Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

fastcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 330 posts

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#21

Post by etempleton »

hbosch wrote: post #16
ajaimk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Jon Ive was a genius with design when he had to work under constrained scenarios. But the moment he had unconstrained power, form was able to win over functionality.

I think Ive was a fantastic and visionary industrial designer, but when he debuted as the design czar over software as well I think Apple’s UX kinda entered a nosedive. The actual designers “on the ground” there really pulled iOS through those times and I agree with other commenter that nowadays Apple is really so much better.

Yes, it felt like Ive had too much unilateral decision making power. Steve loved the push and pull of constructive arguments and disagreements and famously lamented that even he didn’t always get his way if others had compelling arguments. Ive is and was a designer. Design and—more specifically, his design asthetic—always came first under his tenure post Steve.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#22

Post by capableweb »

scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #9

That bit about the firing of the designer who used the river metaphor in that email is such a good lesson for anyone: Never ever ever ever announce moves like this if there is still money on the table that can still be taken away from you. No matter how awesome your company is, how great the team, product or how wonderful the atmosphere is. This guy thought he wrote a heartfelt goodbye to his beloved team and was ins…

> That made me lose a whole lot of respect for Ive.

You mean you lost respect for Alan Dye? Seems to have been the one who fired Imran Chaudhri.

> Shortly after the email, Dye fired Chaudhri.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#23

Post by wahnfrieden »

stevebmark wrote: post #18

From the outside, it seems like the poison of flat design only flourished when Jobs died. The beautiful, thoughtful, intuitive, accessible skeuomorphism was replaced with flat design only after Jobs wasn’t there. Was Jony only able to wrench away the beauty then? It seems like it. Humans live in a 3D world and take visual cues from things like lighting, gradients, shadows, materials and textures. Flat design strips t…

Nonsense given we are still in flat design territory (a several years refined version of it) unless you really consider the current state remains poison

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#24

Post by ballenf »

scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #9

That bit about the firing of the designer who used the river metaphor in that email is such a good lesson for anyone: Never ever ever ever announce moves like this if there is still money on the table that can still be taken away from you. No matter how awesome your company is, how great the team, product or how wonderful the atmosphere is. This guy thought he wrote a heartfelt goodbye to his beloved team and was ins…

I just don't buy that the river metaphor wasn't about Apple. It just doesn't make sense unless he was retiring or leaving design entirely. Otherwise the lack of water is clearly related to Apple.

If it really was solely about himself it's a really poor metaphor. So the river is moving to a new mountain? And the river's lack of water has nothing to do with the current one? Or, the mountain (Apple) has plenty of water but somehow this river (employee) can't receive any of it?

The non-critical-of-Apple reading is convoluted and tortured, imo.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#26

Post by zarzavat »

ballenf wrote: post #24
scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #9

That bit about the firing of the designer who used the river metaphor in that email is such a good lesson for anyone: Never ever ever ever announce moves like this if there is still money on the table that can still be taken away from you. No matter how awesome your company is, how great the team, product or how wonderful the atmosphere is. This guy thought he wrote a heartfelt goodbye to his beloved team and was ins…

I just don't buy that the river metaphor wasn't about Apple. It just doesn't make sense unless he was retiring or leaving design entirely. Otherwise the lack of water is clearly related to Apple. If it really was solely about himself it's a really poor metaphor. So the river is moving to a new mountain? And the river's lack of water has nothing to do with the current one? Or, the mountain (Apple) has plenty of water…

“ When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. Sadly rivers run dry..”

It seems obvious that he is talking about his personal joy running out. Because that’s what he said.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#28

Post by jasonlotito »

capableweb wrote: post #22
scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #9

That bit about the firing of the designer who used the river metaphor in that email is such a good lesson for anyone: Never ever ever ever announce moves like this if there is still money on the table that can still be taken away from you. No matter how awesome your company is, how great the team, product or how wonderful the atmosphere is. This guy thought he wrote a heartfelt goodbye to his beloved team and was ins…

> That made me lose a whole lot of respect for Ive. You mean you lost respect for Alan Dye? Seems to have been the one who fired Imran Chaudhri. > Shortly after the email, Dye fired Chaudhri.

No, they mean Ive.

> The email alarmed Ive and Dye. They feared that the message Chaudhri sent could be interpreted to mean that Apple’s best days had passed.

It’s clear from the article that both Ive and Dye were directly involved in the firing.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#29

Post by ballenf »

zarzavat wrote: post #26
ballenf wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't buy that the river metaphor wasn't about Apple. It just doesn't make sense unless he was retiring or leaving design entirely. Otherwise the lack of water is clearly related to Apple. If it really was solely about himself it's a really poor metaphor. So the river is moving to a new mountain? And the river's lack of water has nothing to do with the current one? Or, the mountain (Apple) has plenty of water…

“ When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. Sadly rivers run dry..” It seems obvious that he is talking about his personal joy running out. Because that’s what he said.

I see that take on it.

Maybe the lesson is that for employees who happen to believe that Apple's river had run dry, the message would be hard to interpret as personal to the author.

Or that the river running dry personally is potentially contagious.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#30

Post by arrrg »

scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #9

That bit about the firing of the designer who used the river metaphor in that email is such a good lesson for anyone: Never ever ever ever announce moves like this if there is still money on the table that can still be taken away from you. No matter how awesome your company is, how great the team, product or how wonderful the atmosphere is. This guy thought he wrote a heartfelt goodbye to his beloved team and was ins…

I also don’t quite get it. Firing that designer would not increase my trust in the design leadership.

It would seem thin skinned, skittish, cruel, deeply immoral and evil, leading me to lose a lot of trust, feeling as though creating a culture of fear is the goal. That behavior seems completely incomprehensible to me, especially since you need to have an extremely tortured reading of that e-mail to read it as an attack on Apple. It’s simply so extremely weird and wrong to do that. It also seems completely ineffective. What’s the intended effect here?

I’m not sure what the general vibe here’s on that, but it seems abhorrent to treat people that way.

Post reply on HN