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Scott Forstall leaves Apple

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Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#51

Interesting that Jony will be overseeing UI. I expect a more minimalistic polish to upcoming interfaces. In other words, this is the beginning of the end for the skeuomorphism trend at Apple.

It will be interesting to see how Apple approaches a minimalistic Jony style. Will it they make similar choices to Microsoft's Metro interface?

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#52
People's reactions to this announcement are overly focused on Forstall's assumed support for heavy skeumorphism (and their excitement at his departure as lead proponent). I think his record as head of iOS since its inception is a much more salient issue.

Forstall led development of the fastest-growing, most popular computing platform of the past decade or so with, to be sure, a few notable screw-ups, but mostly incredible innovation and efficiency. While his departure does sound like the result of a power struggle that needed to be resolved, I really believe we're shortchanging his incredible achievements. Forstall's departure is not unequivocally or even clearly a victory for those who are firm believers in iOS and its ecosystem going forward. The only reasonable reaction is that we'll have to wait and see.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#53
Interesting that Eddie Cue remains the company fixer, taking on the quirky Siri and the flakey Maps app just as he was once given a completely fucked up MobileMe.

This is good news.

Even better news is Browett's ouster. The business with his cutting operational corners in retail was a very, very bad omen. If they'd left him in, he might have poisoned a very important well for the company. Hopefully his replacement is closer to Ron Johnson's set of retail and service values.

N'bad, Tim.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#54
post #45

Interesting that Jony will be overseeing UI. I expect a more minimalistic polish to upcoming interfaces. In other words, this is the beginning of the end for the skeuomorphism trend at Apple.

You're the second person that mentioned skeuomorphism. Could you please explain what it is and why it's a big todo? Most of my cursory google searches don't provide any particularly insightful definition of what it is. The blogs/rants usually just dive into why it's good or bad.

    Skeuomorphism is when a product imitates design elements
    functionally necessary in the original product design, but that
    becomes ornamental in the new product design
Examples: leather/paper/textile textures, hyper-realistic shading, analog controls/displays.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeuomorph

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#55
post #45

Interesting that Jony will be overseeing UI. I expect a more minimalistic polish to upcoming interfaces. In other words, this is the beginning of the end for the skeuomorphism trend at Apple.

You're the second person that mentioned skeuomorphism. Could you please explain what it is and why it's a big todo? Most of my cursory google searches don't provide any particularly insightful definition of what it is. The blogs/rants usually just dive into why it's good or bad.

It's a design technique where the artist creates user interfaces that tries to mimick the real life object as much as possible.

Take for instance some of the apps on iOS. The have book bindings, rings, shadows, etc.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#56
post #45

Interesting that Jony will be overseeing UI. I expect a more minimalistic polish to upcoming interfaces. In other words, this is the beginning of the end for the skeuomorphism trend at Apple.

You're the second person that mentioned skeuomorphism. Could you please explain what it is and why it's a big todo? Most of my cursory google searches don't provide any particularly insightful definition of what it is. The blogs/rants usually just dive into why it's good or bad.

Essentially, trying to mimic real world (as in the physical world) applications and appearances. See Calendar and Contacts on iOS for a perfect example of skeuomorphism to the extreme.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#57
post #18

> Scott Forstall will be leaving Apple next year > Jony Ive will provide leadership and direction for Human Interface (HI) across the company And thus ended the reign of skeuomorphism at Apple. Or, at least, the reign of hyper-realism and hyper-whimsy in UI design. Jobs or Forstall always seemed to favour it, but could you imagine Jony Ive signing off on a Podcasts app where half the screen is a reel-to-reel tape tha…

That's what's so weird, though — that particular reel-to-reel design actually seems like a deliberate combination of both influences.

The skeuomorphic look of Podcasts was based on a physical product design by Ive's legendary design influence, Dieter Rams:

http://www.cultofmac.com/176008/heres-the-braun-tape-recorde...

In retrospect, the tension inherent in this odd compromise seems palpable. It's like listening to the last album a band releases before they break up.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#58
post #51

Interesting that Jony will be overseeing UI. I expect a more minimalistic polish to upcoming interfaces. In other words, this is the beginning of the end for the skeuomorphism trend at Apple.

It will be interesting to see how Apple approaches a minimalistic Jony style. Will it they make similar choices to Microsoft's Metro interface?

Probably not, considering their long history in "candy" UI. OSX's chrome style already strikes a good balance, I think they will keep it that way and just phase out the hyper-realistic apps.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#59
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has used the term HI for a long, long time.

I remember HIG, surely (having read it many times, first for pleasure and now as a developer), but it was always H+I+G, never H+I+something else. But I can be mistaken... Edit: It doesn't matter if you're an iOS/OS X developer or not. Even if you're a web designer, you should really read Apple's HIGs carefully and thoroughly. They're (by any definition of the word), "great". http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#DO…

Well a Director of Human Interfaces would be responsible for defining the Human Interface Guidelines.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#60
Another upside: iOS and OS X are now both run by the same person. Hopefully this means that when there is convergence/overlap between the two platforms, it will be done more thoughtfully, rather than taking something from one and awkwardly bolting it onto the other one a la Launchpad.
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