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Apple's Industrial Design Team Loses Three Employees
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I'm sure this was meant to be "tongue in cheek", but I sometimes wonder if this is a synopsis of what really goes on - how much money do Ive and his 24 member "team" make, and what do they really do to justify their salaries? Someone comes up with ideas to remove phone jacks, glue in parts, get rid of replaceable batteries, alter keyboards, make flimsy display cables, skimp on cooling, etc. Do these 24 people come up with this stuff? If not, then what do they really do? In any case, I'd say the marketing folks lately have been the most successful segment in the company - Apple is still selling lots of stuff, despite the flaws and high prices. I'd say engineering has suffered in being forced to cut corners and make compromises in order to comply with increasingly thin form decisions.
Everyone knows (clearly not) , who is saying the next iPhone camera bump is what drove them out, that the said bump design probably started at least a year ago right? Do any of you understand the design process takes years , especially in apples case? So just because your precious little eyes just now saw the leaked “design” in an article doesn’t mean it’s anything new that pushed these guys “over the edge” to leave.
I’m gonna throw this insane, crazy, off the rocker, mental patient theory out there.....ready?
Maybe they are seasoned vets in the industry, have countless millions and just want to enjoy life? Do any of you trolls think that is even the slightest possibility here? Everyone retires eventually.
This line of thought goes along with what I said here and makes is sound like anyone picked off the street could walk in and do a better job.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-three-employees.2179211/page-7#post-27315200
I agree with him, though less dramatically. The race for the skinniest laptop that sacrifices expandability, and now reliability, is a problem. And that's directly Ive's fault. I'll take a 2015 MBP with modern specs, that doesn't require a pricey keyboard replacement in a year.
So hard to read the tea leaves here. Could be a bad sign, could be just natural evolution for those employees. Wish we had more insight.
Be careful with a rational line of thought. It's way to simple a proposition to assume there may be some flavor of having enough money and retiring to enjoy life. But no:
- removing a headphone jack can be done by a monkey
- no design experience needed to design a camera hump
- good designs can be done by even the most inexperienced get quantity and forego the quality
- they must be bored recycling the same designs year after year
etc. Extreme cognitive dissonance at work.
No, for having zero innovations in the past 6 years.
Only thing they had was the watch.
The rest is just bringing features to existing products.
Apple sadly has become a seller of disposable appliances.
Apple. Yesterday's technology
At tomorrow's prices
This is not an elementary school recess, no need to name and shame them. Not everything works like the toxic world of US politics that teaches people to just blame and shame others.
Again, we see a personal moving definition of innovation at play. While you are entitled to your opinion, the universe happily doesn't agree with it.
Darth Tulhu
macrumors 68020
Isn't that a bit harsh?
We don't really know what happened here...what if they were the only brave dissenters that tried to rage against the thin machine unsuccessfully until they "decided to retire"?
If that's the case they're fallen heroes and should be celebrated.
Just a guess, but I don't think they are and not only that, rumor has it these employees got a "notch bonus".
apple watch - slight modification
AirPods - slight modification
home pod - ok got me there
iMac - hasn't had a new design in how long?
Imac pro - no real design change from the imac but darker gray
Macbook / MacBook pro / MacBook air - slight design changes - added a touch bar on pro
mac pro -?????
iPads - added more to the line up with slight modifications
apple tv - same
iPhone - 3 cameras and probably upgraded internals....added a full size screen a while back,
nothing ground breaking in the design arena...
Did I pick the penny up or did the penny pick me up. Unsolvable question
No its not. If the penny picked you up, its time for your appointment with the psychiatrist.
Using the above criteria, there isn't anything groundbreaking in the design arena for the competition either. Only iterative improvements.
Darth Tulhu
macrumors 68020
I agree 100%. I believe these decisions come from the top down. The design team then has to figure out how to make it work.
Tim, being the profit man, says:
"Remove everything we can get away with, solder everything in, but make it thin and blame it on sexyness and simplicity. That way, even if prices remain the same, our profit margin goes up given we're using less aluminum, less components, less manufacturing, less engineering and simpler repairs.
However, we open a new revenue stream because we force those who want more power to pay whatever WE decide for upgrades, offer those that want more connectivity to buy our dongles, offer those that want to listen to music to buy our headphones, or set up those who realized that they didn't get enough power or flexibility upfront to come back and buy our machines more frequently or a more expensive machine that has the missing feature they need".
For the last 8 years Apple has figured out that they can successfully turn the Mac into an iPad hardware-wise by gluing them shut, and people still buy them, because Apple KNOWS they still have THE golden goose: MacOS.
That thing is like crack-cocaine. Once you're hooked, you'll want it forever, even after you kick the habit.
I hate myself for it, but I'm saving up already for when my 2011/2012 machines finally die (they're on the way there already).
I disagree. The product category that grew the most is adaptors and dongles... ;-)
Getting rid of the optical drive was a management decision, not a "Jony Ive wants it thinner, so it must be" decision. The march to get rid of optical drives started with the release of the MacBook Air in 2008 and just kept marching on until it was completed with the release of the new Mac Pro in Late 2013. It was one less expense, one less moving part and one less design constraint. Steve was just as obsessed with thin as Jony. He beamed when he introduced the MacBook Air and pulled it out of that manilla folder. To Steve, optical drives were an impediment to a wireless future where iTunes Store had already become the dominant medium for music sales and consumption by 2008.
The headphone jack argument will never be resolved, which indicates that Apple neither made a good decision or a bad decision, they simply made A decision knowing that some would be fine with it and other would not be. It is what it is.
Remember, it was Steve Jobs who gave Ive that much control inside of Apple before he died. Source: https://appleinsider.com/articles/1...gner_jony_ive_more_power_than_anyone_at_apple
And since when are you the universe, or speak on behalf of it?
Innovation, when they release new iMacs with 5400rpm drives? Yeah really.
Keep wearing your dark glasses.
Your arrogance clearly shows that you sound more like an Apple employee.