Interesting that other executives did not want the Apple Watch yet. Maybe they were waiting out battery life improvements. That's what I would have done, until at least a week battery life. Either that or reduce the features to achieve that battery life. As far as Apple as a luxury watch: they should have created an expensive shell, which you would re-use across multiple guts across the years. So, just replace the innards with the newest ones, while keeping your $10,000 outer shell. I could have seen that. But not for a watch you have to replace every two years.
Overall, this is a stunning article, if true. I get that there's a lot of secrecy around what Apple does, but Ive's legacy would have been served much better if he would have better explained and defended his design decisions, and even taken responsibility for fails.
Defended his decisions to whom? And which decisions? All we have is speculation and stories that might not be the whole truth. As far as the Watch, maybe it shouldn’t have been announced in 2014 but if you remember at the time Apple was under tremendous pressure to show off something new. Samsung was the new darling with their Next Big Thing campaign. Wall Street analysts and tech pundits were all claiming innovation was dead at Apple and there was no pipeline of new products. Some were even spreading rumors that Apple’s board was ready to fire Tim Cook over innovation concerns. It was all nonsense but it was out there.
Even when Steve Jobs was in charge there was always pressure to show off something new but he had the guts to have the patience to introduce products when they were genuinely ready & not buckle under media pressure. He had a backbone. That's what Tim Cook needs more of. And I agree the Watch was released to early. The hardware for Version 1 (Series 0) was really slow and the OS was nowhere near ready.
So the Watch was released too early. The original iPhone was a breakthrough product but without Jobs RDF would we have been saying the same about it? There were a lot of things it was missing. Conversely if Jobs was still around to pitch the Watch would that product have been received differently?
Even when Steve Jobs was in charge there was always pressure to show off something new but he had the guts to have the patience to introduce products when they were genuinely ready & not buckle under media pressure. He had a backbone. That's what Tim Cook needs more of. And I agree the Watch was released to early. The hardware for Version 1 (Series 0) was really slow and the OS was nowhere near ready.
As if iPhone 1.0 wasn't lacking. Apple is good at getting 1.0 products out there as soon as possible, and then making them better. The first iMac had inadequate graphics. A few months later RevB came out with ATI Rage Pro graphics. iPad 1 was inadequate too in speed. iPad 2 was arguably what the iPad should have been at intro, but Apple could not wait a full year. Apple doesn't roll that way. Apple doesn't wait. Apple has never been patient. Apple is about timing. They know they should push a product to market within a specific timeframe. I argue that Apple has become slower in getting 1.0 to market. I argue the opposite of what you suggest: Apple has become too scared to push an imperfect product to market. Although, Apple Watch 1.0 push to market is exactly what to expect from Apple in Steve's era.
so many news outlets have made the mistake his company name is going to be LoveFrom, if you read the Apple press release you'll see its actually LoveForm. I suppose this many people making this mistake proves its not a great name.
so many news outlets have made the mistake his company name is going to be LoveFrom, if you read the Apple press release you'll see its actually LoveForm. I suppose this many people making this mistake proves its not a great name.
It also proves that no one frelling proofreads.
The company's name is LoveFrom, not LoveForm.
And, like I said in another thread, the Apple PR doesn't name the firm at all, and never did.
If someone at his age and experience needs a mentor coddling him and encouraging him by challenging his work along the entire process from design to finished product you have to wonder how much he really did and how much was Steve cracking the whip constantly.
He would have hated working for Steve at NeXT because 95% of the time was spent at PIXAR the last three years before we at NeXT merged with Apple.
Clearly Steve Jobs had a very active role in making Apple what it was, while he was present, and part of this was his obsessive involvement in everything he felt was worth his time. These may be things the current leadership doesn’t think are CEO responsibilities. Maybe the ought to be. Tim Cook doesn’t seem up to that task and no one else has stepped in to provide the missing vision (though it seems several people were expected to).
I personally observe the same current problem with Apple on the outside: focus with the wrong things. This is making the products be less than they could be (and used to be). If an active leadership position in the position of CEO, where a unified vision drove, moderated, and carried the individual expertise of its other workers, is what made a better Apple, then that’s what Apple needs now. Many companies need this and fail to have it (the size of corporate structures and obsession with the gambling of Wall Street sabotages this everywhere).
Apple was probably the most meaningful and important business to Jobs. I’m not sure that it’s entirely reasonable to compare Jobs’ behavior at Apple with his behavior at NeXT.
Shame, I actually think he's just a guy missing his old friend Steve and was acting out when he didn't get the super-star attention he was used to getting. Leadership is such a critical aspect of work that when you feel undervalued, it shows in unintended ways. The other problem is that he was a top-level leader and he affected everyone working below him, so that's uncalled for. I think it's probably best for him to step aside and let the company take on a different course. Nobody is indispensable, it's time the other designers stepped up and filled those shoes.
This article was written primarily from the point of view of the design staff, so don’t make any absolute conclusions. Maybe Ive couldn’t change after his friend’s passing, but it looks like it was the design staff who couldn’t move on either. They’re adults, they were trained by the best. They didn’t need their full-time mentor anymore.
And if he was indeed spending a great deal of time designing Apple Park as the articles states many times, then obviously he didn't have time for his former duties. He is human.
And I would like to know about these sources who say they hardly saw him but claim to know how he was feeling. Nice way to treat a man who made the design team the stars of Apple.
Unified vision isn’t something that comes from a bunch of experts in their individual fields.
As for making the design team “the stars at Apple”: Ive put the iOS 7 visual redesign in the hands of the print design team. Utterly inappropriate “leadership” choice. What became of all the “Apple stars” who already had the GUI expertise? Did they stay around while their specific expertise was being made into a joke by Ive handing it to people utterly unqualified for it? To this day people keep defending the iOS 7 redesign by bashing people who actually know better about GUI design and claiming that “Apple employs the best people”, utterly missing the point of having expertise in the right field.
I find it hard to believe that Cook not visiting the design studio as often as Jobs would be "dispiriting" to Ive. It seems more likely that Ive just missed having Jobs provide his own specific input. It's not like Ive isn't smart enough to understand that Cook isn't going to be a clone of Jobs and may not believe he has as much to offer when it comes to providing critiques of the designs. That's not actually a standard skill for business executives.
Unifying vision and leadership SHOULD be a standard skill for business executives.
This at least explains the notch! It always puzzled me how Ive would design something so functionally bad considering his history. Now that at least makes sense, he had kinda bailed out by that point because the nature of Apple had changed from visionary to status quo.
I find it hard to believe that Cook not visiting the design studio as often as Jobs would be "dispiriting" to Ive. It seems more likely that Ive just missed having Jobs provide his own specific input. It's not like Ive isn't smart enough to understand that Cook isn't going to be a clone of Jobs and may not believe he has as much to offer when it comes to providing critiques of the designs. That's not actually a standard skill for business executives.
Exactly. If Cook, who’s not design-savvy, visiting the studio as often as Jobs it will be more harmful than beneficial, or at best just pointless. We operate best when we operate on what we know best.
And Ive wouldn’t listen to Cook’s input on design anyway so what’s the point?
The point is Cook is the CEO and he's supposed to sign off on the final design (s ) of the products involved. That was the problem. I saw this coming YEARS ago. It seems the blame should be on Cook and Ive both. Because of Cook's corporate culture behavior and lack of interest in the products, Ive didn't get the feedback he needed. It's very important for a CEO to grow a pair of balls to keep someone like Ive in check but Cook didn't do that.
And I'm going to quote what another source said that wasn't mentioned on this forum:
Ive was “dispirited” by Tim Cook who “showed little interest in the product development process,” according to sources speaking to the WSJ. This helps explain why Cook, who comes from operations, sometimes appears to be seeing products for the first time in the hands-on area after Apple events (like the photo at the top of this article).
The bolded part is shocking to me. How the F could a CEO see products for the first time in a hands-on area after events. For the FIRST TIME?!?? If this is true, this is extremely disturbing. Ive shouldn't be blamed due to being dispirited on Cook's lack of interest or minimized visitations to his design department. I had a feeling this is what has been happening over the years. I'm a professional creative and can smell 'creative burnout' by observing things like this. It's not about operating best when we operate on what we know best. It's about feedback, communication and getting it right. Cook wasn't doing that and so delegated Ive to give the 'green light' on his own to the final versions. It basically tells me that Cook is lazy and didn't want to deal with the creative responsibilities which is now handed over to Jeff Williams.
The buck stops at the CEO's desk. Everything that goes on in a company must be approved by the top. However, I don't agree with Ive's idea about turning the Watch into a fashion accessory so it's hard to tell what exactly he had in mind to keep the device relevantly updated on a regular basis to retain value compared to the Health/Fitness focused aspects of today's Watch. The Health/Fitness approach is what should've been done in the very first place. That's on Cook and it's his fault for not reigning Ive in to keep in check and get real. Cook's lassez-faire approach is what screwed the whole thing up. And stacking half of his executive staff with Operations backgrounds is a huge mistake on Cook according to a recent Tweet by Ryan Jones.
Despite the lack of design or creative background that Cook has, it's his job to go down to the design department to see what they were working on in advance and put them in check in case of any issues. You have a CEO who has no creative vision nor ability to SEE the flaws or have any interest in the 'creative process' of the products. Because of Ive's dispirited and low morale at his job, Cook is part of the problem.
Thank you for keeping this rant focused on Cook’s job (and not his social politics, as people often do to discredit him, and as is entirely irrelevant).
What’s being reported here is easy for me to accept as mostly factual, since it is something I also have suspected of Apple since 2013 when iOS 7 came along. When it was revealed that Ive put the print design team in charge of the redesign, I knew we were dealing with a man that does not understand the core function of the company he works at. Then the continued obsession with thinness and luxury... The latest is this insanely narrow market for the Mac Pro.
Jobs regulated a wide assortment of difficult people at Apple and Cook does not seem to have the same capacity or will. Useful people stopped BEING useful when Jobs’ babysitting was gone. Maybe people think this isn’t the job of a CEO, but it very well may be when we are talking about a company that depends, for its very life blood, on very strongly creative, visionary, and individually-minded people. Cook also does not have the vision that Jobs had, nor the interest in the products (Apple as a company no longer seem to even USE its own products enough to catch or CARE about the bugs we report to them). Someone who believes in the vision of Apple between 2006 and 2012 needs to be in that leadership position, preferably without sacrificing the kinder approach Cook seems to have on human beings in general (compared to Jobs; “tough manager” BS can stay in the trash can).
It's gotta be tough designing something that's going to be replicated 200 million times. Operations has to be part of it. I'd like to know how it is he'll be happier working at his own company on the same projects, or how Apple gets anything better from it and doesn't increase its costs and risk. I'll bet the reaction to the trash can Mac Pro really cheesed him.
It is unbelievable that Apple couldn’t sell that Edition watch. Apple might sell it if they wanted that. While it is also true that the industry cannot tolerate such niche products, the Edition is only a fraction of Apple’s business and with such a power Apple could succeed with the Edition and obviously not go out of business like Vertu. There are a lot of VIPs in the world that would crave for such a watch. Apparently Ive has been left alone on the Marketing issues regarding Edition. The first Watch came in a luxurious box, with 2 m charging cable and a very high quality polycarbonate case. Watch 4 comes in a paper envelope, without case and with 70 cm charging cable unexpectedly short causing the Watch to slip from the hand and drop.
Dropping the $10,000+ Edition was the right move. It wasn't great PR for Apple, as the expectation was no one could afford this watch, and the little developer traction Apple are getting with the Watch now would be non-existent with Edition Watch market. Focusing on both health and fashion was the right move for the product. But let's face it, it's not as if you still can't pay pretty penny for an Apple Watch. If you want to, you a buy a Hermès for $1,500+.
This is not the point. The point is, that unique and very special spot the wrist has many competing candidates. A luxurious item can always chase your Watch away. You have to counter that with something of equal power, which was Edition.
Fortunately, Apple didn’t lose $10,000 per watch. I’d be shocked if they cost 1/10 of that. I never understood spending car money on a watch you don’t need...
At least a large number of people bought in to the cheaper version...
Yes because you are not very, very wealthy. Very, very wealthy people have no problem spending that on jewelry.
Yes, and those people are very very rare. They should be even more rare, but extreme privilege does not generally correlate with rational thought.
"Ive was dissatisfied with how Apple has concentrated more on operations than on design since Tim Cook took over from the late Steve Jobs"
I mean...this could not have been more clear or more obvious to everyone on the outside looking in. No one wants to admit or acknowledge it...but the exact worst thing that could have happened (Apple losing its "DNA", the spirit that Steve Jobs infused) is exactly what happened in short order from Tim taking over. Operations above all else. It really is that simple. Apple continues to pretend outwardly that this has not happened, because their legacy depends on it...but it is of course exactly, and quite simply, what happened.
Yes, we’ve been seeing it for years, but the apologists keep slamming us for “talking while not being on the inside”. I wouldn’t be as irritated as I am with Apple if they’d hadn’t been so much better before; had they kept their focus on the product, rather than the operations/MBA-mentality they clearly have had for years now. They’ve mistaken pathology for vision (thinness and minimalism as a core ideology are not visionary for products intended to provide function); this pathology it is a hollow mockery of what the company’s actual vision was prior to 2013.
This at least explains the notch! It always puzzled me how Ive would design something so functionally bad considering his history. Now that at least makes sense, he had kinda bailed out by that point because the nature of Apple had changed from visionary to status quo.
No, the true depth camera and Face ID explain the notch. Designers aren’t miracle workers.
"Ive was dissatisfied with how Apple has concentrated more on operations than on design since Tim Cook took over from the late Steve Jobs"
I mean...this could not have been more clear or more obvious to everyone on the outside looking in. No one wants to admit or acknowledge it...but the exact worst thing that could have happened (Apple losing its "DNA", the spirit that Steve Jobs infused) is exactly what happened in short order from Tim taking over. Operations above all else. It really is that simple. Apple continues to pretend outwardly that this has not happened, because their legacy depends on it...but it is of course exactly, and quite simply, what happened.
Yes, we’ve been seeing it for years, but the apologists keep slamming us for “talking while not being on the inside”. I wouldn’t be as irritated as I am with Apple if they’d hadn’t been so much better before; had they kept their focus on the product, rather than the operations/MBA-mentality they clearly have had for years now. They’ve mistaken pathology for vision (thinness and minimalism as a core ideology are not visionary for products intended to provide function); this pathology it is a hollow mockery of what the company’s actual vision was prior to 2013.
This makes no sense. The article claims Ive was dispirited by the numbers/operations focus of the company. By the way Steve Jobs was obsessed with thin too. People are projecting their opinions and feelings on to Steve because I guess they feel their opinions/feelings carry more weight if they believe Steve Jobs believed them too.
I find it hard to believe that Cook not visiting the design studio as often as Jobs would be "dispiriting" to Ive. It seems more likely that Ive just missed having Jobs provide his own specific input. It's not like Ive isn't smart enough to understand that Cook isn't going to be a clone of Jobs and may not believe he has as much to offer when it comes to providing critiques of the designs. That's not actually a standard skill for business executives.
Exactly. If Cook, who’s not design-savvy, visiting the studio as often as Jobs it will be more harmful than beneficial, or at best just pointless. We operate best when we operate on what we know best.
And Ive wouldn’t listen to Cook’s input on design anyway so what’s the point?
Maybe it’s less about specific input but if Cook rarely showed up it gave the impression he didn’t really care.
I don’t think it is. I think Ive knows very well who Cook is and if Cook coming to the studio as often as Jobs it will be pretentious. Everything I heard pointing that Ive always have Cook’s ear so there no need for Cook to pretend to be Jobs. Just media sensationalism coming from the usual suspect like WSJ more likely.
Sure who knows how accurate this story really is. I didn’t get the impression from the story that Ive was expecting Cook to be just like Steve. But there’s a difference between hardly ever stepping foot in the design studio and being there every day. If he never comes around I can see where one would think he doesn’t care.
I think the problem more likely comes from some of his works goes nowhere, like Apple Car than Cook physically has to be in the studio. Ive is a veteran designer. I trust him to know how things work. If he’s just dispirited because CEO who isn’t good at design doesn’t come to his room even when that CEO always have time for him and his idea, then he has some strange problem himself.
You think it's okay for the CEO to rarely visit one of the top executives? That'd dispirit anyone who was in that position. It'd make them feel like they aren't worth the time of the CEO. I have no idea what else Cook does though, since he doesn't seem to be involved in the products anymore. Probably trying to find ways to increase services revenue more.
Why? Cook even value Ive contributions more than Jobs did, by paying him much more. The article even, cynically, provide information on that. So why does Cook has to pretend to be a design guru to show he cares when he already did?
Paying Ive more money does NOT solve the problem. It means Cook was the wrong guy or didn't have the creative background to keep Ive in check. Valuing Ive means visiting his department and talking to him about the products entirely and where the design is going. It's not about being a design guru but rather having a sensible taste in good and practical design and KNOWING when Ive crosses the line regarding possible engineering issues. Job wasn't a designer but had a creative background in liberal arts. He was OCD in detail and if he noticed a little tiny problem, he'll pick it apart. Cook doesn't have that IT factor. That's his blind spot.
Jobs, when alive, made Jony work his ass off until he got to the design he liked. It's about intuitive design. Cook? I don't see that coming from him. If Jony wanted to go crazy with his design, Jobs would reel him to keep the product design practical. Not everything was perfect but during that era, the products were damn well built. I have a mid 2010 iMac and is still going strong. I even own a Titanium G4 PowerBook stored away and is built like a tank ( still works to this day except for the browned out Airport card ). I still have a G4 mirror drive tower Power Mac stored away too. One of the most practical Macs I've owned and it still works, thanks to Jobs.
Stop talking about what you don’t have a clue. Clearly you haven’t worked in design because if you have you’ll know the bolded part is BS. Design process doesn’t work like that.
Every story about Apple with Steve Jobs tells us that that is exactly what Apple was like. That’s what made Apple the company people know it as. That’s what made it a visionary company: a visionary leader who didn’t let “the way it’s done” stand in the way of his vision for computing. Today’s Apple is not that company. Today’s Apple is wearing the skin of the old Apple but is actually just another mindless Wall Street-pandering corporation. It’s taking the apologists a very long time to realize this.
Apple was a better company when there was a unified vision. That company is what many of us want back. We don’t care that “that’s not how business is done”. Sadly, there seems not to be anyone out there in the land of “potential CEOs to hire” that can replace Jobs in this way. He was driven (though not always for the better), unique in vision (especially for the geek-driven computer industry), and unwilling to merely follow trends (like Apple’s following of the flat fad since 2013), and anyone who might have this kind of vision today is unlikely to be on the short (or long) list for new CEO (because these are not the types of people who travel in those circles). It may simply be a sad fact that the Apple that we adore is a company that cannot exist any more. I only hope that some kind of leadership finds a way to make Apple better than it is NOW.
Yet that product could still sell if it was properly positioned and marketed. It was still a decent 4K video workstation.
No it wouldn't. The trashcan offered nothing that couldn't already be done with the then current Mac Pro. There was no position for it then and now.
Even if the Trashcan was slashed in price it would be useless for 4k Video as the vast majority of users shooting 4k video rely on h264 based codes which benefit hugely from Intel's Quicksync technology which is found on consumer i7/i9 CPUs and not on the Xeons. A cheap laptop would easily out-perform the Trashcan in 4k video editing. Apple has subsequently used the Vega GPUs to accelerate video codes in the iMac Pro but it's still not as fast as Quicksync.
The trashcan failed because it didn't offer a worthwhile performance improvement from the classic Mac Pro and the jobs artists wanted it for it sucked. There are countless stories of production studio literally burning through Trashcans because the GPUs cooked themselves to death. It was an appalling design and a disaster that went a long way in destroying the confidence of professionals in Apple Pro products. Apple's attempt to maximise profit by making the Trashcan as proprietary as possible and into an appliance failed miserably.
The latest Mac Pro makes similar mistakes of completely missing what the core Mac Pro buyer wants. There is a malaise in Apple's Mac design department.
Who is the “core Mac Pro buyer”?
Well, there wasn’t one. It was a wide enough product line that hobbyists AND hard core content creators/companies could buy and enjoy them. Now there is a core buyer: Disney and Pixar. Or at least that’s what today’s Apple thinks it should be (I suspect Disney and Pixar CFOs will fight the animation and video departments who request buying these machines in bulk when they can point to cheaper, if inferior, Windows machines). Apple went entirely too far in the opposite direction from their consumer product focus. No sense of proportion.
I find it hard to believe that Cook not visiting the design studio as often as Jobs would be "dispiriting" to Ive. It seems more likely that Ive just missed having Jobs provide his own specific input. It's not like Ive isn't smart enough to understand that Cook isn't going to be a clone of Jobs and may not believe he has as much to offer when it comes to providing critiques of the designs. That's not actually a standard skill for business executives.
Exactly. If Cook, who’s not design-savvy, visiting the studio as often as Jobs it will be more harmful than beneficial, or at best just pointless. We operate best when we operate on what we know best.
And Ive wouldn’t listen to Cook’s input on design anyway so what’s the point?
Maybe it’s less about specific input but if Cook rarely showed up it gave the impression he didn’t really care.
I don’t think it is. I think Ive knows very well who Cook is and if Cook coming to the studio as often as Jobs it will be pretentious. Everything I heard pointing that Ive always have Cook’s ear so there no need for Cook to pretend to be Jobs. Just media sensationalism coming from the usual suspect like WSJ more likely.
Sure who knows how accurate this story really is. I didn’t get the impression from the story that Ive was expecting Cook to be just like Steve. But there’s a difference between hardly ever stepping foot in the design studio and being there every day. If he never comes around I can see where one would think he doesn’t care.
I think the problem more likely comes from some of his works goes nowhere, like Apple Car than Cook physically has to be in the studio. Ive is a veteran designer. I trust him to know how things work. If he’s just dispirited because CEO who isn’t good at design doesn’t come to his room even when that CEO always have time for him and his idea, then he has some strange problem himself.
You think it's okay for the CEO to rarely visit one of the top executives? That'd dispirit anyone who was in that position. It'd make them feel like they aren't worth the time of the CEO. I have no idea what else Cook does though, since he doesn't seem to be involved in the products anymore. Probably trying to find ways to increase services revenue more.
Why? Cook even value Ive contributions more than Jobs did, by paying him much more. The article even, cynically, provide information on that. So why does Cook has to pretend to be a design guru to show he cares when he already did?
Paying Ive more money does NOT solve the problem. It means Cook was the wrong guy or didn't have the creative background to keep Ive in check. Valuing Ive means visiting his department and talking to him about the products entirely and where the design is going. It's not about being a design guru but rather having a sensible taste in good and practical design and KNOWING when Ive crosses the line regarding possible engineering issues. Job wasn't a designer but had a creative background in liberal arts. He was OCD in detail and if he noticed a little tiny problem, he'll pick it apart. Cook doesn't have that IT factor. That's his blind spot.
Jobs, when alive, made Jony work his ass off until he got to the design he liked. It's about intuitive design. Cook? I don't see that coming from him. If Jony wanted to go crazy with his design, Jobs would reel him to keep the product design practical. Not everything was perfect but during that era, the products were damn well built. I have a mid 2010 iMac and is still going strong. I even own a Titanium G4 PowerBook stored away and is built like a tank ( still works to this day except for the browned out Airport card ). I still have a G4 mirror drive tower Power Mac stored away too. One of the most practical Macs I've owned and it still works, thanks to Jobs.
This is pure conjecture. I’m sure it’s what some people want to believe, especially people who have this vision of Jobs as some kind of god who could do no wrong. But it’s not backed up by facts. There are plenty of things people complained about when Steve Jobs was still in charge. But now the revisionist history is anything someone doesn’t like about Apple is something Steve Jobs wouldn’t have allowed to happen. BS.
Jobs was no god. He was an extremely flawed individual. However, he did have a very strong vision for what he wanted computing to be, and it was very different from what most tech people think it should be. When that was combined with people who had the skills and knowledge to put that vision into form (often many different people who didn’t work well together because their own visions were incompatible), we got some amazing forward movements in the computer industry from Apple. Apple pushed the industry several times and we all benefitted from it. Today’s Apple does not have that makeup and may never again have it. We are now living through another era of “more of the same” from the computer industry. Not all gains have been lost, but some of them ARE slipping away and people like me are sick of the mindset that makes this industry so awful. It’s an industry that would be happy to stay insular and ruled by geeks and Wall Street types, which is the opposite of what civilization needs.
Steve got lucky: he found a man willing to be lead (manipulated?) by his vision and ideologies. He continued to be lucky. He found others who were willing to be lead by him and attained financial success. His cult of personality benefitted him, and, unlike most sociopaths and narcissists who think they can be “another Steve Jobs”, his cult of personality also benefitted the rest of us with technology being pushed forward toward actual usability. I didn’t like the man, but I greatly appreciate what he accomplished, even though it was ultimately a result of many capable people under his obsessive control.
I find it hard to believe that Cook not visiting the design studio as often as Jobs would be "dispiriting" to Ive. It seems more likely that Ive just missed having Jobs provide his own specific input. It's not like Ive isn't smart enough to understand that Cook isn't going to be a clone of Jobs and may not believe he has as much to offer when it comes to providing critiques of the designs. That's not actually a standard skill for business executives.
Exactly. If Cook, who’s not design-savvy, visiting the studio as often as Jobs it will be more harmful than beneficial, or at best just pointless. We operate best when we operate on what we know best.
And Ive wouldn’t listen to Cook’s input on design anyway so what’s the point?
Maybe it’s less about specific input but if Cook rarely showed up it gave the impression he didn’t really care.
I don’t think it is. I think Ive knows very well who Cook is and if Cook coming to the studio as often as Jobs it will be pretentious. Everything I heard pointing that Ive always have Cook’s ear so there no need for Cook to pretend to be Jobs. Just media sensationalism coming from the usual suspect like WSJ more likely.
Sure who knows how accurate this story really is. I didn’t get the impression from the story that Ive was expecting Cook to be just like Steve. But there’s a difference between hardly ever stepping foot in the design studio and being there every day. If he never comes around I can see where one would think he doesn’t care.
I think the problem more likely comes from some of his works goes nowhere, like Apple Car than Cook physically has to be in the studio. Ive is a veteran designer. I trust him to know how things work. If he’s just dispirited because CEO who isn’t good at design doesn’t come to his room even when that CEO always have time for him and his idea, then he has some strange problem himself.
You think it's okay for the CEO to rarely visit one of the top executives? That'd dispirit anyone who was in that position. It'd make them feel like they aren't worth the time of the CEO. I have no idea what else Cook does though, since he doesn't seem to be involved in the products anymore. Probably trying to find ways to increase services revenue more.
Why? Cook even value Ive contributions more than Jobs did, by paying him much more. The article even, cynically, provide information on that. So why does Cook has to pretend to be a design guru to show he cares when he already did?
Paying Ive more money does NOT solve the problem. It means Cook was the wrong guy or didn't have the creative background to keep Ive in check. Valuing Ive means visiting his department and talking to him about the products entirely and where the design is going. It's not about being a design guru but rather having a sensible taste in good and practical design and KNOWING when Ive crosses the line regarding possible engineering issues. Job wasn't a designer but had a creative background in liberal arts. He was OCD in detail and if he noticed a little tiny problem, he'll pick it apart. Cook doesn't have that IT factor. That's his blind spot.
Jobs, when alive, made Jony work his ass off until he got to the design he liked. It's about intuitive design. Cook? I don't see that coming from him. If Jony wanted to go crazy with his design, Jobs would reel him to keep the product design practical. Not everything was perfect but during that era, the products were damn well built. I have a mid 2010 iMac and is still going strong. I even own a Titanium G4 PowerBook stored away and is built like a tank ( still works to this day except for the browned out Airport card ). I still have a G4 mirror drive tower Power Mac stored away too. One of the most practical Macs I've owned and it still works, thanks to Jobs.
Stop talking about what you don’t have a clue. Clearly you haven’t worked in design because if you have you’ll know the bolded part is BS. Design process doesn’t work like that. The article present a nice story, a nice angle that get you attention when you first read it but doesn’t hold when you’re really thinking about it, something that you clearly failed to do.
I know what I'm talking about. I studied in art school years ago in the graphic design/illustration department and have interacted with Industrial Design students. I've freelanced for almost 20 years now. I understand how the process works. It's clear you're ignoring Jobs' creative background and not acknowledging the fact that Cook is the one of the people who doesn't have that creative touch. He's a "bean counter" who pretends to have taste in good practical design but doesn't. This is a man who does NOT have the ability to provide good feedback to Ive.
Ask yourself this. WHY did he hand the responsibility to the COO Jeff Williams right now to oversee the departments?
Ha Ha. Unfortunately for you, I’m also graduate in graphic design, and is a much better designer than you judging from your posts.
As for your question the answer is very easy, very simple someone followed Apple a few years would be able to answer it. Why now? Because of Ive departure. Duh..
Well judging from your posts, your grammar and English needs a lot of work as you wouldn't get a job with that kind of attitude. You sound either foreign outside of America or DEAF considering the grammar being used ( I say this from experience ). I couldn't care less if you're a much better designer or which school you graduated from. Good designers don't talk like that.
And your response is a sign that you're avoiding the question. Google on Ive's departure and Jeff William's new responsibilities. It's not because of Ive's departure which there's a lot more to it than meets the eye. You need to learn to read between the lines as it is unusual for COO Jeff Williams to take on the responsibilities to oversee the departments. This has never happened before in Apple, I don't believe. Something is up with Cook and I think he is the next one to leave Apple and Williams to be the new CEO. When that happens, it remains to be seen but it could be at the end of the year or very early 2020 right when the election year comes around for the United States.
My grammar is very bad, and I never say otherwise.
Your last paragraph only proves that you’re a confused person. Adios. Please don’t quote me anymore. You’re not worth my time.
And text that is so poorly written as yours is a waste of my time, too...
Tim Cook came from Compaq. Compaq is his DNA. Want to know where Apple will go? Look where Comaq went. Give it enough time and that's where Apple will be.
So Apple will go where? Towards a low profit margin company? Microsoft will take over Apple? Towards a company without culture? I don't think Apple will go that far, although culture is hard to maintain. Just look at Pixar too. There always needs to be one strong creative person at the helm, yes. But perhaps that day will come again for Apple. I don't think Apple will ever be a Compaq.
Maybe Cook has transformed Apple towards a culture of being too nice to each other, because those are his values. All the rebels have left or were booted out. So what is left is perhaps a yes-men culture. Nobody is pitted against each other. Nobody there to strongly disagree about anything, like the pricing of products. In an interview with Scott Forstall, he said there was once an argument over the pricing of something. Forstall said to Steve the price was too high, because he knew people who couldn't afford it at the price. And while Steve maintained the price point, the argument is what is important. Steve was also someone who could change his mind overnight. Steve Jobs lowered the iPhone price after a few months of introduction. Remember the outrage? But Steve said: "We've clearly got a breakthrough product and we want to make it affordable for even more customers as we enter this holiday season." See, Steve did use the term affordable now and then. So someone got through to him. In the Cook era, that has gone. Right now, there needs to be people shouting at Cook that profit is nice for Apple, but what is better is to be a company that people love.
There’s a myth that a conflict-heavy Apple is what made it great and that Steve Jobs’ near sociopathic/narcissistic behavior makes for good leadership.
This is entirely false. Stop worshipping this business myth.
You do not need conflict and abuse to create good products. You DO need a way to mix a lot of otherwise incompatible people, and that requires leadership with unifying vision. There are probably more healthy ways to go about it than the way Steve Jobs did it.
so many news outlets have made the mistake his company name is going to be LoveFrom, if you read the Apple press release you'll see its actually LoveForm. I suppose this many people making this mistake proves its not a great name.
It also proves that no one frelling proofreads.
The company's name is LoveFrom, not LoveForm.
And, like I said in another thread, the Apple PR doesn't name the firm at all, and never did.
I never said it did. I’m taking issue with proofreading everywhere. If the name is correct here, then great. It’s entirely too easy to expect errors in AI articles when proofreading is clearly not being done. I spot more errors in one, first pass, read of AI articles than anyone should outside the editing room.
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I personally observe the same current problem with Apple on the outside: focus with the wrong things. This is making the products be less than they could be (and used to be). If an active leadership position in the position of CEO, where a unified vision drove, moderated, and carried the individual expertise of its other workers, is what made a better Apple, then that’s what Apple needs now. Many companies need this and fail to have it (the size of corporate structures and obsession with the gambling of Wall Street sabotages this everywhere).
Apple was probably the most meaningful and important business to Jobs. I’m not sure that it’s entirely reasonable to compare Jobs’ behavior at Apple with his behavior at NeXT.
Unified vision isn’t something that comes from a bunch of experts in their individual fields.
As for making the design team “the stars at Apple”: Ive put the iOS 7 visual redesign in the hands of the print design team. Utterly inappropriate “leadership” choice. What became of all the “Apple stars” who already had the GUI expertise? Did they stay around while their specific expertise was being made into a joke by Ive handing it to people utterly unqualified for it? To this day people keep defending the iOS 7 redesign by bashing people who actually know better about GUI design and claiming that “Apple employs the best people”, utterly missing the point of having expertise in the right field.
What’s being reported here is easy for me to accept as mostly factual, since it is something I also have suspected of Apple since 2013 when iOS 7 came along. When it was revealed that Ive put the print design team in charge of the redesign, I knew we were dealing with a man that does not understand the core function of the company he works at. Then the continued obsession with thinness and luxury... The latest is this insanely narrow market for the Mac Pro.
Jobs regulated a wide assortment of difficult people at Apple and Cook does not seem to have the same capacity or will. Useful people stopped BEING useful when Jobs’ babysitting was gone. Maybe people think this isn’t the job of a CEO, but it very well may be when we are talking about a company that depends, for its very life blood, on very strongly creative, visionary, and individually-minded people. Cook also does not have the vision that Jobs had, nor the interest in the products (Apple as a company no longer seem to even USE its own products enough to catch or CARE about the bugs we report to them). Someone who believes in the vision of Apple between 2006 and 2012 needs to be in that leadership position, preferably without sacrificing the kinder approach Cook seems to have on human beings in general (compared to Jobs; “tough manager” BS can stay in the trash can).
I'll bet the reaction to the trash can Mac Pro really cheesed him.
Yes, we’ve been seeing it for years, but the apologists keep slamming us for “talking while not being on the inside”. I wouldn’t be as irritated as I am with Apple if they’d hadn’t been so much better before; had they kept their focus on the product, rather than the operations/MBA-mentality they clearly have had for years now. They’ve mistaken pathology for vision (thinness and minimalism as a core ideology are not visionary for products intended to provide function); this pathology it is a hollow mockery of what the company’s actual vision was prior to 2013.
No, the true depth camera and Face ID explain the notch. Designers aren’t miracle workers.
Every story about Apple with Steve Jobs tells us that that is exactly what Apple was like. That’s what made Apple the company people know it as. That’s what made it a visionary company: a visionary leader who didn’t let “the way it’s done” stand in the way of his vision for computing. Today’s Apple is not that company. Today’s Apple is wearing the skin of the old Apple but is actually just another mindless Wall Street-pandering corporation. It’s taking the apologists a very long time to realize this.
Apple was a better company when there was a unified vision. That company is what many of us want back. We don’t care that “that’s not how business is done”. Sadly, there seems not to be anyone out there in the land of “potential CEOs to hire” that can replace Jobs in this way. He was driven (though not always for the better), unique in vision (especially for the geek-driven computer industry), and unwilling to merely follow trends (like Apple’s following of the flat fad since 2013), and anyone who might have this kind of vision today is unlikely to be on the short (or long) list for new CEO (because these are not the types of people who travel in those circles). It may simply be a sad fact that the Apple that we adore is a company that cannot exist any more. I only hope that some kind of leadership finds a way to make Apple better than it is NOW.
Well, there wasn’t one. It was a wide enough product line that hobbyists AND hard core content creators/companies could buy and enjoy them. Now there is a core buyer: Disney and Pixar. Or at least that’s what today’s Apple thinks it should be (I suspect Disney and Pixar CFOs will fight the animation and video departments who request buying these machines in bulk when they can point to cheaper, if inferior, Windows machines). Apple went entirely too far in the opposite direction from their consumer product focus. No sense of proportion.
Steve got lucky: he found a man willing to be lead (manipulated?) by his vision and ideologies. He continued to be lucky. He found others who were willing to be lead by him and attained financial success. His cult of personality benefitted him, and, unlike most sociopaths and narcissists who think they can be “another Steve Jobs”, his cult of personality also benefitted the rest of us with technology being pushed forward toward actual usability. I didn’t like the man, but I greatly appreciate what he accomplished, even though it was ultimately a result of many capable people under his obsessive control.
And text that is so poorly written as yours is a waste of my time, too...
There’s a myth that a conflict-heavy Apple is what made it great and that Steve Jobs’ near sociopathic/narcissistic behavior makes for good leadership.
This is entirely false. Stop worshipping this business myth.
You do not need conflict and abuse to create good products. You DO need a way to mix a lot of otherwise incompatible people, and that requires leadership with unifying vision. There are probably more healthy ways to go about it than the way Steve Jobs did it.