“In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service” Steve Jobs
Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design
211–220 of 301 posts
Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design
#212In 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 just bought a new Mac and spent all of ten seconds looking at the "well-designed" Apple keyboard and mouse before buying the best third-party input devices I've ever had for less than half the cost. The Magic Mouse looks like it was build by someone who has never used a mouse in their life. The stupid little ball is so small it's basically impossible to scroll to boot.
You're talking about the Mighty Mouse, which hasn't been included with Macs in practically a decade. Are you making up stories for some reason?
Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not just the mice themselves. For a long time, Macs had an insane mouse pointer acceleration curve. It required long movements in order to move the pointer anywhere beyond the immediate area, and it affected both the trackpad and wired mice. Back when I switched from Windows to Mac in 2006, I found this perhaps the most disruptive aspect; everything else was pretty standard GUI stuff, but the mouse behaviour was a ni…
You can change the acceleration in the preferences. I don't remember if it was there in 2006, but I assume so.
It was.
Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there something wrong with using present tense to talk about a specific mouse design? The "just" in the first sentence could be misinterpreted, but that's not the part you quoted...
The comment above looks a lot like the Mighty Mouse is the mouse they're referring to when they talk about the computer they "just" bought.
Yes, they're talking about an old mouse. "just" has multiple meanings. As far as I can tell they used "just" to mean "simply", not "recently". They "just" replaced the mouse quickly and decisively, many years ago.
Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design
#215In 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…
For those of us who don't know: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Ma...
You can't see the bad design on a picture: To perform a right-click, you have to lift your left finger up from the touchable area, then click on the right half with your middle finger. You can't just permanently rest your fingers on top of the buttons as with other mice.
Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design
#216I 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 think it's good to draw a distinction between visual design and functional design.
There's no such thing as a non-functional design! If it's non-functional, than it's either a piece of art or a piece of crap.
Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design
#217I've always wondered why the camera sticks out in the more recent iPhones. Do they hedge bets that people will put a case on? Without a case, it bothers me that it can't lay flat on a table, desk, etc...
i never put a case on my iphone x. the biggest problem? it keeps sliding everywhere. the glass surface is so smooth that it never catches grip.
this is a major design flaw. their solution? put a case on (facepalm)
Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
Skeuomorphism wasn’t a failure. The iPhone and the touch interface were new to the market. Making the interface look familiar was important at the time even though it went too far. The iPhone did well from iOS 1 - iOS 6 and I don’t remember too many complaints until iOS 6.
You're forgetting the fake leather on the calendar, and the ugly green felt of the Game Center. https://www.cultofmac.com/189707/steve-jobs-himself-is-respo...
Yes, it became outdated after several years in use (6 on the iPhone?) and perhaps even didn't age well looking back on it. But for the time it was used it was definitely not a failure. Design preferences change, it doesn't mean everything that is replaced is automatically deemed a failure.
And unlike many other design trends that are purely about aesthetics, skeuomorphism also had a practical aspect: people had to "learn" a whole new way of interaction with these devices and using familiar shapes and textures helped. The "Start" button in Windows is called like that because people literally needed to be told where to start with the "futuristic" GUI.
Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design
#219I for one quite like the Apple TV 4 remote. It has one major issue in that it's symmetrical and you sometimes pick it up the wrong way. But other than that I love it. The touchpad is great with the Apple TV, especially once you figure out that you can single-tap the edges like a D-Pad for precision. It lays flat, so you can tap the play/pause button on your coffee table rather than picking up the remote. There are ju…
It drives me crazy that you can’t hold the Apple TV remote while watching tv for fear of accidental input. As soon as I turn something on, I set it down. Then, when I need it, I slowly reach for it, being careful not to inadvertently hit any buttons or swipe the touch pad. When you’re using it, it’s fine. No complaints. But any time you’re not using it, it feels like a ticking time bomb waiting to mess up your show.
I love how these different usage patterns can make the same thing great for some and terrible for others. It reminds me of my experience on quite a few websites:
I'm one of those people who likes to select the text they're reading - or at least the first line or so of the paragraph I'm in. It helps me not lose track of where I am.
However, that means I'm often continuously selecting/double-clicking lines of text in an article. Unfortunately, some websites now show a popover menu next to text you select, e.g. to tweet that line of text. That popover menu often obscures the text I'm reading.
That's something that would go completely unnoticed when the design is tested on people that simply scroll down while they're reading.
Re: Jony Ive’s Mistakes: When Beautiful Design Is Bad Design
#220"That vague hostility towards humans keeps peeping through." A story recounted here last year [0]: During the development of the first iPhone, Ive and his team became enamored with the look of an extruded aluminum prototype. Even though it was immediately apparent that the model's sharp edges made it physically painful to use as a phone, they persisted in trying to push the design and paper over its principal practic…
This. As CEO, one of Steve’s key functions was to serve as chief product officer. Design is an element of great products, and at Apple it has been a key element and key differentiator. As has been oft-noted, Tim is in no way a product person, and so without Steve we have seen design imperatives (thinness) unchecked
I often read these critiques that Steve Jobs was the one keeping Jony Ive in check in a way that Tim Cook can’t, and even if it is true, is there no significant criticism coming from below Ive?
As-in, is there really a full design team that are saying yes to Jony’s demands of an aluminium phone that is painful to hold to the point of requiring only the CEO to step in? Or does criticism from anyone below you not count any more?