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Apple's Longtime Design Chief Jony Ive Leaving to Start New Design Company With Apple as a Primary Client

lnikj said:
Delighted. He has wrecked the MBP to the point that I've actually had to buy my first Windows computer for 20 years.
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Prepare to be surprised when nothing changes - as unsurprisingly the design of a complex piece of equipment like a MBP/ decisions on it's key specifications is undertaken by more than one person.
 
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Wow, so many negative comments about Jony here. I can't believe you guys don't appreciate all the amazing work he's done for Apple. He designed the products that made you fall in love with Apple and was part of the group that changed how we perceive personal electronic devices. Why do people forget this so easily? Look at all the crap companies are still designing today and how laptops and computers looked like before Ive and Jobs changed everything about it.

Thank you Jony, you will be missed!
I'm glad his design firm will still be responsible for the design at Apple.
 
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Oinkment said:
RIP Apple.

I predicted the new Apple display would have a (practically) zero bezel. Oink. I was correct. And now I predict the end of Apple as we have known it. Oink. itunes will be no more. And I predict Apple will completely do away with all i-prefixes within a year or two. In the future it'll be ( for example): Apple Phone, Apple Pad etc. The Jobs era is over, as of Mr. Ive's departure. We should be concerned, but all good things come to an end..... oink.

Watch out: Cooke might be the death of Apple. oink
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I think the Jobs era died with Steve.
Since then, Apple has systematically removed a lot I loved from their products that Steve had a hand in.

Hardware lost:
Upgradeable RAM (portables)
Upgradeable storage
USB-A port
Ethernet port
SD slot
HDMI port
MagSafe
Glowing Apple logo
Key travel
Keyboard reliability
Value per dollar
An affordable Apple Thunderbolt Display
A decent Mac Pro
Small iPhones

Software lost:
Obvious buttons
Rich 3-D design
Skeuomorphism

All that said, I think that Tim's Apple is on the rebound.

We have gained:
A-Series chips
Evolved iPad hardware (USB-C finally)
iPadOS (finally getting somewhere)
The most powerful Mac Pro ever
USB-C
TB3
AirPods
Apple Watch
2 versions of the excellent Pencil
A cheap but powerful base iPad
iPad Pros worthy of the name
An excellent iPad mini
Large iPhones
A small iPhone (for a while)
A better (if flawed) Apple TV
EGPU support
iMac 5K & Pro
EDIT: Forgot about APFS, Metal, Swift, and perhaps more.

I think that the end of "i" names makes sense for things than don't run iOS. Everything else is "Apple" this or that.
I can see them calling the iMac the Macintosh (it was always all-in-one, no?). The mini can stay as such.
Or if they did a Surface Studio-like iMac that ran iOS then that'd be an appropriate name.
Just a few spitballs there...:p
 
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I am sure the design team can take it from there, it's not like he is the only one with a good (subjective) taste, and it wasn't surrounded by stupid monkeys anyway.

The issue here is Ive was said to have "unlimited power" as per Jobs request, if a person with such "powers" decide to leave does mean something.
 
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He has clearly wanted to work on more diverse projects for a long time. Together with Newson this is exactly what they'll now do, whilst continuing to work on Apple projects.
 
smulji said:
They're reporting to Jeff Williams, not to Ops. The new guy in charge of Ops, Sabir Khan (SVP) will also report to Jeff Williams. So essentially Williams is in charge of design & Ops. Jeff Williams has a background in mechanical engineering plus he's instrumental in the success of the Apple Watch. I think he knows a thing or two about design.
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Jeff Williams is ops. He’s a mechanical engineer. He’s not the least bit qualified to oversee design.

CF804D1D-6353-4944-B3FA-1CCCFF3D2FFF.jpeg
 
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lnikj said:
Delighted. He has wrecked the MBP to the point that I've actually had to buy my first Windows computer for 20 years.
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I just picked up a 2018 MBP 15”. It’s the best Apple computer I’ve ever had by far. It’s hugely better than the 2015 MBP I had before. I’ve been using Apple laptops since the iBook G4.
 
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Sounds good to me. I hope for some change to the better. This ridiculous push for thin devices beyond meaning can end and we can get MacBooks with functioning keyboards. Also a change in design language could be nice. Same looking devices for 20 years is enough.
 
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I bet Ive and Apple are years ahead on products right now. Everybody excited for new designs are going to have to wait at least two maybe three generations of products to see something Ive hasn’t already designed.
 
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Jmausmuc said:
Stop hating on Jonny Ive - Apple still has the best design out of all tech companies. MacBook Air looks great, Apple Watch is amazing, iPhone is nice. What do you want. The interface is the best as well.
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This. I wouldn't expect Apple to change designs too fast. IPHONE's design is pretty much given for the next decade (no notch) and same for iPad, there's only that much one can design when the front is the screen.

The overall ios/macOS feel won't change too much either especially now that they made them converge. It will be small baby steps, starting with more dark.

Only place for a redesign is the iMac and Macbook, unfortunately I think even those will take 2 years more. Hopefully those will be a smaller trashcan to new cheesegrater kind of rebirth of pro product.
 
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DevNull0 said:
Can we please have someone who has more design objectives than "make it thinner". Enough of the literally 2-dimensional thinking.
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You guys are missing the point. Apple wouldn’t be where it is today without the visionary duo of Jobs and Ive.
After the death of Jobs the company still had tons of inertia but this is where the momentum ends...
 
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AdeFowler said:
Personally, I buy Apple products for the operating systems. The product designs of recent years haven’t effected my purchasing decisions at all.
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Subconsciously your brain will have been attracted to the designs, it’s how it works even if you didn’t think so.

mrxak said:
Yes, as designs get worse, and less functional, the designer who made things worse and less functional from his earlier designs gets the blame.
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So you haven’t bought any new Apple device for the last what few years? If ever? Why would you if they are less functional.

DevNull0 said:
Ive is a very good designer, but his philosophy is to sacrifice everything to the aesthetic of his design and his goal is fundamentally impossible so it's all about trade-offs. He doesn't care if the product works or is usable or anything about that as long as it is as close to his aesthetic as possible. He worked very well under Jobs who had the presence to force Ive to make a functional design. That's why it's been nothing but downhill since Ive lost Jobs influence. Since 2012, the only thing Apple has done consistently is make every product worse than the one before it.
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Ok, so I’ll assume you haven’t bought an Apple device since 2012 then? Because you believe their products are not usable. Is that a fair assumption to make, seems to be from your post. You have never bought any Apple device for the last 7 years.

janil said:
That is the first thing I thought upon hearing the news. I remember reading that he wanted to go back home in the past but did not because of Apple.

This could be a way for him to do that and still work on apple related projects.
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I was thinking it as he’s getting older now, and I presume his family still lives in the UK, is that part of the reason for leaving and then he’ll move back to the UK? But then again if he has his own family and children that would be a big move.
You can do design work anywhere these days thanks to the internet.
 
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It's nothing new for Apple. They worked with independent design firm Frog Design in the 1980s. It's also the only way Ive can design things for clients outside Apple.
 
Also, Apple needs this. They need to show that Apple is good without Ive, and also show that Ive has no aspirations to succeed Cook as CEO of Apple.
 
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jayducharme said:
Exactly. I'm not sure what I think about this change. I would rather see a clean break with him than to have Apple hiring on an outside firm to do its design work, even if it is headed by Ive. Apple really needs to keep design in-house and continue to innovate. Hiring an outside firm to handle what is the main distinguishing feature of Apple -- its design -- is IMO a poor route to follow. But I'm happy for them to prove me wrong.
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The way him leaving was announced is formulated in a way to imply that it wasn't he who left Apple and he wasn't fired or forcefully pushed out either. Both parties have an image to sustain and that's why it was announced this way. He will for sure have much less influence.
 
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