Jony Ive and Craig Federighi Talk Collaboration in Full Businessweek Interview

[Woyzeck]

That doesn't matter. People aren't supposed to get an easier to use system after each update. When things change, there's always an adjustment period. After that period, if people are still having issues using the OS, then it was a step backwards. But even if you change everything altogether, put different settings under different menus, different apps do different stuff etc, it still may be easier than before ONCE you get used to it.

I'm not talking about how they organized and grouped the functions and GUI elements. I'm talking about the GUI elements themselves. I think they've gone too far with the flat design.

Forstall might have been a fan of skeumorphistic designs and we know that Ive disliked them, but what's available in iOS7 now is just strange.

People use computers daily. Most iOS users will work in an office environment and use Windows and OSX PCs. Then there are many appliances with user interfaces for everyday life (from ticket machines to TV sets).

All of them usually follow some design rules. They use push buttons to trigger actions, drop down lists to select an option from a set and sliders or checkboxes to turn things on and off. In most cases it's very easy to use those applicances because we've learned what these user interface elements do.

But with iOS they've changed these things. The controls are not clear. Heck, it's not even clear that this image or text is a control at all.
And then there's this inconsistency. Sometimes you slide from left to right, then from right to left, then up and down. But there's no graphical hint for that.

I really think that it's a mess, even if we all can get used to it.

 

[xVeinx]

Cook isn't the visionary that Steve was, but works with people who have the creativity and talent to make things happen. In order to keep Apple's edge, there needs to be collaboration in a way that was unnecessary previously perhaps. It's not a right or wrong thing, it's just what is. Is it more bureaucratic? Yep. And there will be bumps along the way until they can get used to the system. Give them time, they'll grow into things just fine. In a sense, its as if we were handed Monet and learned to appreciate "fine art". Suddenly, Ive is expanding us to Picasso. Still fine art, just requires a different eye and taste. People may or may not adapt, and Apple will have to be adept at listening and refining things. A little more learning curve now for the folks at Apple, but they're not dummies either; they'll get it done.

 

[Woyzeck]

3. NFC?? if it was actually popular and people using it apple would have put it on the iphone 5s, but even the popular starbucks dont have NFC, and EVERYONE uses there smart phone app to pay for stuff.

You're right. And I think they focus on Thunderbolt because there are so many devices available for it...

 

[electronics1201]

I don't understand. They basically stole everything from jailbreak tweaks. Where's the innovation?

LOl,

So you think apple never had a hidden hand in jailbreaking? geez..

apple used some of the jailbreaking engineers (nick allegra) to implement an idea in cydia, and was tracking the traffic of what users was using the most.


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You're right. And I think they focus on Thunderbolt because there are so many devices available for it...

Unless you wanna stick to the 90s and use universal serial bus

heck, why not install a track player back in your car. cheaper right?

 

[juanmanas]

Ive is the man. Flat.

Ive is the man behind selling 9 million iphones in a weekend.

Now, Who are you?

 

[TWSS37]

Of course there is an argument that Steve being so heavily involved in the creative process as CEO made Apple what it was. Tim Cook is probably a better CEO than Steve was in the sense of running a business but it was the odd way Steve ran the company that in my opinion made Apple different. It still remains to be seen if Jony and Tim can form a winning team and take Apple in new and interesting directions. Only time will tell.

It was what Apple needed at the time - absolutely. But, at the top, you need a more traditional CEO who manages and has creative people underneath them. It doesn't undermine or hinder the creative process, but rather lets the CEO focus on the business as a whole, not trying to tinker and refine ideas. That's what you have the people below you for.

 

[CausticPuppy]

I'm curious to know how people are reacting to the parallax effect that seemed to garner so many design and engineering resources -- and amounted to a lengthy anecdote in this article. I've turned it off because it is a drain on the battery.

It's a drain on your battery? Do you just leave your phone with the home screen displayed all the time?

 

[Tysknaden]

These guys are so damned cool! Much cooler than their current products.

 

[everything-i]

It was what Apple needed at the time - absolutely. But, at the top, you need a more traditional CEO who manages and has creative people underneath them. It doesn't undermine or hinder the creative process, but rather lets the CEO focus on the business as a whole, not trying to tinker and refine ideas. That's what you have the people below you for.

While I would agree for the most part I think that having the creativity right at the top enabled products to be produced that would not normally have seen the light of day like the iPhone. More traditional managers thought that iPhone was a crazy idea because it was trying to capture an already well well established market. Traditional management structures do not tend to support more maverick ideas which is what made Apple different. Steve followed his agenda and that was one of creativity and innovation which often seemed crazy. If Tim and Jony can continue this then Apple is in a good place but only time will tell if that is going to happen.

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The problem is that Cook might be good in running a business, but Jobs was excellent in building a business. That's two different things.

Not at all, running and building a business are arguably the same thing. Its no secret that Tim was actually running Apple for a long time before Steve stepped down. Steve was more a products guy than a manager and it remains to be seen if Jony and Tim together can fill that role and can continue to provide the disruptive ideas that Steve was famous for.

 

[marty1980]

Next Up...

Next up is a redesign of the Mac OS. I can almost guarantee that OS X Mavericks is the last Mac OS to stick with the OS X look. The change is surely going to be as drastic, if not more so, than the switch from iOS 6 to iOS 7. This leads me to also believe that the next Max OS will not be called OS X, but will instead have a new name. I don't have any speculation on what that name could be.

 

[Rogifan]

While I would agree for the most part I think that having the creativity right at the top enabled products to be produced that would not normally have seen the light of day like the iPhone. More traditional managers thought that iPhone was a crazy idea because it was trying to capture an already well well established market. Traditional management structures do not tend to support more maverick ideas which is what made Apple different. Steve followed his agenda and that was one of creativity and innovation which often seemed crazy. If Tim and Jony can continue this then Apple is in a good place but only time will tell if that is going to happen.

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Not at all, running and building a business are arguably the same thing. Its no secret that Tim was actually running Apple for a long time before Steve stepped down. Steve was more a products guy than a manager and it remains to be seen if Jony and Tim together can fill that role and can continue to provide the disruptive ideas that Steve was famous for.

We have zero evidence that there's something really great Apple engineers/designers wanted to do and Cook said no. In fact this interview paints the opposite picture. Cook might not be a creative but there really isn't any evidence that he's a barrier to creativity at Apple.

 

[Pilgrim1099]

I agree with your points, but something tells me Ive didn't have much to do with the design of IOS7 - it's already been cited numerous times that it is the marketing team designing the icons, etc. I think he is being kept in a golden prison by Art Levinson and the board, who also rule over Tim Cook with an iron fist. Executives of public companies can be fined, sanctioned, or even imprisoned if they overtly do anything which negatively affects stock price.

Remember when they bought Jony Ive a $16M house in Pacific Heights? I think that was the beginning of a trap set to enslave him, as everyone knew that if Jony were to have left right after Jobs died, it could have tanked the stock, or even ruined the company.

Scott Forstall appears to have been the only maverick among the executives, and while he may not be Steve Jobs, he could have taken Apple in directions away from those designated as appropriate by what should be called the "bleeders" - those forces which disregard culture and society in their pursuit of profit, which they may in turn direct towards the furtherance of clandestine ideological objectives. The calling of the new operating system Mavericks betrays an awareness amongst Apple's controllers of the now obvious lack of true mavericks heading Apple.

To summarize I think Apple was taken over by nefarious entities interested only in spending its socio-economic potentials, during and after the run up to Steve Jobs death. Call it a conspiracy theory -- it'll still make sense.

$16M house? I think I remember this story. This had to have been around 2010-2011? It wasn't very well publicized but mentioned around in tech news sites including MR.

And yes, it was the Marketing team that designed the icons, to which I think the responsibility should have been left to the UI graphic designers under Ive's guidance. EDIT: or under Craig's team. A lot of people think Ive did all the UI design for iOS 7 but fail to realize that it was his UI dev team under him that did all the work while he would interject and approve/not approve of certain elements along with Craig Federighi via collaboration.

I suspect that Tim Cook will either step down as CEO back to his old position or get fired by the Board in the future and someone will take his place. The way things are going something tells me that Craig Federighi may be the next guy to be CEO and gets along with Ive compared to the Forstall/Ive working relationship. When I looked at the last presentation on video, Craig, IMO, seems to be the only one who could actually talk and engage the audience.

 

[Rogifan]

If you think able is playing catch up, your on the wrong thread. Apple is so far ahead of everyone else its redunkolous.

Ok not sure if you're just taking the piss with this comment but if you're serious than I don't know what to say. Since I've upgraded to iOS 7 I use control center every day. I can't believe it took 7 generations of the software to get it. But if Jobs and Forstall were of the belief an end user shouldn't ever really need to be in settings, never really need to turn wifi or Bluetooth on/off then yeah I can see why we didn't have it. Doesn't mean they were right about it though.

And how about the ability to set default apps for mail, web browser, maps, etc. Is that just silly customization that no one but a small number of geeks cares about? I don't think so. Same with actionable notifications, better inter-app communication, iCloud sync, file management. I think these are all areas where people would argue Apple is behind the competition.

Perhaps you can enlighten everyone on exactly how Apple is so far ahead of the competition here.

 

[Pilgrim1099]

Next up is a redesign of the Mac OS. I can almost guarantee that OS X Mavericks is the last Mac OS to stick with the OS X look. The change is surely going to be as drastic, if not more so, than the switch from iOS 6 to iOS 7. This leads me to also believe that the next Max OS will not be called OS X, but will instead have a new name. I don't have any speculation on what that name could be.

That would happen ONLY if they go with a touchscreen desktop, then the OS will drastically change. OS X will be strictly desktop. The only 'touch' based OS X was the Modbook seen here: http://www.modbook.com/ which is legit.

That is, unless they implement the iOS elements with gestures into OS X, then the gesture pad or Mac Trackpad will be the prominent focus for that reason on the desktop iteration in the future. I like the trackpad which is fantastic but for precision purposes using Adobe Illustrator, I use the Kensington trackball mouse with my fingers to cut down on RSI/Tendonitis. Whatever you do, don't use the mouse using your elbows/shoulders. It invites RSI problems but some companies have ergonomic versions of mice that do the job very well reducing the problem. But I'm going off track here, so I'll say again that it'll be a long while before OS X transforms into something else.

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Ok not sure if you're just taking the piss with this comment but if you're serious than I don't know what to say. Since I've upgraded to iOS 7 I use control center every day. I can't believe it took 7 generations of the software to get it. But if Jobs and Forstall were of the belief an end user shouldn't ever really need to be in settings, never really need to turn wifi or Bluetooth on/off then yeah I can see why we didn't have it. Doesn't mean they were right about it though.

And how about the ability to set default apps for mail, web browser, maps, etc. Is that just silly customization that no one but a small number of geeks cares about? I don't think so. Same with actionable notifications, better inter-app communication, iCloud sync, file management. I think these are all areas where people would argue Apple is behind the competition.

Perhaps you can enlighten everyone on exactly how Apple is so far ahead of the competition here.

Not only that, if they were visionaries, why didn't they THINK of implementing the Settings shortcut window in the first place? So I do agree that it took 7 generations to get to that point while other phones had that already. That's considered 'falling behind' and closed minded to Apple dogma.

 

[Rogifan]

Forstall was fired because he couldn't get along with others? Possibly. So was Steve Jobs.

Gee, I don't know any of those people. I don't know Forstall, Cook, Ive, Jobs, none. But neither do you. This is all speculation.

What we can tell is that IOS7 is Apple's Windows Vista. Many backwards steps in IMO.

We can also tell it was a result of the new "collaborative" team approach of Cook that, we know, is a complete rewrite of the process they had in place during Jobs rule. "Collaboration" can easily become "concession" and was that was exactly what it seems to have happened with IOS7. Too many concessions from either side delivering a buggy and ugly system.

Wow you're making a lot of assumptions here based on not knowing anything about the inter workings of Apple. You don't have to like iOS 7 but just because you think it's "ugly" doesn't make it so, and doesn't make the process around it flawed. It's just your opinion. Also it's impossible to have the same process in place they had under Jobs because Jobs was basically a dictator. Being a dictator might have worked for Jobs (founder of the company) buy wouldn't work for anyone else.

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Not only that, if they were visionaries, why didn't they THINK of implementing the Settings shortcut window in the first place? So I do agree that it took 7 generations to get to that point while other phones had that already. That's considered 'falling behind' and closed minded to Apple dogma.

We know why it didn't exist. Because Steve knew best. And Scott was Steve's protégé so he did whatever Steve would have done.

 

[Battlefield Fan]

Ive sucks. Flat is dumb. Buttons should stand out from the background, not be indistinguishable. And for ****s sake, some consistency, man! Gradient up, gradient down, what does the photo icon represent anyway, why are there bubbles on the game center icon, and why are those bubbles 3D instead of flat, why are all the colors playskool bright, why is find my friends still skeumorphic, why are some apps black-on-white and some white-on-black, etc, etc, etc. Ive is supposed to be the man, but c'mon, a lot of this is basic design and it's amazing he got it wrong.

Could not agree more!

 

[everything-i]

We have zero evidence that there's something really great Apple engineers/designers wanted to do and Cook said no. In fact this interview paints the opposite picture. Cook might not be a creative but there really isn't any evidence that he's a barrier to creativity at Apple.

Never said he was, he was picked by Steve as his successor for a reason and I think that between him and Ive they should be able to take Apple in interesting new directions. As I said only time will tell if Ive and Cook can do this. The new management structure which as spawned iOS7 is an interesting departure from Apples previous style so at the moment it looks like its starting to happen.

 

[giantfan1224]

I get the feeling you're a blind fanboy.

Based on...? What gets me is the unrealistic demands of one person. iOS is on how many hundreds of millions of devices? How exactly are they going to please each and every one of those users with their little gripes about this and about that?

 

[Rootus]

Based on...? What gets me is the unrealistic demands of one person. iOS is on how many hundreds of millions of devices? How exactly are they going to please each and every one of those users with their little gripes about this and about that?

Unrealistic demands? For one thing, these aren't demands, these are observations. Objectively the design of iOS7 lacks consistency. The color scheme is subjective, sure, but all the points I made are valid. Go through the system icons and it looks like each one was designed by a different team following loose guidelines ("make it flat and colorful") and nobody at the top actually vetted them for sanity. There are whole professions dedicated to this exact thing. Where are the human factors engineers and why is the visual design team overriding their input? Take away everything about the mishmash of designs, and you still have the problem with a flat interface. It's like Apple forgot it's a touch interface. And also like they decided things had to change just because. Some of the old icons were perfectly fine but are hideous now (I'm looking at you, settings app...).

My opinion: Apple should have kept a bit of 3D for touchable elements of the UI, eliminated the skeumorphic crap, and either toned down the color scheme a few notches or at least given us a config switch to turn them down. Or if they were really feeling wild, they could have published an API to let third party developers offer skins.

 

[TTile]

Honestly, if you disregard the new design, iOS 7 is pretty much an incremental update too, like iOS 6 was to iOS 5. A lot of new APIs and technologies, new features, and improvements of existing features. Control Centre, AirDrop, iTunes Radio, iOS in the car, iCloud keychain are some of the notable features. But other than that we are dealing with improvements, some more significant than others. Multitasking has been enhanced with opportunistic background updates and push triggers, but it is still not ‘true’ multitasking. Notifications are not different either, they have simply been improved (e.g. the dismiss button). I am not sure what you mean with better app organisation, but I cannot see any ‘significant upgrade’ at this point (probably only background updates and paged folders).

Of course many improvements have gone hand in hand with the new design, but in my opinion, iOS 7 feels more like an incremental upgrade once you get used to the new design. Which is the reason for me why I won't bother with it on my iPhone 4, there's not much I'm truly missing. With the many flaws that have come up since then, I don't agree with your statement that this is a good basis for the next five years. Apple actually needs to try even harder next year to keep our interest.

I think my overall point was that the interface was much more refined and therefore much easier to use (i.e. card view for apps vs. a string of 4 tiles on the bottom of the screen or the ability to swipe right to go back). I could care less about the new design, I just want something that works better/makes my life easier. This was the first iOS update where I could legitimately see a substantial difference between it and the previous generation.

Also what are the flaws that have come up in iOS7? The only flaws I ever saw were back in betas 1-3.

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Unrealistic demands? For one thing, these aren't demands, these are observations. Objectively the design of iOS7 lacks consistency. The color scheme is subjective, sure, but all the points I made are valid. Go through the system icons and it looks like each one was designed by a different team following loose guidelines ("make it flat and colorful") and nobody at the top actually vetted them for sanity. There are whole professions dedicated to this exact thing. Where are the human factors engineers and why is the visual design team overriding their input? Take away everything about the mishmash of designs, and you still have the problem with a flat interface. It's like Apple forgot it's a touch interface. And also like they decided things had to change just because. Some of the old icons were perfectly fine but are hideous now (I'm looking at you, settings app...).

My opinion: Apple should have kept a bit of 3D for touchable elements of the UI, eliminated the skeumorphic crap, and either toned down the color scheme a few notches or at least given us a config switch to turn them down. Or if they were really feeling wild, they could have published an API to let third party developers offer skins.

It seems like they took the existing color scheme from many of the apps in ios6 and simply tweaked them a bit. Ie the music app was orange and now it is red/orange, messages looks more or less the same, camera is now just a image of a camera, and even the setting app you complained about went from 3 gears to a single gear. It seems like your gripe is with any change at all...

 

[TTile]

We know why it didn't exist. Because Steve knew best. And Scott was Steve's protégé so he did whatever Steve would have done.

This exactly. Steve was incredibly stubborn at times (ie when he routinely said Apple would not make a tablet). I think it was his greatest asset and his biggest negative.

 

[Rogifan]

This exactly. Steve was incredibly stubborn at times (ie when he routinely said Apple would not make a tablet). I think it was his greatest asset and his biggest negative.

Yes. People should be excited now because I think Tim & Co. will be more receptive to change than Jobs and Forstall were. There's no reason it took 7 generations of iPhone software to get something like control center.

 

[Truffy]

Omfg

APPLE EXECS IN WORKING TOGETHER SHOCKA!

 

[JonyIve]

Definitely think you're right about that! Tim Cook doesn't look hipster enough to work for Apple.

If Jony does take over, can we rename this site MacRumours?

That would be lovely.

 

[JonyIve]

Ive sucks. Flat is dumb. Buttons should stand out from the background, not be indistinguishable. And for ****s sake, some consistency, man! Gradient up, gradient down, what does the photo icon represent anyway, why are there bubbles on the game center icon, and why are those bubbles 3D instead of flat, why are all the colors playskool bright, why is find my friends still skeumorphic, why are some apps black-on-white and some white-on-black, etc, etc, etc. Ive is supposed to be the man, but c'mon, a lot of this is basic design and it's amazing he got it wrong.

Why do you put two spaces after every sentence?