> Instead I believe we live in a dysfunctional era of "designer as absolute dictator" and it turns out copying Apple is a safer choice then wandering through the wilderness and claiming your own path.
Ironically you try to refute "Apple is prescient" and "Apple is holding the gun" with... "Apple is omnipotent, and all their decisions turn out right and are slavishly copied by others".
> I hate the monoculture through risk aversion, especially spearheaded by a company that seems hell-bent on turning everything into a locked down consumer-grade appliance but I get why it's that.
It's amazing that you call Apple risk-averse when they, to quote you, did all these things, often against considerable backlash: "The removal of physical keyboards from phones, lack of a serviceable battery, notch, death of the floppy, removal of ports from laptops, 3.5mm jack"
Don't forget that also it wasn't just "removal of physical keyboards from phones". It was launching a completely new product for a company that never made such a product in a highly competitive market with lost of entrenched players.
I didn't call apple risk-averse. Maybe you were tired. I called the designers of phones at companies like say Oppo, Xiaomi or Asus to be risk averse. This creates a monoculture because they heed to the Apple design patterns as a defensible position to their bosses and superiors. So if the product doesn't sell well they can point the finger at "well we cloned apple" as opposed to "well I insisted on this novel design" which would be a bad move.
It's the antithesis lesson of the Edsel. It made (at that time) the big 4 recalcitrant, overly conservative, and weary of change. Everything that GM acquired ended up looking like a giant amorphous indistinguishable blob.
People just want to do well and they get spooked by failures so patterns and histories create cultures of design. Nobody knows truly what the future is so they end up doing "best practice" which is a euphemism for cultural conformity.
Apple was not this under Steve. He was pattern breaking change in both Steve I and Steve II incarnations. And he had a superhero batting average. Why that is is a huge conversation outside the scope here but yeah I agree with you.
Ironically you try to refute "Apple is prescient" and "Apple is holding the gun" with... "Apple is omnipotent, and all their decisions turn out right and are slavishly copied by others".
> I hate the monoculture through risk aversion, especially spearheaded by a company that seems hell-bent on turning everything into a locked down consumer-grade appliance but I get why it's that.
It's amazing that you call Apple risk-averse when they, to quote you, did all these things, often against considerable backlash: "The removal of physical keyboards from phones, lack of a serviceable battery, notch, death of the floppy, removal of ports from laptops, 3.5mm jack"
Don't forget that also it wasn't just "removal of physical keyboards from phones". It was launching a completely new product for a company that never made such a product in a highly competitive market with lost of entrenched players.
Risk-averse my ass.