Editorial: Apple is neither doomed nor saved now that Jony Ive has moved on

13

Comments

  • Reply 41 of 66
    rogifan_newrogifan_new Posts: 4,297member
    dysamoria said:
    Eric_WVGG said:
    Eric_WVGG said:
    > “He's forming his own design firm, and Tim Cook is very clear on how he'll be contributing to Apple going forward. ‘Apple will continue to benefit from Jony's talents by working directly with him on exclusive projects, and through the ongoing work of the brilliant and passionate design team he has built’”

    2013: "Scott Forstall will be leaving Apple and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim.”

    Do you think Scott got more than a birthday card from Cook since leaving the company?

    I'm not saying there's bad blood, but this is just corporate-speak. Ive is out.
    Except when Forstall left he barely got a mention by Cook and was not quoted in Apple’s press release at all. Ive was plus gave an interview to discuss it. Of course that doesn’t mean this isn’t just an exit strategy. But the announcement is very different to what happened with Forstall.
    Well I would argue/speculate the difference is Forstall was fired, and Ives is just bored out of his mind and amicably departed.

    Anyway I hope you're right. I'm an Ives fanboy; I know the iOS 7 thing was controversial, but ultimately it had to happen. iOS 6 (and Bondi Blue era Mac OS) were embarrassingly garish, this shit had to grow up. Keyboard reliability aside, I love modern Macbooks. Ives brought us the future, full stop.
    If you’re an Ive fanboy, maybe you should learn to spell his name.

    Also, there was next to nothing wrong with iOS 6’s visual design. My iPhone 4 still runs it because I refused to cripple and uglify it with iOS 7. Every time I use it, I see how beautiful it is compared to today’s ugly iOS. Low contrast UI elements, flat Corel Draw-style oversimplified clipart icons, and borderless text as buttons isn’t the future. It’s a massive detour from the beauty, intuitiveness, and readability that put Apple on top with iOS and iPhone. We have pocket-sized print-level resolution displays with fantastic color capabilities, and the current over-simplistic UI skin barely takes advantage of this.

    By the way, that’s all it is: a skin. The only actual GUI change was the control center; everything else is the same UI elements, reskinned as harder to look at (and lacking any visual cues as to what the control is). Dark mode might help, marginally, but it too looks like a clumsy shift to mere tone/color opposites, not a mode made with curated design choices.
    Pretty much every thing you wrote is subjective. In my opinion, because we now have these beautiful retina displays we don’t iOS and prior heavy design. Anyway Apple has slowly been dialing it back in the other direction. Almost to the point where I think some things are too bold now (like the player controls in the music app). But there are a lot of other changes in iOS 13 I really like. I definitely wouldn’t want to go back iOS 6 which looks so dated to me. Of course that’s just my personal preference.

    I remember when Windows 8 came out. Some thought it was brilliant and the future of UI design; others hated it with a passion. Then Windows 10 came along and it looked more like Windows 7 (a flatter version) than Windows 8.
    radarthekat
  • Reply 42 of 66
    sacto joesacto joe Posts: 895member

    Apple is an anomaly in the business community. I have watched Apple’s culture since 1984, when we bought our first Mac. From the outside, it seemed to morph all over the place. But the folks who worked there never forgot their roots. Not once. A good symbol of that culture is the pirate flag that flew over the Macintosh Division building back in 1983. That flag stemmed from a Steve Jobs speech:

    “Steve Jobs began the retreat with three “Sayings from Chairman Jobs”, intended to inspire the team and set the tone for the meeting. The sayings were:

    1. Real artists ship.
    2. It’s better to be a pirate than join the navy.
    3. Mac in a book by 1986.”

    http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Pirate_Flag.txt

    Fast forward to today, and that spirit still inculcates Apple. That pirate flag is still metaphorically flying over the Apple spaceship campus. Steve is gone, Jony is going, and eventually Tim will leave as well. The list of folks who helped make Apple what it is today but are no longer around is staggering. And yet the pirate ship sails on. Only the crew changes.

    edited June 2019 AppleExposedradarthekatfastasleep
  • Reply 43 of 66
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    I see Gruber is doing an emergency podcast with Ben Thompson about this news. Because of course what is needed is more hot takes that aren’t fully formed.
    Speaking of Ben Thompson, he posted a great write-up on Jony Ive leaving.  Much better than Gruber's take

    https://stratechery.com/2019/jony-ive-leaves-apple-ives-legacy-the-post-ive-apple/

    I even enjoyed Dieter Bohn's take on what this means for the new era of design at Apple

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/28/18870887/apple-jony-ive-design-genius-committee
    Thanks for the link, that was an interesting read. I think Cook's socialist philosophy of everyone equal and inclusivity above all is the reason things are now decided by committee, but when did a committee ever come up with anything revolutionary? Committees always compromise on too much and end up ruining what was once a good idea with the ideas of every committee member - even if they aren't anything special, to make them feel included. When there is a genius designer, they should have absolute say on what is done. They can pick great ideas from their subordinates, and take on their suggestions, but overall it should be for the head designer to decide. Historically Apple was very vertical, a top down company. Now it seems to be full of committees. Apple's explosion in employees hasn't kept up the pace of innovation. As everyone knows, too many cooks (Cooks?) spoil the broth.
    edited June 2019
  • Reply 44 of 66
    100% Forstall will NOT be coming back. Guaranteed.
  • Reply 45 of 66
    AppleExposedAppleExposed Posts: 1,805unconfirmed, member
    McJobs said:
    Jonathan is not walking away. He was pushed. The runway is now clear for Scott Forstall return.
    Why would Forstall return? Steve Jobs has returned because he was an entrepreneur, we can’t charge Forstall with such a burden. I don’t deny his talent and contribution but I don’t see Apple in such a critical position as to issue calls to old comrades.
    If Forstall was so important how come no other tech company has hired him since he left Apple?

    Because he doesn't wanna work with other tech companies. Apple is similar to Nintendo in that senior managers won't work with competitors. They usually retire or die. Nintendo being worse than Apple here.

    Eric_WVGG said:
    Eric_WVGG said:
    > “He's forming his own design firm, and Tim Cook is very clear on how he'll be contributing to Apple going forward. ‘Apple will continue to benefit from Jony's talents by working directly with him on exclusive projects, and through the ongoing work of the brilliant and passionate design team he has built’”

    2013: "Scott Forstall will be leaving Apple and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim.”

    Do you think Scott got more than a birthday card from Cook since leaving the company?

    I'm not saying there's bad blood, but this is just corporate-speak. Ive is out.
    Except when Forstall left he barely got a mention by Cook and was not quoted in Apple’s press release at all. Ive was plus gave an interview to discuss it. Of course that doesn’t mean this isn’t just an exit strategy. But the announcement is very different to what happened with Forstall.
    Well I would argue/speculate the difference is Forstall was fired, and Ives is just bored out of his mind and amicably departed.

    Anyway I hope you're right. I'm an Ives fanboy; I know the iOS 7 thing was controversial, but ultimately it had to happen. iOS 6 (and Bondi Blue era Mac OS) were embarrassingly garish, this shit had to grow up. Keyboard reliability aside, I love modern Macbooks. Ives brought us the future, full stop.

    For being an Ive fanboy you sure don't know his name. What's with people spelling his name wrong this week?

    I bet you don't even know how to pronounce LoveForm Psh!
  • Reply 46 of 66
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,842moderator
    red oak said:
    Cook really dropped the ball not having a succession plan in place.  It’s nuts having this group now report to Williams.  Nuts.  Ive was there for 25 years and your telling us he did not groom a successor for arguably the most important function within Apple?   This is a breakdown in corporate responsibility 

    Almost as bad as having the head of HR run Retail 

    Ive has evidently been checked out for years.  Why did Cook not get better ahead of this? 
    This sounds like the same diatribe that followed Jobs’ resignation and death.  Without Steve, doomed.  Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs, etc.  

    And yet, here we are, a single company standing against an industry, with an installed base of 1.5 billion devices, against the entire rest of the smartphone, tablet and computer industry maybe at 3 billion devices in use.  Here we are, with a single company raking in the lion’s share of profits in those industries, plus the Watch industry.  And with still an incredibly bright future ahead as it turns its attention to the medical and transportation sectors; two of the largest sectors in existence.  

    Yeah, I think a succession plan is in place, even if it’s not a one-for-one swap out person for person.  
    edited June 2019 fastasleep
  • Reply 47 of 66
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,842moderator

    Eric_WVGG said:
    > “He's forming his own design firm, and Tim Cook is very clear on how he'll be contributing to Apple going forward. ‘Apple will continue to benefit from Jony's talents by working directly with him on exclusive projects, and through the ongoing work of the brilliant and passionate design team he has built’”

    2013: "Scott Forstall will be leaving Apple and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim.”

    Do you think Scott got more than a birthday card from Cook since leaving the company?

    I'm not saying there's bad blood, but this is just corporate-speak. Ive is out.
    You’re suggesting Tim Cook lied?  Better call the SEC, eh?  
  • Reply 48 of 66
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,842moderator

    greg uvan said:
    Ive is probably bored with designing another iPhone, another iPad, another MacBook. These devices hit the peak of their design "form" years ago. Imagine being asked to design a new pencil (real pencil, not Apple Pencil), or a new shovel, every year. After a certain point, innovations in a design space dry up, because a product is as good as it's going to get. The guts will get faster, but an iPhone will basically always just be a flat rounded rectangle that is all screen, with a couple of buttons around the outside edge.

    Maybe he was really looking forward to designing the Apple Car, but when that got the brakes put on it, well... 

    Whatever happened to Marc Newson? Is he still at Apple? I haven't heard anything about in a long while.
    Marc is going with Jony.
  • Reply 49 of 66
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,842moderator

    If his new company designs electronics products for other companies, there is a clear problem.

    If his company designs non-electronics products, this is the loss of an important person but not a sign of doom (he's important, not the only designer).

    If his company really continues to do work for Apple (I think this is unlikely other than maybe helping to maintain some institutional memory), it's probably a mild positive (as the alternative of him doing non-apple work but continuing to have a leadership position would be corrosive).
    For sure there’s a very well crafted non-compete in Ive’s employment contract with Apple, plus non-disclosures.  He will be locked up for a very long time in any space Apple participates in or that Apple will participate in, as he knows Apple’s long-term roadmap and will be working on Apple projects for years.  
    edited June 2019
  • Reply 50 of 66
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,842moderator
    elijahg said:
    red oak said:
    Cook really dropped the ball not having a succession plan in place.  It’s nuts having this group now report to Williams.  Nuts.  Ive was there for 25 years and your telling us he did not groom a successor for arguably the most important function within Apple?   This is a breakdown in corporate responsibility 

    Almost as bad as having the head of HR run Retail 

    Ive has evidently been checked out for years.  Why did Cook not get better ahead of this? 
    I'm sure Cook has some kind of plan in place, but because he's pretty useless, he might not have a very good one. Cook's not a leader. He can't skate to where the puck will be, even within internal Apple people management. People crediting him with the success of the iPhone and AW post Steve are doing Steve a disservice, it is well known Steve had lots of products in the pipeline before his death, Tim is riding Steve's coat tails, spending more time using Apple as a political vehicle than being a CEO. Tim's only answer to falling sales is increased prices. Which results in falling sales, so increase prices... And so on. Tim isn't an innovator, he's an operations guy. A very good operations guy, but that's where he should have stayed. I think Federighi would be much, much better as head of Apple.
    Well, obviously you.  I mean, why settle for Federighi?
  • Reply 51 of 66
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,842moderator

    dysamoria said:
    Eric_WVGG said:
    Eric_WVGG said:
    > “He's forming his own design firm, and Tim Cook is very clear on how he'll be contributing to Apple going forward. ‘Apple will continue to benefit from Jony's talents by working directly with him on exclusive projects, and through the ongoing work of the brilliant and passionate design team he has built’”

    2013: "Scott Forstall will be leaving Apple and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim.”

    Do you think Scott got more than a birthday card from Cook since leaving the company?

    I'm not saying there's bad blood, but this is just corporate-speak. Ive is out.
    Except when Forstall left he barely got a mention by Cook and was not quoted in Apple’s press release at all. Ive was plus gave an interview to discuss it. Of course that doesn’t mean this isn’t just an exit strategy. But the announcement is very different to what happened with Forstall.
    Well I would argue/speculate the difference is Forstall was fired, and Ives is just bored out of his mind and amicably departed.

    Anyway I hope you're right. I'm an Ives fanboy; I know the iOS 7 thing was controversial, but ultimately it had to happen. iOS 6 (and Bondi Blue era Mac OS) were embarrassingly garish, this shit had to grow up. Keyboard reliability aside, I love modern Macbooks. Ives brought us the future, full stop.
    If you’re an Ive fanboy, maybe you should learn to spell his name.

    Also, there was next to nothing wrong with iOS 6’s visual design. My iPhone 4 still runs it because I refused to cripple and uglify it with iOS 7. Every time I use it, I see how beautiful it is compared to today’s ugly iOS. Low contrast UI elements, flat Corel Draw-style oversimplified clipart icons, and borderless text as buttons isn’t the future. It’s a massive detour from the beauty, intuitiveness, and readability that put Apple on top with iOS and iPhone. We have pocket-sized print-level resolution displays with fantastic color capabilities, and the current over-simplistic UI skin barely takes advantage of this.

    By the way, that’s all it is: a skin. The only actual GUI change was the control center; everything else is the same UI elements, reskinned as harder to look at (and lacking any visual cues as to what the control is). Dark mode might help, marginally, but it too looks like a clumsy shift to mere tone/color opposites, not a mode made with curated design choices.
    iOS 7 was all about Tufte’s concept of non-data ink.  I’d bet every dollar I have that Ive is a student of Tufte. 
    edited June 2019
  • Reply 52 of 66
    macplusplusmacplusplus Posts: 2,112member

    dysamoria said:
    Eric_WVGG said:
    Eric_WVGG said:
    > “He's forming his own design firm, and Tim Cook is very clear on how he'll be contributing to Apple going forward. ‘Apple will continue to benefit from Jony's talents by working directly with him on exclusive projects, and through the ongoing work of the brilliant and passionate design team he has built’”

    2013: "Scott Forstall will be leaving Apple and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim.”

    Do you think Scott got more than a birthday card from Cook since leaving the company?

    I'm not saying there's bad blood, but this is just corporate-speak. Ive is out.
    Except when Forstall left he barely got a mention by Cook and was not quoted in Apple’s press release at all. Ive was plus gave an interview to discuss it. Of course that doesn’t mean this isn’t just an exit strategy. But the announcement is very different to what happened with Forstall.
    Well I would argue/speculate the difference is Forstall was fired, and Ives is just bored out of his mind and amicably departed.

    Anyway I hope you're right. I'm an Ives fanboy; I know the iOS 7 thing was controversial, but ultimately it had to happen. iOS 6 (and Bondi Blue era Mac OS) were embarrassingly garish, this shit had to grow up. Keyboard reliability aside, I love modern Macbooks. Ives brought us the future, full stop.
    If you’re an Ive fanboy, maybe you should learn to spell his name.

    Also, there was next to nothing wrong with iOS 6’s visual design. My iPhone 4 still runs it because I refused to cripple and uglify it with iOS 7. Every time I use it, I see how beautiful it is compared to today’s ugly iOS. Low contrast UI elements, flat Corel Draw-style oversimplified clipart icons, and borderless text as buttons isn’t the future. It’s a massive detour from the beauty, intuitiveness, and readability that put Apple on top with iOS and iPhone. We have pocket-sized print-level resolution displays with fantastic color capabilities, and the current over-simplistic UI skin barely takes advantage of this.

    By the way, that’s all it is: a skin. The only actual GUI change was the control center; everything else is the same UI elements, reskinned as harder to look at (and lacking any visual cues as to what the control is). Dark mode might help, marginally, but it too looks like a clumsy shift to mere tone/color opposites, not a mode made with curated design choices.
    iOS 7 was all about Tufte’s concept of non-data ink.  I’d bet every dollar I have that Ive is a student of Tufte. 
    I don’t know. What I know is that high resolution Retina display would require a lightweight interface in terms of processing. 3D effects, text shadows, natural textures were all beautiful, previous designers did nothing wrong. Meanwhile they had a price in the age of Retina displays and consequently they had to go away. Retina fits more data thanks to high resolution, why waste that very precious space for “skin”? And recall that that was Federighi who introduced the new interface, not Ive.
    edited June 2019 rogifan_new
  • Reply 53 of 66
    rogifan_newrogifan_new Posts: 4,297member
    John Gruber was on Rene Ritchie’s podcast today and relayed an interesting story he heard. The day Samsung announced the Galaxy Fold Jony Ive was in an iOS meeting and some people in the meeting were talking about this Samsung device. Ive chimed in saying it wouldn’t work and explained in exquisite detail why, where all the failure points would be etc. It was like he was teaching everyone in the room about OLED displays. I thought that was interesting considering what happened wit the Fold.
    elijahg
  • Reply 54 of 66
    rogifan_newrogifan_new Posts: 4,297member

    If his new company designs electronics products for other companies, there is a clear problem.

    If his company designs non-electronics products, this is the loss of an important person but not a sign of doom (he's important, not the only designer).

    If his company really continues to do work for Apple (I think this is unlikely other than maybe helping to maintain some institutional memory), it's probably a mild positive (as the alternative of him doing non-apple work but continuing to have a leadership position would be corrosive).
    For sure there’s a very well crafted non-compete in Ive’s employment contract with Apple, plus non-disclosures.  He will be locked up for a very long time in any space Apple participates in or that Apple will participate in, as he knows Apple’s long-term roadmap and will be working on Apple projects for years.  
    From everything I’ve read I think Ive was very close with his team socially. I wonder if he will be able to hire some of the designers that have left Apple in the past 2-3 years. I think Mark Gurman said 6 (not including Ive) have left. One wonders if they left because they knew he was on the way out.
  • Reply 55 of 66
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,408member
    Eric_WVGG said:

    I'm an Ives fanboy
    But you don't you even know his name?
    Soli
  • Reply 56 of 66
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,408member

    dysamoria said:
    Eric_WVGG said:
    Eric_WVGG said:
    > “He's forming his own design firm, and Tim Cook is very clear on how he'll be contributing to Apple going forward. ‘Apple will continue to benefit from Jony's talents by working directly with him on exclusive projects, and through the ongoing work of the brilliant and passionate design team he has built’”

    2013: "Scott Forstall will be leaving Apple and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim.”

    Do you think Scott got more than a birthday card from Cook since leaving the company?

    I'm not saying there's bad blood, but this is just corporate-speak. Ive is out.
    Except when Forstall left he barely got a mention by Cook and was not quoted in Apple’s press release at all. Ive was plus gave an interview to discuss it. Of course that doesn’t mean this isn’t just an exit strategy. But the announcement is very different to what happened with Forstall.
    Well I would argue/speculate the difference is Forstall was fired, and Ives is just bored out of his mind and amicably departed.

    Anyway I hope you're right. I'm an Ives fanboy; I know the iOS 7 thing was controversial, but ultimately it had to happen. iOS 6 (and Bondi Blue era Mac OS) were embarrassingly garish, this shit had to grow up. Keyboard reliability aside, I love modern Macbooks. Ives brought us the future, full stop.
    If you’re an Ive fanboy, maybe you should learn to spell his name.

    Also, there was next to nothing wrong with iOS 6’s visual design. My iPhone 4 still runs it because I refused to cripple and uglify it with iOS 7. Every time I use it, I see how beautiful it is compared to today’s ugly iOS. Low contrast UI elements, flat Corel Draw-style oversimplified clipart icons, and borderless text as buttons isn’t the future. It’s a massive detour from the beauty, intuitiveness, and readability that put Apple on top with iOS and iPhone. We have pocket-sized print-level resolution displays with fantastic color capabilities, and the current over-simplistic UI skin barely takes advantage of this.

    By the way, that’s all it is: a skin. The only actual GUI change was the control center; everything else is the same UI elements, reskinned as harder to look at (and lacking any visual cues as to what the control is). Dark mode might help, marginally, but it too looks like a clumsy shift to mere tone/color opposites, not a mode made with curated design choices.
    I like how you're endlessly complaining about how Apple has left you behind with the new Mac Pro yet you're rocking an iPhone 4 running iOS 6 and still fretting over a design overhaul from 6 years ago.
    edited June 2019 StrangeDayschemengin1
  • Reply 57 of 66
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member
    dysamoria said:
    Eric_WVGG said:
    Eric_WVGG said:
    > “He's forming his own design firm, and Tim Cook is very clear on how he'll be contributing to Apple going forward. ‘Apple will continue to benefit from Jony's talents by working directly with him on exclusive projects, and through the ongoing work of the brilliant and passionate design team he has built’”

    2013: "Scott Forstall will be leaving Apple and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim.”

    Do you think Scott got more than a birthday card from Cook since leaving the company?

    I'm not saying there's bad blood, but this is just corporate-speak. Ive is out.
    Except when Forstall left he barely got a mention by Cook and was not quoted in Apple’s press release at all. Ive was plus gave an interview to discuss it. Of course that doesn’t mean this isn’t just an exit strategy. But the announcement is very different to what happened with Forstall.
    Well I would argue/speculate the difference is Forstall was fired, and Ives is just bored out of his mind and amicably departed.

    Anyway I hope you're right. I'm an Ives fanboy; I know the iOS 7 thing was controversial, but ultimately it had to happen. iOS 6 (and Bondi Blue era Mac OS) were embarrassingly garish, this shit had to grow up. Keyboard reliability aside, I love modern Macbooks. Ives brought us the future, full stop.
    If you’re an Ive fanboy, maybe you should learn to spell his name.

    Also, there was next to nothing wrong with iOS 6’s visual design. My iPhone 4 still runs it because I refused to cripple and uglify it with iOS 7. Every time I use it, I see how beautiful it is compared to today’s ugly iOS. Low contrast UI elements, flat Corel Draw-style oversimplified clipart icons, and borderless text as buttons isn’t the future. It’s a massive detour from the beauty, intuitiveness, and readability that put Apple on top with iOS and iPhone. We have pocket-sized print-level resolution displays with fantastic color capabilities, and the current over-simplistic UI skin barely takes advantage of this.

    By the way, that’s all it is: a skin. The only actual GUI change was the control center; everything else is the same UI elements, reskinned as harder to look at (and lacking any visual cues as to what the control is). Dark mode might help, marginally, but it too looks like a clumsy shift to mere tone/color opposites, not a mode made with curated design choices.
    Pretty much every thing you wrote is subjective. In my opinion, because we now have these beautiful retina displays we don’t iOS and prior heavy design. Anyway Apple has slowly been dialing it back in the other direction. Almost to the point where I think some things are too bold now (like the player controls in the music app). But there are a lot of other changes in iOS 13 I really like. I definitely wouldn’t want to go back iOS 6 which looks so dated to me. Of course that’s just my personal preference.

    I remember when Windows 8 came out. Some thought it was brilliant and the future of UI design; others hated it with a passion. Then Windows 10 came along and it looked more like Windows 7 (a flatter version) than Windows 8.
    Actually a fair amount of the complaints I’ve made about the iOS 7 redesign over the years aren’t subjective but are actual design language issues. There’s no accounting for taste, but things like contrast, distinctiveness,  and readability aren’t subjective. I won’t go into details about GUI design because people seem to think there’s no such thing as correct UI design and experts are labeled “arrogant know it alls”, and “Apple pays people to do this work, why do you think they wouldn’t have the best people possible who know more than you...” I’m not saying that’s what you’re going to say, it’s just what I see frequently and I’m tired of arguing with it.

    Windows ... is Windows. Windows 8.1 didn’t bother me any more than any other Windows. I have always hated the design of Windows, except for Windows Vista, which was the one everyone hated and I thought was a minor improvement. The flat garbage Microsoft took on after that was ... meh. Linux picked up on it. And then Apple went there too (it boggles my mind that they copied the flat minimalist nonsense of two other operating systems instead of maintaining their own look). I don’t mind Windows 10 any more than the average Windows (I still hate it, but not more than average). But the thing about Windows’ flat minimalism is that it’s readable. Its new GUI (the modern part of the schizoid UI) is even duller and more full of whitespace than Apple’s iOS, but it’s more readable on average, even on a low resolution screen. The color choices and font sizes work better and they still seem to be willing to use at least outlines & shapes for buttons and other controls.


    edited June 2019
  • Reply 58 of 66
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    elijahg said:
    red oak said:
    Cook really dropped the ball not having a succession plan in place.  It’s nuts having this group now report to Williams.  Nuts.  Ive was there for 25 years and your telling us he did not groom a successor for arguably the most important function within Apple?   This is a breakdown in corporate responsibility 

    Almost as bad as having the head of HR run Retail 

    Ive has evidently been checked out for years.  Why did Cook not get better ahead of this? 
    I'm sure Cook has some kind of plan in place, but because he's pretty useless, he might not have a very good one. Cook's not a leader. He can't skate to where the puck will be, even within internal Apple people management. People crediting him with the success of the iPhone and AW post Steve are doing Steve a disservice, it is well known Steve had lots of products in the pipeline before his death, Tim is riding Steve's coat tails, spending more time using Apple as a political vehicle than being a CEO. Tim's only answer to falling sales is increased prices. Which results in falling sales, so increase prices... And so on. Tim isn't an innovator, he's an operations guy. A very good operations guy, but that's where he should have stayed. I think Federighi would be much, much better as head of Apple.
    Well, obviously you.  I mean, why settle for Federighi?
    We're funny today.
  • Reply 59 of 66
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member


    dysamoria said:
    Eric_WVGG said:
    Eric_WVGG said:
    > “He's forming his own design firm, and Tim Cook is very clear on how he'll be contributing to Apple going forward. ‘Apple will continue to benefit from Jony's talents by working directly with him on exclusive projects, and through the ongoing work of the brilliant and passionate design team he has built’”

    2013: "Scott Forstall will be leaving Apple and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim.”

    Do you think Scott got more than a birthday card from Cook since leaving the company?

    I'm not saying there's bad blood, but this is just corporate-speak. Ive is out.
    Except when Forstall left he barely got a mention by Cook and was not quoted in Apple’s press release at all. Ive was plus gave an interview to discuss it. Of course that doesn’t mean this isn’t just an exit strategy. But the announcement is very different to what happened with Forstall.
    Well I would argue/speculate the difference is Forstall was fired, and Ives is just bored out of his mind and amicably departed.

    Anyway I hope you're right. I'm an Ives fanboy; I know the iOS 7 thing was controversial, but ultimately it had to happen. iOS 6 (and Bondi Blue era Mac OS) were embarrassingly garish, this shit had to grow up. Keyboard reliability aside, I love modern Macbooks. Ives brought us the future, full stop.
    If you’re an Ive fanboy, maybe you should learn to spell his name.

    Also, there was next to nothing wrong with iOS 6’s visual design. My iPhone 4 still runs it because I refused to cripple and uglify it with iOS 7. Every time I use it, I see how beautiful it is compared to today’s ugly iOS. Low contrast UI elements, flat Corel Draw-style oversimplified clipart icons, and borderless text as buttons isn’t the future. It’s a massive detour from the beauty, intuitiveness, and readability that put Apple on top with iOS and iPhone. We have pocket-sized print-level resolution displays with fantastic color capabilities, and the current over-simplistic UI skin barely takes advantage of this.

    By the way, that’s all it is: a skin. The only actual GUI change was the control center; everything else is the same UI elements, reskinned as harder to look at (and lacking any visual cues as to what the control is). Dark mode might help, marginally, but it too looks like a clumsy shift to mere tone/color opposites, not a mode made with curated design choices.
    iOS 7 was all about Tufte’s concept of non-data ink.  I’d bet every dollar I have that Ive is a student of Tufte. 
    I don’t know. What I know is that high resolution Retina display would require a lightweight interface in terms of processing. 3D effects, text shadows, natural textures were all beautiful, previous designers did nothing wrong. Meanwhile they had a price in the age of Retina displays and consequently they had to go away. Retina fits more data thanks to high resolution, why waste that very precious space for “skin”? And recall that that was Federighi who introduced the new interface, not Ive.
    What? You spout a lot of rubbish sometimes. The iPhone 4 had a retina display, and was able to handle the Forstall UI just fine. In fact there's more translucency and 3D animations in the iOS7+ UI than there was in the skeuomorphic one. The UI was designed by Ive, who introduced it is irrelevant.
  • Reply 60 of 66
    macplusplusmacplusplus Posts: 2,112member
    elijahg said:


    dysamoria said:
    Eric_WVGG said:
    Eric_WVGG said:
    > “He's forming his own design firm, and Tim Cook is very clear on how he'll be contributing to Apple going forward. ‘Apple will continue to benefit from Jony's talents by working directly with him on exclusive projects, and through the ongoing work of the brilliant and passionate design team he has built’”

    2013: "Scott Forstall will be leaving Apple and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim.”

    Do you think Scott got more than a birthday card from Cook since leaving the company?

    I'm not saying there's bad blood, but this is just corporate-speak. Ive is out.
    Except when Forstall left he barely got a mention by Cook and was not quoted in Apple’s press release at all. Ive was plus gave an interview to discuss it. Of course that doesn’t mean this isn’t just an exit strategy. But the announcement is very different to what happened with Forstall.
    Well I would argue/speculate the difference is Forstall was fired, and Ives is just bored out of his mind and amicably departed.

    Anyway I hope you're right. I'm an Ives fanboy; I know the iOS 7 thing was controversial, but ultimately it had to happen. iOS 6 (and Bondi Blue era Mac OS) were embarrassingly garish, this shit had to grow up. Keyboard reliability aside, I love modern Macbooks. Ives brought us the future, full stop.
    If you’re an Ive fanboy, maybe you should learn to spell his name.

    Also, there was next to nothing wrong with iOS 6’s visual design. My iPhone 4 still runs it because I refused to cripple and uglify it with iOS 7. Every time I use it, I see how beautiful it is compared to today’s ugly iOS. Low contrast UI elements, flat Corel Draw-style oversimplified clipart icons, and borderless text as buttons isn’t the future. It’s a massive detour from the beauty, intuitiveness, and readability that put Apple on top with iOS and iPhone. We have pocket-sized print-level resolution displays with fantastic color capabilities, and the current over-simplistic UI skin barely takes advantage of this.

    By the way, that’s all it is: a skin. The only actual GUI change was the control center; everything else is the same UI elements, reskinned as harder to look at (and lacking any visual cues as to what the control is). Dark mode might help, marginally, but it too looks like a clumsy shift to mere tone/color opposites, not a mode made with curated design choices.
    iOS 7 was all about Tufte’s concept of non-data ink.  I’d bet every dollar I have that Ive is a student of Tufte. 
    I don’t know. What I know is that high resolution Retina display would require a lightweight interface in terms of processing. 3D effects, text shadows, natural textures were all beautiful, previous designers did nothing wrong. Meanwhile they had a price in the age of Retina displays and consequently they had to go away. Retina fits more data thanks to high resolution, why waste that very precious space for “skin”? And recall that that was Federighi who introduced the new interface, not Ive.
    What? You spout a lot of rubbish sometimes. The iPhone 4 had a retina display, and was able to handle the Forstall UI just fine. In fact there's more translucency and 3D animations in the iOS7+ UI than there was in the skeuomorphic one. The UI was designed by Ive, who introduced it is irrelevant.
    I know what an iPhone 4 is, and I know also how difficult to replicate those effects was when designing a UI for your application. The fact that iPhone 4 managed to handle that UI doesn’t suppress its shortcomings. Replicating all these effects in high resolution is just a waste of processing power, their contribution to the user experience does not justify their shortcomings. Buttons imitating physical glass keys were no longer needed, because people were already used to the new multitouch display. Here is what Federighi said:

    "This is the first post-Retina (Display) UI (user interface), with amazing graphics processing thanks to tremendous GPU (graphics processing unit) power growth, so we had a different set of tools to bring to bear on the problem as compared to seven years ago (when the iPhone first launched)," he says. "Before, the shadowing effect we used was a great way to distract from the limitations of the display. But with a display that's this precise, there's nowhere to hide. So we wanted a clear typography."
    https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/09/19/apple-jony-ive-craig-federighi/2834575/

    Translucency in iOS 7 is a more realistic  representation of the depth than fake 3D cosmetics. Besides, Forstall has left as a result of a clash with Tim Cook, for not apologizing regarding Maps, not because his UI was trashed. He was probably aware that those changes would occur some day.
    edited June 2019
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