I interviewed with Apple last year, and I wasn't asked to sign an NDA. That said, I didn't actually see anything that would have required one.

I didn't apply to Apple - they found me. A year later, I'm still not sure how that happened, since I don't know anyone there. It could have been through a public talk about user experience that I gave (the position was for UX director of the Apple web site), it might have been through something I wrote, or it could have been as mundane as a LinkedIn search.

I went through a series of phone interviews in the usual ascending order. Everyone I spoke with was very sincere and conversational, there were no MS or Google-style "tests" to go through. We looked at work I'd done, I talked about my approach to UX, we got to know one another a bit.

Eventually, they flew me out to Cupertino (I live in NYC), and put me up at a nice hotel near the Apple campus. I spent a full day in an interview room, meeting various members of the team I would be working with, both above and below the position I was being considered for.

The only time we left the conference room where the interviews were happening was to take a stroll over to the cafe for lunch. I went with most of the team, and we talked about day to day life at Apple, what it's like working with tight security, the fancy Apple buses that take employees from SF and the East Bay to work, people's personal projects and hobbies, etc.

I got some insight into the way Apple works, and predictably, there was none of the corporate silliness that you'd find in a less confident company, none of the buzzwords or process for the sake of process. I could see that they all worked incredibly hard, but the fulfillment on everyone's faces made me want very much to be a part of it.

In the end, I didn't get the job - they ended up either not filling the position at all, changing their team structure, I'm not sure - they left me feeling very good about myself and the experience, probably the best way that I've ever not gotten a job.

The main impression I was left with was that I had just wandered back to a pre-dot com era where people worked incredibly hard to make great things, rather than to maximize profits or burn towards an IPO or whatever. It was one of the most human job interviews I'd ever been through.

I think the period names you are looking for are "A New Hope", "The Board Strikes Back", and "The Return of the Jobs".

Honestly I always considered Objective-C to be one of Apple's secret weapon. Both higher and lower level then Java. Objective-C stays closer to the spirit of Smalltalk yet presents no hoop jumping when you need the performance of C.

That, and Cocoa was not designed by morons - protocols and delegation, not inheritance, rightfully rule the day.

Wow, some of this is even surprising to me. Interviews were 40 minutes? We only asked for 4%?

(Now that I think about it, the very first time we didn't think in terms of percent. Instead we decided on a valuation for each company, and the percent was whatever 6k per founder worked out to at that valuation. So it was probably 4 point something, not exactly 4.)

I still remember meeting Emmett and Justin quite well. What impressed us most was how good their demo looked. Also that they'd met in second grade. I remember thinking that Justin looked as if he'd just gotten out of bed, because his hair was standing on end and his eyes had that surprised look you have when you've been jolted awake. I didn't realize till later that he often looks that way.