New Profile Delves Into Background of Jony Ive Successor Jeff Williams

[Abazigal]

All right, so the $6k total price is reasonable. How is dividing it into $5k for the monitor and $1k for the stand streamlining the purchase decision. If anything it makes things more confusing. If $6k is reasonable, $5k is excellent for the monitor itself, but then a $1k stand is still and $1k stand.

At the end of the day, the bottom line is Apple is selling a monitor stand for $1,000 and deserves to be mocked mercilessly by the media for that. It doesn't matter how great a deal the monitor that connects to the stand is, that is still a $1,000 stand.

Because there also exists another option - mounting it on a VESA mount. So a customer can select the monitor and then the mount of his choice and pays accordingly. I don’t need to pay the full $6200 if I intend to suspend it from my desk and won’t need the stand, and I can still purchase the stand separately if I do change my mind later.

Or if the screen becomes damaged later and needs replacing, I can just order another display while recycling the stand.

It would also be interesting if the stand is proven to be worth $1k alone just by the engineering and work that goes into making it.

 

[newyorksole]

What charisma has to do with good design? Or be a good professional in general? Hint: nothing.

Why did you quote me? Did I say that charisma and good design go hand-in-hand? No. I just said he’s not charismatic.

Period.

 

[MrGimper]

Wait, this bloke is replacing Jony? He’s got less charisma than a cardboard cutout version of himself.

This wins the internet for today

 

[Rogifan]

Jony Ive: Look. I surpassed myself. This is the ugliest product I ever designed.

No offense but 15 years old PowerMac G5 looks ways better than this.

I don’t think this product was designed to look pretty.
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Point is - it makes zero difference in the end, and by having the option to decouple the stand from the display, you make it cheaper for customers who might decide to get one without the stand.

Apple is helping to streamline the purchase decision for the end user. I can understand the media resorting to taking cheap potshots at the $1k stand for the sake of generating outrage and clickbait. It’s literally their entire business model. They cannot not do this any more than Facebook is incentivised to play fast and loose with your privacy.

There’s no need for us to stoop to that same level. We pretty much agree that at $6k, the display represents excellent value for the target market. Let’s work on countering the fixation the media has on the $1k stand by conditioning the detractors to see the whole (display) as worth more than the sum of its parts.

I guess it was too much to hope that the posters here could be better. And that is why I see myself doing what I do for as long as I can.

Actually I have to agree with the other poster. For the intended market the $1000 makes no difference. But announcing them separately allowed the media to have a field day mocking a. $1000 stand. The bigger question for me is why was this machine announced at WWDC? It seems the intended target isn’t really the developers in the room. They’re certainly not the target for that monitor. It would’ve been nice if Apple announced a cheaper iMac Pro like panel display for all those in the room who use MBPs and Mac mini’s. Is there any display on the market right now to recommend? I don’t think so. Maybe it’s coming this fall but WWDC would’ve been the perfect place to announce it.
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Where's your source for thinking this isn't true?

I don’t have one. But it’s not up to me to prove someone else is passing off opinion as fact.

 

[bigboyz12000]

I wouldn’t say Jony had “charisma”. He has a British accent and uses a lot of fluff to describe basic things.

I never heard him speak and said “wow that guy is charismatic”.

He’s pretty mundane. Rarely smiles.

Agreed! Americans love all accents except for their own haha! When i saw that comment i thought to myself, it must be the accent.

 

[kaneda]

Does his charisma determine how well he designs things?

Does CFO know how to design thing?

 

[ZeitGeist]

I guess it was too much to hope that the posters here could be better. And that is why I see myself doing what I do for as long as I can.

Which is what, exactly?
Being Apple’s unofficial apologist?

 

[ZeitGeist]

At the end of the day, the bottom line is Apple is selling a monitor stand for $1,000 and deserves to be mocked mercilessly by the media for that. It doesn't matter how great a deal the monitor that connects to the stand is, that is still a $1,000 stand.

Exactly - but the hopeless apologists in our communities can’t bring themselves to ever be critical of anything Apple does.

I’ve said all that needed to be said - for now, I’ll leave these folks to work their way through Stages I through IV...

 

[ZeitGeist]

I don’t think this product was designed to look pretty.
[doublepost=1562591665][/doublepost]The bigger question for me is why was this machine announced at WWDC? It seems the intended target isn’t really the developers in the room. They’re certainly not the target for that monitor.

WWDC was the right venue to introduce the new Mac Pro - WWDC (at least the keynotes) are much more than ‘just for developers’, and what with the Mac Pro having missed their original ‘late 2018’ target, WWDC was the first official opportunity they had. Furthermore, with the ‘Pro’ community more and more in doubt about Apple’s ‘Pro’ products, something has to be shown ... and, let’s face it, developers are geeks and nerds, and welcome a genuine tech-gasm product, like the new Mac Pro.

Finally, the new Mac Pro was extremely well received, and the introduction has served its purpose - I have no doubt it will sell well into the intended market.

 

[apolloa]

Read the first sentence of my post you are responding to. The first 30 minutes of the episode goes into all the “off the record” stuff people inside the design team are saying. I’ll take that over the one person who is disgruntled spewing BS.
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That’s what off the record means if you know an ounce about reporting. MacBreak weekly is a very popular podcast that has people on there who have a very good track record in the industry as well as many contacts inside apple.

Or you can keep on believing the sensationalism of one or two people trying to make waves.

I’m not going to believe some podcast that ‘claims’ to have insider knowledge with no proof or track record that’s for sure.
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iPadOS is about way more than look and feel. Also Craig’s bio says he’s responsible for user interface.

https://www.apple.com/leadership/craig-federighi/

Ah so now your deflecting your argument... attempting to ignore Ive’s responsibilities. You know full well Ive has been in charge of user interface looks.
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As you might have seen elsewhere, this is already in the works. Nearly a day after Ive announced his departure, news of a keyboard redesign to correct the flaws of “the pursuit of thin” were leaked.


This won’t ever happen - personally, I have no problem with the USB-C ports, as they provide more future-proofing, and adapters (not Apple’s dongles) are cheap and plenty. What I do miss is Ive having gotten rid of MagSafe, which I would love to see a return of - but which is also unlikely to happen.

Furthermore, I would hope the next Mac mini will have socketed SSD drives, since some moron decided to solder the SSD drives (while touting how the RAM is now socketed - eye roll).


Absolutely agree - though the monitor comes with a “basic stand”, and what you are talking about is the “premium stand”. Either way, it’s a case of dumb presentation of the product. If you have a $5,000 monitor and are touting the $1,000 stand for it, then you might as well announce it as the $6,000 monitor (and a discount of $1,000 if you opt for the VESA version, or ‘standard’ version. That way, there’d be less snark for the “$1,000 stand” (which is a rehash of the iconic ‘dome’ iMac G4 monitor arm.

You do appear to be on a mission to constantly be an apologist for everything Apple does - it’s a matter of perception. Apple could have simply avoided much of the snark and negative press by selling it as a single product, $6,000 Premium Display, instead of placing undue focus that the arm costs $1,000. The display competes with $40,000 reference displays, and is better and larger than those. The intended target market wouldn’t care if the display is $5,000 or $6,000, and this is simply a presentation fail on Apple’s part. We are bemoaning Apple’s failure to realize that, not the actual prices.


Nice strawman argument, there, or you genuinely are oblivious. No need to further discuss this with you, then. Ciao.


The quality of software HAS deteriorated, and that is not the same thing as design choices like skeuomorphism - Forstall might have been an ass to work with, but under him iOS was stable and worked well - that could be Forstall, or it could have been Steve Jobs making sure of that. We’ll never know, since Forstall won’t be back, and he will never work in the tech field ever again. I may miss certain aspects of him, but I miss the people that he caused to leave even more. Firing him was an unfortunate, but necessary decision of Cook’s.

The same can be said about Jony Ive - a lot of you might disagree, but Ive’s departure is no different. He was basically fired, but the departure is being handled very amicably, for the benefit of public perception. Either way, Apple will be much better off without Jony around.

No, no straw man argument, just facts you chose to ignore as you seem to have an issue with Ive, the man who’s designs sell in the millions and millions. You seem to be in the minority.

 

[ZeitGeist]

I’m not going to believe some podcast that ‘claims’ to have insider knowledge with no proof or track record that’s for sure.

Right, because the folks in those podcasts are virtual unknowns with zero connection to Apple. More acrobatics on your part.

No, no straw man argument, just facts you chose to ignore as you seem to have an issue with Ive, the man who’s designs sell in the millions and millions. You seem to be in the minority.

We can pick this up again when you are no longer enamored by your Iveian cult of personality since it seems to blind you to reality.

Have a nice day.

 

[macbookhair]

Right, because the folks in those podcasts are virtual unknowns with zero connection to Apple. More acrobatics on your part.



We can pick this up again when you are no longer enamored by your Iveian cult of personality since it seems to blind you to reality.

Have a nice day.

Allllyouuuuminnniyummm...

 

[Abazigal]

All right, so the $6k total price is reasonable. How is dividing it into $5k for the monitor and $1k for the stand streamlining the purchase decision. If anything it makes things more confusing. If $6k is reasonable, $5k is excellent for the monitor itself, but then a $1k stand is still and $1k stand.

At the end of the day, the bottom line is Apple is selling a monitor stand for $1,000 and deserves to be mocked mercilessly by the media for that. It doesn't matter how great a deal the monitor that connects to the stand is, that is still a $1,000 stand.

And the people who want the stand will still get one. And the combined price of the monitor and the stand will still represent a great value to them, and they are smart enough to see and recognise this.

Therein lies the sweet irony. The people mocking this are the ones who absolutely have no intention of purchasing the monitor or stand in the first place. Those who do are simply waiting for it to be released, and will get one regardless of what the rest of the community thinks.

Reminds me of the old saying about know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

 

[DevNull0]

And the people who want the stand will still get one. And the combined price of the monitor and the stand will still represent a great value to them, and they are smart enough to see and recognise this.

Therein lies the sweet irony. The people mocking this are the ones who absolutely have no intention of purchasing the monitor or stand in the first place. Those who do are simply waiting for it to be released, and will get one regardless of what the rest of the community thinks.

Absolutely true. So all Apple has done with this stupidity is left themselves open to some well deserved mocking.

Very few people will buy a $6,000 monitor, it's not a major product line. But marketing it the way they did is just a humiliation for Apple and makes all Apple uses look a little more ridiculous.

It hurts the brand for zero reason and is just one more entry in the nearly endless list of why Apple is rotten in the head and Timmy needs to go.

 

[I7guy]

Absolutely true. So all Apple has done with this stupidity is left themselves open to some well deserved mocking.

Very few people will buy a $6,000 monitor, it's not a major product line. But marketing it the way they did is just a humiliation for Apple and makes all Apple uses look a little more ridiculous.

It hurts the brand for zero reason and is just one more entry in the nearly endless list of why Apple is rotten in the head and Timmy needs to go.

Except that Tim Cook's compensation reflects his performance (whether one believes in that metric or not). He's not going anywhere involuntarily.

 

[Abazigal]

Absolutely true. So all Apple has done with this stupidity is left themselves open to some well deserved mocking.

Very few people will buy a $6,000 monitor, it's not a major product line. But marketing it the way they did is just a humiliation for Apple and makes all Apple uses look a little more ridiculous.

It hurts the brand for zero reason and is just one more entry in the nearly endless list of why Apple is rotten in the head and Timmy needs to go.

I don’t think it’s stupid at all.

People have been laughing at Apple products (and their users by extension) for ages now.

They laughed at the iPad’s name when it was first announced. Now, it’s pretty much the only mobile tablet worth a damn.

People laughed at the Apple Pencil’s charging method. I have personally tried it and I loved it. It’s super-convenient and I don’t think it looks silly at all.

They laughed at the hump of the iPhone battery case, but on closer scrutiny, it’s full of small but clever design bits that are testament to Apple’s design-led company culture which makes it not afraid to release unorthodox product designs if it improves the user experience in some meaningful way.

They laughed at the AirPods and likened it to all manner of sanitary products. Now, it’s one of the most popular pair of wireless headphones and have become a cultural phenomenon in its own right.

I don’t know if I am the only one who honestly does not see anything wrong with Apple selling just the monitor on its own and then releasing the stand as an accompanying accessory (since there are users who might well end up using the monitor without the stand anyways).

If it’s one thing I can take away, it’s not about who laughs first, but who laughs last. And I do feel that for the people laughing and mocking this, it says a lot more about themselves and how little they understand Apple, than it does about Apple and how it is run.

Watch and learn. Tim Cook will continue to be around for a good many years to come, and Apple will go on to prosper and become more successful for it.

You will see.

 

[DevNull0]

Except that Tim Cook's compensation reflects his performance (whether one believes in that metric or not). He's not going anywhere involuntarily.

Except when you let Wall Street measure performance, you get Sculley driving the company at light speed into a brick wall.

 

[I7guy]

Except when you let Wall Street measure performance, you get Sculley driving the company at light speed into a brick wall.

Well nobody can really prove or disprove that. But to play that out, that would mean the senior mgmt and the board are missing the boat on some crucial information. Given the high profile types involved I doubt that is really the case. But hey, I could be wrong, except I believe Apple knows exactly what it is doing, more than an internet poster believes they don't.

 

[Mactendo]

I don’t think this product was designed to look pretty.

That’s the point of design - to make things look pretty.

 

[macduke]

To be fair the fashion aspect would have sold it to me more than the health/fitness, that said I recall the health side was held back due to sensor issues or something? It wasn’t quite ready for that at that point.

What hurt the first release was not the fashion accessory label, it was that it had to be tied to an iPhone to be of any real use...it should have been a full on stand alone product like it is now. But in the compromise I think they allowed the fashion target Jony aimed for but kept it tied to iPhone instead of a stand alone product.

Yeah, but that's how technology progresses. The original iPhone, which I had at launch, didn't even have the iTunes Store or App Store on it. The App Store didn't exist yet, and to get music onto it, or even photos and movies, you had to sync it to a computer. So it was also a bit hobbled. But the iTunes app for iPhone came along pretty quickly (maybe 1.1?) and the App Store about a year. The bigger problem is that Apple let the Apple Watch languish in a limited state.
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I so hope you are right. I cannot take any more "thin" products. I really cannot. I think we've hit peak "thinness" and now I want products that don't overheat and that can be more powerful and useful without messed up keyboards, etc.

I give Ive credit for some great successes, but his "thin" and "fashionable" crap was ruining Apple's products. Frankly, I'm glad he's leaving. I wish him well, but I am very glad he's leaving.

Agreed, but the push for thinness did have some advantages. For instance, I remember reading about an interview with an Apple exec (maybe Phil, or possibly Craig) saying that the push for thinness drove development of technologies that were crucial for things like the Apple Watch and it's tiny SoC, and the tiny electronics inside the AirPods, and things along those lines. But yeah, I think it's time to take a step back and re-evaluate things.
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There's no reason to think Jony Ive has the skills or inclination to run a product company.

Well, he is running it with Marc Newson. I don't know much about that guy. Maybe they already know some good ops people to do the heavy lifting? But yeah, I was just thinking about that because it was the closest analog, not because I think he's going to make products. It kinda sounds more like consulting, especially given the revelation that it's going to be inside Apple Park, which is quite frankly bizarre.

 

[Tozovac]

I won’t say the iOS 6 designs were distracting, but I will say that I have gotten so used to the iOS 7 design UI, heck, embraced it even that I would find a regression to iOS 6 exactly that - a regression.

I still say there’s a difference between getting used to something and accepting it, versus finding it to be so entirely well-designed from the start and then loving it more as you use it more.

I must keep doing a poor job of explaining myself. I am not all-in for replicating iOS 6 back fully. I just wish we'd all move on from the aspects of Flat Design that often result in (to me) less obvious UIX, where the black paste/cut/copy iOS commands (of white text on a simple black background w/o framing) too-often blend nearly invisibly into a black page with white text, requiring additional time to focus, understand, and then enact (while before iOS7 such actions were obvious and allowed nearly instantaneous actions).

Apple is not alone in following this fad. I find windows 10 and the updated versions of office applications, with their monochromatic borderless representations, to be less easy and actually worse to use.

It'd be one thing if pixel conservation had as important a consideration as single-use straws and plastic. But this is not the case. So why all the sometimes-tortuous minimalist design contests?

I wish we'd return to using time-tested (and human nature-driven) more-obvious UIX cues to differentiate actionable items vs. info-only items, instead of letting the user explore and guess at times. The benefit would be a return to the efficient and often fun "it just works" feeling that's been absent in Apple products for 6 years now.

Stylistically, I wish Apple, Microsoft, and all the lemming app & web designers who follow Apple's lead off the cliff to stop clinging to the getting-to-be stale repeated light blue light grey white round circles interface that (in my opinion) wastes an awful lot of space and requires a lot more scrolling and hamburger-icon-pressing just to get to things that used to be smartly organized out front.

I think a more apt term is “modernised”. For better and for worse, I feel that iOS 7 truly belongs on the iOS devices on which they inhabit. That’s the thing when you have the same person design both the hardware and software hand in hand. They may not each be the best they can be, but they go well together and make up for each other’s shortcomings.

iOS 7 design is probably less “discoverable” than ios 6, but I find that what Apple has made me realise is that I am willing to give up a certain degree of usefulness for something that looks and feels better.

It’s just me at least.

Well, I for one would never think we’ll have better automotive designs if the same person designed the interior, exterior, and powertrain.

Fair enough if ios7-13 matches your taste, but speaking in generalities for the masses, when did some of the "more-obvious" UIX cues of the iOS 6 era suddenly become not useful and valued? When did disguising a button/actionable item to look like an info-only text item become smarter or "more modern?" How does the over-use of monochromatic light blue/white/grey interfaces and flat-design white circles across different apps become better or "more modern?" I contend that people are smart enough to understand how to use different looking apps, and that this push towards making everything look alike across apps is actually a regression, not advancement.

Flat design uIX on blue/white layouts were new and different for sure, which permit maybe some to make the mistake of thinking you need something to look radically different in order to feel modern. I'll hear time and time again that iOS 7 was necessary for modernization because people no longer needed "obvious cues" to learn how to tap a screen. When did those "obvious cues" like context-providing borders/frames, 3D "press-me" cues, bold/contrasty representations, and smartly showing things on the available screen space a bit closer to how they are (and still are) in "real life" become "less modern?" Why do we spend hours in real life picking just the right cabinet pulls for a kitchen remodel when, technically, cabinet pulls aren't even needed most of the time, and why don't we value UIX cues in iOS that make our lives more obvious and easy (and, dare I say, more interesting looking).

You’re not going to see any change in the course of the ship for at least 5 years, IMO. So don’t pop the cork from the champagne.

I still popped the champagne. Like Trump in the white house vs. Hillary, at least change is coming and it can't be any worse than it would have been had the old guard way of doing things been left to fester on.

Thankfully Apple took apart iOS 6, it was time to go.

You really should qualify what you're saying. Did you not appreciate any aspects of pre-iOS7? Things like higher-contrast font colors vs. backgrounds? A bit more context-providing framing/gridwork/borders? Arguably more-obvious UIX prompts of actionalable items (buttons) vs. info-only items (text?) Do you see no ways to improve any aspects of iOS7-13 closer to how they used to be? (I.e., are the new ways of how everything is done superior over the old way?

I don’t think it’s stupid at all.

People have been laughing at Apple products (and their users by extension) for ages now.

They laughed at the iPad’s name when it was first announced. Now, it’s pretty much the only mobile tablet worth a damn.

People laughed at the Apple Pencil’s charging method. I have personally tried it and I loved it. It’s super-convenient and I don’t think it looks silly at all.

They laughed at the hump of the iPhone battery case, but on closer scrutiny, it’s full of small but clever design bits that are testament to Apple’s design-led company culture which makes it not afraid to release unorthodox product designs if it improves the user experience in some meaningful way.

They laughed at the AirPods and likened it to all manner of sanitary products. Now, it’s one of the most popular pair of wireless headphones and have become a cultural phenomenon in its own right.

But also, people learn to adapt & (ultimately) accept.

Are you saying those designs could not possibly have been better at launch?

 

[Tozovac]

Agreed. Let’s also not forget that the Apple Watch is now much more popular than the iPod ever was both as far as numbers and sales. So yeah, I think Jeff Williams has every right to stick around having helmed a major apple success.

Man some others around here are beyond dense.

I’m not sure comparing a music player device with huge storage 10-15 years past its prime to an Apple watch/health device that’s an extension of the iPhone is a good comparison, but I’m with you.

 

[ZeitGeist]

... and, here we go some more: 12” MacBook is now discontinued.

Another Jony Ive designed boat anchor being put out to pasture, not coincidentally timed after Jony’s departure. I see a lot more streamlining, housecleaning, and fixing of the product lines over the next 5 months - refreshing how quickly this is happening, though.

 

[Tozovac]

Wait and see here. I’d like to know about Evans myself.

If the scissor style keyboards come back to laptop Macs, and the build quality and QC return to all hardware* that’s all I want. I just want to use Apple products to create and have them stay out of my way while I do.

So well said. Too much of what I’ve seen from Apple, especially the software, since 2013 has felt like it was more about what the designer wants to show instead of: the designer creating something to enable the user to be the most efficient, most creative, most inspired.

 

[ZeitGeist]

So well said. Too much of what I’ve seen from Apple, especially the software, since 2013 has felt like it was more about what the designer wants to show instead of: the designer creating something to enable the user to be the most efficient, most creative, most inspired.

Hear, Hear!

Exactly - I’m hoping that era will be over as Jony Ive leaves the building.