Jony Ive and Marc Newson Discuss Design, Obsession With Perfection in New Interview

[cb911]

I heard about the Product (Red) Leica M, but had no idea that Ive was involved in the design. That's a bit surprise, pretty amazing for Leica!

 

[wilhelmer]

Seriously Jony, how narcissistic can you get? You say you pay attention to details? See things others don't see? See what's behind objects? Really? Guess what, you are a designer. That's your f*king job. That's like a writer telling you "See, I have this incredible talent for expressing things with words" or a composer telling you "I can hear the music in my head before it is played". Stop bragging and get back to work.

 

[notjustjay]

Ives is a gifted INDUSTRIAL designer. He is great at designing boxes. He probably designed the round mouse too since that is what industrial designers do

Agreed. Ive designs beautiful hardware. But beautiful hardware doesn't necessarily mean practical or usable. Sometimes, in the computer world, we can let that go. No optical drive in an iMac because we wanted to have a thin, one-piece, solid aluminum block with no visible seams? ... ok, fine, we can work around that.

But there are also countless counter-examples. The round puck mouse that, while beautifully symmetrical, was infuriating to use BECAUSE it was beautifully symmetrical and your hand had no reference point for orientation.

The iPhone 4 "antennagate" issue because the beautiful steel and glass design got in the way of radio reception.

This camera looks beautiful but an actual photographer would have all kinds of usability problems with it. It's dumbed down enough that a casual user could enjoy it as a point-and-shoot, but the pros cry foul.

It's a familiar sound...

 

[adildacoolset]

Ive is definitely a good designer but he isn't perfect - and without Steve Jobs around to kick his butt on a daily basis, he's strayed from the things that have made Apple the remarkable success that it has become in the last 10+ years. Case-in-point: iOS 7. What a visual disaster that POS is. Obsession with Perfection? I think not.

I wouldn't classify something as a disaster when a small vocal group of people can't accept the changes. IOS 7 has been praised for being good overall, albeit with a few problems. But those can be fixed in iOS 8 and future releases

This definitely isn't like the apple maps case.

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Are you seriously asking what people get out of doing charity work?

• A positive sense of well-being from helping society
• Additional industrial design experience on a new device
• Keeping Ive happy
• Good PR
• Tax writeoff?
• New business ties with Leica

But mostly the point is the charity.

People like to blame apple for not doing enough charity, then criticise them when they go put of their way for charity.

 

[Woyzeck]

His designs are still good. But because the visual style shifted, a small group of people don't accept the change. Similarly, a lot of people weren't impressed with the iPhone.

iOS 7's design quality is not a question of looks or taste. Form should follow function and not vice versa, and iOS 7 is the total opposite of skeumorphistic design. It's a bizarre perversion of the opposite in fact.

For the graphical designer it's unbalanced (some parts are well done, though, but things don't fit together). Most obvious the icons are bad.

For the interaction designer it's inconsistent in its interactions. Swipe from left to right, right to left, top to bottom. All mixed up. Buttons are no buttons, sliders are not sliders.

For the usability expert it's more difficult to understand what the user interface is doing as the distance between the mental model that we have of things and the conceptual model is just too big. The fonts are less readable than before, some icons are meaningless and the whole interface is inconsistent.

For the customer it's, well, new at best.

 

[kdarling]

This line "finishing the back of a drawer" reminds me of Steve's story about painting the back of a fence even though no one would see it. I wonder if he borrowed that.

The "back of a fence" thing, Jobs credited to his father.

As for good looking inside parts, sometimes that can backfire. Like the time Jobs made the Macintosh team waste time creating a circuit board with "pretty memory traces", so an owner would be impressed if they ever managed to get the cover off.

The engineers tried to explain that this would cause cross-talk, but Jobs... who knew very little of real electronics... demanded it be made. Sure enough, the memory was erratic and they went back to a more intelligent layout. It was stuff like that which caused Apple to get rid of him in the first place.

People don't care about the back of a drawer, if the front doesn't look good first.

 

[fertilized-egg]

Just because skeuomorphism as a fad has passed didn't make his decisions poor ones. They sold. That round hockey puck actually may have come from Jony Ive --- form over function, just like iOS 7.

You're changing the argument from "taste" to commercial success. Are claiming that the overly detailed skuemorphism approved by Jobs was done tastefully or are you just saying they were fine because they sold well? Form over function has nothing to do with taste either.

Going by the same criteria, the iOS 7 will be successful and Ive will have made the right decision because the iPhones with the iOS 7 are selling great.

Jobs didn't built Apple into the empire it is with bland unfinished designs that look like a Scooby Doo cartoon, with a design sensibility right out of the early 1970s. It's a new fad for those not old enough to remember it last time.

So they are going after a new style. That's exactly what Jobs would've done. Jobs picked a "cartoon design sensibility" for his iMacs and early OSX. Then he changed up the style all of sudden. This change is exactly the type of move Jobs would've made.

 

[kemal]

It is painful to read "perfection" in the context of Apple designs.

 

[cb911]

So what we have here is the iMac of photography. It's less usable but slick.
(I'd like to see if he changed the menus and the other UI components to plain text as well ;-))

Now go back and list all the good points of the (Red) M...

I'm guessing that you could only find a few things, if that. Which would perfectly illustrate what you know about the subject of design and obsession with perfection.

 

[iMerik]

Seriously Jony, how narcissistic can you get? You say you pay attention to details? See things others don't see? See what's behind objects? Really? Guess what, you are a designer. That's your f*king job. That's like a writer telling you "See, I have this incredible talent for expressing things with words" or a composer telling you "I can hear the music in my head before it is played". Stop bragging and get back to work.

And to make it sound like everyone else there doesn't care about details...

 

[Nickerbocker]

Gee-whiz these two really know humility. /s

 

[WardC]

Something this special doesn't deserve to be in some rich guy's hands, who just has money to throw around. Like some sheik or Wall Street guy...it needs to be in the trained hands of someone who respects the art of photography as well as the art of design, and has some tie to the Apple community, fan or follower.

In other words, I would rather see this given as a gift, rather than sold off to the highest bidder...

 

[postpc]

I stopped reading at drawer which he took straight from Isaacason's book. Cook desperately trying to paint himself a product person (which he is not) and Ive pretending to be Jobs' heir is exactly what Steve Jobs would not have wanted. Pathetic.

 

[thefourthpope]

I suppose it's interesting to hear their views of themselves. Looking at the actual camera, I find the lamp the most attractive item in the auction.

 

[BenLeong]

I love many of Ive's designs for Apple. Some of the best consumer products of all time.

That said, the design of this Leica camera is absolutely underwhelming. It looks so dated and uninspired, like something straight from 2002, but with a touch more detail. This is especially true with regard to the back design. The LCD and buttons... I swear I had a HP first-gen digital camera over a decade ago that had the same concept.

The iPhone 4 was inspired by Leica cameras, and the fit, finish and attention to detail was instantly obvious. With this new camera, though, it is ironically not a reflexive comparison. It almost looks like someone from an Apple fan forum Photoshopped it... 6 years ago.

 

[graham.ernst]

But...

Apple don't have the premium product anymore. iOS7 does not work properly. It is unfinished and even if it did work, it had reduced usability. They have stepped backwards and everyone needs to accept it.

IVE is full of crap. Cook is full of crap. Shark = Jumped!

If they don't start fixing things they will be responsible for the downfall of a great company. Momentum only lasts a few years.

 

[YegorH]

I remember reading an article about an artist who was curious if he can sell his feces... and he succeeded. So this looks like Ive ate his sandwich without taking the aluminum wrap off. Oh, I am sure it will sell well.

 

[Pyrrhic Victory]

Here is the best part - since there is only one camera, you can whine all you want but you dont have to buy it. Simple really.
Oh and stop being such a drama queen.

Because if there was more than one camera, I would be FORCED to buy one, right?

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I was agreeing with you that the skeuomorphc design sucks majorly. But iOS7 is definitely not an improvement. So no, I didnt contradict myself.

I think you are confused. Ive hates skeuomorphism, which is why he designed IOS7 in the boring, minimalist way that he did. Forstall is the one who understands the value of skeuomorphism and integrated it into the previous versions of IOS.

 

[dperetti]

I wouldn't classify something as a disaster when a small vocal group of people can't accept the changes.

I'm sick with this argument, so this one is for you:
Users don’t hate change. They hate you.
« Users don’t hate change. Users hate change that doesn't make their life better, but makes them have to relearn everything they knew ».

This definitely isn't like the apple maps case.

Right, some of us had to live with Google's web app for a couple weeks until they provided the native one, and that was "The Map Case".
But half or more of longtime Apple users hating the new system they are almost forced to install, calling it "ugly", "eye-straining", causing nausea, this is not one ?

 

[zgh1999]

This is just great.....

Apple under Tim Cook is having trouble innovating and is falling behind the pack.

And Ive has time to go play with some camera design for another company.

What planet are we on exactly?

 

[kustardking]

Ugly

 

[kdarling]

The situation on the back is similiar:

Right idea, wrong camera. His is clearly a (slight) revision of this model (note the same labels and button positions.):



I wish he could've redone the buttons on the left, so they had different colors and shapes, and thus be quicker to use by sight and easier to use by feel. However, I guess he was going for artistic design consistency for the auction, not functionality reform.

 

[Smeaton1724]

From Ive's comments recently it appears he's believing his own greatness. That's fair enough he should have confidence and be respected across the whole tech industry, however it becomes dangerous - We have prior history in Jobs.

Let's hope iOS 7 evolves into a more consistent experience where things are toned down slightly and brought back into a tighter package.

 

[adildacoolset]

I'm sick with this argument, so this one is for you:
Users don’t hate change. They hate you.
« Users don’t hate change. Users hate change that doesn't make their life better, but makes them have to relearn everything they knew ».


Right, some of us had to live with Google's web app for a couple weeks until they provided the native one, and that was "The Map Case".
But half or more of longtime Apple users hating the new system they are almost forced to install, calling it "ugly", "eye-straining", causing nausea, this is not one ?

Yes. It's just not many users who think like this. People like it, people hate it, and most simply don't care.

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I stopped reading at drawer which he took straight from Isaacason's book. Cook desperately trying to paint himself a product person (which he is not) and Ive pretending to be Jobs' heir is exactly what Steve Jobs would not have wanted. Pathetic.

What makes you think Tim try's to be a product person?

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That's right, the same Steve Jobs who took a dying company and made it into one of the most successful companies in history. He did it with colorful Macs, and bold designs and breakthrough products. Just because skeuomorphism as a fad has passed didn't make his decisions poor ones. They sold. That round hockey puck actually may have come from Jony Ive --- form over function, just like iOS 7.

Jobs didn't built Apple into the empire it is with bland unfinished designs that look like a Scooby Doo cartoon, with a design sensibility right out of the early 1970s. It's a new fad for those not old enough to remember it last time.

No one had to be TOLD they must like the products Jobs was selling. We are now being told we SHOULD like the look of these products or we are clueless, or dumb or old, or <insert ad hominem attack>. Good luck with that.
This is why Cook is no Steve Jobs, nor is Jony Ive. Jobs was a good showman but the products were really good too; you didn't have to have someone explain why you should like them---if you used them, you liked them.

Actually people were doubting the iPad, the iPhone, and the iPod. Moreover in his final WWDC Keynote, people mostly looked past all the new iCloud stuff and complained.

 

[Four oF NINE]

It's a charity item, not intended to be working camera; as such, this is a designer's interpretation.

Nobody's going to take this camera out into the field.