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Mac Automation Product Manager Sal Soghoian Leaves Apple After Position Eliminated

Glassed Silver said:
Install Bootcamp, load Windows and try not to reboot into macOS for as long as you can.

Train the soft switch, nobody likes moving when the building is already collapsed, get a couple of bags of necessities into the trunk and hope you don't need to move.

The least you achieve is feeling more in control in a situation where Tim does a lot of talk, but doesn't commit actions and ressources to gain your trust.

Every couple of months you hear about the great pipeline and whatever else sounds good, but if you look at the Mac's development, just the direction setting aside the growing gaps in between updates...

I really try to look at all of this as optimistically as I can, but they make it SO DAMN HARD.

**** this leadership.

Glassed Silver:ios
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I've removed Boot Camp from my Mini as Intel didn't provide decent Windows 10 drivers for the GPU at least when I played around with the setup. I've got a separate i7 PC tower hooked up to another input in my monitor instead and I've actually had the input on the PC side for a couple of days in a row now. I'd just need to find a PC keyboard I'm comfortable with.

I'm at the point where I don't believe a single word from Tim about the Mac pipeline until he starts actually delivering.
 
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Ive been following this guy since the beginning and when I began support and managing Mac fleets, his knowledge and tools came in handy. its a clue in that Apple is moving away from structured level OS and everything will be handled through profiles vs scripting by the user/support and handled differently (i.e.; iOS).

jonnysods said:
What's with that bloody huge building then!!
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Interns and Hindi/Indians -- not that theres anything wrong with either...but cheap labor (they won't pay these people the $ they're worth) and to give the illusion of greatness...but we all know you can put lipstick on a pig...
 
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freediverx said:
Meanwhile John Gruber, hardly an Apple alarmist, described the situation with the words "ominous", "shittty", and "profoundly worrisome".
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Gruber knows the guy and I get the sense that he's allowing that fact to color his opinions. There's nothing to be concerned about here. I hope Gruber quickly realises this, because if he starts posting and writing like some of the Tim Cook haters on here then Daring Fireball will be permanently erased from my memory and I'll block the site at the firewall level.
 
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My guess is that they're deprecating AppleScript in favour of Swift, so that Applications will provide some sort of Swift API that will replace what is now called 'automation'. This guy was opposed to it (for obvious reasons) and his position was removed. My bet is that something like that will appear in macOS 10.14.

Come on, Apple is not going to drop "the UNIX CLI" (assuming that's even possible). Anyone believing that is either a troll, delusional, or had a bad day :p.
 
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dumastudetto said:
Gruber knows the guy and I get the sense that he's allowing that fact to color his opinions. There's nothing to be concerned about here. I hope Gruber quickly realises this, because if he starts posting and writing like some of the Tim Cook haters on here then Daring Fireball will be permanently erased from my memory and I'll block the site at the firewall level.
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Nothing to be concerned about? This is just about the biggest red flag I've ever seen on this topic. Automation tools are what distinguishes a computer from an entertainment appliance.
 
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Relentless Power said:
I also view at is there are two sides to every story. He has his and Apple has there rendition as to why he (And position) was eliminated. Being for privacy regulations, clearly Apple will never comment on the situation.
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I agree with this. It's rather unfortunate but surely there is some logical reason why Apple would fire him and eliminate the position. Hard to believe they would just do it because they were scaling back. I'm sure we will here more to this as someone has more than likely contacted the VPs asking why on earth they would do such a thing.
 
macs4nw said:
Agreed, there's got to be a lot more to that story.....
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And we will truly know the reason, in which respect, it's between him and Apple. It Could be for many reasons. In any case, I'm sure he received a huge severance package.
 
Otelm said:
My guess is that they're deprecating AppleScript in favour of Swift, so that Applications will provide some sort of Swift API that will replace what is now called 'automation'. This guy was opposed to it (for obvious reasons) and his position was removed. My bet is that something like that will appear in macOS 10.14.

Come on, Apple is not going to drop "the UNIX CLI" (assuming that's even possible). Anyone believing that is either a troll, delusional, or had a bad day :p.
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The list of things Apple has removed seems to grow daily. Some obscure window only used by nerds is exactly the sort of removal which get actively championed by those who are intolerant of the annoying 'niche' users with their pesky needs and workflows.
 
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Jared Strike said:
I agree with this. It's rather unfortunate but surely there is some logical reason why Apple would fire him and eliminate the position. Hard to believe they would just do it because they were scaling back. I'm sure we will here more to this as someone has more than likely contacted the VPs asking why on earth they would do such a thing.
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It could be really simple. He did not integrate well with Siri, and so he must make way for someone to manage automation into the Siri-platform. Maybe not reassuring...
 
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mw360 said:
The list of things Apple has removed seems to grow daily. Some obscure window only used by nerds is exactly the sort of removal which get actively championed by those who are intolerant of the annoying 'niche' users with their pesky needs and workflows.
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I feel your sentiment, but I doubt they'll outright remove the CLI.

I just think that future development will take a massive hit and quite frankly, this seems like a sign of more things to come.

Certainly won't be fun following the tail of this news story...

Glassed Silver:ios
 
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weup togo said:
This is not an isolated incident. There have been widespread layoffs throughout engineering in the past few months. The hundreds fired from the Titan car project was just the beginning. Sal and a number of other very senior managers and directors are gone, as well as lots of line staff scattered across many teams.

They weren't sub-par people either. Some of them were superstars. The common thread is that they were by and large very expensive. And there's a hiring freeze too. Apple is having serious financial stress this quarter, and they're using unprecedented cost-cutting layoffs to try to stem the damage.
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The next news will be about Tim's raise;)
 
MacRumors said:
If user automation technologies are important to you, then now is the time for all good men and women to reach out, speak up and ask questions. The macOS user automation technologies include: UNIX CLI (shell, python, ruby, perl), System Services, Apple Events (JavaScript, AppleScript, AppleScriptObj-C, Scripting Bridge), Automator, Apple Configurator (AppleScript, Automator), and Application scripting support in Photos, iWork, Finder, Mail, and other Apple applications.
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Sorry guys, that's just not trendy enough. However, Apple's willing to lend you an ear if you have some neat wrist-straps to make for them.
 
Otelm said:
My guess is that they're deprecating AppleScript in favour of Swift, so that Applications will provide some sort of Swift API that will replace what is now called 'automation'. This guy was opposed to it (for obvious reasons) and his position was removed. My bet is that something like that will appear in macOS 10.14.

Come on, Apple is not going to drop "the UNIX CLI" (assuming that's even possible). Anyone believing that is either a troll, delusional, or had a bad day :p.
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Let's hope for the swift API. However removing this guy basically eliminates the possibility in getting his insight and expertise when transitioning to swift. This makes it not such a smart move by Apple. Unless they really don't see a need in his knowledge.
 
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