[HN Gopher] How Apple Is Working From Home
___________________________________________________________________
How Apple Is Working From Home
Author : aaronbrethorst
Score : 101 points
Date : 2020-03-30 18:03 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theinformation.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theinformation.com)
| saagarjha wrote:
| > It encourages employees to use the company's own communications
| and file-sharing services for security and reliability reasons,
| though it has begun allowing them to use some third-party tools
| like Slack and Box.
|
| As mentioned later in the article, the use of these third-party
| tools isn't new.
| chadlavi wrote:
| Would be cool if this resulted in some nice enterprise-focused
| improvements/advanced user features in apple's native apps
| SeanFerree wrote:
| Awesome article!
| sxcurry wrote:
| "leaving them to rely on grainy photographs to make hardware
| decisions" - why would the photos be grainy? I would think that
| the Chinese hardware folks would have decent cameras?
| ISL wrote:
| At full zoom, every image is grainy.
|
| The part of an image you want to look at, unless you've asked
| for a specific image to be made, is usually in shadow and in
| the corner -- Murphy's Law of documentation.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| The equivalent of the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck
| in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware
| of the Leopard.'
| djrogers wrote:
| And if you have asked for a specific image to be made, you
| will invariably find something shadowed in the corner you
| need to also see.
| hbosch wrote:
| iPhones, at least.
| jedberg wrote:
| > Most employees aren't accustomed to holding meetings with
| colleagues via videoconference and some have found it difficult
| to use Apple's own offerings such as FaceTime, iCloud and
| iMessage, as they weren't designed for enterprise users,
| according to current and former employees.
|
| Hopefully this motivates them to make these products better!
| Although I'm not super hopeful.
|
| I once asked a friend (and Apple employee) why Keynote doesn't
| have any collaboration function. I said, "Don't you guys every
| collaborate on presentations?" He said, "No, not really, and if
| you do, you're all in one room and one person is driving the
| computer".
|
| So their culture is very much engrained with in person
| collaboration.
|
| Edit: I should clarify that I asked him this a few years ago,
| before they added the "collaborate through iCloud" functionality.
|
| The point still stands though, that while everyone else had
| collaboration in their presentation apps, Apple didn't, because
| they didn't see the need for it.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| We have been using WebEx and Slack heavily and it's been
| working pretty well. We have a good culture of using iCloud to
| collaborate with documents and it really is a product which is
| dog-fooded thoroughly.
|
| I obviously can't give you any specifics but I would say the
| transition to remote work has been a success so far and
| management has been using this time as an opportunity to
| showcase our autonomy.
| checker659 wrote:
| I wished they used my app ScreenTime
| (https://tryscreentime.com) for some of their work.
| netcan wrote:
| I think a big part of the problem here is the cultural
| adaption. There's the covid microcosm, and the multi-decade
| macrocosm. We still don't fully know how remote work should
| work.
|
| That said, the various grades of "enterprise need" and patchy
| interoperability on stuff like texting & calling _is_ kind of a
| travesty.
| thrwn_frthr_awy wrote:
| > Most employees aren't accustomed to holding meetings with
| colleagues via videoconference
|
| That was not my experience at all. Apple was so large that even
| in Cupertino it was more common than not to have at least one
| person, if not a whole team, in a meeting from a different
| location. Not to mention rainy days and flexible schedules
| because of the commute made it so videoconferencing was needed
| for almost every meeting I attended.
| vitiell0 wrote:
| Just discovered recently that keynote does have a collaboration
| function through iCloud. Was a little clunky to get going but
| is working great now. Not quite google docs but it does
| instantly sync across devices when you save
| minimaxir wrote:
| All the iWork apps have collaboration functionality (with
| mostly full feature parity), and it works on macOS/iOS/web
| too.
|
| Disclosure: Was a QA Engineer at Apple on those apps/that
| functionality.
| nomel wrote:
| Just curious, what makes it "clunky" to you?
|
| For my use, there's a "Collaborate" button. You click it and
| invite people. Once they click the invitation, you can watch
| them view/edit.
| Angostura wrote:
| Except of course for the big old 'Collaborate' button on
| Keynote's menu bar, where you can choose who should be able to
| edit or view the presentation - anyone with the link, or anyone
| you invited - mediated via iCloud.
|
| To be fair it's a fairly recent addition - maybe in the last
| year or so.
| minimaxir wrote:
| It was added in 2016 (with maybe a bit of permissions
| refinement since then):
| https://www.cultofmac.com/446151/apple-adds-real-time-
| collab...
| jedberg wrote:
| Yeah I asked him this a few years ago. They did eventually
| add it.
|
| But the point was even when every other presentation app had
| it, they didn't, and it was because they didn't understand
| the need for it.
| xenadu02 wrote:
| > it was because they didn't understand the need for it
|
| You keep making this claim but unless the person you knew
| was on the Keynote team I doubt they had any actual insight
| into the process.
|
| There are a million things you could do. It is important to
| layout things in priority order. For example, unifying
| desktop and mobile implementations and file formats so when
| you do add collaboration features in the future the two can
| interoperate. Or adding a high-fidelity web experience so
| people who don't use your apps at all can collaborate.
| Perhaps those two things are important to get right before
| adding collaboration?
|
| (Hypothetical, I don't have any knowledge of any of this).
| solidr53 wrote:
| Keynote has an online collaboration functionality, just through
| the web interface IIRC.
| saagarjha wrote:
| You can collaborate through the native apps as well.
| _ph_ wrote:
| I had to smile a bit when reading about the technical problems
| they were facing with working from home, especially the software
| stack. This is something, that Apple has the power to address. I
| am using Webex myself on the Mac. With the last big update, it
| has become much better, but there is certainly room for
| improvement. The performance with video conferencing doesn't seem
| to be great though.
|
| By investing into the relevant software features required for
| working from home, Apple could not only solve their own problems
| but also make the platform more attractive for business users
| outside of Apple. Great screensharing, with voice and video would
| be a start. Perhaps a native Webex client. Or, make their own
| client work with Webex.
|
| P.S.: maybe they also should consider offering a new iSight. A
| physically separate webcam that improves the video conferencing
| experience. If it is separate, it can be moved to show documents
| or other things people are working on, like their hardware
| prototype. It could also offer improved quality in comparison to
| the builtin cameras.
| deedubaya wrote:
| When was the last time an Apple product launch wasn't leaked? I
| feel like we've known what was coming ever since the infamous
| lost iPhone prototype (iPhone 6 maybe?). It has been a while.
| saagarjha wrote:
| > I feel like we've known what was coming ever since the
| infamous lost iPhone prototype (iPhone 6 maybe?).
|
| iPhone 4.
| plorkyeran wrote:
| Not really a "product", but Swift was so successfully kept
| secret that we were still arguing over what the big
| announcement was going to be during the keynote where they
| revealed it.
| saagarjha wrote:
| SwiftUI was also fairly novel.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| We usually have _some_ idea of what 's coming, but with varying
| degrees of accuracy. Apple presumably wants the public to know
| as few details as possible, and that's a sliding spectrum, not
| a binary.
| kylec wrote:
| AFAICT the new Magic Keyboard for iPad didn't leak. There were
| rumors about a keyboard with a trackpad, sure, but I think
| everyone was surprised about the design.
| castillar76 wrote:
| Over the years I've had a few conversations with Apple recruiters
| about job opportunities at Apple. Every time, they've tried to
| persuade me to move to Cupertino, because Apple doesn't do remote
| work. I've had to start prefacing the conversations with "I'm not
| moving to Cupertino. Do you still want to talk?"
|
| I get why Jobs wanted it that way: the value of hallway
| conversations and the ability to bounce things off other
| engineers is invaluable, and until recently it was difficult to
| make that viable with people flung off in different locations.
| Moreover, it's really difficult to have most of your team in one
| location and a few scattered people elsewhere: the people
| elsewhere just aren't part of the loop in the same way, and it
| makes things really hard for them.
|
| That said, I'd be surprised if Apple continues with a hard-line
| stance on that after all of this: I think we're seeing that an
| awful lot of work that people insisted had to be local can indeed
| be done effectively from remote.
|
| EDIT: Having read the thread on this one, I apologize for my
| over-generalization based on anecdote. I work for a company that
| pushes the ability to remote-work, and the folks I've talked with
| about working at Apple were all very "yeah, they don't do work-
| from-home". However, the plural of anecdote is not data. :)
| pandaman wrote:
| You are in luck, last recruiter from Apple who contacted me
| refused to tell where the job is located unless I've signed an
| NDA. They actually have sites in WA,FL and OR apart from the CA
| and I'd be fine with two of these states but I am not signing
| any NDAs for that.
| throwawayawa wrote:
| They wouldn't tell me the job they were recruiting me for
| even during the on site interview. Everyone was extremely
| cagey. Walked out of there decided against working for them
| based on that. The employees seemed like victims of abuse.
| exBarrelSpoiler wrote:
| Depending on the org, that's definitely believable. Jobs'
| legacy has a dark side that people are unwilling to talk
| about, save for scant few "employees speak out" exposes
| that break out every few years. It's a massive company and
| experiences vary across the board, but Apple is definitely
| one of the more austere and abuse-prone members of FAANG.
| Amazon is reputedly toxic, as well.
| draw_down wrote:
| What's the refrain people always throw up when you try to
| talk about this?
|
| "Don't generalize, it depends on the team!"
|
| As if that's any excuse. The bad teams get staffed too,
| not just the good ones. Reorgs happen, managers come and
| go... even if you get lucky at first, you might not stay
| lucky.
| DoofusOfDeath wrote:
| I'm surprised people are willing to sign a NDA just for the
| possibility of getting a job. I haven't encountered that
| before.
|
| (Edited for tone.)
| pandaman wrote:
| NDA for an interview is pretty normal everywhere. An NDA
| for a job location, on the other hand, is not something I
| have been offered anywhere else.
| DoofusOfDeath wrote:
| I'm surprised. I've had 8 development jobs in the past 25
| years, and in none of my job searches was I asked to sign
| an NDA.
| pandaman wrote:
| Depends on the field, I suppose. Product companies
| usually do this to protect plans for the new products.
| PunksATawnyFill wrote:
| Why WOULDN'T you? It's not as if you're losing out on
| anything by doing so.
| kortilla wrote:
| Every apple employee
| saagarjha wrote:
| No, not all of them.
| kylec wrote:
| That's really weird. Pretty much all Apple job postings
| include location:
|
| https://jobs.apple.com/en-us/search
| pandaman wrote:
| Indeed, it's bizarre. I imagine it's a technique to force
| prospects into an NDA as early as possible or, might be
| just a blanket policy of not giving out any information
| without an NDA or a legal clearence.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Many jobs they post immediately turn into rumors. Hardly
| surprising they don't post everything online.
| wayneftw wrote:
| Parts of their workforce work remotely. I know at least some of
| their call center staff does.
| threeseed wrote:
| 1. Apple HQ is in Cupertino. But there is development being
| done all over the world e.g. France, Israel, UK as well as all
| over the US e.g. Arizona, Texas and the dozens of offices
| around California. None of this will change.
|
| 2. Apple has always had some people working remotely but really
| just depended on what you were doing. You can't design an iPod
| remotely. But you can build software.
|
| 3. Situation is definitely different now as the quality of
| internet and tooling is such that remote work can be high
| quality and the feeling of detachment can be managed. So
| definitely agree that at Apple and elsewhere you will see more
| remote work.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Many people who could probably do their job remotely do not
| do their job remotely.
| mrbombastic wrote:
| On 2. I have never worked at apple but many job postings I
| have seen for software engineering positions explicitly
| called for onsite.
| philsnow wrote:
| re point 1: I've never worked at Apple and have no idea where
| the 'fun' projects live, but at Google it's often said that
| you need to be willing to move to Mountain View for the good
| stuff / for career progression.
| nosequel wrote:
| It isn't just you. I've talked to Apple on a few occassions and
| the recruiter has always been firm on the no-remote-work -for-
| this-team. Maybe there are some teams who allow remote, but
| their inflexibility on the topic has always made me look
| elsewhere. The same is true for Google and Facebook who are
| also hardliners on no remote work ( __from my experiences).
| Keverw wrote:
| Some companies don't want to do remote employees due to other
| logistics like extra requirements to handle for legal,
| employment, accounting burden than dealing with a single state.
| So if a company in San Francisco wants to hire someone in
| Cincinnati, extra stuff for them to do and if you're the only
| employee in that area it isn't worth it.
|
| Pretty much a lot of requirements as a sticks and bricks
| business since some employment laws are based on where the
| worker is doing the work from. So the only option is you pack
| up and move across the country or more likely they'll find
| someone else.
|
| Not an HR expert but a company in San Francisco reached out to
| me unsolicited (I guess since I put some stuff on Github and
| NPM) but I wanted to give it a try remotely working from home
| to see if I was good with their tech stack and stuff before
| committing to moving but was told no. And then that opens up a
| lot of other questions and stuff too.
|
| All this employment stuff is a mind field it seems, then if
| your workforce travels to a convention in a neighboring state
| even could open up issues. Then some states have city taxes, so
| I guess if your team went somewhere for a day and you still
| paid them, extra stuff too. Then health insurance too if your
| company is big enough to require it and can't be sold across
| state lines. So having a group plan in California is useless,
| so now you have to get an Ohio plan... and what address do you
| even use since you don't have an office and someone is working
| from home?
|
| As things become more remote and global, I wish the states
| could work together to make things simpler. Seems some states
| would benefit letting residents work remotely without much
| burden to the out of state business, as the way now it seems
| like they'll lose residents who are encouraged to move
| elsewhere for work instead. It just sounds like a mess. My idea
| was if I ever got a big company and let people work from home,
| I'd also open up offices in a few cities across the country
| people could commute to or work remotely some days. Make them
| sorta like an office but also sorta like co-working spaces but
| for staff only.
|
| I guess though if you decide to contract out stuff, instead of
| making them an employee though not as big of a burden then. But
| if you deal with a business that creates an intellectual
| property, that could cause some problems unless contracts in
| place. Since contractors still own the IP, unlike a employee
| where the company automatically owns the IP. However I was
| reading something after 35 years, they can reclaim their
| copyright if a contractor but maybe you could have some
| failback licensing agreement so you could still use it but no
| longer have exclusive rights if that'd hold up - but this isn't
| something I've researched too much on personally. So
| contracting out tech support probably not a issue since not
| really creating any IP, but if creating assets like 3D models,
| sounds, music, etc for a game that could be a problem if
| planning for a long term brand around it, etc. So if that
| relates to your business, would want to make sure you research
| and get the right agreements in place before even contracting
| out asset creation - but personally I'd rather have an employee
| instead just to be certain to make sure the company owns any
| code, graphics, etc.
| microtherion wrote:
| Apple's stance was never as hard line as people make it out to
| be. While remote is certainly not just there for the asking,
| there have been remote workers in many lines of work (even
| hardware engineering) for years (even during Jobs' lifetime).
|
| And Apple by now has offices all over the world, so it's not
| like "everybody bumps into each other in Cupertino" is a
| universally feasible model anyway.
| PunksATawnyFill wrote:
| The other glaring issue is that Apple still didn't build
| enough space for all of its Cupertino employees in the new
| HQ. Some unfortunates are still toiling away in crappy leased
| offices scattered around town.
| draw_down wrote:
| > While remote is certainly not just there for the asking
|
| Maybe it could just be there for the asking. :)
| Traster wrote:
| Every company I've worked at has had people who work from
| home either part of full time, but it's _very_ rare to hear
| about someone being hired in as a remote worker in a team
| that 's otherwise staffed by office workers.
|
| I would say it's a much higher bar to be hired in as a remote
| worker vs an existing employee moving to being remote because
| you already whether the employee is productive, fits in the
| team and has the social connections to be productive.
| freepor wrote:
| Yep. We have these in our team too. People who came in the
| regular way, were absolutely top performers, and then
| decided to relocate. The decision to the company was let
| them be remote or let them go, and some were allowed to be
| remote and some were shown the door.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| I am one of these people who went remote after a few years
| in the office. This seems to be the most common path. I
| have never heard of anybody being hired as remote first.
| uwuhn wrote:
| They're opening Seattle offices this year. Or at least that's
| the plan? It might be affected by the epidemic.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Don't they already have offices there?
| tjr225 wrote:
| Apple already has an office in downtown Seattle. I know
| because I've talked to a recruiter about a job there twice.
| wuunderbar wrote:
| > I think we're seeing that an awful lot of work that people
| insisted had to be local can indeed be done effectively from
| remote.
|
| Where are we actually seeing a lot of this? Particularly for
| companies where they primarily sell hardware products such as
| Apple?
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Where are we actually seeing a lot of this?_
|
| Anecdotally, yes.
|
| My company was staunchly against remote work or work-from-
| home of any kind. When I was hired, one of the first things
| they told me was, "We don't do remote. Don't ask."
|
| It's about 5,000 employees in maybe 20 cities around the
| country.
|
| When the virus started spreading, 95% of the workforce was
| working from home within eight business days. It was a
| massive mobilization by the IT department. Fortunately, they
| were already in the process of upgrading everyone's computer,
| so there were plenty of spares to go around.
| threeseed wrote:
| Almost all remote work is at software companies
| understandably.
|
| But also often it is for the lower lever, just implement this
| pre-designed and pre-architected feature roles. Most of the
| decision making and design will get done face to face at the
| main office.
|
| This model seems to be the standard but it's also toxic and
| cruel. Even the most independent person will feel isolated
| and segregated from their peers and the decisions that others
| ultimately make.
|
| If you want remote to truly work it has to be the Gitlab
| model. Everyone is remote, every decision is transparent and
| all corporate knowledge is captured in a single,
| collaborative handbook.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| > That said, I'd be surprised if Apple continues with a hard-
| line stance on that after all of this: I think we're seeing
| that an awful lot of work that people insisted had to be local
| can indeed be done effectively from remote.
|
| After speaking to some recruiters recently, the feeling is that
| everyone will ,,do remote for the next 3 to 4 months, until
| pandemic is over" but afterwards ,,we are looking forward to
| seeing our colleagues at the offices in X".
| holidaygoose wrote:
| I think we also need to be open minded that maybe 'remote
| work for everyone' is actually less effective. And it will be
| hard to show evidence otherwise -- this current test case
| we're going through -- I doubt people are going to say "wow
| see, look how productive everyone was during the pandemic
| when they worked from home."
| DoofusOfDeath wrote:
| Maximizing the productivity of an all-remote team requires
| appropriate IT infrastructure, work processes, workspaces,
| management skills, etc.
|
| I'm concerned that some companies will take a productivity
| hit during the covid19 outbreak, and fail to attribute some
| of that hit to their inexperience / unpreparedness with
| all-remote teams.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Yes, I agree. I'm hiring myself and understand both sides.
| Some people like to work in the office, that's fine.
| However, ,,would you like to move to the other side of the
| country when the pandemic is over, all 300 of our engineers
| are going to be there, you can do work from home once a
| week"?
| castillar76 wrote:
| Oh, don't get me wrong here: for my own work, I'm 100%
| work-from-office. I like working in an office with a desk
| and a proper setup and other people around me also doing
| the same work. Big fan of NOT doing the "let's have
| everyone work remote it's AWESOMESAUCE!" thing--it's not
| awesomesauce for everyone, and there's a huge segment for
| which it's actively detrimental.
|
| I was just guessing Apple might soften their stance on it a
| bit, although it sounds from others like that ain't the
| case (which also doesn't surprise me--Apple gonna Apple).
| Frost1x wrote:
| I like remote work but the benefit of an office, for me,
| is that it draws a very clear line in the sand between
| personal and work time. In a field saturated with
| infinite work queues and constant pressure to empty those
| infinite queues, it provides physical bounds that are
| difficult to cross without being obvious.
|
| When you work remote it's assumed you have flexible hours
| and when people need more or less of your time, they
| queue it up whenever it's good for them, your freetime
| and personal life can take the back burner.
| bradlys wrote:
| I think this really varies on the company. I'd hesitate
| to make industry wide statements about it... Right now,
| the company I'm at is treating remote work no different
| than working from the office. We have core hours and
| regular meetings. They're just remote. If anything,
| they're more lenient since about half the people have
| kids at home right now too. So, they know you can't focus
| completely...
|
| I've seen plenty of my coworkers staying late at the
| office or, just as often, having to login at home to do
| nights and weekends work. So, whatever line in the sand
| you think exists for office work is purely imaginary. If
| they want to extract more hours from you, they'll keep
| pushing until you say no.
| mosdave wrote:
| > When you work remote it's assumed you have flexible
| hours and when people need more or less of your time,
| they queue it up whenever it's good for them, your
| freetime and personal life can take the back burner.
|
| This is true only insofar as you allow it to be. My
| coworkers make none of those assumptions about me or my
| time.
| watwut wrote:
| Massive difference is that schools will be open. Which
| makes large difference on productivity.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I know more than a few engineers who were already working for
| Apple remote long before this pandemic. It is limited I guess
| in what teams support remote workers, but it isn't that
| uncommon.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| For reference, the original story is
| https://www.theinformation.com/articles/how-apple-is-working...,
| but it's hard-paywalled.
| dang wrote:
| The Information has unlocked it for HN readers now (thanks!),
| so we've changed the URL from
| https://www.macrumors.com/2020/03/30/apple-work-from-home-
| ch....
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
| archeantus wrote:
| It's amazing to me that Apple's refusal to support remote work
| has caused them to be caught flat-footed here. I doubt they
| considered the need to be remote friendly as a contingency plan
| in case of a disaster, but here we are. Hopefully more companies
| can be more open-minded in the future; to avoid doing so could be
| very risky to their business.
| marcinzm wrote:
| Which is rather short sighted of them or at least whomever came
| up with their business continuity plans. Pandemic and other
| regional disasters should be at least covered.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > I doubt they considered the need to be remote friendly as a
| contingency plan in case of a disaster
|
| I seriously doubt they didn't consider it.
|
| People don't seem to realise - global pandemic was already _at
| the top_ of national risk assessments.
| hinkley wrote:
| They just built a giant spaceship to try to get everybody in
| the same building, didn't they?
| summerlight wrote:
| Its capacity is something around 25k-ish, which is nowhere
| close to Apple's entire workforce. In fact, Apple owns tens
| (if not hundreds) of offices across Cupertino, Santa Clara
| and Sunnyvale; you can see a blue Apple logo everywhere.
| thelopa wrote:
| IIRC, the logo you see outside buildings is a random color
| from a set of 5 or so. They match the Apple logo colors
| they use on the employee badges, which are also assigned
| randomly.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Not everyone; there's still a couple dozen other offices
| scattered around the Bay Area.
| Redoubts wrote:
| Honestly that building was oversubscribed the year they broke
| ground. Apple probably has half the office space in
| Cupertino.
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(page generated 2020-03-30 23:00 UTC)