13 ms·
Jony Ive: 8 hits and 8 misses from 20 years at Apple
- delish 7y ago"Hits" and "misses" should be thought of differently. Hits sell zillions and make people happy. Misses like the Apple Hi-Fi sell poorly because nobody wants them. So in the aggregate, there's far more good done when you have a hit, than bad done when you have a miss[0]. [0] Huge disclaimer: The category "miss" is higher dimensioned than "hit." Misses like the butterfly keyboard are different than the Hi-Fi, because it's a given that millions of people are going to buy a Mac laptop, and they suffer because they're forced to cope with an unreliable keyboard. By contrast, almost nobody is forced to use an Apple Hi-Fi.
- SonOfKyuss 7y agoIt’s like Babe Ruth in baseball. You live with the strikeouts because the home runs are so great.
- morley 7y agoAlso: I've noticed anecdotally that a lot of people, myself included, make decisions to reduce their misses, where it's usually better to maximize your hits.
- mjlee 7y agoYou might be referring to loss aversion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion
- Ma8ee 7y agoI still use my Hi-Fi, admittedly with an Amazon Alexa as source, but it still sounds great.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- paultopia 7y agoI can't believe they still haven't fixed that charging port on the mouse. It has to be the single most hated Apple design choice ever...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- asark 7y agoFinally used one. It was totally fine. And kept me from using it plugged in 100% of the time, which is what I'd have probably done otherwise. Not like the touchbar which I have to all-but disable to make a Macbook Pro usable at all.
- skyyler 7y agoThe one time I showed up to work to find that my mouse was dead, I plugged it in, got a cup of coffee, and by the time I was back at my desk it was charged enough to be used for the rest of the day. I'm starting to get the feeling that some people will never be satisfied, and that complaints will always be made.
- sambeau 7y agoI feel the need to say this every time the 'puck mouse' comes up: I loved mine. If you use your fingers to move a mouse, rather than your hand (like I do) then it was totally fine (and I found I could move it very exactly for fine control when using a design package). I never got it the wrong way around, never had any other problems people complain about and I loved the weight of it and used to chuck it around my desktop with real accuracy. My only conclusion is that y'all must be a bunch of clumsy fools. :D
- optimuspaul 7y agoI feel the same way. I loved that mouse, I was sad the day mine finally gave out.
- 52-6F-62 7y agoOh buddy... https://www.ebay.com/b/Apple-Puck-Mouse/23160/bn_7023277587 https://www.ebay.com/b/Apple-Puck-Mouse/23160/bn_7023277587
- mcot2 7y agoIt is almost universally hated. Your conclusion is wrong.
- pier25 7y ago> If you use your fingers to move a mouse, rather than your hand This is called the "fingertip grip". See this for more mouse grips: http://blog.logicalincrements.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Popular-Grip-Styles.jpg http://blog.logicalincrements.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02...
- bbx 7y agoCan't really agree with the Magic Mouse 2 being a "miss". I understand the controversy with the charging port being under the mouse, but it's done on purpose: Apple wants to prevent users from leaving the mouse connected with a USB cable all the time. Maybe there was a better solution to this issue, but the truth is that it's not actually an issue and not a blunder either. I've had this mouse for years and simply recharge it every few months overnight. Scrolling without a wheel took a bit of learning, but in the end, being able to seamlessly move vertically and horizontally with a single finger is highly useful in design or music software. I haven't seen a mouse that could handle it as well as the Magic Mouse.
- kylesellas 7y agoI was wondering if that was the decision. it is well known that apple products should not constantly stayed plugged in and I think putting the charging cable in this location allowed for the battery on the mouse to stay consistent over time.
- asark 7y agoIf it'd been on the edge I'd have probably used it plugged in all the time, because I've been trained by years and years of shitty battery-powered peripherals to plug them in any time I possibly can. Turns out it's totally fine and the battery lasts ~forever, and since I couldn't plug it in I didn't stress about it.
- d35007 7y ago> it is well known that apple products should not constantly stayed plugged in I've never heard this before. What's the explanation? Is it related to battery health? Why does it only apply to Apple products?
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago> I understand the controversy with the charging port being under the mouse, but it's done on purpose: Apple wants to prevent users from leaving the mouse connected with a USB cable all the time. Here's a better solution: good old rechargeable AA batteries. Keep a spare set sitting in a charger, and you'll never need to wait for your device to recharge. If you're concerned about users falling back on disposables, bundle two sets of rechargeable AA's and a charger. Apple used to sell branded versions of these items. I hate built-in rechargeable batteries for peripherals like mice, keyboards, and game controllers.
- colmvp 7y agoThe G4 Cube had issues but I honestly liked it as an experimental design from a well-known computer brand. It was a breath of fresh air among the monotonous beige or gray towers of the time. And it wasn't the only G4 computer you could get, as you could've bought the tower (which I ended up doing at the time). For me, the biggest miss is the touch bar and butterfly keyboards. Those single-handily prevented me from upgrading from my 2012 Retina MBP.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- sjwright 7y agoThe G4 Cube was a good idea but was overpriced. Yes it was smaller and prettier than the G4 tower, but it was also far less expandable. It was priced to be a 2000’s-era executive desk ornament, and I suspect they simply misjudged the market for the Cube. But the idea was solid and a few years later a substantially similar product was released to massive success—the Mac mini.
- andrethegiant 7y agoYou could upgrade to a 2015 -- those have no touchbar and the old keyboard.
- gyrccc 7y agoThe last paragraph for Magic Mouse 2 seems a bit forced. This mouse has not garnered the same level of controversy as the other products in this article. I've personally found it more enjoyable and ergonomic than my Logitech M705 and Microsoft Sculpt. It's not inherently more ergonomic but the additional functionality enabled by multitouch means I don't have to move the mouse as much (on macOS at lease), which vastly improves usability. The charging port is not in the most functional location, but it's a worthwhile tradeoff IMHO. If we assume Apple doesn't want to change the shape of the mouse, the only alternative location is on the side of the mouse, which makes the mouse asymmetrical and would probably give Jony Ive a fit.
- mcot2 7y agoActually it is so bad and non ergonomic that there is a video from a keynote where Craig Federighi is struggling to use it.
- Chris_Chambers 7y agoYou are the only person calling it non-ergonomic. Hopefully no one gets misled into believing your multiple comments are multiple people with the same opinion.
- jdofaz 7y agoI really like 3D touch for moving the cursor in text input fields.
- nneonneo 7y agoYeah, that has to be my favorite use-case for the force-touch on iOS. The way text selection works on iOS has never felt that smooth, but force touch takes away some of the worst pain. Shame it’s got zero discoverability. Most people I know are surprised when I show them that. It also has quite a steep learning curve for some. Plus, some of the more advanced useful stuff is pretty hard to use - for example, did you know you can switch to text selection by “pulsing” your finger twice while pressing the keyboard?
- BRAlNlAC 7y agoYes, the pulse selection is the most useful part of the implementation, and makes me not want to upgrade to iOS 13 on my iPhone X based on feature degradation alone. I use 3D Touch all the time and have for years now. I don’t understand the “zero discoverability” claim. It is natural to try and push harder on the screen, and it’s extremely fast. Ive often thought they should leverage the Taptic Engine to offer (at least in accessibility settings) an option for haptic feedback for all deep touches system wide, with like a double knock telling you that nothing happened. And honestly, peeking/popping links is the single greatest innovation in mobile web UX in a decade, deprivation of the tech stack is a travesty for a premium gadget brand like Apple.
- s3r3nity 7y agoYeah 3D / force touch is a "miss" that I strongly feel should have been a "hit," as it's a pretty innovative idea - mostly from the hardware side - but was either difficult to discovery for users and/or apps didn't have good examples.
- iaml 7y agoMost baffling for me is the fact I use mac counterpart to this - force touch - every single day even though most apps don't support it; VS code for example would profit immensely from using it to peek definition, but alas, electron does not support it at all.
- optimuspaul 7y agoif those are his misses then I'd say he did a fantastic job. half of those I'd say weren't even misses. Loved the G4 cube, the hockey puck mouse, 3D Touch, and my Magic Mouse 2. But nothing gives me more anxiety than my AirPods, they always feel like they are falling out and occasionally do.
- eugeniub 7y agoSounds like the AirPods just aren't made for your ears unfortunately. They've never fallen out of mine, even on runs.
- sjwright 7y agoApple should build a system to scan the three-dimensional shape of its customers ears using the iPhone Face ID sensor. They could collate that data and feed it into a machine learning algorithm that could come up with two or three alternative AirPod shapes that would suit the widest array of ears. (Then use the same "Ear ID" feature on your iPhone to tell you which model best suits your ears.)
- noer 7y agoThe biggest miss that I remember that isn't on this list is the iPhone 4 antenna that wrapped around the device. If the user's hand got between the two sides, it would lose connectivity. Then Apple started selling those "bumpers" to keep the antenna working.
- jccc 7y agoThey didn't start selling them to the troubled iPhone users. They gave them away until the end of September that year: https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/how-to-get-your-free-iphone-bumper/ https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/how-to-get-your-fr...
- jccc 7y agoAlso worth noting that they demonstrated every other phone at the time could be held in all kinds of similarly ordinary ways that led to the same or worse attenuation. But the iPhone 4 had that conspicuous pair of thin black lines on the metal frame that people could see and touch to trigger the attenuation.
- m_st 7y agoiPhone 4 owner here. That was never an actual issue in daily use. You really had to force it at exactly the right spot to produce this problem. Also other phones from that time had the same issue when they were squeezed like that. So yes I got that free bumper, but never used it anyway.
- sjwright 7y agoAntennagate was 90% myth. Bridging the two steel pieces with normal skin contact wasn't a significant factor in signal degradation. If it was, the problem would have persisted with the iPhone 4S, but it didn't. In fact the 4S was notable for having exceptionally good reception despite using the same exposed steel band arrangement—albeit with two cellular antenna segments instead of one. (Major Australian telco Telstra assigned the iPhone 4S their "blue tick" mark for phones suitable for regional/rural Australian customers. This rating was only given small number of phones.)
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- apocalyptic0n3 7y agoThe one thing I noticed missing that should have been included was the unibody MacBook design. That was a huge innovation that led to massive improvements in build quality industry-wide. If I recall correctly, he played a much larger role in that design than the iPod, which is largely credited to Tony Fadell (although Ive definitely had a large influence on later iterations).
- zerohm 7y agoAgreed. The Titanium G4 to the Unibody pretty much laid the foundation of what the next 20 years of good laptops would be.
- devoply 7y agoInitially I would agree, and then it was all about thinnest, un-repairable, soldered laptops.
- zipperhead 7y agoDoesn't this make it unrepairable though? (Honest question - I don't own a MacBook)
- pier25 7y agoNo, the decision to solder components to the logic board probably comes from making it thinner, not from the unibody design. The 2011 MBP was unibody and it was a lot more repairable but also thicker.
- snuxoll 7y agoNo, the Unibody chassis have been in use since the 2008 MacBook Pro and they have been perfectly repairable, until 2012 and later 2016 where Apple started soldering previously replaceable components to the logic board. They did make it a royal pain in the ass to work on the keyboard or trackpad though, but anyone who works on MacBooks daily can gut one in minutes.
- sirn 7y ago
- itronitron 7y agoI know some people hate on the ‘Dustbin’ Mac Pro but I really liked mine, it was more powerful and 1/5th the size of those big Dell T7500 towers.
- ascagnel_ 7y agoThey were also super-quiet, given their size and power requirements.
- webwielder2 7y agoI think what bothers me about all these Jony Ive articles is that they rarely differentiate between Ive the designer, Ive the art director, and Ive the product manager. Similarly, they fail to differentiate between whether something was good or bad based on its aesthetics, functionality, or market reception. In these articles, Ive is just functioning as a stand-in for Apple, as Jobs did before him. It betrays a lack of understanding of how companies (and design) actually work on the part of pundits and journalists.
- dpkonofa 7y agoI was going to say the same. They call out a few products that I doubt were misses because of Jony Ive. He may have been involved with them but to say that they were misses because of the work he did on them is a little...misleading.
- amluto 7y ago> [The MacBook Air] drew audible gasps from the crowd, instantly redefining how thin, light and portable a laptop could be. I was quite surprised at the time: the MacBook crowd seemed almost entirely disjoint from the ThinkPad crowd. The X61 predated the Air by months, was considerably faster, and only weighed 0.11 lbs more. The X220 was released just slightly after the Air IIRC, was even more powerful, and was lighter than the Air. Admittedly, both ThinkPads were a good deal thicker and we’re nowhere near as shiny. But they totally rocked the ports, and they had enough ventilation to run at full speed continuously.
- Dunedan 7y agoBack then Lenovo made a really good parody of the original MacBook Air ad (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHXgIH9eaHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHXgIH9eaHg), showing the advantages of their ThinkPad X300: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hnOCUkbix0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hnOCUkbix0
- encoderer 7y agoThere is an obvious power law visible here. His big wins are orders of magnitude larger than his misses.
- nickthemagicman 7y agoDidn't the aluminum solid body originate with Mac? Thats been a huge cross product design decision that I personally love.
- kps 7y agoMissing miss: every single power adapter since the clamshell yoyo. (Of course it's not clear in any of these cases how to apportion blame for Apple's form-over-function designs between Jobs and Ive.)
- szggzs27 7y agosurprised they omitted the shittiest thing ever made: TouchBar
- lostgame 7y agoAt least they hit the Butterfly keyboard, which I'd argue is worse.