Apple Designing More Functional Products Since Jony Ive's Departure, Argues Bloomberg Reporter

[robertosh]

Current hardware design is like a salad of concepts. Just compare iMac 24 vs the new MBP. The only explanation would be if they are the expression of two different lines, colourful for entry level Macs (iMac 24, MBAir, mini) and a more "serious" line for MBP, iMac 32, Mac Pro.

 

[Rogifan]

Well if a Bloomberg reporter says so. Seriously MR it must be a slow news day if this is considered newsworthy,.

 

[dogslobber]

The problem for Sir Jony is that he didn't have anybody like Steve to say No. That's when an artist works at their very best when they're told their stuff sucks. They try harder next time. But nobody has the cahoots to say that his stuff sucked since Steve. Hence we get utter junk released and we're meant to be mesmerized by it. No. The only guys with backbone at Apple are Eddy Cue and Scott Forstall before he was manhandled out of Apple.

 

[JoshuaBru]

Literally just an opinion. Not reported as fact but I am sure people will go "See? He had to leave for us to get Magsafe back."

🥱​

Thank you for explaining to us how an op-ed works lol

 

[brindleoak]

Apple started caving to the mob since Ive left. Everything thicker and heavier, obsolete ports being put back… the golden era of Apple design has gone. We’re headed towards being Dell with a notch. But hey the YouTubers will be happy, so…

I had no interest in buying a MacBook Pro in your "golden era". Piece of **** keyboard, bag of dongles, thermal throttling, no function keys, crap battery life. I'm definitely getting one of these new ones though... The mob rules!

 

[Parintachin]

Cool.
I'd like to see them fix a few more of the glaring problems too - right to repair is a big one, the spinner when setting an alarm in Clock is a small one - I'd be even more willing to praise them.

 

[lowkey]

“you're liable to lose professional customers – architects, musicians,”

Quite literally wrong. I’m an Architect and musician. I was planning to get the iPhone 13 and a new 16” MacBook Pro. But won’t be now.

I don’t need a single use hdmi port, an SD slot and a single use power adapter port and only 3 USBC connectors. I need 6 USBC please. HDMI doesn’t connect my Display Port monitor. Single use ports are NOT function over form. They are a waste of space. An HDMI port is LESS functional than a USBC/TB port.

The MBP is bulkier and heavier than my 16” 2019 model, and that was thicker and heavier than the previous model. When in it’s protection sleeve, even the 2019 model won’t fit in the special compartment of my bag that is made for laptops. These are supposed to be portable machines!

If I wanted ugly, bulkier, heavier, a notch and an elevation that looks like a Tupperware container there are many models available on the PC side of things already….and they would run Revit.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

Thank God Jonny left!
Well, he did some great designs and I do appreciate his talents but the thinness obsession made most of the Mac products a problem for folks that prioritize function over form.

Jony is the kind of designer who needs someone around to say “no” because he knew how to make something look amazing but not make something work well functionally. Steve kept his more insane concepts in check and had a much better understanding of the user experience. Once Steve was gone there was no one who had more authority than him in product design and we got a decade of impractical or downright stupid design for the sake of aesthetics.

 

[buckwheet]

Most of today's products were designed in 2019.

Haha, yeah, good point. Maybe the pressure for greater functionality is why Ive left... (??)

I guess it's always easy to impose a new (and generally opinionated) narrative on the world we see—everything becomes "evidence" in support of an opinion we already set our minds on (without the benefit of any real evidence).

 

[one more]

For me, Steve Jobs and Jony Ive both passionately cared about making extraordinary products, constantly pushing the conventional design boundaries and revolutionising the industry. A truly remarkable synergy it was! Nowadays Apple has become a very successful lifestyle tech company and while they are doing rather well, I hope they do stick to their original “Think different” and “Stay hungry, stay foolish” mottos.

 

[jingbugle]

One will have to pour money to get these things repaired.

 

[carestudio]

The sales and marketing people have taken the company.

There has been no significant innovations in any product in years. Bringing back ports is no innovation, just going backwards.

Exactly. Can't speak for the management team in Apple, and who is in charge, but bringing back ports is definitely not what Apple would do in the past. Why not bring FireWire 400 and 800 ports back on the new M1 Max? or even future M2? that will make everybody happier lol

 

[lowkey]

Somewhere between form over function and slave to convention is a happy medium that Apple sometimes gets right, but occasionally gets horribly wrong.

Yep. These new MBPs are terribly wrong. Bigger, heavier, thicker, more single use ports, less TB4/USBC multifunction ports.not to mention the notch LOL

If I want an ugly utilitarian laptop there’s a thousand choices in PC world. We don’t need another one.

 

[Rogifan]

Awfully convenient to blame Jony Ive when there is an entire massive company at work on these machines. Every iteration of these machines.

Jony Ive was not dictating anything to anyone.

Exactly. Phil Schiller announced these products on stage. He infamously referred to the trash can Mac Pro by saying “can’t innovate my a**“. He made a big deal about how amazing the butterfly keyboard was. Craig Federighi demoed the Touch Bar on stage. The notion that these products only existed because of Ive is ridiculous. And as you say it’s quite convenient to blame the guy who’s retired from the company. What I find interesting is for all the takes like this Bloomberg story we still haven’t seen any actual reporting that backs it up. No gossipy insider reports from anonymous employees. It’s all just conjecture from people like John Gruber or writers at Bloomberg or The Verge.

 

[Green Valkyrie]

Apple's ability to combine both function and form is what has made the company so successful.

Occasionally they miss the mark with one or the other. It frustrates the hell out of me on the rare occasions when they miss the mark with both.

 

[bluespark]

All I can think is that the notch exists on the iPhone because of hardware constraints. If it doesn’t exist on the iPad Pro, there’s exactly zero reason they couldn’t do without it on the new MacBook Pro.

They could do without it. But if you assume: (1) the camera takes some vertical space, and (2) it is possible to use the vertical space on either side of the camera for something productive, then why not do so?

Also, Apple seems to have made some good choices here. In a full-screen app such as a video, the top of the screen falls just below the notch, so there effectively is no notch in that situation. This is the iPad situation, since everything effectively is full-screen. On the other hand, where the menubar appears, there typically would be a blank space in the middle of the menu bar even without the notch. There accordingly may be a much stronger justification for putting the notch on the MBP (which has a menu bar) than on the iPad Pro (which does not).

 

[Rogifan]

Jony has always been Jony. What Jony has been missing is Steve.

“The design is not just what it looks like and feels like. The design is how it works”

— Steve Jobs

Ahem….

 

[one more]

If Ive was still there the iPhone 13 would be 1mm thick with up to 10 minutes of screen time.

This is a possibility. However, if Ive and Jobs were not there to start with there would not be any iPhone. That is a fact.

 

[Rogifan]

Jony is the kind of designer who needs someone around to say “no” because he knew how to make something look amazing but not make something work well functionally. Steve kept his more insane concepts in check and had a much better understanding of the user experience. Once Steve was gone there was no one who had more authority than him in product design and we got a decade of impractical or downright stupid design for the sake of aesthetics.

Wow the Steve Jobs reality distortion field is at 11 here. This is all pure conjecture.

 

[koruki]

I think some of you are a bit harsh on Jony, the only problem was when Jobs was gone he had no one with the confidence and power to throw designs back. Jony himself told stories of when Jobs would rip into him for making certain designs. Tim isn't the type to push back I believe so he either let it in or said no but never gave good feedback the way Steve would have hence Jony's departure.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

Wow the Steve Jobs reality distortion field is at 11 here. This is all pure conjecture.

Yeah, but I’d wager this is close to the truth given the designs Apple put out since 2011, not to mention the side projects that he does from time to time.

 

[Karllake]

There’s no question that J.I. made Mac products a lot worse in his later years.

The man’s a living legend but I have to agree with you, it certainly feels like the form over function issue was being pushed by JI.

 

[drumcat]

So in order for this opinion to be valid, you're also telling me that Tim Cook couldn't control Ive within the company?

 

[Premium1]

Imagine that. The ports should have never left but when Ive only cared about thinner, thinner, thinner, that's what happens.

 

[ghostface147]

I look at the picture in the article and I wonder, what is Ive showing Cook? Clearly Cook has to know why Ive did what he did during the design phase.