[danudey]

As others have said, it's Apple and they do not take kindly to other people leaking their technology/announcements ahead of time.

See also: the time that ATI's CEO told his employees that their chips would be powering Apple's to-be-announced hardware a few days before the announcement. Steve Jobs responded by pulling all of ATI's hardware from its demo units at the announcement, not mentioning ATI at all, cancelling a joint demonstration of the Radeon card that was going to be in the system, and never partnering with ATI again.

https://web.archive.org/web/20001216031800/https://www.zdnet...

[gouggoug]

From the linked article, it was a press release, not just to his employees.

> The incident began Monday when ATI, which supplies graphics cards for all Apple's current models, issued a four-paragraph news release that stated its Radeon processor would be featured in three new Mac models -- none of which were announced by Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) until CEO Steve Jobs' Wednesday morning keynote address.

[danudey]

Oh, I misremembered then. Yikes.

[formerly_proven]

> and never partnering with ATI again.

Except of course shipping ATI hardware for years afterwards, then also using nvidia, then dropping nvidia and only using ATI/AMD until transitioning to Apple Silicon.

[danudey]

Well:

1. They kept existing designs, since even Jobs wasn't so crazy as to demand a complete re-architecture of existing laptop models on a whim; plus they probably also had contractual obligations/pre-purchase arrangements

2. They switched to nvidia, but from everything I know they also hated working with nvidia (IIRC Jobs accused nvidia of stealing Pixar tech)

3. AMD is a different company than ATI (technically), and Apple of that era was different than the Steve Jobs temper tantrum era.

But yes, relevant details.

[NewJazz]

Also Steve Jobs Apple is probably much different than today's Apple.

[ifh-hn]

Sounds like a bit of a dick...

[therealpygon]

For violating an embargo and publishing a press release announcing products of another company that hadn’t been debuted? What “non-dick” response do you think is appropriate against a prospective partner that violated clear guidelines that defined their partnership which basically included “#1: Keep your mouth shut”, exactly?

[paulddraper]

They unilaterally issued a press release about Apple's upcoming release.

That's kinda a no-no for partnerships.

[MoonWalk]

He was, but this incident wasn't an example. That's a righteous punishment for an infraction like that.

[rib3ye]

Going scorched earth was kind of Steve’s thing.

[yonatan8070]

One word: "Courage"

[ifh-hn]

Not sure I understand? Sounds like a temper tantrum to me.

[kenferry]

Inside joke. Apple's marketing guy used the word "courage" as an explanation when removing the headphone jack.

[RajX-dev]

lol

[LPisGood]

That decision had a lot of detractors at the time, but it ultimately seems to have been correct.

[m463]

I don't know if I agree.

People who moved to bluetooth got arguably worse sound quality.

For wired headphones, there were very few lightning headphones and they mostly sucked.

Now with usb-c you can get a broader range of headphones (because other phones have gone with usb-c).

either kind needs a dac inside the dongle, or the shell of the headphone, or have a bulky external dac.

3.5mm is still king for decent wired headphones/earbuds.

[Shorel]

It was wrong then, it is still wrong now.

All my three phones have a headphone jack.

I don't have or plan to have an iPhone.

[_carbyau_]

It still has a lot of detractors but it is hard to beat such a sheer market flex.

[MoonWalk]

Four words: You're holding it wrong.

[kazinator]

I believe that the action does reflect Jobs' ego in the following way.

Namely, his belief that CEO == company.

Jobs would never take the view that the action of the CEO of ATI is actually one bad actor acting alone which doesn't represent what ATI wants as an organization, and is unfair and damaging to that organization and all of its employees.

The reason he would not take that view is because then he would not be able to believe that he is the single most important thing at Apple, overshadowing everything else.

If the leak had been the responsibility of some rank and file employee at ATI, with appropriate action taken against that employee by the ATI CEO, it is likely that Jobs would likely have reacted differently, because it then would not longer be seen as a personal matter between him and the CEO, where the corporations are just pawns in a game of teach-you-a-lesson.

[Hendrikto]

Ultimately, it is the CEO who has to take responsibility. They are the chief executive officer, after all. And they are well compensated for it.

[kazinator]

But did you notice how this was backwards: the company taking responsibility for the CEO's actions, in the court presided by Jobs.

[isodev]

It’s funny how exciting Apple Pay was when introduced, only Apple pulled the lock-everyone-in card and now we’re all using QRcodes.

[mixdup]

In the US you can use Apple Pay anywhere NFC payments are accepted. It's generally completely open on the acceptance side at this point

[account42]

It's anywhere close to open and requires vendors to seek approval from Apple for every implementation - Apple just has the market share to make everyone dance to their tune.

[mixdup]

Apple Pay works on any terminal that supports NFC tap to pay payments. There are thousands, tens of thousands of terminals in the US that are not "Apple Pay" that you can use it on

[josephg]

Same here in australia. We had NFC payments ("tap and pay") since ~2006. Nearly a decade before apple pay launched in Nov 2015. For us, apple pay was like "oh, I can use my phone instead of my credit card? Neat."

People use it everywhere here, just because its easier than carrying around a card.

[hylaride]

Most developed countries I've been to use NFC/Apple Pay. Where you see the use of QR codes is in China, Africa, and other countries that VISA/MC/AMEX hasn't penetrated (for either political or socioeconomic reasons).

[FabHK]

I'm in HK, most HKers use ApplePay with NFC, and don't use QR codes. Over in mainland China, however, it's all QR codes (with AliPay, WePay).

[ZekeSulastin]

I guess the "we" depends strongly on location - I've no problem using Apple Pay basically everywhere except Walmart.

[MoonWalk]

No idea what this is referring to...

[necovek]

Many countries in the world have local systems for quick, direct bank transfers encoded with QR codes to be used by local payment systems or local banking apps.

[NetOpWibby]

SHEESH