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How did Ive/Federighi do it?

S

solidarity

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 11, 2013
4
0
While watching the old iOS 6 keynote (for some much needed perspective after the iOS 7 keynote), I had one thought which I haven't seen anybody bring up....

Was the Ive/Federighi team's accomplishment something that is extra-ordinary or was Forstall & Co. that pathetic?

The incremental updates from iOS 3 through 6 really beg the question... what the hell were they doing?

For the record: I love iOS 7 :apple:
 
solidarity said:
While watching the old iOS 6 keynote (for some much needed perspective after the iOS 7 keynote), I had one thought which I haven't seen anybody bring up....

Was the Ive/Federighi team's accomplishment something that is extra-ordinary or was Forstall & Co. that pathetic?

The incremental updates from iOS 3 through 6 really beg the question... what the hell were they doing?

For the record: I love iOS 7 :apple:
Click to expand...

Forstall and Jobs loved simplicity and skeumorphism, which is why we had practically the same thing since 2006. Jony Ive realizes we needed change and stepped up to the challenge( http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jo2sXJ8sLkI#t=34s) Jony Ive became.... The Light Knight. He was the hero Apple deserves, but didn't need right now. We yell at him, because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian. A watchful protector. A White Knight. He died for our sins, and managed to give us everything, yet nothing at the same time. This, unsung hero saved everyone and they don't even know his name.
 
All the time Forstall wasted really pisses me off. iOS 7 is a great leap forward but one still gets the feeling if Federighi & Ive had more than 6 months to complete it would be a bit more polished. Holding off the redesign to iOS 8 was probably not an option. That's another whole year of letting the competition stay ahead.
 
Makes me wonder if Forstall & Co started working on a revamped iOS last year or if it was literally started from scratch after they gave him the boot...
 
Forstall probably just kept the same design to anger his coworkers. He was a pretty arrogant piece of work. He didn't get along with anyone except Jobs.
 
I thought the exact same thing after the keynote. "How the hell did they do this in 6-8 months?"

It's not just major design changes, but a lot of functionality and all apps redesigned.

It's one thing to think about how Ive usually works on hardware, and can physically shape and design a product, but he must have really integrated with Federighi & the software team at a close level.

I can only imagine what he's designing for the next OSX update.
 
It's not that they couldn't change the interface, but that they chose (wisely IMO) to gradually iterate it over time.

I like the new one, but even now I don't think there's anything wrong with the old one. At some point a refresh was in order, and with the changing of the guard iOS 7 made sense.
 
Yeah, I get what you're saying.

Obviously Forstall wasn't gonna get rid of the leather stitching. Ok, that's fine. By why the hell did he never make anything like Control Center? Would he ever have gotten around to it? Or was he opposed to the idea for some reason?

I honestly can't answer that one.
 
I'm not sure that iOS 7 was conceived and crafted in a mere 6-7 month timeframe. My guess is that they've actually been working on the backbone of it for quite some time. When it came to the visual design, there were likely large gaps in philosophy and Ive won.

If they were able to come from 6 to 7 in that timeframe, then yes, Federighi and Ive are wizards. Either way, I believe that they deserve kudos for what they've done.
 
tymaster50 said:
Forstall and Jobs loved simplicity and skeumorphism, which is why we had practically the same thing since 2006. Jony Ive realizes we needed change and stepped up to the challenge( http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jo2sXJ8sLkI#t=34s) Jony Ive became.... The Light Knight. He was the hero Apple deserves, but didn't need right now. We yell at him, because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian. A watchful protector. A White Knight. He died for our sins, and managed to give us everything, yet nothing at the same time. This, unsung hero saved everyone and they don't even know his name.
Click to expand...

Lol, really people?
 
Patriot24 said:
I'm not sure that iOS 7 was conceived and crafted in a mere 6-7 month timeframe. My guess is that they've actually been working on the backbone of it for quite some time. When it came to the visual design, there were likely large gaps in philosophy and Ive won.

If they were able to come from 6 to 7 in that timeframe, then yes, Federighi and Ive are wizards. Either way, I believe that they deserve kudos for what they've done.
Click to expand...

Last time Apple did something so drastic was switching from PowerPC to Intel without missing a step.

Watching the iOS 6 keynote is almost comical now because they wasted so much time demo'ing stupid things like getting sport scores with Siri. The iOS 7 keynote literally could have gone another hour or two.
 
these new "flat" and "simple" designs (andoroid, WinPhone) typically stand the test of time.

on the other hand "Skeuomorphic" design generally becomes dated quickly as they are generally tied to pop culture etc.

so... the irony here is we may be living with this new timeless design for iOS7 for quite a loooong time, which is what everyone was whining about to begin with, Apple not changing things up enough....pretty funny
 
Only thing Ive/Federighi did was reskin Forstall's app grid to make it look more feminine and add a few new features

This is not a big deal and all they did was buy iOS a couple more years before it starts to feel old again

And the iPhone wouldn't have been the best selling smartphone of all time without Forstall's work, the guy doesn't get enough respect IMO, history is being rewritten
 
I think people dislike Forstall for who he was rather than the work he did. Executives were leaving the company because he was difficult to work with, and one even came back once Tim Cook forced Forstall out. So there's that...
 
Fissure said:
these new "flat" and "simple" designs (andoroid, WinPhone) typically stand the test of time.

on the other hand "Skeuomorphic" design generally becomes dated quickly as they are generally tied to pop culture etc.

so... the irony here is we may be living with this new timeless design for iOS7 for quite a loooong time, which is what everyone was whining about to begin with, Apple not changing things up enough....pretty funny
Click to expand...

Liquorpuki said:
Only thing Ive/Federighi did was reskin Forstall's app grid to make it look more feminine and add a few new features

This is not a big deal and all they did was buy iOS a couple more years before it starts to feel old again

And the iPhone wouldn't have been the best selling smartphone of all time without Forstall's work, the guy doesn't get enough respect IMO, history is being rewritten
Click to expand...

True. The Design contributed largely to the success. It was different in a good way.

But "you won't be the same if you don't change.", meaning times change and things need to keep up. Even if this is a timeless design now, it will have to be changed some day. Just like the hardware looks change.
 
solidarity said:
Makes me wonder if Forstall & Co started working on a revamped iOS last year or if it was literally started from scratch after they gave him the boot...
Click to expand...

Rumors are they scrapped everything that was being worked on prior to Forstall getting the boot.
 
tymaster50 said:
Jony Ive became.... The Light Knight. He was the hero Apple deserves, but didn't need right now. We yell at him, because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian. A watchful protector. A White Knight. He died for our sins, and managed to give us everything, yet nothing at the same time. This, unsung hero saved everyone and they don't even know his name.
Click to expand...

Dude, you seriously need to come back to planet earth...
 
Liquorpuki said:
Only thing Ive/Federighi did was reskin Forstall's app grid to make it look more feminine and add a few new features

This is not a big deal and all they did was buy iOS a couple more years before it starts to feel old again
Click to expand...

What Mobile OS doesn't look old after 2 years? :confused:

I also find it funny that people continue to refrence the icon look as being somehow feminine. Since I like the icons, does that mean I should now be labeled effeminate? :confused:

Personally I like the lack of shadows, less Skeuomorphic appearance of the icons, and more washed out colors. Reminds me of the clean and simple look of Google Chrome applications.
Screen Shot 2013-06-11 at 7.30.43 PM.jpg

Not really that much you can do with a grid of icons to make it interesting, without sacrificing efficiency and ease of use. Likely why the Application screen / drawer on Android phones, iOS, and other similar devices look quite similar to the old Newton OS, and Palm OS grid of icons.

Apple could have added in Live animated widgets to the home screen to spice things up, however I personally would demand a way to disable such eye candy.

And the iPhone wouldn't have been the best selling smartphone of all time without Forstall's work, the guy doesn't get enough respect IMO, history is being rewritten
Click to expand...

I fully agree with this. Forstall was likely a big part of building what goes on in the background of our iOS devices. Many of the back end processes and services we don't work with, are contributors to making our iOS devices so stable / smooth in operation.

That said, I think seperation of Coding and Design may help make the platform a faster moving target in the world of Smart Phones, and I am curios to see what iOS 8 will have in store for us on the ever improving hardware iOS runs on.
 
Two years ago apple was laughing at android.

Now they see people flocking to it in massive numbers and quit laughing.

They cant afford to rest on their laurels as they did in previous years counting that a bitten apple logo sells by itself.
 
Troneas said:
Two years ago apple was laughing at android.

Now they see people flocking to it in massive numbers and quit laughing.

They cant afford to rest on their laurels as they did in previous years counting that a bitten apple logo sells by itself.
Click to expand...

600m iOS devices sold tells you that Apple devices still sell themselves.

I've shown iOS 7 to a number of friends and colleagues and the reaction was positive, but the resemblance to Android was mentioned straight away.

People are slating Apple for "copying" Android with iOS 7, but given how lacking in features iOS had become it was always going to happen. All mobile OS's essentially do the same things, it's just how they are portrayed to the user.
 
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