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The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

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Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#31
post #19

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…

I agree, I love skeuomorphic designs even though the common consensus seems to be that it's obsolete/outdated. I guess it's a consequence of the unusually high influence Apple has on the design world. It seems like no matter what Apple decides to do, every single designer will blindly follow them.

I don't know if most people consider skeuomorphic designs obsolete/outdated, but the costs would be far greater today compared to when iOS was only for a handful of different resolutions for the iPhone and iPad. Not only do you have to consider the physical screen size differences with possibly different PPI, but all of the sidebar/split-screen/multi-window modes would require additional work.

It's kind of like when most websites started to switch to responsive designs where image heavy layouts and other fun animations kinda dropped off. It was just too costly to make things work well.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#32
post #25

At work, the new MacBooks with HDMI are trickling in and I've never seen so much excitement around a laptop. People (mostly Product people) just giddy they don't need a dongle to connect to screens. I didn't realize how much people hate dongles.

I mean, I buy a dongle and maybe it’ll support 1080p, maybe 1440p, maybe 4K? Who knows! The Amazon review certainly won’t tell you, the company selling it to you will lie through their teeth. You won’t find out until you’re plugging it in (probably during a presentation) It’s just so much fun playing dongle roulette.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#33
post #16
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, he's a great physical product designer. But to bring that, and apply the same principles into SW just doesn't make sense

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

No post body was provided.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#35
post #4

I respect Ive's design skills but I think that Ive leaving is one of the best things to happen to Apple in decades. They're slowly going from Ive's minimalist artistic designs back to useful computing devices and user interfaces.

> They're slowly going from Ive's minimalist artistic designs back to useful computing devices and user interfaces. Is this a subtle attack on USB-C?

usbc is the one good thing about the ive years. everything else was a step away from usability for power users.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#38
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ 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.

That’s the other lesson - don’t use poetry or metaphors to express your self because they will inevitably be twisted to suit the corporate interests and not yours.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#39
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.

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Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#40

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…

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