Reading tea leaves in the want-ads

tea leaves by chadao

Apple plans to expand iPhone OS to more platforms
[Via Infinite Loop]

Apple is planning to leverage its work in transforming Mac OS X to work on other devices—most specifically the iPhone—to power “new platforms,” according to a recent job posting. Those platforms will also be powered by “custom silicon,” like Apple’s A4 processor that powers the iPad.

As first discovered by Computerworld, Apple is looking for a full-time engineering manager to oversee “platform bring-up,” with the Core Platform team, part of Apple’s Core OS group. Such a manager would be responsible for low-level architecture, hardware drivers, firmware, and platform security for iPhone OS on “a range of hardware platforms, including iPhone & iPod.” The manager will also coordinate the software team with hardware and custom silicon teams in developing and prototyping new platforms.

Candidates for the position are expected to have experience with kernel, driver, and firmware development for Unix-based systems as well as an understanding of system-on-a-chip design. Experience with ARM-based SoC’s is preferred, of course—that’s the platform currently used in the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, as well as Apple’s Time Capsule base station (among others).

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Amazing. How many other companies have people using the want-ads find out what they will be doing? Well, lots of companies do such ‘intelligence’ work to figure out what their competitors are doing but this is an instance where it is consumer markets trying to get information for the consumers.

Apple has really created a self-sustaining interest amongst it customers for this sort of information, something few other companies can claim. I would postulate that no other company produces so much interest by its customers, and their surrogates in the media, as Apple. Apple patent filings are examined in detail by many web sites. The random comments of it executive officers on financial conference calls are likewise put under a microscope.

Not to gain a competitive advantage but simply to fuel people’s expectations. That is why when they really do give out information, such as a special event, Apple can break the Internet.

[Listening to: We Got a Hit (Extended Version) from the album “Endless Wire” by The Who]