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Apple Design Chief Jony Ive: iPhone X Will 'Change and Evolve' Over Time
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I'd be curious to hear what facets of 'design' you believe the Apple of today truly believes in and excels in?
As a former engineer in the automotive industry, I'll state what I believe a company like Ford Motor Co believes in. Some of their top 'design' considerations, not in any order:
1. Function over the long haul - durability, serviceability
2. Prime function to the user - performance feel, comfort, ease to understand the operation
3. Secondary function to the user - flexibility & usability, utility
3. Marketability - style, appearance, surprise & delights that the user is likely to come across easily
My take on the 'design' that Ive & Apple excel at and prioritize today, this time in order:
1. Marketability - style, appearance, surprise & delights that are often hard to find (or never found) by the user
2. Prime function to the user - performance feel, comfort
I think people nowadays, especially in this forum, throw around the word 'design' too quickly without thinking what the word really means. Design is more than how something looks.
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I feel that Apple’s strength lies in being able to make hard trade offs, and more often than not, they have the knack for making the right sacrifices which result in the desired user experience for the consumer.
Take the MacBook Air for example. Prior to it, manufacturers just crammed all manner of specs into their laptops. The end result were computers which were bulky and heavy, with short battery life. Apple made the call to do away with just about everything they felt was secondary to what made a great laptop. They opted to prioritise a thin and light form factor, while still maintaining a great keyboard and trackpad, and did away with the cd drive, the majority of ports, basically everything people once felt were indispensable.
And you know what? People realised they didn’t really need those features anyways. Or in the very least, they felt they valued portability more, and didn’t mind the inconvenience of using dongles and finding workarounds (like using cloud storage in place of cd drives), and in the process found a new way of working which wasn’t any worse than the older way of working.
You are absolutely right. Design is how something works, and very often, what makes a great product depends not only on what features it has, but what it doesn’t have. The MacBook Air’s strengths were derived from what it didn’t have.
That’s what I pay Apple to do - make the tough choices as to what goes into a product (and what doesn’t) so I don’t have to.
If it’s one lesson I have learnt from Apple, it’s to start with the desired end experience and then work backwards to deliver that experience. Perhaps Apple didn’t invent that philosophy, but they are one of the few companies I see who has actually been able to walk the talk and execute it properly rather than just pay lip service about caring a hoot about the end user experience. I have used that philosophy at work to a fair degree of success, and I will say - it’s not the easiest concept to grasp, because it will require one to make hard choices as to what not to include as well.
Honestly, I think Airpods are some of the best products Apple has ever designed.
It’s all about form enabling function. It’s extremely small and light and I can wear them for hours without feeling any discomfort. Not easy for someone who wears spectacles.
The long battery life means I don’t have to recharge it as often. And that’s the purpose of the stems - to enable better connectivity and provide more pace for batteries.
The case makes it easy to keep the Airpods and bring them around with me. And a portable pair of earbuds is one I will use more often.
I dunno if I look like a dork wearing them, and I admit I was initially a little self conscious when I first wore them outdoors, but now, I just use them outside with nary a care about what the rest of the world thinks. If my friends and colleagues think I look ridiculous, they are doing a very good job of hiding it.
It’s actually very clever when you think of how every aspect of the design of the Airpods come together to enable that unique user experience. From the ease of pairing to the long battery life to its portability and level of comfort. And it’s pretty evident because no one else in the market has been able to make a competing product which works as well as the Airpods, or as cheaply.
If that’s not a sign of good design, I don’t know what is.
Thanks for the thoughtful response! But don't you think there's sometimes a limit, sometimes reaching a point where you can go only so far and where any more is counter-productive? Your MBAir example is a perfect one, I too was shocked at first with the idea of sub-128g SDD's and no cd-rom. But isn't it possible that Apple is reaching (or passed already) the point where it was time for putting pencils down instead of keeping trying for innovative design via removing/minimizing/simplifying the software and hardware while still overlooking some very key basics for robust ("robust" as in: "well-rounded for various usage styles" and not "super-strong and durable"), if not making them worse (more thinness & more prettiness/delicateness at the expense of durability & battery life).
Jony's priorities and inability to recognize when too much is too much is a concern for many of us who feel committed to the Apple ecosystem.
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I don’t always agree with everything Apple does, but I guess I have been lucky so far in that many of their latest products have been suitable for me. I am using my iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to teach in the classroom. It’s mirrored to an Apple TV. I love my Apple Watch for the notifications and my Airpods for the portable listening experience. Even the way the pencil charges via the iPad lightning port is quite clever, I feel, as it lets me keep it charged without the need for extra cables or adaptors or batteries. It’s all wonderfully self-contained.
That is what makes Apple so polarizing. They aim for product experience often times at the sacrifice of user choice. And if their idea of what you want in a product matches yours, then it is full of secret magic and delight. And if not, it can be frustration, like jogging through quicksand.
That’s just the way she goes.
As someone who has used eyeglasses most of their life, if they cause you discomfort you need a better fitting model.
I think the Airpods are yet another Apple product that come with significant drawbacks, mainly that they are easy to lose if they drop out of your ears and if someone wants to steal one they can just snatch it out of your ear. If they were at least optionally connectable with a simple string they would stay together better and would be caught before being stolen.
In the same vein the latest iteration of the Macbook Pro comes with several drawbacks. I have one and having to remember to bring an adapter to connect anything to it is a pain. The overly large trackpad constantly causes me to put my cursor where it isn't supposed to go because it thinks of my palm as my finger. The Touchbar is still a nearly completely useless creation. The keyboard has so poor travel it feels a lot worse than the previous gen to the point that I have started to carry a 60% size mechanical keyboard I can plonk on top of the laptop keyboard just to get a decent typing feel. It's my work machine so I had no say in getting it but I hate every change they made except making it a bit smaller and lighter. Would it have killed them to include just one old fashioned USB-A port for at least a few years as USB-C devices catch up? The current non-Pro Macbooks are a joke as well. They are floppy, physically unstable devices with awful keyboards and subpar specs.
The iPad Pro is right now about the only Apple device where I cannot find any significant flaws. Ok, the 12.9" model could have a bit smaller bezels but otherwise it's really great. The things they upgraded with the latest version and adding the 10.5" model were great - basically all changes that make using the device better instead of making it more marketable.
That's what Apple used to do, they made their devices better to use each year but after Jobs died fancy looks, thinness and how to sell people more accessories became more important factors than providing the best device they can think of. Good business for Apple, awful for the consumer.
Well put!
Funny how so many of us dissatisfied users would be satisfied if Apple simply offered 3 lb laptop with more ports, longer battery life, and access to expandability...or an iPhone for users desiring a more durable piece of hardware with more flexibility of ports...or an iOS skin that returns some of the colorful intuitive UI cues that made Apple the powerhouse it becomes in the mid-00's. Those would be really good design choices. Honda didn't sell just F1 cars pushing the bleeding edge of design onto grandmothers seeking a nice 4-cyl Accord. Why does Apple?
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Better aperture on the Telephoto lens 2.4 vs 2.8, IOS on both lenses as opposed to just one on the 8 Plus.
Exactly and he should have never been CEO. It's nothing against him but he riding off the Steve Jobs momentum and as it slows he blames the economics or lack of market for a product.
No Cook the device, insert model here, is either priced out of the market or missing key features so Ive could make it a few mm thinner.
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As a CEO he needs to generate revenue. But this is a major corporation not some startup. He's maximizing profits today at the expense of tomorrow.
He has even managed to squander the iPhone brand. He has to go. It's not just the device sales he is endangering. The devices are the things that bind people to the App Store. Apps have a shelf life and if the devices are not there the apps won't be maintained and then they will be the next Blackberry.
It's not like the fix is hard either? Just stop being arrogant and listen to the customers. How hard is that?
Wrong. Those who are consistently negative about Apple will never allow anything this Company does to be acceptable,because they want to hate on this as much as they can, Because Apples narrative doesn't align with their own. Sometimes those 'negative people' need to move onto other competitor products, as Apple won't change based on superficial demands from users on a tech forum.
Well, I am sorry for your disappointment.All I can say is that as a sculptor I do have an intimate relationship with my tools and if they don’t suit me—for whatever reason—I find an alternative. I never pretend that something satisfies me if it does not. I get rid of it. It’s tricky if a tool is “OK” but not great.
Fair and valuable assessment. I think I need to get back using my tools and just ignore the verbiage from Apple brass.
Appreciate your input.
Ive: "I'm only just now realizing that hardware doesn't mean everything and that the competition has caught up to, and is in many ways surpassing, Apple. So I'm going to give this nonsensical speech that only makes me look like I've been too full of myself to look out the window instead of a mirror."
No, another friend asked if they would eventually do away with the swipe up, but I don't think they will.
When you look at the phone the little lock icon flips open but nothing happens until you swipe up.
Also, you notifications don't show detail until you look. So, if someone else picks up your phone they can see that you got a text, but can't see the details until you look at the screen.
Or: How to fill the new Apple Campus as quickly as possible? Put Ive in there, his egomania will do the rest in no time
Every year it becomes more apparent that Ive is little more than a glorified CAD engineer and the real talent pulling the strings in design was his old boss.
Let's move on. Notch is here to stay. Even Tim Cook mentioned this in keynote. I'm sure if Apple offered different sizes of future X products, people will change their perspective...either positively or negatively. If they can't adapt to this, well, they will have to stay with old generation iphones...or adopt android.
Apple didn’t become successful by listening to the consumer.
That said, I think Cook is doing a great job of being Apple’s CEO.
Different people are needed at different points in a company history. Jobs was right for his era, but he would have been a disaster for the Cook era. Cook is amazing, and has been responsible for most of the achievements of Apple, but not the initial innovation and concept that Jobs provided. Cook has refined the culture and expanded it, and has done as fine a job as any CEO in American history, if not world business history.
He’s no Steve Jobs, and that’s perfect all right.
Well, here’s a counterpoint.
Mac sales improved this quarter. More people bought the much-maligned MacBook despite all the vitriol poured on it in forums like this.
Is it possible that the general average consumer loves it, while it is only a very niche group of users who are complaining. Maybe it’s not Apple who ought to change, because from what I see, Apple is still doing the same thing they have always done - use design to make technology more personal and remove barriers that prevent users from getting the most out of their products.
I dareday that the people complaining now are those who have benefited from Apple thinking outside the box and daring to offer unorthodox products in the past. Just that now, they are now no longer Apple’s target market.
It’s a lousy feeling, isn’t it? Realising that you now have no place in this new world order that Apple seeks to bring about?
But you see - the crux of the issue here is that times have changed, and Apple too has changed in keeping with those times. It’s like walking into a French restaurant today and complaining that they don’t serve Japanese cuisine. These people want what Apple cannot or will not provide. Apple’s not the problem. They are.
I'm not. It's just an expression. It's pretty tiring how people would debating something that is subjective. However, if you don't agree don't respond. worry about yourself. Many thanks.