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Apple's Marc Newson Believes Automotive Design is Lacking Progress
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The Tesla is so revolutionary.
You have the AM in there twice. The Volvo doesn't belong there. While the body style of the Tesla is nice, that isn't what makes it revolutionary.
What does that have to do with anything? Tesla is outselling the Luxury market as a Premium sedan!
Looks reflect ideas and function. If it is electric and revolutionary then should it not be reflected in the form? Why does it still look like a combustion-engine-car? It does not have to and if Apple makes a car it won't look like a (regular) car.
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It's giving me 70's flashbacks. Looks like a hippy aunt's rec room.
Tesla got it right with the Model S: proper EV packaging by putting the battery where it belongs (in the floor) and putting the drivetrain between the wheels. Both allow for huge amounts of interior space. Leveraging computer technology by employing software updates over the air is also unique. Lastly, Tesla, like Apple, understands that design is extremely important in order to trigger the "I want it" chromosome. They "get it" by not alienating buyers with strange "weirdmobile" designs the others try to pass off just because it's an EV. Yeah it looks like an Aston Martin, Jaguar hybrid and that's on purpose. The sooner the others copy Tesla the better.
I have a Model S and I LOVE IT. To me it's the Mac of the car business. Once you try it you'll never want to go back to anything else. You get spoiled to the point where everything else seems like a dinosaur in comparison. Sure it's an expensive car but in 2-3 years they will have a mass market car everyone. New technology is expensive and it takes a few generations to get the cost down. Cell phones were the same way, look at them now!
I'm positive Apple is working on an EV project. I know enough with Apple that where there's smoke there's fire. Tesla has huge margins on their cars because of how they're sold. Everything they do is from Apple's playbook. So if Tesla can do this from scratch and make the same margins as Apple does then Apple can use this type of product to keep growing. Besides it offers them the opportunity to bring their design abilities to this moribund market. Ins't that the point of this "planted" article?
It's so much better than going back to iOS 6... I can agree that Apple isn't the most successful at flat design and they do a few things that I wouldn't do but they've still made an industry-wide change. Even after a few months of 7, every major electronics company began to follow suit. People may be scared and sad about change but the lack of respect for the change in design philosophy is alarming. I'm glad to support a forward-thinking company.
Haha, yes, it's almost as though Ive and his little buddy there are just leaving the "real" work at hand sitting on their desk while they spend their work day doodling cars, watches and God knows what else. They need somebody to go in there and tell them to knock it off and get back to work.
Nope. You're not really in the car business unless you make your money selling cars.
Tesla is investment fraud.
I actually agree with them. For me anyway, it seems the car industry hasn't really done a car that I absolutely must have or like since the 50's and 60's. Even then, the cars, off the showroom floor had something about them.
Now, they all pretty much look a like, there are really no "I must have this car because..." features. Again this is my opinion.
I actually hope they don't do a car, but make the interiors something special, I don't know how or if they would want to pull of an entire car, but I can see them doing select portions of a car.
Hate to say it, but Tesla, to me has some of the nicer cars out there.
@Gudi I don't know where the "Tesla is investment fraud" comment is coming from. Hopefully you can elaborate a little more on this.
Now, they all pretty much look a like, there are really no "I must have this car because..." features. Again this is my opinion.
I actually hope they don't do a car, but make the interiors something special, I don't know how or if they would want to pull of an entire car, but I can see them doing select portions of a car.
Hate to say it, but Tesla, to me has some of the nicer cars out there.
@Gudi I don't know where the "Tesla is investment fraud" comment is coming from. Hopefully you can elaborate a little more on this.
No, I think "Truth".
There are a few exceptions, of course, and most of those at around USD $80,000 or above, and the fact that there are a few means that it's fair to say the rest of the industry (where the huge majority of the cars are sold) is pretty much in a rut. We all get that there are legal and safety requirements, ergonomic, mechanical and aerodynamic/fuel economy considerations that tend to lend a certain "sameness", but from a design standpoint it's difficult to justify why a Hyundai Sonata looks so much like a Mercedes (insert Korean copier jokes here).
Most headlight assemblies now incorporate a string of wavy (and pretty pointless) LEDs, in a sharply narrow and angled head light array. That passes for innovation now. News flash--not edgy, just stupid. Maybe Audi was first with that, but did everyone have to copy? Same with the gigantic grills, Audi should get royalties from Lexus and they should all be ashamed of themselves, design-wise. And now with the lower left and right bumper "scoops-vents-nacelle openings" (?). Huge, angular, and completely non-functional and pretty hideous to boot, proliferating like rabbits (and not even Rabbits). How about those almost universal sharp body panel creases, and high door sills? It's copycat and it's all just crap.
And colors---Mercedes has about eight shades of gray plus two shades of black in their ridiculous 12-color pallette. Must be a bunch of depressed guys in Stuttgart. Others are similar. Of course people still buy those colors, but what choices are designers giving them? We used to not be so blah. Color is good.
Start over, or at least start with a clean sheet and let go of the design baggage.
And while we're at it, could all the manufacturers at the very least please make supportive, adjustable human-compatible seats that we can drive in for a few hours without incurring sciatica (it's not like Mercedes and Volvo haven't provided enough technical and ergonomic leadership over the last 60 years to for them to figure it out).
And this doesn't even cover the drivetrain and driver control issues that are begging for changes. Lots of room for improvement, to say the least.
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I spend 16 hours per day working on my Mac and frankly the idea of flat design is killing my eyes. Every webpage looks the same, so unshiny and unattractive and frankly boring.
I have clung to iOS6 on my iPhone and iPad because flat 7,8,9 hurt my eyes, so difficult to see.
If Apple is so interested in HIG for their ideal GUI they would know that the world is not flat, and that our eyes evolved to see textures and constantly trying to pick details out of flatness just causes eyestrain. It is only natural to have your eye discern textures NOT flatness... the world is NOT FLAT! I hate it, I truly do.
I agree that skeumorphism cannot come back soon enough. I adore my iPhone iOS 6, it's gorgeous.. Apple is going backward.
I have plenty of money to buy new devices but I will not if it's going to kill my eyes. I think Ive and Cook belong to the flat earth society and should be fired for ruining Apple's brand.
I work with elderly and they can't see some of the icons on the iPad email, and I'm sick of having to swipe huge boxes to quit programs. The jiggly system was MUCH better and could be done with less movement.
I have had every kind of Mac there is since 1995 and before. I still have a laptop that is in the box, for two years I've not pulled it out, kept it in reserve. Has one more year on the warranty so I guess I'd better get it going, but I dread to see what they have done with whatever the latest no talent designers have cooked up so they can be the same as the cheapo stuff that is out there.
BAH. I feel like I'm designing for HTML 1.0
I have clung to iOS6 on my iPhone and iPad because flat 7,8,9 hurt my eyes, so difficult to see.
If Apple is so interested in HIG for their ideal GUI they would know that the world is not flat, and that our eyes evolved to see textures and constantly trying to pick details out of flatness just causes eyestrain. It is only natural to have your eye discern textures NOT flatness... the world is NOT FLAT! I hate it, I truly do.
I agree that skeumorphism cannot come back soon enough. I adore my iPhone iOS 6, it's gorgeous.. Apple is going backward.
I have plenty of money to buy new devices but I will not if it's going to kill my eyes. I think Ive and Cook belong to the flat earth society and should be fired for ruining Apple's brand.
I work with elderly and they can't see some of the icons on the iPad email, and I'm sick of having to swipe huge boxes to quit programs. The jiggly system was MUCH better and could be done with less movement.
I have had every kind of Mac there is since 1995 and before. I still have a laptop that is in the box, for two years I've not pulled it out, kept it in reserve. Has one more year on the warranty so I guess I'd better get it going, but I dread to see what they have done with whatever the latest no talent designers have cooked up so they can be the same as the cheapo stuff that is out there.
BAH. I feel like I'm designing for HTML 1.0
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Yeah, it's a 3-box design, with all the similarities. That fact that Newson made it different is a credit to him. Like the doors, not too sure about that rear pull-out tray, but it was a design exercise, so latitude is given.
So Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Ford, etc. with their huge industrial and agriculture equipment businesses, are not in the car business? Good to know. And if it's just year-to-year making money in the car business, then most manufacturers would be in and out of that list.
Hmm...all cars have computers...all cars come with music playing devices...and cars have clocks. By Jove I think we're good to go!
Please help me understand how you made that leap in logic from what I posted to me possibly hating iOS 7/8/9 and Yosemite. I'm genuinely curious how you got there.
ha. really?
[...] Ive said, quietly, “For example.” As the disgraced car fell behind, I asked Ive to critique its design: “It is baffling, isn’t it? It’s just nothing, isn’t it? It’s just insipid.”
talking about this car:
... so you're saying you 100% disagree, utterly and totally.. that the toyota echo is insipid?
or what, exactly, are you so completely disagreeing with?
Of course there will be no steering wheel or pedals in this car, just an oversized track pad and 1 screen that will show the speed and sat nav, of course it will use Apple maps to navigate, so mystery tour lovers will be well catered for!
You will control the car with gestures, 2 finger rotate the to steer, swipe up to accelerate, swipe down to break 2 finger swipe left/right to indicate, double tap to change gear, 3 finger swipe down for emergency break... Or was it 4 finger?...... Oh noon... sh!!!t... Bang....agrrrrh!
You will control the car with gestures, 2 finger rotate the to steer, swipe up to accelerate, swipe down to break 2 finger swipe left/right to indicate, double tap to change gear, 3 finger swipe down for emergency break... Or was it 4 finger?...... Oh noon... sh!!!t... Bang....agrrrrh!