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Bad Dye Job

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Re: Bad Dye Job

#82
At one point years ago, there was an iOS release where the recently used apps would render, then re-order themselves after a second or two. You could tell it was caching then dynamically updating. It was frustrating from a UX perspective because you would go to tap on an app and by the time you tapped, it would open a different app because they had re-ordered themselves.

It was fixed in an update, but to me that's the canary in the coal mine that priority is wrong. Apple will be ok without Steve as long as somebody is obsessed with the UX being very good. When I see the quality of the UX experience degrading while other UX changes are made that don't improve the basic UX, then there's a problem.

I subscribe to Apple Music, and have built playlists on the service. The fact that I have to enable sync (which then wastes 70G of space on my iPhone) to use my playlists is BS. I don't see a technical reason for it. The only conclusion I can come to is they want to drive storage subscriptions by taking up space using music sync. If anybody wants to explain why sync needs to be enabled, that would be cool, but is a really concerning product management decision IMO.

Re: Bad Dye Job

#83
post #74
post #22

Last week I was driving and a popup from apple music to accept more terms and conditions showed up on top of Maps. It was a tense 25 minutes of interchanges without nav before traffic was clear enough to deny the terms, and I purged the app and cancelled the subscription afterward.

Did it block the audio from your maps app, too?

If your nav audio is muted when the popup appears, you can’t unmute it until the popup is cleared.

Re: Bad Dye Job

#84
post #74
post #22

Last week I was driving and a popup from apple music to accept more terms and conditions showed up on top of Maps. It was a tense 25 minutes of interchanges without nav before traffic was clear enough to deny the terms, and I purged the app and cancelled the subscription afterward.

Did it block the audio from your maps app, too?

I don't know because I don't drive with turn-by-turn audio.

For the record, I actually like Maps for driving. I find the level of detail just right for how I use it.

My main complaint happens when you are not driving: if you let it have access to your location, Maps is constantly resetting your pan/zoom if the app becomes inactive. So on MacOS I block location, but a phone has to have your location for nav of course.

Re: Bad Dye Job

#85
So I, too, was motivated to watch Steve Jobs unveil Aqua [^0] and compare it against Alan Dye's Liquid Glass reveal [^1]. The difference is unbelievable.

Jobs might have been an asshole, but his enthusiasm for the details is incontestable. He couldn't wait to show people the Save window, in its many forms. That he cared about the small details in everything is easy to see.

Contrast that with Alan Dye's inspiration reel for Liquid Glass. He's clearly reading from a script, which is quite a downgrade but understandable given the production value of keynotes these days. However, the real problem is that this intro is all about how it looks, not how it functions.

Microsoft tried this move with Vista (and their Aero design, which mostly failed), then again with Metro (which also by and large failed). Meanwhile, the key concepts of Aqua remain timelessly in macOS 25 years later. Function over form always!

[^0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHrVGk0WwYM&t=381s

[^1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGztGfRujSE

Re: Bad Dye Job

#86

> Putting Alan Dye in charge of user interface design was the one big mistake Jony Ive made as Apple’s Chief Design Officer. _One_??? Talk about rose tinted liquid glass(es).

It was a big mistake to leave Jony Ive in charge of design after Steve Jobs left. Jobs had a good design sense that was key to grounding Ive's work.

Ive's vision of Apple as a luxury brand certainly aligned with Cook's focus on profit, and the results of that sadly still echo through the company today.

Re: Bad Dye Job

#87
post #79
post #5

I really have to wonder who Gruber’s sources are. His statement “prior to today never heard much about [Steve Lemay]” leads me to think he doesn’t have intimate access to anyone deeply familiar with design decisions, because anyone who’s spent a little bit of time behind closed doors in that space absolutely knows who Lemay is. But then he quotes sources who are supposedly “in a position to know the choices”, which w…

Me feeling is that his sources are mostly programmers and perhaps some managers. It's also possible he has very few sources left: he's an outsider to the company, and it's hard to maintain sources since people leave, move to different positions etc.

His Something rotten in the state of Cupertino piece earlier this year broke his relationship with the upper echelons of Apple, and to be frank he's no longer inevitable as an Apple commenter. He cannot understand the European Union at all, so he devolves into saying they're idiots. Really? The EU, the whole thing, idiots? Really?

Re: Bad Dye Job

#88
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a good while, Mac hardware was held back because of hardware design. That changed soon after Ive left. Maybe the same can happen with software now.

The healing begins with a joint HW/SW effort: bring iPhone touch ID back, and strip Liquid Glass down to the bare wood and fix it.

I spoke with an Apple designer who told me that Lemay has been deeply involved in designing Liquid Glass. Don't get your hopes too high

Re: Bad Dye Job

#89
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me feeling is that his sources are mostly programmers and perhaps some managers. It's also possible he has very few sources left: he's an outsider to the company, and it's hard to maintain sources since people leave, move to different positions etc.

His Something rotten in the state of Cupertino piece earlier this year broke his relationship with the upper echelons of Apple, and to be frank he's no longer inevitable as an Apple commenter. He cannot understand the European Union at all, so he devolves into saying they're idiots. Really? The EU, the whole thing, idiots? Really?

https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/something_is_rotten_in_th...

This article? If it caused consternation it boggles the mind. These are all completely normal reactions to Apple's AI missteps.

If detailed but milquetoast criticisms are grounds for excommunication, maybe the company really does have serious management issues.

Re: Bad Dye Job

#90
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His Something rotten in the state of Cupertino piece earlier this year broke his relationship with the upper echelons of Apple, and to be frank he's no longer inevitable as an Apple commenter. He cannot understand the European Union at all, so he devolves into saying they're idiots. Really? The EU, the whole thing, idiots? Really?

https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/something_is_rotten_in_th... This article? If it caused consternation it boggles the mind. These are all completely normal reactions to Apple's AI missteps. If detailed but milquetoast criticisms are grounds for excommunication, maybe the company really does have serious management issues.

Well excommunication is not appropriate as a term. Apple has cut off access to the most important cardinals for interviews, not told John he's out of the Catholic Church.
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