
Jony Ive to form independent design company with Apple as client - rdl
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/06/jony-ive-to-form-independent-design-company-with-apple-as-client/?1561668811
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dang
Comments moved to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20298653](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20298653).

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mrkstu
Hopefully this signals the end of the designers tyranny at Apple.

While physical design has been of paramount importance in Apple's rise to the
top, it has been more and more detrimental as Jony and his group wandered into
worshipping at the altar of luxury and Platonic idealism.

When combined not ignoring other than luxury market segments and _usability_
that was fine. But when Jony's star was completely ascendant everything else
was sacrificed at that altar (see butterfly keyboard, single port MacBook,
escape key-less touch bars, no 32 GB MacBook Pros since that would require
non-power-sipping RAM.)

I could have lived with this if the design of the _software_ hadn't also
suffered in conjunction with the hardware. Jony was given responsibility for
UX and it also started prioritizing abstract design principles over actual
usability with extremely low contrast UI elements and other poor choices.

As we saw those points being walked back and Apple being responsive to the
complaints, I've been wondering if Craig Federighi's star was rising and if
Jony's was dimming, since I doubt he was a willing participant in the
diminution of his artistic choices. Seeing the extreme effort he was putting
into charity[0] and the spaceship campus, instead of his actual
responsibilities, it all combined to me that he needed to either get re-
focused by the CEO or get a new job.

[0] [https://www.dezeen.com/2018/11/16/jony-ive-diamond-ring-
marc...](https://www.dezeen.com/2018/11/16/jony-ive-diamond-ring-marc-newson-
red-auction/) [https://petapixel.com/2013/11/24/one-kind-jony-ive-red-
leica...](https://petapixel.com/2013/11/24/one-kind-jony-ive-red-leica-m-
sells-whopping-1-8m-charity-auction/) [https://www.businessinsider.com/jony-
ive-bono-sothebys-chari...](https://www.businessinsider.com/jony-ive-bono-
sothebys-charity-auction-2013-9)
[https://www.fastcompany.com/3019896/designed-by-
friendship-j...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3019896/designed-by-friendship-
jony-ive-and-marc-newsons-15-ton-desk)

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filoleg
I agree with most of the stuff you said, but where did you get the "no 32GB
Macbook Pros" from? I haven't been following MBP that closely, but last year's
MBPs had a 32GB option, and so do the newer 2019 models.

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woodgrainz
*Jony

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dmerrick
*Sir Jony

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masonic
The only thing worse than being the 6th submit on this subject in the past 10
minutes is _spelling his name wrong._

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shawnz
I wonder, did the submitter retype the title character by character except for
his name? Or copy/paste it and then inject the typo afterward?

