It seems pretty obvious to me that Ive was obsessed with thinness and was willing to compromise every product just to get it as thin as possible. Since he's gone we get devices that are a bit thicker but less compromised.
Do somebody remembers the ‘original fashion $17K gold Apple Watch’… and now we have the most sold smartwatch of the world
The $17k watch was made available only because Jony insisted that Apple should be a luxury brand, Tim allowed it to appease him.
Also don’t forget the trash can Mac.
The Apple Cube was an awesome product but the tech was not ready for a fan less Mac, it was overpriced and underpowered. It would make sense with the M1 processor.
All I know is that after Jony left we’ve been getting more ports and slightly thicker devices. I’ve been holding on to my 2013 MBP because of the SD slot and HDMI port, now I can justify upgrading.
Apple was not first on the CD ROM train. They were one of the first to drop it, but they started adding it into their computers around the same time everyone else did.
If anything, Apple was first to use the 3.5" floppy, and most certainly was the first computer company to have the "courage" (lol Shiller) to drop it.
They also were basically first on the USB-A train. So early in-fact that (as anyone who bought the OG iMac remembers) trying to get peripherals, printers..ANYTHING in USB form was a hunt for the first few months. 15 years later they repeated history, and started killing of USB-A. Again it became a hunt to find ANY pure USB-C peripherals again. Thankfully docks and adaptors came quickly this time around though.
It was.
The Apple CD SC was released in 1988. Internal drives arrived at about the same time as everybody else, yes.
Who can I blame for putting the charger on the bottom of the mouse instead of the end? If my keyboard dies I just plug it in and keep working, if my mouse dies everything stops.
Who can I blame for putting the charger on the bottom of the mouse instead of the end? If my keyboard dies I just plug it in and keep working, if my mouse dies everything stops.
Designers allow ports, HW engineers decide on the circuits.
HDMI is for presentations, not for screen which Apple wants TB4 to be used.
SD slots are for the occasional data transfer, since pros tend to use wireless data transfer where possible in their standard photo workflow, as constant card swapping leads to avoidable wear and tear. So the speed offered is adequate for the task.
Specifically, engineers likely didn’t want to limit bandwidth on other ports by reserving high-speed transfer bandwidth for these two ports…
Apple has always been strong in hardware design (albeit with a dark age in the years before Jobs returned and a few duds, like the puck mouse and the cube).
On the software side, it's much more of a mixed bag. Clearly, the Mac was revolutionary when it launched, thanks to BOTH really great graphic design and groundbreaking UI, driven by the stellar Human Interface Guidelines, which was lightyears beyond the competition.
Under Jobs we certainly got the eye candy of the 3D accelerated Aqua interface, as well as the rock solid stability of Mac OS X. But Apple also launched a huge number of equally groundbreaking apps: iTunes, iPhoto, Aperture, Final Cut, Garage Band, the iWorks suite, etc. all of which looked really nice and made it an absolute joy to manage all things digital. Granted, we also got a less consistent UI, with bouts of superfluous skeumorphism. But honestly, just the sheer magic of using Keynote instead of the then utterly horrible Powerpoint was more than making up for all of that.
My point, however, is that Apple has been gradually deteriorating on the software side. Remember when Apple was the undisputed leader in software design, and every new iteration of OS X was faster and often came with useful new features or innovative new apps. These days it looks really bland, with upgrades often noticably slowing down (particularly older) hardware. As for the apps, they have either been dumbed down to align them with the iPad versions, stalled in terms of new features or have been outright cancelled, like Aperture. And when did Apple last dazzle us with some awesome new software?
I wouldn't go so far as to say that Ives was the culprit. But he did mar the revamped UI with some glaringly ugly icons, which could only have been designed by a color blind person. And the flattening really didn't feel like anything else than a variation of the Android UI. Maybe even inferior - after all, Material Design uses subtle 3D effects to make the interface more intuitive. The Apple interface is just a rather dull and sometimes hard to read grey on grey.
For sure, Apple software isn't worse than the competition, but the innovative magic and the obvious design leadership is definitely and sadly gone.
Who can I blame for putting the charger on the bottom of the mouse instead of the end? If my keyboard dies I just plug it in and keep working, if my mouse dies everything stops.
Yes! Also, who’s responsible for a design that makes it impossible to replace the batteries.
My Magic Mouse will die without warning abs sometimes charges quickly but more recently it took 2 days. A simple port on the ‘nose’ that allows use while charging would have made this a non issue, but some moron thought the port belonged on the bottom.
Ive gets blamed for a lot of design decisions. Honestly, none of us know if he’s responsible or not, but I’ve seen a lot of design decisions by Apple over the last 10 years that defy logic and truly appear to be function following form.
Whether Ive was responsible or not, I hope we’ve seen the end of them.
Jony Ive is a talented designer. However, his quest for minimalism definitely led to form over function designs. When Jobs past, nobody was in position to keep him in check. At the end of the day, as the designer, he bares responsibility for flawed designs. Attempting to deny this in ridiculous articles like this doesn’t change the facts.
Jony Ive is a talented designer. However, his quest for minimalism definitely led to form over function designs. When Jobs past, nobody was in position to keep him in check. At the end of the day, as the designer, he bares responsibility for flawed designs. Attempting to deny this in ridiculous articles like this doesn’t change the facts.
A lot of odd supposition from people who clearly are not industrial designers and are shooting hot takes from the hip with half a clip.
”So Apple hasn't been taken over by practical people who know to listen to what we want. It remains focused entirely on making products that people will buy.”
Yeah, right. Of course! It was the people who wanted to buy products with failing keyboards. It was the people who wanted to buy laptops with no ports and instead use dongles. Right! And then suddenly the people changed their mind again!
Form should follow function and under Ive, Apple was on a jihad to remove every port. Phil even was in videos talking about how Apple wanted to get to port free devices. We all remember the horrid trashcan “Mac Pro” as a replacement for a proper tower with internal expansion.
The new MacBook Pros show a decisive move away from that nonsense. I would much rather ports on my devices than a spaghetti bowl of breakout devices plugged into a single Thunderbolt or USB C port.
In the end a computer is a tool and fashion should not tackle precedence over function. Make it look good but do not sacrifice performance for styling.
Actually, the design of recent MacBook is substantially worse.
The notch is poorly implemented.
USB4 supports HDMI and DP2.1 so having HDMI port is unnecessary.
Magsafe is easily achieved with adapter for those who worry about cables being yanked.
I don't care about Touch Bar much so it's not sorely missed.
The addition of SDHX slot is unnecessary.
We literally have plenty of USB-C hubs that can take HDMI, SDHC, and USB-A all at once. There is NO point of putting it on a laptop and make it look tacky.
Form should follow function and under Ive, Apple was on a jihad to remove every port. Phil even was in videos talking about how Apple wanted to get to port free devices. We all remember the horrid trashcan “Mac Pro” as a replacement for a proper tower with internal expansion.
The new MacBook Pros show a decisive move away from that nonsense. I would much rather ports on my devices than a spaghetti bowl of breakout devices plugged into a single Thunderbolt or USB C port.
In the end a computer is a tool and fashion should not tackle precedence over function. Make it look good but do not sacrifice performance for styling.
Jony Ive was involved with the newest Mac Pro too and the earlier models so this narrative doesn't fit the facts:
Adding an HDMI port also does nothing to change the fact that people will still use USB-C for most things and can be done simply by upgrading some cables.
Their latest iMac 'post-Ive' is the thinnest iMac they've ever made and only has 2-4 USB-C ports plus audio just like the last MBPs. Even assuming Ive still had a part in that design, they're not going to add extra ports at some point in the future.
People did the same thing when Forstall left, blaming him for a bunch of things, not knowing anything about who is responsible for what. These guys are all in leadership roles, they manage teams of people who implement these products and those teams are probably all still at Apple plus/minus a few people.
The graphic designers now have the keys to the kingdom and this does not bode well for the usability of Apple’s products.
And when engineers have the keys to the kingdom, you end up with things like Windows Mobile: shoehorning a desktop OS on a mobile device because you only see the functionality and not the usability.
Last I checked the folks holding the keys to the Apple kingdom are all engineers, thankfully: Cook, Federighi, Williams, Srouji, …. even Joz.
Same at Google, Microsoft, Tesla, SpaceX and so many other tech titans.
The graphic designers now have the keys to the kingdom and this does not bode well for the usability of Apple’s products.
And when engineers have the keys to the kingdom, you end up with things like Windows Mobile: shoehorning a desktop OS on a mobile device because you only see the functionality and not the usability.
Last I checked the folks holding the keys to the Apple kingdom are all engineers, thankfully: Cook, Federighi, Williams, Srouji, …. even Joz.
Same at Google, Microsoft, Tesla, SpaceX and so many other tech titans.
As it should be.
Cook, Williams and Joswiak graduated as engineers, but none of them have practised that for a very long time. Cook since his Masters in business, Williams since he joined Apple in '98 and Joswiak has been in marketing for 30 years at Apple.
Comments
HDMI is for presentations, not for screen which Apple wants TB4 to be used.
SD slots are for the occasional data transfer, since pros tend to use wireless data transfer where possible in their standard photo workflow, as constant card swapping leads to avoidable wear and tear. So the speed offered is adequate for the task.
Specifically, engineers likely didn’t want to limit bandwidth on other ports by reserving high-speed transfer bandwidth for these two ports…
On the software side, it's much more of a mixed bag. Clearly, the Mac was revolutionary when it launched, thanks to BOTH really great graphic design and groundbreaking UI, driven by the stellar Human Interface Guidelines, which was lightyears beyond the competition.
Under Jobs we certainly got the eye candy of the 3D accelerated Aqua interface, as well as the rock solid stability of Mac OS X. But Apple also launched a huge number of equally groundbreaking apps: iTunes, iPhoto, Aperture, Final Cut, Garage Band, the iWorks suite, etc. all of which looked really nice and made it an absolute joy to manage all things digital. Granted, we also got a less consistent UI, with bouts of superfluous skeumorphism. But honestly, just the sheer magic of using Keynote instead of the then utterly horrible Powerpoint was more than making up for all of that.
My point, however, is that Apple has been gradually deteriorating on the software side. Remember when Apple was the undisputed leader in software design, and every new iteration of OS X was faster and often came with useful new features or innovative new apps. These days it looks really bland, with upgrades often noticably slowing down (particularly older) hardware. As for the apps, they have either been dumbed down to align them with the iPad versions, stalled in terms of new features or have been outright cancelled, like Aperture. And when did Apple last dazzle us with some awesome new software?
I wouldn't go so far as to say that Ives was the culprit. But he did mar the revamped UI with some glaringly ugly icons, which could only have been designed by a color blind person. And the flattening really didn't feel like anything else than a variation of the Android UI. Maybe even inferior - after all, Material Design uses subtle 3D effects to make the interface more intuitive. The Apple interface is just a rather dull and sometimes hard to read grey on grey.
For sure, Apple software isn't worse than the competition, but the innovative magic and the obvious design leadership is definitely and sadly gone.
To any spell checker it probably looks like that's missing an apostrophe.
(eye roll)
Form should follow function and under Ive, Apple was on a jihad to remove every port. Phil even was in videos talking about how Apple wanted to get to port free devices. We all remember the horrid trashcan “Mac Pro” as a replacement for a proper tower with internal expansion.
The new MacBook Pros show a decisive move away from that nonsense. I would much rather ports on my devices than a spaghetti bowl of breakout devices plugged into a single Thunderbolt or USB C port.
In the end a computer is a tool and fashion should not tackle precedence over function. Make it look good but do not sacrifice performance for styling.
The notch is poorly implemented.
USB4 supports HDMI and DP2.1 so having HDMI port is unnecessary.
Magsafe is easily achieved with adapter for those who worry about cables being yanked.
I don't care about Touch Bar much so it's not sorely missed.
The addition of SDHX slot is unnecessary.
We literally have plenty of USB-C hubs that can take HDMI, SDHC, and USB-A all at once. There is NO point of putting it on a laptop and make it look tacky.
It seems backward.
Adding an HDMI port also does nothing to change the fact that people will still use USB-C for most things and can be done simply by upgrading some cables.
Their latest iMac 'post-Ive' is the thinnest iMac they've ever made and only has 2-4 USB-C ports plus audio just like the last MBPs. Even assuming Ive still had a part in that design, they're not going to add extra ports at some point in the future.
People did the same thing when Forstall left, blaming him for a bunch of things, not knowing anything about who is responsible for what. These guys are all in leadership roles, they manage teams of people who implement these products and those teams are probably all still at Apple plus/minus a few people.
Same at Google, Microsoft, Tesla, SpaceX and so many other tech titans.