Apple fellow to lead RIM's new user experience team

[AppleInsider]

With increased competition from future iPhone technologies looming, Research in Motion has hired a veteran Apple interface director to lead a new team of designers tasked with improving the user experience of the company's BlackBerry handsets.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based smartphone maker last month acquired the services of Don Lindsay from Microsoft, tasking him with crafting a new VP role at the company that will govern a team of engineers charged with advancing the BlackBerry experience.

Lindsay is perhaps best known -- and most sought -- for his near 9-year tenure at Apple between July 1994 and May 2003.

As Design Director of the Mac OS User Experience Group, he led what was called the "Mac OS X interface concept project" and directed the design team responsible for the user experience of Mac OS X 10.0 "Cheetah" through Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther," which included the company's first-generation of iLife digital lifestyle applications.

In October of 2003, Lindsay was lured away from the Mac maker by Microsoft for a key software architecture position overseeing future Windows user experience explorations. Many of his key contributions wound up in Windows Vista components, according to his LinkedIn page, such as the AERO Glass interface and SKU/hardware tiering strategy, Glass Colorization, Flip3D, Alt-tab, window animations, and the Windows Calendar.

Coincidently or not, Lindsay's arrival at RIM came during the same month that Apple held a press conference to show off many of the features planned for its next generation iPhone software.

The BlackBerry maker is currently enthralled in a heated market share battle with Apple in the smartphone sector and recently reported what many industry watchers consider to be an extraordinary quarter given the current economic conditions.

For the three-month period ending February 28th, the company reported shipping a record 7.8 million BlackBerry handsets and an 84 percent increase in sales to $3.46 billion, sending its shares surging some 23 percent. Apple won't report iPhone sales for its last quarter (ended March) until later this month, though its quarter isn't a direct compare with RIM's, which included the holiday month of December.

Word of Lindsay's appointment at RIM was first reported by mocoNews alongside a somewhat dubious claim that his experience with early versions of Mac OS X made him one of the "mastermind behind the iPhone user interface."

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[MissionGrey]

I would not be surprised if he was hired by Mircosoft hoping to make a huge difference then got tied down and told how to design what they hired him to design.

[PXT]

So the Blackberry will get some coloured blobs ?

[Dlux]

What ever happened to non-compete clauses? Do some people simply negotiate them away?

[CU10]

Talented man. Good work AI. APPL = $119.57 so far so good.

[hmurchison]

I hope he finds better success than those ex Apple employees that tried to revolutionize Linux with Nautilus.

I've worked in large enough companies to know that often there's a figurehead that gets the credit but the real innovative stuff is done by the talented minions behind them.

[JimDreamworx]

Considering his CV states that he worked up until 10.3 and that Dashboard - with widgets that look very similar to the iPhone UI - didn't appear till 10.4 I highly doubt he was involved by being the mastermind behind the iPhone UI.

[mdriftmeyer]

Odd: I never heard much of Don when I came over from NeXT. In fact, I never ever heard his name mentioned in Engineering, the UI teams or more.

Best of luck to him.

[mdriftmeyer]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

I hope he finds better success than those ex Apple employees that tried to revolutionize Linux with Nautilus.

I've worked in large enough companies to know that often there's a figurehead that gets the credit but the real innovative stuff is done by the talented minions behind them.

Then you've not worked under Steve. The guy is a perfectionist [something I enjoyed] and he also gives immediate credit when he feels a product has met the goals of their aim. His stand up rounds of applause is something he carried over from NeXT to Apple.

He may not have been that way before NeXT but he became that way.

[psychodoughboy]

Hey, it worked for Palm.

[aaarrrgggh]

The more talented people that get into trying to improve UI, the better. It would be pretty easy to mock the whole MS experience, but I'll hope for the best.

I'll also hope Apple sold 5MM iPhones in their quarter...

[Virgil-TB2]

At least it isn't Bruce Tognazzini.

Maybe RIM will get something out of the relationship, but I would think they need a hardware guy more than they need a software designer.

[Morky]

Non compete clauses are illegal in California.

[addabox]

Originally Posted by psychodoughboy

Hey, it worked for Palm.

That remains to be seen.

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer

Then you've not worked under Steve. The guy is a perfectionist [something I enjoyed] and he also gives immediate credit when he feels a product has met the goals of their aim. His stand up rounds of applause is something he carried over from NeXT to Apple.

He may not have been that way before NeXT but he became that way.

Nope I've never worked for any Exec close to Steve Jobs. I heard he designed the Pixar location in Emoryville down to the tile. He's really driven by design and I do like that it feeds into the rest of Apple even though the frugal curmudgeon in me wants high style for Target pricing.

[lightstriker]

No wonder windows interface keeps getting worse. These foreign companies are poaching American talent.

[Ronbo]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

The BlackBerry maker is currently enthralled in a heated market share battle with Apple...

You mean "embroiled", right?

It's hard for me to decide whether to view Lindsay's many career changes as "prolific" or "promiscuous". Either way, let's hope it ends up improving the user experience of all those platforms (not just homogenizing them).

[ksec]

I think now anyone who has wrote "Worked for Apple " in their CV gets some special treatment ....

[iankanderson]

I'm not sure about Lindsay being a major player in the iPhone. That was a few years down the road by the time he left.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Resear...-14895105.html

[Thermaikos]

He left Apple for Microsoft in 2003, a year before the iPhone project was even started in (mid- 2004).

[iBill]

I predict Blackberry will get the spinning beach ball out of this.

[ivan.rnn01]

Buy what you think are the best (oh, yeah, it oftenly means PQ ratio) parts on the market. Screw them together in your garage. Put stolen Win on top of all that. Feel lordly about that Cray of yours...

[res08hao]

I thought the clueless empty suits at rim were all about what was best for clueless empty suits.
I guess now they think the general public is important after all.

I continue to be impressed with rim's vision, originality, and execution.

NOT.

[al_bundy]

Originally Posted by Dlux

What ever happened to non-compete clauses? Do some people simply negotiate them away?

in a lot of states including california they are illegal or the law limits them to being almost useless

[al_bundy]

Originally Posted by res08hao

I thought the clueless empty suits at rim were all about what was best for clueless empty suits.
I guess now they think the general public is important after all.

I continue to be impressed with rim's vision, originality, and execution.

NOT.

more like they want to defend their turf from Apple going into the corporate market in a few years

iphone is nice and i'll probably get one in june or july to complement my wife's, but blackberry still rules in the corporate environment. and apple is a long way from having the iphone suit ready

it's a lot easier to type out emails on blackberries than on the iphone and requiring itunes and the app store to load apps is a joke if apple wants to capture the corporate market

[echosonic]

Originally Posted by iBill

I predict Blackberry will get the spinning beach ball out of this.

ever noticed how the "spinning" beach ball doesn't actually spin? The colors are fixed. the shading layer spins, creating the illusion.

Useless tidbit for the day.

[nikon133]

Originally Posted by ivan.rnn01

Buy what you think are the best (oh, yeah, it oftenly means PQ ratio) parts on the market. Screw them together in your garage. Put stolen Win on top of all that. Feel lordly about that Cray of yours...

Isn't that pretty much how Steve Jobs and Apple started..?

[nikon133]

Originally Posted by res08hao

I thought the clueless empty suits at rim were all about what was best for clueless empty suits.
I guess now they think the general public is important after all.

I continue to be impressed with rim's vision, originality, and execution.

NOT.

In RIMs deffence, they did state a year or two ago that in the future they want to pay more attention to personal users (while, of course, not ignoring corporate users).

I think that was around introduction of Blackberry Pearl line.

Like them or not, they did mainstream smartphones and still are still No. 1 player in corporate market; as Apple people would say, they cater for that specific segment and their platform is designed to suit those specific needs.

Company I work for does use Blackberries. I'm not thrilled with design and options, but under the corporate (equals not overly exciting) looks system works fast, is reliable and integrates with our Exchange effortlessly.

Heck, my BB gets email 3 seconds faster than Outlook on my office desktop

[hill60]

I guess you haven't used a Storm, then?

I noticed that if you want a new theme for your Storm it costs $A7.99 otherwise your stuck with the single Vodafone/Verizon theme.

Originally Posted by al_bundy

it's a lot easier to type out emails on blackberries than on the iphone and requiring itunes and the app store to load apps is a joke if apple wants to capture the corporate market

[ivan.rnn01]

Originally Posted by nikon133

Isn't that pretty much how Steve Jobs and Apple started..?

They did start somewhat but not exactly like that. It was 30+ years ago. Screwing in garage 30 years ago was not what I mocked at. I made fun of ideology of the software (and not only that), which is made to run on any hardware. Sure, the user has to pay by agreeing on just sufficient perfection...
I posted it here as an allusion to the ongoing process of taking an affordable guy, having worked in the workshop, which was well known to be very good at user experience (oh, no, I don't believe the user experience of desktop systems is the same as user experience of mobile platforms; oh, no, comparing UIs of Cheetah and Leopard I can't see any genius behind the former), putting him in completely strange workshop and lying in wait for immediate breakthroughs.