Scott Forstall leaves Apple • Hacker News Board

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#101

Post by nostromo » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 10:07 PM UTC

Does anyone but me here listen incessantly to podcasts?

The latest Podcasts App from iTunes is a skeuomorphic mess. It has a superfluous animation of a reel-to-reel player of course. But it utterly fails at its most basic task: playing a goddamn podcast. But don't take my word for it, it has a 1.5 star rating on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/podcasts/id525463029

Not to mention crashes... Apple used to make jokes about the Windows blue screen of death. Well, that's my new day-to-day experience with iOS apps. I'm constantly restarting crashed apps over and over.

Honestly, this is good news if Forstall really is the driving force behind the deteriorating user experience of many apps.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#102

Post by gsibble » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 10:08 PM UTC

mukaiji wrote: post #33

Just to be clear, he's not "leaving." He got fired. He got fired because after the map fiasco became apparent, he refused to send out an apology or sign his name to the one Tim Cook sent. (internal knowledge)

Apple Security is probably outside your house as I write this.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#103

Post by w0utert » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 10:08 PM UTC

archgrove wrote: post #48

Anyone who A) likes Apple and B) has ever been in a Dixons store in the UK will be overjoyed with the other departure, Browett (head of retail and previous Dixons CEO) who is leaving immediately (compared to Forstall's year long "transition" departure). Dixons is everything that Apple should never be; terrible customer service, clueless minimum wage staff, horrible retail experience, and generally used only by people…

>> Anyone who A) likes Apple and B) has ever been in a Dixon's store in the UK will be overjoyed with the other departure, Browett (head of retail) who is leaving immediately (compared to Forstall's year long "transition" departure). Dixon's is everything that Apple should never be; terrible customer service, clueless minimum wage staff, horrible retail experience, and generally used only by people who desperately need something immediately or are too naive to find another store.

I agree, the one thing that irks me though, is that I remember reading the guy was able to convert a sizable part of his Apple stock options only a few weeks ago. That's a quick & cool few million $$$ he made in one year at Apple without any apparent positive contribution :-/

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#104

Post by WiseWeasel » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 10:09 PM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #80

ececconi wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wait to see how much cleaner future versions of iOS will be.

If they aren't staying skeuomorphic, then Metro might give you a preview.

Metro is defined by flat background colors, square corners and no shading. You can have a non-skeumorphic interface without any of those features, and given Apple's history of interface design, it would surprise me if they adopted any of them. Apple loves rounded rectangles, gradient backgrounds and shading to indicate depth, though shine and real-like textures may be on the way out.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#105

Post by gsibble » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 10:10 PM UTC

msbarnett wrote: post #8

Ive heading up "Human Interface" now. Say goodbye to the Rich Corinthian Leather on every third App.

Corinth if famous for its leather! /Archer

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#106

Post by brudgers » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 10:11 PM UTC

ececconi wrote: post #90

brudgers wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they aren't staying skeuomorphic, then Metro might give you a preview.

Do you really think that they would radically redesign the next version of iOS?

Next version, probably not unless there is the perception of a burning platform.

But over the long haul, I don't see how Apple can stick with an increasingly dated and arbitrary visual paradigm. How many people have actually been around real to real tape decks or owned a leather desk calendar? And as digital devices like smartphones become more ubiquitous, fewer and fewer people will.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#107

Post by aes256 » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 10:12 PM UTC

nagrom wrote: post #67

archgrove wrote: post #48

Anyone who A) likes Apple and B) has ever been in a Dixons store in the UK will be overjoyed with the other departure, Browett (head of retail and previous Dixons CEO) who is leaving immediately (compared to Forstall's year long "transition" departure). Dixons is everything that Apple should never be; terrible customer service, clueless minimum wage staff, horrible retail experience, and generally used only by people…

It's worth noting that Dixon's eventually scaled back its high-street presence completely and is now found only in airports. If his role at Dixon's was what got him a job at Apple, I'd be really surprised!

Dixons is just one brand of Dixons Retail (formerly DSG International) which also owns Currys, PC World, etc.

They rebranded all their high street stores to Currys.digital, and although store numbers have been declining, they are still a regular fixture on high streets.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#108

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 10:12 PM UTC

mlchild wrote: post #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 incre…

[deleted]

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#109

Post by arrrg » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 10:14 PM UTC

tisme wrote: post #100

zach wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Man what luck for Apple that Braun didn't take out a design patent on this.

It wouldn’t matter. Design Patents are valid for fourteen years. Every single product Dieter Rams designed for Braun is decades older than that.

Don’t fight patents with cheap lies. There are plenty of reasons why patents are bad, bad, bad, no need to resort to untruths.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#110

Post by wisty » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 10:15 PM UTC

mukaiji wrote: post #33

Just to be clear, he's not "leaving." He got fired. He got fired because after the map fiasco became apparent, he refused to send out an apology or sign his name to the one Tim Cook sent. (internal knowledge)

(No internal knowledge)

I'm surprised he got fired over maps. Mapping is hard - comparable to writing a search engine. Apple did as well as can be expected for a first attempt. They had some kind of problem with Google Maps, and wanted to build their own capability, which was never going to be easy.

He might have been fired if he cheated, by creating a well curated Valley dataset to prove to the other execs what a great job he'd done. That would annoy people.

I've heard rumors that he was seen as "better managing up than down" (impressing his boss, at the expense of results), and that doesn't strike me as something Tim Cook would like very much (both from his reported management style, and the number of stock options he has). I can see that being a last straw from Tim - "You screwed up, now own up to it. Or else."