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Is it cool to look like an angry hombre?
Is that rapper soooo small, because he is looking that up to the camera?
 
He is absolutely not coming back to Apple. Ever. Very few people want him to return, and essentially none of the right people want him to return. The man is toxic, which is why no one poached him after he left despite his pedigree.
Where did you get this information? From what I know, it was 50/50. All the key people from the Human Intreface design team who worked with him left shortly after him. Like Bas Ording, Imran Chaudhri, Ken Kocienda and Greg Christie who invented all the things you see in Mac and iOS. You're right that the top execs don't want him back but the rest of them are people who came after him and never worked with him in the first place. Fun fact, Eddy Cue is following Scott on Twitter :)
 
Where did you get this information? From what I know, it was 50/50. All the key people from the Human Intreface design team who worked with him left shortly after him. Like Bas Ording, Imran Chaudhri, Ken Kocienda and Greg Christie who invented all the things you see in Mac and iOS. You're right that the top execs don't want him back but the rest of them are people who came after him and never worked with him in the first place. Fun fact, Eddy Cue is following Scott on Twitter :)
Of those, all but Christie stayed for more than 4 years after Forstall “left.” There’s no reason to believe that any of those departures related to lamentations over Forstall’s departure. There were some rumors about Christie’s departure involving some contention with Jony Ive, but those were squashed by people in position to know.

Not sure if you’re relying on a Twitter follow as evidence of support, but that’s…shaky at best. Lest this thread get placed in PRSI, I’ll keep it general, but just as an example I follow politicians whom I actively oppose. (And when they’re out of office, I’ll gladly unfollow them.) Given how rarely both Cue and Forstall tweet, it’s entirely possible that even Cue has no clue that he still follows Forstall.
 
Skeuomorphism did go too far, but the reaction afterwards went too far the other way. Irrespective of the graphics, the usability was much better when Scott Forstall was involved. It was more consistent, and logical. More features have been added since then, but there is still no reason for going away from making actions obvious. All the hidden stuff can be there to make things quicker for power-users, but it should still be easy and consistent for everyone who doesn't want to remember which non-obvious bit you have to tap or hold.

Yeah, one thing that was particularly well done was the page turning in iBooks. It was so smooth and detailed, you could even see the text on the other side shining through. The same with the options for maps. It wasn't just eye candy. It was functional and just so well done.

It had the effect of conveying extreme attention to detail and quality. Someone had gone to the trouble of making this work that way, look that good and making it smooth enough to feel like a real page (which was no small feat on an iPad 1!). It really set iOS apart from other OSes even to this day. It's that "wow" feel I miss these days. I know this particular skeuomorphism is actually still there in iBooks (at least last time I checked), probably because it was just so good. But back then this kind of attention was present throughout the whole OS.

I agree some of the skeuomorphism was too much for the sake of it. I was never a fan of the notetaking app or the poker table (iGame or something, I forget, never really used it). But in general it was really well done. Simple hints like a slight bulge on a button to indicate "this can be pressed" go a long way.
 
I remember when all the people on these forms would cry about how iOS needs a new look so bad and Apple would fail if they didn’t do it and now iOS has become a shell of its former self because of it. Change for the sake of change ruined it. Probably contributed to the death of 3D Touch since ios UI has become so bland it’s hard to tell what does what sometimes.
 
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You can love skeuomorphism or you can hate it, that's perfectly fine with me. One thing is very clear, iOS on Scott leadership was ROCK SOLID...it was extremely rare the need to reset the iPhone/iPad...today, well, it's a weekly thing. Sometimes you don't need to, because a seven-days-apart "fixes" that you need to install do the restarting thing for you.
I second this. Let's not forget that even Apple, in 2018, admitted that iOS has been suffering from instability. iOS use to be so dependable in almost every aspect and was truly an intuitive dream to use. I personally was a fan of Sku, would like to see a hybrid version of it come back.
 
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Forstall's fetish for skeuomorphism went too far...

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Not really fair to use skeuomorphism graphics that are 7 years old. I mean of course its at the very least going to look dated but if done right it can look all right and is useful making an operating system more intuitive and easier to just pick up and use.

I’d love to see a GUI with a flat skeuomorphic design. I mean not overkill but simple and tasteful where it helps.
 
To keep his job? Seems like a pretty decent reason to me. Especially since, VERY soon after he’d be personally responsible for all of the leaps and bounds made since then. It could have been a, “You want to be Steve? Show you can act like him.” occasion that he was unable to rise to.

Maybe they kicked him out thinking, “If he’s like Steve, he’d pull together his own group of highly talented folks, start his own company and show his ability to cultivate and enhance talent, drive innova... oh... he went to Broadway? Huh.”

I don’t think he would have the ability to. If you think about it, in professional life, he’s only had one tech job where he got paid, and that was under Steve at Apple. No one else has given him a position even remotely close to that.

So what you’re SAYING is... by apologizing publicly for the app or service, he would have actually proven that he’s MORE like Steve Jobs than everyone else? I agree, that WOULD have set him apart.

FYI: Steve Jobs recruited Forstall for NeXT! He worked there and along with other great minds ... Tevanian, Rubinstein, and Bertrand Serlet each worked at NeXT before moving into Apple and all had incredible ground breaking contributions that every user uses or has used in OS X more than once.

I was saying that apologizing publicly would have been a bit humiliating and would have shown Apple Mac users his humility yet also showing him not to be potentially fit for CEO. Like I said there was rumours, and probably only just that of Forstall being groomed for CEO. Any contention would have been pretty rough to play out.

Forstall could have run his own startup yet I think after Jobs dying and the hole tussle he chose to follow another passion and he’s been very successful at that as well. That kind of versatility would be beneficial at Apple. After all their ads are theatrical.
 
Forstall's fetish for skeuomorphism went too far...

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It was an era, it came, it did what it was supposed to do. And I don't believe that Forstall would've stayed with it forever. I believe he himself would've steered away after a while and tried something else. I liked that design for what it was and I also like the current design. And I do believe too much of anything is not good. Too much of skeuomorphism clutters the UI. On other hand, at places, the flatter UI loses depth, I can't figure out if the button/controls are supposed to slide or pushed. So many times i click a control only to realise that its not a control.
 
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FYI: Steve Jobs recruited Forstall for NeXT!
Yes, Steve recruited them for NeXT, and they were all brought over to Apple. However, three of those gentlemen stayed connected to tech in some way after leaving Apple. It was a thing they had passion for. And, more importantly, a thing others wanted to hire them for.

Apologizing would have been humiliating for any CEO every time they did it. I agree that this was likely a part of his grooming. Apologizing may have shown the kind of growth the board wanted to see... to see if he could be CEO-like. It would have been rough to play out, BUT it was the only play that could have potentially led to staying at Apple and eventually becoming CEO.

I still don’t think he could have ran his own startup tech company, though. As I mention above, he just didn’t have the passion for tech. His passion may have been more about working for Steve Jobs. AND as have been mentioned, he doesn’t NEED to start a tech startup. So, in order to do so, he’d need to have a real passion for it. His passion was for Broadway.

Steve Jobs leaving Apple was likely FAR more painful as he was kicked out of the company that he had built from the ground up. Steve could have just taken time off to travel and advise some charities. BUT, he took millions of his own money and founded NeXT and grew it to where it became a target for Apple. That’s something Scott could have done if he was actually like Steve Jobs, but he wasn’t.
 
Of those, all but Christie stayed for more than 4 years after Forstall “left.” There’s no reason to believe that any of those departures related to lamentations over Forstall’s departure. There were some rumors about Christie’s departure involving some contention with Jony Ive, but those were squashed by people in position to know.

Not sure if you’re relying on a Twitter follow as evidence of support, but that’s…shaky at best. Lest this thread get placed in PRSI, I’ll keep it general, but just as an example I follow politicians whom I actively oppose. (And when they’re out of office, I’ll gladly unfollow them.) Given how rarely both Cue and Forstall tweet, it’s entirely possible that even Cue has no clue that he still follows Forstall.
My sources are people who worked there, like Ken Kocienda who adores Forstall as a brilliant engineer and manager and all those who I named above who worked closely together for years. And how about Bethany Bongiorno who literally said that the company was torn between two halfs when they worked on iOS 7, one for Forstall and other for Ive. She literally said that it was a bigger deal than when they were creating iPad. They all speak about him in good terms directly or not directly. There’s literally like two people I know about that actively hate the guy. Jony Ive and Tony Fadell. For both of them you can say it was mainly personal.
 
My sources are people who worked there, like Ken Kocienda who adores Forstall as a brilliant engineer and manager and all those who I named above who worked closely together for years. And how about Bethany Bongiorno who literally said that the company was torn between two halfs when they worked on iOS 7, one for Forstall and other for Ive. She literally said that it was a bigger deal than when they were creating iPad. They all speak about him in good terms directly or not directly. There’s literally like two people I know about that actively hate the guy. Jony Ive and Tony Fadell. For both of them you can say it was mainly personal.
The “lickable” icons aren’t coming back, Fred.
 
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