I agree. This guy just sounds bitter that Apple doesn't think exactly like he does.

Bottom line, Apple still makes the best computers in the industry and are financially successful doing it. Letting employees run rampant posting all of Apple's ideas in public isn't going to help.

So this guy used to be on the OpenDoc team? Who cares? That was a lifetime ago. And OpenDoc never amounted to anything except a waste of resources. People don't want to customize their own software experience. They want out of the box software that just works.

I think that's commendable, for a corporation to march forward with one voice. That's corporate life. Apple is not some counterculture hippy commune. It's a serious-as-a-heart-attack business. If you want to do things your way, go set up a sole proprietorship consultancy, like I do. OTOH if you want to be part of the corporate culture and benefit from Apple's success and further your career, then you go along with corporate life which almost always means, you don't get to have your own corporate-blessed blog and blab to the world about the new products under development. That's sheer idiocy.

I'm sure Apple's employees sleep very well at night with having to go along with the highly polished corporate image. If nothing else they can pad their bed with their stock options and 401k's, which if they have had AAPL for a while are doing quite nicely.

This guy sounds just like posters here. If apple doesn't release a product that conforms EXACTLY to their idea of what the product should be or how it should operate they solemnly declare the product DOA (see MacBook Air comments for a example). Then they proceed to rant on about how Apple has dropped the ball, has become arrogant, has become the next Microsoft, all because Apple didn't listen to their "expert" opinions and "knowledge" of the market.

Like the old saying goes, "Those who can...do. Those who can't...become critics. Hilarious, really!

As for the corporate blogging...

If Microsoft's "openness" to blogging results in things like MajorNelson.com, I'd prefer Apple didn't. Most corporate blogs (IMO) are thinly veiled advertising that, while pretending to give an "insider view", provide the precisely crafted "news" that the respective PR machines want people to see.

To, me, that duplicity is extremely offensive. Unfortunately, it also seems to be exactly what most netizens want.

Apple is doing a great job with branding. Apple wouldn't have been able to build suspense if employees were free to blog about what they're working on. Apple is a business. The beautiful computers don't come from self actualized elves, it takes a lot of engineering and hard work.

...Apple no longer parades their engineers around? Because they would otherwise be targets for headhunters to hire them away to competitors - not that this could not happen anyway, but by keeping an anonymous front, it makes it far less likely, and far less easy for that to happen. It also keeps headhunters out of their employees' hair.

Yeah, I can se how certain hippie ideologies might not like the current Apple - personally, I very much like and appreciate an organization that executes well, and because of that dominates their new markets.

Steve got royally reamed by Billy Boy back in the day and now we have Windows. Steve learned then to shut his mouth and also the mouths of all those involved.

I like that Steve learned his lesson and learned it well. I'll be damned if I see another Bill Gates ripping Apple off and getting away with it due to no finalized patents or just stealing their ideas before they can get them released.

A lot of companies don't like easter eggs in their code (like mine). It makes their software appear unprofessional. Also, eggs sometimes destabilize code if the programmers go too far with them...

I'm just happy I get to wear jeans & a t-shirt to work and have flex hours. Stop whining, baby!

Has ol' Steve been droppin' the N-bombs AGAIN?

Is it me or do these grapes taste sour?

I still work at apple. Jens was/is the most difficult person at the company to work with.

All i can say is good riddance .

Disgrunted employee. "I didn't like this." "That's not what I wanted to work on."

Get over it. It's a job. It it were all fun and games they wouldn't have to pay you to do it.

I work at a company with 40 employees, of which I manage about 12, individuality is a great good for these 12 people, and a huge task for me. I can hardly imagine what a task it would be to manage a company with thousands of employees the way this guy would like, man be realistic.

These are precisely the reasons Apple is able to have a vision as a company. Because it operates in a vertical fashion with a few in CHARGE and a LOT in the TRENCHES. I've worked for numerous Tech companies that wish they could be like Apple, but there is NO WAY you can have a "vision" and unified directltion in a company that has 47 Vice Presidents???? Seriously...

That is funny. Microsoft just had one of its best Quarters ever.

Not so sure about that. Individuality works for Google.

[another example of people having an incredibly emotional and specific attachment to Apple and its products. Seriously - Apple's a company, not a movement, not a religion, not a girlfriend.]

Sure. But sometimes that's the energy it takes to make a dent in the universe. You know? It's called "signing on."

There was a time when Steve would run out and get Hawaiian pizza for these folks while they worked overtime to meet deadlines.

Apple always found a place for small "skunkwork" type projects, it's part of the company folklore.

Yeah, there's been a change. It comes with old age. It's when Democrats calcify into Republicans.

Sad, unecessary, counterproductive, IMHO.

it's going to be tough for this dude to work for any company after such blabber...

corporate culture is often misunderstood, even in todays wacky world...

like those other computer companies don't have HR problems....

blah