Gruber is a sycophant, yes, but he’s not out of line on this one. And Gurman isn’t even worth paying attention to.
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John Gruber Shares Scathing Commentary About Apple's Departing Software Design Chief
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To be fair a lot of long term developers in the Mac community seem to have valid points about the lack of care and attention to detail of modern Apple's UI. This was always Gruber's 'thing' as well (ie. UI/UX).
I don't believe it is exclusive like that.. also how about the slot machine spinning exercise selection screen in the exercise app on the Apple Watch OS 26 huh? Or how the timer Appin iOS 26 now remember every single event you use a timer, so if you use the same one it just adds it to the need ending list of last used timers, and you delete even one of them to clear them off the entire lot goes. That is crap design.
I agree. In fact, a friend and I were recently talking about how Gruber had become a curmudgeon lately. I used to be a big fan due to his balanced reporting on Apple. Now, he’s taking any hit he can at Dye, and he recently said the guy at HBO should go to prison for the release of the poor remaster of Mad Men. I think all those years hanging out with Marco Arment has finally changed him.
John Gruber went incredibly easy on the "designer" who blessed us with Liquid Ass "design". Alan Fn Dye should have stuck with his expertise, leather purses at Kate Spade, and saved us all the pain. It didn't have to be this way.
Cook appointing Dye to the position in the first place suggests Cook does not have good judgement. So what's new?
In a statement shared with Bloomberg on Wednesday, Apple confirmed that its software design chief Alan Dye will be leaving. Apple said Dye will be succeeded by Stephen Lemay, who has been a software designer at the company since 1999.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Dye will lead a new creative studio within the company's AR/VR division Reality Labs.
On his blog Daring Fireball, longtime Apple commentator John Gruber has since reacted to the news with some scathing commentary about Dye.
Specifically, Gruber said Dye does not care about design.
"If you care about design, there's nowhere to go but down after leaving Apple," said Gruber, in a lengthy post citing conversations with Apple employees. "What people overlooked is the obvious: Alan Dye doesn't actually care about design."
Gruber said that everyone he spoke to inside and outside of Apple was "happy" — if not downright "giddy" — to learn that Lemay is replacing Dye.
"Lemay is well-liked personally and deeply respected talent-wise," he said.
"He has always set an extraordinarily high bar for excellence and embodies Apple's culture of collaboration and creativity," Apple CEO Tim Cook said of Lemay, in his statement to Bloomberg that confirmed Dye is leaving the company.
Dye was promoted to Vice President of Human Interface Design at Apple in 2015, at the same time as Jony Ive became Chief Design Officer at the company. Gruber said this was a "big mistake," as Dye had no background in user interface design.
Lemay, on the other hand, is described as being a "career" interface designer with a particular "attention to detail and craftsmanship."
The move from Dye to Lemay could be the best thing to happen to Apple's human interface design "in the entire stretch since Steve Jobs's passing and Scott Forstall's ouster," according to Gruber. At the very least, he expects the move to "stop the bleeding" at Apple, both in terms of quality of work and talent retention.
Dye is expected to begin his role at Meta at the end of December.
Gruber's full post on Daring Fireball: "Bad Dye Job"
Article Link: John Gruber Shares Scathing Commentary About Apple's Departing Software Design Chief
I've already commented on this in the previous thread. But this is definitely a good thing for Apple, and specifically it's customers. Liquid Glass has been such a disaster and annoyed many people. A recent poll here on MacRumors showed that only 29.7% responded positively toward Liquid Glass.
There’s a way to write this that isn’t nasty and personal against one person.
Keep in mind MacRumors commenters hate most everything that’s not more of the same.
The bigger point John made: the scathing indictment is of Apple's senior management, who didn't get rid of this guy in the first place after years of patently bad interface changes. Stuffing Accessibility with workarounds wasn't clue enough for them.
It took Dye quitting for Apple to make a change they should have done years ago.
It took Dye quitting for Apple to make a change they should have done years ago.
One can hope the door banged him on the Liquid Glass on the way out.
I suspect it to be tempered a bit and go more of an almost flat version that's much more accessible
Really? 10 years later calling it a mistake? Who was responsible promoting this guy 10 years ago? Seems Ive had a big saying in it?
Anyways, this post of Gruber is just irritating
I actually like Liquid Glass. But the implementation has been shoddy. Apple still hasn't updated most of their main apps for Tahoe. This is the 1st release I can think of that needs a compatibility layer for the UI design on macOS.
I can't even set my own wallpaper from Photos without the image quality being degraded after sleep-wake. Unacceptable.
I expect this crap from MSFT or Google. Apple used to hold themselves to a higher standard. Hopefully they can learn to do so again. Otherwise why buy an Apple device if it doesn't "just work?"
Hopefully this will lead to 2 things:
1. Fixing the stupidity that is tortiously wrought into iOS 26.
2. Much deeper continuity of design between iOS and macOS. The here’s still too much difference and things being done differently for their own sake vs done similarly to make user transition from one device to another easier if not seamless.
(Also stop withholding functions from some devices to push need for persons to buy multiple devices just to gain some marginal functionality).
1. Fixing the stupidity that is tortiously wrought into iOS 26.
2. Much deeper continuity of design between iOS and macOS. The here’s still too much difference and things being done differently for their own sake vs done similarly to make user transition from one device to another easier if not seamless.
(Also stop withholding functions from some devices to push need for persons to buy multiple devices just to gain some marginal functionality).
I feel Gruber has been working extremely hard to repair relations with Apple in his writing the past few months. If this good work continues, I hope Apple grant him the big interview at WWDC next year.
I wonder how Lemay will critique the iOS 27 design going forward. Liquid Glass is beautiful but seems to have been a nightmare for them to implement.
And if Dye was in that job because of Jony Ive why was he kept in that job after Ive left? I mean Ive left Apple 6 years ago. That’s a long time to keep someone around who, according to Gruber and his fellow Apple pundits, should never have had the job in the first place.
How does this piece repair that damage? Sure he’s mostly going after Dye but if Dye had no business being in that job, who allowed him to keep it for as long as he did? And Gruber even admits all signs point to Dye choosing to leave not being pushed out.
And Ive left Apple 6 years ago. So who allowed Dye to keep this job for the past 6 years? Who did he report to?
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But John Gruber has criticized Liquid Glass before yesterday's news. And specially, Alan Dye:
"Re-watching Jobs’s introduction of Aqua for the umpteenth time, I still find it enthralling. I found Alan Dye’s introduction of Liquid Glass to be soporific, if not downright *********ty."