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'Slide to Unlock' Engineer Greg Christie to Depart Apple After Fallout with Jony Ive [Updated]
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No, you didn't fix it. You merely expressed your limited understanding of the whole of software design. Usability features are not based on trends or opinions. They are based on provable concepts, and do indeed progress. Sure, certain stylings are merely superficial and cosmetic, but really good design is timeless. Flat is not a really good design and is not timeless.
Evidently, not any more.
Or did he mean, "the importance of listening to Jony Ive"? Perhaps Christie had been in the Forstall camp and tensions had mounted over the iOS 7 revisions. Perhaps this will accelerate a design change that will appear in iOS 8. But given the fact that Notes still has light yellow text on a white background, I don't hold out much hope.
This doesn't seem good, both from the point of losing a key person, and that the "make it visually <insert favorite adjectives> instead of more useable" philosophy seen in iOS 7 and recent Mac OS X releases appears to be winning out.
It's already dated. Very boring when you consider the hardware is capable of so much better.
Good point. I'd love to know that too. Then we'd know who besides Forstall should have been fired and who kept.
There is a difference between "visual design" and "interaction design". Visual design focuses primarily on aesthetics and interaction design on usability. "Flat design" is a visual design trend and as such doesn't really have much bearing on usability. A button's a button, whether it has beveled edges or not.
Huh. I always thought Jony Ive was a pretty reasonable guy, from all accounts I've read. Wonder if Christie got egotistic like Forstall did...
Or the opposite. It’s just like the iOS 7’s design, maybe Ive brought a correct direction too much off the extreme limit (e.g. everyone has to fully follow him, with no suggestions ever?).
In the iOS 7 design, getting rid of the similarity between the icons or windows to the real-life notebook / calendar / paper is definitely a good thing, but it’s a BIG MISTAKE to totally remove the 3D-style controls which was a VERY IMPORTANT factor of OS X and iOS’s beauty. Instead of the current direction, a much better one would be to keep the original 3D-style but make them more unrealistically beautiful. In general, 3D-style graphics is definitely more beautiful than flat graphics.
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I like it. Sure, there are things I would change, but I find the simplicity to be very elegant. Designers went too far with gradients and textures a few years back, so I personally like the reset.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
As high-level power (decision-making) keeps consolidating with the few(er), the potential bottlenecks of decision-making pile up. Even if the handful of guys in control of everything are all complete geniuses in their roles, they are still humans who need to sleep, eat, take a break, take a vacation, have lives outside of work etc. If those few have to make more and more of the decisions, the growth of Apple is capped at their respective maximum output because the multitudes of those below them have to stand by until they can get approval/rejection/feedback.
This kind of thing works at a small company where the owner tends to (need to) be involved in many details. However, it doesn't work well at rapidly growing BIG companies. The answer is always the same: delegate as much decision-making authority down to those capable of making good decisions. This Christie certainly sounds like he could be one of those people but now he'll exit and lots of decisions he could have made might have to be made by Ive.
Meanwhile, those who might not be as deeply experienced as Christie might grow more caution about making some proactive decisions without checking with "the boss" first (so they don't suffer the same fate). If so, it's easy to anticipate a scenario where you have thousands or tens of thousands of people standing by awaiting accept/reject/alternative feedback about what is probably minutiae-level decisions most of the time.
Senior leadership needs their time freed up to focus on "next big things," not consumed by minutiae or barely above minutiae-level details. Else, "next big things" keep waiting for their own attention while much more urgent (but relatively small stuff) get their attention now. Apple has grown so much so fast and yet the last few years have seemed to be about consolidating more and more of the decision-making with fewer and fewer executives. That doesn't sound good to me. But hopefully appearances are deceiving.
This kind of thing works at a small company where the owner tends to (need to) be involved in many details. However, it doesn't work well at rapidly growing BIG companies. The answer is always the same: delegate as much decision-making authority down to those capable of making good decisions. This Christie certainly sounds like he could be one of those people but now he'll exit and lots of decisions he could have made might have to be made by Ive.
Meanwhile, those who might not be as deeply experienced as Christie might grow more caution about making some proactive decisions without checking with "the boss" first (so they don't suffer the same fate). If so, it's easy to anticipate a scenario where you have thousands or tens of thousands of people standing by awaiting accept/reject/alternative feedback about what is probably minutiae-level decisions most of the time.
Senior leadership needs their time freed up to focus on "next big things," not consumed by minutiae or barely above minutiae-level details. Else, "next big things" keep waiting for their own attention while much more urgent (but relatively small stuff) get their attention now. Apple has grown so much so fast and yet the last few years have seemed to be about consolidating more and more of the decision-making with fewer and fewer executives. That doesn't sound good to me. But hopefully appearances are deceiving.
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Troll bait much Macrumors?
Just kidding, of course. But this story just tees it up for all of the iOS7 haters out there. It's like winding up the cymbal clanging monkey every time a story comes up that gives them a chance to whine about iOS7.
Although, it's kind of fun to watch them get their panties in a wad every time. I can almost see their veins bulging in their necks right now:
"Dammit, I told you all to hate iOS7, and I am going to hold my breath and turn blue until the rest of the world agrees with me. That means all of you people who are using it just fine, and even those liking it so much better than iOS6. You don't know what the Hell you're talking about. Hate it, I said. Hate it!!"
Just kidding, of course. But this story just tees it up for all of the iOS7 haters out there. It's like winding up the cymbal clanging monkey every time a story comes up that gives them a chance to whine about iOS7.
Although, it's kind of fun to watch them get their panties in a wad every time. I can almost see their veins bulging in their necks right now:
"Dammit, I told you all to hate iOS7, and I am going to hold my breath and turn blue until the rest of the world agrees with me. That means all of you people who are using it just fine, and even those liking it so much better than iOS6. You don't know what the Hell you're talking about. Hate it, I said. Hate it!!"
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Sounds like everyone read the same thing on the internets and chose to repeat that instead of the of simply saying that they prefer the design of iOS 6. "If I don't like it, than someone must be incompetent."
It couldn't simply be a question of different tastes.
Based on what? Seems like getting rid of the superficial and cosmetic is what makes good design timeless. Your tastes may differ, of course!
This worries me because it shows disfunction and infighting. You would think that these people would be more mature. That said, I once left an excellent location because the work environment sucked so bad so I can sypmathize with Christie. The office I left ended up floundering but I did well.
"Google on line three, MS on four"
"...and bberry asks if you can return the call when done."
