AN OPEN LETTER TO APPLE CEO TIM COOK REGARDING APPLE'S SEPTEMBER 9TH SPECIAL EVENT LIVESTREAM
Dear Tim,
On behalf of every sweat-drenched IT person bewildered by their circumstances in front of a sellout crowd today, I would like to sincerely thank you for giving us our most stressful day of the year.
Please allow me to provide a little context. Today, I wore the hat of the IT guy in charge of setting up your livestream for our workgroup. I had everyone primed and ready for a great afternoon. After a month of hype, expectations were high, and I was not about to dump on this. The meeting invite was sent out a week ahead of time. I had the conference room reserved, my laptop charged up, and even brought my wireless hub in case the corporate network was too bogged down. I logged in early, just to be sure that I got a connection. I shepherded my whole workgroup up to the 19th floor, and had them all skip lunch and bring it to the event.
"Looking good," thought I, until the livestream started.
Circa-1978 colorbars on the screen, with an obscure message about a Truck. Looped pans of the audience. Freezing, latency, and a melting-screen pattern to rival any UIViewController transition. Error messages that I could no longer connect to the server. Most disturbing: a mysterious overdub of a Chinese translation in the audio.
As I frantically swapped cables, refreshed Safari, and reset my wifi connection in an effort to make it work, I couldn't help but note of the comments of my belovedly patient and understanding coworkers. You may find some of these amusing:
- "Well, this is a bust."
- "I'm never coming to another one of your meetings."
- "Hey! I can actually understand some of that Chinese!"
- "Learn how to run a meeting."
- "Can we spoof the user agent string and run it in Chrome?"
- "This was pretty much the worst meeting I've ever attended"
Perhaps the most painful was from my Boss:
"Did you accidently click on the Chinese version of the livestream, and leave it running in another tab?"
No, Boss, I did not. Unconvinced, he whipped out his iPad, logged in, and only after there encountering the same Chinese overdub did he believe me. (At least I could breathe a sigh of relief--so flustered was I at the time that for a moment there I wondered if I _had_ somehow found the Chinese version...)
Anyway, twenty minutes later, after ripping apart and repeatedly reconnecting every cabled device in the room, collaborating with the other techs that inevitably want to lend a hand, I finally capitulated. I suggested that we adjourn for the day--a suggestion warmly seconded by everyone in attendance.
As children, we develop coping mechanisms for things beyond our control. Sometimes, as an adult, we need to reach back and lean on them to get through a particularly rough day. This afternoon I left the building, went to a diner, and got a chocolate milkshake. It made me feel a lot better.
Upon return to my desk, wits somewhat collected, I started to wonder. "What the heck just happened?" I thought to myself. "That was the worst meeting of my life!" A quick Google search revealed that I was not alone. I'm sure you've seen the tweets, news, blog posts, and other stories, so I won't repeat them here, but suffice to say that a lot of IT people took a beating today.
Sad to say, in the heat of the livestream issues, I have only a vague idea of what was released today. I'm trying to muster the courage to pull up the saved video, but I'm not sure if I want to re-live that meeting again. I might stick with reading an news article.
In closing, I have one request: please make the livestream work next time.
With all the love in the world,
Keith Miklas
p.s. I can't help but feel for the guy who had to tell you about this. Here's how I imagine the conversation went:
TIM: "Hey Person-In-Charge-Of-The-Livestream!"
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: Hi Tim.
TIM: "What an exciting day!"
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: Yes. Exciting.
TIM: "How did the livestream come out! I can't wait to see it!"
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: Uh... well... we've got good news and bad news."
TIM: "I'll take the bad news first. Business before pleasure! Ha ha :)."
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: Ok, so, where to begin..."
TIM: "At the beginning!"
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: So, there were a few glitches, especially with the audio"
TIM: "Feedback on the mic? That happens sometimes."
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: "No."
TIM: "Was it crackling again? Sometimes that happens if it brushes against my clothes."
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: "No."
TIM: "Did I breathe into the mic? I hate when people do that on conference calls. I always tell them to either go on mute, or stop breathing! Ha ha :)"
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: "No."
TIM: "So what was it?"
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: Um... so... apparently there was a Chinese translation included in the livestream."
TIM: "Well, of course, for our Chinese audience."
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: Well, yes, that would be a good thing.
TIM: "We're an international corporation, and in over 100 countries! We have to accommodate non-English speakers."
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: True; however, in this case, it was playing at the same time that you were talking."
TIM: "What?"
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: "While you were talking, there was a Chinese person talking."
TIM: "At the same time?"
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: "Yes."
TIM: "While I was talking?"
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: "Yes."
TIM: "You mean like when you're watching a video, and another video ad starts playing, and it's annoying as heck?"
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: "Yes."
TIM: "What was the scope? Just in China, I hope!"
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: "No."
TIM: "Everywhere?"
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: "Yes."
TIM: "Worldwide?"
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: "Worldwide."
TIM: "Would you mind stepping into my office for a moment?"
PERSON-IN-CHARGE-OF-THE-LIVESTREAM: "Sure, I still have to tell you about the melting screen..."
TIM: "Melting screen!?"
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