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.
No one asked for a miracle. If they cannot embed those components invisibly into the screen, then maybe they should KEEP the bezel until they can. Same for the removal of the physical home button: if this can be done without complicating the product, then fine, but that’s not what happened. The situation with gestures has gotten out of hand. The device is no longer intuitive and discoverable. Numerous gestures actively CONFLICT with each other, as I’ve pointed out in specific detail in other threads.
This is a failure of design. It is the desire to be different or apply an aesthetic without the technical capability being present to do it right. It’s just like the folding screen nonsense. Design goals should never defeat function.
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.
Let’s face it, Apple management determined the hobbyist market wasn’t big enough to waste resources on. If you’re not Pixar then the Mac mini and iMac Pro are there for you. Most of the complaints I’ve read aren’t about what people need to get their job done it’s what they want - either out of principle in that they believe they should have the right to a machine they can upgrade whenever they want, or they’re just hobbyists who like to tinker. How big is that market? Obviously not big enough for Apple put resources behind it. The criticism I will agree with is the monitor. Hopefully a cheaper 5K or 6K monitor will be shown off in the fall.
"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.
Jobs was into thinness, sure, but I don’t get the impression that he was irrational about it. Or maybe he was irrational about it and it was the actual technical people inside Apple who pulled him back to actual usability. Still, the point is the same: the effective mixture of people and attitudes are no longer present and there is a lack of a unifying vision. Steve Jobs seemed to be against the computer industry geekishness or “how it’s done” for the sake of “history”; he was also vocally against the Masters of Business Administration mentality of leadership. This kind of thinking is exactly what the computer industry needs and no company is currently showing that mindset. Current Apple leadership seems to have no vision other than profitability, and the departments putting the products together seem to have missed the mark on EFFECTIVE design because there’s no longer an effective combination of design, technical knowledge, and vision/leadership to drive it and then to see it all through.
If it’s all about what Steve liked, then fine: They see Steve liked thin, so they’re making it a pathology at Apple, rather than this facet being regulated by other needs. There’s an ideology not being combatted by appropriate technical people. Maybe they’ve been driven out, or maybe they’re also too embedded in “what Steve wanted” thinking. Jobs required being handled too. He was a visionary, not an electronics or programming expert. The reverence with which he is held may be part of the problem inside Apple. I could easily see “what Steve would have wanted” being a problem as much as the LACK of it being a problem.
Either way, this is a failure of a unifying vision to put disparate departments and ideologies into one forward moving machine. It’s not an easy management job, and it seems Tim Cook has in no way been able or willing to regulate the many different personalities and specialties of the people working for him while he is their Chief Executive Officer. The mixture of people who gave us the iPhone aren’t there any more. The people who gave us the Mac Pro probably aren’t there any more. The people who gave us the world’s most friendly Unix probably aren’t there any more. People have left, been pushed out, etc. Maybe jerks needed to go, but the balance has been upset and this Apple is not doing what the previous Apple did very well: find the right people and manage them into making truly superior product. Now it’s just “less bad” product, and that too is sliding.
It is unbelievable that Apple couldn’t sell that Edition watch.
Actually it’s unbelievable that people bought them. Solid gold paperweights in 10 years’ time.
10 years is a long long time.
I disagree. There's definitely a luxury market. A Rolex can cost more and all it does is tick. I think Apple giving up that revenue was one of the worst decisions in their history.
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.
Let’s face it, Apple management determined the hobbyist market wasn’t big enough to waste resources on. If you’re not Pixar then the Mac mini and iMac Pro are there for you. Most of the complaints I’ve read aren’t about what people need to get their job done it’s what they want - either out of principle in that they believe they should have the right to a machine they can upgrade whenever they want, or they’re just hobbyists who like to tinker. How big is that market? Obviously not big enough for Apple put resources behind it. [...]
Then you’ve not seen my complaints or the complaints of small businesses, education/research departments (always under-funded and always in need of faster and well-built machines), etc., or you’ve not understood those complaints.
Yes, I’m a hobbyist, but I’ve been willing to wait and save money to own the appropriate tool. A compact machine is NOT the appropriate tool for heavy workloads that generate consistent high temperatures. It is well known that compact machines and constant & wide thermal variations don’t go well together. The Mac Pro is the only possible Apple workstation for this use case scenario. Apple has entirely removed it from my market segment. It’s not just a problem for hobbyists like me; it’s a problem for any small business or educational institution that cannot justify spending top dollar for a render farm, school lab, or physics modeling setup. (also: many, if not most, hobbyists aim to become paid professionals)
This isn’t about what some hobbyist jerks think is best for everyone. This is about taking a product that fit a wide market very successfully and turning it into a narrow market, where the only people who can afford to be customers are corporations like Disney and Pixar... and I already indicated my doubts about that being entirely successful a market too, for the same reason: extreme cost.
Also, you are greatly GREATLY missing the scale of the hobbyist market. Take note that the music production product market currently lives on the money of hobbyists, not on the money coming from big studios. The hobbyist market exists in greater number than the studios, and is willing to spend more money than the widest market (end consumers) for computing. If you’re not involved in music making, I can understand why you’d not be aware of this fact.
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.
You have an interesting but flawed idea of how a trillion dollar corporation works. No, Cook doesn't have to sign off on product prototypes, and no, everything that goes on in a company does not have to be approved by the top. There are others whose duties would include that. That's what a corporate structure is all about, it's not one person with his thumb in every activity in which Apple's HALF A MILLION employees take part.
As far as Ive not getting a hearty kumbaya from the CEO, tough...Ive is the one who has to man up, not Cook. More importantly, you are basing most of your opinion on an alleged rumor from another source, under the guise of "This helps explain...". No it doesn't because you don't know what's real.
What happened to Ive, if any of these anecdotes are true, is that he burned out. It happens to all creatives, and usually one of two things happens: they leave, or they get kicked upstairs where they don't have to endure the agony of the design process.
Reportedly, thousands of the $10,000 gold edition of the Apple Watch remained unsold.
I bought my $850 stainless steel v.1 Apple Watch with a wrap-around steel band a week after it was introduced. I'm still using it, and it is a required part of my life now.
But people should know: tech lasts 5 years for the most part. A gold watch?... only for the people for whom money means nothing.
Why would a smart tech company buy so many gold watches with a very limited product life?
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.
Same if true as LoveFrom is such a cool name for cool products.
Great. You continue to educate yourself by following YouTube “influencers”. When I choose H.264 hardware encoder almost all H.264 parameters disappear, your influencer mentor is not the only one who owns a MBP. H.264 isn’t even a professional editing or interchange format, what are you talking about... Do not quote me anymore I have no time to waste with you.
You're proving you're an ignoramus one forum post at a time, h264 is the standard many professional codes are built on, in my case my Sony FS7 and F5 cameras' XAVC codec is h264 based. Canon and Panasonic also have their own Pro codec based on h264.
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.
No one asked for a miracle. If they cannot embed those components invisibly into the screen, then maybe they should KEEP the bezel until they can. Same for the removal of the physical home button: if this can be done without complicating the product, then fine, but that’s not what happened. The situation with gestures has gotten out of hand. The device is no longer intuitive and discoverable. Numerous gestures actively CONFLICT with each other, as I’ve pointed out in specific detail in other threads.
This is a failure of design. It is the desire to be different or apply an aesthetic without the technical capability being present to do it right. It’s just like the folding screen nonsense. Design goals should never defeat function.
So, you not being good at operating your iPhone is Ive’s fault. Got it.
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.
No one asked for a miracle. If they cannot embed those components invisibly into the screen, then maybe they should KEEP the bezel until they can. Same for the removal of the physical home button: if this can be done without complicating the product, then fine, but that’s not what happened. The situation with gestures has gotten out of hand. The device is no longer intuitive and discoverable. Numerous gestures actively CONFLICT with each other, as I’ve pointed out in specific detail in other threads.
This is a failure of design. It is the desire to be different or apply an aesthetic without the technical capability being present to do it right. It’s just like the folding screen nonsense. Design goals should never defeat function.
So, you not being good at operating your iPhone is Ive’s fault. Got it.
No need to be a jerk, the notch is definitely a compromise decision, and the full-screen form factor of the X-series hasn't yet worked out some interface paradigms - as the OP says, some gestures conflict with each other, and there is definitely a discoverability issue. I wouldn't subscribe to the same "failure of design" judgement, it's a brave new world after all, but the X-series does feel a little rougher around the edges (not literally, they're silky smooth) than the 7 and 8.
may be jony is got woz moment - burn out at swimming pool? look like who ever report to the wsj from the design group caught a common cold of design - under valued execution and operation. Both are as critical or even more so as part of design process (quick read of F.R. Brooks "The Design of Design" might be beneficial ;-). We all enjoy Jony's design, many year's perfectionist effort to maturity before launch. It is the trade mark second to none in a design world full of half baked products only get 5 min of flame replaced by another 'bright eye catching" next of equal bad product (just check e-waste basket). It is super hard to design with operation in mind. Hopefully, with departure of Jony, Apple still keep operation/design coupled. As for next love of Jony, it free his mind out of apple grid. He could just like Michelangelo, change to paint Sistine Chapel instead of sculpture. Go Sir Jony, show us the Love and new Form. Best wishes and ignore all the wsj fuss.
This comment alone shows how ill-informed the article is:
”Cook also backed Ive when the designer was pushing to create an Apple Watch and other executives didn't want it. However, Ive really wanted to make a luxury watch and the company compromised by making it be a companion to the iPhone”
For a start, Jeff Williams was in on the watch from the outset, and has clearly been a deep supporter of the project. Secondly, the idea that making the watch a companion device to iPhone as a “compromise” to appease the other executives is ridiculous. The Watch could never have existed as a standalone device at launch. The technology simply was nowhere near sufficiently developed at that time and only became feasible for the launch of Series 3.
Beware articles where former employees are a primary source. That’s not to say they provide inherently unreliable accounts, but they should be treated with a degree of healthy cynicism.
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.
You have an interesting but flawed idea of how a trillion dollar corporation works. No, Cook doesn't have to sign off on product prototypes, and no, everything that goes on in a company does not have to be approved by the top. There are others whose duties would include that. That's what a corporate structure is all about, it's not one person with his thumb in every activity in which Apple's HALF A MILLION employees take part.
As far as Ive not getting a hearty kumbaya from the CEO, tough...Ive is the one who has to man up, not Cook. More importantly, you are basing most of your opinion on an alleged rumor from another source, under the guise of "This helps explain...". No it doesn't because you don't know what's real.
What happened to Ive, if any of these anecdotes are true, is that he burned out. It happens to all creatives, and usually one of two things happens: they leave, or they get kicked upstairs where they don't have to endure the agony of the design process.
If Cook doesn't have to sign off on product prototypes to finalize it, then who was supposed to do that? The Chief Design Officer or COO Jeff Williams? The point I'm trying to make is that the CEO can't afford to be ignorant or blind to what's happening under his/her nose when products are in the works. He/she has to have a good pulse in the process and then 'green light' it once it's finalized. Maybe not just the CEO but rather a few of the VPs, the COO and CEO has to come together and collectively agree on the product's final version. It's really about quality control.
So if I understand this right, Cook promoted Jony Ive to CDO to be in charge and unify all design decisions and 'green light' them because he, alone, apparently has the design taste and discipline to say 'It's good enough. Green light it'. Yes, Ive did get burnt out. The signs were there the whole time. And what disturbs me is how Cook promoted a man who was already burnt out to be CDO in May of 2015. This was right after Apple Watch got its debut. If Cook didn't see the burnout coming, that's a problem. I'm not defending Ive or Cook because both of them are the problem.
I'm a professional creative myself in illustration/graphic design work and when the project is finalized, that's up to the client's approval to see to their satisfaction that it meets their standards. I inform them of every stage of the project's phase from preliminary to final so they know what's going on. I once did storyboards for a local design media firm as a freelancer in Ohio way back in 2005 who were making a commercial pitch to another client. I reported my work directly to the principals of that firm ( two people who run and own it. One was the Art Director and the other a CEO ). The firm stopped operating about a few years later. Something went wrong internally. 'Ball and Chaining' someone who's already in the process of burning out by offering a higher salary or saddle them with more responsibilities is literally playing with fire. Cook was on the extreme end of having the 'Operations' mindset and kowtowing with Wall Street while Jony was on the other extreme end of his minimal design tendencies. Was Jony at fault for not showing up at the meetings? Probably. Even when he was working on projects at remote locations in San Francisco outside of Apple Park, according to what was reported, which is unusual to me when those should be done in-house. This tells me that he's avoiding someone or a group of people who frustrated him. While Cook should've done a better job of reaching out to him without sacking more responsibilities on his shoulders and making him do the work on Apple Park that took up a lot of his time away from the products' developments if I'm to understand this. If Jony is concerned and frustrated that Apple is turning into an 'operations' type of company and less on the arts/technology focus, then something is not right. Recently in one tweet, someone mentioned that half or most of Cook's VPs come from an Operations background. Jony and Jobs communicated with each other and feedback is extremely valuable to a designer like him to understand the direction of the products concerned. I know from experience that if a client is non-communicative, then there's a problem or the client is trying to silently back out of the project without paying which is also a prevalent problem in the industry. It's not unheard of. So Cook was, if I understand this, acting like an indifferent client who can't make up his mind or unable to provide feedback to the design department.
In a sense, Jony is saying that Cook as CEO IS responsible for that level of feedback and having a presence in the design department. Jony can't just call the shots for the entire company and say " This ( whatever product ) is good enough. You will all accept this design ". It's the VPs and Cook that have to 'rubber stamp' it and say " Looks great. Doesn't have flaws. Let's go with it and put it in the pipeline ". So now the COO is giving the responsibility to oversee the ID and HI teams and not the CEO. What's wrong with the picture? Sure, the CDO is no longer valid and is most likely to be phased out because no one can replace Jony. Jeff can't become a CDO because he doesn't have a design background and call the shots even though he may be more interested or vested in the process than Cook. The CEO has to see the progress and sign off on the final versions. And so, if Hackney and Dye report to Williams, they're going to continue doing their thing while new designers have the chance to prove themselves.
Now when Jony goes freelance, he'll work with Apple but it may be on a limited capacity because it won't be done in-house. He might be doing something else for Apple rather than product design. Who knows? But he'll have other clientele running to him other than Apple to keep him busy and creative juices flowing tackling new problems rather than the same old damn thing over and over. I know what it's like to be burnt out. Trust me. I did work in a local print shop in-house once which required working on Adobe InDesign on a 27 inch iMac with jobs that need to be set up on page parameters in PDF format, etc, even doing some custom work as well. The original owner of 25 years sold it to my former boss who then took it over. He's a nice guy but he had a strange way of going about things in the business. In less than two years, it got stale. Fast. So I left the business and went freelance so I can focus on my own thing.
I understand Jony's predicament but don't agree with everything he says or has done. But I don't agree with Cook either.
I'm aware Cook just lambasted the report but he hasn't proven them wrong. Yet. By lashing out, he's doing damage control and the same thing goes if he kept silent. It's still damaging either way.
The question remains is now that Ive and Angela ( Cook's big hire who just left ) are gone, will Apple get its crap together and restore the focus on the practicality of the products, OR will it continue with the design language by crippling the hardware and specs? Come this Fall's keynote, we'll know for sure who's full of it considering the products' directions.
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.
No one asked for a miracle. If they cannot embed those components invisibly into the screen, then maybe they should KEEP the bezel until they can. Same for the removal of the physical home button: if this can be done without complicating the product, then fine, but that’s not what happened. The situation with gestures has gotten out of hand. The device is no longer intuitive and discoverable. Numerous gestures actively CONFLICT with each other, as I’ve pointed out in specific detail in other threads.
This is a failure of design. It is the desire to be different or apply an aesthetic without the technical capability being present to do it right. It’s just like the folding screen nonsense. Design goals should never defeat function.
So, you not being good at operating your iPhone is Ive’s fault. Got it.
No need to be a jerk, the notch is definitely a compromise decision, and the full-screen form factor of the X-series hasn't yet worked out some interface paradigms - as the OP says, some gestures conflict with each other, and there is definitely a discoverability issue. I wouldn't subscribe to the same "failure of design" judgement, it's a brave new world after all, but the X-series does feel a little rougher around the edges (not literally, they're silky smooth) than the 7 and 8.
Whatever. They have been complaining endlessly about these gestures here and elsewhere as if there's something fundamentally wrong with them (even referring to some as "bugs"), when all it takes is a little bit of practice and it's second nature, like most things. The X-era buttonless process for home/switching apps/control center etc is miles better than what we had before. Just pointing out that it's *user error* and not a "failure of design" when the vast majority of people can use it just fine and don't endlessly complain about it in these forums. No need to hold back advances in design for the minority of neophyte users who refuse to try and learn how to use them properly.
Also, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the notch. Just think of them as ears instead.
The question remains is now that Ive and Angela ( Cook's big hire who just left ) are gone, will Apple get its crap together and restore the focus on the practicality of the products, OR will it continue with the design language by crippling the hardware and specs? Come this Fall's keynote, we'll know for sure who's full of it considering the products' directions.
Why would Ahrendts have anything to do with product design? And if you think stuff coming out this fall haven't already been designed, you have no idea how this process works.
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.
No one asked for a miracle. If they cannot embed those components invisibly into the screen, then maybe they should KEEP the bezel until they can. Same for the removal of the physical home button: if this can be done without complicating the product, then fine, but that’s not what happened. The situation with gestures has gotten out of hand. The device is no longer intuitive and discoverable. Numerous gestures actively CONFLICT with each other, as I’ve pointed out in specific detail in other threads.
This is a failure of design. It is the desire to be different or apply an aesthetic without the technical capability being present to do it right. It’s just like the folding screen nonsense. Design goals should never defeat function.
So, you not being good at operating your iPhone is Ive’s fault. Got it.
No need to be a jerk, the notch is definitely a compromise decision, and the full-screen form factor of the X-series hasn't yet worked out some interface paradigms - as the OP says, some gestures conflict with each other, and there is definitely a discoverability issue. I wouldn't subscribe to the same "failure of design" judgement, it's a brave new world after all, but the X-series does feel a little rougher around the edges (not literally, they're silky smooth) than the 7 and 8.
Whatever. They have been complaining endlessly about these gestures here and elsewhere as if there's something fundamentally wrong with them (even referring to some as "bugs"), when all it takes is a little bit of practice and it's second nature, like most things. The X-era buttonless process for home/switching apps/control center etc is miles better than what we had before. Just pointing out that it's *user error* and not a "failure of design" when the vast majority of people can use it just fine and don't endlessly complain about it in these forums. No need to hold back advances in design for the minority of neophyte users who refuse to try and learn how to use them properly.
Also, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the notch. Just think of them as ears instead.
Not sure how "ears" makes anything better. I don't want my iPhone screen to have ears either, especially when it causes issues in some of my apps. If there's absolutely nothing wrong with the notch I take it you're not bothered about a future iPhone without it, a full screen with no ears? No? Not even a smidgen of interest?
The question remains is now that Ive and Angela ( Cook's big hire who just left ) are gone, will Apple get its crap together and restore the focus on the practicality of the products, OR will it continue with the design language by crippling the hardware and specs? Come this Fall's keynote, we'll know for sure who's full of it considering the products' directions.
Why would Ahrendts have anything to do with product design? And if you think stuff coming out this fall haven't already been designed, you have no idea how this process works.
She had a hand in the marketing for the Watch in retail. One of the reasons Cook hired her for that among other things related to the stores as he recruited her in 2014, a year before the Watch got its debut. If Ive is the one who wanted the fashion route, then Cook must've gotten the idea of approaching Angela for this when oddly the VPs were against it. And if the VPs were against it, why did Cook go along with it instead of putting his foot down and say " We ain't doing the fashion route ".
Simple. He was afraid of ticking off one of the most powerful and valued executives in the company.
As for the Fall schedule, they already have been, however considering the trade war situation, things may have changed compromising the current designs. After all, they're not being mass produced yet, which is usually between July-August. Whatever happened in the trade war is affecting some of the products. The Mac Pro? Going to China instead of the USA this time around. iPhone? Cook can't pull it out of China immediately and do it in, say, Taiwan or India.
At the moment, maybe both countries will come to a deal and settle it. Maybe it won't work out. All I'm saying is that between Fall 2019 and Spring 2020, there should be some subtle changes to the products' design language. But if they stay the same with crippleware, then it might mean Cook never gave a crap about the product development and his attack on the WSJ article is his PR damage control. Spring 2020 and then on will be a bit more obvious if any of the products show hardware improvements in the practical sense and if the engineers have it their way than Ive/Cook. So with Williams taking over the responsibility to work with the ID and HI teams, we'll see the real effects of it by Summer or Fall 2020.
Right now, the Mac Pro could be the beginning of that change back to 'practical design' and was probably Jony's last in-house product design. So it remains to be seen if they'll stay that new course or continue crippling other product hardware.
I doubt he will show up in the next Keynote because he's going to want to get the F out without doing any of the 'long goodbyes'. He's already burnt out. He needs to get the F out of there pronto, take a break, then start up his design firm and get it going. I give him until August-September to leave, maybe sooner.
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.
No one asked for a miracle. If they cannot embed those components invisibly into the screen, then maybe they should KEEP the bezel until they can. Same for the removal of the physical home button: if this can be done without complicating the product, then fine, but that’s not what happened. The situation with gestures has gotten out of hand. The device is no longer intuitive and discoverable. Numerous gestures actively CONFLICT with each other, as I’ve pointed out in specific detail in other threads.
This is a failure of design. It is the desire to be different or apply an aesthetic without the technical capability being present to do it right. It’s just like the folding screen nonsense. Design goals should never defeat function.
So, you not being good at operating your iPhone is Ive’s fault. Got it.
No need to be a jerk, the notch is definitely a compromise decision, and the full-screen form factor of the X-series hasn't yet worked out some interface paradigms - as the OP says, some gestures conflict with each other, and there is definitely a discoverability issue. I wouldn't subscribe to the same "failure of design" judgement, it's a brave new world after all, but the X-series does feel a little rougher around the edges (not literally, they're silky smooth) than the 7 and 8.
Whatever. They have been complaining endlessly about these gestures here and elsewhere as if there's something fundamentally wrong with them (even referring to some as "bugs"), when all it takes is a little bit of practice and it's second nature, like most things. The X-era buttonless process for home/switching apps/control center etc is miles better than what we had before. Just pointing out that it's *user error* and not a "failure of design" when the vast majority of people can use it just fine and don't endlessly complain about it in these forums. No need to hold back advances in design for the minority of neophyte users who refuse to try and learn how to use them properly.
Also, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the notch. Just think of them as ears instead.
Not sure how "ears" makes anything better. I don't want my iPhone screen to have ears either, especially when it causes issues in some of my apps. If there's absolutely nothing wrong with the notch I take it you're not bothered about a future iPhone without it, a full screen with no ears? No? Not even a smidgen of interest?
The ears thing was a joke, ie. making it no longer a "notch". What issues does it cause, specifically? I haven't noticed a single issue with any app, given those that haven't been updated for the X-era screen don't even extend that far up (letterboxed).
Of course I'm interested in a full screen without notch/ears/whatever. I also am a pragmatist and recognize a reasonable design compromise when I see it, similar to the camera bump that people also like to endlessly complain about. Ive was clearly not super pleased with that compromise either as he made perfectly clear in an interview, but it's there for a reason — same with the notch, I'm sure. To the forum whiners, these are things that somehow show that Ive doesn't care about design, or whatever. It's ridiculous.
Comments
No one asked for a miracle. If they cannot embed those components invisibly into the screen, then maybe they should KEEP the bezel until they can. Same for the removal of the physical home button: if this can be done without complicating the product, then fine, but that’s not what happened. The situation with gestures has gotten out of hand. The device is no longer intuitive and discoverable. Numerous gestures actively CONFLICT with each other, as I’ve pointed out in specific detail in other threads.
This is a failure of design. It is the desire to be different or apply an aesthetic without the technical capability being present to do it right. It’s just like the folding screen nonsense. Design goals should never defeat function.
Jobs was into thinness, sure, but I don’t get the impression that he was irrational about it. Or maybe he was irrational about it and it was the actual technical people inside Apple who pulled him back to actual usability. Still, the point is the same: the effective mixture of people and attitudes are no longer present and there is a lack of a unifying vision. Steve Jobs seemed to be against the computer industry geekishness or “how it’s done” for the sake of “history”; he was also vocally against the Masters of Business Administration mentality of leadership. This kind of thinking is exactly what the computer industry needs and no company is currently showing that mindset. Current Apple leadership seems to have no vision other than profitability, and the departments putting the products together seem to have missed the mark on EFFECTIVE design because there’s no longer an effective combination of design, technical knowledge, and vision/leadership to drive it and then to see it all through.
If it’s all about what Steve liked, then fine: They see Steve liked thin, so they’re making it a pathology at Apple, rather than this facet being regulated by other needs. There’s an ideology not being combatted by appropriate technical people. Maybe they’ve been driven out, or maybe they’re also too embedded in “what Steve wanted” thinking. Jobs required being handled too. He was a visionary, not an electronics or programming expert. The reverence with which he is held may be part of the problem inside Apple. I could easily see “what Steve would have wanted” being a problem as much as the LACK of it being a problem.
Either way, this is a failure of a unifying vision to put disparate departments and ideologies into one forward moving machine. It’s not an easy management job, and it seems Tim Cook has in no way been able or willing to regulate the many different personalities and specialties of the people working for him while he is their Chief Executive Officer. The mixture of people who gave us the iPhone aren’t there any more. The people who gave us the Mac Pro probably aren’t there any more. The people who gave us the world’s most friendly Unix probably aren’t there any more. People have left, been pushed out, etc. Maybe jerks needed to go, but the balance has been upset and this Apple is not doing what the previous Apple did very well: find the right people and manage them into making truly superior product. Now it’s just “less bad” product, and that too is sliding.
10 years is a long long time.
I disagree. There's definitely a luxury market. A Rolex can cost more and all it does is tick. I think Apple giving up that revenue was one of the worst decisions in their history.
Yes, I’m a hobbyist, but I’ve been willing to wait and save money to own the appropriate tool. A compact machine is NOT the appropriate tool for heavy workloads that generate consistent high temperatures. It is well known that compact machines and constant & wide thermal variations don’t go well together. The Mac Pro is the only possible Apple workstation for this use case scenario. Apple has entirely removed it from my market segment. It’s not just a problem for hobbyists like me; it’s a problem for any small business or educational institution that cannot justify spending top dollar for a render farm, school lab, or physics modeling setup. (also: many, if not most, hobbyists aim to become paid professionals)
This isn’t about what some hobbyist jerks think is best for everyone. This is about taking a product that fit a wide market very successfully and turning it into a narrow market, where the only people who can afford to be customers are corporations like Disney and Pixar... and I already indicated my doubts about that being entirely successful a market too, for the same reason: extreme cost.
Also, you are greatly GREATLY missing the scale of the hobbyist market. Take note that the music production product market currently lives on the money of hobbyists, not on the money coming from big studios. The hobbyist market exists in greater number than the studios, and is willing to spend more money than the widest market (end consumers) for computing. If you’re not involved in music making, I can understand why you’d not be aware of this fact.
As far as Ive not getting a hearty kumbaya from the CEO, tough...Ive is the one who has to man up, not Cook. More importantly, you are basing most of your opinion on an alleged rumor from another source, under the guise of "This helps explain...". No it doesn't because you don't know what's real.
What happened to Ive, if any of these anecdotes are true, is that he burned out. It happens to all creatives, and usually one of two things happens: they leave, or they get kicked upstairs where they don't have to endure the agony of the design process.
But people should know: tech lasts 5 years for the most part. A gold watch?... only for the people for whom money means nothing.
Why would a smart tech company buy so many gold watches with a very limited product life?
Was this a Jony Ives decision?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XAVC
Get a clue before posting again.
”Cook also backed Ive when the designer was pushing to create an Apple Watch and other executives didn't want it. However, Ive really wanted to make a luxury watch and the company compromised by making it be a companion to the iPhone”
For a start, Jeff Williams was in on the watch from the outset, and has clearly been a deep supporter of the project. Secondly, the idea that making the watch a companion device to iPhone as a “compromise” to appease the other executives is ridiculous. The Watch could never have existed as a standalone device at launch. The technology simply was nowhere near sufficiently developed at that time and only became feasible for the launch of Series 3.
Beware articles where former employees are a primary source. That’s not to say they provide inherently unreliable accounts, but they should be treated with a degree of healthy cynicism.
So if I understand this right, Cook promoted Jony Ive to CDO to be in charge and unify all design decisions and 'green light' them because he, alone, apparently has the design taste and discipline to say 'It's good enough. Green light it'. Yes, Ive did get burnt out. The signs were there the whole time. And what disturbs me is how Cook promoted a man who was already burnt out to be CDO in May of 2015. This was right after Apple Watch got its debut. If Cook didn't see the burnout coming, that's a problem. I'm not defending Ive or Cook because both of them are the problem.
I'm a professional creative myself in illustration/graphic design work and when the project is finalized, that's up to the client's approval to see to their satisfaction that it meets their standards. I inform them of every stage of the project's phase from preliminary to final so they know what's going on. I once did storyboards for a local design media firm as a freelancer in Ohio way back in 2005 who were making a commercial pitch to another client. I reported my work directly to the principals of that firm ( two people who run and own it. One was the Art Director and the other a CEO ). The firm stopped operating about a few years later.
Something went wrong internally. 'Ball and Chaining' someone who's already in the process of burning out by offering a higher salary or saddle them with more responsibilities is literally playing with fire. Cook was on the extreme end of having the 'Operations' mindset and kowtowing with Wall Street while Jony was on the other extreme end of his minimal design tendencies. Was Jony at fault for not showing up at the meetings? Probably. Even when he was working on projects at remote locations in San Francisco outside of Apple Park, according to what was reported, which is unusual to me when those should be done in-house. This tells me that he's avoiding someone or a group of people who frustrated him. While Cook should've done a better job of reaching out to him without sacking more responsibilities on his shoulders and making him do the work on Apple Park that took up a lot of his time away from the products' developments if I'm to understand this.
If Jony is concerned and frustrated that Apple is turning into an 'operations' type of company and less on the arts/technology focus, then something is not right. Recently in one tweet, someone mentioned that half or most of Cook's VPs come from an Operations background. Jony and Jobs communicated with each other and feedback is extremely valuable to a designer like him to understand the direction of the products concerned. I know from experience that if a client is non-communicative, then there's a problem or the client is trying to silently back out of the project without paying which is also a prevalent problem in the industry. It's not unheard of. So Cook was, if I understand this, acting like an indifferent client who can't make up his mind or unable to provide feedback to the design department.
In a sense, Jony is saying that Cook as CEO IS responsible for that level of feedback and having a presence in the design department. Jony can't just call the shots for the entire company and say " This ( whatever product ) is good enough. You will all accept this design ". It's the VPs and Cook that have to 'rubber stamp' it and say " Looks great. Doesn't have flaws. Let's go with it and put it in the pipeline ".
So now the COO is giving the responsibility to oversee the ID and HI teams and not the CEO. What's wrong with the picture? Sure, the CDO is no longer valid and is most likely to be phased out because no one can replace Jony. Jeff can't become a CDO because he doesn't have a design background and call the shots even though he may be more interested or vested in the process than Cook. The CEO has to see the progress and sign off on the final versions. And so, if Hackney and Dye report to Williams, they're going to continue doing their thing while new designers have the chance to prove themselves.
Now when Jony goes freelance, he'll work with Apple but it may be on a limited capacity because it won't be done in-house. He might be doing something else for Apple rather than product design. Who knows? But he'll have other clientele running to him other than Apple to keep him busy and creative juices flowing tackling new problems rather than the same old damn thing over and over. I know what it's like to be burnt out. Trust me. I did work in a local print shop in-house once which required working on Adobe InDesign on a 27 inch iMac with jobs that need to be set up on page parameters in PDF format, etc, even doing some custom work as well. The original owner of 25 years sold it to my former boss who then took it over. He's a nice guy but he had a strange way of going about things in the business. In less than two years, it got stale. Fast. So I left the business and went freelance so I can focus on my own thing.
I understand Jony's predicament but don't agree with everything he says or has done. But I don't agree with Cook either.
I'm aware Cook just lambasted the report but he hasn't proven them wrong. Yet. By lashing out, he's doing damage control and the same thing goes if he kept silent. It's still damaging either way.
The question remains is now that Ive and Angela ( Cook's big hire who just left ) are gone, will Apple get its crap together and restore the focus on the practicality of the products, OR will it continue with the design language by crippling the hardware and specs? Come this Fall's keynote, we'll know for sure who's full of it considering the products' directions.
Also, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the notch. Just think of them as ears instead.
Simple. He was afraid of ticking off one of the most powerful and valued executives in the company.
As for the Fall schedule, they already have been, however considering the trade war situation, things may have changed compromising the current designs. After all, they're not being mass produced yet, which is usually between July-August. Whatever happened in the trade war is affecting some of the products. The Mac Pro? Going to China instead of the USA this time around. iPhone? Cook can't pull it out of China immediately and do it in, say, Taiwan or India.
At the moment, maybe both countries will come to a deal and settle it. Maybe it won't work out. All I'm saying is that between Fall 2019 and Spring 2020, there should be some subtle changes to the products' design language. But if they stay the same with crippleware, then it might mean Cook never gave a crap about the product development and his attack on the WSJ article is his PR damage control. Spring 2020 and then on will be a bit more obvious if any of the products show hardware improvements in the practical sense and if the engineers have it their way than Ive/Cook. So with Williams taking over the responsibility to work with the ID and HI teams, we'll see the real effects of it by Summer or Fall 2020.
Right now, the Mac Pro could be the beginning of that change back to 'practical design' and was probably Jony's last in-house product design. So it remains to be seen if they'll stay that new course or continue crippling other product hardware.
I doubt he will show up in the next Keynote because he's going to want to get the F out without doing any of the 'long goodbyes'. He's already burnt out. He needs to get the F out of there pronto, take a break, then start up his design firm and get it going. I give him until August-September to leave, maybe sooner.
Of course I'm interested in a full screen without notch/ears/whatever. I also am a pragmatist and recognize a reasonable design compromise when I see it, similar to the camera bump that people also like to endlessly complain about. Ive was clearly not super pleased with that compromise either as he made perfectly clear in an interview, but it's there for a reason — same with the notch, I'm sure. To the forum whiners, these are things that somehow show that Ive doesn't care about design, or whatever. It's ridiculous.