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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

#131

Post by burnished »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #85
ballenf wrote: 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 actually like that I can connect everything - keyboard, mouse, two monitors, headphones, power, ethernet via one thunderbolt cable. What I'd hate is the fact that I'd have to unplug everything and take this dock with me if I wanted to connect in the conference room.

Wait what? How are you doing that? I want this thing so my laptop can be more easily unplugged and stop being a stylish desktop pc

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#132

Post by kerlgos »

chongli wrote: post #107
dbspin wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question, do you know any artists? This isn't the case generally; certainly amongst ordinary working visual artists - who are demonstrably open minded, centred, and interpersonally engaged. I can't speak to Damien Hirst level centimillionaires, who represent an invisibly small fraction of working artists.

Apologies for nitpicking but the prefix you're looking for is hecto-. The prefix centi- means 1/100 [1], implying that Damien Hirst has only $10,000 to his name, starving artist level wealth! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix#List_of_SI_prefi...

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/centimillionaire

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#133

Post by etempleton »

alexsereno wrote: post #53
etempleton wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He needed to have Fadell around to argue with, but Tim prefers an office style with less tension. Which has been great for shareholders, bad for consumer design tho. It’s hard to know what is more “right” since more people have apple products than ever before, but wow I love my post-Ive Mac a lot more, and design across the board has focused a bit on function w/ Craig getting a bigger role

From what I have read Fadell didn’t seem to have a lot of internal fans, and there were some major software issues under his leadership, but there is no doubt he has clout with Jobs and provided a different perspective. Jobs was always willing to play the role of tie breaker that I am not sure Cook is comfortable in, so it makes sense to have a more harmonious leadership team that can come to a consensus more often than not without an intermediator.

There does seem to be more collaboration and sensible compromises from all internal stakeholders than at any time at Apple, at least that is how it feels as an end user. Apple products of the last few years have less head scratching omissions and/or design/engineering decision.

The MacBook Pro from 2016 to 2021 is the embodiment of that weirdness.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#134

Post by mensetmanusman »

junofan wrote: post #44
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.

From the article: > nonrecurring engineering costs led Apple’s business division to suspend the iPad [redesign] That doesn’t sound like Ive had unconstrained power?

Imagine a design change costing $1 billion. There are very few people with that much power.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#135

Post by thoms_a »

mickelsen wrote: post #112
coldtea wrote: post #12

I prefer the current balance of Ive-inspired-designs WITHOUT Ive's obsessions. But something also not frequently said: Apple had amazing designs (compared to the rest of the industry), for 2 decades before Ive started his thing. Heck, NeXT too. Also, if I had to suffer yet another cookie-cutter Ive post-release video about a product, I'd kill myself...

Oh man, those trailers with him speaking are the stuff I MISS the most, it was the last reminder of that old Apple now that keynotes and product launch commercials are so bland and boring I don't even bother to watch them anymore.

As a counterpoint, I bought my first iPhone (first ever Apple product) this week, and it was specifically because it seems like Apple is finally designing products with usability and functionality as their top priority.

Ive was great, but he was way too much of an artist to understand that computers are mostly tools. Ive was more interested in folding katanas and the process of creation than the mundane design of a productivity tool.

As an example, I remember being utterly bemused by the relentless port-pruning on the Macbook Pro. It just didn't make sense to me to remove ports on a machine designed primarily for productivity. But Ive didn't like ports, because katanas don't have ports. So the MBP didn't have ports.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#136

Post by rafram »

blackhaz wrote: post #81
hbosch wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Quoted post unavailable.

> gay U2 album artwork

…

(Your car playing music from your phone every time it connects is a problem with your car’s UX, not your phone’s.)

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#137

Post by illwrks »

DrewADesign wrote: post #126
lupire wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artists are a petty and vindictive culture, since value is subjective and there's no profit for being pretty good but not the annointed winner.

Vindictive? Artists? BS. You're clearly extrapolating on an unfounded assumption. I'm an adult art student getting a BFA as part of a career change and have known hundreds of artists and designers over the years. Firstly, there is no unifying culture among even large subsets of artists, let alone artists in general. Secondly, claiming that artists in general are vindictive is flat-out absurd.

I took it to mean artists/designers in a corporate setting where it's a bit more cutthroat.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#138

Post by smugma »

jasonlotito wrote: post #28
capableweb wrote: post #22

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.

It’s hearsay, as even the article says it was Dye who did the firing.

I’ve read many articles/interviews where Jony talks about being “hurt” by something. As in, he puts everything he has into these creations and certain things he takes very personally, as if someone is trying to stomp on a rose in his garden.

Chaudhri is known to have a big personality himself and went to start a company that has hired a lot from Apple (not exclusively but sometimes browsing LinkedIn it looks that way). So he sends an email while resting and vesting (and also planning his next big thing), and they decide to cut ties, as he’s now seen as a potential liability. It doesn’t need to be petty or vindictive, but a decision based on bad vibes they got. Chaudhri could have given his notice two months in advance and cruised and sent the email on his last day, but he didn’t.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#139

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

illwrks wrote: post #137
DrewADesign wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vindictive? Artists? BS. You're clearly extrapolating on an unfounded assumption. I'm an adult art student getting a BFA as part of a career change and have known hundreds of artists and designers over the years. Firstly, there is no unifying culture among even large subsets of artists, let alone artists in general. Secondly, claiming that artists in general are vindictive is flat-out absurd.

I took it to mean artists/designers in a corporate setting where it's a bit more cutthroat.

More likely to be the corporate setting than the designers.

I had no idea the originator of the Bondi Blue iMac was Danny Coster. I'd always assumed it wss Ive.

Interesting he managed to take all of the credit for it.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#140

Post by preseinger »

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…

It reads to me as obviously about the author, and the critical-of-Apple reading the convoluted and tortured version, only making sense if your model of humans is fundamentally... I dunno, manipulative, or Machiavellian. (shrug)
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