From the outside, it definitely looks like the closer it gets to hardware, the better engineers at Apple get. Metal is awesome, Metal shading language and recent clang progress not bad too, Swift a little bit wonky but interesting — but the quality of their customer-facing software, especially ui stuff (not design, but I engineering) is getting worse and worse. It just doesn't "just work" anymore.

One commenter - I believe it was here on HN - said something I thought was very insightful. They said it's difficult to see software when you're looking at your computer edge-on - and that's apparently the only way Apple ever looks at their products anymore.

For the first time in the last ten years, I have downgraded my OS to 10.9 after having a disastrous experience with 10.10. I don't plan on upgrading back, at least not on this computer.

It's when your Linux distro on a 5 year old HP laptop seems more polished than your 27" iMac from 2 years ago that you begin to wonder what has gone wrong at Apple.

Two days ago I said aloud to a screen ", OS X is turning into Windows".

And by Windows, you probably mean your memory of when you last used it as a main OS.

I moved to OS X 5 years ago, and recently I realised that a lot of my assumptions about Windows are no longer true. Now, I contemplate moving back.

Well I use Windows daily as a dev at a MS Partnered company but you are still correct in that when I said OSX is turning into Win I was thinking of the XP/Vista era. I am not a huge fan of either 7 or 8 tbh, but that is acknowledged as a personal preference in much the same way as I sold a practical commuter car to buy something "i like driving more".

The problem with OSX now, as I see it, is that as Windows irons out the problems that made *nix users dislike it, OSX seems to be allowing those problems (both engineering and usability) to creep in.

> (Mac OSX UI) doesn't "just work" anymore

Please, if someone can sell a Linux with the same polish as Mac OSX, and as low-administration time, I would agree to pay about $200 per year for it. I've switched away from Ubuntu after being unable to resolve a problem after upgrade two years ago (which cost me 4 days). I spend 2x more on computers for Macbooks, not because of the hardware but because of Mac OSX.

I don't know how large is the audience for a paid workproof Linux, but I wish someone would build it.

Yes, that would be very cool. And I say that as a happy OS X user. Competition in that space would be good for the customers. Unfortunately all the workstation companies went down the drain. SGI, Sun, etc. But who knows what the future holds in store?

Dell has done some interesting work with ubuntu on developer edition laptops as far as I understand, focused on support and good drivers etc.

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/dell-updates-linux-po...

Oh, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I just wish OS X moved forward instead of backwards.

>I would agree to pay about $200

You would, everyone else would download the CentOS equivalent, and as consumers we don't need the assurances of first-party enterprise support.

This. Most devs I know have Macs for precisely this reason -- software, not hardware. If anything, many would prefer the hardware (diversity) offered elsewhere.

Acqui-hires, amigo... swallow a company, fire the bottom 10%, give the rest offers, see who sticks around after 1-2 years. They're gobbling up companies so fast that they're running out of office space to house them all.

Acqui-hiring cannot be a long term strategy to nurture and build a strong internal talent pool. Google simply has done an outstanding job at this. Most start-up founders/employees share YC startups' cultural ethos, and will get stifled under Apple. Many of them will get demotivated, lose steam and leave as soon as their golden handcuffs expire.

With something like $150 billion+ in the bank, it might just be a long term viable strategy.

... Until the taxman catches up with them. Then it's game over.

For what, following the law?

Most of the cash from overseas operations is overseas which is legal.

What do you mean? Are Apple not complying with the tax law?

I mean that to continue their strategy they will need to onshore the money, at which point it will be taxed, at which point it looks far less viable in the long term.

Cash is king. Citizen Kane comes to mind:

    You're right, I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars next year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in... 60 years.

There's a difference: Apple is a public company (without an insider-friendly voting structure like Google's), and shareholder activism is a powerful force these days. (I am not an expert.) If the current approach stops delivering big profits I think the management will be hard put to resist the pressure to smash up the piñata and hand the cash to the shareholders. (That pressure already exists: http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-to-shareholders-vote-against-... ) So I think the thing protecting the status quo at Apple these days is really the flow, rather than the stock, of profits. And indeed there doesn't seem to be any sign that the apparent decline in the quality of OS X is actually hurting profits or sales yet: http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/07/29/apples-focus-on-va... .

and they have plenty of cash to keep at it forever

You only hear the negative stories because of Apple's culture of secrecy. Writing publicly about the company is a big no-no.

It's not that secret though. Sure, you only read first-hand accounts by people who have left, but it's not like Apple employees are out with their friends over beers refusing to talk about how many hours they work. Everyone in the valley probably knows someone who knows someone who works there. At some point, the constant background level of "yeah, it kind of sucks" is pretty convincing.

I think as an engineer the type of things one might get to work on at Apple could be more interesting than the type of things one would get to work on at a bunch of the companies you just listed. At Apple there's everything from OS to compiler to drivers to UI to hardware, etc.

I don't want to work there, as I know people who have and it sucked, but, I can see the appeal for some. Also one person I know who did a stint there got some rather obscenely large amounts of cash.

> With this negative image among developers in the Valley, how is Apple able to attract top quality engineers? They probably are not.

I met several current and former Apple employees. Many of them are extremely talented.

Based on my anecdotal experience, that doesn't show Apple has any problem attracting top quality engineers.

Hardware engineers maybe? Not sure about software engineers.

Not a developer but I would definitely do a 2+ year stint at Apple to get the name on my resume and find out what it's like to work at one of the largest and most profitable tech companies ever. I'm sure there's an incredible amount to learn and the pay is nice as well.

How old are you? 2 years is quite a long time to some folks.

2 years is a long time to teenagers, I can't imagine it's a long time to anyone else.

25 years of age.

I wonder if this explains the general impression that Apple's software quality is slipping over time?

They sound like Amazon up here in Seattle, but at least Amazon has pockets of goodness... This sounds way more widespread.

The same goes for Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle...basically any technology behemoth other than possibly Google.

I know Apple recently poached a bunch of people from one of the above-named companies.

I think designers and marketers still aspire to work at Apple.

> how is Apple able to attract top quality engineers?

From the rumours I've heard, they pay marginally higher salaries.

Yes the silver fox is IT's best kept secret.

What's a "Silver Fox" in this context?

I assume that refers to this bit:

  Based on this, I have to conclude that most good 
  engineers@Apple are candidates who have a tenure of 
  more than 15 years and are aging.

With "silver" meaning grey hair and "fox" meaning clever.

Ah. That makes sense.