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The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple is actively looking to recruiting new senior-level executives to assist with the company's cloud-based services. The moves come as Apple undoubtedly seeks to build upon its iCloud services officially launched last month.
In recent weeks, Apple has been looking to recruit senior-level executives with backgrounds in Web-based software, according to people familiar with the matter. It has approached at least one prominent Internet entrepreneur since at least earlier this year about a possible position, according to these people, who say the details of the possible job were unclear. The company has also discussed its needs with recruiters, one of the people said.
According to the report, Apple is thinking about building new cloud-based web applications with an eye toward toward reducing the number of devices people need to carry with them on the go.
Apple has already been working to build up its cloud-focused team at the engineering level, and is now looking at filling out the more senior ranks. Toward that end, sources have indicated to The Wall Street Journal that Apple is looking broadly for talented Web-focused managers who might be good fits for the company at the director level or above rather than recruiting for specific positions.
Apple's iCloud effort is currently overseen by Eddy Cue, who was promoted to the senior vice president level back in September as his role has grown in both visibility and responsibility as he has taken on iCloud, the iBookstore, and iAd in addition to his long-standing position leading the iTunes Store and App Store effort.
Top Rated Comments
I know what Apple is trying to do with iCloud and their intentions are fantastic. In theory this should do things better than the "disk in the sky" metaphor that Dropbox creates (and I LOVE and pay for extra storage on Dropbox). Apple should definitely have a Dropbox-like component, but I like the idea that I don't even have to think to put anything in there. The overarching concept of iCloud is that each of my devices are just different views of my content and my content is constant. My stuff follows me around like memories and I can access (and change) those through any of my devices and make changes. The information is agnostic and always within reach. It's quite beautiful.
I don't know what Apple's holdup in explaining this simply to people is and why they can't seem to deliver. I know sync is hard. I've heard it a bunch of times, but surely some of the smart people in Cupertino can figure it out.
I think the worry is twofold, though. I don't know if my ideal of iCloud would satisfy many in the tech community. They seem to need more fine control more knobs to fiddle with. "What if I don't want this here, but I do what it here". It's a reasonable expectation, but not from Apple. Apple's job, for the mass market, is to make this first view I described above. Access to your everything from everywhere and it's all automatically local in each of those places.
Maybe we just need a better metaphor to understand it and maybe Apple needs to define a better metaphor to implement it more simply.
Maybe our songs, documents, and pictures are like remote control airplanes and our devices are universal remotes. Maybe it's like automatic sub versioning (but how do you explain THAT to the masses?)
Whatever they come up with needs to be summed up in a simple sentence. Until they can do that, then the answer isn't in its ideal form. That's Apple's biggest challenge before they can solve the rest of it.
Seriously? DropBox is the easiest mode of backup I've seen. Install it and use it like a regular folder, and you're done.
The next-best thing is TimeMachine, but that's not very easy if you're a notebook user (I never use TimeMachine as I can't be bothered to fuss with an external drive). Time Capsule is good, but expensive.
DropBox ftw.