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Alan Dye was brought in during the Jony Ive era when they were launching the first Apple Watch because he came from a fashion/print background. Before Apple rea
by hbn 4mo ago
Alan Dye was brought in during the Jony Ive era when they were launching the first Apple Watch because he came from a fashion/print background. Before Apple really figured out what the Watch was going to be (a health/fitness accessory for your phone) they were going for the "luxury fashion" angle.
Somehow when Ive left, Dye got put in charge of design even though he had zero experience in software design that anyone seems to be aware of. He was criticized for the years following for a lot of bizarre design regressions that were happening across all of Apple's OSes. Then a few months after Dye himself announced Liquid Glass at WWDC last year, he blindsided Apple by accepting a poaching offer from Meta, seemingly because Zuck isn't aware of how untalented the guy is.
Now Stephen Lemay is in charge, who's been at Apple for many years and actually knows stuff about software design. It's said that within the walls of Apple, a lot of people were very happy about the change, and the first showing of design changes we got since then are looking very good for Apple.
- saagarjha 4mo ago[flagged]
- hbn 4mo agoThe bit about internal rumblings at Apple I definitely read from him but the rest is just things we saw play out publicly over the past decade.
- saagarjha 4mo agoI have no real love for Alan Dye but you should probably understand that Gruber feels it is a personal affront that someone might work for a company that is not Apple.
- tambourine_man 4mo agoGruber does not have a monopoly on disliking Alan Dye’s work. On the contrary, I never met anyone who knew UI design was a thing that liked what he did. When you’re using a tool for 40 years and someone who really has no clue gets in charge, starts breaking basic functionality for no good reason and affecting your day to day work, it’s not hard to get infuriated.
- saagarjha 4mo ago[flagged]
- troupo 4mo agoHow do you think thay worked? Alan Dye alome came up with, designed and somehow forced Liquid Glass into every platform? Lemay, who was his second in command had nothing to do with it? It was Alan Dye single-handedly doing it?
- tambourine_man 4mo agoI am very, very curious how he reached, stayed that long at the top of the org chart and convinced so many people that this was a good direction to take. If I were at Apple's leadership I'd consider that a major blindspot and focus deeply on fixing it.
- troupo 4mo agoPerhaps (any of these can be true, or false): - He wasn't the only one pushing it? Lemay was described in Bloomberg as one of the key people behind Liquid Glass - The vision wasn't as bad as it turned out to be, but it was rushed because of yearly releases and Apple having nothing to present? - None of the senior leadership use the devices beyond occasionally, so they couldn't care less what's happening to the UX?
- tambourine_man 4mo agoOn your first point, I don't know if Lemay merely agreed to keep his job or was an enthusiast of the vision. But it is a bit worrisome, if Bloomberg is to be believed. On your second, Liquid Glass is merely the culmination of years of bad direction. Hiding essential feature on hover (notification's close icon, elapsed time on Apple Music, proxy icon, etc), poor contrast, legibility, background/foreground differentiation, was a long running process. On your third point, I think it's possible and, if that's the case, deeply troubling.
- troupo 4mo ago> Now Stephen Lemay is in charge, who's been at Apple for many years and actually knows stuff about software design And who was Dye's second in command, and who was integral in coming up with Liquid Glass, designing it, and forcing it down everyone's throat.
- wmanley 4mo ago> seemingly because Zuck isn't aware of how untalented the guy is. Maybe Zuck just wanted his laptop to get better.