9 ms·

History Will Not Be Kind to Jony Ive

151 points by jb1991 7y ago

bayareanative 7y ago
History will not be kind to VICE.. HBO kicked them out and they're basically dying. Remember the crazy and one-sided agreement they tried to shove on Louis Rossmann? F' em.
Traster 7y ago
This article is trash. It's basically saying "But Ive's focus on slim design and minimalism meant sacrifices had to be made in terms of repairability". Well guess what, that's a design decision and we live in a free market - so if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone. The fact that these design decisions have been integral to making Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world probably indicates they were good design decisions. If you really think what the world needs is airpods with a replaceable battery, go build one.
- jumbopapa 7y ago
  > The fact that these design decisions have been integral to making Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world probably indicates they were good design decisions. I think this may have been true at some point, but not anymore. I know so many people that are blinded by brand loyalty to Apple that they'll buy basically any product they put out. They wouldn't consider an Android device because it doesn't portray the same "status". The same is true with the MacBook Pro. I used to be a happy MacBook Pro user, but when it was time to upgrade and I saw the current lineup there was no way I could consider buying one. I've never been the type to just buy Apple for the sake of buying Apple. Many people go ahead and buy a $2000 device that they only use to browse social media solely because Apple made it.
  - Veen 7y ago
    All you are saying is that symbols of status and "brand loyalty" are more important to some buyers than features and functionality. That's just a fact about some people. You might argue that it's foolish and irrational, but it doesn't change the fact or that people buy based on their personal criteria, which may be different to yours. Your choices are not intrinsically more rational than theirs. They value status. You don't. It would be silly of them to buy in the way you buy because they don't value the same things. Apple serves a very large market of people who consider status more important than features (if we accept your initial assertion). Their designs are made to appeal to that group.
    - jumbopapa 7y ago
      That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying the design doesn't matter to these people. By virtue of the product being produced by Apple that means it's "good", so they buy it regardless of whether or not the design actually makes the product better.
- s0l1dsnak3123 7y ago
  That's pretty disingenuous - its not reasonable to ask the average person to take into consideration the intricate nuances of design and its impact on society when making a buying decision. If we live in a free market (we don't, by the way - especially not in the EU where I live, and thank goodness for that!), then surely it is the onus of the business to promote positive choices for society in their product selection? Because if not them, and not the state, then who else?
  - andrewfromx 7y ago
    so AirPods with replaceable batteries are "promoting positive choices for society" and the current AirPods Apple makes are not? I think the OP is saying there was an election by the people, and they voted overwhelmingly in favor for current Apple AirPods with their money. If people have money and are allowed to choose one thing over the other won't one choice always be "promoting positive choices for society" and one not as much? Unless you make the choices like they do in the Hulu series The Handmaid's Tale country of gilead.
    - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
      Given advertising and PR, do consumers actually make free choices? Do consumers have the costs of their choices spelled out clearly, or are they hidden and deferred as externalities under the false pretence that neither customers nor anyone they know will ever have to worry about them? How accurately do market costs include physical, ecological, environmental, and political/social costs? Is a system that cannot accurately present costs to consumers without interpreting them through its own value system actually credible and trustworthy?
    - asveikau 7y ago
      > [the people] voted overwhelmingly in favor for current Apple AirPods with their money Are you sure about this? Personally, I almost never see people wearing AirPods in public, but I do see a lot of other headphones. It cannot be said that they "overwhelmingly" captured the headphone or earbud market. Googling around it seems they are the best selling for wireless according to some sources. But most earphones I see in public seem to be wired still. Yet more googling seems to suggest the whole of the headphone market sells > 10x the number of units as AirPods. It falls far short of an "overwhelming" impression.
- alexryan 7y ago
  It might be that the truth is in the middle. Clearly the design was great but hindering repairability is a legitimate criticism. I recall watching a young child from a poor family in an Apple Store trying to get the iPad that she loved repaired and the family being told that her only option was to purchase a new one which they clearly could not afford. Seeing how distraught it made the little girl really bothered me. That was the day that I started to intensely hate Apple. In fairness, however, hindering repairability feels like a business decision that Ive may not have been responsible for.
  - no1youknowz 7y ago
    > Seeing how distraught it made the little girl really bothered me. That was the day that I started to intensely hate Apple. Some things you could have done: 1) Offer to buy the parents a replacement. 2) Offer to take the iPad to a third party to repair. Like Louis Rossman and offer to pay for the repair. 3) Offer to setup a GoFundMe for the replacement or to cover the cost of the repair. 4) Educate the parents that Android is a cheaper better option and determine the best action to recover the data (can be done) and move over to Android. 5) Educate the parents that companies like Louis Rossman exist and can repair Apple devices and to research on the internet for more information. And yet, you did nothing.
    - zeropnc 7y ago
      Why would he do something when he can be morally smug at the “man” on the internet?
      - dang 7y ago
        Personal attacks will get you banned here. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do this again. More generally, will you please (a) not post unsubstantive comments to HN, and (b) edit the nasty swipes out of the comments you do post? We're hoping for a bit better than that here.
    - magduf 7y ago
- biddlesby 7y ago
  > Well guess what, that's a design decision and we live in a free market - so if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone. This shifts blame off suppliers and on to consumers. Suppliers can do whatever they want: it's the responsibility of consumers to choose what is best for society. In my opinion this is not an effective approach for society, for example because of unbalanced information. I think the responsibility needs to be shared. > The fact that these design decisions have been integral to making Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world probably indicates they were good design decisions. I don't think the author is disputing that the designs were good decisions, when the goal is profit. They are complaining that sustainability was not taking into account.
  - merpnderp 7y ago
    Suppliers can’t do whatever they want, as they will quickly go broke when people vote with their wallets. You and I might disagree strongly with disposable electronics, but people are happily handing over their money for this stuff. And it makes sense when you see polls that say people aren’t even willing to pay $100 more a year to stop climate change.
    - wincy 7y ago
      I for one am excited about how my home value will go up once the coasts flood and I have beach front property here in Kansas. Less land = more expensive land, I can’t lose!
      - magduf 7y ago
        Climate change will probably mean more tornadoes for Kansas.
    - Vraxx 7y ago
      part of this is because of an ongoing disinformation campaign by the companies and individuals who benefit the most from not addressing the climate crisis. People aren't willing to pay $100 more a year to stop climate change because from all the information they've been fed, it's not a big deal. There's very good reason to believe that if people understood the current and future effects better there would be a much more drastic response. Just look at similar failures in the past where corporate interest spread disinformation to continue making money (cigarettes, lead in gasoline, health insurance companies today, sugar industry, etc.). When people learn the actual facts the prevailing opinion tends to change pretty heavily. Sure suppliers must cater to demand, but that ignores the fact that often suppliers play a large role in cultivating that demand regardless of the moral value of that demand.
- lisper 7y ago
  > you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone Where can I find an expandable, repairable laptop that runs MacOS?
  - camjohnson26 7y ago
    Run a Hackintosh
    - lisper 7y ago
      Let me clarify: where can I buy an expandable repairable laptop that runs macOS legally with support from the vendor?
- unreal37 7y ago
  It's a fair criticism of Ive to say he's been responsible for people throwing away perfectly good electronics to get the latest, fashionable model. Changing the design from year to year purely so that people will feel the need to upgrade lest they be thought of as out of fashion. If you believe consumers are responsible for the choices they make, then Ive is responsible for the choices he made too.
  - Veen 7y ago
    I was about to disagree with you, then I remembered the little red dot they put on the crown of the Apple Watch 3 to differentiate it from older versions. That was purely about demonstrating the owner has the newest iteration.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      The red dot differentiated it from the non-cellular version.
      - blub 7y ago
        In case we forget what we bought and accidentally try to make a call off our version of the watch for commoners.
        saagarjha 7y ago
        You can make a call from your non-cellular watch, provided you're in range of your iPhone.
      - wool_gather 7y ago
        Parent is slightly off in the details but the basic point is correct: the dot went from a filled circle in one generation to an open circle in the next. There's no functional reason for this, and the form of the crown itself didn't change enough for there to be any real reason other than for "spectators" to be able to distinguish the models visibly. (And I'm not casting a stone here: I say this as someone who bought a Watch from each generation.)
- mamcx 7y ago
  > so if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone This is false. Massively. The available options are not many, not strongly different neither much freely available to choose. Most, at best, start with "can I at least afford it?". I know many that wish to have an Apple device but must use a very bad and cheap android... because is what them can afford. Also, consider developers, supposedly a group that "could choose best". How many times "where is a good laptop that run linux" you hear? Is because it not EXIST. I can't choose it. Only accept a decent approximation. If you pay attention, you will see that the market is not close to provide good options in so many fronts. I remember a few years ago: "Where is the RDBMS GUI front-end for osx?", It not EXIST at the time. But you can "chose" to use linux? Linux not have good UI tools at large. Only windows in my niche.
  - Veen 7y ago
    How many times "where is a good laptop that run linux" you hear? That is the market at work. The market doesn't exist to serve every possible need, only profitable needs. The demand for Linux laptops is so low that it supports only a handful of specialist businesses, none of which have the investment or infrastructure to build laptops like Apple's.
- Juliate 7y ago
  Using oil and coal is a design decision - and we live in a free market. The fact that these design decisions have been integral to making oil companies some of the most valuable companies in the world probably indicates they were good design decisions. See where we are now.
- efdee 7y ago
  > so if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone. Is it not well within the author's rights to write a piece about it and talk about it? Are the only options in Appleland really "buy it and like it" and "go away" ?
- mrkeen 7y ago
  So you paraphrased the article, which I'll take at face value. How does this make the article trash? Critics don't owe us better products just because they have the audacity to write about other people's products. I think the world needs more articles criticising companies for making unrepairable crap.
- dorfsmay 7y ago
  > so if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone Sadly every brand has been imitating the cool kid. Case in point: Thinkpads. Thinkpads used to be an absolute beauty of engineering. I have an old x220: You could swap battery by hand, change the memory and hard disk by undoing one single screw, swap the keyboard by undoing 3 screws. I also go a new one recently, a T480. Changing memory and mass media means taking the whole bottom off, which means which is almost impossible to do with breaking some small plastic tabs. Changing the battery and keyboard is close to heart surgery. Their newer model downright solder memory in the machine, making it impossible to upgrade or repair. Another example, OneOps was one of the few company making sane decision, their latest model does not have a jack for headset.
  - Asmod4n 7y ago
    Thinkpads are no longer made by IBM, so, yeah. Other brands have faired a much worse fate. AEG for example was once a brand which stood for good german quality, nowadays everyone who wants to use that name only has to buy the right to do so from some turkish company.
    - jotm 7y ago
      At the very least, AEG home appliances are made by Electrolux. Same internals as Zanussi, a step above the sad state of Sharp, Panasonic, Grundig (made by Beko). Not as good as they once were, though.
      - steve_gh 7y ago
        Funnily enough, I was chatting to the guy who came to repair my 10yr old Siemens dishwasher a month or so back. His advice - next time you buy one, buy a Beko, as they have long understood how to build a good product to a price cap. The marque brands are now trying to save costs by doing the same internally, but they are not as good at it!
        jotm 7y ago
        Oh man, funny that you mention that. So Bosch/Siemens have the most reliable appliances (lowest failure rates), except for their bloody dishwashers. They use unique, expensive parts and are very hard to disassemble. Terrible choices, no idea why. Beko use standard components (except the main board) found on dozens of other brands and most of them only require you to remove the bottom cover for access. To be fair, Beko branded machines are pretty good. Just not that good. Especially for the premium price they want for some of their other brands. I've worked on several Beko washers that overheated until the glass on the door cracked (flooding the place). But that's nothing compared to some Miele that will power the heater even if there's no water, getting it red hot and risking a real fire. Ditto for Indesit dryers.
- jackhack 7y ago
  I don't think the article goes far enough. >>sacrifices had to be made in terms of repairability" It's not just repairability. There are substantial sacrifices made to usability; Ive chooses form over function. Example 1: Thanks to Ive's fetish with "smaller/slimmer", everyone is now carrying around a bag full of adapters and dongles to connect the devices they use: usb, video, network, etc. Example 2: The butterfly keyboard. Loud, an ergonomic mess, and unreliable. Example 3: The absurd decision to place the charging port on the wireless mouse on the bottom - rendering it unusable while it charges. But it looks so sleek.
  - magduf 7y ago
    These are all good things, because people like them, and are happily handing truckloads of their money over to Ive's company for products with these "features". I'd like to see Apple try to take this even farther, such as making Macbooks require a dongle just to use WiFi, making it so that they only work with genuine Apple WiFi dongles, and then charging more for the dongle than the Macbook itself costs. I seem to remember a Space Quest game that had something like this in the plot. With the stupidity that consumers have shown regarding Apple, I have no doubt that this would work out just fine for them.
    - blub 7y ago
      Thousands of design decisions go into a product, while consumers can only vote yes/no. So a hypothetical consumer could like 1950 decisions, deeply dislike 50 and it would still be worth it for them to buy the product. This is exactly what's happening for Apple, their products are still good enough to be bought, but at the same time they make a lot of stupid design decisions which frustrate us. In my case, the MBP has so many reliability issues that I would no longer personally purchase it.
      - magduf 7y ago
        There's more than one product out there. For phones, there's dozens of models available on the new market at any time, plus all the used ones (this is a lot since they change models about every year). For any given product, there should be other options out there that would suit you better. The problem with Apple is that people are emotionally invested into the brand; they buy it just because it gives them status (like a Rolex watch or a BMW), because they're a fan of the brand for some reason, etc., not because the product actually the best match to their list of desired features.
- TelmoMenezes 7y ago
  > if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone Or at least while our planet is inhabitable. 44.3 degrees today in France, the highest temperature ever recorded in that country. Free markets and design decisions are great, protecting our common environment is also not such a bad idea...
- damnyou 7y ago
  It should be against the law to make non-repairable electronics. The world is literally about to end and we cannot afford to sacrifice everything on the altar of some sort of platonic notion of beauty.
- asveikau 7y ago
  It may be a free market, but we only get one planet earth, and your ideas about a free market don't really have an answer to that concern.
- naasking 7y ago
  > Well guess what, that's a design decision and we live in a free market - so if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone. The fact that these design decisions have been integral to making Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world probably indicates they were good design decisions. Good design decisions, perhaps. Good environmental decisions, not at all. I think we're all starting to realize the impact of externalizing the environmental costs, so I can't say the article's basic premise is far off.
- mindcrime 7y ago
  Well guess what, that's a design decision and we live in a free market - so if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone. Nothing in the article argued otherwise. The fact that these design decisions have been integral to making Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world probably indicates they were good design decisions. Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good, or a good decision. The use of gas for powering cars made a lot of companies very valuable, but one can certainly question that decision in light of the impact on the environment. One can cite plenty of other examples where a decision made sense if you look at it in a very myopic sense, analyzing only the short term financial implications... while the longer-term view yields a much different analysis.
  - m1sta_ 7y ago
    The long term view is that Apple also became the world's most valuable brand with exceptionally loyal customers.
    - basch 7y ago
      Except some of their most loyal customers have been switching to other laptops that made less sacrifice. They could have pleased new comers and loyal customers, and kept a better reputation by delivering a higher quality device, instead of becoming just a fashion statement. They grew because of their obsession with thinness, BUT at some point they should have recognized the diminishing returns, that people wanted battery life and real keyboards. They left money on the table, with regard to opportunity cost, that wont ever be calculatable, by not changing their tune once they became thin enough.
    - CogDisco 7y ago
      That's one way of looking at it. Another is that they provide products with consistently high margins, and encourage vendor lock in.
- wahlis 7y ago
  You've just made the best argument for why we need to regulate the free markets.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > Well guess what, that's a design decision and we live in a free market - so if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone. The fact that these design decisions have been integral to making Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world probably indicates they were good design decisions. That assumes the unrepairable hardware is an isolated choice by customers when it isn't. There are a hundred other reasons why to buy a particular laptop or not, a huge one being the ability to run macos. If you want to see actual consumer preferences then produce a repairable Macbook and see if anybody buys that. Which they did in 2006 when that was the case -- so by your logic doesn't that prove that the market has spoken and people want repairable hardware? Relying on the market to indicate preferences works when there is aggressive competition providing every possible combination of alternatives people might want. If the actual combination that people want isn't available then all you're proving is that some people like macos more than they dislike disposable hardware, which is a crap excuse for destroying the environment.
- cat199 7y ago
  > The fact that these design decisions have been integral to making Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world probably indicates they were good design decisions. One could very very easily make the case that apple's popularity is not due to super sleekness but the boost of ipod+itunes (hey, portable music i can easily use without piracy) followed by iphone (mobile internet and touch ui) and the coherent combination of these user-useful tools under a single brand with a single design language. Nothing precludes the same phenomenon from happening using a different design language, even one that is still sleek but yet doesn't generate mountains of unrepairable trash and set a precedent for other companies to do the same. Instead, apple used sleekness to sell unrepairability and thereby boost it's bottom line to the detriment of consumer rights and the environment.
- EpicEng 7y ago
  >Well guess what, that's a design decision and we live in a free market - so if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone... I imagine one is also free to write about why they don't like it... I never understand this argument. So people should just keep their mouths shut about anything they don't like assuming they have a market alternative? Why? Maybe I like a lot about X but don't like where X is now headed? Why shouldn't I speak up?
- toss1 7y ago
  The article has an excellent main point -- that repairability and modularity are valuable. You complain "we live in a free market". Of course we do. One of the key features of a free market is that it rewards not only better products, but it also very handsomely rewards people/companies who can externalize costs -- optimize one thing that makes profits for them, while leaving the society or the planet to pay the costs. You apparently advocate a commercial ethos where it is good to trash the commons, as long as you can make a profit. Just because trashing the commons can result in a company becoming one of the largest in the world, does not mean that any criticism of it is trash.
- harimau777 7y ago
  The fact that his design made Apple a lot of money means that they were good business decisions. However, that isn't the same as them being good design decisions. As I understand it, design is the study of how form can be improved in order to improve function. Ive's focus on slimness appears to be improving form at the expense of function.
- harimau777 7y ago
  Saying that people just need to go out and build their own operating system/computer is ridiculous. No average person (or really any individual) has the resources to do that.
- tolger 7y ago
  I agree. Sensationalist trash. The article claims that Ive’s design decisions affected not only Apple, but other brands like Samsung and HTC as well. Really? If they were terrible decisions then other companies wouldn’t have been forced to adopt them and the market would’ve punished Apple, right? The fact that other brands adopted them means that the market wanted slim, sleek and overpriced products. So blame the public, not Ive.
drtillberg 7y ago
Repairability is really important for sustainable, maintainable systems. Beauty without reparability-- in hindsight it will be like those illuminated manuscripts from the middle ages that were created with poisons like arsenic and stored in sealed containers[1]. It's beautiful, but most definitely not as functional or impressive as it otherwise might be. [1] https://www.livescience.com/63025-poisonous-books-coated-in-arsenic.html https://www.livescience.com/63025-poisonous-books-coated-in-...
Spooky23 7y ago
I have always despised how publications latch on to anything Apple like a pit bull. Especially when you’re borderline insulting of a person instead of a critic of the work. End of the day, he’s one of a select few household names in the space. His work helped make Apple one of the biggest Andy most influential companies on earth. Nobody will remember the keyboards — his legacy is just fine.
tibbon 7y ago
What I will agree with here is that we have made devices so thin and fragile that you instantly have to wrap them in thick cases to protect them. Or carry around a pound of adapters to shave off a few grams in having more than one port. The optimization toward light and thin has gone a little overboard. These aren’t just art pieces, but tools. Make my laptop 10% heavier but give me a machine that can take a beating
- britch 7y ago
  I think there's a disconnect between what makes someone buy a device, and what makes a quality device. In the abstract I think a lot of people would say they'd take a heavier phone that's more durable and has a longer battery life. Unfortunately most phones are sold on "tech-lust." The sleekness and thin-ness of the device. How futuristic it is. People will pay a lot of money for a luxury device that feels "right." I'm not sure how we resolve the conflict. For a sellers perspective you kind of have to chase the art-piece, especially when people choose it over the practical tool again and again. But I think most people would be happier if the design was more tool-like.
m0llusk 7y ago
It turns out that disassembly and maintenance are features that cost quite a bit of money all along the chain from design to component sourcing to assembly and even delivery. Most consumers want rock bottom prices and would rather just by a new widget with more better features. None of this touches on what Jon Ive did in terms of making the machines themselves and their interfaces as appealing and accessible as possible within the constraints of hardware and software production. One of the big potential advantages to the current situation is that some company could design and market computers that are repairable and also hire Jon Ive to enhance their beauty and interfaces.
- Synaesthesia 7y ago
  The original iMac G5 was easy to dissemble. There are three screws which lift off the entire back and everything is exposed. Replacing a HDD was a cinch. In the subsequent models they made it far more difficult without really changing the outward design. You had to remove the screen, it was a lot harder and more technical. It was a decision to make macs and other devices non repairable.
NietTim 7y ago
And history will not be kind to media outlets that consistently put out trash like this, aiding in the ever growing distrust in the media gigantic eye roll
dx7tnt 7y ago
Nonsense - his design of the 'black mirror' iPhone that turned the communications industry on its head will be very much kindly remembered. Every smartphone is now a take on that first iPhone. Almost none of them are any more or less repairable than the iPhone for practical purposes.
stupidcar 7y ago
Was the integrated circuit a mistake because it isn't repairable? The historical arc of technological development is unmistakably towards smaller, more complex, more integrated systems that are impossible to access and repair without highly specialised equipment. Does anybody really believe that technology 100 years from now will be anything other than nano-tech meta-materials, the functioning of which is totally opaque to anybody without a tunnelling microscope and an in-depth understanding of quantum physics? History will judge Ive no more harshly than one person caught in an irresistible wave.
- theaeolist 7y ago
  The integrated circuit was not unrepairable on purpose. The amount of plastic packaging per transistor in an integrated circuit is much much smaller than for individual transistors. The point is that the Apple devices are not repairable on purpose. The half-a-millimeter-thinner argument is a laughable pretext.
- flohofwoe 7y ago
  Yet integrated circuits are more open than Apple products because they offered their functionality through a standardized pin-"API", and could be combined with circuits from other manufacturers. Apple products are mainly designed to live in an Apple-only ecosystem.
- BuckRogers 7y ago
  There's a balance. Not doing reasonable component separation, such as SSD, mainboard, CPU, and RAM from each other different from the feasibility of repairing nanomaterial directly. I still want to be able to replace the battery in my Tesla, which I can.
sidcool 7y ago
What a clickbait article. Love or hate Jony's designs, millions have used and loved the products. There have been issues wrt repairability, but it's nothing as dramatic as the article claims.
- theaeolist 7y ago
  Love or hate big tobacco, millions have used and loved cigarettes. What an argument! "It's nothing as dramatic". Really? Millions of unrepairable wireless earbuds heading to the landfill every year is not dramatic?
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    Apple devices are not physically addictive. Jesus Christ.
  - sidcool 7y ago
    There has to be a strawman like word for this argument. Last I checked, Jony's products didn't cause Cancer or kill anyone. At worst, all they did was annoy someone. Your argument would have held credence without that argument.
    - viklove 7y ago
      > "It's nothing as dramatic". Really? Millions of unrepairable wireless earbuds heading to the landfill every year is not dramatic? Yeah, just casually ignore this part of the comment...
    - FabHK 7y ago
      GP is not implying that Apple products are like cancer. He is trying to show that GGP's argument was invalid, by applying to a different case where it obviously doesn't hold. A: "X is not bad, because millions have used and loved it." B: "That doesn't follow. Millions have used and loved Y, and Y is clearly bad, so A's argument doesn't hold." C: "B claims that X is like Y, but Y causes cancer, and X doesn't, so B's argument is invalid." D (me): "No, B doesn't claim that X is like Y, so C's argument is not sound, and B's is valid and sound, and A's is invalid." Or so.
deleted 7y ago
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nemo44x 7y ago
This would have been something of an original thought if it were written, say, last week. But it's clearly an article trolling the actual news. A blogger decided to write something edgy after a few minutes of thought. The pathetic thing is this blogger probably believes it is insightful, original, and intelligent. And just what's with the concern for how the future looks upon this time in history? It seems like so many arguments are based on the premise that for one reason or another, humans of the future will judge the humans of today in a negative way. Why would I care? Even if I did, I'd assume that at some point in the future literally nobody will be thinking or judging of humans of today. We aren't that special. Get over yourselves.
jjuel 7y ago
I tend to think the opposite. When you think of design you think of Apple (which in turn means Jony Ive). Whether or not they cause some functional issues doesn't matter. The market has spoken and they love the sleek design that this man has come up with. If it weren't true people wouldn't be all out copying the designs of Apple. I think history will look favorably on him, and pretty much forget the functional issues (whether real or just perceived) his designs caused.
- FabHK 7y ago
  I can't speak for "the market", but personally I like the seamless integration (of UNIXy base & consistent GUI, of hardware & software, across different devices). Not the super-sleek design. Like many users, I'd prefer if the devices were a bit thicker, but had more battery life and were more easily repairable (and, for the MBP, had a keyboard that would just work).
  - BuckRogers 7y ago
    They could do all of that, fix the keyboard, put in a 100WHr battery, and componetize the parts (SSD/RAM, CPU, motherboard) without changing much from the current look and feel. I imagine it would be a hybrid between the 2015 and 2016 Macs.
gigatexal 7y ago
Yeah I disagree with the article. Ive will be sought after for years. Imagine having his name attached to the next Samsung phone. His singular designs helped propel Apple to where they are on just the back of the iPhone which at one point made up north of 60% of Apple’s revenue. History will put him in the same boat as Jobs.
patagonia 7y ago
I think what most comments critical of this article are missing is the “History” portion of the title. Sure. At the moment it isn’t ridiculous to create headphones that must be broken and thus trashed to replace the battery. But, when climate change is (very soon) bearing down on us with its full force, we will revisit these decisions. At that point, with that perspective, I have to believe that history will indeed not be kind to these decisions.
- unreal37 7y ago
  Yes, we can praise Ive today for being a pioneer. But in 20 years, he'll perhaps be looked at in a different light.
pixelbath 7y ago
It seems like the author has a definite axe to grind here. I can't recall a single story about Apple's product design that lays the blame for unrepairability at Ive's feet, yet here's this article that implies nobody else was involved in the design of Apple's products. I'm not much a fan of Apple's chosen method of doing business, and can honestly say I've only liked a few of the product designs that Ive has created over the years, but I think history will be kind to him; his designs helped create the juggernaut Apple is today, and he's leaving at a bit of a high point in his career.
johnhenry 7y ago
What about "History Will Not Be Kind to Apple"? Ultimately, ALL of these apparent flaws were approved by the Apple and Ive isn't even a company officer. Further, the average consumer has no idea who Jony Ive is. Apple created the iPhone, not Ive.
- FabHK 7y ago
  > Ive isn't even a company officer. I can't say it better than Wikipedia: > On 26 May 2015, the firm announced that Ive was promoted to chief design officer (CDO), at the time one of only three C-level executives at Apple along with CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri (Jeff Williams would be promoted to COO at the end of 2015). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jony_Ive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jony_Ive
  - johnhenry 7y ago
    I've been thoroughly schooled.
DLA 7y ago
Written by a “journalist” about whom history will not even footnote. “Ive, Apple's Chief Design Officer, is leaving the company. He leaves a legacy that made its products hard to repair and impossible to upgrade.” And leaves a trail of epic industrial design, user experience, and manufacturing genius. Does one repair/upgrade a pacemaker? A fine watch? A modern heavily computerized, sensor-filled car? Smart TV? A digital camera? Article is a pile of poor logic and lack of appreciation of design. Hard pass.
- mkhattab 7y ago
  Yes, one usually does and can repair all those things. Except for the pacemaker, which I’m not sure.

151 points by jb1991 7y ago

History will not be kind to VICE.. HBO kicked them out and they're basically dying. Remember the crazy and one-sided agreement they tried to shove on Louis Rossmann? F' em.

Traster 7y ago

This article is trash. It's basically saying "But Ive's focus on slim design and minimalism meant sacrifices had to be made in terms of repairability". Well guess what, that's a design decision and we live in a free market - so if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone. The fact that these design decisions have been integral to making Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world probably indicates they were good design decisions. If you really think what the world needs is airpods with a replaceable battery, go build one.

jumbopapa 7y ago
> The fact that these design decisions have been integral to making Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world probably indicates they were good design decisions. I think this may have been true at some point, but not anymore. I know so many people that are blinded by brand loyalty to Apple that they'll buy basically any product they put out. They wouldn't consider an Android device because it doesn't portray the same "status". The same is true with the MacBook Pro. I used to be a happy MacBook Pro user, but when it was time to upgrade and I saw the current lineup there was no way I could consider buying one. I've never been the type to just buy Apple for the sake of buying Apple. Many people go ahead and buy a $2000 device that they only use to browse social media solely because Apple made it.
- Veen 7y ago
  All you are saying is that symbols of status and "brand loyalty" are more important to some buyers than features and functionality. That's just a fact about some people. You might argue that it's foolish and irrational, but it doesn't change the fact or that people buy based on their personal criteria, which may be different to yours. Your choices are not intrinsically more rational than theirs. They value status. You don't. It would be silly of them to buy in the way you buy because they don't value the same things. Apple serves a very large market of people who consider status more important than features (if we accept your initial assertion). Their designs are made to appeal to that group.
  - jumbopapa 7y ago
    That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying the design doesn't matter to these people. By virtue of the product being produced by Apple that means it's "good", so they buy it regardless of whether or not the design actually makes the product better.
s0l1dsnak3123 7y ago
That's pretty disingenuous - its not reasonable to ask the average person to take into consideration the intricate nuances of design and its impact on society when making a buying decision. If we live in a free market (we don't, by the way - especially not in the EU where I live, and thank goodness for that!), then surely it is the onus of the business to promote positive choices for society in their product selection? Because if not them, and not the state, then who else?
- andrewfromx 7y ago
  so AirPods with replaceable batteries are "promoting positive choices for society" and the current AirPods Apple makes are not? I think the OP is saying there was an election by the people, and they voted overwhelmingly in favor for current Apple AirPods with their money. If people have money and are allowed to choose one thing over the other won't one choice always be "promoting positive choices for society" and one not as much? Unless you make the choices like they do in the Hulu series The Handmaid's Tale country of gilead.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    Given advertising and PR, do consumers actually make free choices? Do consumers have the costs of their choices spelled out clearly, or are they hidden and deferred as externalities under the false pretence that neither customers nor anyone they know will ever have to worry about them? How accurately do market costs include physical, ecological, environmental, and political/social costs? Is a system that cannot accurately present costs to consumers without interpreting them through its own value system actually credible and trustworthy?
  - asveikau 7y ago
    > [the people] voted overwhelmingly in favor for current Apple AirPods with their money Are you sure about this? Personally, I almost never see people wearing AirPods in public, but I do see a lot of other headphones. It cannot be said that they "overwhelmingly" captured the headphone or earbud market. Googling around it seems they are the best selling for wireless according to some sources. But most earphones I see in public seem to be wired still. Yet more googling seems to suggest the whole of the headphone market sells > 10x the number of units as AirPods. It falls far short of an "overwhelming" impression.
alexryan 7y ago
It might be that the truth is in the middle. Clearly the design was great but hindering repairability is a legitimate criticism. I recall watching a young child from a poor family in an Apple Store trying to get the iPad that she loved repaired and the family being told that her only option was to purchase a new one which they clearly could not afford. Seeing how distraught it made the little girl really bothered me. That was the day that I started to intensely hate Apple. In fairness, however, hindering repairability feels like a business decision that Ive may not have been responsible for.
- no1youknowz 7y ago
  > Seeing how distraught it made the little girl really bothered me. That was the day that I started to intensely hate Apple. Some things you could have done: 1) Offer to buy the parents a replacement. 2) Offer to take the iPad to a third party to repair. Like Louis Rossman and offer to pay for the repair. 3) Offer to setup a GoFundMe for the replacement or to cover the cost of the repair. 4) Educate the parents that Android is a cheaper better option and determine the best action to recover the data (can be done) and move over to Android. 5) Educate the parents that companies like Louis Rossman exist and can repair Apple devices and to research on the internet for more information. And yet, you did nothing.
  - zeropnc 7y ago
    Why would he do something when he can be morally smug at the “man” on the internet?
    - dang 7y ago
      Personal attacks will get you banned here. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do this again. More generally, will you please (a) not post unsubstantive comments to HN, and (b) edit the nasty swipes out of the comments you do post? We're hoping for a bit better than that here.
  - magduf 7y ago
biddlesby 7y ago
> Well guess what, that's a design decision and we live in a free market - so if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone. This shifts blame off suppliers and on to consumers. Suppliers can do whatever they want: it's the responsibility of consumers to choose what is best for society. In my opinion this is not an effective approach for society, for example because of unbalanced information. I think the responsibility needs to be shared. > The fact that these design decisions have been integral to making Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world probably indicates they were good design decisions. I don't think the author is disputing that the designs were good decisions, when the goal is profit. They are complaining that sustainability was not taking into account.
- merpnderp 7y ago
  Suppliers can’t do whatever they want, as they will quickly go broke when people vote with their wallets. You and I might disagree strongly with disposable electronics, but people are happily handing over their money for this stuff. And it makes sense when you see polls that say people aren’t even willing to pay $100 more a year to stop climate change.
  - wincy 7y ago
    I for one am excited about how my home value will go up once the coasts flood and I have beach front property here in Kansas. Less land = more expensive land, I can’t lose!
    - magduf 7y ago
      Climate change will probably mean more tornadoes for Kansas.
  - Vraxx 7y ago
    part of this is because of an ongoing disinformation campaign by the companies and individuals who benefit the most from not addressing the climate crisis. People aren't willing to pay $100 more a year to stop climate change because from all the information they've been fed, it's not a big deal. There's very good reason to believe that if people understood the current and future effects better there would be a much more drastic response. Just look at similar failures in the past where corporate interest spread disinformation to continue making money (cigarettes, lead in gasoline, health insurance companies today, sugar industry, etc.). When people learn the actual facts the prevailing opinion tends to change pretty heavily. Sure suppliers must cater to demand, but that ignores the fact that often suppliers play a large role in cultivating that demand regardless of the moral value of that demand.
lisper 7y ago
> you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone Where can I find an expandable, repairable laptop that runs MacOS?
- camjohnson26 7y ago
  Run a Hackintosh
  - lisper 7y ago
    Let me clarify: where can I buy an expandable repairable laptop that runs macOS legally with support from the vendor?
unreal37 7y ago
It's a fair criticism of Ive to say he's been responsible for people throwing away perfectly good electronics to get the latest, fashionable model. Changing the design from year to year purely so that people will feel the need to upgrade lest they be thought of as out of fashion. If you believe consumers are responsible for the choices they make, then Ive is responsible for the choices he made too.
- Veen 7y ago
  I was about to disagree with you, then I remembered the little red dot they put on the crown of the Apple Watch 3 to differentiate it from older versions. That was purely about demonstrating the owner has the newest iteration.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    The red dot differentiated it from the non-cellular version.
    - blub 7y ago
      In case we forget what we bought and accidentally try to make a call off our version of the watch for commoners.
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        You can make a call from your non-cellular watch, provided you're in range of your iPhone.
    - wool_gather 7y ago
      Parent is slightly off in the details but the basic point is correct: the dot went from a filled circle in one generation to an open circle in the next. There's no functional reason for this, and the form of the crown itself didn't change enough for there to be any real reason other than for "spectators" to be able to distinguish the models visibly. (And I'm not casting a stone here: I say this as someone who bought a Watch from each generation.)
mamcx 7y ago
> so if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone This is false. Massively. The available options are not many, not strongly different neither much freely available to choose. Most, at best, start with "can I at least afford it?". I know many that wish to have an Apple device but must use a very bad and cheap android... because is what them can afford. Also, consider developers, supposedly a group that "could choose best". How many times "where is a good laptop that run linux" you hear? Is because it not EXIST. I can't choose it. Only accept a decent approximation. If you pay attention, you will see that the market is not close to provide good options in so many fronts. I remember a few years ago: "Where is the RDBMS GUI front-end for osx?", It not EXIST at the time. But you can "chose" to use linux? Linux not have good UI tools at large. Only windows in my niche.
- Veen 7y ago
  How many times "where is a good laptop that run linux" you hear? That is the market at work. The market doesn't exist to serve every possible need, only profitable needs. The demand for Linux laptops is so low that it supports only a handful of specialist businesses, none of which have the investment or infrastructure to build laptops like Apple's.
Juliate 7y ago
Using oil and coal is a design decision - and we live in a free market. The fact that these design decisions have been integral to making oil companies some of the most valuable companies in the world probably indicates they were good design decisions. See where we are now.
efdee 7y ago
> so if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone. Is it not well within the author's rights to write a piece about it and talk about it? Are the only options in Appleland really "buy it and like it" and "go away" ?
mrkeen 7y ago
So you paraphrased the article, which I'll take at face value. How does this make the article trash? Critics don't owe us better products just because they have the audacity to write about other people's products. I think the world needs more articles criticising companies for making unrepairable crap.
dorfsmay 7y ago
> so if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone Sadly every brand has been imitating the cool kid. Case in point: Thinkpads. Thinkpads used to be an absolute beauty of engineering. I have an old x220: You could swap battery by hand, change the memory and hard disk by undoing one single screw, swap the keyboard by undoing 3 screws. I also go a new one recently, a T480. Changing memory and mass media means taking the whole bottom off, which means which is almost impossible to do with breaking some small plastic tabs. Changing the battery and keyboard is close to heart surgery. Their newer model downright solder memory in the machine, making it impossible to upgrade or repair. Another example, OneOps was one of the few company making sane decision, their latest model does not have a jack for headset.
- Asmod4n 7y ago
  Thinkpads are no longer made by IBM, so, yeah. Other brands have faired a much worse fate. AEG for example was once a brand which stood for good german quality, nowadays everyone who wants to use that name only has to buy the right to do so from some turkish company.
  - jotm 7y ago
    At the very least, AEG home appliances are made by Electrolux. Same internals as Zanussi, a step above the sad state of Sharp, Panasonic, Grundig (made by Beko). Not as good as they once were, though.
    - steve_gh 7y ago
      Funnily enough, I was chatting to the guy who came to repair my 10yr old Siemens dishwasher a month or so back. His advice - next time you buy one, buy a Beko, as they have long understood how to build a good product to a price cap. The marque brands are now trying to save costs by doing the same internally, but they are not as good at it!
      - jotm 7y ago
        Oh man, funny that you mention that. So Bosch/Siemens have the most reliable appliances (lowest failure rates), except for their bloody dishwashers. They use unique, expensive parts and are very hard to disassemble. Terrible choices, no idea why. Beko use standard components (except the main board) found on dozens of other brands and most of them only require you to remove the bottom cover for access. To be fair, Beko branded machines are pretty good. Just not that good. Especially for the premium price they want for some of their other brands. I've worked on several Beko washers that overheated until the glass on the door cracked (flooding the place). But that's nothing compared to some Miele that will power the heater even if there's no water, getting it red hot and risking a real fire. Ditto for Indesit dryers.
jackhack 7y ago
I don't think the article goes far enough. >>sacrifices had to be made in terms of repairability" It's not just repairability. There are substantial sacrifices made to usability; Ive chooses form over function. Example 1: Thanks to Ive's fetish with "smaller/slimmer", everyone is now carrying around a bag full of adapters and dongles to connect the devices they use: usb, video, network, etc. Example 2: The butterfly keyboard. Loud, an ergonomic mess, and unreliable. Example 3: The absurd decision to place the charging port on the wireless mouse on the bottom - rendering it unusable while it charges. But it looks so sleek.
- magduf 7y ago
  These are all good things, because people like them, and are happily handing truckloads of their money over to Ive's company for products with these "features". I'd like to see Apple try to take this even farther, such as making Macbooks require a dongle just to use WiFi, making it so that they only work with genuine Apple WiFi dongles, and then charging more for the dongle than the Macbook itself costs. I seem to remember a Space Quest game that had something like this in the plot. With the stupidity that consumers have shown regarding Apple, I have no doubt that this would work out just fine for them.
  - blub 7y ago
    Thousands of design decisions go into a product, while consumers can only vote yes/no. So a hypothetical consumer could like 1950 decisions, deeply dislike 50 and it would still be worth it for them to buy the product. This is exactly what's happening for Apple, their products are still good enough to be bought, but at the same time they make a lot of stupid design decisions which frustrate us. In my case, the MBP has so many reliability issues that I would no longer personally purchase it.
    - magduf 7y ago
      There's more than one product out there. For phones, there's dozens of models available on the new market at any time, plus all the used ones (this is a lot since they change models about every year). For any given product, there should be other options out there that would suit you better. The problem with Apple is that people are emotionally invested into the brand; they buy it just because it gives them status (like a Rolex watch or a BMW), because they're a fan of the brand for some reason, etc., not because the product actually the best match to their list of desired features.
TelmoMenezes 7y ago
> if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone Or at least while our planet is inhabitable. 44.3 degrees today in France, the highest temperature ever recorded in that country. Free markets and design decisions are great, protecting our common environment is also not such a bad idea...
damnyou 7y ago
It should be against the law to make non-repairable electronics. The world is literally about to end and we cannot afford to sacrifice everything on the altar of some sort of platonic notion of beauty.
asveikau 7y ago
It may be a free market, but we only get one planet earth, and your ideas about a free market don't really have an answer to that concern.
naasking 7y ago
> Well guess what, that's a design decision and we live in a free market - so if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone. The fact that these design decisions have been integral to making Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world probably indicates they were good design decisions. Good design decisions, perhaps. Good environmental decisions, not at all. I think we're all starting to realize the impact of externalizing the environmental costs, so I can't say the article's basic premise is far off.
mindcrime 7y ago
Well guess what, that's a design decision and we live in a free market - so if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone. Nothing in the article argued otherwise. The fact that these design decisions have been integral to making Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world probably indicates they were good design decisions. Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good, or a good decision. The use of gas for powering cars made a lot of companies very valuable, but one can certainly question that decision in light of the impact on the environment. One can cite plenty of other examples where a decision made sense if you look at it in a very myopic sense, analyzing only the short term financial implications... while the longer-term view yields a much different analysis.
- m1sta_ 7y ago
  The long term view is that Apple also became the world's most valuable brand with exceptionally loyal customers.
  - basch 7y ago
    Except some of their most loyal customers have been switching to other laptops that made less sacrifice. They could have pleased new comers and loyal customers, and kept a better reputation by delivering a higher quality device, instead of becoming just a fashion statement. They grew because of their obsession with thinness, BUT at some point they should have recognized the diminishing returns, that people wanted battery life and real keyboards. They left money on the table, with regard to opportunity cost, that wont ever be calculatable, by not changing their tune once they became thin enough.
  - CogDisco 7y ago
    That's one way of looking at it. Another is that they provide products with consistently high margins, and encourage vendor lock in.
wahlis 7y ago
You've just made the best argument for why we need to regulate the free markets.
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> Well guess what, that's a design decision and we live in a free market - so if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone. The fact that these design decisions have been integral to making Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world probably indicates they were good design decisions. That assumes the unrepairable hardware is an isolated choice by customers when it isn't. There are a hundred other reasons why to buy a particular laptop or not, a huge one being the ability to run macos. If you want to see actual consumer preferences then produce a repairable Macbook and see if anybody buys that. Which they did in 2006 when that was the case -- so by your logic doesn't that prove that the market has spoken and people want repairable hardware? Relying on the market to indicate preferences works when there is aggressive competition providing every possible combination of alternatives people might want. If the actual combination that people want isn't available then all you're proving is that some people like macos more than they dislike disposable hardware, which is a crap excuse for destroying the environment.
cat199 7y ago
> The fact that these design decisions have been integral to making Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world probably indicates they were good design decisions. One could very very easily make the case that apple's popularity is not due to super sleekness but the boost of ipod+itunes (hey, portable music i can easily use without piracy) followed by iphone (mobile internet and touch ui) and the coherent combination of these user-useful tools under a single brand with a single design language. Nothing precludes the same phenomenon from happening using a different design language, even one that is still sleek but yet doesn't generate mountains of unrepairable trash and set a precedent for other companies to do the same. Instead, apple used sleekness to sell unrepairability and thereby boost it's bottom line to the detriment of consumer rights and the environment.
EpicEng 7y ago
>Well guess what, that's a design decision and we live in a free market - so if you don't like it you're welcome to buy a different laptop or phone... I imagine one is also free to write about why they don't like it... I never understand this argument. So people should just keep their mouths shut about anything they don't like assuming they have a market alternative? Why? Maybe I like a lot about X but don't like where X is now headed? Why shouldn't I speak up?
toss1 7y ago
The article has an excellent main point -- that repairability and modularity are valuable. You complain "we live in a free market". Of course we do. One of the key features of a free market is that it rewards not only better products, but it also very handsomely rewards people/companies who can externalize costs -- optimize one thing that makes profits for them, while leaving the society or the planet to pay the costs. You apparently advocate a commercial ethos where it is good to trash the commons, as long as you can make a profit. Just because trashing the commons can result in a company becoming one of the largest in the world, does not mean that any criticism of it is trash.
harimau777 7y ago
The fact that his design made Apple a lot of money means that they were good business decisions. However, that isn't the same as them being good design decisions. As I understand it, design is the study of how form can be improved in order to improve function. Ive's focus on slimness appears to be improving form at the expense of function.
harimau777 7y ago
Saying that people just need to go out and build their own operating system/computer is ridiculous. No average person (or really any individual) has the resources to do that.
tolger 7y ago
I agree. Sensationalist trash. The article claims that Ive’s design decisions affected not only Apple, but other brands like Samsung and HTC as well. Really? If they were terrible decisions then other companies wouldn’t have been forced to adopt them and the market would’ve punished Apple, right? The fact that other brands adopted them means that the market wanted slim, sleek and overpriced products. So blame the public, not Ive.

drtillberg 7y ago

Repairability is really important for sustainable, maintainable systems. Beauty without reparability-- in hindsight it will be like those illuminated manuscripts from the middle ages that were created with poisons like arsenic and stored in sealed containers[1]. It's beautiful, but most definitely not as functional or impressive as it otherwise might be. [1] https://www.livescience.com/63025-poisonous-books-coated-in-arsenic.html https://www.livescience.com/63025-poisonous-books-coated-in-...

Spooky23 7y ago

I have always despised how publications latch on to anything Apple like a pit bull. Especially when you’re borderline insulting of a person instead of a critic of the work. End of the day, he’s one of a select few household names in the space. His work helped make Apple one of the biggest Andy most influential companies on earth. Nobody will remember the keyboards — his legacy is just fine.

tibbon 7y ago

What I will agree with here is that we have made devices so thin and fragile that you instantly have to wrap them in thick cases to protect them. Or carry around a pound of adapters to shave off a few grams in having more than one port. The optimization toward light and thin has gone a little overboard. These aren’t just art pieces, but tools. Make my laptop 10% heavier but give me a machine that can take a beating

britch 7y ago
I think there's a disconnect between what makes someone buy a device, and what makes a quality device. In the abstract I think a lot of people would say they'd take a heavier phone that's more durable and has a longer battery life. Unfortunately most phones are sold on "tech-lust." The sleekness and thin-ness of the device. How futuristic it is. People will pay a lot of money for a luxury device that feels "right." I'm not sure how we resolve the conflict. For a sellers perspective you kind of have to chase the art-piece, especially when people choose it over the practical tool again and again. But I think most people would be happier if the design was more tool-like.

m0llusk 7y ago

It turns out that disassembly and maintenance are features that cost quite a bit of money all along the chain from design to component sourcing to assembly and even delivery. Most consumers want rock bottom prices and would rather just by a new widget with more better features. None of this touches on what Jon Ive did in terms of making the machines themselves and their interfaces as appealing and accessible as possible within the constraints of hardware and software production. One of the big potential advantages to the current situation is that some company could design and market computers that are repairable and also hire Jon Ive to enhance their beauty and interfaces.

Synaesthesia 7y ago
The original iMac G5 was easy to dissemble. There are three screws which lift off the entire back and everything is exposed. Replacing a HDD was a cinch. In the subsequent models they made it far more difficult without really changing the outward design. You had to remove the screen, it was a lot harder and more technical. It was a decision to make macs and other devices non repairable.

NietTim 7y ago

And history will not be kind to media outlets that consistently put out trash like this, aiding in the ever growing distrust in the media gigantic eye roll

dx7tnt 7y ago

Nonsense - his design of the 'black mirror' iPhone that turned the communications industry on its head will be very much kindly remembered. Every smartphone is now a take on that first iPhone. Almost none of them are any more or less repairable than the iPhone for practical purposes.

stupidcar 7y ago

Was the integrated circuit a mistake because it isn't repairable? The historical arc of technological development is unmistakably towards smaller, more complex, more integrated systems that are impossible to access and repair without highly specialised equipment. Does anybody really believe that technology 100 years from now will be anything other than nano-tech meta-materials, the functioning of which is totally opaque to anybody without a tunnelling microscope and an in-depth understanding of quantum physics? History will judge Ive no more harshly than one person caught in an irresistible wave.

theaeolist 7y ago
The integrated circuit was not unrepairable on purpose. The amount of plastic packaging per transistor in an integrated circuit is much much smaller than for individual transistors. The point is that the Apple devices are not repairable on purpose. The half-a-millimeter-thinner argument is a laughable pretext.
flohofwoe 7y ago
Yet integrated circuits are more open than Apple products because they offered their functionality through a standardized pin-"API", and could be combined with circuits from other manufacturers. Apple products are mainly designed to live in an Apple-only ecosystem.
BuckRogers 7y ago
There's a balance. Not doing reasonable component separation, such as SSD, mainboard, CPU, and RAM from each other different from the feasibility of repairing nanomaterial directly. I still want to be able to replace the battery in my Tesla, which I can.

sidcool 7y ago

What a clickbait article. Love or hate Jony's designs, millions have used and loved the products. There have been issues wrt repairability, but it's nothing as dramatic as the article claims.

theaeolist 7y ago
Love or hate big tobacco, millions have used and loved cigarettes. What an argument! "It's nothing as dramatic". Really? Millions of unrepairable wireless earbuds heading to the landfill every year is not dramatic?
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  Apple devices are not physically addictive. Jesus Christ.
- sidcool 7y ago
  There has to be a strawman like word for this argument. Last I checked, Jony's products didn't cause Cancer or kill anyone. At worst, all they did was annoy someone. Your argument would have held credence without that argument.
  - viklove 7y ago
    > "It's nothing as dramatic". Really? Millions of unrepairable wireless earbuds heading to the landfill every year is not dramatic? Yeah, just casually ignore this part of the comment...
  - FabHK 7y ago
    GP is not implying that Apple products are like cancer. He is trying to show that GGP's argument was invalid, by applying to a different case where it obviously doesn't hold. A: "X is not bad, because millions have used and loved it." B: "That doesn't follow. Millions have used and loved Y, and Y is clearly bad, so A's argument doesn't hold." C: "B claims that X is like Y, but Y causes cancer, and X doesn't, so B's argument is invalid." D (me): "No, B doesn't claim that X is like Y, so C's argument is not sound, and B's is valid and sound, and A's is invalid." Or so.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

nemo44x 7y ago

This would have been something of an original thought if it were written, say, last week. But it's clearly an article trolling the actual news. A blogger decided to write something edgy after a few minutes of thought. The pathetic thing is this blogger probably believes it is insightful, original, and intelligent. And just what's with the concern for how the future looks upon this time in history? It seems like so many arguments are based on the premise that for one reason or another, humans of the future will judge the humans of today in a negative way. Why would I care? Even if I did, I'd assume that at some point in the future literally nobody will be thinking or judging of humans of today. We aren't that special. Get over yourselves.

jjuel 7y ago

I tend to think the opposite. When you think of design you think of Apple (which in turn means Jony Ive). Whether or not they cause some functional issues doesn't matter. The market has spoken and they love the sleek design that this man has come up with. If it weren't true people wouldn't be all out copying the designs of Apple. I think history will look favorably on him, and pretty much forget the functional issues (whether real or just perceived) his designs caused.

FabHK 7y ago
I can't speak for "the market", but personally I like the seamless integration (of UNIXy base & consistent GUI, of hardware & software, across different devices). Not the super-sleek design. Like many users, I'd prefer if the devices were a bit thicker, but had more battery life and were more easily repairable (and, for the MBP, had a keyboard that would just work).
- BuckRogers 7y ago
  They could do all of that, fix the keyboard, put in a 100WHr battery, and componetize the parts (SSD/RAM, CPU, motherboard) without changing much from the current look and feel. I imagine it would be a hybrid between the 2015 and 2016 Macs.

gigatexal 7y ago

Yeah I disagree with the article. Ive will be sought after for years. Imagine having his name attached to the next Samsung phone. His singular designs helped propel Apple to where they are on just the back of the iPhone which at one point made up north of 60% of Apple’s revenue. History will put him in the same boat as Jobs.

patagonia 7y ago

I think what most comments critical of this article are missing is the “History” portion of the title. Sure. At the moment it isn’t ridiculous to create headphones that must be broken and thus trashed to replace the battery. But, when climate change is (very soon) bearing down on us with its full force, we will revisit these decisions. At that point, with that perspective, I have to believe that history will indeed not be kind to these decisions.

unreal37 7y ago
Yes, we can praise Ive today for being a pioneer. But in 20 years, he'll perhaps be looked at in a different light.

pixelbath 7y ago

It seems like the author has a definite axe to grind here. I can't recall a single story about Apple's product design that lays the blame for unrepairability at Ive's feet, yet here's this article that implies nobody else was involved in the design of Apple's products. I'm not much a fan of Apple's chosen method of doing business, and can honestly say I've only liked a few of the product designs that Ive has created over the years, but I think history will be kind to him; his designs helped create the juggernaut Apple is today, and he's leaving at a bit of a high point in his career.

johnhenry 7y ago

What about "History Will Not Be Kind to Apple"? Ultimately, ALL of these apparent flaws were approved by the Apple and Ive isn't even a company officer. Further, the average consumer has no idea who Jony Ive is. Apple created the iPhone, not Ive.

FabHK 7y ago
> Ive isn't even a company officer. I can't say it better than Wikipedia: > On 26 May 2015, the firm announced that Ive was promoted to chief design officer (CDO), at the time one of only three C-level executives at Apple along with CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri (Jeff Williams would be promoted to COO at the end of 2015). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jony_Ive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jony_Ive
- johnhenry 7y ago
  I've been thoroughly schooled.

DLA 7y ago

Written by a “journalist” about whom history will not even footnote. “Ive, Apple's Chief Design Officer, is leaving the company. He leaves a legacy that made its products hard to repair and impossible to upgrade.” And leaves a trail of epic industrial design, user experience, and manufacturing genius. Does one repair/upgrade a pacemaker? A fine watch? A modern heavily computerized, sensor-filled car? Smart TV? A digital camera? Article is a pile of poor logic and lack of appreciation of design. Hard pass.

mkhattab 7y ago
Yes, one usually does and can repair all those things. Except for the pacemaker, which I’m not sure.