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Apple CEO Tim Cook Discusses Overusing Technology in New Interview
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I didn't make up the headline (it's a quote from Cook from the interview), but I should have realized it could be misinterpreted.
I'd read the full article at the time I'd written the headline, so I knew he meant with the wording that technology *shouldn't* be overused, not that it *couldn't* be, and it didn't even occur to me at the time to read it differently. My apologies for the oversight, it wasn't my intention to take his words out of context or confuse anyone.
I've gone ahead and changed the headline, and thank you to everyone who commented about it.
By the way, if you guys ever see a headline or something in an article you have an issue with, please feel free to email me. I was away from the computer and didn't see the comments here right away, but email always gets to me quick.
That was a good article and the counter arguments posted to it were also informative.
What you actually said with your statement is that when you listen to someone say "I built a house," you don't really know what that person did to get the money to pay the contractors to build a house, but you feel sympathy for people that do physical work, and have contempt for people that perform intellectual work (coders fall in this category, by the way.) Said contractors will not work if they don't receive money. Paid work was done by the "I built a house" guy to generate that money to start construction. Same for the "doing business" not being actual work. Negotiations between companies, social groups and the like are very important to synchronize efforts and get positive results for a common good. You cannot physically twist a person's brain to make it understand what you want to convey in an idea.
Regarding Cook's recommendation on learning code instead of a foreign language... I have not seen one construction coordination meeting where germans, dutch, mexicans and americans in the same room said "I wish everyone here spoke Swift or Java!"
Everyone should listen to the 9-5 Mac Podcast on this issue. They have great Ideas regarding parental controls.
https://9to5mac.com/2018/01/11/happy-hour-podcast-155/
https://9to5mac.com/2018/01/11/happy-hour-podcast-155/
Actually, never mind. I read over your posting history and will not be engaging with you any longer. Best of luck in your future endeavors.
That’s a rather abstract interpretation of what he said, and what he dodged as well
Tim has turned the iPhone into the proverbial cash cow, increased service revenue etc. so I’d say the iPhone 6 is Tims’ original project since Steve wouldn’t have released it(yeah he told me from the grave
) Therefore the time is now to give him credit. You of course have no obligation to do so, but it won’t change the way things are.
Not exactly. iPhone 6...X are the evolution of Steve's legacy.Tim has turned the iPhone into the proverbial cash cow, increased service revenue etc. so I’d say the iPhone 6 is Tims’ original project since Steve wouldn’t have released it(yeah he told me from the grave
With so many analogies/adoption with/from the competition - they are hardly innovations, let alone new product categories, let alone revolutionary or disruptive
AppleWatch/AirPods however are a new and different appliances (revolutionary resp. disruptive)
Measured by turnover, Apple is still mostly a Steve company and Tim merely milked than transformed it.
I think he should more often raise his voice on some visions, principles or objectives driving himself and the company. Or rejecting some thoughts as just happened. This is my interpretation of a C level leader in a company like Apple with its own special history.
CEO's receive big recompensation for the huge responsibilities and leadership they carry.
If they do their job well, they are well positioned to use all the public attention they get to ventilate their idea's.
If not, or when their citations and reasoning are wanky, they easily lose their credibility.
I for one would advise Cook to concentrate on his main duties and deal with all the snakes and elephants on his doorstep first before addressing the sheep in the garden.
Currently, his citations sound like a mediocre manager's last convulsions.
He is turning himself into a sheep whisperer of inflatable idea's
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International business is usually done in English, and I know how good/bad translation algorithms are and how fast they are improving because I’m actually fluent in Chinese and English. Meanwhile, the tons of of cheap coders from India isn’t as useful as you’d think especially, in places where high quality software is expected. Coder =/= programmer, and good programmers are still in high demand.
The thing is, coding doesn't just exist to produce applications. Everybody has small problems that would waste hours if solved manually. If everyone has the power to automatize those, society would be dramatically more efficient. Our secretary once spent three days renaming thousands of files from the scheme date_name.pdf to name_date.pdf by hand. Imagine the time and frustration she could have saved by learning basic bash script. Everybody who uses a computer tends to have these kind of problems. I mean you don't need basic mathematics in many fields, but you still learn it in school and nobody would ever argue that it's a waste of time. It's really not so much about needing that stuff, but knowing about it simply opens up a lot of doors.
Also seeing Mathematician (pure) in your list is ridiculous. Computer aided analytical mathematics are pretty much everywhere at this point. And I can guarantee to you that by far the most part of mathematicians already can code to some degree. It's even obligatory in many courses.
I'd say pretty much every engineering course includes programming of some sort.
Actually, almost none of my work is physical (I'm a sysadmin, maybe you can count replacing a failed hard drive physical work...).
But I realize it's not really work. It's all about moving bits. Keeping systems (often times virtualized now) working that enable keeping equally virtual businesses working, sometimes selling equally virtual stuff to real people (with money that at some point must be generated by selling something physical - an economy based on virtual stuff is just not sustainable).
I don't kid myself: compared to the farmers in this country, I'm vastly overpaid (and people disdain them for the amount of subsidies they receive, yet nobody wants to sign up for their jobs). People don't really need email or web hosting or whatever virtual fad is doing the rounds. However, they need to eat (and drink), they need to sleep somewhere, they need means of transportation, they need clothes (and shoes).
This is where actual value is created (IMO). Everything else is just on top.
And that's exactly what he/they want, another 9-5 slaves. He's quite deformed "up to date manager" who's just following the steps of his predecessors, without clear vision. Sooner or later he will ruin the company as HP/IBM CESs did, because what matter most for the are just plain numbers, without any humanity touch. And there won't be another Jobs anymore.
Everybody want a job in IT business these days, usually their motivation are just money without lack of any natural interest in technology or that particular problematic. The point is, we need bread so we need bakers, we need houses, so we need construction workers. How can this idiot say that everybody should learn code ? And how can one admire him as a great CEO ? People wake up. I love MACs, but it's just a stupid computer, a tool like a drill, don't make from these people gods.
Glad we have people waxing this way. The pushing of coding is getting quite extreme already, and in quite a different way to languages, which are a bit on the out really
. Not to mention that just like anything else, learning to code should remain optional, rather than something we're going to need in life, or it counts out those things he talked about like literature.The overuse stuff is pretty spot on though. The way it is with kids these days is a bit of a worry, but it is mainly to do with the fact that we have made so much content available all of the time. And we can't go back on that. Like so many things we've done in civilisation, the move forwards ignores its potential downsides until they are too advanced to address. Never mind.
Learning to code is like learning to use a hammer. It's a tool. The more crucial part is knowing how to solve a particular problem. Whether you are modelling some phenomena in physics, doing cryptography,etc.