You can't swing a dead cat and fail to hit 5 industrial designers.
Well, maybe in the valley & some bigger cities. In the general population we’re a bit rarer I think. I’m one of only 2 or 3 active - what I would consider to be IDers in my town.
No shot in hell I’d ever even make an interview at Apple let alone get hired, but would be fun to be on that team if only to get an inside look at the process.
You mean the trio who removed the SD card slot, good keyboard, MagSafe, USB-A, and the glowing Apple logo from MacBooks labeled "Pro"?
Good riddance!
The industrial designers don't make decisions like those.
Exactly, though I’m guessing they were involved with the design of the butterfly keyboard. But they don’t decide what I/O a laptop has. Furthermore what does a glowing Apple logo have to do with a “pro” device? If anything the glowing logo was mostly for hipsters to show off their MBA in coffee shops.
I have all due respect for them. They have designed some great products. HOWEVER IMO Apple’s designs are a bit stale. The iMac is essentially unchanged in ages. The Mac Mini is the same. The phone has gone through iterations but “thinner” isn’t really a groundbreaking design concept. I’m glad to see the team will be getting some new blood.
Jony still signs off on the designs, so expect more of the same kind of work. High quality, but similar to current designs.
You mean the trio who removed the SD card slot, good keyboard, MagSafe, USB-A, and the glowing Apple logo from MacBooks labeled "Pro"?
Good riddance!
Well... it was the same team that added all of the above.
I do miss MagSafe and great keyboards. But most of all I'm tired of their cold alu-glass-thin minimalism where everything is glued. We used to have curves, glowing UFO power adapters, funky colors, textures, opacity, and amazing internal designs that didn't require for us to replace half the computer in order to fix one single key.
I have all due respect for them. They have designed some great products. HOWEVER IMO Apple’s designs are a bit stale. The iMac is essentially unchanged in ages. The Mac Mini is the same. The phone has gone through iterations but “thinner” isn’t really a groundbreaking design concept. I’m glad to see the team will be getting some new blood.
Isn’t the smartphone, like the laptop, now a solved design? Other than gimmicks like folding phones what can be done that’s groundbreaking? Does anything really need to be done with the smartphone?
Pretty much this or iPhones and iPads. Once you've distilled the design down to essential a bezel free screen you're only differentiation comes from the amalgamation of different materials.
The biggest opportunity for breaking new design ground may come from the module Mac Pro. We are no longer encumbered with optical drives or even 2.5/3.5 drives. The latitude in which a designer has to create design that simply doesn't exist today is as wide as it has ever been.
Oh, say, for mobile devices: they remain in your pocket, purse or backpack and invoke a heads-up/ears-up capability when needed... "Look Ma, no hands!".
I have all due respect for them. They have designed some great products. HOWEVER IMO Apple’s designs are a bit stale. The iMac is essentially unchanged in ages. The Mac Mini is the same. The phone has gone through iterations but “thinner” isn’t really a groundbreaking design concept. I’m glad to see the team will be getting some new blood.
Jony still signs off on the designs, so expect more of the same kind of work. High quality, but similar to current designs.
Agree. There must be a huge pool of design talent very frustrated to see every design idea denied by the pool of billionaire pensionado’s only willing to milk existing concepts.
So why not leave in time with that 4-cam monstrum looming over the horizon...
I have all due respect for them. They have designed some great products. HOWEVER IMO Apple’s designs are a bit stale. The iMac is essentially unchanged in ages. The Mac Mini is the same. The phone has gone through iterations but “thinner” isn’t really a groundbreaking design concept. I’m glad to see the team will be getting some new blood.
Isn’t the smartphone, like the laptop, now a solved design? Other than gimmicks like folding phones what can be done that’s groundbreaking? Does anything really need to be done with the smartphone?
I have all due respect for them. They have designed some great products. HOWEVER IMO Apple’s designs are a bit stale. The iMac is essentially unchanged in ages. The Mac Mini is the same. The phone has gone through iterations but “thinner” isn’t really a groundbreaking design concept. I’m glad to see the team will be getting some new blood.
Isn’t the smartphone, like the laptop, now a solved design? Other than gimmicks like folding phones what can be done that’s groundbreaking? Does anything really need to be done with the smartphone?
The wheel is still a wheel. There is no better design to do what it does. There are various ways to design a wheel but it still fundamentally looks like a wheel.
Same with laptops and smartphones. The greatness of apples designs is that they still look New Years down the road. No need to change perfection just for the sake of change.
Change for the sake is change will give you a worse keyboard :P
You mean the trio who removed the SD card slot, good keyboard, MagSafe, USB-A, and the glowing Apple logo from MacBooks labeled "Pro"?
Good riddance!
I appreciate the joke, because I wanted those. The Apple logo is another matter. It didn’t make using the computer any easier. But you’ve no idea who made those choices, so.
And highly likely the Input Design Lab worked with industrial design and other teams inside of hardware engineering. According to this 2015 interview with Phil Schiller, the industrial design and hardware engineering teams are “joined at the hip”.
I have all due respect for them. They have designed some great products. HOWEVER IMO Apple’s designs are a bit stale. The iMac is essentially unchanged in ages. The Mac Mini is the same. The phone has gone through iterations but “thinner” isn’t really a groundbreaking design concept. I’m glad to see the team will be getting some new blood.
Jony still signs off on the designs, so expect more of the same kind of work. High quality, but similar to current designs.
No sure it can be considered high quality when the design limits the usability of the product. Then I call it flawed design. The trashcan is a prime example.
You can't swing a dead cat and fail to hit 5 industrial designers.
Well, maybe in the valley & some bigger cities. In the general population we’re a bit rarer I think. I’m one of only 2 or 3 active - what I would consider to be IDers in my town.
No shot in hell I’d ever even make an interview at Apple let alone get hired, but would be fun to be on that team if only to get an inside look at the process.
About a year or so ago I noticed job reqs for industrial designers on Apple’s website. That was something never done before. From what I’ve read it was very difficult to get on the team, basically you had to know somebody to get on the team. I wonder why the change. Were they having difficulty attracting candidates so they had to widen the net?
Fair or not that team has taken a bit of a hit over the past few years. I think in some ways they’re a victim of their own success. They woke up the rest of the industry and now competitors are copying them. Panos Panay at Microsoft admitted that its Apple he obsessed over. And Microsoft’s line of Surface products are actually quite nice. Basically nobody is doing cheap plastic crap anymore, mostly thanks to Apple.
You’d have to look for utility patents. On the design patents the entire ID team is credited. For example Zorkendorfer is listed on 40 utility patents and 1,197 design patents.
Comments
We need more POaDG.
No shot in hell I’d ever even make an interview at Apple let alone get hired, but would be fun to be on that team if only to get an inside look at the process.
https://www.wired.com/2015/10/what-i-saw-inside-apples-top-secret-input-lab/
We want only the best available.
I do miss MagSafe and great keyboards. But most of all I'm tired of their cold alu-glass-thin minimalism where everything is glued. We used to have curves, glowing UFO power adapters, funky colors, textures, opacity, and amazing internal designs that didn't require for us to replace half the computer in order to fix one single key.
https://www.patentlyapple.com/.services/blog/6a0120a5580826970c0120a5580ebf970c/search/?filter.q=Daniele+Iuliis
https://www.patentlyapple.com/.services/blog/6a0120a5580826970c0120a5580ebf970c/search?filter.q=Rico+Zorkendorfer
https://www.patentlyapple.com/.services/blog/6a0120a5580826970c0120a5580ebf970c/search?filter.q=Julian+Hoenig
I am not cool enough to know what they are & can't find them teh interwebs.
I appreciate the joke, because I wanted those. The Apple logo is another matter. It didn’t make using the computer any easier. But you’ve no idea who made those choices, so.
http://web.archive.org/web/20151029144036/https://mashable.com/2015/10/28/apple-phil-schiller-mac/
https://jobs.apple.com/en-us/details/200007574/apple-industrial-design-accepting-portfolios?team=DESGN
Fair or not that team has taken a bit of a hit over the past few years. I think in some ways they’re a victim of their own success. They woke up the rest of the industry and now competitors are copying them. Panos Panay at Microsoft admitted that its Apple he obsessed over. And Microsoft’s line of Surface products are actually quite nice. Basically nobody is doing cheap plastic crap anymore, mostly thanks to Apple.