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Read the whole thing, I was really not convinced. Ive had some brilliant hits, but I think became more of a liability in the end. Look at what happened to the M

Read the whole thing, I was really not convinced. Ive had some brilliant hits, but I think became more of a liability in the end. Look at what happened to the MacBook Pro, losing most of its ports and the thinness causing them to put a much worse keyboard in it that caused massive problems. Sacrificing a bit of thinness and going back on those changes with the newest iteration has been much better. Honestly to me the M1 era of Apple is the more exciting than things have been in years. The article linked is really negative (saying Apple only have “legacy products”) but with the M1 series they seems to be smashing it out of the park…

philistine 5y ago
They just released a brand new computer, the Mac Studio. This is not a legacy product.
nojito 5y ago
I don’t think that was due to Ive but more so that he couldn’t excel without Steve around. It's also clearly stated in the article that this was one of the reasons that Ive was given the CDO role. So that he could do less of what Steve did for him.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  This. It seems clear Jobs served a “you made it very pretty but it sucks to use” role in feedback.
  - kergonath 5y ago
    There are many counter-examples, from the original iMac’s mouse to the iPod Hifi. Jobs said no a lot, and that was a good thing, but he did not have absolute good taste. To his credit, he was good at learning from mistakes, even though he very rarely acknowledged them in public.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      Don’t have to get every single one right to still play the role. The man was effective, not infallible.
      - kergonath 5y ago
        But then it works both ways: you cannot cite a couple of failures under Cook to say that Jobs was irreplaceable.
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        You seem to be debating someone else; I haven't said that? I think Jobs and Ive were a pair that complimented each other. I think when Jobs died, Ive lost that moderating influence, and "thin at the cost of good" and "we got rid of buttons" were the result for a while.
        astrange 5y ago
        On the other hand, Ive without Jobs got you iOS 7 with all the fine Corinthian leather removed.
bschne 5y ago
> Honestly to me the M1 era of Apple is the more exciting than things have been in years. Yes, I feel like this is somehow still massively underappreciated. They pulled off a major hardware transition without big hiccups (I'm sure someone's going to point some I have missed in the comments /s) and launched a bunch of devices that are an incredible leap forward. I mean the baseline M1 air starts at $1k and is an incredible piece of hardware for most usage.
- Maursault 5y ago
  > Yes, I feel like this is somehow still massively underappreciated. No, it is overhyped (not by Apple), and it worries me. Apple's platform jumps are impressive (and this last seamless platform switch is more about macOS, good decisions NeXT made a very long time ago, developer empowerment decisions), but let's not confuse that with how bonkers every user of M1 and family are going. We have a bit of anecdotal data coming in, no one can believe, and I quote 5000 new M1 owners, "how snappy" the M1 is. But look at the benchmarks. Each M1 model is a typical and negligible increase in performance over whatever most recent previous Intel model. We are talking about 1.05x performance increases! For example, take the 2018 6-core Intel Mini with the 3.2GHz processors and compare performance to the 2020 M1 mini, and it is immediately apparent, the 2020 M1 mini is really only a little bit more performant. And this is not bad news, it just means everyone is out of their minds, but it is typical of new Apple releases. The new models are always just a little more performant than the last revision (except 2010-2012, when models doubled in performance 3 years in a row and did not double again until 2018). So the hype on M1 is overwhelming, and the M1 and family are not at all under appreciated. People seem to think M1 is miraculous, and I admit I think it is pretty neat... even after comparing benchmarks with previous models and realizing this is not a quadrupling or even doubling of performance; the increase in performance with Apple switching from Intel to ARM is... merely incremental. This was a lateral move, and not a giant leap forward, not yet. Go look for yourself. But don't be sad about it, again, this is entirely typical of Apple new releases... the new models are always just a little better than the last revision. Of course, performance is not the only metric. So the hype says M1 walks on water, but misses the truth, that M1 does what x86 does with less power. Again, M1 isn't what a lot of people are saying... it doesn't blow Intel out of the water, it merely keeps pace with Intel, and that is impressive enough... but add the efficiency gains, and what we have are chips as good as Intel's (more or less), but use less power. Anything evangelized beyond this is crazy hype.
ghaff 5y ago
MacBooks in particular went through a period with some notable downs--through some combination of design, engineering, and manufacturing missteps. Even my 2015 MacBook Pro had to get its display replaced (after Apple extended the warranty) to deal with a defect. But there was basically no MacBook between then and now that really tempted me to upgrade. (And the 14" M1 Pro is pretty much perfect for me.)
FollowingTheDao 5y ago
> the M1 era of Apple is the more exciting than things have been in years. Abso-frickin-loutly. The 2020 MacBook Air M1 is the best laptop hardware device you can buy on the market right now. The battery life is amazing and this makes the laptop almost invisible since I am hardly ever struggling to search for power. The sound is great as well. Price per pound you cannot beat it. My one small gripe is the black glass bezel, which turns into a distracting fingerprint magnet. They do need to up their game on SSD storage. but I am sure the MBA's at Apple do not care because this drives people to buy iCloud storage. And if that is the case, they really need to work on iCloud because the syncing sucks. I would certainly buy an iPad M1 if they let me run apps like LibreOffice, so they need to get their act together on software. Yeah, I have a lot of issues with their software. Software, IMHO, is where they really need to innovate. Once Asahi Linux is stable I will probably abandon MacOS again.
- lostmsu 5y ago
  Yet it still does not have a touchscreen, and I personally would prefer 2-in-1.
  - otterley 5y ago
    Sounds like you might prefer an iPad Pro with a keyboard.
    - spockz 5y ago
      I would instantly go for an iPad Pro, if it would run normal macOS. Or things like vscode and docker, and games. I just can’t justify to myself the expense compared to an m1 laptop, just for the form factor.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - LegitShady 5y ago
      unfortunately the ipad os is the limitation on the pro. I tried to make it work but its back to its previous position as media consumption, music production box (which is annoying to deal with due to lack of audio outs), and occasional text editor.
atom_arranger 5y ago
I did like the move towards less ports, although it was inconvenient at times. I do wonder if Apple had incentivized the ecosystem to move more to USB-C if things could have gone better. If there were lots of monitors and TVs actually supporting USB-C/Thunderbolt it would be nice, it's a thinner nicer cable, also has more bandwidth.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
anonymouse008 5y ago
Let’s say it this way in another domain - no matter the rationalization, Mikey And Bob with Jerry is completely different than with John. That’s all this is. Not that big of a deal, but without a doubt very different.
arinlen 5y ago
> Look at what happened to the MacBook Pro, losing most of its ports and the thinness causing them to put a much worse keyboard in it that caused massive problems. Sacrificing a bit of thinness and going back on those changes with the newest iteration has been much better. Adding a useless touch bar and losing F-keys also doesn't do much to win over fans, and it should be stressed that the infamous MacBook pro keyboards were a constant source of problems.
- ed_elliott_asc 5y ago
  I love the Touch Bar!
  - FPGAhacker 5y ago
    I don’t love the Touch Bar entirely, but I do really like the slider for brightness and volume. I’d rather have fkeys for everything else. Maybe they could give us a mini touchbar just wide enough for going volume and brightness.
    - bad_good_guy 5y ago
      I thought I loved the slider for volume/brightness, and was concerned about losing them, but then realized how little I cared when I went back to no slider
    - Kerrick 5y ago
      I would love a full width Touch Bar right above the fn key row they just brought back. I don’t see why it has to be one or the other.
      - ed_elliott_asc 5y ago
        I’m surprised no one made an app that turns Touch Bar into fn (without having to press fn) and a button to switch to the apps choices. Love Spotify with touchbar, debugging with vs code etc - shame it was hated. A mini Touch Bar with fn keys above would be lovely!
mgh2 5y ago
It is not uncommon for media to create controversy to sell the author's book...
- dtrizzle 5y ago
  You are not wrong. But in this case there was a significant amount of contemporaneous reporting when Ive left, predating this book.
  - mgh2 5y ago
    It doesn't mean the investigation is completely false either, you just have to pinpoint the truth in between.
7speter 5y ago
The funny thing is apple probably transitioned to their in house arm architecture in part because the intel chips ran too hot and throttled in the ultra thin ive products.
markus_zhang 5y ago
Agreed. I have looked at Apple products for years but couldn't make up the mind to switch, until my company gave me a M1 laptop and OMG it is so good. Last time I had this feeling was when iphone 3 or 4 came out. My previous company also gave me a Macbook pro but that was 2017 and I found enough quirks not to buy one for myself.
mgh2 5y ago
Apple's hierarchal organization based on technical expertise is key to its innovation: https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovation https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovatio... Everything else is a complement, but they don't drive leadership internally or externally to stay ahead of the industry.
chrischen 5y ago
Small nitpick the butterfly keyboard was problematic because of the high failure rate. Many, me included, actually like the feel better and the smaller key travel.
- imwillofficial 5y ago
  That was one of many reasons. I would say the majority of people disliked the small key travel, that’s why apple “fixed” it in the latest iteration, specifically calling it out as a benefit. What do you like more about it compared to the newer one?
  - chrischen 5y ago
    In particular my main mechanical keyboard is a 35g electro capacitive one, so I'm been pretty adjusted to lower key weights. The new Macbook keyboards are just too stiff and have too much travel for me to type fast/not get fatigued. I think even if one is accustomed to heavier keys, all things being equal, if they learned to type on lighter/shorter travel they can get faster at typing.
    - moondev 5y ago
      What keyboard? I've been using a low profile keychron with mt3 caps recently. Great feel with very short travel. Everything else feels so sloppy now.
      - chrischen 5y ago
        Niz plum EC keyboard. The combination of 35g + the dome switches are a great combo of light activation but still letting you rest your fingers on the keys without triggering them because the activation is at the top rather than linear.
    - eropple 5y ago
      On the other hand, I use pretty light switches on a desktop keyboard and still was thumping all the way down on the butterfly keys. I didn't hate how they felt in the act of typing, but I hated that they hurt my hands after a few hours. And (as you note) if you breathed near the laptop, they'd jam.
bombcar 5y ago
Thinness matters when everything else is an absolute chonk. But there’s a point at which it becomes basically worthless to get thinner.
davidhariri 5y ago
> Honestly to me the M1 era of Apple is the more exciting than things have been in years The average person doesn't know or care about M1. If you are on HN, you are an enthusiast ("Pro" in Apple parlance). To everyone else, Apple just made their already pretty quiet and fast laptops, quieter and faster. I think the article is right that the world is waiting to see if Apple's new bottom-up design org can deliver a new category-owning product. So far, they've proven that they can improve the legacy suite of products in meaningful ways and aren't afraid to roll back poor past decisions. I think the author is probably right that Apple's services org is getting much more attention than in the past. When everything flows downwards, you get a singular vision, blind spots included. I think we saw that with Ive. This was true with Jobs' Macintosh too, before Ive joined. Today, we have fewer blind spots, but we haven't seen evidence that there are leaders willing to take big swings into new categories. Time will tell...
- nathancahill 5y ago
  50% of customers purchasing a Mac in Q2 2022 were new Mac users: https://www.macrumors.com/2022/04/28/mac-users-q2-2022-new-to-mac/ https://www.macrumors.com/2022/04/28/mac-users-q2-2022-new-t... Which is actually incredible when you think about it. They might not know or care about what "M1" is (although I doubt that), but it's clearly a commercial success.
  - davidhariri 5y ago
    Great stat. I might be underselling the achievement... I bet some of that growth is driven by the insane battery life, which we know people care a lot about. To be clear, I own and love 2 M1-based machines :-) I stand by my overall comment, though: They are better Macs. Not a new category or a new product for Apple.
    - opan 5y ago
      They are powerful ARM laptops. I'm considering getting one purely because of that + Asahi Linux. My Pinebook Pro just doesn't cut it as a main machine, and I'm sick of x86.
TradingPlaces 5y ago
Global PC shipments down 4% in Q1. Mac shipments up 8%. The M1 Macs are the most exciting thing Apple’s done since the Watch. https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-pc-shipments-q1-2022/ https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-pc-shipments-q1-...
hintymad 5y ago
People as talented as Ive still need a champion and a leader to balance his artistic sense to constraints in business. Jobs was that champion. Without the counter balance and support from Jobs, Ive became less effective.
2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
That could just be a cycle thing. In an age where computers were at best boring, Ive and Jobs were what was needed to create the next great products. But maybe we hit a technological wall, and now we need strict hardware improvements. We all complain about the thinness, but it's not really that is it? It's the sacrifice they made to achieve it that pisses people off. Because we still need the things they threw away. If it all worked as imagined we'd be all over the slightly thinner machines. In some ways, the M1 is going to enable the thinness again. When we hit the next tech wall, you may need another Ive and Jobs to dream up things.
quitit 5y ago
Ive is just the latest vehicle for the oft retold “apple is doomed” story. The media frequently plays apple as some kind of small company where genius individuals are developing blockbuster products in isolation, and not the hard-slog reality of their product development methodology.
Valkhyr 5y ago
I can definitely see that argument, but I feel the issue is that Ive lacked a product-focussed and customer-focussed CEO to reign in his "wilder" impulses (the Edition watches are another example of that). Jobs may have managed Ive's drive in a way that would not have seemed bean-countery to him but customer-focussed. In other words, Ive was only a liability in so far as he had no actual peers at the company to reign him in. And it's debatable that that's not really his fault.
- Affric 5y ago
  I would have liked to see what Ive could do with the M1 and its thermals. I think that your comment is insightful in that while Ive's time at the top of Apple product development was far from perfect, his success was undeniable. Jony might not always have been right but he was always wrong for the right reasons. Principled in his vision for design and human interface. I think his worst successes (lol) were those he had over software UI and removing information from the UI in the name of aesthetics or the Touch Bar in the name of changing how we see keyboards. His understanding of how to make a computer something you wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen with but also something that you can take with you everywhere (thin and light are good when the tech can match) have certainly made his devices more a part of our lives. Jobs could match him on this stuff but I would imagine that it would go over a lot of business and engineer types' heads. Takes all sorts.
frogpelt 5y ago
This is the problem with designing and re-designing where function follows form. You have to keep changing and the only way to go, seemingly, is away from functional.
matthewfcarlson 5y ago
I agree. I’m really happy to be in the M1 era. Healthy companies have a good balance between engineering, design, and marketing. The M1 is the direct result of some really talented engineers not the design team.
etempleton 5y ago
Ive is a brilliant designer, but Steve seemed to be able to reign in his worst instincts. From everything I have heard about Ive, he reminds me of a few designers I have worked with who were wonderful designers, but struggle to understand the importance of practical constraints such as engineering, cost, user feedback, etc. The Apple Watch is a great example. It is a wonderful device, but the whole launch seemed confused. Remember the 24k Gold watch? That was the least Steve thing Apple has ever done. Steve believed in well designed and built products, but was almost allergic to excess.
- timc3 5y ago
  That makes him a pretty poor designer, particularly in the industrial sense. If you can’t balance those constraints you are not a good designer.
bspear 5y ago
Ive reminds me of a pretty good designer elevated at the right place at the right time
hardwaregeek 5y ago
If the article is to be believed, Ive had already stepped away, at least mentally, by late 2014. Which does mean that the much maligned 2016 Macbook Pro might not have been fully his fault. Tbh that seems a lot more likely than the usual HN "Jobs kept Ive in line" argument. Ive had been leading design at Apple for a long time. It's be a little odd if he didn't learn any sense of pragmatism from working with Jobs or from being the design leader. Instead it makes a lot more sense if the 2016 MBP was a result of the other designers being let loose with no supervision from Ive. Lacking leadership, they went in on no ports and a gimmicky Touch Bar.
panny 5y ago
>Honestly to me the M1 era of Apple is the more exciting than things have been in years. Not if you look at the style. It's another a boring grey slab. Jony Ive's job was making everything fashionable. While computer geeks tend to under appreciate fashion, it's incredibly important. Fashion is the main difference between a cringe bluetooth headset and Airpods. Right now Apple's best offerings seem permanently stuck in 2010s fashion, and it's getting really tired looking. Frankly, I'd rather be seen sporting a tablet thin Samsung galaxy laptop with punchy colors, stylus, and 360 hinge than a Macbook now. I don't care if the M1 has 50 hours of battery life. It looks boring. I don't want to look boring. I don't want to look like I'm permanently stuck in 2013.
- eropple 5y ago
  > It looks boring. I don't want to look boring. I don't want to look like I'm permanently stuck in 2013. Your consumer gadget choices should not define you or your "look". Nobody else cares what computer you use. It's fine.
  - longtimelistnr 5y ago
    For you they don’t but for many if not most they do. To most consumers the products aesthetics is the only deciding factor between competing products
rmk 5y ago
The M1 arrived 13 years after the iPhone. A company of the size of Apple not putting out new products in keeping with its size is basically a lack of innovation. Some of my friends, who are Apple employees (and basically fanboys) can't stand to hear this, because they think that Apple is the greatest company on the planet (it may be, in terms of market cap, but debatable on all other fronts). But, it's pretty difficult to follow up the iPhone and iPad with something that's as revolutionary. There are people who think the watch is in the same category, but I doubt it. It does sound like Ive was burned out, which the article points out. Once you are burned out, you are really rationalizing, ipso facto, your decision to leave, which has already crystallized in your mind. The article does point out that Ive was burned out and could not manage the large group effectively because he was overwhelmed. In the end the Gods were cut down to size. It sounds entirely plausible that Ive did not produce much (aside from the campus, whose aesthetic and functional value is questionable) and made poor calls about the marketing of his first "independent" product, the watch (which was reoriented from fashion toward fitness by Cook), because he was burned out and bean-counters were running the show, sometimes rightly questioning extravagant designs in things such as the Apple campus.

philistine 5y ago

They just released a brand new computer, the Mac Studio. This is not a legacy product.

nojito 5y ago

I don’t think that was due to Ive but more so that he couldn’t excel without Steve around. It's also clearly stated in the article that this was one of the reasons that Ive was given the CDO role. So that he could do less of what Steve did for him.

ceejayoz 5y ago
This. It seems clear Jobs served a “you made it very pretty but it sucks to use” role in feedback.
- kergonath 5y ago
  There are many counter-examples, from the original iMac’s mouse to the iPod Hifi. Jobs said no a lot, and that was a good thing, but he did not have absolute good taste. To his credit, he was good at learning from mistakes, even though he very rarely acknowledged them in public.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    Don’t have to get every single one right to still play the role. The man was effective, not infallible.
    - kergonath 5y ago
      But then it works both ways: you cannot cite a couple of failures under Cook to say that Jobs was irreplaceable.
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        You seem to be debating someone else; I haven't said that? I think Jobs and Ive were a pair that complimented each other. I think when Jobs died, Ive lost that moderating influence, and "thin at the cost of good" and "we got rid of buttons" were the result for a while.
        astrange 5y ago
        On the other hand, Ive without Jobs got you iOS 7 with all the fine Corinthian leather removed.

bschne 5y ago

> Honestly to me the M1 era of Apple is the more exciting than things have been in years. Yes, I feel like this is somehow still massively underappreciated. They pulled off a major hardware transition without big hiccups (I'm sure someone's going to point some I have missed in the comments /s) and launched a bunch of devices that are an incredible leap forward. I mean the baseline M1 air starts at $1k and is an incredible piece of hardware for most usage.

Maursault 5y ago
> Yes, I feel like this is somehow still massively underappreciated. No, it is overhyped (not by Apple), and it worries me. Apple's platform jumps are impressive (and this last seamless platform switch is more about macOS, good decisions NeXT made a very long time ago, developer empowerment decisions), but let's not confuse that with how bonkers every user of M1 and family are going. We have a bit of anecdotal data coming in, no one can believe, and I quote 5000 new M1 owners, "how snappy" the M1 is. But look at the benchmarks. Each M1 model is a typical and negligible increase in performance over whatever most recent previous Intel model. We are talking about 1.05x performance increases! For example, take the 2018 6-core Intel Mini with the 3.2GHz processors and compare performance to the 2020 M1 mini, and it is immediately apparent, the 2020 M1 mini is really only a little bit more performant. And this is not bad news, it just means everyone is out of their minds, but it is typical of new Apple releases. The new models are always just a little more performant than the last revision (except 2010-2012, when models doubled in performance 3 years in a row and did not double again until 2018). So the hype on M1 is overwhelming, and the M1 and family are not at all under appreciated. People seem to think M1 is miraculous, and I admit I think it is pretty neat... even after comparing benchmarks with previous models and realizing this is not a quadrupling or even doubling of performance; the increase in performance with Apple switching from Intel to ARM is... merely incremental. This was a lateral move, and not a giant leap forward, not yet. Go look for yourself. But don't be sad about it, again, this is entirely typical of Apple new releases... the new models are always just a little better than the last revision. Of course, performance is not the only metric. So the hype says M1 walks on water, but misses the truth, that M1 does what x86 does with less power. Again, M1 isn't what a lot of people are saying... it doesn't blow Intel out of the water, it merely keeps pace with Intel, and that is impressive enough... but add the efficiency gains, and what we have are chips as good as Intel's (more or less), but use less power. Anything evangelized beyond this is crazy hype.

ghaff 5y ago

MacBooks in particular went through a period with some notable downs--through some combination of design, engineering, and manufacturing missteps. Even my 2015 MacBook Pro had to get its display replaced (after Apple extended the warranty) to deal with a defect. But there was basically no MacBook between then and now that really tempted me to upgrade. (And the 14" M1 Pro is pretty much perfect for me.)

FollowingTheDao 5y ago

> the M1 era of Apple is the more exciting than things have been in years. Abso-frickin-loutly. The 2020 MacBook Air M1 is the best laptop hardware device you can buy on the market right now. The battery life is amazing and this makes the laptop almost invisible since I am hardly ever struggling to search for power. The sound is great as well. Price per pound you cannot beat it. My one small gripe is the black glass bezel, which turns into a distracting fingerprint magnet. They do need to up their game on SSD storage. but I am sure the MBA's at Apple do not care because this drives people to buy iCloud storage. And if that is the case, they really need to work on iCloud because the syncing sucks. I would certainly buy an iPad M1 if they let me run apps like LibreOffice, so they need to get their act together on software. Yeah, I have a lot of issues with their software. Software, IMHO, is where they really need to innovate. Once Asahi Linux is stable I will probably abandon MacOS again.

lostmsu 5y ago
Yet it still does not have a touchscreen, and I personally would prefer 2-in-1.
- otterley 5y ago
  Sounds like you might prefer an iPad Pro with a keyboard.
  - spockz 5y ago
    I would instantly go for an iPad Pro, if it would run normal macOS. Or things like vscode and docker, and games. I just can’t justify to myself the expense compared to an m1 laptop, just for the form factor.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - LegitShady 5y ago
    unfortunately the ipad os is the limitation on the pro. I tried to make it work but its back to its previous position as media consumption, music production box (which is annoying to deal with due to lack of audio outs), and occasional text editor.

atom_arranger 5y ago

I did like the move towards less ports, although it was inconvenient at times. I do wonder if Apple had incentivized the ecosystem to move more to USB-C if things could have gone better. If there were lots of monitors and TVs actually supporting USB-C/Thunderbolt it would be nice, it's a thinner nicer cable, also has more bandwidth.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

anonymouse008 5y ago

Let’s say it this way in another domain - no matter the rationalization, Mikey And Bob with Jerry is completely different than with John. That’s all this is. Not that big of a deal, but without a doubt very different.

arinlen 5y ago

> Look at what happened to the MacBook Pro, losing most of its ports and the thinness causing them to put a much worse keyboard in it that caused massive problems. Sacrificing a bit of thinness and going back on those changes with the newest iteration has been much better. Adding a useless touch bar and losing F-keys also doesn't do much to win over fans, and it should be stressed that the infamous MacBook pro keyboards were a constant source of problems.

ed_elliott_asc 5y ago
I love the Touch Bar!
- FPGAhacker 5y ago
  I don’t love the Touch Bar entirely, but I do really like the slider for brightness and volume. I’d rather have fkeys for everything else. Maybe they could give us a mini touchbar just wide enough for going volume and brightness.
  - bad_good_guy 5y ago
    I thought I loved the slider for volume/brightness, and was concerned about losing them, but then realized how little I cared when I went back to no slider
  - Kerrick 5y ago
    I would love a full width Touch Bar right above the fn key row they just brought back. I don’t see why it has to be one or the other.
    - ed_elliott_asc 5y ago
      I’m surprised no one made an app that turns Touch Bar into fn (without having to press fn) and a button to switch to the apps choices. Love Spotify with touchbar, debugging with vs code etc - shame it was hated. A mini Touch Bar with fn keys above would be lovely!

mgh2 5y ago

It is not uncommon for media to create controversy to sell the author's book...

dtrizzle 5y ago
You are not wrong. But in this case there was a significant amount of contemporaneous reporting when Ive left, predating this book.
- mgh2 5y ago
  It doesn't mean the investigation is completely false either, you just have to pinpoint the truth in between.

7speter 5y ago

The funny thing is apple probably transitioned to their in house arm architecture in part because the intel chips ran too hot and throttled in the ultra thin ive products.

markus_zhang 5y ago

Agreed. I have looked at Apple products for years but couldn't make up the mind to switch, until my company gave me a M1 laptop and OMG it is so good. Last time I had this feeling was when iphone 3 or 4 came out. My previous company also gave me a Macbook pro but that was 2017 and I found enough quirks not to buy one for myself.

mgh2 5y ago

Apple's hierarchal organization based on technical expertise is key to its innovation: https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovation https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovatio... Everything else is a complement, but they don't drive leadership internally or externally to stay ahead of the industry.

chrischen 5y ago

Small nitpick the butterfly keyboard was problematic because of the high failure rate. Many, me included, actually like the feel better and the smaller key travel.

imwillofficial 5y ago
That was one of many reasons. I would say the majority of people disliked the small key travel, that’s why apple “fixed” it in the latest iteration, specifically calling it out as a benefit. What do you like more about it compared to the newer one?
- chrischen 5y ago
  In particular my main mechanical keyboard is a 35g electro capacitive one, so I'm been pretty adjusted to lower key weights. The new Macbook keyboards are just too stiff and have too much travel for me to type fast/not get fatigued. I think even if one is accustomed to heavier keys, all things being equal, if they learned to type on lighter/shorter travel they can get faster at typing.
  - moondev 5y ago
    What keyboard? I've been using a low profile keychron with mt3 caps recently. Great feel with very short travel. Everything else feels so sloppy now.
    - chrischen 5y ago
      Niz plum EC keyboard. The combination of 35g + the dome switches are a great combo of light activation but still letting you rest your fingers on the keys without triggering them because the activation is at the top rather than linear.
  - eropple 5y ago
    On the other hand, I use pretty light switches on a desktop keyboard and still was thumping all the way down on the butterfly keys. I didn't hate how they felt in the act of typing, but I hated that they hurt my hands after a few hours. And (as you note) if you breathed near the laptop, they'd jam.

bombcar 5y ago

Thinness matters when everything else is an absolute chonk. But there’s a point at which it becomes basically worthless to get thinner.

davidhariri 5y ago

> Honestly to me the M1 era of Apple is the more exciting than things have been in years The average person doesn't know or care about M1. If you are on HN, you are an enthusiast ("Pro" in Apple parlance). To everyone else, Apple just made their already pretty quiet and fast laptops, quieter and faster. I think the article is right that the world is waiting to see if Apple's new bottom-up design org can deliver a new category-owning product. So far, they've proven that they can improve the legacy suite of products in meaningful ways and aren't afraid to roll back poor past decisions. I think the author is probably right that Apple's services org is getting much more attention than in the past. When everything flows downwards, you get a singular vision, blind spots included. I think we saw that with Ive. This was true with Jobs' Macintosh too, before Ive joined. Today, we have fewer blind spots, but we haven't seen evidence that there are leaders willing to take big swings into new categories. Time will tell...

nathancahill 5y ago
50% of customers purchasing a Mac in Q2 2022 were new Mac users: https://www.macrumors.com/2022/04/28/mac-users-q2-2022-new-to-mac/ https://www.macrumors.com/2022/04/28/mac-users-q2-2022-new-t... Which is actually incredible when you think about it. They might not know or care about what "M1" is (although I doubt that), but it's clearly a commercial success.
- davidhariri 5y ago
  Great stat. I might be underselling the achievement... I bet some of that growth is driven by the insane battery life, which we know people care a lot about. To be clear, I own and love 2 M1-based machines :-) I stand by my overall comment, though: They are better Macs. Not a new category or a new product for Apple.
  - opan 5y ago
    They are powerful ARM laptops. I'm considering getting one purely because of that + Asahi Linux. My Pinebook Pro just doesn't cut it as a main machine, and I'm sick of x86.

TradingPlaces 5y ago

Global PC shipments down 4% in Q1. Mac shipments up 8%. The M1 Macs are the most exciting thing Apple’s done since the Watch. https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-pc-shipments-q1-2022/ https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-pc-shipments-q1-...

hintymad 5y ago

People as talented as Ive still need a champion and a leader to balance his artistic sense to constraints in business. Jobs was that champion. Without the counter balance and support from Jobs, Ive became less effective.

2muchcoffeeman 5y ago

That could just be a cycle thing. In an age where computers were at best boring, Ive and Jobs were what was needed to create the next great products. But maybe we hit a technological wall, and now we need strict hardware improvements. We all complain about the thinness, but it's not really that is it? It's the sacrifice they made to achieve it that pisses people off. Because we still need the things they threw away. If it all worked as imagined we'd be all over the slightly thinner machines. In some ways, the M1 is going to enable the thinness again. When we hit the next tech wall, you may need another Ive and Jobs to dream up things.

quitit 5y ago

Ive is just the latest vehicle for the oft retold “apple is doomed” story. The media frequently plays apple as some kind of small company where genius individuals are developing blockbuster products in isolation, and not the hard-slog reality of their product development methodology.

Valkhyr 5y ago

I can definitely see that argument, but I feel the issue is that Ive lacked a product-focussed and customer-focussed CEO to reign in his "wilder" impulses (the Edition watches are another example of that). Jobs may have managed Ive's drive in a way that would not have seemed bean-countery to him but customer-focussed. In other words, Ive was only a liability in so far as he had no actual peers at the company to reign him in. And it's debatable that that's not really his fault.

Affric 5y ago
I would have liked to see what Ive could do with the M1 and its thermals. I think that your comment is insightful in that while Ive's time at the top of Apple product development was far from perfect, his success was undeniable. Jony might not always have been right but he was always wrong for the right reasons. Principled in his vision for design and human interface. I think his worst successes (lol) were those he had over software UI and removing information from the UI in the name of aesthetics or the Touch Bar in the name of changing how we see keyboards. His understanding of how to make a computer something you wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen with but also something that you can take with you everywhere (thin and light are good when the tech can match) have certainly made his devices more a part of our lives. Jobs could match him on this stuff but I would imagine that it would go over a lot of business and engineer types' heads. Takes all sorts.

frogpelt 5y ago

This is the problem with designing and re-designing where function follows form. You have to keep changing and the only way to go, seemingly, is away from functional.

matthewfcarlson 5y ago

I agree. I’m really happy to be in the M1 era. Healthy companies have a good balance between engineering, design, and marketing. The M1 is the direct result of some really talented engineers not the design team.

etempleton 5y ago

Ive is a brilliant designer, but Steve seemed to be able to reign in his worst instincts. From everything I have heard about Ive, he reminds me of a few designers I have worked with who were wonderful designers, but struggle to understand the importance of practical constraints such as engineering, cost, user feedback, etc. The Apple Watch is a great example. It is a wonderful device, but the whole launch seemed confused. Remember the 24k Gold watch? That was the least Steve thing Apple has ever done. Steve believed in well designed and built products, but was almost allergic to excess.

timc3 5y ago
That makes him a pretty poor designer, particularly in the industrial sense. If you can’t balance those constraints you are not a good designer.

bspear 5y ago

Ive reminds me of a pretty good designer elevated at the right place at the right time

hardwaregeek 5y ago

If the article is to be believed, Ive had already stepped away, at least mentally, by late 2014. Which does mean that the much maligned 2016 Macbook Pro might not have been fully his fault. Tbh that seems a lot more likely than the usual HN "Jobs kept Ive in line" argument. Ive had been leading design at Apple for a long time. It's be a little odd if he didn't learn any sense of pragmatism from working with Jobs or from being the design leader. Instead it makes a lot more sense if the 2016 MBP was a result of the other designers being let loose with no supervision from Ive. Lacking leadership, they went in on no ports and a gimmicky Touch Bar.

panny 5y ago

>Honestly to me the M1 era of Apple is the more exciting than things have been in years. Not if you look at the style. It's another a boring grey slab. Jony Ive's job was making everything fashionable. While computer geeks tend to under appreciate fashion, it's incredibly important. Fashion is the main difference between a cringe bluetooth headset and Airpods. Right now Apple's best offerings seem permanently stuck in 2010s fashion, and it's getting really tired looking. Frankly, I'd rather be seen sporting a tablet thin Samsung galaxy laptop with punchy colors, stylus, and 360 hinge than a Macbook now. I don't care if the M1 has 50 hours of battery life. It looks boring. I don't want to look boring. I don't want to look like I'm permanently stuck in 2013.

eropple 5y ago
> It looks boring. I don't want to look boring. I don't want to look like I'm permanently stuck in 2013. Your consumer gadget choices should not define you or your "look". Nobody else cares what computer you use. It's fine.
- longtimelistnr 5y ago
  For you they don’t but for many if not most they do. To most consumers the products aesthetics is the only deciding factor between competing products

rmk 5y ago

The M1 arrived 13 years after the iPhone. A company of the size of Apple not putting out new products in keeping with its size is basically a lack of innovation. Some of my friends, who are Apple employees (and basically fanboys) can't stand to hear this, because they think that Apple is the greatest company on the planet (it may be, in terms of market cap, but debatable on all other fronts). But, it's pretty difficult to follow up the iPhone and iPad with something that's as revolutionary. There are people who think the watch is in the same category, but I doubt it. It does sound like Ive was burned out, which the article points out. Once you are burned out, you are really rationalizing, ipso facto, your decision to leave, which has already crystallized in your mind. The article does point out that Ive was burned out and could not manage the large group effectively because he was overwhelmed. In the end the Gods were cut down to size. It sounds entirely plausible that Ive did not produce much (aside from the campus, whose aesthetic and functional value is questionable) and made poor calls about the marketing of his first "independent" product, the watch (which was reoriented from fashion toward fitness by Cook), because he was burned out and bean-counters were running the show, sometimes rightly questioning extravagant designs in things such as the Apple campus.