Oh well that's easy to explain: The iPad Air doesn't have a heatsink or ports. Mac Mini does. (Besides a lot of Minis are found at $550 nowadays)
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Apple's Product Design Team Reportedly Focused More on Costs in Recent Years
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Oh well that's easy to explain: The iPad Air doesn't have a heatsink or ports. Mac Mini does. (Besides a lot of Minis are found at $550 nowadays)
The keyboard, lack of ports, bad thermal design. And yes, they should be blamed for the thermal design. While the problems increased with the later processors, it was poor from the beginning.
I also liked the Touch Bar. But function keys on a display is not the same as physical keys. I would have preferred to have both. But at the same time, the Touch Bar was underutilised, so while I loved the idea of it, I'm not missing it a whole lot.
And while I liked the design of them, I much prefer the current design visually. But that's a matter of taste.
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Not a shock at all. This is what happens when you have an operations guy at the helm.
Tim Cook was a good replacement right after Steve Job’s passing. But it is obvious that his strength in logistics and cost-cutting is stifling Apple and driving the creatives away. Without Ive, I doubt the designers can garner the respect from the likes of bean counters.
Scenario:
The M2 iPad Pro design meeting
Apple Designers:
”We will update the M2 iPad Pro chassis and move the front camera to the side.”
Apple Engineers:
“Everything is good. The same schematics from the new iPad can be used here.”
Apple Bean Counters:
”No, we won’t be updating the M2 iPad Pro chassis. We still have 10,000 M1 chassis units left over, use that for the M2. And we have final say.”
Tim Cook was a good replacement right after Steve Job’s passing. But it is obvious that his strength in logistics and cost-cutting is stifling Apple and driving the creatives away. Without Ive, I doubt the designers can garner the respect from the likes of bean counters.
Scenario:
The M2 iPad Pro design meeting
Apple Designers:
”We will update the M2 iPad Pro chassis and move the front camera to the side.”
Apple Engineers:
“Everything is good. The same schematics from the new iPad can be used here.”
Apple Bean Counters:
”No, we won’t be updating the M2 iPad Pro chassis. We still have 10,000 M1 chassis units left over, use that for the M2. And we have final say.”
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Should it though?
The newer Macbook Pros are chubbier and uglier, but they have ports! Features and function wrapped in good designed.
Apple put design first for a long time and at times was not successful, and others.... pissed everyone off for a few years (like removing optical drives, ports, ear phone jacks) but when the newer tech finally caught up, no one cared.
It just stating the obvious. Tim Cook is all about the money. Profits. He loves the accolades he gets Wall St. He loves the zeros. Institutional shareholders and market cap are the most important. Not mention, he loving the personal financial reward that comes from it. Greed. No concern for users who are buying the products. People have been saying this for years. Many engineers who have developed important technologies have left in large numbers under Tim Cook, not just from Ive's team.
Except when they fixed the issue (with the 6s) the phone looked nearly the same as the 6. So what exactly were the designers preventing the engineers from doing with the 6?
Absolutely right. This has been happening for years under Tim Cook.
Ah so it’s all purely because they haven’t had a price increase yet, so you are just going to ignore the 10 billion extra profit Apple made on services alone in 2022 over 2021. Your argument really isn’t valid or contains any content, you are literally just repeating what Apple has claimed. Let’s be totally honest here, Apples price increases is just greed plain and simple and nothing else, not when your raking in an extra 10 billion on services alone.
Sorry but I’m just not buying it. No way did industrial designers have the power to decide what type of ports (and how many) a Mac laptop had. From the emails that came out as part of the Apple/Samsung trial it was pretty clear that product managers (people under Phil Schiller’s org) worked hand in hand with members of the design team as well as hardware engineering and operations on deciding what features products would have. But for the sake of argument if we assume you’re right then what does it say about the product managers and product marketing teams (that in theory should have the relationship with pro customers) that they allowed the designers to remove ports pro customers needed? Phil Schiller got up on stage and sold these products. He got up on stage and talked up the MB with butterfly keyboard. Was he on stage selling something he didn’t believe in? If he was that doesn’t say much for him. Or is it more likely that the company as a whole made a bet (like they did with the trash can MP) that turned out to be a bad bet?
This article feels a lot like the previous hit pieces targeting Apple. There’s a bit of truth in what is being reported, but it’s usually framed with pushing a particular narrative in mind (which in this case, appears to be that Apple is becoming obsessed with making money at all costs). The truth is likely somewhere in the middle.
At the scale that Apple operates at, economies of scale and manufacturing efficiency matter more than ever, because even the best-designed product at Apple is useless if Apple can’t make enough to sell to customers.
It’s just one of the new realities that people working at Apple have to work with, and it’s something the various departments won’t be able to run away from.
And for that, we have an incredibly well-run company who has been a lot more resilient to economic downturns (compared to companies like Facebook who are reportedly firing thousands of employees). I think this really can’t be overstated enough.
At the scale that Apple operates at, economies of scale and manufacturing efficiency matter more than ever, because even the best-designed product at Apple is useless if Apple can’t make enough to sell to customers.
It’s just one of the new realities that people working at Apple have to work with, and it’s something the various departments won’t be able to run away from.
And for that, we have an incredibly well-run company who has been a lot more resilient to economic downturns (compared to companies like Facebook who are reportedly firing thousands of employees). I think this really can’t be overstated enough.
Sorry. You are absolutely wrong with this.
1. The esim only iPhone didn’t make the experience better. What did it really provide to customers? Zero. All it did was add to the bottom line.
2. The new MacBook Pro is ugly and bulgy piece of junk.
3. The new software is buggy.
Apple has become Microsoft under cook.
Ive - and Jobs - took it too far at times, with their quest for clean design and thinness at the cost of useful ports and sturdiness (MacBook 12", MacBook Air 1st gen, Magic Mouse).
Cook and co. are taking it too far nowadays in their quest for upselling by product differentiation (iPad 10th).
The pendulum has swung in the other way for the time being.
I just hope a balance can and will be found.
Cook and co. are taking it too far nowadays in their quest for upselling by product differentiation (iPad 10th).
The pendulum has swung in the other way for the time being.
I just hope a balance can and will be found.
This is absolutely BS.
When Steve was running the show- he didn’t care about efficiency. He cared about mechanical noise, beautiful finish, and most importantly the feel of the product.
Capacity was something that operation needs to solve. Jobs never cared about cost. It’s operation team that need to make it happen.
Apple during its hey day taught me something that changed my career. I still remember the first day I started. I didn’t understand why M87/88 needs to have PCBA dyed dark blue. My boss told me if you want to survive at Apple don’t ask stupid question like that. After Steve passed away- you see more and more MBA bean counter. Apple design has gone down the toilet. They also qualified more and more cheap Chinese suppliers whose capability and quality isn’t the same.
This is a very different company. If you ask any old apple folks- it spirit of apple is already dead.
You didn’t work at apple during those time.
Every single product apple did originated with ID. It’s our job as PD to figure out how to fit things into the space that was given to us.
ID was god and should have remained as such. That was what made Apple great. It’s that attention to detail.
Am I the only one who feels that the current product lineup is probably the best it has ever been? Also from an external design point of view.
There are still a few hiccups here and there but the general direction is super strong, imho.
There are still a few hiccups here and there but the general direction is super strong, imho.
We will never know if Steve Jobs was really as apathetic towards “efficiency” and managing “costs”, or if Apple simple managed this behind the scenes and attention was never drawn to it because Steve Jobs was so good at drawing said attention to himself.
What’s more likely is that Steve Job’s priorities made sense for a company with Apple’s challenges then, just as Tim Cook’s priorities make sense for a company of Apple’s size right now. As iPhones become more complex to design, and as Apple sells more of them every year, even the slightest tweak that can streamline the manufacturing process or save a bit of money goes a long way towards ensuring that Apple is able to pump out hundreds of millions of them every year, keep the pricing affordable, and still accomplish all this in the face of factory lockdowns in China.
Yes. Operations is in charge of making manufacturing work, and you can’t have any one department work in a silo either. That’s a surefire recipe for disaster.
The reason why Apple is so successful is because they are able to ship at scale, and if the product design team makes a beautiful product which is ultimately impractical to manufacture at scale, then they are the problem.
It’s one of the realities when you are running a company the size of Apple.
I think it’s ugly and un-imaginative. Especially the new MacBook Pro.
How many of those new “ports” do you actually use?
SDXC? HDMI? Headphone Jack- come on.
You weren’t there.
Steve doesn’t care about operating efficiencies. All he cared is about shipping the best product. He wouldn’t have scrapped brand new key boards because he thought spring on the space bar made it like toy. He didn’t care about bankrupt pioneer when he pulled the plug on the Blu-ray super drive (he killed that mainly for noise). He didn’t care CNC entire MacBook Pro chassis.
Everything operation does was simply making a product that Steve liked.
There was fine hand polishing on iPad covers. No one cared about how ridiculous the demands were. Apple was already huge back in 2009-10.
It’s just a different culture back then.
'At least 15 senior Apple designers have left the company since Ive moved to a part-time role in 2015'
It's begining to show. Old previously classy design ideas being re-used and slowing being degraded.
The new MacBooks and Airs look like 2009 designs. They were great then but today look old and now lack finesse. The lines and sculpted class of the 2018/9 design were elegant. The new Macbooks look like they were put together in Sketchbook. Those extruded feet!
The Mac Studio. By simply supersizing the Mac Mini they have produced something that lacks balance. Unimaginative at best.
iMac. Where have the beautiful aircraft-inspired aluminium curves of the old iMac gone? Flat, safe and inert forms are now the rule of the day.
The new iWatch. The only thing Apple could think of to do with this form was to add an unnecessary extruded lip to the edge of the screen. It looks bad.
The best thing I have seen recently were the rumoured protoypes of the MacBook Air M2 with lovely lemon, green and pink bodies and white floating inset keyboards. Sadly they did not appear.
I find it strange that they don't even had a Head of Design now, but replaced Ive with a 'Head of Operations'.
Apple, get a new Head of Design. New ideas. Fresh vision. Come to Britain again perhaps, and find your next head of design? Or look to Europe.
It's begining to show. Old previously classy design ideas being re-used and slowing being degraded.
The new MacBooks and Airs look like 2009 designs. They were great then but today look old and now lack finesse. The lines and sculpted class of the 2018/9 design were elegant. The new Macbooks look like they were put together in Sketchbook. Those extruded feet!
The Mac Studio. By simply supersizing the Mac Mini they have produced something that lacks balance. Unimaginative at best.
iMac. Where have the beautiful aircraft-inspired aluminium curves of the old iMac gone? Flat, safe and inert forms are now the rule of the day.
The new iWatch. The only thing Apple could think of to do with this form was to add an unnecessary extruded lip to the edge of the screen. It looks bad.
The best thing I have seen recently were the rumoured protoypes of the MacBook Air M2 with lovely lemon, green and pink bodies and white floating inset keyboards. Sadly they did not appear.
I find it strange that they don't even had a Head of Design now, but replaced Ive with a 'Head of Operations'.
Apple, get a new Head of Design. New ideas. Fresh vision. Come to Britain again perhaps, and find your next head of design? Or look to Europe.
I do like the less „pretentious“ (to be thin) design of the iPhones / iPads.
That said, the lineups, especially notebooks and iPads are getting incrasingly convoluted - as embodied by the 10th gen iPad with 1st gen Pencil compatibility.
I do believe Headphone Jacks and HDMI are quite often used, yes.
Conference rooms or schools often have HDMI - but not always Apple TVs for AirPlay.