It is a warm fall day here in SF Bay Area. The sky is clear and people are busy. Business as usual. Yet I am feeling slightly blue because I just left Apple, the company I worked for the last 7 years.
No, no. I didn’t manage to get fired from making dirty jokes. I left the place myself in search for new career opportunities. I might end up starting my own business. I might end up joining a web startup gig. I might end up regretting leaving Apple and go back. Who knows what might end up happening?! Right now, I’m feeling a tiny nostalgia and much hope.
I’ve always pushed myself forward by letting go what seemed like a harmless path. I was aceing all exams and was ranked towards the top of the class when I was in Japan. All seemed well but I wasn’t satisfied. Bored to be exact. That’s when our family heard about my father’s opportunity to head a new office in Hong Kong. I was the first one to say “hell yea, let’s do it!” It must have been a nerve wrecking experience for my parents because I was already 2 years away from going to college. Going to Hong Kong meant I had to learn to speak English, relearn every academic material in English, and prepare for college. But they were supportive and I managed to get myself into UCBerkeley. People called it a miracle. I called it a fruit of optimisms and hard work.
I happen to believe Apple inc. is still the best company to work for . I believe almost all consumer technologies that came out in the last several years borrowed from Apple’s success in one way or another. There is no doubt the company will push forward with more innovations. But for the last year or two, I’ve been bored. The same boredom I felt back in Japan. I knew I had to move on, but wasn’t sure what I’d do so I decided to quit anyways. I have my wife to worry about, but no kids and no mortgage. I never felt so blessed about not owning a house!! This will be a great sabbatical experience!
For now, good bye Apple and thanks for the great years…. and I almost forgot. Happy Halloween!!!
Nissan GT-R’s been a highly anticipated release. So much that it has quite a reputation to live up to. GT5 Prologue Demo owners have been the first in the line to try out just how the car performs.
I’ve been fortunate to try out the demo (which by the way is PS3 and Japan exclusive). So far, I am loving the GT-R. If someone is playing GT5 for the first time, s/he may find GT-R to be a massively understeering car. But it really isn’t. You’ll see how snappy this car is on the straight and through the corners. Especially with the stability control loosened, you can drift your way through the corner fast.
Here’s my 4:29.480 run. My apology in advance for the lack of quality.
Every time a new OS X comes out, I get a phone call/email from my friends saying “errr….. hey bro, I installed the new OS X and my machine’s acting up. What’s going on?”
80% of the time these symptoms are curable. But I’ve definitely had fun trying to fix the impossible. Sometimes, for one reason or an another, a system update can cause your production system to die, and requires a tedious process of recovering and reconstructing your OS environment.
As Leopard release nears, I thought I’d remind everyone about the importance of backing up your system. Leopard is actually supposed to fix this with the built-in automatic backup system called Time Machine. However, even Time Machine can’t help you if your OS gets screwed up in the process of upgrading to Leopard. Please read my post on aqua211.com and consider backing up your system before upgrading to Leopard.
In the last couple of years, I noticed a lot of similarities between the two companies. Nintendo’s recent designs and packaging are reminiscent of Apple’s design philosophies. Nintendo is the one company I recognize as copying Apple correctly, unlike numerous and infamous Chinese knock off companies. But wait, the similarities between the two companies do not stop there.
Nintendo and Apple both make most of the money by selling hardware. Many people don’t seem realize what this means to the bottomline of these companies. By never giving into the idea of selling hardware at cost (in order to popularize the platform and make money on licensing) your profitability is directly linked to the hardware sales. It may seem risky to rely on hardware income only when they have perfectly fine software platform to monetize on. However, for these companies with the tremendous market share growth this business model is perfect, because it gives them the chance to perfect their platform and not have to worry about making money in everything they do.
Secondly, Apple and Nintendo are both “total solution companies”. People often call Apple a hardware company because the company’s profit relies mostly on hardware profit margin. But saying “Apple is a hardware company” is a brainless conclusion to draw from people who don’t know Apple. Apple is a company that sells both the hardware and software. The price of software is practically included in the hardware. The software divisions including Mac OS X, iApps, and ProApps are told to make the best software to compliment the hardware. Same goes for Nintendo. Wii OS and the menu system are pretty revolutionary and the setup procedure is a snap. By creating the integrated solutions, 1) they can ensure the integrity of the workflow and not have to worry about variations, and 2) they can take steps to ensure their hardware and software work in sync elegantly.
Finally, Apple and Nintendo are extremely profitable at the moment. Both companies are loaded with money and their market caps are growing strong. Why now? This says a lot about current trend in the market. Both the PC and gaming industries have reached the threshold and went from “growth period” to “maintenance period”. Most users already own a PC and/or a console, at least in the non-third world countries. Consequently, recycling users stopped worrying about the “horse power” or “number of polygons” when purchasing the products. Instead, they are now worrying about “cost of ownership” and “ease of maintenance”. For many users, Apple’s and Nintendo’s solutions are powerful enough while ensuring the seamless and easy experience. That’s what the consumers of today are looking for. They don’t want virus hell or driver conflicts just to get the 10% performance gain by building a custom PC. They don’t want $500 game consoles that force you to upgrade your living room to HD. They want all in one package that works without any consequences.
Nintendo is now the 2nd largest public company in Japan’s stock exchange, only behind Toyota. Apple is now twice as big as Dell (market cap wise) and more than half as big as Microsoft. And this is only the beginning. We all know Wii is nowhere on the store shelves to be seen because they continue to be sold out. Macs went from estimated 4% market share to 8% market share in the last year. The two companies still have a lot to offer.
