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It's interesting that a lot of the frustrations being expressed online over the past few years about Apple's product design choices (Macbook Pros losing their d

It's interesting that a lot of the frustrations being expressed online over the past few years about Apple's product design choices (Macbook Pros losing their developer focus, iPhones getting more ridiculous with their designs, etc) are linked directly to what this article claims -- that Ive has been pretty absent since 2016, and it's not just the lack of a strong product leader at Apple, but also a rudderless design team that has led to these issues. Whether any of that will improve now remains to be seen.

threeseed 7y ago
Hilarious how Ive gets blamed for everything. He is not responsible for the features that goes into a product. Nor is he responsible for which demographic a product is targeted towards. It's a combination of various executives in particular Phil Schiller and Jeff Williams.
- x0x0 7y ago
  Do you think Ive couldn't get the keyboard or the useless bar removed if he wanted?
  - threeseed 7y ago
    It's not like Apple has thousands of products. The entire executive team would be discussing the strategic direction for their products and the R&D investments needed e.g. TouchBar. But ultimately Apple is product marketing driven just like other large product companies. And people like thin devices (hence the keyboard) and shiny new features. What users think is far more important to Apple than what Ive thinks.
    - huffmsa 7y ago
      > What users think is far more important to Apple than what Ive thinks. Then why do they keep soldering RAM onto their mobos when there's not a single person who wants it?
      - mort96 7y ago
        Probably because there's effectively not a single person who explicitly _doesn't_ want their RAM soldered on to the mobo, and soldering on the RAM allows them to make the product thinner, which people _do_ want (or at least can be convinced they want through advertising). If the amount of extra people who will be convinced to buy a Mac because it's thinner outweighs the people who otherwise would have bought one but didn't because it has soldered-on ram, they're gonna do it.
      - mrunkel 7y ago
        Because it is cheaper and 98% of the users don't think about it and don't care.
- nikofeyn 7y ago
  as chief design officer you’d think he’d be responsible.
- huffmsa 7y ago
  He used to be responsible though. Until 2011. And even if Steve wanted something batshit insane, he made it work. I've said it elsewhere, but I've suspected (as this article seems to confirm) that he's been coasting / lost the spark he once had a while ago. Designer's and artists have fickle motivation. He clearly fed off of Job's "fuck you, fuck this, this is trash, make it better" style of challenges. Because Job's actually 1) knew when it was a good design and 2) appreciated it. I'm doubtful that the flock of MBAs who took over have that same passion, so Mr Ive has lost his own.
  - MR4D 7y ago
    I think you made a great point there. Ive was the Scotty to Job's Kirk - he'd make it work somehow, even if it was crazy.
chrischen 7y ago
For all anyone knows Ive probably was a proponent of the touchbar. If for one am proponent of the touchbar, and as such I have no need to be very vocal about the support (if you don't like it then you don't).
- scottlocklin 7y ago
  No flamin' -what do you like about it? I think it looks kind of cool seeing the various things flying across it, but ultimately it's just a cool looking distraction, and the lack of escape key for an emacs user is death.
  - eddieh 7y ago
    After remapping my caps key to be both control and escape I honestly don’t know how I used to work with the real escape key. If anything, Apple should build this mapping into macOS so I don’t have to use some third-party app to do it.
    - dikbrouwer 7y ago
      It is nowadays built into macos, check your keyboard settings, there is a special keys remap option
      - eddieh 7y ago
        Yes, remapping caps lock to either control or escape is supported by Apple, but not remapping to both control AND escape.
  - freehunter 7y ago
    >the lack of escape key It bothers me when people say this because it's just not true. And what's worse is it's just true enough that someone can argue "well you know what I meant" while still saying something entirely untrue. The touchbar Macbook has no physical Esc key but it does still exist and works just like any other button. Nearly every image of a touchbar Macbook on Apple's website shows an Esc key plain as day on the touchbar: https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/ https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/ The only people who say "touchbar Macbook doesn't have an Esc key" are either people who have never used it and have been misled by others on the Internet, or are the people who did the misleading in the first place. You might as well criticize a smartphone keyboard because it doesn't have an Enter key or an "e" key. How can you type on a smartphone when it doesn't even have a spacebar!? A touchbar Macbook doesn't have an Esc key in the exact same way your smartphone doesn't have a spacebar. As in: it entirely does have a spacebar and anyone who says it doesn't is deliberately misleading you.

threeseed 7y ago

Hilarious how Ive gets blamed for everything. He is not responsible for the features that goes into a product. Nor is he responsible for which demographic a product is targeted towards. It's a combination of various executives in particular Phil Schiller and Jeff Williams.

x0x0 7y ago
Do you think Ive couldn't get the keyboard or the useless bar removed if he wanted?
- threeseed 7y ago
  It's not like Apple has thousands of products. The entire executive team would be discussing the strategic direction for their products and the R&D investments needed e.g. TouchBar. But ultimately Apple is product marketing driven just like other large product companies. And people like thin devices (hence the keyboard) and shiny new features. What users think is far more important to Apple than what Ive thinks.
  - huffmsa 7y ago
    > What users think is far more important to Apple than what Ive thinks. Then why do they keep soldering RAM onto their mobos when there's not a single person who wants it?
    - mort96 7y ago
      Probably because there's effectively not a single person who explicitly _doesn't_ want their RAM soldered on to the mobo, and soldering on the RAM allows them to make the product thinner, which people _do_ want (or at least can be convinced they want through advertising). If the amount of extra people who will be convinced to buy a Mac because it's thinner outweighs the people who otherwise would have bought one but didn't because it has soldered-on ram, they're gonna do it.
    - mrunkel 7y ago
      Because it is cheaper and 98% of the users don't think about it and don't care.
nikofeyn 7y ago
as chief design officer you’d think he’d be responsible.
huffmsa 7y ago
He used to be responsible though. Until 2011. And even if Steve wanted something batshit insane, he made it work. I've said it elsewhere, but I've suspected (as this article seems to confirm) that he's been coasting / lost the spark he once had a while ago. Designer's and artists have fickle motivation. He clearly fed off of Job's "fuck you, fuck this, this is trash, make it better" style of challenges. Because Job's actually 1) knew when it was a good design and 2) appreciated it. I'm doubtful that the flock of MBAs who took over have that same passion, so Mr Ive has lost his own.
- MR4D 7y ago
  I think you made a great point there. Ive was the Scotty to Job's Kirk - he'd make it work somehow, even if it was crazy.

chrischen 7y ago

For all anyone knows Ive probably was a proponent of the touchbar. If for one am proponent of the touchbar, and as such I have no need to be very vocal about the support (if you don't like it then you don't).

scottlocklin 7y ago
No flamin' -what do you like about it? I think it looks kind of cool seeing the various things flying across it, but ultimately it's just a cool looking distraction, and the lack of escape key for an emacs user is death.
- eddieh 7y ago
  After remapping my caps key to be both control and escape I honestly don’t know how I used to work with the real escape key. If anything, Apple should build this mapping into macOS so I don’t have to use some third-party app to do it.
  - dikbrouwer 7y ago
    It is nowadays built into macos, check your keyboard settings, there is a special keys remap option
    - eddieh 7y ago
      Yes, remapping caps lock to either control or escape is supported by Apple, but not remapping to both control AND escape.
- freehunter 7y ago
  >the lack of escape key It bothers me when people say this because it's just not true. And what's worse is it's just true enough that someone can argue "well you know what I meant" while still saying something entirely untrue. The touchbar Macbook has no physical Esc key but it does still exist and works just like any other button. Nearly every image of a touchbar Macbook on Apple's website shows an Esc key plain as day on the touchbar: https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/ https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/ The only people who say "touchbar Macbook doesn't have an Esc key" are either people who have never used it and have been misled by others on the Internet, or are the people who did the misleading in the first place. You might as well criticize a smartphone keyboard because it doesn't have an Enter key or an "e" key. How can you type on a smartphone when it doesn't even have a spacebar!? A touchbar Macbook doesn't have an Esc key in the exact same way your smartphone doesn't have a spacebar. As in: it entirely does have a spacebar and anyone who says it doesn't is deliberately misleading you.