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

271–280 of 330 posts

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#271

Post by SllX »

virgildotcodes wrote: post #253
SllX wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s be fair: Apple has had sufficient time to revise all of these post-Jobs Ive-era designs. Ive himself was still in charge when the trash can hit the bin, and they’ve more or less fixed the port situation on most of their models (I still have disagreements with some of their choices but we can at least say they’re debatable now). But they just released a revision of the 13” MacBook Pro with the touchbar. And whil…

Sorry, what do you mean by "on-screen chrome"? I've tried googling a bunch of variations on the phrase but I can't seem to find anything relevant.

Window or user interface chrome, which incidentally is where Google Chrome gets its name (as the “chrome” for the web) which is probably infesting your results. Going to Wikipedia’s “Chrome” disambiguation would get you a one-line description too but the page-link would just direct you to graphical user interfaces.

Chrome is all the stuff that’s not the content area in a GUI. So the user-agent you’re reading this in has a content area loading the page this thread is on (most likely a web browser but maybe you’re using an HN-specific app), and then a toolbar where the location bar lives, maybe a favorites bar and the window controls like close and minimize unless you’re on a phone. Basically chrome is all the overhead GUI like menus, toolbars, sidebars, pop-overs and controls around the stuff you’re focused in on.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#272

Post by andrepd »

mikeryan wrote: post #122
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.

Art may be subjective but product design is not. We have a whole host of ways to measure success at it. I feel it’s a mistake to conflate art with design. While related they are separate disciplines.

Maybe that is the reason why design sucks so much nowadays (in nearly every domain of technology). Design is much more objective and measurable, while personal aesthetics aren't.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#273

Post by virgildotcodes »

SllX wrote: post #271
virgildotcodes wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, what do you mean by "on-screen chrome"? I've tried googling a bunch of variations on the phrase but I can't seem to find anything relevant.

Window or user interface chrome, which incidentally is where Google Chrome gets its name (as the “chrome” for the web) which is probably infesting your results. Going to Wikipedia’s “Chrome” disambiguation would get you a one-line description too but the page-link would just direct you to graphical user interfaces. Chrome is all the stuff that’s not the content area in a GUI. So the user-agent you’re reading this in…

Thank you for taking the time to explain this!

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#274

Post by SllX »

virgildotcodes wrote: post #273
SllX wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Window or user interface chrome, which incidentally is where Google Chrome gets its name (as the “chrome” for the web) which is probably infesting your results. Going to Wikipedia’s “Chrome” disambiguation would get you a one-line description too but the page-link would just direct you to graphical user interfaces. Chrome is all the stuff that’s not the content area in a GUI. So the user-agent you’re reading this in…

Thank you for taking the time to explain this!

No problemo. Cheers!

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#275

Post by asdff »

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.

When I bought in to usb-c I was pretty excited about this, but man to get a dongle to do all of that you listed and working as expected was like a couple hundred dollars, or you roll the dice with the no name brands. Eventually that laptop died and I went back to a macbook that had all the ports I needed on the dongle already built in, and life has been somewhat simpler.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#276

Post by rmk »

musicale wrote: post #88
rmk wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Larry Ellison was prescient when he said that Jony Ive would run amok without an editor in Steve Jobs, in an interview after Jobs' death (Ellison was good friends with Jobs). Perhaps the utter lack of design innovation and frankly, new consumer products led Jony Ive to obsess over the ring campus, going to ridiculous lengths to make things just so. All that money and creative energy could have been put into groundbre…

> and frankly, new consumer products I already have a half-dozen Apple devices that I use every day. I don't really need more of them.

Neither do I. But if Apple created a new category of device that drastically changes how people use computing in their everyday lives, would you like to own one or not, eventually? Chances are you'd eventually buy one and start using it.

I steadfastly refused to use a smartphone and a tablet when the products came out but ended up making them an integral part of my daily life. Apple has made products that have fundamentally altered our idea of a computer a few times, our idea of a phone once, and our idea of a music player once, and a consumer information consumption device (tablet). I'm talking about that level of innovation here. A laptop without ports and that is x mm thick is not a 'new' consumer product from this perspective.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#277

Post by nomel »

the_af wrote: post #270
culpable_pickle wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quantifying best is very difficult. Is it the best technically but market conditions makes it less appealing? Or is it the best fit for the market but it’s a nightmare to build and so they can’t pump enough of them out to be reasonable. The products that launch end up being good enough in all areas but rarely/never the best in all areas. It’s the sign of a healthy business IMHO

If quantifying "best" is so difficult, then maybe Ive should have worded his words of consolation better, maybe? Otherwise it's just an empty platitude.

Someone like Ive, and anyone within his professional circle, would necessarily be intimately familiar with the concept of “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, just as best is. Any one designers design is the best for that designer. Best, by anyones definition, doesn’t always make the cut.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#278

Post by sumedh »

the_af wrote: post #265
sumedh wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the best ideas don't make the cut, which ones do? The best idea might be too expensive for the market so you go with the next best one?

If it was too expensive, then it wasn't the best. Whichever way you put it, it's either a flawed process or a weird turn of phrase by Ive.

No its not a flawed process nor a weird phrase.

Have you ever heard of "Good/Cheap/Fast — pick two"?

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#279

Post by elzbardico »

rmk wrote: post #57
runjake wrote: 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.

Larry Ellison was prescient when he said that Jony Ive would run amok without an editor in Steve Jobs, in an interview after Jobs' death (Ellison was good friends with Jobs). Perhaps the utter lack of design innovation and frankly, new consumer products led Jony Ive to obsess over the ring campus, going to ridiculous lengths to make things just so. All that money and creative energy could have been put into groundbre…

On the other side, maybe it is a good thing he could distract himself with the ring campus instead of submitting the MacBook pro to "more design." My opinion of Jony Ive is that he is better consumed in moderation, as some cheeses. Just a little bit of Jony at a time is just about perfect.

Re: The dissolution of Apple’s legacy design team

#280

Post by elzbardico »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #176

Unfortunately, the design team isn’t the only thing afflicting Apple’s products. macOS crashes, previously extremely rare are no a weekly event for me. On Apple gear. My iPhone 8 Plus only intermittently generates notifications from colleagues while at work. Flaky Wi-Fi. Autocorrect has learned too much and instead of correcting typos natural to an onscreen keyboard, now materially changes sentences on the fly, respe…

You should have a MacBook to be looked at. I have an intel mac from work and a personal M1 mac, and I rarely have to reboot them. The only time I remember having a kernel panic with a recent Mac OS was after installing Bluestack.
Post reply on HN