Thats an assumption by Mark Grumman. He's always trying to spin things like this negatively for hits to his articles. If Apple successfully launches multiple products in 2023, what would it matter?
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Apple Dropping Product Design Chief Role, Team to Report to COO Jeff Williams
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Yes, I hope they keep eff-ing up more products so us cool kids in the Apple fan club can buy them. I can't wait to see how bad the next MacBook Air is when it comes out. I hope it's absolute garbage so I can go down to the Apple store and buy it 🤣
Apple has now fully moved into the post-Jobs era.
Design is not an operations activity. It's a strategic asset. It's product planning beyond what the finance forecasters are comfortable seeing. Product roadmaps. Looking to where technology is headed, and designing solutions before we get there.
This is really terrible news for Apple. They will be relegated to "follower" status and no longer leaders. Having no vision means you're blind to opportunity.
Design is not an operations activity. It's a strategic asset. It's product planning beyond what the finance forecasters are comfortable seeing. Product roadmaps. Looking to where technology is headed, and designing solutions before we get there.
This is really terrible news for Apple. They will be relegated to "follower" status and no longer leaders. Having no vision means you're blind to opportunity.
Because since Ive left, it has been design by committee and it shows.
his whole career is based around having a mole or two inside the company.
The brain drain from Apple's design divisions since Jobs' death has been profound.
I don't know, the biggest hardware problems Apple had in recent years were when they leaned too far into design driven products where everything else took a back seat and Ives ran roughshod over usability/ergonomics and reliability. Even on the software side a lot of the UI changes that make it a flatter, less easily differentiable UI, across Apple's OSes where driven by the same problem. The new MBPs and such, like the one I'm typing this on, are the rejection of that, they still have great design but the design informs the process, it doesnt drive it, so the more industrial slightly chunkier machines fix a lot of the frustrations folks had with previous machines.
So overall I think this is a good thing. Impressive design is not the same as good engineering or UI/UX work, and the first should inform the rest, not drive the bus.
I loved Jony Ive’s work at his peak. Back when he held to the tenant that design is not just how it looks but how it works. That gave us the brilliance of a home button integrated with touch ID and the iPod click wheel and pinch to zoom touch screens.
But Jony Ive seemed to forget that in his later years at Apple in a quest to remove every port on every device, sacrifice everything for the sake of thinness and pursue high-end fashion to the point of prices that excluded 99% of the first world population.
There was a great statement by John Gruber years ago where he commented that billionaire Bill Gates refused to use an iPhone and that an ordinary guy like Gruber could afford to own a better smartphone than a billionaire was using.
Sure there were third parties doing gold-plated diamond-studded iPhones for insane prices, but Apple was not selling those.
Apple has always had high prices for the highest performance macs. But the first couple of years of Apple Watch Edition were just pretentious — and functionally equivalent to Apple Watch Sport. That was all Ive losing touch with the masses.
And there is a place for nearly port-less MacBook that is ultra-thin but that MacBook should never carry the “Pro” moniker — sacrificing basic functionality like a decent keyboard for the sake of thinness.
I don’t miss the Jony Ive that left Apple or the like-minded designers who have either left Apple with him or complained since his departure. I miss the Jony Ive who believed like Steve Jobs that design is about something works from the inside out.
But Jony Ive seemed to forget that in his later years at Apple in a quest to remove every port on every device, sacrifice everything for the sake of thinness and pursue high-end fashion to the point of prices that excluded 99% of the first world population.
There was a great statement by John Gruber years ago where he commented that billionaire Bill Gates refused to use an iPhone and that an ordinary guy like Gruber could afford to own a better smartphone than a billionaire was using.
Sure there were third parties doing gold-plated diamond-studded iPhones for insane prices, but Apple was not selling those.
Apple has always had high prices for the highest performance macs. But the first couple of years of Apple Watch Edition were just pretentious — and functionally equivalent to Apple Watch Sport. That was all Ive losing touch with the masses.
And there is a place for nearly port-less MacBook that is ultra-thin but that MacBook should never carry the “Pro” moniker — sacrificing basic functionality like a decent keyboard for the sake of thinness.
I don’t miss the Jony Ive that left Apple or the like-minded designers who have either left Apple with him or complained since his departure. I miss the Jony Ive who believed like Steve Jobs that design is about something works from the inside out.
That’s a true sign of the end of Apple as we knew it. Attention to design and making beautiful things were the secret to its success!
Ive and Jobs would often discuss design, so I assume they would both flourish and balance out each other’s ideas. Without Jobs or a similar product guy, Ive was unchecked and had more misses along some great hits.
Why, in fact, I love my iMac. It looks very sharp on my blue desk with its two tone blue and the white border.
Putting an Operations person in charge of a Design team is going to mean greatly stifled creativity in favour of cost savings. Don't expect to see radical new designs of things any time soon. That Mac Mini chassis has just been given another 10 years to live.
From an organisational point of view, it's weird that the COO will now get 20 or so new direct reports.
Perhaps though we'll see directors of Mac Product Design, iPhone product design, accessories product design etc. and he wants to work with people to see if they suit those roles.
Personally, I still think that they're paying Jonny Ive to be their head of design behind the scenes on a more consultative/product vision basis, so they might need only directors to implement Jony's vision (no disrespect to them)
Personally, I think that Apple are in a good place design wise - the new products are mostly more functional and sleek and more 'honest' as designers/architects say.
Perhaps though we'll see directors of Mac Product Design, iPhone product design, accessories product design etc. and he wants to work with people to see if they suit those roles.
Personally, I still think that they're paying Jonny Ive to be their head of design behind the scenes on a more consultative/product vision basis, so they might need only directors to implement Jony's vision (no disrespect to them)
Personally, I think that Apple are in a good place design wise - the new products are mostly more functional and sleek and more 'honest' as designers/architects say.
Bring back Jony Ive. The iPhone needs shrinkage.
Apple has had fans that love the products for their stability and software ease of use. And Apple has fans that mainly love the beauty of apple design. I'm the former, so I'm fine with this, but I can understand why people would be worried. ...At some point the obsession with a thin iMac felt like fat shaming ot me, I'm hoping we can bring some function back even if it means being a few mm thicker on some products. With maybe the exception of the iPhone, keeping things small there is important. (Even if I'd still like a 3.5 mm jack.)
Only three women - amazing to say the leastThe Apple design team has gotten very small. I wonder if half of these people still working at Apple today?
Here's the first group picture of Apple's new Industrial Design team
CUPERTINO, Calif. — This is the first group photo of Apple's new Industrial Design team -- the men and women behind the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch andwww.cultofmac.com
I moved to Windows 10 and built my own PC when it first came out because Jony Ive designed Mac sucked for performance and his bull headed passion for scissor keyboard.
I have returned to Mac this year with the new designs and M2 chip. I don't know who is designing these Macs but they are doing a good enough job to win me back.
I have returned to Mac this year with the new designs and M2 chip. I don't know who is designing these Macs but they are doing a good enough job to win me back.
Yes it’s got to a point where I’m fine with ugly just make the product powerful with incredible usability. That whole thin and beautiful era got old very very fast. I don’t want a computer as an ornament I want a computer that works well without jet engine fans. Johnny Ives needed to go sooner.
Agreed. Good iPhone design would mean most people not feeling that they needed to buy a case.
I.e. durability and resilience is part of the design (though whoever is running the case accessories business in Apple might beg to differ).
Why is it is "a disappointment" if this guy stays? TIA for the 411.