Jony Ive Said to Be 'As Connected to Product Design as Ever' Following Speculation About His Role

[DocMultimedia]

As many others have said, there just doesn't appear to be a vision at Apple. Form is dominating over function. I'm worried the next iPhone will look amazing, but be such thin glass that the battery life will be 4 hours and you'll need to buy lots of spare wireless chargers that will get placed throughout your work/home. And of course the chargers will only be USB-C so to plug into your one year old computer you'll need to buy another adapter. And the adapter will be so small and thin that it will be difficult to use it.

But it sure will look pretty.

David Letterman predicted the future with the iPhone Nano way back in 2007!

 

[Since1987]

Terrible news. He's responsible for Apple's all consuming "form over function" culture. Please retire ASAP.

 

[kramerdude]

What, no Gruber bashing yet? Come on you guys, rev your troll engines.

I used to love reading Gruber's blogs. He has a lot of insight, and obvious connections. Unfortunately, I had to bail on my bookmark for his site. Trying to catch up on the tech industry, but getting political lectures instead was enough to turn me off. Same thing with Marco Arment. It's like when entertainers put on a concert and go on rants. At least with a website, you aren't out any money. At least there is still MacRumors, where so far, they just post stories instead of opinions or lectures.

 

[shk718]

...which is great for bragging rights, but how many users actually need that SSD performance, i/o bandwidth and screen estate but don't also need 32GB+ RAM and a beefier CPU and GPU? If you really are running 2x5k screens and a pair of TB3 RAID arrays then super thinness, ultimate battery life and a touch bar over the keyboard that you rarely touch might not be your top priorities. These are unbalanced designs: workstation-class I/O and storage hobbled by ultrabook CPU/GPU/RAM, betting the farm on a new connector and throwing everything else out, with key decisions based on what would fit within the pre-ordained 10% smaller case rather than what would make a well-rounded system.

Are these computers for everyone - no - are they great for the majority of people - yes. If you truly need 32G, which most people don't, then it looks like you'll have to wait a bit till next year when intel supports it. Kaby lake won't come out until next year but it also doesn't require a mother board redesign. i don't think apple should have designed a case/logic board that is super thick to support a larger battery for this short interim period. We also may not know the full story - perhaps Intel said they would support it and backed out when it was too late for Apple to turn back. remember there is a long testing period before Apple releases a new laptop. Let's not forget intel keeps running into road blocks and continues to screw up computer manufacturers plans (their tick tock tock cycle is a pain). I think Apple did the best they could with what Intel gave them to work with. They made a computer that has super fast LPDDR memory, up to 2133MHz, four Thunderbolt 3 ports with up to 40GB/second bandwidth. If you're doing video editing work you can't tell me those speeds aren't important.

 

[dv8r]

Designing and F1 car is a far cry from designing laptops, phones, tables and christmas trees. Jony Ive is undoubtedly a very accomplished designer, but unless he's spent all of his spare time studying advanced aero dynamics I'm not sure many of the F1 teams would be rushing to employ him!!!

It's not about the F1 cars but the street car versions - Jony Ive in charge of the next McLaren GT series is totally plausible, especially now that Apple seems to abandon it's automotive program. You think it's Tim Cook who was interested in McLaren in the first place?

 

[lazyrighteye]

Pretend, for a moment, that Ive's team is not unlike other creative teams within other larger organizations (I said pretend)... It's is incredibly likely that there are other creatives on the team that have played more of a role in helping create these iconic products than we might know. Otherwise, it might read "Designed by Jony Ive in California" as opposed to "Designed by Apple in California." Yep, Jony's the face of Apple Design. But he's not the only brilliant creative mind there.

That said, as a designer, I am a fan of what I know as his work, process and thinking. And while I don't design iconic hardware, his influence has helped me to be a more thoughtful designer. And for that, I'm grateful. I'm one that is completely comfy with him leading the design team at Apple. Besides, in my experience, fresh blood is often more impactful at levels under the executive level. That is where the sausage making really happens.

And all of THAT said... I wonder who Ive considers some of his rock stars of the team? I wonder if he has any thoughts about a successor? I would really enjoy more exposure to that team than we have, to date. To better understand them and their contributions more than I do. Now THAT would be a book/documentary I'd read/watch!

 

[StayPuft]

Not really feeling his designs lately.

 

[George Dawes]

He also copied Bang & Olufsen's David Lewis & Jacob Jensen but never gave them any acclaim

Personally I think Ive is massively overrated , maybe he should stick to what he's best at

Designing toilet seats

 

[robbyx]

Whether he stays or goes, Apple needs to do something about their stale industrial design and confused iOS GUI. The new MacBook Pro is dull. The long in the tooth Mac Pro was a ridiculously silly design. The new Apple Music app sucks. I have no idea what Apple is doing these days. Pretty pathetic when Microsoft blows you out of the water with hardware design, as they did with the new Surface Studio. The Surface Studio is flat out awesome, what the iMac should have become. I'm really bored with Apple these days. The more they focus on becoming a "consumer electronics" company and neglect computers, the less I like them.

 

[OneMike]

cool. let's all take this opportunity to armchair quarterback bash j.Ive.

this is going to be an embarrassing thread.

You don't have to be in the game to have an option. Even if nothing is said verbally. Speaking with your wallet is voicing your opinion.

 

[MRrainer]

I think people forget just how difficult it is to get things 100% right - which is what Apple (and Ive) is always aiming for.
I also don't see such a big problem with things getting thinner all the time. But then, I don't use their laptops regularly and when I use one (12" rMB 2016), it's not connected to anything but the WLAN.
The question is, if there were "fat" notebooks and "thin" Apple notebooks - which one would people buy? Or rather: would Apple sell double the amount of notebooks (and iMacs)?
The truth is that very likely, they wouldn't sell a lot more, but introduce more complexity and unnecessary variation in their supply-chain, resulting in price-increases for both "fat" and "thin" models.
Ultimately, this would not benefit anybody.

What I'm having a problem with is the low repairability-score of these products. There should be a way to have them taken apart and repaired more easily. This is the real problem, IMO.

 

[theluggage]

They made a computer that has super fast LPDDR memory, up to 2133MHz, four Thunderbolt 3 ports with up to 40GB/second bandwidth. If you're doing video editing work you can't tell me those speeds aren't important.

...as a previous article has said - 32GB RAM wasn't impossible, but would have reduced battery life. If you're doing video editing work, RAM, CPU speed and GPU speed are also important - and battery life maybe not so much. Machines like the Dell XPS15 offer 32GB RAM in a reasonably slim package and, yeah, they don't have the MacBook's battery life but, on the other hand, they're not rubbish. Then, maybe, there is a clever like-the-Apple-we-love option such powering down half of the RAM or running it at a lower speed when running off battery?

I recall lots of people on this forum begging for more RAM and better graphics on the 2015 rMBP, I don't recall a single person complaining that it was too thick or that they needed more battery life.

Oh, and only two of the TB3 ports are 40Gbps-no-strings because the mobile i7 processor doesn't have enough PCIe lanes - not the end of the world, admittedly - but it does erode the point of having 4xTB3 instead of 2xTB3 and keeping some of what Apple ridiculously designate "legacy" ports (while continuing to sell desktops that only have those ports).

Are these computers for everyone - no - are they great for the majority of people - yes.

...and everybody else can shut up and choose from the far more diverse range of Windows/Linux laptops & desktops available... right? Too bad if those are the people who either create Mac and iOS Apps, or are the key customers that make it worthwhile for everyone from Adobe to Docker to support their pro software on Mac, or are the ones that advise their colleagues and friends on what computers to buy, or are the one guy in the organisation that cares about supporting Macs on their windows-centric infrastructure...

This isn't a case of "just stick 32GB in the new MBP" - its a problem with a disjointed product line that is leaving "power users" and "pros" with nowhere to turn apart from Windows or Hackintosh. I don't think the 15" MBP with discrete GPU has ever been their big seller - but it (along with the 27" iMac) has been their "power user" machine since the Mac Pro was turned into a one-trick OpenCL appliance and the i7 Mac Mini axed. Maybe the 13" should have got the ultra-thin makeover while the 15" got the "portable workstation" treatment? Maybe things wouldn't have been so bad if Apple had updated their whole range?

The current 27" iMac isn't too bad - the worry is that, the way things are going, it will soon get replaced with an "improved" version with soldered-in RAM and SSD, TB3-only I/O and a GPU restricted by the heat dissipation capacity of the regulation 10%-thinner case.

 

[gugy]

'Twill be a sad day when Ive does leave.

Yep,
I don't mind Ive's design as of late. My issue is the compromising performance in the name of form. Not sure Ive is the responsible for that.
For me the biggest two examples of the above are the removal of the headphone jack on iPhone and the lack os ports and 16GB RAM on MBP. Phil could be the guy pushing or these. That said the products are still beautiful but they must bring function and performance back.

 

[Marx55]

There is something much more important than plain design: functionality. Sometimes Apple forgets that For instance, back ports on Mac instead of much useful frontal ones, lack of disk and CPU activity lights on Mac, misleading black screen while shutting down Mac not yet turned off (imagine catastrophic effects when unplugging external booting disk in a hurry), lack of matte display as previously available, lack of power button on keyboard as was previously possible, etc.

 

[idunn]

Maybe or maybe not, but where there is smoke often fire—or at least something smoldering.

Mr. Ive has come up with some brilliant product design and significantly helped Apple to be where it is today. For that I thank him.

However there is also a worm within Apple, in my view over-simplification, which can also be laid at Mr. Ive's doorstep. Less is more until it isn't and a certain balance is best—one he regularly exceeds to the detriment of Apple customers.

Perhaps his vision is a pairing down until nothing stands between a customer and their expression in the outer world, their thought becomes action, and hardware of software allowing that invisible to the process. A fine notion, if in excess there could be some downsides to same.

But in the here and now of today we are quite intimately tied to the realities of hardware and software, their pairing, and such mundane details as the number and type of ports available.

I suspect Mr. Ive bears a good deal of responsibility for the blunt transition to USB-C on the 2016 MBP, the unwise elimination of MagSafe, etc., and the obsession of thinner at any cost. To this extent he is guilty of bad design. To where his personal vision and vanity has eclipsed the practical needs and desires of his subject audience.

He is precisely the force and talent Apple once needed and should retain. But where Mr. Jobs could corral and use him to best effect, Mr. Cook has hopelessly let him wild to run amuck.

Some tempering is in order. Challenge Mr. Ive again, but this time to improve the Macintosh to its highest potential, not whittle down in simplification to the lowest common denominator.

And keep him out of software entirely. He is best suited to hardware design.

 

[Deuce on the Clock]

Bet hes connected with a dongle.....

 

[theluggage]

The truth is that very likely, they wouldn't sell a lot more, but introduce more complexity and unnecessary variation in their supply-chain, resulting in price-increases for both "fat" and "thin" models.

Apple have a long, long way to go before they reach the sort of product-line bloat that plagues Dell, Lenovo etc. They're also relying somewhat on keeping old models around (the Air, the remaining 2015 rMBP models) to plug holes in their new ranges, which doesn't make for a clean product range, either.

Also, unlike Dell, Lenovo, Microsoft, Apple are the sole suppliers for the MacOS platform: if they drive a whole class of customers away from Mac hardware, they also drive them to Windows or Linux and decimate the market for that class of software on MacOS... those customers will commit time, money and effort to their new platform and won't be rushing back for the Apple Spring 2018 collection. The danger is that a management with a "fashion brand" mentality won't understand that.

 

[sevoneone]

I bet the poor guy has become bored. He has basically been designing and re-designing the same products for 20 years, and the advancement on the tech end of things has really slowed down in the past 5 and that is a big part of what really drove Apple's design success. New battery tech, more efficient chips and components that use less power, run cooler and have fewer limitations; big advancements in these areas are what made it posible for him to bring revolutionary designs forward.

Now he has engineers on one end handing him basically the same parts year after year and a marketing team on the other asking for drama. This isn't how creative people thrive. It would be like giving DaVinci the same paint, brushes and canvas material again and again asking for a sequal to the Mona Lisa but make sure it is different enough that people know the difference and looks like a step forward. The poor guy had already done his best with the tech that was out there. That's when you end up with the marketing folks making suggestions about spinning the removal of features as 'courage'.

 

[bopajuice]

I wonder if there is a website out there with pictures and renderings. A place where people could share new ideas for products and designs?

I would love to see some other people's design ideas for Apple products. I bet there are a bunch of innovative thinkers out there flying under the Apple radar so to speak.

 

[dan110]

So, he is to blame for Apple falling asleep at the design wheel. Ok, note taken.

 

[a sleepy bear]

I bet the poor guy has become bored. He has basically been designing and re-designing the same products for 20 years, and the advancement on the tech end of things has really slowed down in the past 5 and that is a big part of what really drove Apple's design success. New battery tech, more efficient chips and components that use less power, run cooler and have fewer limitations; big advancements in these areas are what made it posible for him to bring revolutionary designs forward.

Now he has engineers on one end handing him basically the same parts year after year and a marketing team on the other asking for drama. This isn't how creative people thrive. It would be like giving DaVinci the same paint, brushes and canvas material again and again asking for a sequal to the Mona Lisa but make sure it is different enough that people know the difference and looks like a step forward. The poor guy had already done his best with the tech that was out there. That's when you end up with the marketing folks making suggestions about spinning the removal of features as 'courage'.

I'd agree with this. But I'm not sure how much time he, himself, would spend on continuous improvement of an existing product versus design of a brand new product. There's only so far you can go with the Macs, iPads, and iPhones. I think this is the disappointing perspective of it, that we have yet to see any truly remarkable new Apple products in quite some time. And it's not necessarily that he hasn't built prototypes, but whatever they work on is never getting realized.

Apple being closed off, we don't see the failures or the products that never make it to market. With Google, it's the exact opposite. They tease a lot of their product innovation, only to never reach market with the vast majority of them.

 

[tennisproha]

Gruber makes more than a million a year by corroborating or speculating on rumors. Some pieces are insightful but hardly groundbreaking. And "technically" he's a journalist?

Literally anyone can do his job. I guess props to him for carving out a phony niche.

 

[MRrainer]

Apple have a long, long way to go before they reach the sort of product-line bloat that plagues Dell, Lenovo etc. They're also relying somewhat on keeping old models around (the Air, the remaining 2015 rMBP models) to plug holes in their new ranges, which doesn't make for a clean product range, either.

Also, unlike Dell, Lenovo, Microsoft, Apple are the sole suppliers for the MacOS platform: if they drive a whole class of customers away from Mac hardware, they also drive them to Windows or Linux and decimate the market for that class of software on MacOS... those customers will commit time, money and effort to their new platform and won't be rushing back for the Apple Spring 2018 collection. The danger is that a management with a "fashion brand" mentality won't understand that.

I believe the absolute number of "negative" switchers is rather small. They are "prosumers", for sure, and some are rather influential on social media - no doubt.
But I'm not sure if the impact on the Apple platform is that big. But it certainly doesn't help.

I can understand the criticism very well - but I can also see why Apple chose this path, with the iPhone and the new laptop-designs.
Bold moves, very bold.
On the upside, when people sell their 2016 devices in two years, they'll be just as ready for the peripherals of 2018 as a 2018 model. That's the beauty and the genius of these models.

 

[Daniel Reed]

I think Apple needs some fresh blood and fresh thinking in design beside thinner.

Sadly, I suspect the "thinner" & smaller designs we've seen have little to do with Ives.

This is a about The Cook's vision for Apple:

1. Focus on increasing Margins above all other considerations
2. Target consumers w/ devices and services, do not empower content creators
3. Squeeze the power of a PC into a portable
4. Run macOS on Apple's own chips (ditch all other part suppliers, including intel)
5. Ditch any product with low margins or sales numbers, regardless of their impact on the Apple ecosystem

Although, if Trump strong arms The Cook with YUGE tax cut incentives, we may see a real Mac Pro again.

Making a proper Big Mac workstation w/ dual CPU sockets and multiple pci-e slots is against The Cook's vision, but may fit in well with #1 above, Maximize Margins.
OR
Tim may just make more 2013 nMPs and open several watch band factories in the US

 

[dan110]

I've been an Apple fanatic since the 1980s. If you've been watching them this long, you'll start to see the patterns in the tech industry and see how the pendulum swings. Does anyone else remember when Sony was the "Apple" of that time? I do. Does anyone else remember when Apple nearly went bankrupt? I do. If you want to understand where Apple has come from and will mostly likely end up in the next decade or so, here's a great article on the rise and fall of Sony Corp. and how it influenced Apple's rise and speaks to its most likely future.
http://www.sonyrumors.net/2011/10/11/steve-jobs-wanted-apple-sony/