You know how you get all those Whatsapp forward messages that reads: “This question was asked in the IAS exam. Solve it if you are a genius.” Yeah well, we can’t be sure how accurate those texts are, but we do have a list of interesting questions that were actually put to prospective candidates at Apple.
How those guys fared is anybody’s guess, but if you want, you can try your hand (or rather brain) at solving these questions. If you can’t, there’s always Google and Quora.
Let’s start with the easy stuff. To a certain Software-side candidate, this was asked:
Q: If you are in a boat in the middle of the pond and drop an anchor, how does the water level vary with respect to shore?
Dude, if I am in a boat, in the middle of a beautiful pond, I’d have better things to do than calculate the level of water. Like, jeez, get a life, guys!
Here’s another one that proves Apple interviewers have given up on all things nice and pleasant…
Q: There are three boxes, one contains only apples, one contains only oranges, and one contains both apples and oranges. The boxes have been incorrectly labeled such that no label identifies the actual contents of the box it labels. Opening just one box, and without looking in the box, you take out one piece of fruit. By looking at the fruit, how can you immediately label all of the boxes correctly?
Apples. Oranges. Apples and oranges. Who bothers which box has what. We say you dump all the fruits in wine and make a merry Sangria of them. Just the thing you’d love during winters.
And, if you’re still hell bent on solving this problem (while drinking that lovely Sangria), you can get some help here on Quora.
Next up …
Q: You have a 100 coins laying flat on a table, each with a head side and a tail side. 10 of them are heads up, 90 are tails up. You can’t feel, see or in any other way find out which side is up. Split the coins into two piles such that there are the same number of heads in each pile.
Who has a hundred coins lying around in loose change around the house. And even if they do, who spends hours arranging them perfectly into heads up and tails up and oh, dear Lord, do something better with that money already.
And for those who are bamboozled by the question, All Hail Quora – the Provider of Answers!
And the weirdness just continues …
How would you solve an issue if you didn’t know exactly what the problem was?
Well, in India this has a very easy solution: BAN IT!!
Please name 20 different ways to remove balloons from an apartment.
Umm… You blow them out? No?
Is there an optimal orientation or direction when using the wrench to torque a hex head bolt?
Wait, wha – ?
If you have 2 eggs, and you want to figure out what’s the highest floor from which you can drop the egg without breaking it, how would you do it? What’s the optimal solution?
I would much rather use those two eggs to make myself some breakfast, thank you!
If I put you in a sealed room with a phone that had no dial tone, how would you fix it?
You can’t just put me in a sealed room! I have rights!!
You put a glass of water on a record turntable and begin slowly increasing the speed. What happens first — does the glass slide off, tip over, or does the water splash out?
Who’s asking this question – Macaulay Culkin from Home Alone?
How many children are born every day?
I would like to go home now, please …
Jokes apart, it’s not so easy to get through the doors of 1, Infinite Loop (that’s the address of the Apple building, people!). And it shouldn’t be either. But, I have a question of my own – If everybody at Apple is genius enough to field these googlies thrown at them, how come they still can’t find a viable solution to those flimsy iPhone chargers they keep selling? Huh, Apple, you have an answer to that?
