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I was always inspired more by Jony Ive over Steve Jobs. In interviews he was always more real to me, more humble. A simple take away I've had from Johny (and st

I was always inspired more by Jony Ive over Steve Jobs. In interviews he was always more real to me, more humble. A simple take away I've had from Johny (and steve to some extent) is to simply pay attention, to everything and anything. That kind of care and focus is how they get to be apple, versus good enough. But will their products get better as a result of this? or will they continue to decline? Design has always taken more prominence at apple over usability (do they even have a Chief Usability Officer?) To some degree it's a tolerable tradeoff to make; but I've noticed their products have become significantly more design focused and well, pretty much everything else has taken back seat. Perhaps there's TOO much design, and not enough of everything else. Maybe Steve was that balance to Jony and now the ying is yangless. Or maybe they're just optimizing their business for other things, and the things that matter to me are insignificant to them now.

phaus 11y ago
I think Jony is even more pretentious than Steve. Isn't he the one that used red anodized aluminum to make a Mac Pro for a charity and then acted as if he "designed" a special version?
- prawn 11y ago
  I agree. Jobs got away with his act because he more or less invented it. Jony is acting the act. From what I've seen, I find him really off-putting. Once tasted wine at a place where the host was too slick, too smooth, too rehearsed. I had to walk out and leave our group with it. He reminds me of that.
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    I think it is more that Jobs was a natural, the guy seemed to be a functioning psycopath/sociopath.
- threeseed 11y ago
  Jony is an industrial designer by trade and heart. So "design" for him and everyone else doesn't just mean how it looks but how it is made. I don't know about the process for making the Mac Pro red but given how much time Apple spends on material engineering I would assume it is non trivial.
  - phaus 11y ago
    If the Mac Pro was the first object ever made with red anodized aluminum, I'd agree that it was probably a non-trivial process. That's clearly not the case here.
    - alex_anglin 11y ago
      Another perspective would be that by having Ive hype the design for the red Mac Pro, it's value was increased and so too was its contribution to the charity in question. Love him or loathe him, Ive is the preeminent celebrity industrial designer.
      - prawn 11y ago
        Starck, Eames, Dyson, Newson?
      - phaus 11y ago
        That person didn't give a million dollars to charity because he actually thought that a red Mac Pro was worth a million dollars, he gave a million dollars to charity because he was an incredibly nice person.
- Bud 11y ago
  I think you have a lot of animus for someone who is basically making up a story about someone else "acting like" something, from whole cloth. What do you know about what Ive "acted like" precisely?
- jkestner 11y ago
  It's steel, and it raised $1 million for AIDS. What's the problem?
dcw303 11y ago
Design includes usability. I suspect you are confusing it with aesthetics - a common mistake.
- meesterdude 11y ago
  I think you're right. I certainly believe good design reflects good usability; but "aesthetics" feels a bit derogatory to me, which is maybe why i don't use it in my vocabulary when I should.
  - wavefunction 11y ago
    What's wrong with aesthetics? Certainly aesthetics at the cost of functionality, but good design means that form and function are complementary and aesthetics is certainly part of a fantastic design.
    - meesterdude 11y ago
      It's just one of those things for me, what the word means and how I feel about the word are not always in alignment. It could be because I've always fought back against aesthetics at the cost of functionality, and it's left some mark on me like that. But you're right, though. I'm not saying it's a 100% logical thing of me to get hung up on.
nationcrafting 11y ago
>Design has always taken more prominence at apple over usability I strongly disagree with you there. In fact, I'd say the exact opposite. The experience of using the product has always been at the very core of Apple's design philosophy. The entire desktop metaphor, include the Trash, the files in folders, etc. is about simplifying the user experience with the computer. The fact that anyone can just pick up an iPhone and pretty much immediately know what they should be doing, without reading a manual, tells you exactly that usability has been so thought out that it has become invisible. You just do what you want to do, without having to think about how to do it. So, it's the embodiment of the Steve Krug "Don't make me think" mindset: usability is design.
- meesterdude 11y ago
  As someone who is a big fan of "don't make me think" (just bought the third edition a few days ago, actually) I can attest that there are things that apple has done/designed that make me think or pause. I Don't think it's core to their philosophy - perhaps it is a part of it, but not front and center. I get snagged on too many things for that to be the case; and it's become noticeable in the past few years to the point of hindrance for me in some cases. Their keyboards and mice particularly showcase this: they look pretty and sleek, but try using them all day, and then try using a regular keyboard and mouse. They weren't thinking about the human who has to use it, they were thinking of appeal and looks. You're not wrong about the approachability of IOS; that's no accident, and required a good deal of thought and attention. But I think whenever there is a tie, and they can either improve the aesthetics or improve the usability, they lean towards the former, because it's sexier and will sell.
  - nationcrafting 11y ago
    Good point re: keyboard and mouse. Especially the round mouse, just looking at that gives me a funny feeling in the metacarpals.
    - pilsetnieks 11y ago
      Do you mean the round one-button mouse from the 1998 iMac?
nothis 11y ago
I'm a little disappointed how the top post in here presents design almost as an opposite to usability. That's not how it should work and certainly not how Apple got so successful. I think you might mean "aesthetics", that would be an important difference. Good design is never just decoration, it's not just an aesthetic hull with the "real" functionality hidden behind it. Good design is from the ground up, how the entire experience is structured, including the stuff under the hood. Apple's main strength is in putting a ton of research into how users actually use their devices (textbook "usability") and making sure things are always ranked by importance. There's stuff iOS doesn't do that most Android devices do and it's not missing because Apple can't pull it off, it's because they decided not to waste space/learning-time for the user on something that might, for most people, not be important. Meanwhile, niche functionality is supported through a myriad of apps. That's not minimalism for the sake of aesthetics, that's a really smart usability decision that has payed off over and over for them. For a counter-example, I'm sure Apple was very tempted to make the Apple Watch touch-only but instead included a somewhat clumsy looking scroll wheel because that makes more sense for such a tiny display. The few places where aesthetics clash with functionality (a lack of physical buttons that might seem reasonable, some questionable font choices,...) tend to get replaced by a more all-around solution (forget about buttons and go straight to touch) or a willingness to identify and fix problems (a new font for Apple Watch and iOS9). I really don't think we'll get very far by calling out usability, of all things, as an area where Apple lacks. Apple has other problems, they're not perfect. But if they fail, it'll probably not be because of usability issues. It might rather be that people start asking what reason there could possibly be to upgrade to the next iPhone.
leoc 11y ago
It seems Scott Forstall was meant to be an major part of the post-Jobs balance of power, but that didn't last long.
kennyledet 11y ago
> In interviews he was always more real to me, more humble. Guessing you haven't seen TLI. Watch it then come back and tell us he wasn't humble deep down inside. Steve was just really proud of his company and wanted it to excel past the norms.
- shill 11y ago
  TLI = Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview
- gkoberger 11y ago
  For those of you confused, it seems TLI is "The Lost Interview": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJenqhpwvlA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJenqhpwvlA
  - meesterdude 11y ago
    Thank you for linking this, it was worthwhile to watch for sure.
- meesterdude 11y ago
  I had not, no. I'm not sure that was a particularly humble interview, but he's at least more down to earth than I've seen him otherwise. The little voice in me still critiques his methodology of working with others: he may have been smart, but he didn't need to be such a dick. I don't say that so much to put him down, but as my own reference that I don't need to be a jerk to people to get good work from them. (I feel some people have different take aways)
UIZealot 11y ago
Without Steve Jobs, Jony Ive is just another designer. No doubt he's a very good one, but many others are just as good, if not better. It's sad that Steve couldn't be there to tell Jony that the iOS 7 design sucked, big time, to tell him to do it over. It has ruined iOS for me, and not a few others I gather.
- beedogs 11y ago
  And they're in the process of ruining OS X with that ugly, flat iOS 7 look, too. It's truly a shame what's become of Apple since Jobs passed.
- pekk 11y ago
  and I suppose that without Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak is just another engineer?
  - vuyani 11y ago
    Yes. Without Jobs there would be no apple, Wozniak failed to see the appeal and vision steve jobs had about computers.
nzp 11y ago
I don't think Ive is a genius, and I'm not crazy for everything they do, but decline? The state they're in ATM is anything but decline.

phaus 11y ago

I think Jony is even more pretentious than Steve. Isn't he the one that used red anodized aluminum to make a Mac Pro for a charity and then acted as if he "designed" a special version?

prawn 11y ago
I agree. Jobs got away with his act because he more or less invented it. Jony is acting the act. From what I've seen, I find him really off-putting. Once tasted wine at a place where the host was too slick, too smooth, too rehearsed. I had to walk out and leave our group with it. He reminds me of that.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  I think it is more that Jobs was a natural, the guy seemed to be a functioning psycopath/sociopath.
threeseed 11y ago
Jony is an industrial designer by trade and heart. So "design" for him and everyone else doesn't just mean how it looks but how it is made. I don't know about the process for making the Mac Pro red but given how much time Apple spends on material engineering I would assume it is non trivial.
- phaus 11y ago
  If the Mac Pro was the first object ever made with red anodized aluminum, I'd agree that it was probably a non-trivial process. That's clearly not the case here.
  - alex_anglin 11y ago
    Another perspective would be that by having Ive hype the design for the red Mac Pro, it's value was increased and so too was its contribution to the charity in question. Love him or loathe him, Ive is the preeminent celebrity industrial designer.
    - prawn 11y ago
      Starck, Eames, Dyson, Newson?
    - phaus 11y ago
      That person didn't give a million dollars to charity because he actually thought that a red Mac Pro was worth a million dollars, he gave a million dollars to charity because he was an incredibly nice person.
Bud 11y ago
I think you have a lot of animus for someone who is basically making up a story about someone else "acting like" something, from whole cloth. What do you know about what Ive "acted like" precisely?
jkestner 11y ago
It's steel, and it raised $1 million for AIDS. What's the problem?

dcw303 11y ago

Design includes usability. I suspect you are confusing it with aesthetics - a common mistake.

meesterdude 11y ago
I think you're right. I certainly believe good design reflects good usability; but "aesthetics" feels a bit derogatory to me, which is maybe why i don't use it in my vocabulary when I should.
- wavefunction 11y ago
  What's wrong with aesthetics? Certainly aesthetics at the cost of functionality, but good design means that form and function are complementary and aesthetics is certainly part of a fantastic design.
  - meesterdude 11y ago
    It's just one of those things for me, what the word means and how I feel about the word are not always in alignment. It could be because I've always fought back against aesthetics at the cost of functionality, and it's left some mark on me like that. But you're right, though. I'm not saying it's a 100% logical thing of me to get hung up on.

nationcrafting 11y ago

>Design has always taken more prominence at apple over usability I strongly disagree with you there. In fact, I'd say the exact opposite. The experience of using the product has always been at the very core of Apple's design philosophy. The entire desktop metaphor, include the Trash, the files in folders, etc. is about simplifying the user experience with the computer. The fact that anyone can just pick up an iPhone and pretty much immediately know what they should be doing, without reading a manual, tells you exactly that usability has been so thought out that it has become invisible. You just do what you want to do, without having to think about how to do it. So, it's the embodiment of the Steve Krug "Don't make me think" mindset: usability is design.

meesterdude 11y ago
As someone who is a big fan of "don't make me think" (just bought the third edition a few days ago, actually) I can attest that there are things that apple has done/designed that make me think or pause. I Don't think it's core to their philosophy - perhaps it is a part of it, but not front and center. I get snagged on too many things for that to be the case; and it's become noticeable in the past few years to the point of hindrance for me in some cases. Their keyboards and mice particularly showcase this: they look pretty and sleek, but try using them all day, and then try using a regular keyboard and mouse. They weren't thinking about the human who has to use it, they were thinking of appeal and looks. You're not wrong about the approachability of IOS; that's no accident, and required a good deal of thought and attention. But I think whenever there is a tie, and they can either improve the aesthetics or improve the usability, they lean towards the former, because it's sexier and will sell.
- nationcrafting 11y ago
  Good point re: keyboard and mouse. Especially the round mouse, just looking at that gives me a funny feeling in the metacarpals.
  - pilsetnieks 11y ago
    Do you mean the round one-button mouse from the 1998 iMac?

nothis 11y ago

I'm a little disappointed how the top post in here presents design almost as an opposite to usability. That's not how it should work and certainly not how Apple got so successful. I think you might mean "aesthetics", that would be an important difference. Good design is never just decoration, it's not just an aesthetic hull with the "real" functionality hidden behind it. Good design is from the ground up, how the entire experience is structured, including the stuff under the hood. Apple's main strength is in putting a ton of research into how users actually use their devices (textbook "usability") and making sure things are always ranked by importance. There's stuff iOS doesn't do that most Android devices do and it's not missing because Apple can't pull it off, it's because they decided not to waste space/learning-time for the user on something that might, for most people, not be important. Meanwhile, niche functionality is supported through a myriad of apps. That's not minimalism for the sake of aesthetics, that's a really smart usability decision that has payed off over and over for them. For a counter-example, I'm sure Apple was very tempted to make the Apple Watch touch-only but instead included a somewhat clumsy looking scroll wheel because that makes more sense for such a tiny display. The few places where aesthetics clash with functionality (a lack of physical buttons that might seem reasonable, some questionable font choices,...) tend to get replaced by a more all-around solution (forget about buttons and go straight to touch) or a willingness to identify and fix problems (a new font for Apple Watch and iOS9). I really don't think we'll get very far by calling out usability, of all things, as an area where Apple lacks. Apple has other problems, they're not perfect. But if they fail, it'll probably not be because of usability issues. It might rather be that people start asking what reason there could possibly be to upgrade to the next iPhone.

leoc 11y ago

It seems Scott Forstall was meant to be an major part of the post-Jobs balance of power, but that didn't last long.

kennyledet 11y ago

> In interviews he was always more real to me, more humble. Guessing you haven't seen TLI. Watch it then come back and tell us he wasn't humble deep down inside. Steve was just really proud of his company and wanted it to excel past the norms.

shill 11y ago
TLI = Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview
gkoberger 11y ago
For those of you confused, it seems TLI is "The Lost Interview": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJenqhpwvlA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJenqhpwvlA
- meesterdude 11y ago
  Thank you for linking this, it was worthwhile to watch for sure.
meesterdude 11y ago
I had not, no. I'm not sure that was a particularly humble interview, but he's at least more down to earth than I've seen him otherwise. The little voice in me still critiques his methodology of working with others: he may have been smart, but he didn't need to be such a dick. I don't say that so much to put him down, but as my own reference that I don't need to be a jerk to people to get good work from them. (I feel some people have different take aways)

UIZealot 11y ago

Without Steve Jobs, Jony Ive is just another designer. No doubt he's a very good one, but many others are just as good, if not better. It's sad that Steve couldn't be there to tell Jony that the iOS 7 design sucked, big time, to tell him to do it over. It has ruined iOS for me, and not a few others I gather.

beedogs 11y ago
And they're in the process of ruining OS X with that ugly, flat iOS 7 look, too. It's truly a shame what's become of Apple since Jobs passed.
pekk 11y ago
and I suppose that without Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak is just another engineer?
- vuyani 11y ago
  Yes. Without Jobs there would be no apple, Wozniak failed to see the appeal and vision steve jobs had about computers.

nzp 11y ago

I don't think Ive is a genius, and I'm not crazy for everything they do, but decline? The state they're in ATM is anything but decline.