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Mac Automation Product Manager Sal Soghoian Leaves Apple After Position Eliminated
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You've nailed it. That's exactly why he -- or more importantly, his position, which has been eliminated -- was crucial.
AppleScript and Automator are powerful because they worked across applications. An example might be a script that takes rows of data from Excel, brings them into BBEdit to strip garbage and add markup, then brings the resulting text into InDesign for formatting and layout. It doesn't matter that you have separate companies putting out separate products; they're all Macintosh applications, and all Macintosh applications are supposed to speak AppleScript.
It's much the same as the Unix pipe-and-filter model, only with GUI applications. The user -- not the application developer -- can write a script to suit their needs, by combining the full power of all the applications.
By eliminating this position, Apple has signaled exactly what you suggest: there is no strategic drive for automation across the Mac. The future of the Mac, then, is something much like the future of iOS, with sandboxed applications each running in its own isolated world
These kind of changes have nothing to do with need. They have everything to do with political power. Someone wanted him gone, probably because he supported the other side from other managers with increasing power (like the watch band team, or the emoji team)
. Then with a weak CEO like Cook, who IMO cannot determine a good engineer from a bad one since he is not trained in this field, good people are let go because there is no one to stop internal politics from winning short term, but hurting the company long term.Apple's logic make sense from a supply chain standpoint (Cook's). Everything in the future will be AI, why do we need manual automation, lets spend that money for AI.
He is truly cool, unlike some others at Apple I won't name who only think they're cool because they associate with celebrities on a regular basis.This guy would make a great pirate!
I think it's interesting he is encouraging men and women to ask Apple questions about this move. That's surely a sign that something is going on there. He doesn't do it with a bitter tone, but with the tone of someone who sees the heart and soul of Apple COMPUTING being stripped out of the company.
What? Session 306 of WWDC 2015 with Sal is available.
My guess is that Apple is offloading automation development to IBM per their enterprise partnership, making Sal's position at Apple redundant. Don't be surprised if Sal ends up at IBM, if we wasn't already planning to retire.
I'm afraid that's exactly what they are aiming for: More consistency across MacOS and iOS. And I'm also afraid this means converging toward the lowest common denominator, stripping away advanced features from MacOS, and making it more and more like iOS.
There is a whole side to MacOS that regular users rarely see, including a fairly complete Unix shell environment with the accompanying tools that is great for the type of development work I'm doing. Some of the tools are already a bit outdated, and there are a few very common ones missing (which can be solved easily via Homebrew or manual installation), but nonetheless this is of great value for my work, because MacOS kind of combines advantages of Linux and a commercially well-supported consumer and productivity OS. I realize that I'm in a niche here, but it greatly concerns me that Apple seems to be more and more ignoring advanced users in all kinds of niches that together made the Mac what it is. Again, they seem to the steering toward the lowest common denominator.
I really hope I'm wrong and this is just some kind of organizational shakeup/streamlining, but combined with all the other things we have recently seen on the Mac side I'm afraid it's another instance of Apple dumbing down the Mac further and further.
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Ohndon't get me wrong, it would be a massive step back for me as well and I'll try stretching out the life of this Mac and maybe another successor to it as much as possible, hoping one day they are truly offering great Macs again and that macOS at least STAGNATES instead of becoming worse.
It's entirely up to Apple!
I'll take a mediocre macOS release over a relatively good Windows release as daily main driver any day of the week, but I don't want to pay premium prices for truly lackluster specs too.
Maybe used Macs is where it's at for my next Mac...
I still rely on macOS for a lot of software, but if I were to not be able to run that software anymore anyways for some reasons (like "toyification" of macOS) then I'll have no choice but to go Windows. MAYBE Linux. (I would prefer FreeBSD, but who am I kidding, Linux for the desktop is borderlining home computer viability barely enough, FreeBSD whilst offering the more attractive foundation is just a bag of hurt)
Glassed Silver:ios
A Universal Truth (true in business, politics, religion, whatever): It doesn't matter what people SAY, it's what they DO that counts. Apple swears up and down that they are committed to the Mac, but their behavior shows otherwise.
Not to worry though, Apple is quickly adapting and making the transition from insanely great computers to insanely great and overpriced photo books. Stock holders should be pleased because profit margins will soar from ~47% per unit to over 900% per unit. The profit on the dozen or so units sold will be astronomical!
Not to worry though, Apple is quickly adapting and making the transition from insanely great computers to insanely great and overpriced photo books. Stock holders should be pleased because profit margins will soar from ~47% per unit to over 900% per unit. The profit on the dozen or so units sold will be astronomical!
Don't they have a ton of money in the bank? Several billions. And they cannot afford to keep excellent people. Fishy.
Wow! A true visionary. Unfortunate that Apple seems to be falling into demise.
A couple of places where that comparison falls apart.
1. Apple is not in a monopolistic position. They have a 10th of the PC market, so it's not like they can just churn out whatever and people will buy it just because it's what they're used to. That would fit more towards Microsoft in the early 2000s, which I suppose you can argue that is what happened with them.
2. Tim Cook is driving product development. Jony Ive is the end all on product design, Federighi drives software design, Eddy Cue over services. I could be completely off base here, but Apple does not appear to be run with an iron fist by Tim Cook. Do financial considerations and investor concerns come into play when they are making decisions? Sure. But I don't think that alone is driving the bus.
I don't like this news at all. I just started getting into automation on my Mac (I just wrote an Automator script that backs up my computer through Tim Machine and then shuts down my Mac immediately after, which I use every night.) I don't think I want to continue going at this if Apple is headed into killing it off entirely (or even slowly).
I've been relatively okay with most of the moves this year that were made by Apple. This however...
I've been relatively okay with most of the moves this year that were made by Apple. This however...
DOn't worry folks. Yes they WILL turn the Mac into a larger iPad that runs ISO on ARM. The Mac is a tiny part of Apple's business and I can't see why they would want to keep it around
But we will always have Linux and UNIX BSD and these are open source endnote controlled by any one company and have because VERY MacOS like.
Today about the only reason to own a Mac is because they run some Apple Pro-apps that you can't run on other Ones. Like Final Cut Pro and Logic. But they killed Aperture because of poor sales and the others will go too eventually then the last reason to own a mac will be gone.
But don't worry Linux and UNIX are open source and will still be around.
No, this will not happen next year, ISO has a lot of growing to do before you can use it to do any kind of real work. But most people are just watching movies (not making movies) and browsing web sites (not making web sites) and the money is with the numbers
But we will always have Linux and UNIX BSD and these are open source endnote controlled by any one company and have because VERY MacOS like.
Today about the only reason to own a Mac is because they run some Apple Pro-apps that you can't run on other Ones. Like Final Cut Pro and Logic. But they killed Aperture because of poor sales and the others will go too eventually then the last reason to own a mac will be gone.
But don't worry Linux and UNIX are open source and will still be around.
No, this will not happen next year, ISO has a lot of growing to do before you can use it to do any kind of real work. But most people are just watching movies (not making movies) and browsing web sites (not making web sites) and the money is with the numbers
But he was expensive. Anybody at Apple 20 years has a good amount of RSUs rolling over every year.
There's no such thing as retirement anymore. He lost whatever unvested RSUs he would have had vesting over the next four years.
Yes, but nearly all of it is in overseas banks. Apple pays most of its bills in the US in US dollars. Tim has taken Apple $79B into debt in order to issue USD dividends on the stock. There is no plan to pay this debt down. It goes up every year. Tim is banking on paying the interest out of future profits. The risk is that once interest rates start rising, rolling over all that debt suddenly gets a lot more expensive, and servicing the interest starts to eat up a real chunk of change.
Tim has made some risky gambles that SJ was flatly opposed to. That's why debt and dividends and buybacks and all the rest didn't begin until they put SJ in the ground. Those gambles have worked out so far, but they rely on things always being as good as they are today. Apple's business just shrank 8% year over year, and there's not much reason to believe it couldn't happen again in 2017.
Getting rid of good people throughout engineering is no recipe for future product success.
I don't think we're in much trouble if Apple has tasked IBM with automation development. It makes sense given their enterprise partnership.
The ceded the server functions to the pc and linux, Apple's offerings are a joke, and now they are poised to give away all power computing. They don't think its necessary any more. I build software that manages companies, yes on the Mac, its very successful in many ways. I fear that my job is going away. I've got a lot of time in the Mac side of things that now appears to be ill-advised, and Apple can't give me a direction so I can plan. The only thing I get is this kind of news, which feels like death by a thousand cuts.
Tim Cook can say he loves the Mac, but I believe it would be just to keep sales up for a little while until they discontinue. It could be some arrogance, they are now into teaching kids to code in Xcode and Playgrounds, but that will fail. I learned Swift a few months ago and while I can do a few things with it, it is by no means easy. (Or even complete.) I could go on, this is just depressing...
And I agree with he person who said that this should be on the front page, in with the articles. This is a big issue for many of us - who are pros - and MacRumors should have more of a stake.
Tim Cook can say he loves the Mac, but I believe it would be just to keep sales up for a little while until they discontinue. It could be some arrogance, they are now into teaching kids to code in Xcode and Playgrounds, but that will fail. I learned Swift a few months ago and while I can do a few things with it, it is by no means easy. (Or even complete.) I could go on, this is just depressing...
And I agree with he person who said that this should be on the front page, in with the articles. This is a big issue for many of us - who are pros - and MacRumors should have more of a stake.
This guy would make a great pirate!
No, I believe he'd create an automator droplet and/or system service that does great pirating for him.
Apple continues to be dedicated to the Pro market...
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