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If one chooses to be extremely cynical, this is exactly the story Apple would want to tell shareholders in the wake of Ive's departure: Everything is fine, Ive

If one chooses to be extremely cynical, this is exactly the story Apple would want to tell shareholders in the wake of Ive's departure: Everything is fine, Ive was already detached from the company's recent successes, Eurasia has always been at war with Eastasia. Nothing to be worried about. Dialing that back a few notches, I genuinely hope that Ive's departure means Apple is considering a new approach for the design of their products. Years of product releases with crummy butterfly keyboards, nixed headphone jacks and missing magSafe have left me with no desire to purchase my next laptop from Apple. Maybe once the current pipeline drains we can look forward to Mac laptops that gain useful features and don't fall apart in months. Maybe. I'm not holding my breath.

rorykoehler 7y ago
The new Mac Pro was the first glimmer of hope. Now I read that they are releasing updated mbp 13 without touchbar. If they start offering full powered full port mbp 13 without touchbar my optimisim will be back.
- maxxxxx 7y ago
  I think Apple’s problem will be that Jobs usually had a very good feeling which radical change will get accepted and which won’t. The current Apple will probably listen to customer feedback but I doubt they will be able to release game changers like iPod or iPhone.
  - threeseed 7y ago
    Apple Watch has been a game changer in some respects. I don't think anybody expected it to be as successful as it has been. And the feature set and their acquisitions e.g. Beddit gives a really interesting insight into where Apple is heading in the health sector.
    - ekianjo 7y ago
      > I don't think anybody expected it to be as successful as it has been How do you measure success? Because there is no way any comparison with the number of people who own an iPhone or any other kind of Apple device. Even in Japan where Apple has the lion share of the smartphone market I hardly see people with an Apple watch.
      - toasterlovin 7y ago
        FWIW, I see Apple watches everywhere in the U.S. Even (especially?) on totally normal people.
        batiudrami 7y ago
        Where in the US? I saw more Airpods during my 8 hour stopover in SF than I had seen in my entire life prior in Australia. It's a different world.
        rorykoehler 7y ago
        Loads of people wear them in Australia.
        DEADBEEFC0FFEE 7y ago
        Certainly in Sydney. I notice because I think they're over priced at AU$250, and I'm surprised how many school kids have them. I would lose them in a week.
        sundvor 7y ago
        Heaps in Melbourne as well. Personally I find them daggy; if they're anything like the earphones included with the iPhone 3 they'd fall out of my ears if I just turned my head. Samsung Buds OTOH stay in (and don't have the daggy bits hanging out).
        7y ago
    - badestrand 7y ago
      > Apple Watch has been a game changer in some respects. I don't think anybody expected it to be as successful as it has been. It has disappointed, actually, according to the very article we are commenting on: "The company sold about 10 million units in the first year, a quarter of what Apple forecast"
      - threeseed 7y ago
        That was in the first year. Apple Watch has taken a while to get up to speed but is now doing really well. You definitely can see it on more people's wrists than in the early days.
        badestrand 7y ago
        Okay, thank you, I didn't know that.
      - vitorgrs 7y ago
        Apple Watch is the best-selling watch... And the "Wearables, Home, and Accessories" revenue was 5.1 billion last quarter, which is bigger than iPad Revenue of 4.8 billion. I actually think that Watch sales is a surprise on how well it is. Nobody expected it would be that good.
        thinkingemote 7y ago
        Apple watch is for people who already have an iPhone. It's not a game changer for a wider market it's a peripheral. a successful peripheral.
        kccqzy 7y ago
        The original iPod is a peripheral for people who already have Macs. Even later on, the iPod is a peripheral for people who already have either a Mac or a Windows PC. My point is, peripherals can be successful and game-changing.
    - rorykoehler 7y ago
      Apple Watch has some great features. Most of it's features are things I actively avoid though (ie notifications etc).
- enraged_camel 7y ago
  >> Now I read that they are releasing updated mbp 13 without touchbar Where did you read this?
  - rorykoehler 7y ago
    https://www.macrumors.com/2019/06/24/macbook-air-macbook-escape-2019-refresh-rumor/ https://www.macrumors.com/2019/06/24/macbook-air-macbook-esc...
- chrisweekly 7y ago
  The new mac pro is a sweet piece of hardware, but you have to take the price into account. I remain unimpressed.
  - 6nf 7y ago
    Not sure what you expected with the pricing, Apple isn’t known for bargains.
    - chrisweekly 7y ago
      $12,000 is a little excessive.
      - threeseed 7y ago
        It starts at $5999. And you should only be buying the monitor if you are after a reference quality display. In which case you would know how cheap it is.
        frostburg 7y ago
        The base model is unfit for purpose for basically every possible buyer.
        cmsj 7y ago
        I've argued that that's probably deliberate - everyone buying the new Pro ought to need a lot of something. For some people it'll be CPU, some people GPU, some people RAM, some storage, etc. The base model has a good enough CPU if all you need is loads of GPU, a good enough GPU if all you need is loads of CPU, etc, etc. tl;dr the only people who buy the base model will be the enthusiasts who just want a Mac Pro, and they are indeed getting a bad deal, but this machine isn't for them, however much they want it to be.
        danieldk 7y ago
- sneak 7y ago
  Regardless of how you feel about Apple's design choices, recent improvements in both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi mean that it's clear to even those that can't predict the future that wired/corded connections are going to be obsolete for all but the highest bandwidth (i.e. Thunderbolt/PCI/uncompressed UHD+ display) interfaces (and, of course, power). Most peripherals used by most people will be entirely wireless. This isn't an Apple thing, this is just the way things are going in our industry. If you want "full port", invent a time machine and travel back to the time when people accepted cables. That time is gone now.
  - hrktb 7y ago
    The general direction an industry is going isn't usually the issue. Most designers can predict the general trends in an 'infinite timescale'. The issue comes to when it's a acceptables trade-off. I think for now the wireless future is not here yet, and won't be for the next year or 18 months. Apple didn't pull it off with it's AirPods (too pricy for wide adoption, still lag in the bluetooth stack, only 3 or 3 designs available for something that needs to fit on people's ear), I'd say they were too early to pull the plug on wired.
    - sneak 7y ago
      This argument has been made since the iMac without a floppy drive or non-USB serial port. If they were too early, people would stop buying their devices because of the "lack" of functionality. They haven't. That means that the people who claim they're too early were wrong. It turns out that most people who buy computers and most people who complain about the range of ports on computers are not the same size groups, and are mostly not comprised of the same people.
      - hrktb 7y ago
        The pace of purchase of the laptops and iPhones slowed down though. It can be attributed to a lot of factors, but we can't make the blanket argument "it's selling more than ever so they can't be doing it wrong" anymore.
  - 7y ago
- jxdxbx 7y ago
  Not just the Mac Pro, but the iMac Pro, Mac mini, and iPad Pros are all outstanding computers. (No, Apple will never make an affordable, upgradable mid-tower, but the new Mac mini plus an external GPU is close.) I'd say keep the Touch Bar, but add an escape key.
quakeguy 7y ago
Same thoughts here. Apple lost it 4-5 years ago, Jobs was never replaced and the old magic just died, but slowly. Ive alone cant handle ship, as is evident. Here we are.
- danieldk 7y ago
  I can't say I am happy about where the Mac headed (though I have hope after the last WWDC). However, the Apple Watch and AirPods are absolutely stellar products. I love them both and wouldn't want to live without them. Both are post-Jobs.
baddox 7y ago
I don’t know why it would be cynical to think that Apple has known about his departure for some time, at least in terms of a general timeframe. I’d be very shocked if he blindsided Apple.
- garmaine 7y ago
  I think he's saying that Apple would say this regardless of whether they knew of his departure in advance or not.
kalleboo 7y ago
> Dialing that back a few notches, I genuinely hope that Ive's departure means Apple is considering a new approach for the design of their products I'm more worried that without a chief of design with a strong will and veto power, the next generation of designers will just cargo cult Ive and we'll get products with all the downsides and no upsides. If it's true he's has been absent maybe that's what we've already been seeing?
- mantap 7y ago
  I have a feeling that Ive went off the deep end with his obsession with thinness and it reached a point with the MBP keyboards where Apple couldn't turn a blind eye anymore. Similar to Scott Forstall being forced out over the Apple Maps disaster. If there's one thing more important to Apple than Ive, it's the Apple brand and nothing says "premium" like adding a product to a repair program on the day it comes out. I suspect that the knives were out for Ive after that humiliation.
  - __m 7y ago
    Did he actually take part in the engineering?
    - bch 7y ago
      Successful industrial design must necessarily be engineer-able or its just wishful thinking, no?
      - tempguy9999 7y ago
        Do you consider Ive's later designs as 'successful'? I don't know as I don't use apple but I heard of lot of grumbling off of those that do.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        7y ago
Theodores 7y ago
The key product has been the phone. The computers and the tablets don't have the volume or the convenient payment mechanism. People on contracts just pay for these iPhones without caring too much about it being real money. Anyway, the oxygen supply died on the phone a while ago but the momentum of the whole mobile phone business was such that nobody has noticed that the solid rocket boosters ran out of fuel and were chucked away three years ago. Only if you work in the sector do you really appreciate how it has all changed. But if you build a business and an eco system around constant growth then things do fall back to earth rather quickly when everything stops growing. Sales may be magnificent but that is no good if there is no growth and the world has come to expect growth. An ever growing business does not have to be efficient. Losses can be covered over because more sales make the previous mismanagement of expenses seem like small beer money. Apple de-coupled the figures so we don't know how many units were shifted. Then they say that they are selling services now. But this isn't going to fill the hole left by the lack of iPhone opening day queues (remember that madness?). These Chinese phones are going to be the default devices for a lot of people. When it comes to price or function they have it covered. Trade wars are not going to stave that situation off forever. If you have bought into the Ive Apple eco system it all works perfectly. But if you are an outsider a lot of it seems daft. You can't plug your Apple phone into your Apple computer without dongles, then it doesn't rapid charge if plugged in that way or even move data quickly. Then, with your Apple computer the touchscreen doesn't work. If you have had pinch to zoom for a while on a normal laptop you find it odd that Apple machines don't have that. The keyboard failings and much else is not necessarily design, sometimes things just don't work out. But when the phone doesn't plug into the computer, then you know that is a design thing. The product lifecycles have also been bad, same Apple computers year in year out when most laptops get refreshed when new CPUs come out. It is absurd how Apple make what they feel like making not what their customers want. Ive was at the helm and the ship went off course five years ago with only those in the thick of it realising not all was well three years ago when sales started to slow on the product that matters - the phone.
- vardump 7y ago
  > If you have had pinch to zoom for a while on a normal laptop you find it odd that Apple machines don't have that. Pinch to zoom works perfectly on my MacBook Pro. Using the touchpad.
mrwww 7y ago
I'm so glad they finally removed magsafe. FINALLY, both cables going into the powerbrick are replaceable. It never once saved my laptop from cord trip doom, but did cost me a lot in buying whole new powerbricks when the cord eventually wore out. But whatever, who buys apple for the hardware? I mean, its a super nice bonus that it is overall the best hardware, but that's not the key reason.
- badpun 7y ago
  I buy them for hardware actually (and wipe OSX, install Windows instead). My 2013 MBP is fantastic, but I probably won’t get the new MBP as the next machine, as the hardware just got too weird (huge trackpad, touchbar).
- pygy_ 7y ago
  They could have made a replaceable Magsafe cable. It saved my machines quite a few tines over the years since it came out in 2006.
- bjelkeman-again 7y ago
  I have ripped the MagSafe out many times. One at each end would have been the best.
  - freehunter 7y ago
    Ugh I hated MagSafe. If I used the computer on my lap, any movement of my leg would push up on the charger and stop charging because the tiniest force would move it up and down. But if I trip on the cable and pull it straight out, the whole laptop comes clattering down because it requires super-human force pulling straight out if you want to break the connection. Basically in my experience MagSafe is that annoying thing that keeps unplugging my laptop when I bump the charger while still damaging my laptop if I trip on the cable.
- gomox 7y ago
  The actually desirable feature was for the cable not to fray and disintegrate every 2 years. Making it replaceable at the expense of Magsafe is hardly the solution.
pcr910303 7y ago
It seems most of the comments have an assumption that current Apple hardware is not doing well, pushing more for aesthetics and failing to be a truly useful computer. I don’t really think so, negative reviews get to have much more spotlight and views than positive ones; (One reason is that positive people about the devices won’t be ‘whining’ as loudly as the negative ones do; another one is that post-SJ Apple is constantly criticized by ‘not becoming innovative as much as SJ’) and HN is a particularly great place for these negative reviews take place. While I also think time to time that Apple could do better than the current HW(e.g. turning on haptic feedback on the TB as default), the current HW lineup is pretty great, I would say. I find the TB immensely useful in my workflow, (partially because I use a custom Emacs that I took my time to hack on to display touchbar buttons for my workflow... why doesn’t Emacs/gVim gain TB support?̊̈) especially when I’m using Finder or Safari, Emacs, MS Office... and my friends that sneered at using an Apple laptop started to evaluate using it after '18, when the keyboard issues got pretty much fixed. I also find the discussion around the butterfly mechanism of the MacBooks pretty much disconcerning, there are pretty much people who love the feel of the butterfly, (not all people like long pitched keyboards, especially on laptops), and Apple managed to fix the keyboard issues with dust in 2018, which I would say, pretty much immediately after it was discovered. I’m fine with Mr. Ive departuring from Apple, as far as Apple designs great products that value on both function and form. If Apple becomes a usual computer company that starts to listen to all consumer complaints and makes and sells usual computers that other companies can make, that’s a pretty concerning future.
- plufz 7y ago
  I agree. Getting rid of the headphone jack is to me much like getting rid of the floppy. I love having four usb-c ports on my mbp that is either power or data transfer. I bought a 13” mbp last year when they got four cores, loving how portable and light it is, and just connecting one cable gives me display, power etc, Every day I love my expensive current rig of mbp, iPad Pro with pencil, AirPods and bose q35.
- whywhywhywhy 7y ago
  > and Apple managed to fix the keyboard issues with dust in 2018 No they didn't, mines a 2018 and has had a ton of keyboard issues also Apple themselves admit it isn't fixed even the 2019 isn't fixed [0] [0] https://support.apple.com/en-gb/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-notebooks https://support.apple.com/en-gb/keyboard-service-program-for...
leowoo91 7y ago
It might be partly the truth. People often leave for lessened control/interest rather than other gains. It takes years after the leave to reveal that kind of reasoning anyway.
Angostura 7y ago
Interesting - I read it as something rather different - a hatchet job on the management style of Tim Cook - not exactly what I would be presenting to shareholders
_ph_ 7y ago
I think the thing is, that Apple is missing a chief engineer rather than a head of design. I really like most of the Apple designs from an aesthetic perspective, but they need an engineer to loudly tell them, when their beautiful designs cut too much into proper engineering and usability. Keyboards need to work, "pro" laptops need enough cooling and repairability, in general, you shouldn't have to throw away working parts just to repair other parts glued to them (how can they have the desktop iMac being glued together at all?).
puranjay 7y ago
Am I the only one on HN who actually likes the Butterfly keyboard? I find that I type faster on my 2018 Macbook Air than on my 2015 Macbook Pro
- skrause 7y ago
  The problem isn't the feel for most people, it's that it breaks quite easily.
- shimms 7y ago
  Nope I’m the same, my 2018 MBA keyboard is the best keyboard I’ve used, and I loved the old Thinkpads too. The 2016 MBP keyboard on the other hand is terrible.
- danieldk 7y ago
  I like the butterfly, at least more than the previous generations keyboards. However, the problems with the butterfly keyboards are inexcusable for the price of the laptops (along with one-week repair times). Luckily, my MacBook Pro 2018 seems to hold up fine.
rottyguy 7y ago
Hopefully I'm not the only one that thinks that prices for iphones are insane. I use a handful of apps (yelp, maps, mail, news, music, and (occasionally) browser) which are readily available on all phones. Paying $300 for my moto vs 700-1000 for an iphone is a no brainer..
- danieldk 7y ago
  Well, if you don't mind uploading your private live to the Google cloud, Lenovo, and whoever else paid enough to get stuff shipped on a Lenovo phone. For most people who do not want to spend much money on a phone, I just recommend them to buy an iPhone 6s or perhaps 7. You get most of the privacy benefits of an iPhone, for an affordable price. And even though it is an older model, it will probably get updated longer than most new Android phones at the $300 price point.
chx 7y ago
> look forward to Mac laptops that gain useful features and don't fall apart in months. https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/10/benjamin_button_reviews_the_new_macbook_pro/ https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/10/benjamin_button_reviews_the...
danso 7y ago
But I don't get the impression that "everything is fine" from reading this story. First, there's the context that Apple's iPhone business is "faltering" and its product line has flatlined. For anyone who thinks that the spirit and innovation of Jobs lives on through Ive, this story throws cold water on that. In addition, the story emphasizes how much less Steve-like Apple has become since Cook over, with Ive seemingly being the last holdout of the glory days. If you buy into the story that Apple lives and dies by its emphasis on revolutionary design, this story is a major downer. I guess it depends on your viewpoint on engineering vs. design, but I imagine the story's last graf is depressing for those who prioritize the latter: > Mr. Ive’s old design team—a group of aesthetes once thought of as gods inside Apple—will report to COO Jeff Williams, a mechanical engineer with an M.B.A.
apetrovic 7y ago
> missing magSafe You can pry from my dead hands my one cable from the monitor to the laptop and ability to charge the laptop from both sides. Not to mention that I can use chargers from anyone, not just from Apple, I can buy non-Apple charging cables, and with my Mac charger I can charge growing numbers of gadgets (so far iPad and Nintendo Switch). Yeah, MagSafe had a nice, satisfying "click" when engages, but I find USB-C charging much more convenient.
- dlp211 7y ago
  What if I told you this isn't an either or. You can have both usb-c and magsafe charging in the same laptop.
  - lukewrites 7y ago
    > Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
  - EL_Loco 7y ago
    If my laptop already had usb-c and could be charged through it, why would I want an extra, different format charging port? Why not add a micro-usb one, for three different charging ports?
    - jakereps 7y ago
      I read their message as saying USB-C with MagSafe technology to prevent the cord from pulling the machine off your desk if tripped over, and not two separate ports. Basically as it exists but a modification to the cable or connector to have magnetic breakaways or something?
      - EL_Loco 7y ago
        Could be, yeah, but I can't see how to implement that with USB's friction model of retention.
    - darkpuma 7y ago
jxdxbx 7y ago
Recent pro hardware (Mac Pro, iMac Pro, iPad Pro, and yes, the Mac mini is "pro" now) has been excellent. The laptops haven't been refreshed since Apple started firing on all cylinders in this regard. Going all-in on USB C was the right move. I love having just one cable sticking out of my MacBook Pro to connect to a 4K display and provide power to the MacBook (and use the display as a USB hub for wired Ethernet, etc). And being able to pick either side. So for me it's the right tradeoff. For non-me's they should make a breakaway USB C charging-only cable. (Charging the first generation Apple Pencil from the iPad Pro itself was great design, by the way, until wireless was ready. Charging the mouse from the bottom was not.)
- coryfklein 7y ago
  I have the latest Macbook Pro, and I hate the USB-C. I have a keyboard, stereo, and 4k monitor; none of which can be plugged into my laptop without a dongle. In fact, I do not yet have a single device that I can plug directly into my laptop. And this years after they made the switch.
abalone 7y ago
> this is exactly the story Apple would want to tell shareholders in the wake of Ive's departure That is so not true. This story paints the picture of a dysfunctional org under Cook’s watch who is dramatically less inspiring than Jobs to their key design team. I don’t know if it’s true but it’s definitely not what a company would want to feed to the press. The ideal story in situations like this is that they’ve been working on a transition for a awhile and the company is in good hands, without all the dissatisfaction stuff.
DonHopkins 7y ago
I'm hoping they'll go steampunk! Either that, or full Pink Hello Kitty. http://exonome.com/fj/phkl http://exonome.com/fj/phkl Or both, to differentiate between pro and consumer.

rorykoehler 7y ago

The new Mac Pro was the first glimmer of hope. Now I read that they are releasing updated mbp 13 without touchbar. If they start offering full powered full port mbp 13 without touchbar my optimisim will be back.

maxxxxx 7y ago
I think Apple’s problem will be that Jobs usually had a very good feeling which radical change will get accepted and which won’t. The current Apple will probably listen to customer feedback but I doubt they will be able to release game changers like iPod or iPhone.
- threeseed 7y ago
  Apple Watch has been a game changer in some respects. I don't think anybody expected it to be as successful as it has been. And the feature set and their acquisitions e.g. Beddit gives a really interesting insight into where Apple is heading in the health sector.
  - ekianjo 7y ago
    > I don't think anybody expected it to be as successful as it has been How do you measure success? Because there is no way any comparison with the number of people who own an iPhone or any other kind of Apple device. Even in Japan where Apple has the lion share of the smartphone market I hardly see people with an Apple watch.
    - toasterlovin 7y ago
      FWIW, I see Apple watches everywhere in the U.S. Even (especially?) on totally normal people.
      - batiudrami 7y ago
        Where in the US? I saw more Airpods during my 8 hour stopover in SF than I had seen in my entire life prior in Australia. It's a different world.
        rorykoehler 7y ago
        Loads of people wear them in Australia.
        DEADBEEFC0FFEE 7y ago
        Certainly in Sydney. I notice because I think they're over priced at AU$250, and I'm surprised how many school kids have them. I would lose them in a week.
        sundvor 7y ago
        Heaps in Melbourne as well. Personally I find them daggy; if they're anything like the earphones included with the iPhone 3 they'd fall out of my ears if I just turned my head. Samsung Buds OTOH stay in (and don't have the daggy bits hanging out).
        7y ago
  - badestrand 7y ago
    > Apple Watch has been a game changer in some respects. I don't think anybody expected it to be as successful as it has been. It has disappointed, actually, according to the very article we are commenting on: "The company sold about 10 million units in the first year, a quarter of what Apple forecast"
    - threeseed 7y ago
      That was in the first year. Apple Watch has taken a while to get up to speed but is now doing really well. You definitely can see it on more people's wrists than in the early days.
      - badestrand 7y ago
        Okay, thank you, I didn't know that.
    - vitorgrs 7y ago
      Apple Watch is the best-selling watch... And the "Wearables, Home, and Accessories" revenue was 5.1 billion last quarter, which is bigger than iPad Revenue of 4.8 billion. I actually think that Watch sales is a surprise on how well it is. Nobody expected it would be that good.
      - thinkingemote 7y ago
        Apple watch is for people who already have an iPhone. It's not a game changer for a wider market it's a peripheral. a successful peripheral.
        kccqzy 7y ago
        The original iPod is a peripheral for people who already have Macs. Even later on, the iPod is a peripheral for people who already have either a Mac or a Windows PC. My point is, peripherals can be successful and game-changing.
  - rorykoehler 7y ago
    Apple Watch has some great features. Most of it's features are things I actively avoid though (ie notifications etc).
enraged_camel 7y ago
>> Now I read that they are releasing updated mbp 13 without touchbar Where did you read this?
- rorykoehler 7y ago
  https://www.macrumors.com/2019/06/24/macbook-air-macbook-escape-2019-refresh-rumor/ https://www.macrumors.com/2019/06/24/macbook-air-macbook-esc...
chrisweekly 7y ago
The new mac pro is a sweet piece of hardware, but you have to take the price into account. I remain unimpressed.
- 6nf 7y ago
  Not sure what you expected with the pricing, Apple isn’t known for bargains.
  - chrisweekly 7y ago
    $12,000 is a little excessive.
    - threeseed 7y ago
      It starts at $5999. And you should only be buying the monitor if you are after a reference quality display. In which case you would know how cheap it is.
      - frostburg 7y ago
        The base model is unfit for purpose for basically every possible buyer.
        cmsj 7y ago
        I've argued that that's probably deliberate - everyone buying the new Pro ought to need a lot of something. For some people it'll be CPU, some people GPU, some people RAM, some storage, etc. The base model has a good enough CPU if all you need is loads of GPU, a good enough GPU if all you need is loads of CPU, etc, etc. tl;dr the only people who buy the base model will be the enthusiasts who just want a Mac Pro, and they are indeed getting a bad deal, but this machine isn't for them, however much they want it to be.
        danieldk 7y ago
sneak 7y ago
Regardless of how you feel about Apple's design choices, recent improvements in both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi mean that it's clear to even those that can't predict the future that wired/corded connections are going to be obsolete for all but the highest bandwidth (i.e. Thunderbolt/PCI/uncompressed UHD+ display) interfaces (and, of course, power). Most peripherals used by most people will be entirely wireless. This isn't an Apple thing, this is just the way things are going in our industry. If you want "full port", invent a time machine and travel back to the time when people accepted cables. That time is gone now.
- hrktb 7y ago
  The general direction an industry is going isn't usually the issue. Most designers can predict the general trends in an 'infinite timescale'. The issue comes to when it's a acceptables trade-off. I think for now the wireless future is not here yet, and won't be for the next year or 18 months. Apple didn't pull it off with it's AirPods (too pricy for wide adoption, still lag in the bluetooth stack, only 3 or 3 designs available for something that needs to fit on people's ear), I'd say they were too early to pull the plug on wired.
  - sneak 7y ago
    This argument has been made since the iMac without a floppy drive or non-USB serial port. If they were too early, people would stop buying their devices because of the "lack" of functionality. They haven't. That means that the people who claim they're too early were wrong. It turns out that most people who buy computers and most people who complain about the range of ports on computers are not the same size groups, and are mostly not comprised of the same people.
    - hrktb 7y ago
      The pace of purchase of the laptops and iPhones slowed down though. It can be attributed to a lot of factors, but we can't make the blanket argument "it's selling more than ever so they can't be doing it wrong" anymore.
- 7y ago
jxdxbx 7y ago
Not just the Mac Pro, but the iMac Pro, Mac mini, and iPad Pros are all outstanding computers. (No, Apple will never make an affordable, upgradable mid-tower, but the new Mac mini plus an external GPU is close.) I'd say keep the Touch Bar, but add an escape key.

quakeguy 7y ago

Same thoughts here. Apple lost it 4-5 years ago, Jobs was never replaced and the old magic just died, but slowly. Ive alone cant handle ship, as is evident. Here we are.

danieldk 7y ago
I can't say I am happy about where the Mac headed (though I have hope after the last WWDC). However, the Apple Watch and AirPods are absolutely stellar products. I love them both and wouldn't want to live without them. Both are post-Jobs.

baddox 7y ago

I don’t know why it would be cynical to think that Apple has known about his departure for some time, at least in terms of a general timeframe. I’d be very shocked if he blindsided Apple.

garmaine 7y ago
I think he's saying that Apple would say this regardless of whether they knew of his departure in advance or not.

kalleboo 7y ago

> Dialing that back a few notches, I genuinely hope that Ive's departure means Apple is considering a new approach for the design of their products I'm more worried that without a chief of design with a strong will and veto power, the next generation of designers will just cargo cult Ive and we'll get products with all the downsides and no upsides. If it's true he's has been absent maybe that's what we've already been seeing?

mantap 7y ago
I have a feeling that Ive went off the deep end with his obsession with thinness and it reached a point with the MBP keyboards where Apple couldn't turn a blind eye anymore. Similar to Scott Forstall being forced out over the Apple Maps disaster. If there's one thing more important to Apple than Ive, it's the Apple brand and nothing says "premium" like adding a product to a repair program on the day it comes out. I suspect that the knives were out for Ive after that humiliation.
- __m 7y ago
  Did he actually take part in the engineering?
  - bch 7y ago
    Successful industrial design must necessarily be engineer-able or its just wishful thinking, no?
    - tempguy9999 7y ago
      Do you consider Ive's later designs as 'successful'? I don't know as I don't use apple but I heard of lot of grumbling off of those that do.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - 7y ago

Theodores 7y ago

The key product has been the phone. The computers and the tablets don't have the volume or the convenient payment mechanism. People on contracts just pay for these iPhones without caring too much about it being real money. Anyway, the oxygen supply died on the phone a while ago but the momentum of the whole mobile phone business was such that nobody has noticed that the solid rocket boosters ran out of fuel and were chucked away three years ago. Only if you work in the sector do you really appreciate how it has all changed. But if you build a business and an eco system around constant growth then things do fall back to earth rather quickly when everything stops growing. Sales may be magnificent but that is no good if there is no growth and the world has come to expect growth. An ever growing business does not have to be efficient. Losses can be covered over because more sales make the previous mismanagement of expenses seem like small beer money. Apple de-coupled the figures so we don't know how many units were shifted. Then they say that they are selling services now. But this isn't going to fill the hole left by the lack of iPhone opening day queues (remember that madness?). These Chinese phones are going to be the default devices for a lot of people. When it comes to price or function they have it covered. Trade wars are not going to stave that situation off forever. If you have bought into the Ive Apple eco system it all works perfectly. But if you are an outsider a lot of it seems daft. You can't plug your Apple phone into your Apple computer without dongles, then it doesn't rapid charge if plugged in that way or even move data quickly. Then, with your Apple computer the touchscreen doesn't work. If you have had pinch to zoom for a while on a normal laptop you find it odd that Apple machines don't have that. The keyboard failings and much else is not necessarily design, sometimes things just don't work out. But when the phone doesn't plug into the computer, then you know that is a design thing. The product lifecycles have also been bad, same Apple computers year in year out when most laptops get refreshed when new CPUs come out. It is absurd how Apple make what they feel like making not what their customers want. Ive was at the helm and the ship went off course five years ago with only those in the thick of it realising not all was well three years ago when sales started to slow on the product that matters - the phone.

vardump 7y ago
> If you have had pinch to zoom for a while on a normal laptop you find it odd that Apple machines don't have that. Pinch to zoom works perfectly on my MacBook Pro. Using the touchpad.

mrwww 7y ago

I'm so glad they finally removed magsafe. FINALLY, both cables going into the powerbrick are replaceable. It never once saved my laptop from cord trip doom, but did cost me a lot in buying whole new powerbricks when the cord eventually wore out. But whatever, who buys apple for the hardware? I mean, its a super nice bonus that it is overall the best hardware, but that's not the key reason.

badpun 7y ago
I buy them for hardware actually (and wipe OSX, install Windows instead). My 2013 MBP is fantastic, but I probably won’t get the new MBP as the next machine, as the hardware just got too weird (huge trackpad, touchbar).
pygy_ 7y ago
They could have made a replaceable Magsafe cable. It saved my machines quite a few tines over the years since it came out in 2006.
bjelkeman-again 7y ago
I have ripped the MagSafe out many times. One at each end would have been the best.
- freehunter 7y ago
  Ugh I hated MagSafe. If I used the computer on my lap, any movement of my leg would push up on the charger and stop charging because the tiniest force would move it up and down. But if I trip on the cable and pull it straight out, the whole laptop comes clattering down because it requires super-human force pulling straight out if you want to break the connection. Basically in my experience MagSafe is that annoying thing that keeps unplugging my laptop when I bump the charger while still damaging my laptop if I trip on the cable.
gomox 7y ago
The actually desirable feature was for the cable not to fray and disintegrate every 2 years. Making it replaceable at the expense of Magsafe is hardly the solution.

pcr910303 7y ago

It seems most of the comments have an assumption that current Apple hardware is not doing well, pushing more for aesthetics and failing to be a truly useful computer. I don’t really think so, negative reviews get to have much more spotlight and views than positive ones; (One reason is that positive people about the devices won’t be ‘whining’ as loudly as the negative ones do; another one is that post-SJ Apple is constantly criticized by ‘not becoming innovative as much as SJ’) and HN is a particularly great place for these negative reviews take place. While I also think time to time that Apple could do better than the current HW(e.g. turning on haptic feedback on the TB as default), the current HW lineup is pretty great, I would say. I find the TB immensely useful in my workflow, (partially because I use a custom Emacs that I took my time to hack on to display touchbar buttons for my workflow... why doesn’t Emacs/gVim gain TB support?̊̈) especially when I’m using Finder or Safari, Emacs, MS Office... and my friends that sneered at using an Apple laptop started to evaluate using it after '18, when the keyboard issues got pretty much fixed. I also find the discussion around the butterfly mechanism of the MacBooks pretty much disconcerning, there are pretty much people who love the feel of the butterfly, (not all people like long pitched keyboards, especially on laptops), and Apple managed to fix the keyboard issues with dust in 2018, which I would say, pretty much immediately after it was discovered. I’m fine with Mr. Ive departuring from Apple, as far as Apple designs great products that value on both function and form. If Apple becomes a usual computer company that starts to listen to all consumer complaints and makes and sells usual computers that other companies can make, that’s a pretty concerning future.

plufz 7y ago
I agree. Getting rid of the headphone jack is to me much like getting rid of the floppy. I love having four usb-c ports on my mbp that is either power or data transfer. I bought a 13” mbp last year when they got four cores, loving how portable and light it is, and just connecting one cable gives me display, power etc, Every day I love my expensive current rig of mbp, iPad Pro with pencil, AirPods and bose q35.
whywhywhywhy 7y ago
> and Apple managed to fix the keyboard issues with dust in 2018 No they didn't, mines a 2018 and has had a ton of keyboard issues also Apple themselves admit it isn't fixed even the 2019 isn't fixed [0] [0] https://support.apple.com/en-gb/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-notebooks https://support.apple.com/en-gb/keyboard-service-program-for...

leowoo91 7y ago

It might be partly the truth. People often leave for lessened control/interest rather than other gains. It takes years after the leave to reveal that kind of reasoning anyway.

Angostura 7y ago

Interesting - I read it as something rather different - a hatchet job on the management style of Tim Cook - not exactly what I would be presenting to shareholders

_ph_ 7y ago

I think the thing is, that Apple is missing a chief engineer rather than a head of design. I really like most of the Apple designs from an aesthetic perspective, but they need an engineer to loudly tell them, when their beautiful designs cut too much into proper engineering and usability. Keyboards need to work, "pro" laptops need enough cooling and repairability, in general, you shouldn't have to throw away working parts just to repair other parts glued to them (how can they have the desktop iMac being glued together at all?).

puranjay 7y ago

Am I the only one on HN who actually likes the Butterfly keyboard? I find that I type faster on my 2018 Macbook Air than on my 2015 Macbook Pro

skrause 7y ago
The problem isn't the feel for most people, it's that it breaks quite easily.
shimms 7y ago
Nope I’m the same, my 2018 MBA keyboard is the best keyboard I’ve used, and I loved the old Thinkpads too. The 2016 MBP keyboard on the other hand is terrible.
danieldk 7y ago
I like the butterfly, at least more than the previous generations keyboards. However, the problems with the butterfly keyboards are inexcusable for the price of the laptops (along with one-week repair times). Luckily, my MacBook Pro 2018 seems to hold up fine.

rottyguy 7y ago

Hopefully I'm not the only one that thinks that prices for iphones are insane. I use a handful of apps (yelp, maps, mail, news, music, and (occasionally) browser) which are readily available on all phones. Paying $300 for my moto vs 700-1000 for an iphone is a no brainer..

danieldk 7y ago
Well, if you don't mind uploading your private live to the Google cloud, Lenovo, and whoever else paid enough to get stuff shipped on a Lenovo phone. For most people who do not want to spend much money on a phone, I just recommend them to buy an iPhone 6s or perhaps 7. You get most of the privacy benefits of an iPhone, for an affordable price. And even though it is an older model, it will probably get updated longer than most new Android phones at the $300 price point.

chx 7y ago

> look forward to Mac laptops that gain useful features and don't fall apart in months. https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/10/benjamin_button_reviews_the_new_macbook_pro/ https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/10/benjamin_button_reviews_the...

danso 7y ago

But I don't get the impression that "everything is fine" from reading this story. First, there's the context that Apple's iPhone business is "faltering" and its product line has flatlined. For anyone who thinks that the spirit and innovation of Jobs lives on through Ive, this story throws cold water on that. In addition, the story emphasizes how much less Steve-like Apple has become since Cook over, with Ive seemingly being the last holdout of the glory days. If you buy into the story that Apple lives and dies by its emphasis on revolutionary design, this story is a major downer. I guess it depends on your viewpoint on engineering vs. design, but I imagine the story's last graf is depressing for those who prioritize the latter: > Mr. Ive’s old design team—a group of aesthetes once thought of as gods inside Apple—will report to COO Jeff Williams, a mechanical engineer with an M.B.A.

apetrovic 7y ago

> missing magSafe You can pry from my dead hands my one cable from the monitor to the laptop and ability to charge the laptop from both sides. Not to mention that I can use chargers from anyone, not just from Apple, I can buy non-Apple charging cables, and with my Mac charger I can charge growing numbers of gadgets (so far iPad and Nintendo Switch). Yeah, MagSafe had a nice, satisfying "click" when engages, but I find USB-C charging much more convenient.

dlp211 7y ago
What if I told you this isn't an either or. You can have both usb-c and magsafe charging in the same laptop.
- lukewrites 7y ago
  > Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
- EL_Loco 7y ago
  If my laptop already had usb-c and could be charged through it, why would I want an extra, different format charging port? Why not add a micro-usb one, for three different charging ports?
  - jakereps 7y ago
    I read their message as saying USB-C with MagSafe technology to prevent the cord from pulling the machine off your desk if tripped over, and not two separate ports. Basically as it exists but a modification to the cable or connector to have magnetic breakaways or something?
    - EL_Loco 7y ago
      Could be, yeah, but I can't see how to implement that with USB's friction model of retention.
  - darkpuma 7y ago

jxdxbx 7y ago

Recent pro hardware (Mac Pro, iMac Pro, iPad Pro, and yes, the Mac mini is "pro" now) has been excellent. The laptops haven't been refreshed since Apple started firing on all cylinders in this regard. Going all-in on USB C was the right move. I love having just one cable sticking out of my MacBook Pro to connect to a 4K display and provide power to the MacBook (and use the display as a USB hub for wired Ethernet, etc). And being able to pick either side. So for me it's the right tradeoff. For non-me's they should make a breakaway USB C charging-only cable. (Charging the first generation Apple Pencil from the iPad Pro itself was great design, by the way, until wireless was ready. Charging the mouse from the bottom was not.)

coryfklein 7y ago
I have the latest Macbook Pro, and I hate the USB-C. I have a keyboard, stereo, and 4k monitor; none of which can be plugged into my laptop without a dongle. In fact, I do not yet have a single device that I can plug directly into my laptop. And this years after they made the switch.

abalone 7y ago

> this is exactly the story Apple would want to tell shareholders in the wake of Ive's departure That is so not true. This story paints the picture of a dysfunctional org under Cook’s watch who is dramatically less inspiring than Jobs to their key design team. I don’t know if it’s true but it’s definitely not what a company would want to feed to the press. The ideal story in situations like this is that they’ve been working on a transition for a awhile and the company is in good hands, without all the dissatisfaction stuff.

DonHopkins 7y ago

I'm hoping they'll go steampunk! Either that, or full Pink Hello Kitty. http://exonome.com/fj/phkl http://exonome.com/fj/phkl Or both, to differentiate between pro and consumer.