To me it seems like somebody is afraid to make a tough decision. There have been indications that Ive wants to get out for quite a while. So they offered him more and more to make him stay. As the article says, they promoted his C-level job to a A-level one. They gave him ever more freedom, power, and probably money. Now came the point where his willingness to leave became too big. The obvious choice would have been a full divorce. Of course that is hard. But now Apple is basically outsourcing one of its core competences, product design. That is both dangerous and embarrassing for such an iconic company.
> But now Apple is basically outsourcing one of its core competences, product design.
The leadership of the design team is still in place. All Jony has been in recent years is essentially a Creative Director overseeing them. It's not like all of Apple's product design is now being handled by an outside company.
Everyone is talking about the keyboards, but I want to know about the Mac Pros. I'm assuming Ive is responsible for the cylinder, but is he involved in the return to the cheese grater, or did that happen while he was off designing glass doors at the Apple building? The keyboards aren't the first stinker on Ive's watch.
Learned helplessness runs wild at Apple. If you listen to them, they say that with the trashcan they had "designed themselves into a corner", and that's why it took them six years to design a new enclosure. As if it is beyond the capabilities of one of the world's richest and most powerful corporations to design a new enclosure every year.
The trashcan Mac Pro was OK. The design was perhaps uninspired but it did provide adequate cooling for the 2013 Xeons that they were using. It so transpired that the design did not provide ample cooling for Intel's recent CPUs. But so what? Just change it.
The actual problem with the 2013 Mac Pro was operational. They decided to build it in the US. They made a big, high-tech factory with a large degree of automation. That's a great way to build a high volume product. It's a terrible way to build a $3000 niche computer.
>The actual problem with the 2013 Mac Pro was operational. They decided to build it in the US. They made a big, high-tech factory with a large degree of automation. That's a great way to build a high volume product. It's a terrible way to build a $3000 niche computer.
Which is why I think the recent Apple has Tim Cook's operational focus all over it. They couldn't close it down but they had to sell it as long as they could trying to amortised the cost. Same with MacBook Pro Keyboard, they were stubborn and cost focus to try and itch out another generation. Just because of the cost involved.
You could see Steve Jobs doing it differently, bring an MBP home to use it, ( As he used to call himself low cost Beta Tester ) saw the problem himself, demand it be fixed within 4 weeks, or get a new team to design a new Keyboard.
I think he cares about product quality way more than numbers on balance sheet. He might publicly dismiss it, ( very likely ), but quietly he would have the team working on a new keyboard and ship it, only to sliently provide extended warranty to MBP at a later date.
This cost minimization seems quite strange when every year people were anxious for a new Pro. How hard it is to make the trashcan bigger and put in more airflow? (Bigger fans with the same RPM.)
And sure, it might cost some, but Tim should count lost profit (opportunity costs) too.
>How hard it is to make the trashcan bigger and put in more airflow? (Bigger fans with the same RPM.)
My guess is that because they tried to manufacture and assemble in US, so they had very high automation for the TrashCan, which also meant these automation are likely not flexible enough to change the design. I don't think the Mac Pro was about cost though. Because Mac Pro unit shipment would not have made up for that investment anyway. I think it was merely an exercise for Apple's operational supply chain. And Apple's design team had lack of time and had to focus on many other more important issues. That was why it took so long. Basically the design department in Apple were not scaleable.
Design bandwidth limitation is pretty plausible. (I have no idea how hard it is to change automation, but my guess is not that hard/expensive. After all assembly robots are not custom built, they are probably programmed like the simpler CNC machines.)
Plus on top of that probably in Apple's hivemind the cost of coming out with something bad is more than the opportunity cost of missed profit.
> They made a big, high-tech factory with a large degree of automation. That's a great way to build a high volume product. It's a terrible way to build a $3000 niche computer.
The hidden cost of high wages: automation induced product inflexibility.
It's not even limited to low-volume products: if you had 100x the demand and the production capacity to match, you'd still want to run your expensive automation pipeline mostly unchanged for almost as many years as with a low-volume product. Only some of the up-front cost of automation is fixed per product change, another part is fixed per throughput * product change and this part will hit you at 100/day as hard as at 10000/day.
Your use of the term learned helplessness matches no definition I'm aware of. Can you elaborate on what you mean by this, and also point to what evidence you have that it runs wild at Apple?
and that's why it took them six years to design a new enclosure
It didn't take them six years though. All the evidence points to the iMac Pro being the intended successor to the trashcan Mac Pro. The iMac Pro was released ~4.5 years after the trashcan Mac Pro. And even the iMac Pro represents a departure from original plan A, which had to have been simply updating the trashcan Mac Pro. IOW, to start development of the iMac Pro, Apple first had to come to terms with the 2013 Mac Pro being a failure. If we assume that took them 1-2 years, it puts the lead time for developing a pro machine at 2.5-3.5 years. The new Mac Pro was announced in April 2017, and most analysts seem to agree that at that point the project had only just started which confirms a lead time of 2.5-3.5 years.
The trashcan Mac Pro was OK. […] It so transpired that the design did not provide ample cooling for Intel's recent CPUs.
Obviously the 2013 Mac Pro was fine in 2013. That's not the argument we're having.
But so what? Just change it.
Which is what they did. But first they had to recognize there was a problem. As I argued above, that had to have taken at least one year, but more likely two.
The actual problem with the 2013 Mac Pro was operational.
Hindsight is always 20/20 as they say. If it had been possible to provide steady incremental updates to the Mac Pro, like Apple did with its predecessor, building it in the US probably wouldn't have been much a problem. But even disregarding that, I don't think it's fair to argue that the actual problem was operational. Sure, it must have been a complicating factory, but if the Mac Pro was a high priority for Apple, they could have easily decided to just write off their US factory and all its robots, and move production to China. The problem if any, was that the Mac Pro was simply not a high priority for Apple.
> As if it is beyond the capabilities of one of the world's richest and most powerful corporations to design a new enclosure every year.
Other companies may churn out new enclosures every year, but I don't think this is how Apple rolls. Apple products are developed over the course of years, not months. I think typical Apple hardware has a lead time of two years.
That's why Apple products are built with more sophistication than any other companies product. They have enough time to get every detail right.
It's also why they are somewhat slow to respond to trends. Two years ago, they realised that they needed a new Mac Pro, and that the trash can was a failure. Now, two years later, they have an answer.
When the iPhone 5 was released, it was too small. The market was moving towards much bigger phones. Apple missed the trend, and it took them two years to fix the problem with iPhone 6.
Some things have even more lead time. The keyboards from the 2016 Macbook Pros were a failure. They need a new keyboard. They are obviously working on a better keyboard, but it's not ready yet. While they are working on a better keyboard, they are trying everything they can to reduce problems with the current keyboard (silicone cover, different alloy for the switches, etc).
I hope that the new keyboard will be in the rumored 16" Macbook, but right now no-one outside of Apple knows when it'll be released.
What you're describing sounds like learned helplessness.
yes they plan products and then expect them to be in the market for 3 years before a redesign but the keyboard bandaid fixes don't mean that it was impossible for them to backtrack and release a different keyboard the next year it just means they were unwilling to hit the stop button and move out of their learned cadence to fix an issue that every single person who buys that product will encounter.
So they screwed up and instead of saying "oh, we screwed up, ok we're going to have to fix this to minimize the number of customers who will buy $2000 faulty devices" they instead decided to just carry on as normal, fix the design in 3 years when they'd be doing the redesign anyway and just try a few minimal bandaids on the solution which we know don't work because every bandaided keyboard is in the replacement program by default.
This could have been fixed, they could have shipped another design in a year the only two possible reasons why are money or just unwillingness to change cadence.
>That's why Apple products are built with more sophistication than any other companies product. They have enough time to get every detail right.
Wouldn't go that far, I get the feeling you haven't even really looked at what competitors are making these days the gap has well and truly been closed and in a good number of cases Apple is actually behind.
Everyone is talking about the keyboards, because they don’t work reliably and have an exorbitant failure rate so that 10-30% of all 2016-2018 MBPs had problems like double inserts of keys.
They look great but it is a terrible design. One of the jobs of a laptop enclosure is to let heat dissipate and aluminum is just not great at that, and it is not getting better with these smaller spaces.
Aluminum is a fantastic conductor of heat. Most heatsinks are made of aluminum. Do you mean that its texture doesn't provide adequate surface area to conduct heat to the air? Or that the thickness of the enclosure itself is inadequate to be a proper heatsink regardless of the material used?
The Macbook has flaws, but it's construction is not one of them. The metal body alone puts it leagues ahead of the majority of the PC laptop market, which is cheap plastic crap, all the way through.
Is aluminum the most heat efficient material? No. Is it better than plastic? Holy shit yes, in appearance, in heat dissipation, strength, feel, and durability it's head and shoulders above plastic.
I can't stand working on our fleet PCs anymore at work. Every time you move them, they creak, and squeak, and shift. $6,000 PC's that sound and feel like cheap ass Walmart guff.
At least my $4,200 Macbook Pro FEELS like it's worth that money.
I disagree that aluminum is a better case material. Plastic cases can definitely exist and not creak. Rubberized plastic is even better for feel.
In terms of heat dissipation, aluminum is a better choice, but there exists plenty of engineering experience in properly cooling laptops in plastic shells.
Suppose you're Jony Ive, and you've designed so much for Apple-- computers, fonts, even Apple Park-- what would entice you to leave?
I speculate his reason must be to design something massively popular, that so many people in the world touch every day, that blends computers and architecture. And that his reason must a project so big that it can't reasonably fit inside Apple Park, both in terms of physical space and in terms of manufacturing partnerships where the team must be on site.
I speculate he's leaving Apple to design the Apple car.
Replies: 1) If Ive wanted to retire, I'd expect he could; he has mountains of money, and has achieved tremendous success in the marketplace. 2) If Ive were forced out, I'd expect an announcement akin to "will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook", not "founding an agency with Apple as a client". 3) Why leave now? Because Apple just bought a big piece of the car project, Drive.ai.
> I speculate he's leaving Apple to design the Apple car.
If you think Gruber is correct ("You’re either at Apple or you’re not" rings very true to me), Ive is done with Apple. The completion of Apple Park represents the culmination of his transition to architecture.
The problem becomes where he would go (that is, what he would build) next. He's designed the HQ of one of the biggest companies in the world down to the smallest details. A company so deeply intertwined with his own persona and DNA. Bizarrely, I can see him somewhat disappearing off into the sunset - he might still do some design work when he chooses and have some passion projects, but outside of Apple, it's deadlines, limitless budgets, ability to acquire anything it deems necessary, etc. maybe he's achieved all he wants to?
Why does he have to go somewhere? Why not retire? Or do something he like? The problem with designing iPhone or any Apple products, is that he has so much constraint he cant really do much creative thinking any more. You need a new iPhone every year, and new design every few years, with tweaking of design in between. The design has to be able to be manufactured up to 100M unit a year. I suppose they even measure output with units per day. Materials will now have to be recyclable. And they cant cost more than X amount etc.
Then there is burn out I presume? He said he was deeply tired after doing the Apple Watch. That is roughly 3 years after Steve Jobs pass away. Steve was his best friend, and they both lift each other, and I assume Steve would motivate people, challenge each of these genius do something they thought they cant, but somehow all managed. Without their spiritual leader I assume the heavy burden is quite hard to bear. And people would burn out...
May be when Steve was around, working was fun at Apple. Now it is more like work for him. And so he decided to leave and enjoy life doing things he like.
Why Bizarrely? The guy is probably worth millions if not tens of millions. He can probably live a lavish life off of 4% gains for the rest of his life and there is nothing wrong with that.
I would guess hundreds of millions, if not way more. I'm sure his salary was reported as being $30m base + $25m stock per year back in 2011.
I said bizarrely because in these situations the media & general public seem to always think that people like this can't survive without work. The guy is undoubtedly incredibly passionate about design and almost certainly a workaholic. The grandparent is talking about him going on design the future of automobiles - maybe, maybe not. It felt like I was suggesting something against the grain, which was why I prefaced it with "bizarrely".
He owns a (large) private jet. He's worth many tens to hundreds of millions, if not billions. Probably owns significant Apple stock plus average of at least mid six figure salary times decades.
given the expected reaction to apple park by employees and high level VPs (one who reportedly refused to work there), i am sure ive will continue to find “success” in his quest in taking the rectangle and circle to the extreme.
How many companies besides Apple can afford to bring Ive on as a contractor and implement his level of perfection? How many companies will continue investing until they have the perfect color “white”, the new ceramics, or the unibody designs that require completely new tooling?
I worry that Ive will quickly grow frustrated when he realizes that he is a consultant, and at the end of the day, it will be the company that makes the final decision.Will Ive want his name to be associated with an object that was deemed “good enough” by the hiring company?
Understanding the culture of an organization, the strengths and weaknesses of its executives, what the organization is capable as a whole.. that kind of access and connection comes when you are deeply integrated within it. As consultant, you are an external party, an outsider. No matter how good your ideas are, it is up to the client to decide whether or not they will be implemented.
I see Ive as the next Terry Gilliam trying to pitch Brazil! to a set of executives, except Gilliam was able to work with Criterion to ultimately release a 3 version box set: his version, what the executives wanted, and what was released in the theatre. Three completely different movies that highlight the clueless executives and the genius of Gilliam.
Or maybe he spends some time with his family and is a secret force behind the scenes, donating time to universities and design schools, trying to encourage the next generation.
How many companies besides Apple can afford to bring Ive on as a contractor and implement his level of perfection?
Being able to say "Designed by Ive" is worth a lot. Companies will find the money just as they find money for Porsche design collaborations, Pininfarina design, collaboration with popstars, sponsorship of sports teams, etc.
I know he's previously talked about wanting his kids to grow up in the UK. Perhaps having finished Apple Park closes one chapter of his life and finally gives him a good enough of a reason to go back to the UK.
I thought he was already splitting his time between London and Cupertino around the time he took on his grander title several years ago. Apple Park was likely a rewarding (new!) endeavor, but their largely iterative product line probably doesn't inspire like it did in earlier years, and he's built a well-oiled machine of a design team to carry the torch (I agree with Gruber on needing a design decider, though). Being halfway around the world from your true home for work with hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank gets old. He's definitley made his dent in the universe.
He's probably semi retiring, so he's setting up a company where he can set his own hours and projects and do whatever he wants while getting a percentage of the revenue.
This. Designers and creatives move on eventually because they have to to get the juices flowing again. Even Ive was constrained by "what it means to be Apple." Now, he doesn't have that constraint. And no, I don't think he alone fully got to design what it meant to be Apple.
Just an opinion, but the most capitalized company on earth spending less than $10m on some engineering talent or patents from Drive.ai shouldn't lead one to speculate.
Agree with your line of thinking though. It's more interesting to speculate on what could lure someone like that away, than just assume the mundane.
The biggest thing to entice most people could be an individualistic legacy. Under Apple, Ive's designs are not his own. With a separate entity, Ive probably intends to have products under his name that have massive impact.
A car is significantly more complicated than its design language. It would probably make sense to contract for designing the next Tesla car, which he would not be able to do while at Apple.
If this is a foreign concept to you, research the many companies that Cisco spun off to develop new technology and subsequently spun back in. While not a common pattern it is a recognizable one. It is possible that is what is happening here.
Jony Ive had been the CDO for years and the results weren't great. It's not that Jony Ive isn't a great designer. It's just that it's difficult to judge your own work, no matter how good you are.
What they need, more than a CDO, is someone who they have to run every design by, someone (EDIT: with an impeccable eye) who is not afraid to say no. In other words, someone who can fill the role Steve Jobs used to play.
I, for one, nominate the great John Siracusa, for this job.
Without knowing Apple internally, the point is that the staff under the COO (if the "C"s have their own divisions) are the back office, the accounting, HR, IT, and other shared services accross an organization. There isn't necessarily creativity as a mission.
Cook doesn't (and recognizes that he doesn't) have the necessary design eye.
I think I agree with @UIZealot that there's a need for a design approval that isn't directly involved in the design process, e.g. the SJ world would presumably have SJ saying yes/no to Jony, but in the post-SJ world it was Jony saying yes/no to essentially just Jony. I assume those decisions would be fairly one sided :D
Cook would've been perfect if he had that critical eye, and he would've been the perfect replacement for Steve Jobs then. Alas, he's an operations guy, design is not really his forte. And that, my friend, is the reason we are in this nine circle of flat design hell.
I can imagine that there is actually nobody who wants to be the new CDO. I mean.. you would have to take over the design lead for the world's most valuable company. Also take over what I've created and build up on this. But also be prepared to be talked down by existing folks at Apple to follow their expectations, like "you have no clue what we really need".
Someone with great bravery and mental strength would be needed here.
I am not that into design at all so excuse my question: is there someone who would probably be the perfect fit for this position, at least design-wise?
I sort of agree and disagree with it. I think they need someone like jobs with design taste and product / user focus in mind. More like a Chief Product Officer.
>Today’s MacBooks are worse computers but more beautiful devices than the ones they replaced. Is that directly attributable to Jony Ive? With these keyboards in particular, I believe the answer is yes.
Until now design was king at Apple.
Will his departure bring balance back, or will design lose out to the other teams?
I have a very big gripe with that.
Making stuff look beautiful is not design. Or at least that's only 10% of the design job. the macbooks are beautiful but they have many design issues.
Was it? Design is "how it works" and Apple products have been "working" a lot less lately (cylinder Mac Pro with no room for future processors, laptop keyboards, two different kinds of Pencil depending on which iPad you have, etc).
well maybe they will start designing again for the customers that made Apple Mac products popular. I swear for the last five or so years Apple was designing for themselves and with the Mac Pro for people they thought deserved to be their customer and not the customers they had; as in the ones that badgered them for a replacement at a similar price point to the trash can which itself was designed for who?
I'm not sure which segment in particular you have in mind, but whichever one, I'm pretty sure the answer is "no".
The big problem with that is that they are utterly enormous; all of their "traditional" niches combined are dwarfed by their casual user base. Creative professionals are just not a big market, comparatively; neither are folks who just want a great unix laptop. (And command line nerds in particular are becoming less and less welcome; this is why I'm probably typing on my last Mac.)
But the second problem is that, even if somehow Ives leaving meant that the scales fell from every Apple employee's eyes and suddenly they all wanted to put back the scripting languages, make machines specifically dedicated to running Pro Tools or After Effects and bundle every mac with a copy of 3 in Three, they still have a multiyear product pipeline. You don't turn that ship quickly.
Meanwhile Microsoft is bending over backwards to cater to the command line geeks. Would not have predicted this a few years ago. Apparently they’ve remembered the old ”Developers developers developers” mantra again.
They have to, because their dev things were simply not cutting it. They were wholly inadequate for this new era of ... web. Then now 10+ years later they realized the cloud is a thing. And Azure does quite well, so why not make everything more like Azure? They were so far from the peloton, they bought GitHub and "integrated Linux" to try to keep folks using Windows.
Gruber is trying to read the tea leaves, but I think he's overconfident in his read. Also, I really don't get the Monday Night quarterbacking that's evident throughout his whole piece. Maybe he's upset, maybe he's held back and now feels free to offer opinion --but I think it's just that. An abrupt opinion.
That said, I wonder who Apple will try to snatch? Who are some other good designers out there? MS has some nice HW design. Google to me does not. Nokia? I'm sure there are some others, but can't think of any ATM.
I'd don't really agree with what you and many other commenters seem to be saying that Gruber is "Monday Night quarterbacking" or bashing Ive. I mean, he says Ive is a "preternaturally talented designer" but that post Jobs that "software design has declined and hardware gone wonky." Does anyone really disagree with that statement? Ive is amazing but Ive and Jobs were magic.
I think the bigger thrust of Gruber's piece is his closing sentence, with which I wholeheartedly agree: "I don’t worry that Apple is in trouble because Jony Ive is leaving; I worry that Apple is in trouble because he’s not being replaced."
It's a good time to reflect just how unique/valuable Steve Jobs was to the process. He was one part computer nerd and one part aesthete. He possessed the ego to follow his gut and also the humility to put himself in the end user's POV, allowing that POV to change his mind. All of that while wielding the power and stomach to make uncomfortable, ruthless decisions based on that intuition, that ultimately led to the delight of users, convention be damned. What shoes to fill!
Ive was certainly a spiritual (and decision making?) successor. I agree with Gruber that someone needs to be in that role to be the chef with the final say when necessary, and I hope whoever it is tries to bring the same mix of talents that Steve did.
I have a different take. How can he on the one hand say he’s supernatural but on the other imply he’s quite replaceable (but Apple’s mistake is not replacing him).
I don’t get the abnormal bashing _now_. He’s had some mild criticism before but now suddenly there have been intractable issues since Jobs died. It comes across as opportunistic and makes me doubt him.
A differently/less gifted replacement is better than no replacement. My understanding is that now, the software and hardware design teams both report to the COO. Gruber rightly points out that this structure is not like Apple under Jobs, who famously bashed companies led by salespeople as opposed to designers.
Has it occurred to anyone that Tim might have pulled off something amazing and no one is even aware of it? Given all the hardware/software design getting a bad rap, Tim has made this Jeff’s problem. If Jeff can pull it off, he is worthy of becoming a successor, otherwise he will get booted out in the next scandal.
I respect John Gruber but on this one I find it a bit too easy to lash-out (rightly or wrongly) on Jony Ive only when the man stepped-out of his job at Apple. It would have been a bit more courageous to have said these things when he was still there.
More on the point though, I'm not in the camp of those believing that in this day and age in a company as big as Apple you can assign all the mistakes (or successes) to a single man. For instance, to think Jony Ive being even remotely responsible for the keyboard debacle seems preposterous to me.
To be an executive is to be responsible for execution. Someone who allows major blunders to happen under their watch is not a successful executive, whether they were personally responsible or not.
You can't make excuses as an executive. You can't say "there wasn't enough quality control," because you have the power to create the quality control process necessary to prevent the blunder. You can't say "I wasn't aware there was this risk of keyboard defects," because you have the power to create reporting structures that will surface such risks to all key stakeholders, including you. You can't say "I didn't have time to focus on functional deficiencies or risks because I was focused on aesthetics," because you have the power to hire and delegate to the most talented employees in the world; you have the power to do whatever is necessary so that you do have the time to focus on what needs to be focused on. You can't say "I didn't worry about functional risks because I wanted to focus on design," because your job is to execute, not to do what you want to do.
Steve Jobs told employees a short story when they were promoted to vice president at Apple. Jobs would tell the VP that if the garbage in his office was not being emptied, Jobs would naturally demand an explanation from the janitor. "Well, the lock on the door was changed,' the janitor could reasonably respond. "And I couldn't get a key."
The janitor's response is reasonable. It's an understandable excuse. The janitor can't do his job without a key. As a janitor, he's allowed to have excuses.
"When you're the janitor, reasons matter," Jobs told his newly-minted VPs. "Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering."
"In other words,' (Jobs continued,) "when the employee becomes a vice president, he or she must vacate all excuses for failure. A vice president is responsible for any mistakes that happen, and it doesn't matter what you say."
> to think Jony Ive being even remotely responsible for the keyboard debacle seems preposterous to me
On the contrary, he is definitely responsible. First, because he was the head of design, and keyboards are part of the overall design. Second, because he pushed for or accepted the push towards ever thinner and lighter products, at the expense of almost everything else. And third, because of the push towards more uniform/beautiful/symmetric designs at the expense of functionality (limited ports, USB-C only, cursor keys on the keyboard).
He is very much responsible and I think what we saw from Apple in the last few years in the Mac lineup was below expectations. I've been saying for some time that it seemed like Jony Ive was running rampant within the company, not using or loving Macs himself, but deciding about their design, with no one in a position to say "No" (like Steve Jobs did).
Also, me not being a Mac user at all, it confuses me why people keep using the inferior external keyboards. I get that in the Macs or the MacBooks you make tradeoffs with things you do like, but if the external Apple keyboard stinks at being a keyboard, why not a sleek, functional Logitech device instead?
Suppose I'm saying, there's some shared responsibility, not just John Ive being responsible.
That is actually an interesting question worth thinking about.
I think that top Apple management (at least Tim Cook and Jony Ive) does not use computers that much. If they do, they connect exactly zero external devices. And they are definitely not "power users" who would appreciate function keys (or even the Esc key for that matter). Tim doesn't mind the annoying delay from Spotlight when pressing Cmd-space to search on an iPad (the system loses several keystrokes because of a silly pause), Jony doesn't mind the half-second animation when switching spaces on a Mac, which you can't turn off. They don't do these things often enough to matter, and they do things slowly.
Also, if Tim's keyboard starts failing, how quickly do you think he gets a replacement? I'd bet it isn't two weeks.
This is different from Steve Jobs, whatever you might think about him, he did love computers and he at least felt the needs of more experienced users.
I think the design failures of the recent Macbooks (and the trashcan Mac Pro) are a reflection of how top management at the company uses and thinks of computers.
The external keyboards, by virtue of having an additional millimeter or so of key travel, are devoid of all the issues that plague the laptop iteration of the keyboards. A lot of people actually love this keyboard style, they just don’t love being deprived the normal use of their machine because the keyboard could not stand up to normal use and abuse for even a short period of time.
I use a Logitech at the office — I don’t know exactly which model, but it was in the $80-90 range. While I think their mice are genuinely brilliant, the keyboard is awful, mushy garbage. While my preference is for a heavy mechanical keyboard, they tend to be loud and tiring to work on for extended periods of time, and Apple’s keyboards are a genuinely good balance between design, tactility, loudness and overall layout.
They are, however, far too expensive. Even on sale, my Magic Keyboard with the numpad was more expensive than any sensibly-priced mechanical keyboard, and that’s beyond silly to think about.
Ah, looks like they shrunk that keyboard by an inch or so since I bought my old apple keyboard - the newer one is about the same as my current keyboard. I use a vortex pok3r - I got it for the mechanical switches and programmability in addition to the size.
> or the prioritizing of thinness over battery life.
Apple’s current MacBook lineup starting in late 2017 (i.e. the thinnest laptops and with butterfly keyboards) have the best battery life of any Apple laptop ever made.
I don’t recall Gruber ever complaining about the battery life of Apple’s thin devices. Do you have a link?
But the battery life could be better if they would just keep the size and weight the same. How many people wouldn’t be willing to have a slightly thicker/heavier laptop for more battery life?
But battery life is good in ideal situations but when you start doing anything CPU/GPU intensive, battery life isn’t that great.
>Gruber has not been shy about bashing Apple’s design decisions with either the keyboards
Oh hell no, he was VERY late to the keyboard issue. The whole Keyboard issue finally broke out because one journalist got fed up with her keyboard failing so many times, and saw so many people had the same problem, she decide to run a new story on it. That was in early 2018 if I remember correctly.
I find these keyboards — specifically, the tales of woe about keys getting stuck or ceasing to work properly — a deeply worrisome sign about Apple’s priorities today.
His initial review of the keyboard before the problems started appearing.
The keyboard is, for me, a mixed bag, and it’s probably the one thing that many people will like least about these machines. I find less key travel to be less pleasant while typing.
But this article also points out why he didn’t have the problem personally. He famously uses a 20 year old extended mechanical keyboard.
But I’m so far out there on this issue that I use a 20-year-old Apple Extended Keyboard II, with mechanical key switches, at my desk. I’ve never liked any notebook keyboard compared to an actual mechanical keyboard
I used to read Gruber religiously. But no longer. He's still every bit the eloquent writer that he used to be. But I no longer respect his integrity.
If he "don’t think Ive ever should have been put in control of software design", presumably he doesn't like the iOS 7 redesign either. But I've not heard a bad word from him before today.
Gruber spends more time doing his commentary on The Talk Show podcast and less on his blog. He's been consistently critical over the last few years; I too used to think he was a bit too favorable based on his writing, but since I started listening to his podcast, it's clear that he's much better at communicating orally.
>he doesn't like the iOS 7 redesign either. But I've not heard a bad word from him before today.
He was critical of iOS 7 from the start, felt it was wrong and wondering if it was Hardware Design taking over Software Design where the two have little to no overlap.
He must have at least tried the keyboard once before production. On the first key press you can tell it is terrible, and if you push all the keys you'll see some of them don't work. There's no way he didn't know how bad it is.
No you cannot. When you first use the keyboard it feels amazing[-]. That doesn’t stop it from being hot garbage, sadly.
[-]:If you are interested in shallow throw and uniform, lack of pitch, keyboards. Which the keyboard snobs will tell you is not an aesthetic configuration possible in that space, but they would be wrong.
While I don’t like the lack of a physical escape key, I actually enjoy the new keyboard. In terms of blame, the executives are responsible for these decisions. That’s why Scott Forstall was let go when he oversaw the release of Maps.
> easy to lash-out ... the man stepped-out
Phrasal verbs are spelled with two words: to lash out, he stepped out, he took off, to shut down, to set up. Their corresponding nouns are spelled with one word: a takeoff, a setup, a shutdown, a step-up.
Exactly, the more I think about it the more I see a Forstall-maps-redux-pattern at play here. That is build a narrative where all the blame on current hardware designs must be attributed to Ive, because now being out it is a convenient scapegoat and doesn't hurt nobody at Apple.
It takes a forward thinking company to let go of a top level person that is running the show in a big way, it is also time to take a fair look-with-hindsight at what has been going on.
The numbers are excellent at Apple but you have to ask whether this is Apple's work or the demands of the marketplace. Everyone wants a mobile phone, although a tough market to be in for the likes of HTC/Nokia/Blackberry (who got it majorly wrong), could Apple have done better?
Same with computers. Everyone has one but could Apple have done better had they listened to the customers?
Steve Jobs was right to get rid of the floppy disk and Flash even though that was deeply upsetting to some people. That set a bit of a trend with Apple being prepared to get rid of some features that people really liked such as the MagSafe power adaptor. Then there were the dongles. In ten years time people will look back on that not as a bold but correct decision. Ultimately many people were quite inconvenienced by that unilateral decision.
There are products such as the Mac Pro that are nonsensical. Then when it comes to actual computers rather than lifestyle accessories, Apple don't really do server things. So if you are an Apple shop then you don't have rack-mounted Apple computers, they come from somewhere else.
There are lots of people that cuss the mice, the keyboards and much else. If you are a PC or Linux user then these mutterings are kept to oneself. You just know that you don't question these things as the loyal followers of the cult are okay with these things.
Sometimes it requires someone to be moved sideways to take a revisionist view grounded in realism. We have been worshipping false gods. Apple have been pissing off the true faithful in the developer community. The choir might not have the numbers of the congregation but they are a key demographic for getting the congregation to show up. As a developer myself I have never been converted to the Apple flock. So I have a little bit of perspective and I am not blinded by the Apple Way. But Apple could have got this market entirely to themselves, all they needed was to have just the one developer grade laptop and just the one developer grade desktop.
Developer grade? It just means having a case you can open and upgrade, the required ports and a user interface (hw + sw) that 'just works'. Even if there isn't the same margin made on these products they are 'halo', the rewards come when every developer moves on to spec. Apple for their respective companies and friends/family.
China is a bit of a problem for Apple. Huawei products are getting a bit of press at the moment but if you look at the quality and design you can see some incredible stuff going on. It is hard to say Apple are the best in comparison.
Anyway, Apple is a forward thinking company and whatever the real reasons they have mutually agreed to let the design boss go and to take a different direction. I am hopeful that the customer rather than the designer will come first and that we will be seeing great products come out of Cupertino that don't get non-Apple people like me in silly arguments about Apple design hubris.
I would go John Gruber one further and say that Apple needs not just a chief design officer, but a chief PRODUCT officer. Steve Jobs was not just a design guru, he was a PRODUCT guru. Design is an integral element to Apple products, but product strategy is more than just design. The obsession with thinness that Gruber cites is one way in which Apple's design - and product - strategy has gone off the rails, but there are many others. What is the Macbook product strategy and segmentation strategy anymore? Why did it take FIVE YEARS to get a redesigned Mac Pro out? I could go on..
Best comment I have read so far. While Apple certainly is a company, where the head designer is rightfully one of the most influential positions, it should be the lead position as it was in the recent years. The golden years were those, where Steve Jobs was the chief product officer. The person, who can tell designers when they start making something look nicer but less useful. The MacBook keyboard disaster was only the tip of the iceberg, where the keyboard just wouldn't work properly. But it runs much deeper. The whole non-serviceability of their computers and the limitations which cut down in the usability. Just think of the glued together iMacs. The iMac is already a controversial product, having an all-in-one machine as their main desktop product. But why should is it impossible to easily access its components for the limited things you can do with them? As it turns out, the early iMacs were reasonably accessible. I still have a G5 iMac, which can be opened with a single screw drsiver.
So unless it was someone else forcing these decisions onto Ive, I think he really was missing Steve in recent years and there was no one at Apple to really challenge him. And however good and talented anyone is, I think to go from a good idea to a great product, everyone needs to be challenged at each step. Only through the following discussions the necessary refinements can be recognized and achieved.
> I don’t worry that Apple is in trouble because Jony Ive is leaving; I worry that Apple is in trouble because he’s not being replaced.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand why out of all of the skill sets that go into creating a product, "design" should be the only one with a dedicated C-level executive. To me it seems much healthier for the needs of the mechanical engineers (for example) to have equal weight with the needs of the designers.
"Design isn't what it looks like, design is how it works".
That is: the idea of some clear separation (or worse, tension) between mechanical engineering and "design" is, to my best understanding, antithetical to what has made Apple an interesting company that makes interesting products. Mechanical engineers are doing design work. So are metallurgists and material scientists, as well as typographers.
This is a late thursday press release, and this is an uncharacteristically quick response from Gruber. He's shooting from the hip, but I think he has a valid concern, and it's a concern I suspect is shared by lots of folks who have been using apple computers for a long time: who is actually responsible for making product decisions?
Because design is extremely and uniquely important to Apple’s success compared to its competitors. It’s why you know who Jony Ive is and have no idea who is responsible for mechanical engineering at Apple. (I say this as an engineer myself.)
The importance of design at apple is completely irrefutable. All I am saying is that Apple should avoid more butterfly switch fiascos, and one way to do that is to put the designers on a level playing field.
Industrial design includes functionality. Ives' problem wasn't that he put design over other things; it's that he put form over function in his design decisions and had a very narrow set of design principles (minimalism, thinness) that he followed too religiously.
Designing is strategy engineering is detail. Engineering sits one level below design in the decision chain. It's the same reason the CTO is C-suite and the VP of Engineering isn't.
Damn. This is not good. But I understand. He has other interests. And it’s time to check those out. That the other remaining design people will report to the COO sounds like design by committee which could be terrible. But then it could be great. Time will tell.
I don't understand the unnecessary tone John Gruber uses in this article.
> Fuck this “sir” shit. We don’t have titles in the United States.
The US isn't the only country on the map (surprisingly enough, I know). And who cares if Jony Ive is starting his own thing? Why would that be "pure spin"?
Apple is not in its renaissance days anymore - whilst Jony Ive might have been critical back then - Apple is just not the same company anymore. There are a lot more people responsible for the "magic" these days (which is a good thing).
He's not saying that Jony Ive starting his own thing is pure spin. He's saying that Jony continuing to be substantially involved in Apple design is pure spin.
And regarding addressing people as 'Sir so and so'. As an American, it's always really jarring when I come across this in print. America has a lot of problems, but one of the most hopelessly idealistic things we ever did was opt to forego a formal aristocracy. But anyway, I think Gruber perhaps didn't realize that the reason the Financial Times was using Ives' title is that they're an English publication.
It's not really aristocracy, it's essentially the equivalent of the Medal of Freedom, for Jony Ive it's a civilian honour; David Beckham isn't an aristocrat either.
A fair point. It’s not a hereditary title, so it’s not the same thing. And yes, the U.S. gives out medals as well, but we don’t call the recipients knights or give them special appellations.
I usually wouldn't comment on this, but I can't look past that "un-American". You guys _do_ realize there is, and through the entire history of the USA has been, a fully-fledged industrial aristocracy in place? Just because you don't call them "Sir" but landlord, investor or entrepreneur doesn't change a single thing. Just look at the history of rich ranch owners... Humans are the same, everywhere.
>You guys _do_ realize there is, and through the entire history of the USA has been, a fully-fledged industrial aristocracy in place?
How is that consistent with the fact that the five largest US corporations by market cap (Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Alphabet and Facebook) have not been passed on to offspring and were not started by descendents of the industrial elite of the country?
I agree that social mobility is lacking by in many ways, but the result is clearly not a fully-fledged industrial aristocracy.
Ive is a KBE, which is not an aristocratic title like "lord" or "baron" or "duke". The full title is Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. It makes him a member of the Order of the British Empire, a chivalric order for civilians and military who are rewarded for their contributions to society. It's just a honorific; it doesn't come with land or castles or any governing power.
Well, then, Apple should immediately amend their press release to let us know that Jony Ive, Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, is resigning from the company.
Gruber is 100% right in this case. Fuck that nonsense.
All I ever see is people in US TV saying “sir” and “ma’am”, is this inaccurate? I’m from the UK and similarly don’t believe in titles and I have never used or heard these words used in my life
We add those terms to the end of a phrase in lieu of a person’s name. As in, “How may I help you, sir?”. But the usage referenced in the article was putting the word before the person’s name to indicate that they’ve been titled by the British government (or the crown, perhaps?). As in, “Sir Jony Ive has announced that he will be leaving Apple.”
Well he is British, so it's reasonable to respect his title, no? Just as I might respect an American general or president's title, or a vicar's reverend even though I am an atheist. All replace a simple Mr or Ms just like Dr does. Not that I'm likely to meet many generals or presidents... :)
UK TV and movies use "sir" and "ma'am" (or "marm") pretty frequently.
In the U.S., they're not so commonly used outside of very formal service situations (e.g., military, customer service). Friends don't call each other "sir" or "ma'am", except perhaps as a joke.
People will say to you "sir/ma'am" in a customer/representative situations, e.g. retail salespeople will call you sir, and so will often clerks in government offices. Outside of these, not really.
Sir and ma’am are simply polite ways to address any man/woman. It isn’t a formal title and you address anyone you like using those words when you want to be respectful.
I don’t think Americans unanimously respect titles of nobility, and I think Gruber’s point is that he personally doesn’t respect them and wishes Apple didn’t respect them either.
Whether this is a consistent point of his, whether Gruber has always referred to the Queen as Elizabeth Windsor, I don’t know. But I wouldn’t conflate convenience with respect. “The Queen” is a very easy name to remember and use informally without necessarily supporting monarchy. Like, I wouldn’t call Captain Blackbeard “Captain Blackbeard” out of respect for piracy.
Please don't pick the most irritating point in an article to comment on just because it's so irritating. This is the most minor thing that he had to say.
May be that is a minor case to a US citizen. But might not be to a wider world of audience. He might not like it, but if he had any respect to his wider reader, may be he should not have wrote it. But then again, I know US tends to be more relax or loose in these sort of things. I guess it is a culture crash.
The original point was minor, if provocative. Unfortunately, though, posting an HN comment about a minor provocation can actually have a major effect on a thread—especially if it gets upvoted to the top, as indignant comments often do. That's why we moderate those and why I replied to you. The fault lies more with the upvoters and repliers than the original commenter, usually—but it's a co-creation. We all need to resist it because it leads to much shallower and less interesting discussion.
Exactly. Ive is a British citizen and the story was broken in the Financial Times, a British newspaper.
Maybe we should have just referred to plain "Barack Obama" over here because fuck this President shit, we don't have an elected head of state in the United Kingdom?
Also, not all jobs come with an associated title. I'm a software engineer, but people don't refer to me as Software Engineer Joe Bloggs. "President" absolutely is used as a title. This is especially clear with former presidents, who retain the title. (E.g. George Bush, who isn't president, is still President Bush.)
Knighthood isn't bestowed on people the monarchy likes, it's given to citizens who contribute greatly and above expectations to England's civilian, military, and peacetime achievements.
It's ok to not respect cultures. That is your right, and sometimes it's a good thing to shame shitty cultures. That being said, I agree. This felt out of place and unnecessary.
In Britain we don't necessarily agree with the titles given out by the queen. However they do serve a purpose. If you have made it in England then you get a knighthood of some sort. Only a small minority of people offered the 'sir' title don't take it.
The purpose is hierarchy. Sir Tim Berners Lee deserves that title. He is afforded recognition. Sir Bob Geldof has got there too. Although not everything to do with Band Aid was awesome, we give Sir Bob the dues. Then there are the rogues such as the arms salesmen. Athletes get the honours too. Get a few gold medals at the Olympics and you are there.
Unfortunately there are inherited titles, but, as mentioned the system is not universally liked and far from perfect. It is a hierarchy with the German lady married to some Greek bloke calling herself Queen at the top.
But what happens in a society where you don't have these things?
You have to have wealth and toys to confer status. You have only made it when you have the McMansion and the European super/hyper car, maybe with the private jet.
The British system is far cheaper. You can be respected with the 'sir' title and live in a Victorian terraced house with Blue Plaque outside. No private jet needed. With 'sir' the reputation goes before the person who has the title, it is what they say that matters, not however much bling stuff they own that matters.
It is understandable that in other parts of the formerly colonised world that this hierarchy is not desired, but there is an advantage to a society where people know their place and are content with their lot. Otherwise it is like America where you have to get rich or die trying with no happy in-between.
What's with the idea that every aspect of other cultures must be praised? I'm allowed to think some shit other cultures does is straight up stupid or weird and that doesn't make me wrong. Nobody has to get hurt. I don't agree with all of my own culture and am fine with people not understanding or valuing the things I hold dear. Life's weird and people are weirder. Nothing wrong with that. What would you say if I don't like your favorite color?
I agree with the Sir part, but it’s clearly Gruber’s irony there.
The article being negative isn’t a proper critique though: it’s a pundit writing, it’s not their role to make things better, but to point out fallacies and pain points. He did, in my opinion quite properly.
> That's pretty disrespectful and ignorant to other cultures and customs.
Not all customs deserve respect. I guess I don't have to produce a list of all the things that were once "customs", and that now horrify us. "Sir" is a honorific that implies class distinction, to indicate that someone is socially above you, by virtue of birth or by the decision of a monarch.
I know that the British crown now give knighthoods to honor notable artists, scientists, politicians, etc. It also still uses it in the traditional sense. In the UK, you can have a seat at the House of Lords (the upper house of parliament) because of your social status, either by birth or by position in the clergy. I certainly do not respect any of that.
Yes, I know they are separate, but they are both shadows of a class system that is repugnant to modern western values. And although what you are saying is true, it is only the current practice. Notice that the UK has no written constitution.
It particularly astonishes me when Americans defend these costumes, given that their country was essentially created in opposition to such a class system.
Pretty much everything that happens in the present is the shadow of some or other repugnant historical practice or event. Knighthoods are just one of the civilian honors you can get in the UK. It's not much different from the Presidential Medal of Freedom or something like that. The honor happens to come with a title. There are similar perks in US culture (e.g. Professor so-and-so, Doctor so-and-so).
> Fifth: Fuck this “sir” shit. We don’t have titles in the United States.
The Title of Nobility Clause prevents the federal government from granting titles of nobility. That's it. It doesn't prevent other countries from granting them to their citizens, and Ive is British.
There are plenty of titles that aren't of nobility in the US. Here's a few: Mr. President, Congresswoman, General, Colonel, and Mayor.
It's certainly possible that Apple addressed him as 'Sir Jony Ive' in the memo to make him appear as a pompous ass to the rest of the company, so that they would be happier about his leaving.
Could you DREAM of a world where DaringFireball posted an article disrespecting and demeaning Sir Jony Ive this time last week?
What use is a pundit like this when they are on rails to just spin any and every piece of Apple news to protect the mothership, at this point any words from Gruber have lost all objectivity.
This baffled me as well. The US may not grant titles of nobility, but it has an awful lot of other titles that are given and used similarly; in my experience typically military ranks, or former political office titles.
Also, Ive's title may not have been awarded by the US, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be acknowledged in what is an official piece of communication from one of the worlds largest companies.
To be facetious, one could also say that it is a surprise to hear outrage at the use of 'Sir' given that everyone in the US seems to call everyone else 'sir' or 'ma'am' all the time.
The “Titles of Nobility Amendment” [1] to the constitution was never ratified by the states (though it did pass Congress), and the Canadian Nickle Resolution [2] was never enacted as a law, but the idea they convey is as clear and as valid today as it was back then.
I have never seen any mention of this issue in public forums, so I think it is good that Gruber brings it up.
And I kind of like how succinctly he puts it: Fuck this “sir” shit. We don’t have titles in America.
There is a tradition of anti-nobility sentiment in US culture as old as, well, the US. It is literally written into the Constitution[1]. How much you were exposed to it probably depends on where you grew up; I think it is louder in the north east, and I don't hear it much in California.
Personally, I am more annoyed at being sir-ed constantly. I much prefer to reserve it as a genuine term of respect, not a generic form of address.
Loud in the South, certainly. That's how I was raised, and it's used as a respectful, though somewhat common/generic, term of address. I don't know that I or many Americans would be comfortable with the social implications of referring to some one as "sir" out of respect the way you describe it; it implies superiority rather than respect.
> Ive is, to state the obvious, preternaturally talented. But in the post-Jobs era, with all of Apple design, hardware and software, under his control, we’ve seen the software design decline and the hardware go wonky.
These two sentences don't make sense when read together. If Apple design -- hardware and software -- declined during Ive's rein that, to me, is evidence that Ive is not preternaturally talented. The moment iOS 7 was unveiled at WWDC I knew Emperor Ive is wearing no clothes. The number of basic design mistakes iOS 7 was astounding.
I gotta eyeroll pretty hard when some internet expert points out the basic design mistakes in something.
None of those things were mistakes, they were choices made as a result of tradeoffs that people agonized over.
I think it makes perfect sense to me, Ive seems like he's got a big personality and a laser focus on a set of things he has a deep deep understanding of. Without Jobs maybe there was nobody to challenge Ive and thus the balance was pulled too far toward his vision and the greater picture has suffered.
Let's consider Jony's performance on software design first. This is what some prominent people have said about iOS 7: The Verge wrote in their review: "iOS 7 isn't harder to use, just less obvious. That's a momentous change: iOS used to be so obvious." In iOS 7 basic usability features such as making buttons look like buttons are now stuffed under Accessibility options. About this, Tumblr co-founder Marco Arment wrote: "If iOS 8 can’t remove any of these options, it's a design failure." (And iOS 8 didn't.) Michael Heilemann, Interface Director at Squarespace wrote, "when I look at [iOS 7 beta] I see anti-patterns and basic mistakes that should have been caught on the whiteboard before anyone even began thinking about coding it." And famed blogger John Gruber said this about iOS 7: "my guess is that [Steve Jobs] would not have supported this direction."
And what about Jony's other responsibility, industrial design? The iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air and other Apple products are all amazingly well designed and breathtakingly beautiful. But these products weren't designed by Jony Ive all by himself. He designed them under Steve Jobs's guidance and direction. Steve was the tastemaker. Apple's post-Steve products are nowhere near as well-designed.
Consider iPhone 5c, for example. The colors are horrid, and when you add those Crocs-like cases it looks more like a Fisher-Price toy than like a device an executive would want to be seen holding. Then they released some ads for the 5c, and I kid you not, one of the ads had sounds of bleating farm animals. (It was titled "Every color has a story", published on tumblr.) That the 5c didn't do well in the market shouldn't surprise anyone.
> Consider iPhone 5c, for example. The colors are horrid, and when you add those Crocs-like cases it looks more like a Fisher-Price toy than like a device an executive would want to be seen holding.
But it wasn't for executives. It was supposed to be a downmarket phone. You may think the colors were horrid, but I think they added much needed character to the iPhone line, much like the XRs.
>Consider iPhone 5c, for example. The colors are horrid, and when you add those Crocs-like cases it looks more like a Fisher-Price toy than like a device an executive would want to be seen holding.
Except Apple has previously found wild success in selling brightly colored devices down market, see the original iPod Mini for example. A selection of colors both appeals to the sort of person they are targeting with the lower end device (teens/young adults) while also preserving the marketshare of their higher end device by turning off the kind of older, more reserved buyer who might otherwise buy the less expensive option. There's also the entire Apple lineup in the early "Second Coming of Jobs" era with the iMac and, to a lesser extent, the Power Mac G3.
> This is what some prominent people have said about iOS 7
Prominent finance people criticize other finance people for their decisions all of the time (Buffet et al). I think I could name a hundred other professions where this is also true (I use finance as a good analog). Just because <insert prominent professional> makes a criticism doesn't make it suddenly true.
I personally hated iOS7. Guess what, it clearly didn't stop people from buying more iPhones[0]. At the end of the day, Arment, Heliemann, and Gruber can all take a seat while iOS single-handedly rakes in billions for Apple. This is how business works.
The problem in arguing about design is that many things may be subjective (I do not believe all of it is subjective) whereas profit at least gives an unarguable metric.
the original meaning of naive is natural, I suppose that monopolies are unnatural and as such fall outside the normal argumentation about business quality.
Furthermore I also thought I put in enough qualifiers in my statement that I did not have to defend it as being my overarching philosophy regarding every situation it might possibly be applied to. After I wrote the preceding sentence I proceeded to write another 3 paragraphs until I realized that I was actually writing a bad version of an essay on aesthetics and requirements for being able to speak with critical insight, so I erased those paragraphs and here we are.
> None of those things were mistakes, they were choices made as a result of tradeoffs that people agonized over.
Every design choice is a tradeoff and industrial design is about making the right tradeoffs. He did not make the right tradeoffs. He regularly sacrificed functionality for the looks, and preferred form over function. While I do respect many of the things he did, I am glad his time at Apple is coming to an end.
>I gotta eyeroll pretty hard when some internet expert points out the basic design mistakes in something.
None of those things were mistakes, they were choices made as a result of tradeoffs that people agonized over.
This is something I have had a hard time with over the years... I even emailed Jony in hte past abt some of the design "choices" that were made that REALLY irkd and cost me and MILLIONS of users too much money.
The overall body design of the iphone has been "sleek and slick" -- meaning that it was WAY too easy to drop and break.
The physical phone should have been more heartily designed from day one - and allowed for a lanyard attachement bracket on all models.
Screw the people who claim things like: OH that was a design decision to keep the 'vision' blah blah blah -- esp. and including specifically Ive.
The reason is that 'aesthetic design decision' cost consumers billions over the years.
I have a 6S+ -- my ~27th iphone
The argument is "why dont you go get a case!"
Why should such a 'perfect' design, so perfect where it doesnt want a lanyard or other safety features interrupting its elegance, require a case?
So, Fuck Ive worship.
I like the phone, I've had every iteration up to the 6S+ (which is my favorite, and I have had many of them. but I am not going to praise the shortcomings of the device and hero-worship the guy.
Sometimes a design is bad and people make the wrong tradeoffs. Look no further than the Magic Mouse 2, which requires placing it in an awkward upside-down position and that you completely stop using it in order to charge.
The original Magic Trackpad should've had a port for wired connections. That would've allowed you to avoid having to constantly change batteries, as well as avoid the flaming garbage can that is bluetooth. At least they listened and fixed these issues with Magic Trackpad 2.
iOS had a ton of mistakes, not just trade offs. I understand that yeah, I didn’t figure them out myself, but just looking at the Nielsen Norman usability studies you could see there was a lot to be improved on (and they did, to their credit)
I actually really agree with this — I didn’t hate the way ios7 looked, but I really did dislike how much it slowed me down in terms of figuring out how to read and use the interfaces that conformed to the new design style.
At a fundamental level Ios7 relied on color instead of texture for visual segmentation — and I’m not sure about others but the texture processing hardware in my brain is about a million times more reliable at performing segmentation tasks than any subtle abstract color blend detection engine in my brain will ever be ...
I hope that whatever new design mentality arises after this change is able to better improve the efficiency with which im able to use my devices - and that the devices are once again striving to meet me as an actual human rather than chasing some local optimum that might exist by imagining some 1 or 2D abstract idea of a human ...
Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer – that the designers are handed this box and told, “Make it look good!” That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.
Maybe Ive is an exceptionally talented designer but a poor senior executive. Steve kept Ive in check in a way Cook didn't appear to have done. Maybe its equally a failing of Cook.
And I say this as someone who is terribly excited Ive is leaving and hoping for more funcional products.
Considering all that I’ve had done, it might be hard to tamper him down. He might (wild speculation incoming) have thought of himself as equal to Steve and maybe he didn’t take it well to keep reporting to someone else. I mean he still speaks of Steve with a slightly absurd level of reverence.
Ive was equal to Steve. That was part of the agreement they came to, and why he was given the CDO title.
In his shoes and with his talent and ability to leave, I also would not have agreed to be in charge of all design only to have Steve Jobs keep veto power over me.
McCartney never reached the heights he reached in the Beatles in his solo work, but he was probably one of the most talented musicians in history.
You can can be an absolute genius as a collaborator but stumble a bit when working without someone around who can tell you ‘no’. There are a lot of brilliant writers who absolutely need a good editor.
This is a tangent, but both Lennon and Harrison made some pretty good stuff. 40 years later I can listen to their solo albums all day long. Never got into McCartney stuff the same way.
> If Apple design -- hardware and software -- declined during Ive's rein that, to me, is evidence that Ive is not preternaturally talented.
Sometimes it takes working with specific types of people to bring out someone's talent in the best way. I think Steve Jobs did that for Jony Ive in a unique way - it brought out the best in his work.
Steve thought of it as The Beatles model - the team should bring out the best in everyone around them. Look at how many people pushed back on him and made great things happen - the iTunes on Windows. The App Store on iOS. Etc etc
Those sentences are entirely compatible. He could even be the most talented designer in history and still reside over disappointing results at the same time. There are many explanations for how this happens. It could be as simple as being burned out or being spread too thin. And significantly, we don't know what kind of internal constraints and forces were in play, which have massive implications on outcomes.
And now computer UIs are ugly as sin and impossible to find the interactive elements. Meanwhile in the physical world skeuomorphism is huge with Chinese factories pumping out all manner of products that just barely match the appearance of real objects made of quality materials, woods, and fabrics, when viewed in a store or just a photo in an online store.
It had to die for more practical reasons - a pixel perfect interface is impossible to maintain with difference screen sizes. At the time there was only the 3.5 inch iPhone and the iPad.
Apple knew that various size iPhones were in the pipe.
Except it didn't have to be pixel perfect. Mac OS X was skeuomorphic and beautiful, yet it worked on various size displays, you could even resize a window, in real time, imagine that!
If you're going strictly based on going from skeuomorphic to flat, everyone is talking about the less intuitive and obvious UX design, not the aesthetic design of the UI.
Preternaturally talented professional athletes have terrible seasons, even multi-year slumps. It's downright silly to point to some piece of output that is a "mistake" (never mind the fact that this claim is itself highly subjective) and use that to conclude that, regardless of the rest of the person's output, they're not preternaturally talented.
> If Apple design -- hardware and software -- declined during Ive's rein that, to me, is evidence that Ive is not preternaturally talented.
It's possible to be preternaturally talented and still either (a) make mistakes, especially balancing priorities (say, thinness vs utility) (b) get into situations that are beyond the range where talent is a guarantee of success.
Disclaimer: I'm not a designer at all, and I have no design sense whatsoever. HN looks like something I'd design, except there would be no splash of color at the top.
For me, the most striking change in iOS 7 was that the icons lost all of their character. I put together some before and after examples:
The design was... sterilized. I specifically remember that when I updated my iPad and saw the new Safari icon, I said, out loud, "what the fuck is that?"
Again, I don't know anything about usability or- well, I don't even know enough to have the vocabulary to describe what I don't know about design. But I thought the new icons were really dumb.
You're right. The new icons were bad and they're still bad. The Photos and Game Center icons in particular don't communicate anything or make use of any visual metaphors at all. It's like something you'd expect from a second year art major.
More to the point. Why did they need to be changed? What was so wrong with the way they were that a hundred million users needed to re-learn a user interface?
The number one issue that's slowly getting fixed is not knowing which text is clickable or just a label. Then there were slow animations, arguably bad icons and inconsistent font usage. That's what I remember at least, I hope my memory's not failing me.
The most amazing writing on this topic (i.e., how Apple ruined iOS) is by Michael Heilemann, Interface Director at Squarespace. Unfortunately he took down his blog. You can catch pieces of it on web archive though: https://web.archive.org/web/20130724000346/http://binarybons...
I’ve been saying this since iOS 7 was released! iOS 7 was littered with dozens of major design bugs that have slowly been fixed with every new release. People forgot how bad iOS 7 was because people either were so happy to be rid of iOS 6 or comfortable with iOS 12.
