I’m reading a great book at the moment called Creative Selection by Ken Kocienda, who was an engineer at Apple during the early OS X days to the launch of iPad. The timing of this read really couldn’t have been better with the launch of Liquid Glass.
The book gives arguably one of the best insights into how the Apple of (now, sadly) old, early-to-late 2000’s, operated. One of the most spectacular take aways is in fact how unspectacular this era of Apple ran as a company, well before Apple Park, the trillions, and with a strong leadership team that cared only about doing the best in everything they were tasked with. Focusing on fewer things really well.
The company really did run like a startup, even down to the ‘demo’ conference room that was furnished with basic Formica tables, worn seats, tatty posters and stained whiteboards. It sounds ridiculous now, but things like this helped workers to keep their feet on the ground. They all knew that lavish furnishing didn’t solve problems, and it didn’t form inspiration. Problem solving and ideas often came from abrasive and bold discussions.
I particularly like reading of how there were generally two types of employee; those who took Jobs’ criticism of their work personally and feared him, and those who saw beyond the narcissism - almost to the point of humour - to challenge this guy and rough-out their best work. And this might be the real secret of Jobs’ success, not just his taste for design but the fact that he instilled a culture of snappy decision making and ruthless drive to for an employee to create their best work. Employees had a clear moral compass.
Not that anyone of us would see it from a PR angle, but I certainly cannot imagine Cook having this tenacity and aggression, and I feel that is the problem with Apple today and Liquid Glass is just one example of this.
They’ve realised that with the safety net of their trillions, their cringingly over-thought campus, and their culture of self-righteousness that they can dip their toes into practically any industry or concept and not have to be punished for failure. It may be to Cook’s credit that he realises he is not creatively inclined and has delegated leaders in various positions; but ultimately there is no evidence that he has full control, either because Apple has diluted its interests or because he trusts his senior leaders too much.
The clear goal with Liquid Glass was to unify all their platforms with a common theme and I continue to respect this vision: but the fundamental idea of using transparent, reflective, and low contrast materials for interfaces that must conform to a range of input methods - which for absolutely no reason mimic the properties of real life glass (aside from a pointless tech demo that has novelty factor for one week in September) - is one of the stupidest decisions I’ve witnessed from such a wealthy and resource rich business.
