Ever notice how Jony Ive looks nothing like a Googler?
This whole trainwreck of a discussion is fed IMHO by the big rift between common, male IT-oriented folks and the rest of the population around visuals, aestethics and yes, concepts like fashion.
Sit in the cantina of any company and you can tell who is development/IT. Neckbeards? Socks in sandals? Leather cowboy hats? Attachments on their belts? Unshapely bodies?
Aestethics do exist in that other group. Good code, clever algorithms, etc. Fashion too, in forms of buzzwords and technologies du jour. DjangoRailsHadoop... But visual aestethics? Nope, nada, utter incomprehension.
The utter genious of Jobs was to bring the aestethics of the outer world into software and computer hardware. Design already existed in other industries, see Braun, Sony, etc but no one applied it to software. Because "nerds" didn't even understand it. See it. Grok it.
These Samsung vs Apple debates show this faultline. No comprehension at all why a particular implementation of multi touch should matter, be worth something. It is all obvious, just UI, the thing you slap on top of your awesome program. Why should it matter how it LOOKS?! How can that be so important? Didn't the LG Prada looks exactly the same? Ok, it used scrollbars, but why is that different to how iOS does it?
Whenever someone claims that Apple's success is just about marketing, nothing relevant in their products themselves. Whenever it's just off the shelf components they took and re-arranged, super simple and OBVIOUS, I can't help to think about blind people arguing about the uselessness of colors.
Interesting take that gets to the heart of the matter but my
interpretation is different.
Like you say, the genius of Apple and Jobs is an incredible focus on
the simplicity and intuitiveness of their products. I have seen two
year old kids able to use ipads. This was their innovation and it has
won them millions (billions?) of loyal fans.
This was so radically different than the prevailing ethos in the tech
industry at the time that their supporters feel they should be
protected or rewarded for changing the industry.
However, there is a problem in granting protection for these types of
innovations, in that we are setting a dangerous precedent for patents
and innovation. The individual user interface elements that make up
the iPhone, by themselves, are all relatively obvious. Swiping to turn
a page is the natural evolution of the book. Movies like Minority
Report suggest the range of gestures we can imagine given the
appropriate technology. It's quite a stretch to suggest that something
so similar to what we have done all our lives should be protected by
law and in effect create a protected monoply and prevent others from
using these ideas in their products.
Instead those that admire Apple and what they have done should
continue to do what they have been doing, buy their
products.
As someone who has owned multiple ipads, ipods, iphones, and mac
books, I know how compelling their products are and the loyalty it
breeds in their users. Therefore, I think it is unlikely that many
will step back and think whether this really is the best result for
our industry.
This whole trainwreck of a discussion is fed IMHO by the big rift between common, male IT-oriented folks and the rest of the population around visuals, aestethics and yes, concepts like fashion.
Sit in the cantina of any company and you can tell who is development/IT. Neckbeards? Socks in sandals? Leather cowboy hats? Attachments on their belts? Unshapely bodies?
Aestethics do exist in that other group. Good code, clever algorithms, etc. Fashion too, in forms of buzzwords and technologies du jour. DjangoRailsHadoop... But visual aestethics? Nope, nada, utter incomprehension.
The utter genious of Jobs was to bring the aestethics of the outer world into software and computer hardware. Design already existed in other industries, see Braun, Sony, etc but no one applied it to software. Because "nerds" didn't even understand it. See it. Grok it.
These Samsung vs Apple debates show this faultline. No comprehension at all why a particular implementation of multi touch should matter, be worth something. It is all obvious, just UI, the thing you slap on top of your awesome program. Why should it matter how it LOOKS?! How can that be so important? Didn't the LG Prada looks exactly the same? Ok, it used scrollbars, but why is that different to how iOS does it?
Whenever someone claims that Apple's success is just about marketing, nothing relevant in their products themselves. Whenever it's just off the shelf components they took and re-arranged, super simple and OBVIOUS, I can't help to think about blind people arguing about the uselessness of colors.