Former Apple Software Engineer David Shayer – BGM Interview

David Shayer worked as an Apple software engineer for 18 years. He worked on the Apple Watch, iPod, and Radar, Apple’s bug tracking system, among other projects. He was an independent Mac software developer for a decade, and clients included Apple, Microsoft, Symantec and the U.S. Navy.

David told about how he learned to program, some of which was on an Apple II and some on a Mac in the 1980s. He went on to tell me about how he was hired by Apple. Twice. The second time he worked on the iPod file system and database. In the process he learned how Apple products are designed, and that included some great stories about Steve Jobs, his design sense, and the iPod team’s interaction with Jobs. There were other fascinating Steve Jobs stories. We finished with his revealing article about how Apple OS software development works.

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One thought on “Former Apple Software Engineer David Shayer – BGM Interview

  • Great interview. I still use my iPod 80 GB purchased in 2007. Guess that’s the old menu tree UI. I still wonder if power usage on the Watch is the full reason for no HH:MM:SS display except on the Activity Rings face. If it’s ok there it should be ok on other faces. Also, the Watch can display live video from iPhone camera apps which would seem to be more power hungry than small numbers being displayed. Granted the video is probably not being displayed for hours.

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