Apple Ends Partnership With Former Design Chief Jony Ive

[darngooddesign]

...Samsung is in the forefront of bleeding edge. They take risk where Apple is happy to simply copy everyone's homework. Feels like they are a follower now.

Samsung can be on the forefront because people generally cut them slack in a way they never would with Apple. The slightest Apple issue dominates the news cycle with a trendy #something-gate hashtag.

Or to put it another way. Samsung can release the Z-Fold-1 while Apple has to release the Z-Fold-4

 

[jamescobalt]

It’s also funny how some automatically assume that those who have a laugh know nothing of the subject at hand, and to top that off, refer to very well established points of criticism as “hate”.

This is what rubbed me the wrong way. There are tens of thousands of industrial/product designers who have a more nuanced understanding of the role than mainstream consumers yet still have plenty of valid criticism of some (or lots) of Ive's work - not to mention, even the consumers, as primary users, are free to have criticism.

Ive is a human and makes mistakes. It's not shocking, and not appreciating his design philosophy is not the same as hating the person. He's more than his last job. And Apple's design work is and always has been more than just Ive - he had a whole team under him. For many, the direction Ive represented was not aligned with their preferences. That's totally valid.

 

[iPhoneFan5349]

Not surprising. Ive's designs were pivotal in refreshing Apple's image but his absolute insistence on form over function eventually became a liability.

I completely disagree. Form over function worked so well at pushing technology further. The thinking was “what do I want to make”, now the thinking is “what can I make with what I have?”

 

[Cyrax]

I think it’s pretty easy to see what happened. After Jobs died, Cook leaned on Ive hard because of his history and connection to Jobs. For a while that bore fruit and Cook gave him more and more power as a result. But at some point he had so much power that his decisions affected the usability and quality of Apple’s products. The Mac became what their critics falsely claimed it to be - an overpriced form-over-function computer for people who just want to look cool. It was for less and less people and they abandoned markets that they served well in the past. So Apple decided to move forward without him. It is the right call, and the type of call that Jobs wanted Apple to make after him, not being tethered to his ghost and thinking WWSD at all times.

 

[darngooddesign]

It’s also funny how some automatically assume that those who have a laugh know nothing of the subject at hand, and to top that of, refer to very well established points of criticism as “hate”.

No one is calling balanced criticism "hate", but panning Ive's multi-decade career at Apple and the hundreds of fantastic products he designed, designs which everyone should admit helped save Apple, just because you didn't like a keyboard is irrational "hate".

 

[ericwn]

No one is calling balanced criticism "hate", but panning Ive's multi-decade career at Apple and the hundreds of fantastic products he designed, designs which everyone should admit helped save Apple, just because you didn't like a keyboard is irrational "hate".

Fair point - however I fail to see that happening at the time the post I quoted was written Which was barely 2m posts in - you’d struggle to find any hate in there, but you do find folks who get upset rather quickly and label a dislike as hate - which is by itself already overly dramatic.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Dieter Rams will finally get some peace.

 

[ericwn]

Samsung can be on the forefront because people generally cut them slack in a way they never would with Apple. The slightest Apple issue dominates the news cycle with a trendy #something-gate hashtag.

Or to put it another way. Samsung can release the Z-Fold-1 while Apple has to release the Z-Fold-4

Samsung also got plenty of things wrong and was getting the negative impact, remember when their batteries caught fire and airlines were alerting their passengers?
In fairness though I think the perception of Apple’s brand is that it’s on a higher quality level which sets them up as a target more easily.

 

[maxoakland]

Dell already make awesome laptops. If you remove the branding, the XPS looks way more futuristic than macbook. This is an Apple forum, so most won't accept this.

This is the computer you think looks more futuristic than MacBooks? It looks like it’s from 2004

 

[senttoschool]

I completely disagree. Form over function worked so well at pushing technology further. The thinking was “what do I want to make”, now the thinking is “what can I make with what I have?”

Form only matters if it helps solve the user's problem better.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Maybe. If we had Apple Silicon back then, then thinness might not be such an issue, thermals-wise. He may have been trying to push toward optimal thermal conditions faster than was possible (intel...grrr). Maybe. Just throwing out a bone.

Yeah at some point, fragility and physics kick in, so.. perhaps not. Memories of the bendable iPhone 6 and some iPads come to mind, too.

Camera optics are the next thin frontier, tho. This is where it gets really "interesting". Periscope lenses are just the first wave. Gotta kill off hose stupid camera warts. It's ridiculous.

Apple Silicon will do nothing but expand their thermal index over time if they want to expand their performance metrics. Its optimized in specific tasks but as a General computing machine it is not ahead of the pack. Computations will only demand more resources, bandwidth, etc., to produce future results.

 

[antonrg]

He must be weeping super-thin tears.

and wiping them off with dollar banknotes...

 

[antonrg]

Form only matters if it helps solve the user's problem better.

and it did, otherwise Apple would not have been this successful.

 

[antonrg]

I am not going to bash Ive. He did some amazing things for Apple. But since Jobs passing, many times his obsession with thinness design was way ahead of function and some of his decisions were very odd.
Apple seems far more in balance now on that front.

He was an integral part to Apple, and I personally think his relationship with Jobs allowed the company become super successful. One was focused on design, while the other- on usability and profits. Many argue nowadays that it's under Cook that Apple is mega successful, but I think that people should understand that the identity Apple built for itself highly rests on what was done by Ive/Jobs partnership. In my personal opinion, I find Apple is at the vital point now where they either go full-finance guys focus and totally lose the design edge while giving gimmicks and pretend-design breakthroughs, or they let functional design be their focus as it has been for decades for most part.

Ive has had his errors and made mistakes, but overall, tech would be in a different world had we not had him at Apple.

 

[madeirabhoy]

"he has continued to work for the company as a consultant through his LoveFrom design firm, but he's no longer getting any LoveFrom Apple"

missed opportunity, author...

yep...

Dear John......

LoveFrom Apple

 

[Seanm87]

This is the computer you think looks more futuristic than MacBooks? It looks like it’s from 2004

View attachment 2029538

Have you seen how big laptop bezels were in 2004?

 

[Smartass]

Does that mean Apple can't use "Aluminum" word in their commercials anymore?

 

[Alex Cai]

Ive's influence on Apple is mostly positive
-Macbook's thermal issues was caused by intel, not Jony
-The 1gen Apple Pencil got fixed in 2018
-hiding the charging port on the Magic Mouse was probably designed to prohibit people from using it when charging (hot mouse will suck)
His designs were more artistic and elegant anyways

 

[organisum]

delete

 

[MathDoc]

He's a designer. The keyboard was an engineering mishap.

My favorite keyboard ever and still haven’t had any issues on my 2018MBP

 

[jlc1978]

All of that is easily predictable using 3D EM simulation tools. The engineers would have known and would have told whoever else was involved in the product design,

It's quite possible they did but the design was locked in when they discovered there may be issues. Even so, it may not have been a clear fail as the iPhone functioned quite fine in most cases.

I could see where design and engineering discussed the issue and decided to move ahead to hit a schedule date rates than do a redesign.

I completely disagree. Form over function worked so well at pushing technology further.

The thinking was “what do I want to make”, now the thinking is “what can I make with what I have?”

Form over function does not equate to “what do I want to make.” Form over function is bad design when it reduces functionality or makes it more difficult for users to use as intended. If it doesn't impact usability then the design complements the function; but function must come first.

Designers like cool design, that's why they are designers; but they need to be brought back to reality when their design impedes functionality. A truly great product combines great design and great engineering to produce a great user experience.

 

[maxoakland]

Have you seen how big laptop bezels were in 2004?

That’s true! The bottom half, though looks very old

 

[ProfessionalFan]

That’s true! The bottom half, though looks very old

Where else are we going to put our post-it notes with our passwords though?

 

[eoblaed]

I completely disagree. Form over function worked so well at pushing technology further. The thinking was “what do I want to make”, now the thinking is “what can I make with what I have?”

My turn to disagree

When it comes to design and function, these things must be thought of in cooperation with one another.

As a professional whose workflow is impacted by the functional realities of the computers I use, I was handicapped by the previous generation of MBPs due, in part, to the insistence on 'all things serve the thinness master'. My maxed out 2019 MBP would spin up its fans sometimes just idling, and hitting it with any kind of a workload would cause it to start throttling, hard, unless I took unusual steps to avoid it. Intel definitely bears part of the responsibility here, but so too does the thin body design of that MBP which, in my experience, was too thin to allow for proper heat mitigation given the blowtorch of a CPU that was inside.

As an example, I created a set of 1.5" stilts that my MBP would sit on on my desk, creating a large air gap underneath. I then had a small desk fan that I had sitting next to the laptop, angled such that when I turned it on, it would blow through that gap, keeping the air under the laptop as cool as possible. That was the only way I was able to keep that machine from throttling when engaging in tasks that were part of my daily workflow. So, I had an essentially non-portable MBP while engaging in those tasks and constantly had not only the loud fans of the MBP running, but an external fan also running ... just to allow me to work.

Now that the design language is actually taking professional workloads in mind, my M1 Max MBP is able to handle virtually anything I throw at it without the fans even coming on. The two times I've heard them come on I was doing things that were excessively punishing. Even still, no throttling, partly due to the slightly thicker body.

This has been such an improvement to my day to day work cycle, and it's due, in part, to allowing the design language to be informed (at least in part) by the work flows and use-cases of people that are actually working these machines.

 

[adb1973]

His farewell piece: the new 27-inch iMac which 'beautifully integrates in every interior'

It apparently blends so well the Apple design team can't find it anymore and is still looking for it...