Jony Ive is no longer consulting for Apple

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 75
    tyler82tyler82 Posts: 1,100member
    iOS 7 and subsequent releases are trash from a UI stance.
    Bring back Scott Forstall.
    hammeroftruthAlex1N
  • Reply 22 of 75
    canukstormcanukstorm Posts: 2,693member
    Beats said:
    Every knockoff Apple product tried to mimic Apple because of Jony. From the Samsung Galaxy iPhoneys to the MateBook Pro and those pathetic Huawei knockoff AirPods.

    Unless someone is better than Jony at Apple, this is sad. I hope it’s not a personal thing between Tim and Jony.

    Jony Ive was quite literally the best industrial designer in history. I put Dieter Rams at #2 and Rams himself said Ive was way better than himself because he never had lines of people waiting to buy his products!
    This part of the article sums it up for me

    "Before leaving Apple in June 2019, Mr. Ive had grown disillusioned as Mr. Cook made the increasingly enormous company focused more on operations than on big design leaps, according to more than a dozen people who worked closely with Mr. Ive."
    BeatsJWSC
  • Reply 23 of 75
    DuhSesameDuhSesame Posts: 1,278member
    netrox said:
    It's time to let him go for good. 

    I wish the UX would be more clear and intuitive and he literally made the iOS 7 difficult. There's so much cognitive burden. It's too flat. It's difficult to intuitively discover.

    But I see the refinements over time and every iteration, the cognitive burden becomes lighter and lighter. 


    I agree that “affordance” is an issue with Apple. It’s a UX concept where an element looks like how it’s supposed to be used. 
    For example, the door handles on a Tesla S/X are amazing; they extend and invite to be pulled when you get closed. They look like things to be grabbed and pulled. No doubt how to use them. In contrast, the Tesla 3-series handles are not great. They are contracted and you need to awkwardly push them to open.

    With macOS, for example they changed buttons to look like icons, while they used to look like buttons before they moved to a flat design. Some elements are hidden and hard to discover. Similar issues in iOS.
    But fortunately we got rid of the awkward skeuomorphism as well.
    Meanwhile I’m operating my Linux machine with only a keyboard.

    It’s a computer.  What kind of “simplicity” do people expect anyway.
    radarthekat
  • Reply 24 of 75
    timmilleatimmillea Posts: 242member
    Without Insanely Great design, Apple loses its iconic status and slides into the field of mediocrity. No one with an eye for design would have released the Mac Studio nor eliminated the wedge of the MacBook Air. The wedge is expensive, requiring multiple stacked li-ion cells, but practical because you intuitively know which way round it is when closed and of course the slight slope aids typing efficiency. The M2 MBA typifies Apple's current direction of travel - a few incremental spec upgrades to satisfy focus groups but throwing away priceless design innovations. Ive was Apple's last link to its golden era. 
    M68000tyler82JWSCAlex1N
  • Reply 25 of 75
    rklarkla Posts: 13member
    The reductionism and simplistic thinking of Jony era vs. now is hilarious. He did great work with Steve, yes but The iPhone was not successful solely b/c or even b/c of Jony’s design. It was a marriage of design and innovation of new tech. Multitouch, eventual App Store, selfie cam, etc. iPad was a big iPhone. His design was sold to you with world class marketing. His accent on all the videos, the slow shots of close details and scripts about Al-You-min-ee-um, chamfered edges etc.

    Yes those were all premium and advanced Apple but if the phones tech didn’t exceed everything else on the market then it would not have mattered. 

    Debating fine details and products form the last 5 years in relation to Jony is useless. Let’s be clear about something, Jony checked out 11 years ago when Steve passed. Period. He was devastated and burnt out. It was well reported that he wanted to return to the UK. That would have been a disaster at the time for Apple stock after losing Steve. The company and the design team would have been fine but the stock would have suffered so he was paid a boatload and allowed to do what he wanted not leave and move back to the UK in order for the market to not be spooked. 

    He worked from his elaborate studio at home in San Fran most of the time and designed the Apple Park and given free rein including designing solid gold edition watches that he could give to celebrities to make his life interesting. 

    This is not a criticism, just the situation and a well planned succession plan from cult of personality to established company that isn’t rocked by a certain individuals whims.(be it Steve or Jony)
    Steve even started this plan by having Tim be his interim when he was sick. 

     Why do you think Jony had a contact to “consult” when he left? This was a 11 year soft landing/extraction plan for the market. He didn’t do anything significant for this contract as he didn’t for the last 11 yrs. Stop deifying him and thinking Apple will crash without him. It hasn’t and it won’t. If it were to stumble it wouldn’t be b/c Jony was no longer here. 

    There is no one to deify anymore, that’s a good thing and has been Tim’s plan for the past decade. Tim is an operational genius who has handed that to Jeff Williams, Craig is the charismatic & amazing software head, Johny Srojui is the genius that beat intel and Jaws is a world class marketer. They need all of it. Craig is the face, Jeff will be the head, Srojui is the ace in the hole and Greg Joswiak sells the whole package. 

    I wish Jony the best but this is not news and if you were paying attention you saw this coming a decade ago so stop pretending this means something. 
    muthuk_vanalingamradarthekathammeroftruthchadbagtechconcAlex1N
  • Reply 26 of 75
    darkvader said:
    GOOD!

    His early stuff wasn't awful.  Everything he's touched for the last 15+ years has been.
    His obsession with making everything as thin as possible was very annoying. Who needs battery life as long as it’s thin! 
  • Reply 27 of 75
    kimberlykimberly Posts: 427member
    JWSC said:
    As a singular focal point of Apple leadership, Steve needed Jony’s inspiration and design talent to march forward with innovative new products.

    By all appearance Tim Cook manages by group consensus.  Tim, and his leadership team, recognize that design is important.  But it’s not Tim’s passion like it was to Steve.

    Steve was an iconoclast, a maverick, and rule breaker.  But he is gone and there’s no re-creating him.  Apple’s leadership team have no choice but to run Apple with the skills and passions that they have available to them.  The Steve and Jony show, great as it was, is a bygone era for Apple that can never return.

    So, a toast to what was, and a second toast to better things to come for both Apple and Jony.
    Well put. Steve is long gone and the worst anyone can do is not be themselves - we are all unique.
    JWSCAlex1N
  • Reply 28 of 75
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,842moderator
    "Design is a funny word...", Steve Jobs once remarked.  

    Ive, working outside of Apple is not likely to have been as effective as Ive inside Apple.  These past three years since he left he's sure to have turned his attentions to other projects, and to nurturing his own studio.  This means that Ive would have likely contributed only a sense of style and top-level guidance to any Apple project he participated in; a bit of advice here, a stylistic touch there, his overall philosophies, some admonitions as to what to not add or take away.  

    But as Steve recognized, design is about more than how something looks.  

    Here's his full quote...

    Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works. The design of the Mac wasn’t what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it was how it worked. To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don’t take the time to do that. 

    - Steve Jobs, Wired, February 1996.

    chadbagJWSCAlex1N
  • Reply 29 of 75
    fred1fred1 Posts: 1,112member
    I’d love to know which Apple products LoveFrom designed. I tried looking at the web site, but’s . . . how to say . . . useless.  https://www.lovefrom.com/


  • Reply 30 of 75
    AI_liasAI_lias Posts: 434member
    Good riddance to a pretentious overrated designer. To me Ive will be synonymous with not only expensive stuff, but expensive impractical stuff. When a key fails on your MBP keyboard, after warranty expired, you’ll pay $700 to fix it and be happy for the privilege. Used to be that Apple was worth the extra cost because it lasted longer. Now Apple is slowly getting back to that. Not yet there, but they’re better after Ive has been gone. But now you have to contend with Tim Cook’s bullshit that Apple doesn’t design to cost: they clearly do, when they carefully exclude features which make people upgrade to more pro expensive models unnecessarily. 



    muthuk_vanalingamavon b7
  • Reply 31 of 75
    M68000M68000 Posts: 719member
    timmillea said:
    Without Insanely Great design, Apple loses its iconic status and slides into the field of mediocrity. No one with an eye for design would have released the Mac Studio nor eliminated the wedge of the MacBook Air. The wedge is expensive, requiring multiple stacked li-ion cells, but practical because you intuitively know which way round it is when closed and of course the slight slope aids typing efficiency. The M2 MBA typifies Apple's current direction of travel - a few incremental spec upgrades to satisfy focus groups but throwing away priceless design innovations. Ive was Apple's last link to its golden era. 
    Not sure what your issue with the Studio is.  You wanted no ports on the front?  But,  I completely agree on the Air.  That wedge shape is pretty special. 
  • Reply 32 of 75
    Mr Ive quoted as saying something like "lean into the weirdness" in a recent article about Apple Car probably has something to do with this article clarifying his role at Apple.

    Form and Function follow Culture.

    Example: The Normcore of the Electric Ford 150 vs the shock of the Tesla Cyber Truck - both are engaged with culture. America loves pickup trucks.

    Another exmaple: An apple dash in any make vehicle is also engaged with culture. People love Apple. But people also love to express their identity through all sorts of vehicles.

    A Jeep Magneto with an Apple dash is my dream car. Till then I'm fine with my 2017 Wrangler that doesnt even have a screen for carplay.

    An apple car bubble with seats facing inwards - not so much. Not now.

    edited July 2022
  • Reply 33 of 75
    DAalsethDAalseth Posts: 2,783member
    Ive + Jobs was a brilliant combination, Yin and Yang, Form and Function, in balance, in harmony. After Jobs left though, Ive drifted further and further from the "insanely great" products that combined form and function. His items became more and more about form at the expense of function. In that he reminds me of Frank Gehry the architect. At one time, when he was young and clients could keep him on a short leash, Gehry designed brilliant buildings. But eventually he became more interested in sculpture that ignored the needs of those who have to work in them. He also became a maestro that people would just throw money at to get a building with his name on it. Similarly, once Ive lost the steady hand of Jobs, he drifted further and further into his personal vision of Design Utopia, where things could get infinitely thin, and ports were for suckers. The decline wasn't all at once, but it became more and more obvious that his drives were compromising critical aspects of the hardware for the sake of design. Yes he officially retired from Apple a couple of years ago, but I suspect he was pushed. Eventually Apple Management realized that he was sacrificing essential features, and compromising critical engineering limitations, for the sake of his art, his sculptures. That's when he had to go.
    edited July 2022 techconcAlex1N
  • Reply 34 of 75
    timmilleatimmillea Posts: 242member
    M68000 said:
    timmillea said:
    Without Insanely Great design, Apple loses its iconic status and slides into the field of mediocrity. No one with an eye for design would have released the Mac Studio nor eliminated the wedge of the MacBook Air. The wedge is expensive, requiring multiple stacked li-ion cells, but practical because you intuitively know which way round it is when closed and of course the slight slope aids typing efficiency. The M2 MBA typifies Apple's current direction of travel - a few incremental spec upgrades to satisfy focus groups but throwing away priceless design innovations. Ive was Apple's last link to its golden era. 
    Not sure what your issue with the Studio is.  You wanted no ports on the front?  But,  I completely agree on the Air.  That wedge shape is pretty special. 
    The Mac Studio should have been a Mac Mini. The M1 Ultra config should have been carried forward to the new Mac Pro and the M1 Max didn't need the OTT cooling, i.e. fitted in the Mac Mini body. To me this was a glaring error on several levels. Finally, the Studio is very expensive and not even beautiful. 
  • Reply 35 of 75
    blastdoorblastdoor Posts: 3,258member
    lam92103 said:
    darkvader said:
    GOOD!

    His early stuff wasn't awful.  Everything he's touched for the last 15+ years has been.

    It's like he forgot that people buy products in order to use them, not just for looking at them. A good designer needs to blend both. Looking good while being fully functional
    I agree, but it's truly sad. He needed Steve Jobs to push him to blend both form and function. Without Jobs, his designs became unbalanced. He lost his creative soul mate and one of his best friends. The designs that followed reflected that loss. It's really heartbreaking. 
    muthuk_vanalingamAlex1N
  • Reply 36 of 75
    DAalsethDAalseth Posts: 2,783member
    timmillea said:
    M68000 said:
    timmillea said:
    Without Insanely Great design, Apple loses its iconic status and slides into the field of mediocrity. No one with an eye for design would have released the Mac Studio nor eliminated the wedge of the MacBook Air. The wedge is expensive, requiring multiple stacked li-ion cells, but practical because you intuitively know which way round it is when closed and of course the slight slope aids typing efficiency. The M2 MBA typifies Apple's current direction of travel - a few incremental spec upgrades to satisfy focus groups but throwing away priceless design innovations. Ive was Apple's last link to its golden era. 
    Not sure what your issue with the Studio is.  You wanted no ports on the front?  But,  I completely agree on the Air.  That wedge shape is pretty special. 
    The Mac Studio should have been a Mac Mini. The M1 Ultra config should have been carried forward to the new Mac Pro and the M1 Max didn't need the OTT cooling, i.e. fitted in the Mac Mini body. To me this was a glaring error on several levels. Finally, the Studio is very expensive and not even beautiful. 
    It’s not like they put the big heat sink and fan in there for the fun of it. The studio looks like it does for functional reasons. Even the Max has the heat sink and fan because it needs it. It’s in the MacBook Pro and not the Air because it needs active cooling.  The Studio was designed to fill the gap between the Mini and the Pro. It’s not a replacement for the Mini. The new Pro will, I expect, run circles around the Studio.
    Alex1N
  • Reply 37 of 75
    charlesncharlesn Posts: 820member
    Wow. I expected this forum to be an "Apple is now doomed" Jony Ive lovefest and it's more like "Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

    It's hard to assess Jony's contributions over the past 3 years without knowing which products reflect his design input and to what degree. We can guess, but can't know for sure. This much, however, is certain: the design language for most of Apple's product line in 2022 is taken directly from the iPhone 4 released in 2010. Not "inspired by" but essentially the same. Most of the line is now flat-sided rectangles of different sizes and I'm holding out hope that this doesn't carry over to this year's Watch 8. It's not a bad design by any means--I love the look of my iMac 24"--but was the iPhone 4 from 12 years ago really the pinnacle of design for Ive and Apple? 

    The reasons given in the press for the split do have the ring of truth for me: I could imagine Cook being furious with Ive poaching Apple designers, plus Cook's relentless focus on the bottom line might have had him questioning the value he was getting from Ive for the price being paid. As for Ive, he may well have felt constrained by the non-compete clauses in the contract. Also: when you've been a revered god at a company and a very powerful #2 to its legendary founder, where's the excitement in working there as a gun-for-hire with greatly diminished power and influence? 

    As tech products proliferate, Apple's tight control of hardware and software, plus its focus on a seamless user experience across different devices makes more and more sense. It's the main reason Apple continues to grow and become more profitable while other tech companies, especially in PCs, struggle. I'd like to see more excitement and freshness in product design--not gimmicks, but useful innovation. That said, you can't argue with the sales results of the safe (critics would say boring) design route it has been following, and it would be very Cook-like not to try and fix what isn't broke. 
    DAalsethAlex1N
  • Reply 38 of 75
    boboliciousbobolicious Posts: 1,139member
    Perhaps for consideration...

    Left Brain                 Right Brain
    Cook            Jobs                 Ive
    Cook                                     Ive
    Cook
    DAalseth
  • Reply 39 of 75
    doggonedoggone Posts: 377member
    premi said:
    I miss Johnny, his voice over the products were wonderful. I still wish he had taken over as CEO. Way better than Tim as a communicator. 
    You have to be kidding.  Johnny Ive rarely presented at events.  In fact he was very nervous about talking in front of an audience.  That's why they started to record his missives.

    There is no disputing that he was a great designer and his influence on Apple's products was a major part of Apple's revival in the 2000's.  Tim Cook was also critical for Apple's success because he created the organization that could deliver on Johnny's designs on time and in volume.  They both worked together with Steve Jobs to create the success story we have today.  Ive is a great designer but he is not a businessman and would not be able to handle running a company the size of Apple.
    muthuk_vanalingamAlex1N
  • Reply 40 of 75
    No matter how hard one tries, everything eventually becomes Windows.
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