So... can we now all agree that Tim Cook is a good CEO?
Yes, as long as he's not giving presentation.
Scott Forstall leaves Apple
191–200 of 335 posts
Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shading and round corners are skeuomorphic, as is indicating depth on a piece of glass. What Apple loves is irrelevant (if one is willing to ascribe emotional states to corporations). Daimler-Benz loved steering tillers. Ford loved hand throttles. Think about the way in which the interfaces of automobiles changed over the first forty years as they went from horseless carriages to widespread adoption. That's what we'r…
Rounded corners aren't necessarily skeumorphic; they're a style choice just as rounded cabinets and trim are a (popular) style choice. Likewise, shading and gradients to give an impression of depth and lighting are often used to distinguish items that are clickable or as a separator. These are artistic tools that can be used to various effects, but are not skeumorphic in the sense of trying to imitate a familiar obje…
Skeumorphic features are defined by the fact that they are unnecessary carry-overs from older or different objects. They can be useful and style choices too, but a digital button does not need to indicate depth, whereas a mechanical button does, because it needs to protrude from the surface in order to be pressed.
Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple
#193Who wants to bet that Marissa called him already? Seems like the perfect fit for the new Yahoo mobile oriented strategy, does it not? I have no clue to be honest.
Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple
#194I think one of the worst examples of UI design by Apple is the iCloud website. It's just so slow and clunky. I can't believe more people aren't complaining about it.
Yes, it is slow and clunky, but better alternatives are next door. So why complain?
Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
The guy was an SVP, passing the buck isn't really an option at that level. It's about ownership.
I understand. I'm just wondering if he put himself in that position or if someone else did.
Scuttlebutt is that it was an executive-wide decision based on the coming renegotiation of their 5 year agreement with Google regarding Maps. Google has been letting iOS maps lag behind Android maps (e.g., Android has turn-by-turn navigation, iOS maps didn't), so Apple was understandably not excited about renewing that agreement, and leaving themselves very vulnerable to one of their biggest competitors. But they didn't have something comparable, so they pushed a weak maps app early to catch Google off-guard--and they did. Google didn't have an app ready in the app store to replace the one they lost in the OS.
That's my synthesis of the analysis of a bunch of Apple watchers, so take it with a bowl of salt. But it makes sense to me.
Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple
#196Who wants to bet that Marissa called him already? Seems like the perfect fit for the new Yahoo mobile oriented strategy, does it not? I have no clue to be honest.
Keep in mind he has a year transition period at Apple. After that, Apple likely gave him a list of verboten companies as part of the severance. Google is certainly on that list. Yahoo may or may not.
Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple
#197Just 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)
This makes me wonder - who at Apple decided it was necessary to make their own maps app? It's easy to blame Forstall for a crappy product. But if someone else was responsible for mandating the change, assigning him the project, and pushing an impossible deadline, maybe it's more their fault.
Apple always made the maps app. The original app used Google data, and the new app uses other data.
Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
And before HCI it was MMI (Man-Machine)...so the term evolves.
Do you have any references for that? HCI has been in use since the late 70s (I believe it originated at Xerox PARC, since the earliest literature I can find using it is from there), and is now the de-facto standard term for all major conferences/publications. On the other hand, searching "MMI" on the ACM digital library only returns it as an acronym for various more-or-less related things. Maybe MMI is a mistranslati…
When working with engineers from Israel, I still hear the term "MMI" used frequently. They use it the same way I would use "HMI" here in the states.
Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple
#199I feel very sorry for Apple. Scott was a major catalyst that made things happen at the company.
...but on the other hand, there's been speculation for years that his management style was very bad, and the source of frustration in the engineering teams, as well as his friction with the industrial design team.
Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
You give "page flipping in an e-book" as an example of dangerous skeuomorphism, but then cite Address Book as why it's bad. I'm a bit confused. I get why you don't like Address Book, but do you really think page flipping in an e-reader is bad too? If so, why do you think that?
Because pages in an e-reader are not physical sheets bound together that require flipping over before you can see the page below. If you can render the next page faster, then why fake a 'page turn' that takes time to animate. It's the very definition of skeuomorphism.
The speed at which you can present text to the reader is not the end-all, be-all of the reading experience. In fact, the logical conclusion, of having zero transition whatsoever, is actually a pretty terrible experience. Why do you think people use smooth scrolling on their OS? Transitions are very valuable in producing a good user experience, whether it's a simple horizontal slide as the Kindle iOS app uses by default, or a page turn animation as iBooks uses by default. And if your argument is purely about the speed of the animation, there is nothing about a page turn that inherently requires it be slower than a horizontal slide.
Speaking personally, the iBooks page curl is one of my favorite features of any iOS app, period.