Apple Engineer Fired For Showing iPad to Woz

[Tamara]

Originally Posted by scottjl

hmm.. well... nook just got web surfing and games.. kindle could do that long before the ipad came out and is getting it's own app store soon. should we ship them off as well? seems every new ebook reader announced has games, web browsing and as many bells and whistles they can throw into it too.

what i don't get is why all the anti-apple people even hang out in this forum. one would think they would spend their time in forums with devices they actually, um, like.

Well said.

[scottjl]

Originally Posted by nikkie

Back ON topic - Apple is generally pretty evil about their hiring practices. I love the work they put out, but I would never work for them. So all of this about firing so and so or not doesn't surprise me a bit.

Actually their questionable employment practices only started with the 2nd Reign of Jobs. I was offered a job with them in the early 90's (Spindler's final years) but turned it down because I was unwilling to relocate to Cupertino. Back then their employment practices were far more liberal.

I've never met Jobs personally (only viewed him from a distance) but know several people who have had conversations with him, from what I'm told he is as every bit as demanding and controlling as his reputation.

It is odd that the engineer who lost his iPhone was not fired, but the one who showed Woz the iPad was. But there is a difference in their actions, the iPad engineer willfully displayed which was not available to the public (it was an iPad 3G according to Woz). The iPhone engineer's loss was an accident (taking the public story as truth). Accidents happen. Since the iPhone was remotely bricked we can assume that he reported his missing phone as soon as he realized it (following what was probably proper procedure). He may not have realized where he lost it, dropped it on a street corner, in a cab, at a friend's house. It may have never been found, or found and junked, or run over by a car. It was lost on March 18th, but Gizmodo didn't release their story until a month later. Since the phone was killed (and due to bugs in the beta 4.0 software preventing the remote location feature from working), Apple had really no idea to track where the phone was or what was happening to it.

Now if you believe the rest of Gizmodo's story, the finder did attempt to contact Apple and his story was brushed aside. Apple's great wall of secrecy worked against them.

Non-Disclosure Agreements are nothing to be fooled with. Woz himself questioned the engineer if he should be disclosing the 3g iPad (according to a recount I read) and it was quickly put away. I've been privy to information about non-released technologies for years and never spoken a word about some interesting things I've seen, even to family members. When a NDA says you don't talk about something, you don't, to anyone. Period. Maybe the iPad engineer was excited about the new device and showing it to Woz. But he was most likely bound by an agreement not to speak about it. He knowingly broke the rules.

Apple treads a careful line, they're incredibly popular and under a spotlight, but can you imagine the negative press if Mr. Powell did get fired?

And then there's always the theory that this was an elaborately staged media stunt..

[pshrynk]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Why can't you get it into your head that people are entitled to criticise Apple (or any other manufacturer come to that). This is a site that people come to to research their e-book readers and as such it would be pretty poor if we allowed any area of the site to become a spin-off of Apple's marketing department as you would seem to like to do.

Yes, the iPad is a revolutionary device, but, like many such devices, it suffers from some issues for some of the uses people would like to put it to. Pointing out those issues is not trolling - it is fair and justified constructive criticism.

Originally Posted by scottjl

shrug. if i have to listen to the same criticisms in every other post, i should be free to offer up the same responses too 'eh? or does that open discussion only apply to the critics?

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

If you really feel that the iPad is perfect then please say so and let others disagree. That way, at least a balanced picture is given to other people reading the posts.

Originally Posted by scottjl

excuse me, i'd appreciate it if you didn't put words into my mouth for me. i have never said the ipad was perfect and if you read my postings i've been quite vocal about what i feel are shortcomings of the device. what i don't do is hijack every thread whining about the same shortcomings over, and over, and over, or posting snide remarks about apple or others in these forums. and you certainly don't see me trucking over to the kindle, nook, sony, etc. forums to constantly criticize those devices.

as quite a few on here have pointed out, we got the point the sonist, jswindin and others do not like the ipad and have no intentions of purchasing one. so what's the point of continuously posting the same complaints in every thread? that isn't constructive criticism. that's whining, or trolling. as much as they like, whining on these forums isn't going to change a single thing about the ipad. steve jobs does not hang out on here. it isn't going to add flash, printing, a usb port, a sd card slot, an eink display, the ability to run the MacOS or a golden egg every hour. do we really need to read those complaints again?


hmm.. maybe the admins can create an "apple complaint forum" where people can go just to complain about apple and read those same complaints day in and day out..

/

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

No, I suggest you look up 'trolling' in a dictionary - it is not defined as "disagreeing with scott".



I didn't suggest that Apple would change anything as a result of these forums, after all, with the fanboys willing to put up with anything that Apple release, why would they bother. I suggested that people visiting this site for research purposes might prefer a balanced opinion rather than an Apple advert.

Please stop putting that 'don't feed the trolls' sign on all your posts - it just makes you look a bit too defensive. Actually, you're on my ignored list now so put as many of them up there as you like.

Originally Posted by scottjl

just gotta love the people who stop in. chime in. feel their opinion is the only valid one. and drop out.

Originally Posted by nikkie

Believe it or not, trolls do exist.

Everyone should be welcome to make their comments on the features that they love/hate about the devices in this forum, but at the same time, it doesn't feel necessary to post in forums you don't like that said forum shouldn't exist or shouldn't be given the positioning it has.

jswinden: It's pretty clear from the number of readers viewing various device forums that, in general, the Apple devices forum is typically second to only the Kindle forum. It seems pretty reasonable that it be given decent positioning.

Back ON topic - Apple is generally pretty evil about their hiring practices. I love the work they put out, but I would never work for them. So all of this about firing so and so or not doesn't surprise me a bit.

Originally Posted by Tamara

Well said.

Originally Posted by scottjl

Actually their questionable employment practices only started with the 2nd Reign of Jobs. I was offered a job with them in the early 90's (Spindler's final years) but turned it down because I was unwilling to relocate to Cupertino. Back then their employment practices were far more liberal.

I've never met Jobs personally (only viewed him from a distance) but know several people who have had conversations with him, from what I'm told he is as every bit as demanding and controlling as his reputation.

It is odd that the engineer who lost his iPhone was not fired, but the one who showed Woz the iPad was. But there is a difference in their actions, the iPad engineer willfully displayed which was not available to the public (it was an iPad 3G according to Woz). The iPhone engineer's loss was an accident (taking the public story as truth). Accidents happen. Since the iPhone was remotely bricked we can assume that he reported his missing phone as soon as he realized it (following what was probably proper procedure). He may not have realized where he lost it, dropped it on a street corner, in a cab, at a friend's house. It may have never been found, or found and junked, or run over by a car. It was lost on March 18th, but Gizmodo didn't release their story until a month later. Since the phone was killed (and due to bugs in the beta 4.0 software preventing the remote location feature from working), Apple had really no idea to track where the phone was or what was happening to it.

Now if you believe the rest of Gizmodo's story, the finder did attempt to contact Apple and his story was brushed aside. Apple's great wall of secrecy worked against them.

Non-Disclosure Agreements are nothing to be fooled with. Woz himself questioned the engineer if he should be disclosing the 3g iPad (according to a recount I read) and it was quickly put away. I've been privy to information about non-released technologies for years and never spoken a word about some interesting things I've seen, even to family members. When a NDA says you don't talk about something, you don't, to anyone. Period. Maybe the iPad engineer was excited about the new device and showing it to Woz. But he was most likely bound by an agreement not to speak about it. He knowingly broke the rules.

Apple treads a careful line, they're incredibly popular and under a spotlight, but can you imagine the negative press if Mr. Powell did get fired?

And then there's always the theory that this was an elaborately staged media stunt..

What does this have to do with the original topic?

Thread closed.