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Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design

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Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design

#51

Post by asark »

pier25 wrote: post #42

I don't know why, but Apple has constantly had bad mice. The hockey puck is mentioned in the article which is probably the worst mouse Apple has made. Then came the Apple Pro Mouse (the transparent one) which didn't have a scroll wheel and IIRC didn't have a right click either. In the early 00s those features were super common. I remember having a Microsoft's Intellimouse with a scroll wheel in the late 90s. Then cam…

> they added the charging port at the bottom of the mouse (facepalm).

I thought this was incredibly stupid until I actually used one. The battery lasts so long and charges so fast that it's not a problem, to the point that I wouldn't pay so much as a dollar to "fix" it by moving the port to the edge.

Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design

#52

Post by bangonkeyboard »

Glyptodon wrote: post #7

In my opinion the hated puck mouse is far and away better than the current Magic Mouse, which will will pretty much destroy your hands and give you carpal tunnel guaranteed. The puck mouse had an orientation trough on the button that was easy enough to get used to and, more importantly, was huge enough to be substantive and supportive under a hand. As far as I'm concerned the magic mouse is a class action lawsuit in…

I honestly don't know how the Magic Mouse is meant to be used for extended lengths of time. The touch surface means that not only do your index and middle fingers need to be held hovering above it, but the rest of your fingers also need to claw in from the sides to keep overhangs of skin from triggering stray cursor movements. It is truly painful to use.

Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design

#53

Post by CaliforniaKarl »

ghostpepper wrote: post #46
paranoidrobot wrote: post #35

The article points out some very high visibility things that Ive was either responsible for, or at least signed off on. The author though misses what I think is the one that has had the most impact on people - Apple's insistence on removal of strain relief on cables. Apple's cables have for generations now been fraying and cracking all because someone decided that strain relief was an unsightly and unnecessary thing.…

I'm afraid I can't picture what a cable with strain relief would look like. Can you post an example photo?

For an example, see http://www.blogquail.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/pic-1.jp...

The part circled in red is the strain relief, separate from the cable itself, and from the connector.

Image taken from http://www.blogquail.com/strain-relief/

Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design

#54

Post by akrulino »

foolfoolz wrote: post #6
piinbinary wrote: post #3

I think it's good to draw a distinction between visual design and functional design. Design that focuses on function can sometimes (but definitely not always) result in designs that are also visually appealing, but design that focuses on the visual rarely produces a very functional result. I'd much rather look at a mac book pro than a thinkpad. Next to the minimalist design of the mac, a thinkpad looks like you rippe…

iphone is the best counter argument to this. when released it was 1000x more functional and 1000x better looking than any phone available

I had a Nokia N95 when the iPhone was released. The N95 was far more functional:

* Multitasking was allowed

* Good maps app for navigating

* Rhapsody subscription service for all your music needs

* 3G support

* Built-in SIP client

The iPhone had none of this, but it had the superior UI. It took years for Apple to catch up to the technology of the klunky N95.

Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design

#55

Post by jeswin »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #33
piinbinary wrote: post #3

I think it's good to draw a distinction between visual design and functional design. Design that focuses on function can sometimes (but definitely not always) result in designs that are also visually appealing, but design that focuses on the visual rarely produces a very functional result. I'd much rather look at a mac book pro than a thinkpad. Next to the minimalist design of the mac, a thinkpad looks like you rippe…

I've owned multiple Thinkpads, and have a MacBook Air at home. I'm a pragmatist, so I don't mind that my work Thinkpad is all black and looks like it's from the 1990s. I enjoy that it has a built-in Nvidia GPU (which I use for machine learning). What makes me sad that with a fresh Ubuntu 18.04 install, my work Thinkpad can't even do two hours of battery life. My MacBook Air at home is 3 years old, but it's thin and l…

> What makes me sad that with a fresh Ubuntu 18.04 install, my work Thinkpad can't even do two hours of battery life.

This has everything to do with the unresolved problems of Linux power management. I use Ubuntu on Thinkpads too, and battery life is decent after a bit of configuration. Windows meanwhile gives all day battery life on Thinkpads.

Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design

#56

Post by mrandish »

ghostpepper wrote: post #46
paranoidrobot wrote: post #35

The article points out some very high visibility things that Ive was either responsible for, or at least signed off on. The author though misses what I think is the one that has had the most impact on people - Apple's insistence on removal of strain relief on cables. Apple's cables have for generations now been fraying and cracking all because someone decided that strain relief was an unsightly and unnecessary thing.…

I'm afraid I can't picture what a cable with strain relief would look like. Can you post an example photo?

http://www.interpower.com/ic/InfoPower/images/flex-style-02....

http://heyco.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/PG-M-Type-N...

Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design

#57

Post by x3haloed »

ghostpepper wrote: post #46
paranoidrobot wrote: post #35

The article points out some very high visibility things that Ive was either responsible for, or at least signed off on. The author though misses what I think is the one that has had the most impact on people - Apple's insistence on removal of strain relief on cables. Apple's cables have for generations now been fraying and cracking all because someone decided that strain relief was an unsightly and unnecessary thing.…

I'm afraid I can't picture what a cable with strain relief would look like. Can you post an example photo?

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51Vy2liiLaL...

Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design

#58

Post by WalterBright »

pier25 wrote: post #42

I don't know why, but Apple has constantly had bad mice. The hockey puck is mentioned in the article which is probably the worst mouse Apple has made. Then came the Apple Pro Mouse (the transparent one) which didn't have a scroll wheel and IIRC didn't have a right click either. In the early 00s those features were super common. I remember having a Microsoft's Intellimouse with a scroll wheel in the late 90s. Then cam…

> but they added the charging port at the bottom of the mouse (facepalm)

Reminds me of the 1968 VW Camper Bus. (My dad had one.) You can always tell the 68's because the gas filler was located on the right rear quarter panel. When you were filling up, and opened the sliding door, it would shear off the gas pump.

In '69 they moved it to the other side.

Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design

#59

Post by julianz »

ct520 wrote: post #24
darkpuma wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's revisionist. People tend to forget that when the iphone was released it had no appstore and Apple was telling people to develop webapps. This was less functional than existing offerings on the market, but it sure looked and felt better.

I'm curious when you say less functional than existing offerings you mean .... exactly what? Those java apps you could download from your cell phone carrier that ran incredibly slow? Or the robust ecosystem windows mobile <6 had at the time?.. Because Android wasn't out... I agree with foolfoolz, iphone raised the bar both functionally and visually, regardless of having a app store at launch.

The Palm/Treo app market was quite strong, I had several good and useful apps on my Treo 650 that integrated nicely with a desktop and made it a properly useful device. The app installation method was a bit primitive but there was absolutely a strong market for 3rd party apps.

Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design

#60

Post by mwfunk »

tomger wrote: post #4

I think the author of this article thinks a design team is run as some sort of isolated dictatorship. In reality design teams balance stakeholder feedback, technical constraints, timelines and so on.

That's how it works when different teams within a company have an ideal balance of power. When everything's correctly balanced, the right people make the right decisions, and help to correct each other's wrong decisions.

I bet at most companies though, there isn't an ideal balance of power between teams, or between the different divisions of a company. I don't think that balance happens naturally. It might even become harder to maintain that balance, as a company becomes more successful.

Supposedly Microsoft during the Ballmer years was known for political conflict between the Office and Windows divisions. Sometimes what would be good for one (putting Office on as many platforms as possible) might be bad for the other one (the Windows people might want Office on as few platforms as possible). Conflicts like that are inevitable, but resolving them can be a crap shoot. If there's a lack of executive leadership, or a political power imbalance between the groups, the wrong group can win sometimes.

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