without producing anything of value.

It will be interesting to see if this new program yields any notable results in the next few years.

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I don't think so; those kinds of people will be obvious. You don't limit a poor work ethic to 20% of your week.

I'm really happy about this; I've been ranting and raving about Apple's culture hindering creative people. I've heard about it from a lot of people.

Creativity comes from nowhere. That's literally where it comes from. You're staring out of the bus and then >pop<, you get inspired for some idea that has nothing to do with what you're doing. In a corporate setting, you need a bit of freedom to move and explore and discover talents and sides of your thinking you didn't even know you had!

That said, creative people can go for months or years producing nothing of value in that time, then suddenly come up with a breakthrough. Too many reporting obligations hinder the process.

It's good to see they're trying to make Apple a more attractive place to go and work. Some people do it because they "love the company" or whatever, but creative people love their freedom to explore more than anything. Google's held the undisputed edge there for a long time.

FourMoreYears said:

Steve Jobs would have done this under his rule if this idea had any merit. Tim Cook, you may very well be the next Ballmer.

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Clearly, no one else can ever have any good ideas but Jobs...the god.

macuser1232 said:

Apple doesn't automatically own rights to the employee's projects. Remember a long time ago when Woz was deciding whether he wanted to develop his project for HP or Apple. In the end he decided to share his ideas with Apple.

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They most certainly do get the rights. In their employee contract there is likely a clause that says anything 'invented' on the campus belongs to the company. The author will get small compensation.

My undergraduate school owned the rights to your senior project and had publishing rights to it. Even if you wanted to publish it, you couldn't as it wasn't technically your own.

mabaker said:

May help Google in what way? By completely taking our privacy from us? Give me a break. Apple is one of the few where you know what the deal is. I commend Apple for having this initiative for it actually may help Apple in their good innovation trail, not spying on internet and mobile phone users like Google.

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I don't know what planet you're living on, but Apple absolutely spies on its customers. Siri... Maps... iTunes purchases... App store purchases... iMessages...

Hell, Apple even allowed third-party developers complete access to your entire contact list. I can't even imagine why the developers of Angry Birds would need that information.

The only difference between Apple and Google is that Google uses the information to make money off your existing behavioral patterns, and Apple uses the information to try to change your behaviors (adopting new software/hardware, or making iTunes purchases).

It doesn't matter if it's Google, Yahoo, Apple, Microsoft or Facebook. If you are using the internet on any device, your data is being mined.