Tim Cook: Technology Should Serve Humanity, Not the Other Way Around

Yes.

Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.

I opened this up just for fun. I'll start by saying I do think Apple is doing quite a bit in this regard and are pushing things forward towards better working conditions. Having said that, what is still considered "acceptable" and worthy of touting is pretty sad, although I guess it is compared with where we they were just a few years ago.

Flipping to page 9, they list 98% compliance with international working hours limits, touting "Full-time doesn't mean you should work all the time." Compliant in this case is a 60-hour workweek with 1 day off every 7 days (presumably this is not an occasional duration but rather a normal week at a fixed wage). If this is the case, technology sure isn't serving these unlucky humans very well.

Even if that's true, it does not mean they have done enough.

What do you base that claim on?

That's a fair point - the article pretty clearly has a different focus than what I was alluding to. My point is more that if Tim Cook is going to make these sort of surface level musings about how AI/tech will need to remain tools of humans I think it's important for him to realize that ultimately there are still humans who are tools of other humans. Also I personally think that 'technology' permeates and oozes into nearly all aspects of our lives at this point. I think you're correct in that strictly domain knowledge regarding technology wouldn't involve discussing employment practices; however, real world applications of tech very much so involves a discussion of employment practices. When Cook makes comments that "he’s not comfortable with automating the human entirely out of the equation." -- I understand he's focusing on the integration of AI into human systems but I'd be more than willing to bet that he is perfectly comfortable with automating the labor out of the equation - and therefore a human out of the equation - by cutting costs through a fully automated production line.

Didn't Apple make special deals with Ireland? Doesn't sound like everyone else was offered these.

the ones who own the technology

That's easy. The most common thing to do with my iPHone is hit the button.

They overloaded the button to load Siri if its held for even a fraction of a second too long. 99 times out of 100 I don't want to use siri but she continually pops up.

Trying to click to get back to the home screen.... here's Siri.

Trying to double click the button, to kill an app..... here comes Siri

So to answer the question....

1) They made Siri enabled by default, something that I can't see myself ever wanting.

2) They made Siri come up using the button, again something that almost always means when siri comes up its by accident and not indented.

Apple isn't immune from "dark patterns" in their UI. The Siri example above being the most egregious example I can think of.

Allowing the user to choose their default assistant (Google, Cortana, Siri, ) would be a good start.

EDIT: I didn't read the question carefully enough. I don't believe Apple has dumbed down the UI to push people to Siri.

That being said, giving users a choice over the assistant, browser, etc. would be a good thing.

I'm sympathetic to that idea and feel like it could potentially hold a lot of weight, yet Tim did turn the tech juggernaut he was bequeathed into a watch band and sticker company.

> I equate this with the shift in games, where earlier games simply gave you a good control system and let you figure things out, where as now, its more about ensuring that the player has a good experience by gently nudging them towards a goal.

A bit off topic, but I always see this mentioned when it comes to modern gaming, but fail to see the evidence.

Older games came with instruction manuals (Nintendo had the most exquisite ones and they always came in color). When I was a kid, I would voraciously read it on the way home, heightening my anticipation for the ride home. Although I do wish more opening tutorials were optional and not tied into a game's story

Modern games are more mechanically complex, period. Compare the control system in Nier: Automata to any pre 3D Legend of Zelda game (or any other game really). Letting you figure things out would is an exercise in frustration. One example of this is the Dark Souls series which is more hands off. Every new game in the series, I have to go online to look up the controls, power attacks, etc. for every new game in the series and spend 4439 deaths getting the parry timing down. It's frustrating and breaks immersion. Having a npc sparring partner to hone your parrying instead of the enemy who kills you with two hits would have me from breaking a couple of controllers in frustration.Also, often times you can turn off the hand-holding by turning off UI/HUD elements in the options (this is the way to play Assassin's creed)

What I think has happened is that yersteryear's easy difficulty is the default normal, normal the default hard, etc. I feel that a lot of reviewers don't do games justice when they base it on easy or normal mode. In good games, the higher difficulties often require a higher level of tactics and more diverse gameplay. If you haven't played Halo on Legendary mode, you haven't really played Halo because you miss out on the brilliance of the set pieces and the increased tactical complexity required to survive. If you play the Last of Us on normal, the preponderance of ammo breaks the immersion and mood of the game. Same goes for Horizon: Zero Dawn...if you're not playing on the hardest level, you don't ever need to employ advanced tactics to take down/hunt the machines...no need to lay traps, plan out your attacks, etc. It especially becomes a very different game.

The Uncharted series, the Last of Us, the Bayonetta series, Horizon: Zero Dawn, etc. all have controls that, IMO, are superior to (or at least equal) older games

This is my first thought as well. Apple has done wonderful things as far as accessibility for the handicapped, and usability in general. I can't think of a more incorrect statement than the one claiming otherwise.

Apple is extremely user-hostile, they make it hard to do anything they don't want you to do with YOUR device. It's simple things like using uncommon screws internally, or soldering in the ram, or requiring a certain set of bits at the front of your hard drive, or making it so the batteries cannot be removed.

Part of the 24 hr marketing response team?

Seriously, I've never met a real person who didn't feel screwed by the planned obsolescence and painfully staggered hardware updates that lag behind the curve. Apple's beginning ideals != to the Apple of today.

Apple is great at UX, the person you responded to didn't say otherwise. What they aren't great at is empowering the subset of their users who want to use the machine on their own terms.

Instead, Apple shoehorns whatever they think is the right thing. The headphone jack is one example, the buy vs bring your own music is another. They do this because of both UX concerns and business reasons. But that's not all that matters, as Tim Cook just said, which is ironic.

Apple is a big company, and I'm sure that there is a lot of diversity in how individual people and indeed teams or departments go about making their products.

But during the Jobs days at least, despite Apple's reputation for user experience excellence, I think it was a company that was at best indifferent towards the experience of its users per se. What it was focused on was delivering a clean, powerful, beautiful device.

In a lot of ways, that focus created, as a side effect, a good user experience. Things like really smooth scrolling were born out of a desire to not have the device ever seem janky or struggling, for example, but it resulted in a pleasant user experience.

The App Store featured extremely strong reviews and protections to make sure that people's dumb apps couldn't screw over your battery or slow down your phone or otherwise compromise your experience. That limited utility, but created a clear, consistent, easy user experience.

In other ways, it led to shitty user experiences. My wife could never tell when her phone was ringing. Its ring was soft compared to Android phones and the vibration was much more subtle. But a loud ring or an emphatic vibration don't lead to a prettier, more iconic device. They'll never be features that a tech reporter will do a feature on. They're easy for other phones to do as well. So Apple didn't care.

The keyboard for iPhones was awful for years. Only a single spelling suggestion, no ability to get anything other than letters without hitting a chord key, hard to tell if you were in capitalization or lower-case. But it was a pretty, uncrowded keyboard, despite being just incredibly slower and more painful to use than equivalent Android keyboards. So Apple didn't care.

It was an interesting time, full of UI highs and lows for Apple.

Well, most of what Apple did for UI was low-risk for them, and self-serving.

And they did some more altruistic things beside.

But compared to their power and scale , has Apple been much more altruistic/benevolent compared to other companies ? Have they taken large risks for that ?

They care about user experience insofar as it attracts users to their platform -- just like every other company in the space. Apple (arguably) just happens to be a little better at it than Google, Microsoft, etc.

Oh but it is true, and I will happily offend them. Each and every one of them, on an individual basis. Who are they to be shielded from criticism?

Apple has often been secondary on UX. Not always - sometimes they can nail it. But it's been more often they miss, or backburner it over other priorities.

Do other companies suck more? sure. But apple has lost its way, or found a much more selfish one, and you see it play out in every gesture they make.

Sorry not sorry. Apple needs a kick in the pants.