Scott Forstall leaves Apple • Hacker News Board

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#311

Post by Gravityloss » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 4:09 PM UTC

gurkendoktor wrote: post #257

mcgroarty wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Podcast app and the iPad Music app are both a mess, and both happened under Forstall as I understand it. Trade away the lyric and podcast show info displays for kitsch wood veneer? And a reel-to-reel tape recorder simulator? Move seek controls to weird locations? Replace the easy-to-spot seek knob with a radio needle? Why? So many small steps backward, even if no single one was a deal breaker... negative trajecto…

I think that's unfair: The "everything is simplistic, monochrome gray" half of Apple's recent design may be more tasteful in many people's view, but it isn't any more usable . I had many situations in which the auto-hidden scrollbars made it impossible to tell that there was more to discover in a scroll view. The CAPS SIDEBAR HEADERS have no triangle indicator anymore, it is impossible to tell without hovering if a s…

The last time I looked, save dialogs for example in Preview were broken too, as the horizontal scroll bar hid most of the lowest row even when you scrolled to the absolute bottom. What were they thinking? That's a pretty serious basic level bug that your UI is blocking your data. Don't they test such big changes?

All kinds of things are broken left and right in OSX but I guess that's just how it is. Mail hangs constantly and silently, you're just not receiving anything anymore. You can't close it (and force quit is not an option anymore?), you have to kill it from command line. The new calendar is brown faux leather all of a sudden, completely different than everything else. And you can't easily select which account you're viewing and setting events for.

It is interesting to note that software functionality and polish above a certain mediocre level just can not be reached.

Sure, sometimes it's understandable that stuff is totally rewritten from scratch since some fundamental new technology made it necessary, and you have to go to a state of more brokenness. But even when that is not the case, it seems software can't go beyond "90% complete" or so, at best it just reaches an asymptotic level where stuff is broken at the same rate as it is repaired.

After the major and hard stuff is done, what the heck are all the engineers and testers working on? If you're not in a hurry to create those big features any more, you could concentrate on at least doing the few new small features very well. But it feels as if OSX UI has taken as many steps backwards as it has gone forward from Snow Leopard.

This happens in other software too. For example Xnview and XFLR5 have both been developed for a long time and have had their ups and downs, and at the moment might be below 50% of their historical level of "perfection". But they're cheap/free mostly one man operations, multiplatform and have had massive rewrites and feature expansions. Often the developer might not even have some supported platform to test platform specific issues on, and it's a surprise they work as well as they do.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#312

Post by rdl » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 4:10 PM UTC

gmac wrote: post #300

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, nobody likes pushy sales staff, ever.

Fine — but in that case, people's definitions of pushy vary widely.

I prefer if they don't approach me unless I'm obviously looking for help, but in my cases shopping in the UK it was "there is nothing useful on the shelf, I need to find out if there is a product by asking an employee" and not being able to readily get one.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#313

Post by rdl » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 4:12 PM UTC

weaksauce wrote: post #302

henrikschroder wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Completely off-topic here, but my understanding is that sales tax in the US can vary from county to county, and definitely varies from state to state, so it's simpler in the case of labelling, and impossible in the case of national advertising, to show the final price. Contrast with Europe where sales tax is nationally fixed, which makes it easy to show the final price. (and in some places illegal not to!))

In California it definitely varies county by county.

It also varies by product, including how the product is consumed. It is quite complex.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#314

Post by code_duck » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 4:20 PM UTC

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #24

Interesting timing on the announcement, given that the stock market is closed today and likely tomorrow too. As both a fan and shareholder of Apple, I'm very pleased to hear Browett is out. The stories that came out a couple months ago about the changes in Apple Retail did fill me with admiration for his management style. Also, given how Forstall is described in a Business Week profile[1], and that Bob Mansfield is n…

It sounded like his management style left a lot of people in the company completely loathing him. How is that admirable?

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#315

Post by wisty » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 4:22 PM UTC

niels_olson wrote: post #267

wisty wrote: post #234

I think there's a few layers to this: 1) Forstall apparently wants to be CEO, and run the company. That puts him at odds with Cook (the CEO), and Ive (who wants to drive Apple's design decisions). 2) He's divisive. There's claims that neither Jonny Ive nor Bob Mansfield would talk to him without Tim Cook mediating. There's also claims that he "managed up" (showed off to the boss) better than he "managed down", and st…

Spot on. I can't help but add that on the day Apple is getting a lot unwanted press, the company you paint as Forstall's rival, Google, is also on HN front page with a remarkably quiet announcement of a $399 10" 300 dpi tablet. I hope this marks a low for Apple. All things considered, they could do a lot worse. Hopefully they will only keep improving.

The only reason I'd buy a Nexus over an iPad is if Google offers great integration (search + maps) on the Nexus, but Apple blocks them from doing the same on the iPad.

If Google was a hardware company (not a search company) I could see why they would screw over the iPad by not porting their apps. But Google is not a hardware company, most of their revenue comes from search. They want Google search (or the next generation, interfaced with their Siri clone) on every phone and tablet. That's why they make Android open source.

Apple can try to screw over Google, by blocking Google apps (or just not cooperating with Google on integration). They can offer their own search and maps, but they'll do a crap job, and end up screwing their customers. It might hurt Google, but it will also hurt Apple (as Android will have a big advantage).

The best thing for both companies is cooperating to get Google features on the iPhone. Sure, Apple may resent Android, but they are just going to have to suck it up. If it weren't for Android, Microsoft would be making the leading iOS substitute, and I can't see either Apple or Google loving that.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#316

Post by Gravityloss » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 4:24 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #152

matheusalmeida wrote: post #50

Given that 50% of the posts talk about skeuomorphism and honestly I didn't know what it was, here's the definition from Wikipedia: "A skeuomorph, or skeuomorphism is when a product imitates design elements functionally necessary in the original product design, but that becomes ornamental in the new product design" .

It's a new word for an old concept: a decorative anachronism. Obvious examples from outside the world of computing include stone pillars in front of important buildings, and rivets on jeans. It's abused here on HN as short-hand for app decorations that people don't like, like the infamous leather treatment on the calendar. But there are plenty of "skeuomorphic" aspects to iOS that I never see anyone complain about (a…

Inertial scrolling is tremendously useful, you can scroll more with fewer swipes.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#317

Post by emehrkay » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 4:29 PM UTC

moe wrote: post #247

emehrkay wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just hope that they can keep the contrast and the explicit visual of what a component does. Case in point: fire up letterpress on the ipad, get a gamecenter popover with its felt and wood finish, you can clearly identify what is supposed to happen (aside from copy[if you've used gamecenter before]).

Do you really like the gamecenter popover? To me it's one of the worst designs on the iPad. The buttons are way too tiny, they are arranged differently for every game, and each game seems to compete for the least intuitive layout and labeling.

Yeah why not? The metaphor works/I cant think of a better one. One thing that I like about some of Apple's approach to things is that the user explicitly enters a mode or changes frame of action. There is a mode the user enters when moving around ios icons/making folders, there is a mode when editing content that appeared to be static at one point. The faux leather/fake realism helps make that switch. If the Xbox os looks just like Metro, how does the user know when things are different?

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#318

Post by jarek » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 4:40 PM UTC

89a wrote: post #294

fleitz wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skeuomorphic design is rarely as little design as possible which is what makes the podcast design so iconic... er.. ironic.

Same goes for this stupid piece of shit http://www.wthr.co

I was so confused when I saw that app a couple of months back. Why spend so much effort creating an admittedly aesthetically pleasing design, name check Rams and his principles, and so completely miss the point of "as little design as possible" and have a non-functional spinner display for the current conditions?

And having such a prominent °F/°C switch is just baffling. This is not a function used regularly by the vast majority of users.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#319

Post by TazeTSchnitzel » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 5:16 PM UTC

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #166

Steko wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as Apple's software and hardware are talked about, Eddie Cue is also the guy largely responsible for negotiating Apple's superior media offerings which is arguably Apple's biggest lead on their competitors internationally.

Great, I'll remember to curse him the next time I can't buy something because it's EXCLUSIVELY listed in iTunes. Not sure why this is downvoted. At least Apple's competitors allow me to buy their music as Linux user.

I just hate how slow the iTunes interface is on Windows, and the fact everything's in m4a/AAC, not MP3.

Re: Scott Forstall leaves Apple

#320

Post by feverishaaron » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 5:49 PM UTC

eridius wrote: post #171

MetricMike wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dichotomy is what's dangerous. Address Book looks like an book, so I'll try to interact with it like that. When that doesn't work, I get confused, angry, and it's generally a "failure" from a UX point of view. Neither form of skeuomorphism is inherently bad, but it's easier to shoot yourself in the foot and ruin the UX when you move from decorative to functional.

Yes, I get the complaints about Address Book. But "page flipping in an e-book" is either really poorly written, or was not referring to Address Book to begin with, since Address Book is not an e-book. Hence my question.

Indeed, they were intended to be separate examples.