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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

#281

Post by thom »

dctoedt wrote: post #280
thom wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They made laptops out of plastic that went yellow and fell apart when humans touched them under Jobs' watch. They pushed out plenty of thinner machines with fundametal thermal issues under Jobs' watch. They pushed out apps daubed in rich Corinthian leather under Jobs' watch. This idea that somehow Steve Jobs was the only thing between Jony Ive and disaster has to stop. All design is hit and miss. Internal forces in l…

Nit: ON Jobs' watch is more accurate — it's not evident (although it certainly could be true) that the cited developments occurred under Jobs's watch, i.e., that he was in fact overseeing those developments. (The term "on X's watch" derives from a naval expression: Event Y happened while X was "on watch," i.e., it happened "on X's watch," where the term watch refers to a time period.)

Ta.

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

#282

Post by josteink »

mstolpm wrote: post #188
moogly wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They released several super uncomfortable phones with sharp edges in the iPhone 4-5(S).

To be honest, I prefer the "sharp" edges over the slippy rounded ones of the newer models because it gives a better grip. Your mileage may vary but I don't feel that old design uncomfortable.

Same here. I just upgraded to the iPhone XR.

Super shiny, glossy and smooth. And ridiculously slippery.

It can fall out of my grip when held with one hand. It can literally slide of a level surface (I have to be careful where I put it when charging). It’s amazing how many annoying things this decision to make it look shiny over functional has caused.

My “sharp” iPhone SE had none of these problems.

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

#283

Post by coldtea »

scarface74 wrote: post #111
idlewords wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs had plenty of design failures on his conscience, like the G3 cube, the skeuomorphism fad, and the hockey puck mouse. We should not pretend the guy had irreplaceable design sense.

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.

This. "Skeuomorphism UI is so bad, OMG" was just a journalistic fad/bandwagon when there was too many years of it and people who just get their opinions from op-eds. It will make its cycle back to fashion in the future.

In the first years, Aqua UI was praised as "lickable" and extremely pretty, and iOS skeuomorphic UIs wowed the world (and and where copied far and wide by competitors) for 5-6 years before any complaints.

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

#284

Post by coldtea »

idlewords wrote: post #180
scarface74 wrote: post #111

Earlier 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...

So?

Those examples are not the really bad aspects of skeuomorphic -- which is about not taking advantage of the unique digital opportunities for UI controls, and instead e.g. copying a DVD hardware interface or some other physical mechanism verbatim.

At worst, they're tacky. You can do equally tacky things in non skeuomorphic UIs.

But even that is just taste. All kinds of imitation materials are still used all around UIs and design, and still considered beautiful (e.g. frosted glass -- there's actually no glass. UI lights with diffusion, there's no real material to diffuse their light. Etc.).

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

#285

Post by coldtea »

tsss wrote: post #243
meddlepal wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that Jobs had irreplaceable design sense that makes Job's very hard to replace, but his ability to check egos and call out a bad design when he spotted it. Everything I read makes it seem like Jony Ive is full of himself. Jobs was the only one that could tell him that.

He was probably the only person there with an even bigger ego than Ive.

He had an ego proportional to his accomplishments.

People who call him on that have a personal ego disproportional to their accomplishments.

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

#286

Post by PunksATawnyFill »

dctoedt wrote: post #280
thom wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They made laptops out of plastic that went yellow and fell apart when humans touched them under Jobs' watch. They pushed out plenty of thinner machines with fundametal thermal issues under Jobs' watch. They pushed out apps daubed in rich Corinthian leather under Jobs' watch. This idea that somehow Steve Jobs was the only thing between Jony Ive and disaster has to stop. All design is hit and miss. Internal forces in l…

Nit: ON Jobs' watch is more accurate — it's not evident (although it certainly could be true) that the cited developments occurred under Jobs's watch, i.e., that he was in fact overseeing those developments. (The term "on X's watch" derives from a naval expression: Event Y happened while X was "on watch," i.e., it happened "on X's watch," where the term watch refers to a time period.)

Jobs was reputed to be a micro-manager is many respects, so it's possible that he inspected all of these designs.

Example: Jobs reportedly personally insisted that "90's music" be spelled that way (wrong) in the default iTunes playlists.

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

#287

Post by toyg »

jackcodes wrote: post #220
thomasjudge wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Absolute dictatorship, no matter how enlightened, typically fosters a top-down culture that does not tolerate dissent. There is little doubt that Jobs was such a dictator.

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

#288

Post by toyg »

coldtea wrote: post #283
scarface74 wrote: post #111

Earlier 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.

This. "Skeuomorphism UI is so bad, OMG" was just a journalistic fad/bandwagon when there was too many years of it and people who just get their opinions from op-eds. It will make its cycle back to fashion in the future. In the first years, Aqua UI was praised as "lickable" and extremely pretty, and iOS skeuomorphic UIs wowed the world (and and where copied far and wide by competitors) for 5-6 years before any complai…

Aqua was insanely good. Everyone else rushed to replicate it. Windows Vista/7 were “Redmond does Aqua”. The Linux DEs had craploads of Aqua-like skins. Given a choice, I’d love to get Aqua back. The “material” school of design is brutalist, sterile, and unloving, whereas Aqua was human, sexy, and comforting.

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

#289

Post by scarface74 »

anbop wrote: post #156
idlewords wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs had plenty of design failures on his conscience, like the G3 cube, the skeuomorphism fad, and the hockey puck mouse. We should not pretend the guy had irreplaceable design sense.

Ultimately, a hit is worth 100 misses and he had 7 colossal hits in his career (Apple II / Mac / NextOS / MacBook / iPod / iPhone / iPad)

I would add two more the iTunes music store and physical apple stores.

The iTunes Music Store not only helped sell the iPod, it was the reason they were able to stand up the App Store so fast. They already had the infrastructure and millions of credit cards on file.

The Apple Stores gave them a direct relationship with customers that meant they weren’t completely beholden to retailers and ttet didn’t have to compete for shelf space. Everyone at the Apple Store knew Apple products.

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

#290

Post by scarface74 »

Fins wrote: post #158
foolfoolz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Umm, no, it was not. Even Windows Mobile was far more functional than iPhone. But iPhone looked cute, and had some ease of use affordances for people who could not be bothered actually learning anything (but then this had always been Apple's target audience).

I wrote field service apps for Windows Mobile devices around 2006-2008. Windows Mobioe could do more, but it wasn’t more functional.
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