Mail team (2000-2004)

Mail team (2000-2004)

Other articles about my Apple career:

Interviewing

Sometime in the summer of 2000, I interviewed with the Mail team.

I never intended to work in software engineering but I desperately wanted to work on Mac OS X, which was working on releasing the Public Beta within a few months. So a bunch of interviews with the Mail team.

The short summary is I sweated and laughed a lot. I alternated between being certain I was getting the job to being sure I wasn’t.

My most intimidating interview was with Scott Forstall, who was then was the head of applications and frameworks and the manager of the Mail team reported to him. … READ THE REST

How I unwittingly learned object-oriented programming

How I unwittingly learned object-oriented programming

1993

In May of 1993, I first connected to a online virtual community called LambdaMOO. It’s difficult to describe the place in one sentence, but here’s one attempt:

A MOO is a text-based online virtual reality system to which multiple users (players) are connected at the same time

MOO—Wikipedia

LambdaMOO was created at Xerox PARC, where important inventions such as laser printers, the graphical user interface, Ethernet, and important aspects of computer graphics were created.

I didn’t really know any of the backstory at the time. I was an economics major and working in the tech industry wasn’t on my radar.

Like many people, I initially joined for social reasons. It’s was very much like a text-based adventure game only there were other people logged into the same virtual world.

You could walk around the world and read their descriptions. Anything you said would be heard by whoever was in … READ THE REST

My first job at Apple: AppleCare (1999-2000)

My first job at Apple: AppleCare (1999-2000)

Other articles about my Apple career:

As I mentioned in a previous post about how I ended up at Apple, it was when I was handed a copy of Mac OS X Server 1.0 to bring home in my first day of interviews that I decided I had to be a part of Apple.

AppleCare (1999-2000)

My first job at Apple was doing data analysis on what people were calling Apple Support about it. It was primarily was is now called “Classic” macOS, but included all of Apple’s software products. It sounds boring, but I loved it and it had a real impact. I was the first person in this position.… READ THE REST

My thoughts on Apple Park

My thoughts on Apple Park

The most common questions people ask me about Apple are about Apple Park. Usually, did you work in Apple Park? Yes, for 6 months. What was it like?

Pros

Grounds

The grounds of Apple Park are essentially the most beautiful arboreteum in the world. So many things were done so well that I could write an entire article about it.

The building is essentially located at the bottom of the piece of land, with rolling hills going up in most directions. Even on the higher floors, you can get a great illusion of being in a landscape that goes on foverer. No highways or no other buildings. Very serene.

Unlike most corporate landscaping, everything is done in a fashion that makes it look very organic and natural. Things aren’t planted in rows or in large sections. The variety of plants is enormous.

The building structure

The structure of the building … READ THE REST

Death of the (+) in web search

Death of the (+) in web search

Many years ago, search engines supported using a (+) symbol next to terms that you definitely want to be on the resulting pages. This is similar to how using the (-) symbol before a term omits pages that contain that term.

I’ll use a search string I was using recently to illustrate:

  • Does diatomaceous earth kill aspergillus (normal search)
  • Does diatomaceous earth kill +aspergillus (the word “aspergillosis” is required in search results)
  • Does diatomaceous earth kill aspergillus -bacteria (same search but exclude pages with the word “bacteria” on them)

In June of 2011, Google launched Google Plus. In October, they removed the (+) symbol as a search modifier so that it could be used for Google Plus.

However, I recently discovered that it’s been replaced by using double quotes! When you quote a word or phrase, it not only searches for that word or phrase, but it mandates that it … READ THE REST

Codename madness

Codename madness

Although I only have my experience at Apple and those of my friends at other companies, but this appears to be the case:

  • Most companies use codenames from time to time
  • Most companies that do use codenames use them for ultra-super-secret projects
  • Most companies that use codenames are to protect leaks to the outside world, not leaks within a company
  • Apple is not like most companies

The only thing at Apple that doesn’t have codenames are other codenames. Oh wait, that’s not entirely true since some projects have multiple codenames based on which organization you are in, although this is not super common.

To complicate matters, there are not really resources to translate a codename into what it stands for or vice versa. So it’s fairly anecdotal and many people keep their own cheat sheets.

But early in my career at Apple I had an amusing codename experience in a … READ THE REST

Out of context things you don’t want to overhear

Out of context things you don’t want to overhear

It’s always fun to walk around and hear snippets of conversation coming from offices, conference rooms, or open areas. Sometimes you hear frightening things out of context!

My favorite overheard line came from when I worked on Aperture. We were in the same area of Infinite Loop as Finance, so we would frequently see the CFO, Peter Oppenheimer.

One day I was walking down the hall and Peter was leaning against a wall having a conversation with someone I didn’t know.

What I heard coming out of Peter’s mouth was:

I don’t see why we have to get the FBI involved

Do I want to know the context? Should I sell my stock?

… READ THE REST
WWDC 2019 keynote

WWDC 2019 keynote

I’ve written a lot about work/life balance, including this one: Slow down and improve your health and job.

Monday this week was the first day of Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Jose, featuring a keynote address highlighting new products soon to make their way out the door.

But I felt like turning it off after the opening movie.

As background, there is a lot of concern about the intrusion of technology on our lives and how it affects us. Apple has recently claimed to care about balancing the use of technology and brought us great features like Screen Time to help:

Screen Time, these new tools are empowering users who want help managing their device time, and balancing the many things that are important to them.

iOS 12 introduces new features to reduce interruptions and manage Screen Time

According to the WWDC opening video, writing apps appears to … READ THE REST

This icon is too horsey

This icon is too horsey

There used to be a weekly meeting with Steve Jobs to go over user interfaces and workflows for macOS. He would get together with the higher ups as well as members of the Human Interface team. Sometimes first level managers would be there or individual engineers might be there to run a demo or answer questions. They were held in a room called Diplomacy on the Infinite Loop campus and typically ran for many hours.

After this meeting, there would be a “debriefing” where one or more of the attendees of that meeting would report to the underlings. Sometimes that included people like me.

That’s the backstory to what’s actually a very short anecdote. What was fun about these debriefings is that they were like a game of telephone.

  1. Steve might say something in the weekly meeting
  2. Someone would jot down what they think he said
  3. The notes might get
… READ THE REST