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Hopefully this signals the end of the designers tyranny at Apple. While physical design has been of paramount importance in Apple's rise to the top, it has bee

by mrkstu 7y ago

Hopefully this signals the end of the designers tyranny at Apple. While physical design has been of paramount importance in Apple's rise to the top, it has been more and more detrimental as Jony and his group wandered into worshipping at the altar of luxury and Platonic idealism. When combined with /not/ ignoring other than luxury market segments and usability that was fine. But when Jony's star was completely ascendant everything else was sacrificed at that altar (see butterfly keyboard, single port MacBook, escape key-less touch bars, no 32 GB MacBook Pros since that would require non-power-sipping RAM.) I could have lived with this if the design of the software hadn't also suffered in conjunction with the hardware. Jony was given responsibility for UX and it also started prioritizing abstract design principles over actual usability with extremely low contrast UI elements and other poor choices. As we saw those points being walked back and Apple being responsive to the complaints, I've been wondering if Craig Federighi's star was rising and if Jony's was dimming, since I doubt he was a willing participant in the diminution of his artistic choices. Seeing the extreme effort he was putting into charity[0] and the spaceship campus, instead of his actual responsibilities, it all combined to me that he needed to either get re-focused by the CEO or get a new job. [0] https://www.dezeen.com/2018/11/16/jony-ive-diamond-ring-marc-newson-red-auction/ https://www.dezeen.com/2018/11/16/jony-ive-diamond-ring-marc... https://petapixel.com/2013/11/24/one-kind-jony-ive-red-leica-m-sells-whopping-1-8m-charity-auction/ https://petapixel.com/2013/11/24/one-kind-jony-ive-red-leica... https://www.businessinsider.com/jony-ive-bono-sothebys-charity-auction-2013-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/jony-ive-bono-sothebys-chari... https://www.fastcompany.com/3019896/designed-by-friendship-jony-ive-and-marc-newsons-15-ton-desk https://www.fastcompany.com/3019896/designed-by-friendship-j...

kshacker 7y ago
Tyranny of design. Interesting thought. What if he was let go after seeing the reaction to the new Mac compared to the trash can?
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  Wouldn't surprise me if something like that is what sealed the deal, but the criticism of Apple's design decisions has been building for some time now.
- sprafa 7y ago
  What’s wrong with the new Mac?
  - gruturo 7y ago
    (Apart from the price:) Nothing. It's a complete reversal from the trashcan. It's cheesy (!), loud, fun, it has personality, you can take it apart, mess with its insides, which are actually worth talking about. And people LOVE it - just as they'd probably love a decent Macbook which is maybe 0.2in thicker, but comes with an Esc key, a keyboard which won't die within a year, and enough ports to be usable.
    - sprafa 7y ago
      Yep! I think it’s a fantastic machine that looks great. Same with the screen.
  - kshacker 7y ago
    My comment was supposed to mean that the new mac is what trash can generation mac should have been. The opposite of what you probably understood. And my understated implication was the trash can would have been an Ive design.
  - nilkn 7y ago
    I think he/she meant that the trash can model was very poorly received whereas the new one has generated a lot of excitement. If the new one was designed without Ive or against his wishes, it could have seriously called his value into question.
m463 7y ago
> Hopefully this signals the end of the designers tyranny at Apple. Wait, how do you know it doesn't mean... - all toasters will be as thin as a slice of bread - refrigerators will now open and close like a laptop - washers and dryers will now be wireless (compatibility dongles for water and lint will be available)
- hinkley 7y ago
  Look at the building Jony Ive designed. People literally walk into walls. Maybe the world is better off if he works on computer hardware all day every day.
  - rsync 7y ago
    Can you provide some more background here ? What building was it that Jony Ivy designed ? The new Apple campus ? Where can I read more about people walking into walls, etc. ? (genuinely interested)
    - cowmoo728 7y ago
      https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/05/apple-park-workers-hurt-glass-walls-norman-foster-steve-jobs https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/05/apple-par... I heard that employees started putting post-its on walls to help people walk around safely, which infuriated someone important, because they were all taken down and told not to do that any more.
atombender 7y ago
I don't like that phrase, "tyranny of design". It implies design is just one side of a product. But design is everything. It is both form and function. A product that has great visual design is still a failure if the functional design is bad. A great designer is holistic and will be able to bring form and function into harmony.. While I don't have the inside scoop on how Jonathan Ive works, my impression is that he's good taste and excels at pushing the edge in materials and manufacturing processes -- he pioneered the aluminium unibody, for example -- and is probably a good leader. But he is not a great or original designer. Apple's recent history is littered with mistakes and poor design decisions, functional and aesthetic both, as well as a lot of unoriginal, boring visual design. There's obviously a lot of pressure at Apple, and they don't make anything easy for themselves, but that's not enough of an excuse to explain everything. To me, the most audacious design decision in recent years was the iPhone X's removal of the home button in favour of a purely gesture-based UI combined with Face ID. That's great design that just worked.
- sytelus 7y ago
  The iPhone has one of the most slippery surfaces of almost all objects I own. It looks great in photos and ad videos but completely incompatible to the goal of safely holding it in the human hand. Things have became so bad with iPhone XS that I have never seen anyone using it without some ugly sleeve. If anyone has dared not using case/sleeve, they would experience heart wrenching drop out of hand within their first week of use. Do you think this is good design? Why do you think this would happen at design-first company like Apple?
  - atombender 7y ago
    No, that's definitely bad design. The thing is like a bar of soap.
  - azernik 7y ago
    It's a bad design feature that is sadly common across premium smartphone brands - e.g. the Pixel 3 is also quite hard to grasp. One thing where I think lower-end phone design tends to be better, a function of their lower priority on aesthetics.
pedalpete 7y ago
Actually, the tyranny of design at Apple existed long before Jonny Ive. It began with Donald Norman who regularly discusses his Philip Starck juicer which "not meant to squeeze lemons, it is meant to start conversations." I can't find the quote, but Donald Norman said something along the lines of "create something beautiful and people will say it's wonderful and easy to use". This has always been the Apple way, and I don't see that changing. At Apple, form has always had priority over function.
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  It’s just not true. The early iOS had great fundamental usability. The new voice recorder app is fundamentally worse than its predecessor in almost every way. IOS usability not a flat line. It started above industry standards, brought the whole industry up with it (Google would never have invested in Material Design without Apple’s competitiveness), and then seemingly when Scott Forstall left, took a real downturn.
- proggy 7y ago
  That’s interesting. I always thought of Don Norman as having sensible, clear design principles. In the Design of Everyday Things [1], one of his main points was that devices should be always be clear about what they do, by presenting unambiguous affordances to the user. A row of light switches is no good; they should be organized so that they map to location in the room. A fridge with two knobs for temperature and volume of air should present a clear mental model to the user in its documentation, or better yet have a more direct interface to simply select the desired temperature for a given area. Doors that should be pulled should have handlebars; doors that should be pushed should have horizontal plates. If there’s anyone whose design principles I’d want at Apple, it’d be the guy who espoused clarity and unambiguity. Him waxing poetic about a useless juicer seems very out of character, although he did indeed say that [2]. I’d be interested to hear more about his more current work for Apple. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Thing... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/arts/features/story/0,11710,1166468,00.html https://www.theguardian.com/arts/features/story/0,11710,1166...
  - 7y ago
Arn_Thor 7y ago
What if.. and hear me out on this.. they designed a keyboard they really did believe was an improvement in every way?
draw_down 7y ago
> Hopefully this signals the end of the designers tyranny at Apple. Madness. You're talking about Apple.

by mrkstu 7y ago

kshacker 7y ago

Tyranny of design. Interesting thought. What if he was let go after seeing the reaction to the new Mac compared to the trash can?

CharlesColeman 7y ago
Wouldn't surprise me if something like that is what sealed the deal, but the criticism of Apple's design decisions has been building for some time now.
sprafa 7y ago
What’s wrong with the new Mac?
- gruturo 7y ago
  (Apart from the price:) Nothing. It's a complete reversal from the trashcan. It's cheesy (!), loud, fun, it has personality, you can take it apart, mess with its insides, which are actually worth talking about. And people LOVE it - just as they'd probably love a decent Macbook which is maybe 0.2in thicker, but comes with an Esc key, a keyboard which won't die within a year, and enough ports to be usable.
  - sprafa 7y ago
    Yep! I think it’s a fantastic machine that looks great. Same with the screen.
- kshacker 7y ago
  My comment was supposed to mean that the new mac is what trash can generation mac should have been. The opposite of what you probably understood. And my understated implication was the trash can would have been an Ive design.
- nilkn 7y ago
  I think he/she meant that the trash can model was very poorly received whereas the new one has generated a lot of excitement. If the new one was designed without Ive or against his wishes, it could have seriously called his value into question.

m463 7y ago

> Hopefully this signals the end of the designers tyranny at Apple. Wait, how do you know it doesn't mean... - all toasters will be as thin as a slice of bread - refrigerators will now open and close like a laptop - washers and dryers will now be wireless (compatibility dongles for water and lint will be available)

hinkley 7y ago
Look at the building Jony Ive designed. People literally walk into walls. Maybe the world is better off if he works on computer hardware all day every day.
- rsync 7y ago
  Can you provide some more background here ? What building was it that Jony Ivy designed ? The new Apple campus ? Where can I read more about people walking into walls, etc. ? (genuinely interested)
  - cowmoo728 7y ago
    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/05/apple-park-workers-hurt-glass-walls-norman-foster-steve-jobs https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/05/apple-par... I heard that employees started putting post-its on walls to help people walk around safely, which infuriated someone important, because they were all taken down and told not to do that any more.

atombender 7y ago

I don't like that phrase, "tyranny of design". It implies design is just one side of a product. But design is everything. It is both form and function. A product that has great visual design is still a failure if the functional design is bad. A great designer is holistic and will be able to bring form and function into harmony.. While I don't have the inside scoop on how Jonathan Ive works, my impression is that he's good taste and excels at pushing the edge in materials and manufacturing processes -- he pioneered the aluminium unibody, for example -- and is probably a good leader. But he is not a great or original designer. Apple's recent history is littered with mistakes and poor design decisions, functional and aesthetic both, as well as a lot of unoriginal, boring visual design. There's obviously a lot of pressure at Apple, and they don't make anything easy for themselves, but that's not enough of an excuse to explain everything. To me, the most audacious design decision in recent years was the iPhone X's removal of the home button in favour of a purely gesture-based UI combined with Face ID. That's great design that just worked.

sytelus 7y ago
The iPhone has one of the most slippery surfaces of almost all objects I own. It looks great in photos and ad videos but completely incompatible to the goal of safely holding it in the human hand. Things have became so bad with iPhone XS that I have never seen anyone using it without some ugly sleeve. If anyone has dared not using case/sleeve, they would experience heart wrenching drop out of hand within their first week of use. Do you think this is good design? Why do you think this would happen at design-first company like Apple?
- atombender 7y ago
  No, that's definitely bad design. The thing is like a bar of soap.
- azernik 7y ago
  It's a bad design feature that is sadly common across premium smartphone brands - e.g. the Pixel 3 is also quite hard to grasp. One thing where I think lower-end phone design tends to be better, a function of their lower priority on aesthetics.

pedalpete 7y ago

Actually, the tyranny of design at Apple existed long before Jonny Ive. It began with Donald Norman who regularly discusses his Philip Starck juicer which "not meant to squeeze lemons, it is meant to start conversations." I can't find the quote, but Donald Norman said something along the lines of "create something beautiful and people will say it's wonderful and easy to use". This has always been the Apple way, and I don't see that changing. At Apple, form has always had priority over function.

erikpukinskis 7y ago
It’s just not true. The early iOS had great fundamental usability. The new voice recorder app is fundamentally worse than its predecessor in almost every way. IOS usability not a flat line. It started above industry standards, brought the whole industry up with it (Google would never have invested in Material Design without Apple’s competitiveness), and then seemingly when Scott Forstall left, took a real downturn.
proggy 7y ago
That’s interesting. I always thought of Don Norman as having sensible, clear design principles. In the Design of Everyday Things [1], one of his main points was that devices should be always be clear about what they do, by presenting unambiguous affordances to the user. A row of light switches is no good; they should be organized so that they map to location in the room. A fridge with two knobs for temperature and volume of air should present a clear mental model to the user in its documentation, or better yet have a more direct interface to simply select the desired temperature for a given area. Doors that should be pulled should have handlebars; doors that should be pushed should have horizontal plates. If there’s anyone whose design principles I’d want at Apple, it’d be the guy who espoused clarity and unambiguity. Him waxing poetic about a useless juicer seems very out of character, although he did indeed say that [2]. I’d be interested to hear more about his more current work for Apple. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Thing... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/arts/features/story/0,11710,1166468,00.html https://www.theguardian.com/arts/features/story/0,11710,1166...
- 7y ago

Arn_Thor 7y ago

What if.. and hear me out on this.. they designed a keyboard they really did believe was an improvement in every way?

draw_down 7y ago

> Hopefully this signals the end of the designers tyranny at Apple. Madness. You're talking about Apple.