Why do Apple media/bloggers let Phil Schiller off the hook re:Mac hardware?

[Rogifan]

If Apple Marketing works like most marketing organizations, Schiller et al go to the engineering team and go "here's what the market demands based on our sales and research". Engineering builds it. Schiller et al then most go market the device to customers. What are we supposed to criticize him for?

Now that Ive is gone, I think this is Schiller's show. Already, you're seeing Apple respond to market demands in every facet of their business (always on display on Apple Watch, larger battery iPhone, new MBP keyboards, powerful low price iPads).

Not sure why we have to take it out on one guy.

You’re proving my point. Engineering/design built the thin and light 2016 MBP with butterfly keyboard (including different arrow keys) and non-physical escape key. Was that based on market demands/research? If it was I don’t know what market they were surveying. Currently all the blame is being placed on one person (Ive). For some reason Schiller gets a pass even though in theory designers and engineers should be building pro products based on what product marketing is telling them pro customers want/need. Now we hear about how they talked to pro customers to determine what’s most important to them. Where was that prior to the last two years?

Power hasn’t changed hands in any substantial manner. Read WSJ and Bloomberg on testimonials about working with Jony Ive. He is the center of every design approval. Phil Schiller is only the vehicle to carry Ive’s designs.

“Members of the human interface and industrial design teams viewed approval from their new leaders as merely tentative. “They still wanted Jony’s thumbs-up to go forward,” this person said.”

Apple is not a marketing company. They design technology first and foremost. How could Schiller possibly have any veto power over Jony Ive? Most journalists probably realize this fundamental fact. Why ask a silly question to Schiller?

And Phil Schiller is much more than a marketing guy. Are we really supposed to believe Schiller’s team went to the designers and engineers, said here’s what pro customers want/need, the designers and engineers responded no we’re doing something else and Schiller says OK you’re the boss? I don’t believe that for one minute. Also why would designers and engineers build a product they knew customers would hate? I can’t think of any employee at any company that would intentionally develop a product or service they knew would be unpopular.

This is what Schiller told CNET in 2016 after the new MBP was released:

Near the end of our conversation, Schiller returns to the first question we asked him: Why the Mac still matters and why it took Apple so long to bring a new design to market.

“We didn’t want to just create a speed bump on the MacBook Pro,” he says. “In our view this is a big, big step forward. It is a new system architecture, and it allows us to then create many things to come, things that we can’t envision yet.”

https://www.cnet.com/special-reports/does-the-mac-still-matter/

 

[psingh01]

You’re proving my point. Engineering/design built the thin and light 2016 MBP with butterfly keyboard (including different arrow keys) and non-physical escape key. Was that based on market demands/research? If it was I don’t know what market they were surveying. Currently all the blame is being placed on one person (Ive). For some reason Schiller gets a pass even though in theory designers and engineers should be building pro products based on what product marketing is telling them pro customers want/need. Now we hear about how they talked to pro customers to determine what’s most important to them. Where was that prior to the last two years?

So now the designers simply build what customers tell them they want in your eyes? Did you ever see Simpson’s episode where Homer designs a car? 😂

What was there to say about the keyboards in 2014/2015? They were fine. I never paid much attention to them. Apple tried to make them better and failed. Now that people have had it in their hands and are able to give feedback based on actual experience.

 

[Rogifan]

So now the designers simply build what customers tell them they want in your eyes? Did you ever see Simpson’s episode where Homer designs a car? 😂

What was there to say about the keyboards in 2014/2015? They were fine. I never paid much attention to them. Apple tried to make them better and failed. Now that people have had it in their hands and are able to give feedback based on actual experience.

No of course not. But in the past year or so Apple execs are making a big deal about how they’re building things based on what pro customers want, what pro customers workflows are. Where was that when the 2016 MBP was launched? Or even the 2013 Mac Pro, which Schiller announced on stage by saying “can’t innovate my a—“.

Only playing devil’s advocate here for a moment, this is exactly what they did to Scott Forstall.

It seems pretty clear Forstall was let go because he didn’t get along with the other execs. Rumors were Bob Mansfield decide to un-retire from Apple because Forstall was leaving. It’s possible Forstall‘s worst impulses were kept in check when Jobs was still running the show.

Bob Mansfield's Return to Apple Reportedly Influenced by Scott Forstall's Departure

AllThingsD offers a look at the back-and-forth situation with Apple executive Bob Mansfield, who announced his retirement as hardware chief in late...

www.macrumors.com

I suspect Tim Cook had wanted to get rid of Scott Forstall all along, and was simply searching for the right excuse to do so.

Phil Schiller seems like someone who knows how to toe the party line when needed, so he stays. No matter how many mistakes he may have made.

All the reporting/gossip from the time suggests while Forstall had people who worked for him who really liked working for him he wasn’t as well liked with other teams/executives. I haven’t heard anything similar about Schiller.

 

[Donnation]

OP, this is the way of the world in big corporations. I work for one so I know. The guy at the helm gets the credit for the good stuff and deflects blame on the bad stuff. Its always been this way like it or not.

 

[JPack]

And Phil Schiller is much more than a marketing guy. Are we really supposed to believe Schiller’s team went to the designers and engineers, said here’s what pro customers want/need, the designers and engineers responded no we’re doing something else and Schiller says OK you’re the boss? I don’t believe that for one minute. Also why would designers and engineers build a product they knew customers would hate? I can’t think of any employee at any company that would intentionally develop a product or service they knew would be unpopular.

Apple has always been a design-first company. Do I really need to pull up dozens of quotes about how Jobs says Apple doesn't rely on market research?

"People don’t know what they want until you show it to them. That’s why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page."​

That philosophy is what made Apple successful. That hasn't changed since Jobs left.

Your belief that Phil Schiller in Marketing has control over Jony Ive, the person who designed the iPod, iPhone, and everything in between, including the Apple campus is shocking.

 

[benzslrpee]

From a interviewer's perspective, Techtuber or otherwise, what is the point of 'calling out' Schiller in the interview? To make him publicly apologize for all the company's decisions? To fuel more speculation as to who holds more power at Apple?

And let's say Schiller apologizes, then what? Make him promise to never do it again? He cannot legally comment on that for an interview. Tell him to run all product decisions through this forum, Reddit, and YouTube before manufacturing begins? Write an expose in the NY Times in hopes for a Pulitzer?

I think Techtubers and Bloggers rarely go down the 'calling out' route cause once you get past the urge of 'being right' it makes for a rather awkward, short conversation.

...

Only conclusion I have is Apple media/bloggers are too chickens—t to ever call out Schiller because if they do then they might not get an interview with him or someone on his team and might not be invited to a product briefing. They‘ll call out Ive because he has one foot out the door and they’d never get an interview with him anyway. Seems a bit disingenuous to let Schiller off the hook for decisions his team was most likely intimately involved with.

 

[DanMan619]

But Jobs has been gone for years.
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OK but the keyboard wasn’t mentioned once. Another example is Gruber complaining about iOS storage options but never once asking Schiller about it on stage. Of course one can assume he’s told what he can and can’t ask about but that just make Gruber an Apple shill. Why would he want to be thought of as that?

Why would they have needed to bring up the keyboard in that interview that's already been bashed ad-nauseum for the last three years straight? Phil even said in that very interview they're aware of what people say online. What else do you want other than some awkward cringey apology? The only reason you want that brought up is just to see Phil squirm, there's nothing new to say about it, the fact that the new MBP doesn't use that keyboard anymore is the answer.

 

[Naaaaak]

OK even if the butterfly keyboard was 100% conceived by Jony Ive is it not Phil Schiller’s product marketing team that has the relationship with developers and customers, especially pro customers? Where was was Schiller’s team pushing back saying no, this isn’t what our pro customers want? Schiller was perfectly happy to get up on stage and tout the latest hardware product as being the thinnest and lightest Apple ever shipped. Yet Gruber, Marco Arment, Jason Snell etc. never ask Schiller and his team about that.

Only conclusion I have is Apple media/bloggers are too chickens—t to ever call out Schiller because if they do then they might not get an interview with him or someone on his team and might not be invited to a product briefing. They‘ll call out Ive because he has one foot out the door and they’d never get an interview with him anyway. Seems a bit disingenuous to let Schiller off the hook for decisions his team was most likely intimately involved with.

Gruber, et al are shills. Practically part of the Apple PR machine. They've all mentioned the keyboards are bad and there is a problem, but none of them were willing to call out the problem with the veracity and urgency that was needed. They mentioned it every now and again, said not to buy, and that was it. None of them pushed Apple to un-thrust their mess and do the right thing. We waited 4 years for ONE model of ONE line of laptops to revert to sanity. Now they are all pretending the Mac is Great Again (or on the path to be).

None of them posted a "1000 days of fecal Apple laptop Keyboards" counter front-and-center on their various sites.

None of them posted a daily callout or tweet or weekly podcast moment about how inexcusably awful and Mac-ruining the keyboards were.

None of them called out Schiller or Cook on how bad and widespread the problem really was. They turned on Ive on a dime and are willing to throw the mess on him since he's out the door, but they've never called out the messes Tim Cook has been involved in and protect him at all costs. Schiller also seems to be fairly safe from criticism -- the protection he gets from going on a podcast every now and then.

Absolutely pathetic effort from the Mac "pundit" community. If they pushed Apple hard with bad PR every single day, maybe we would have gotten a fix 3 years ago.

 

[matram]

In a way I think Apple did what they could. It must have been fairly obvious to them 6 - 12 months after the launch of the 2016 that they had a problem. I had my 2016 in for keyboard problems a year after the launch and it was obvious that service people had been instructed to just swap out the top case no questions asked.

I assume once Apple saw the problem they started shorter term programs to update the keyboards for the yearly refreshes and at the same time brought forward the next generation which we now see as the 16", which is really a year early compared to Apples normal cadence.

What would you have Apple do instead?

 

[pcd213]

In a way I think Apple did what they could. It must have been fairly obvious to them 6 - 12 months after the launch of the 2016 that they had a problem. I had my 2016 in for keyboard problems a year after the launch and it was obvious that service people had been instructed to just swap out the top case no questions asked.

I assume once Apple saw the problem they started shorter term programs to update the keyboards for the yearly refreshes and at the same time brought forward the next generation which we now see as the 16", which is really a year early compared to Apples normal cadence.

What would you have Apple do instead?

• Regarding the butterfly keyboard design, alone, I blame Apple for creating something that so many people hated and very few people loved. They failed on the most critical element of an essential tool for so many people.
• Regarding the butterfly keyboard reliability, I feel that Apple should have picked up on keyboard issues in product testing leading up through development, but I have no way of knowing how much time they were given before the product released.
• I do fault Apple for their lack of swift transparency in communication about the issue to their customers. To this day, even with the new 16” MacBook Pro launch, Apple has positioned this issue like any other faceless corporation would. That should tell you something about Cook’s leadership. Forget about lawsuits. Under Jobs, Apple used to be the company that said it like it was, and did the right thing by its customers.
• I felt that the keyboard service program was a step in the right direction, but I cannot help but think that this was Apple’s Tylenol moment, and they blew it. To instill confidence in the Mac for years to come, Apple should have cleared their inventory and offered its customers 2015 replacement models. That would have cost the company quite a bit of money, but it would have maintained Apple as a brand that is deeply focused on customer loyalty. I feel strongly that the long term benefits would outweigh the costs. Instead, Apple’s five year period of the butterfly keyboard and all that ensued has tarnished the Mac and Apple brands.

 

[Rogifan]

Apple has always been a design-first company. Do I really need to pull up dozens of quotes about how Jobs says Apple doesn't rely on market research?

"People don’t know what they want until you show it to them. That’s why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page."​

That philosophy is what made Apple successful. That hasn't changed since Jobs left.

Your belief that Phil Schiller in Marketing has control over Jony Ive, the person who designed the iPod, iPhone, and everything in between, including the Apple campus is shocking.

The idea that Apple never did market research under Jobs is BS. And with this new MBP (plus the new Mac Pro) Apple execs are going out of their way to explain how they consulted with pro customers. Heck they even have a new pro workflow team inside hardware engineering that they say is informing their decisions on new Mac hardware. Does that mean Apple is no longer a design led company?

My question is where was this pro user consultation in the past 3-6 years? And why is it that the buck stops with Ive on the keyboard but no criticism of Schiller (or hardware engineering) for apparently not taking into consideration the needs of pro customers the last 3-6 years? I highly doubt Jony Ive woke up one morning and said the new Mac Pro should be a little cylinder that looks like a trash can. That design was informed by something. What was that something and where did it come from? Are we really to believe product marketing had no input or involvement in the conception of the Mac Pro and going from the cheese grater to the trash can design? Or the MBP becoming thinner and lighter which resulted in a different keyboard (that pros hated), smaller battery and more throttling because of thermal constraints? There’s one of two answers: either they weren‘t involved (and the desires of pro customers ignored) or they were and totally read what was most important to pro customers wrong. Even if you throw in a 3rd option, that Schiller is just a marketing guy and will get up on stage and happily shill for anything the designers come up with...none of these make Schiller and his team look good.

From a interviewer's perspective, Techtuber or otherwise, what is the point of 'calling out' Schiller in the interview? To make him publicly apologize for all the company's decisions? To fuel more speculation as to who holds more power at Apple?

And let's say Schiller apologizes, then what? Make him promise to never do it again? He cannot legally comment on that for an interview. Tell him to run all product decisions through this forum, Reddit, and YouTube before manufacturing begins? Write an expose in the NY Times in hopes for a Pulitzer?

I think Techtubers and Bloggers rarely go down the 'calling out' route cause once you get past the urge of 'being right' it makes for a rather awkward, short conversation.

I’m not saying Gruber needs to call Schiller out in an interview with him. But I’ve never heard him once be critical of product marketing at Apple. Not on his site or his podcast. At least Marco Arment has taken marketing to task in the past over Apple’s obsession with thin and light. But now that he’s being seeded review units and has access to product briefings I’m sure that will change. He won’t want to lose that access.

Gruber, et al are shills. Practically part of the Apple PR machine. They've all mentioned the keyboards are bad and there is a problem, but none of them were willing to call out the problem with the veracity and urgency that was needed. They mentioned it every now and again, said not to buy, and that was it. None of them pushed Apple to un-thrust their mess and do the right thing. We waited 4 years for ONE model of ONE line of laptops to revert to sanity. Now they are all pretending the Mac is Great Again (or on the path to be).

None of them posted a "1000 days of fecal Apple laptop Keyboards" counter front-and-center on their various sites.

None of them posted a daily callout or tweet or weekly podcast moment about how inexcusably awful and Mac-ruining the keyboards were.

None of them called out Schiller or Cook on how bad and widespread the problem really was. They turned on Ive on a dime and are willing to throw the mess on him since he's out the door, but they've never called out the messes Tim Cook has been involved in and protect him at all costs. Schiller also seems to be fairly safe from criticism -- the protection he gets from going on a podcast every now and then.

Absolutely pathetic effort from the Mac "pundit" community. If they pushed Apple hard with bad PR every single day, maybe we would have gotten a fix 3 years ago.

Good observation about Tim Cook. He also rarely gets called out by Apple-centric media even though he certainly does in the broader tech world. The problem with Gruber is when he says something it gets picked up by the broader tech media. It’s like when Gruber speaks its the gospel.

• Regarding the butterfly keyboard design, alone, I blame Apple for creating something that so many people hated and very few people loved. They failed on the most critical element of an essential tool for so many people.
• Regarding the butterfly keyboard reliability, I feel that Apple should have picked up on keyboard issues in product testing leading up through development, but I have no way of knowing how much time they were given before the product released.

And this gets back market research. Even if the designers came up with the butterfly keyboard and loved it to death where was product marketing (or anyone else) flashing the warning sign that this is not something pro customers will like? And how did this keyboard ship with all the issues it had? Did Apple not do enough testing? Did they know it could be faulty and ship it anyway?

 

[throAU]

Mic Drop..

And that's how the keyboard happened originally.

BUT

Cook or someone above him should have demanded his head unless he fixed it. That year.