Of course, any new CEO/board can undo what previous CEOs and boards have set in stone.
Steve Jobs left designer Jony Ive more power than anyone at Apple
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Re: Steve Jobs left designer Jony Ive more power than anyone at Apple
#52Of course, any new CEO/board can undo what previous CEOs and boards have set in stone.
I think they all have too much respect for Steve to change anything like this for a while.
Re: Steve Jobs left designer Jony Ive more power than anyone at Apple
#53It staggers me that time and time again Apple lays out the reasons for it's unrivalled success for all to see, yet non of it's rivals seem interested in copying their methods and opt for simply copying their products. Fortune favours the brave.
A big reason for this is that what Apple does is very, very _hard_. It's really hard to build physical objects with design good enough to be featured in museums. It's really hard to build your own software ecosystem, from operating system to software distribution to entertainment services. It's hard enough just to do them; it's extremely hard to be great at them.
Even if other companies _wanted_ to replicate Apple's way of doing business, it's like Paul Graham pointed out in his Great Hackers essay: you have to have great people at the top to know how to identify the great talent below that actually dooes the work. Excellence has to permeate the entire organization. Do you see that coming from Samsung, HTC, or Motorola? They clearly don't have the capability, so they get the software from somewhere else, and then make it worse by adding their own differentiating layers.
Google or Microsoft can obviously make the software, but, unfortunately, they choose not to make the hardware, and in my opinion their products suffer for it.
Re: Steve Jobs left designer Jony Ive more power than anyone at Apple
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could take everything you just said and apply it to Sony in 1980. Then their founder, Akio Morita, retired with poor health and they diversified into lots of sensible business decisions about owning studios Then some little computer company in California moved in on their territory and began making beautiful, simple, well made upmarket products.
By "sensible" you mean "disastrous." Owning Sony Pictures has been a consistent money loser, and the studio IP concerns at Sony Music and Pictures hamstrung their electronics arm from innovating in the face of the iPod threat.
In Sony's defense, the idea of a modern electronics company owning actual content was an interesting idea, especially as they introduced new media formats. It's not far removed from what Amazon is attempting in publishing and what turned out to be a very successful model for the game industry. Unfortunately for Sony, it turns out that the economics just don't work for music and movies.
Re: Steve Jobs left designer Jony Ive more power than anyone at Apple
#55Those are some damn nice CNC mills in the background of that photo. Wonder how much use they get.
Speaking of that photo, the documentary it's from (Objectified) is very good and is on Netflix Instant Queue. (Might be available other ways but that's how I watched it)
If you like that, the same group made another documentary called 'Helvetica' that is all about fonts and, specifically, about the history and ubiquity of Helvetica. It's also available on Netflix-instant and is a pretty good watch:
Re: Steve Jobs left designer Jony Ive more power than anyone at Apple
#56Great, but... Ive only does industrial design, as far as I know. The other side of the coin is the software, and if that declines, Ive's going to be creating very well-designed paperweights. So who does Apple's software design?
That's a good point. Jonathan Ive is in charge of Industrial Design and when you hear him, he's talking as a designer.
On the software side, we don't really hear so much about the UI/UX design process the same way we do on the hardware side with Ive. What I mean is that I don't get the same hands-on feel from Scott Forstall when he presents new features of iOS.
I've been curious about who is behind some of the UI concepts and details of iOS but I can't point to a specific person like I could with the hardware. (NB: though I understand well that it's probably not just a single person :))
edit: I was watching this video again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fe800C2CU In it, you can see Jonathan Ive touching the products and you can tell he would personally make sure that it would be changed if something didn't feel right. On the software side, someone has to make a decision on how much bounce the lists on iOS should have, on how fast animations should be, etc. but it doesn't seem to be Scott Forstall. I'd like to hear more from the software/UI designers at Apple.
Re: Steve Jobs left designer Jony Ive more power than anyone at Apple
#57Interestingly enough, there is a quote from the Jobs book, from Ive, that was tweeted by Bianca Bosker, who works at the Huffington Post: https://twitter.com/bbosker/status/127357233632788480 "Jony Ive:'I pay maniacal attention to where an idea comes from...so it hurts when [Jobs] takes credit for one of my designs'" As much as Jobs considered Ive a 'spiritual partner' there was still a power play that existed betwee…
we've been working our asses off.
so it was the royal 'we' this whole time?
Re: Steve Jobs left designer Jony Ive more power than anyone at Apple
#58Interestingly enough, there is a quote from the Jobs book, from Ive, that was tweeted by Bianca Bosker, who works at the Huffington Post: https://twitter.com/bbosker/status/127357233632788480 "Jony Ive:'I pay maniacal attention to where an idea comes from...so it hurts when [Jobs] takes credit for one of my designs'" As much as Jobs considered Ive a 'spiritual partner' there was still a power play that existed betwee…
Jobs has never taken credit for a design, has he? People who are uninformed just assume it's Jobs, and that perhaps is what Ive is referring to. He probably meant "it hurts when [Jobs] gets credit..." If you look at the Objectified interview, along with nearly every promotional video that Apple puts out, it's very clear that Ive is the design guy.
He didn't have to take credit for any particular designs, he just took credit for all the designs because of his unofficial role as "taste maker." That's way harder to refute. It's like giving Chuck Norris credit for all living things because he's allowed them to live.
Re: Steve Jobs left designer Jony Ive more power than anyone at Apple
#59Great, but... Ive only does industrial design, as far as I know. The other side of the coin is the software, and if that declines, Ive's going to be creating very well-designed paperweights. So who does Apple's software design?
> So who does Apple's software design? Scott Forstall is responsible for iOS. My understanding is that Eddy Cue is responsible for the iTunes Store, including the App Store, and now, iCloud. He was promoted to Executive Vice President back in August. I'm not sure who's in charge of Mac software. You can see brief profiles of the various people here: http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/
I'm not sure who's in charge of Mac software.
It used to be Bertrand Serlet until he left last March. I'm not sure why he hasn't been replaced, at least from an outside perspective (no one is shown as in charge of Mac on the page you linked to).
Re: Steve Jobs left designer Jony Ive more power than anyone at Apple
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jobs has never taken credit for a design, has he? People who are uninformed just assume it's Jobs, and that perhaps is what Ive is referring to. He probably meant "it hurts when [Jobs] gets credit..." If you look at the Objectified interview, along with nearly every promotional video that Apple puts out, it's very clear that Ive is the design guy.
He didn't have to take credit for any particular designs, he just took credit for all the designs because of his unofficial role as "taste maker." That's way harder to refute. It's like giving Chuck Norris credit for all living things because he's allowed them to live.
chuck norris looked at this analogy…and it just stared back.
EDIT: there are a lot of interesting people on HN, but there are a lot of humorless people too. enjoy your spectrum disorder.