This can't be Apple's first development centre outside of California. I'm sitting about half a block away from their Vancouver office. They acquired SchemaSoft a while ago and parts of iWork for OS X and iOS are built there.
An Israel engineering team saved Intel in the mid 2000s from its Netburst architecture decision. They built a higher performing CPU than the Pentium 4 that was also more energy efficient. Apple's decision is probably to just move closer to where that talent is. I wonder if they'll actually try to poach those Intel engineers.
CPU designer poaching has a long and glorious history.
In the '90s Intel drove a pretty good stake into the PowerPC by building a CPU design center in Austin and hiring away critical parts of the Motorola team which was working up the street.
In the '70s MOS picked up a disgruntled Motorola team and made the 6502.
Motorola won lawsuits in both events, but lost the wars.
I believe iWorks is developed in Pittsburgh (or something like that). Some of the token-recognition code (e.g. detecting calendar events in free text) was developed in France. So I'm not sure it's entirely true that this is the first non-Cupertino dev center.
I know it's not as central to their business as flash memory, but as far as I know all their music software is still being developed in Germany. (Apple bought a German software company to get pro audio tools.)
Given Apple's voracious appetite for solid-state storage, I am surprised this didn't happen sooner.
Only thing I'm not sure of is why this is interesting news, particularly to the wider, non-Israeli HN community. Feels like a case of "OMG LOOK ISRAEL IN THE TITLE".
edit: Oh, just now noticing the inevitable politics in the comment thread. Le Sigh.
This is not the first dev centre outside of California. The team that originally developed iCal was apparently based in France. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICal
By the article the dev center will be located in Matan which is an incredible place located in Haifa. It's location closed to the Technion brings the best brains to work for the dev centers of most of the international enterprises located there. (The Technion institute brought 3 Nobel prize winners in the last 7 years with a yearly budget of about only 200M$)
So it's like the silicon valley except the size. The size of the Matam area is less than 2000ft^2 and in this small area there are dev centers of Intel, IBM, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Elbit,NDS, Philips, GE, Zoran and many more. Now, get back 2 lines before to read about the size of the area where all these are located in. And if this isn't incredible then I don't know what is!
Imho this is somewhat a dead place. There might be a big chunk of semiconductor companies over there (what is the reason that Apple opens up there I guess) but brains wise it's a bad place. It's virtually impossible to hire good developers over there because everybody is located in the center from the beginning or moved to the center because there is no companies in the Haifa to work for (Intel, IBM, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Elbit,NDS, Philips, GE, Zoran doesn't really count as work places for most of the people)
By the name I assume you're an Israeli and while it's true that Matam has an high ratio of global corporations per sqm, I think that when people (both in Israel and outside it) think of "the Israeli silicon valley" they think more of Tel Aviv and its surrounding area (i.e. Herzliya). If Apple will purchase Anobit then they will have a beachhead in Herzliya... although two offices, both in Matam and Tel Aviv/Herzliya is pretty common (i.e. Google, IBM, etc.)
Yep, and Haifa is a beautiful little town on the Mediterranean with the famous Baha'i Gardens and Mount Carmel. I used to go by this area with my then-girlfriend, now-wife on my way to the beach.
It is truly offensive to what black africans endured under apartheid, to compare Israel with South Africa. My guess is that the people who say such things have never visited Israel and never visited South Africa under apartheid.
'African-American student leaders from a variety of historically black colleges and universities took out full page ads in numerous American college newspapers Thursday, displaying an “Open Letter to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP),” to convey that they were offended by SJP’s use of the term “apartheid” at recent Israel Apartheid Week events at campuses across the country.'
Ever wonder where a millenium of European anti-semtism disappeared to following 1945? It transmogrified itself into prejudice against Israel.
There are countries that truly are comparable to apartheid (e.g. Saudi Arabia, where non-muslims are not permitted to enter Mecca). But it is always democratic Israel that gets equated with apartheid, not undemocratic, discriminatory Saudi Arabia.
Palestinians aren't allowed to enter huge portions of the West Bank, including big sections of Hebron where only 500 Jewish settlers live among 300,000 Palestinians. There are whole highways that are Israeli only. Jewish settlers steal private land and then are defended by the IDF as has happened in Nabi Saleh.
One set of rules is enforced on Palestinians and another for Israelis living in the same area. That is the definition of apartheid.
'Palestinian' denoting citizenship rather than race. I can 100% assure you that there are Druze and Bedouin checkpoint soldiers.
South African apartheid discriminated based on the race of South African citizens. Israeli only roads because Palestinians are not Israeli. They are Palestinian. The word youre looking for is occupation.
The only requirement to become an Israeli citizen is a religious claim. Apartheid based on religion vs race is not much better.
I consider the occupation terminology BS because there has been no progress on the two state solution for 50 years. It is one country defacto ruled by Israel. Israel tries to claim the Palestinian territories as a weird hybrid state, not independent but not part of Israel, just so they can claim to be democratic, but they are not.
The only requirement to become an Israeli citizen is a religious claim.
Unless you misunderstand the meaning of "requirement," you're either misinformed or making things up. There are plenty of Christian and Muslim citizens of Israel. There are even Muslim Israeli Arabs in the Knesset, Israel's version of the Parliament. In short: being Jewish is not a "requirement" of citizenship.
What I was referring to was the Israeli Law of Return that gives citizenship to any Jew that applies.
But as far as Arab Israelis, they are discriminated against in all sort of ways including discrimination encoded into laws. Israel proudly claims to be a Jewish state and they intend to keep it that way by discriminating against Arabs in any way they see as necessary.
> What I was referring to was the Israeli Law of Return that gives citizenship to any Jew that applies.
So the country established by all the western powers as a home for Judaism shouldn't permit Jews citizenship based on religion? You're an idiot and you can't comprehend it and are publicly flaunting it.
Seriously read a book with a viewpoint not espoused by a neo-nazi group and you might actually learn something about the Israel-Palestine issue.
Israel isn't the only country that's actively discriminating against Arabs, they're just the easy one to point to. Let's forget that the Caucasus are in the middle of a religious war led by Arab religious sects attempting a religious coup in many parts of Russia. Let's forget that the Jews have been persecuted for thousands of years and Israel is surrounded by people trying to kill them simply because their Jews. Hey no shit, those ancestors of the jews who survived all their families being killed and robbed don't like that shit. Who knew!
You're complaining because Israel isn't being considerate to the poverty stricken Palestine that elected a terrorist organization as its leaders and that fire mortars into Israeli cities and use UN outposts so Israel can't return fire. Hey here's news to Palestine not spending money on things that destroy themselves could get you out of poverty.
Sorry I give Israel kudos because if any country was launching mortar strikes on US cities it would have been carpet bombed to rubble inside a week and with or without a religious or racial motives, no one would be complaining.
Under apartheid, black people were not allowed to be citizens. They were not allowed in Parliament. They were not allowed to vote. Which makes your claim of Israeli apartheid is overblown to the point of being ridiculous. Muslims, Christians, Jews, black people, white people, and Arabs can all vote. Everyone can sit in Parliament, as Muslim Arab Israelis have and currently do. Non-Jews can still be citizens, and citizens are not separated into different legal classes like under the South African apartheid system. Back your argument up with something more concrete than your handwavey "all sorts of ways," or don't make it at all.
A closer analogue to Israeli discrimination based on religion is America's race- and class-based discrimination. As one example among the hundreds available, prison sentences are many times higher for crack cocaine abuses than pure cocaine abuses -- because the American underpriveleged (who are often minorities) are more likely to use crack, and the American wealthy (who are often white) are more likely to use pure cocaine. The Israeli legal system inarguably has systemic bias, but it's much closer to American legal systemic bias than South African apartheid.
> What I was referring to was the Israeli Law of Return that gives citizenship to any Jew that applies.
Also known as Jus Sanguinis with the twist being that one can convert to Judaism. Judaism is a remnant from a time when nation and religion were interchangeable terms. Hence why conversion is possible.
And in case you were unaware, this isn't the only way to acquire Israeli citizenship. Non-Jews can acquire Israeli citizenship through a typical naturalization process.
> including discrimination encoded into laws.
I challenge you to find an Israeli law that discriminates against Israeli Arabs. The closest you'll find are laws which specify state-funded opportunities only provided to those who have done civil or military service.
For someone who has gone so far as to boycott Intel products because of their connection with Israel, you are shockingly ignorant about very basic facts.
- The racist Jewish National Fund, which manages a big chunk of Israeli land exclusively for Jews, was authorized by the Knesset to refuse to lease land to Arab citizens.
- Arab citizens are not allowed to obtain citizenship for foreign spouses while Jews can.
With regards to the second law, that is a result of national security concerns. Spouses of Arab citizens are not allowed to obtain citizenship automatically (they can of course, as I stated above, go through a naturalization process) because if that were the case it would effectively be the Right of Return.
Stop trolling racist crap around HN. If your brain can't comprehend outside racial and religious barriers then I'm sure we can get you pointed to a popular phpbb forum for your particular brand of anti-Semitism.
There are no racial or religious barriers to naturalized citizenship in Israel. Also it would be moronic for a country set up by all the western powers as a home for Judaism to not permit Jews based on religion. This is as absurd as claiming its racist that Immigration in the US allows separate lines for US citizens and for non-citizens. When you claim all Jews are citizens of Israel, you kind of have to make it easy for them to get in, because you kind of aren't a citizen if you have to wait 3 years and get naturalized like everyone else.
Yes you can be racist against your own people. That's like saying a black landlord isn't racist because he thinks all black people are unemployed and won't pay their rent. Of course its racist.
Anti-Semitic speech is speech against Semitism. I don't get how that's hard to understand.
If Apple was doing business with North Korea would you flag any comments about the regime?
Meta:
When you flag something you're not supposed to also comment on it since it is better to shun and ignore spam or offtopic material than it is to try to bring attention to it, according to the site guidelines:
If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.
Also, since I'm making a comment on the actual story it is not spam or offtopic.
> If Apple was doing business with North Korea would you flag any comments about the regime?
Israel is not closed to Western investment. Apple getting this through did not require significant action on the part of local government. In the North Korean case, the regime has to be talked about.
The reason I brought it up is because the Israel issue affects me personally since I try to maintain an Israel boycott. There is a growing group of boycotters around the world. Things are already hard enough with Intel having a big facility over there. This new facility by Apple is big news to us.
