
The Latest Apple Scuttlebutt - mactitan
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/04/02/apple-scuttlebutt
======
fpgeek
Wow.

Even though they must be (given the realities of software development and the
time windows they want to hit), it is still mind-boggling to think of a
company like Apple (with its vast cash hoard) as resource-constrained with
respect to what is probably the most important component of their flagship
products.

~~~
wiredfool
I think Apple is a much smaller company than they look, by profile or even
employee count. I think their core OSX/iOS developer staff is small, and
rather mobile in terms of what they're working on. Those core devs have been
shifted around before, delaying an OSX release to help out on iOS.

I think that the constraints are not cash, so much as bandwidth and team size.

~~~
m_mueller
It seems to me that the 'Jobsian' management style has some inherent
boundaries in how large such an organisation can get. By that I mean if you
have

a) a micro manager that wants to be involved in all important and medium
important product and marketing decisions and

b) this micro manager as the actual CEO of the company

you will run into some limitations. There's only so much a man can review and
decide on. Now, of course, Tim Cook is probably not that person, but the Jobs
legacy seems to live on in how the 'second line' (Ive, Schiller,..) and
everyone after them still acts.

In the longer run, from what we can see from the outside, only Ive has the
potential to step into Steve's shoes when it comes to designing new product
lines. I'm very curious about how he will manage iOS, at the least we're in
for a few surprises in the near future I'd say.

~~~
jwilliams
Software teams rarely scale well -- sure management styles and culture will
come into it -- However, scaling and layering up software teams is
horrendously inefficient. I'd argue that's a bigger boundary.

If you take software out of the equation - Apple is pretty huge. Both in their
own right & positively massive when you consider their contractors and
partners.

~~~
m_mueller
> If you take software out of the equation..

I'd argue that you really can't do that in this case. Apple's main value
proposition is hardware/software integration and if your software teams can't
keep up it will limit the product _lines_ you can manage. However, in Apple's
case, most of their product lines sell so incredibly well that they still
operate at a massive scale, even though they have a limited amount of chips in
the game. This is of course where Tim Cook comes in, and why he's CEO now.

------
seivan
"but will also apparently make rich-texture-loving designers sad." Thank God!

As an iOS designer and developer. I love using non-textured design as it's
easier to do code wise instead of having manage multiple versions of assets.

What is commonly refereed to a flat UI is really better to do as it's mostly
possible to do with code instead of images.

Go Ive!

Think using css3 instead of images on the web.

~~~
FireBeyond
"Go Ive!"

It's almost as if no other mobile ecosystem has tried, or indeed is using, a
flat UI.

But I'm sure this will be lauded as a brave, revolutionary step by many in the
Apple world.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
@taligent: you’ve been hellbanned. All comments of the last 24 hours are dead,
starting with your comments in the Feedly thread.

------
george88b
Apple hasn't had a significant iOS UI change in too long. I know people who
have left the iPhone just for that reason. About time.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. I know some people will always look for
something new, but just because it’s new doesn’t mean it’s better. Every major
version of Windows looks completely different, while OS X receives UI tweaks
in smaller increments.

I do think it would be good to simplify the look of some apps, like Find
Friends and Game Center on iPhone, and Calendar and Contacts on iPad.

I believe the recent redesign of the Podcasts app[1] shows what we should
expect from iOS 7: less textures, less color, dark gradients – but nothing
that could be described as ‘flat design’.

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/03/hands-on-apples-
podcast...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/03/hands-on-apples-podcasts-app-
loses-reel-animation-gains-playlists/)

~~~
FireBeyond
"Every major version of Windows looks completely different"

Except for XP to Vista...

Except for Vista to 7...

7 to 8... I'll somewhat grant you, but a lot less so after you hit the
desktop.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
XP and Vista look completely different. Not only was Aero introduced in Vista,
the taskbar and Start menu were redesigned.

Vista and 7 look very different. The UI was cleaned up a lot, the taskbar was
redesigned again, Live Thumbnails and multitouch support were added.

Let's compare that to OS X: most people won't be able to tell Mountain Lion
(released 8 months a go) from Leopard (released in 2007), just by looking at
the desktop.

Here are two screenshots. One is Mountain Lion, the other is Leopard. See if
you can tell which one is which. <http://i.imgur.com/VDVPvV2.jpg>
<http://i.imgur.com/0fG7xNu.jpg>

~~~
rkudeshi
Wow, I didn't realize how little the basic interface has changed. I mean, I
know there's been no radical changes, but I still didn't expect it to take me
nearly as long as it did to tell the difference between a 1-year-old and
6-year-old OS.

Amazing how much they've improved "under-the-hood" while keeping the basic
interface the same.

PS. If you can't tell the difference between the two, look at the dock - the
only way I could figure it out is spotting the new/changed app icons
(Launchpad, iTunes, etc).

------
nubela
Honestly, why is this being upvoted?

