John Gruber Shares Scathing Commentary About Apple's Departing Software Design Chief

[Mac Fly (film)]

I am 100% with Gruber on this one. Good riddance.

Let's hope Apple does the right thing and backs away from Liquid Glass. Rapidly.

On the Mac side Sequoia is much nicer design wise than LG. Most icons are better, as are buttons and how window chrome looked at worked. Would love to see them return to the old Settings app design. What they should have borrowed from iOS and iPadOS for System Settings is the name "Settings" but kept its design. What's more, they probably should have brought the design of System Settings to iPadOS, not the other way around.

 

[benroberts3]

A harsh, but extremely well-written article. The HI design of Apple has slowly been fading away. Hopefully, Steve Lamey can bring back some of the original Apple magic from years ago. And who knows, he may attract designers who left Apple under Dye to come back and join his team.

 

[rappr]

A harsh, but extremely well-written article. The HI design of Apple has slowly been fading away. Hopefully, Steve Lamey can bring back some of the original Apple magic from years ago. And who knows, he may attract designers who left Apple under Dye to come back and join his team.

Apple needs to keep fresh, younger talent coming in to stay relevant.

 

[the 12th Doctor]

Allow custom themes. Problem solved.

 

[rappr]

On the Mac side Sequoia is much nicer design wise than LG. Most icons are better, as are buttons and how window chrome looked at worked. Would love to see them return to the old Settings app design. What they should have borrowed from iOS and iPadOS for System Settings is the name "Settings" but kept its design. What's more, they probably should have brought the design of System Settings to iPadOS, not the other way around.

Hard disagree on that. The old System Preferences on macOS was a jumbled mess.

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

A harsh, but extremely well-written article. The HI design of Apple has slowly been fading away. Hopefully, Steve Lamey can bring back some of the original Apple magic from years ago. And who knows, he may attract designers who left Apple under Dye to come back and join his team.

Steve Lamey might be good for Apple.

Apple should rehire Loren Brichter and Mike Matas too, in addition to Louie Mantia for icons probably. Neither of those would probably want to work for Apple, but if they did they could make a nice contribution. Loren invented pull-to-refresh, his attention to detail is second to none, and Mike's work was nothing short of groundbreaking—enough that Jobs felt threatened: https://pushpoppress.com/ourchoice/

 

[DunedinD]

I could probably figure out what this means (thanks for tip btw) and do it but why should I have to? After all the dragging and dropping to set up those folders as I had done on my iPhone it was working great got the last decade.

Then some boxing blew it up and replaced it with dysfunctional crap.

I hear you, though what I’m suggesting simply recreates the work you’ve done in the past using two features:

Folders in the dock (or Stacks as Apple used to market them): https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mchl231f08fb/mac
Aliases: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mchlp1046/26/mac/26

This kind of thing exists purposely for convenience and is pretty flexible. Give it a try with a folder containing just a couple of subfolders containing no more than a handful of aliases each to see whether it fits well for you.

 

[Rogifan]

No idea what you're talking about. Software people in Apple had years of experience and Ive chose an advertiser to lead software design at Apple instead of all of them—he selected Dye—I was saying Ive isn't a good software designer and this is part of the reason he picked Dye. Many people were likely overlooked within Apple for that job in place of a guy with no deep software experience.

What I’m talking about is the fact that Ive hasn’t worked at Apple for 6 years now. somebody else decided to keep him in that role well after Ive had left the company.

 

[Agent007]

In macOS he is probably the guy who make the System Preferences so hard to use. And viewing available storage on your Mac has never been that hard.

When I learned about that, I started getting my hopes up for MacOS 27. Not much, though, to be honest. It's obvious the Mac is a back burner product.

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

What I’m talking about is the fact that Ive hasn’t worked at Apple for 6 years now. somebody else decided to keep him in that role well after Ive had left the company.

Did Ive select Dye for any software job?

 

[progx]

Stephen Lemay has been at Apple as long as Cook? It’s impressive he’ll be taking over, I would imagine he’s had a hand in many Apple products we’ve used since then.

But wouldn’t he start to approach retirement age himself? Are they trying to build out a foundation for the next decade at least?

 

[Rogifan]

Steve Lamey might be good for Apple.

Apple should rehire Loren Brichter and Mike Matas too, in addition to Louie Mantia for icons probably. Neither of those would probably want to work for Apple, but if they did they could make a nice contribution. Loren invented pull-to-refresh, his attention to detail is second to none, and Mike's work was nothing short of groundbreaking—enough that Jobs felt threatened: https://pushpoppress.com/ourchoice/

I’m pretty sure Mike Matas is working for Open AI now.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1925235513566666821

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

Stephen Lemay has been at Apple as long as Cook? It’s impressive he’ll be taking over, I would imagine he’s had a hand in many Apple products we’ve used since then.

But wouldn’t he start to approach retirement age himself? Are they trying to build out a foundation for the next decade at least?

He's about 50 or so.

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

I’m pretty sure Mike Matas is working for Open AI now.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1925235513566666821

Yikes.

 

[Rogifan]

Did Ive select Dye for any software job?

Why does it matter considering he hasn’t been at the company for 6 years? Btw, the guy he chose to run the industrial design team no longer has that job. If he could be replaced why not Dye?

Yikes.

Well Gruber’s piece did suggest good designers left Apple to go work for LoveFrom/io. Gurman has reported as much too. In fact, according to Gurman the person who was head of iPhone engineering at Apple is in charge of the hardware group at Open AI.

 

[HouseLannister]

Apple needs to keep fresh, younger talent coming in to stay relevant.

I think they should acquire some Android launcher companies. Buy Niagra or Smart Launcher and get some fresh blood on the design team. People who are in the job of reimagining what a phone looks and acts like.

 

[rustygh]

Apple acting like they don't have hundreds of design flaws, I still laugh about that bug week, bro, you need bug year!

 

[mdriftmeyer]

I’m pretty sure Mike Matas is working for Open AI now.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1925235513566666821

AI is software and Ivy knows nothing about Software.

 

[satchmo]

Steve Lamey might be good for Apple.

Apple should rehire Loren Brichter and Mike Matas too, in addition to Louie Mantia for icons probably. Neither of those would probably want to work for Apple, but if they did they could make a nice contribution. Loren invented pull-to-refresh, his attention to detail is second to none, and Mike's work was nothing short of groundbreaking—enough that Jobs felt threatened: https://pushpoppress.com/ourchoice/

This goes waaaay back, but I always thought Apple should have grabbed Matias Duarte before Google hired him.

 

[canukstorm]

AI is software and Ivy knows nothing about Software.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1996417764635132087

 

[canukstorm]

This goes waaaay back, but I always thought Apple should have grabbed Matias Duarte before Google hired him.

One of the best software UI designers on the planet.

 

[LordArchie]

 

[Attirex]

For me, iOS especially feels bloated and is creaking under its own weight. Every new feature adds ten new arcane settings and 15 buttons/options/etc. Lord, if Apple decided to release an iOS Lite (tm) that stripped out all of the bullsh*t, I would be all over it.

 

[Sphincty]

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.

Foremost, 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

And yet the real problem, Craig Federighi, remains employed.

 

[tennisproha]

One can hope the door banged him on the Liquid Glass on the way out.

lol I do not condone Liquid Glass criticism. It needs to be improved, otherwise it's a great concept.