I was always inspired more by Jony Ive over Steve Jobs. In interviews he was always more real to me, more humble. A simple take away I've had from Johny (and steve to some extent) is to simply pay attention, to everything and anything. That kind of care and focus is how they get to be apple, versus good enough.
But will their products get better as a result of this? or will they continue to decline? Design has always taken more prominence at apple over usability (do they even have a Chief Usability Officer?) To some degree it's a tolerable tradeoff to make; but I've noticed their products have become significantly more design focused and well, pretty much everything else has taken back seat.
Perhaps there's TOO much design, and not enough of everything else. Maybe Steve was that balance to Jony and now the ying is yangless. Or maybe they're just optimizing their business for other things, and the things that matter to me are insignificant to them now.
>Design has always taken more prominence at apple over usability
I strongly disagree with you there. In fact, I'd say the exact opposite.
The experience of using the product has always been at the very core of Apple's design philosophy. The entire desktop metaphor, include the Trash, the files in folders, etc. is about simplifying the user experience with the computer.
The fact that anyone can just pick up an iPhone and pretty much immediately know what they should be doing, without reading a manual, tells you exactly that usability has been so thought out that it has become invisible. You just do what you want to do, without having to think about how to do it. So, it's the embodiment of the Steve Krug "Don't make me think" mindset: usability is design.
> The entire desktop metaphor, include the Trash, the files in folders, etc. is about simplifying the user experience with the computer.
The work of the first iPhone team including Jony Ive might fit into Apple's philosophy, but those individuals deserve so much credit for Apple's small-device turnaround because iPhone wasn't inevitable and neither was Apple's recent success. Apple actually struggled for years in the personal computer market, made lots of now-forgotten stinker products with huge flaws, and mostly just continued to sell computers to a fanatical but tiny following. For example: yes, certainly I'll drag my floppy disk to the trash when I'm done working with it because there is no eject button, that sounds safe enough not to think about. What? To Apple's hardcore fans, that was always intuitive, and it does remove an ugly button from the front, but it is not "usable." It's just characteristic Apple. Apple never had a monopoly on usability.
iPhone was inevitable because it was basically a iPod with a mobile radio.
Its main selling point of the day (besides visual voice mail) was that it could hook into the existing ITMS infrastructure without the limitations that their previous cooperation with Motorola was saddled with.
Back when it launched, all but the highest capacity iPods were competing with cheaper and cheaper featurephones packing more and more storage.
The press was basically screaming for Apple to get a phone out the door or go down in flames.
I think the biggest turnaround for Apple was when they got Jobs off the "tech hub" idea he was riding. The idea that the Mac would the center of "your" (his) technological life.
This turned the company from a computer company into a consumer electronics company.
As someone who is a big fan of "don't make me think" (just bought the third edition a few days ago, actually) I can attest that there are things that apple has done/designed that make me think or pause. I Don't think it's core to their philosophy - perhaps it is a part of it, but not front and center. I get snagged on too many things for that to be the case; and it's become noticeable in the past few years to the point of hindrance for me in some cases.
Their keyboards and mice particularly showcase this: they look pretty and sleek, but try using them all day, and then try using a regular keyboard and mouse. They weren't thinking about the human who has to use it, they were thinking of appeal and looks.
You're not wrong about the approachability of IOS; that's no accident, and required a good deal of thought and attention. But I think whenever there is a tie, and they can either improve the aesthetics or improve the usability, they lean towards the former, because it's sexier and will sell.
> Their keyboards and mice particularly showcase this: they look pretty and sleek, but try using them all day, and then try using a regular keyboard and mouse.
Having done this, I prefer the Apple products:
1. The keyboards have very little travel so it is considerably less effort to type on them then to type on a standard keyboard.
2. The Magic Mouse has a large multitouch surface on it that enables gestures that I have a hard time going without. Also, it fits my hand. YMMV.
Matter of taste or what you're accustomed to. I use a mechanical keyboard on my MacMini but genuinely like both the Apple Bluetooth trackpad and mouse--and have gotten beyond the trackballs I used for ages without much in the way of angst.
I'd say the entire history of Apple products compared to any other popular product that is a 'computing device' indicates that you're wrong. They've consistently made traditionally complex things easy enough for mainstream adoption and perhaps more importantly, enjoyment.
Sure, they make mistakes. Probably quite a number of them. Nobody is perfect. But I'd say their mistakes are insignificant compared to their achievements.
Plus, sometimes they're not mistakes; they just don't target power users. A single-button mouse is an example of that. And to some extent choosing aesthetics over usability can be an example of this too. A non-tech person might prefer a pretty mouse and keyboard because he only checks his email occasionally and he's not a great typist anyways.
(mind, I do realize Apple often did not 'invent' these things. They just were clever enough to polish these things up and productize them, which rather bafflingly few companies did before them)
Haven't used it yet, but it seemed that the focus on apps was the wrong place to start. I think Marco Arment said something about the priority being notifications, glances and _then_ apps. Totally makes sense to me - in a UI meant to save you from the relatively cumbersome interaction with a phone, you don't want to replicate the functionality of the app. That's what the phone is still for. Any time saved not pulling the phone out would be spent navigating a smaller screen.
Not surprised that developers would start on the wrong end, but I wonder what Apple could've done to get them to start with glances. Perhaps not even include app support in v1 of the Watch OS.
Without Steve Jobs, Jony Ive is just another designer. No doubt he's a very good one, but many others are just as good, if not better.
It's sad that Steve couldn't be there to tell Jony that the iOS 7 design sucked, big time, to tell him to do it over. It has ruined iOS for me, and not a few others I gather.
I think you're right. I certainly believe good design reflects good usability; but "aesthetics" feels a bit derogatory to me, which is maybe why i don't use it in my vocabulary when I should.
What's wrong with aesthetics? Certainly aesthetics at the cost of functionality, but good design means that form and function are complementary and aesthetics is certainly part of a fantastic design.
It's just one of those things for me, what the word means and how I feel about the word are not always in alignment.
It could be because I've always fought back against aesthetics at the cost of functionality, and it's left some mark on me like that. But you're right, though. I'm not saying it's a 100% logical thing of me to get hung up on.
I think Jony is even more pretentious than Steve. Isn't he the one that used red anodized aluminum to make a Mac Pro for a charity and then acted as if he "designed" a special version?
I agree. Jobs got away with his act because he more or less invented it. Jony is acting the act. From what I've seen, I find him really off-putting.
Once tasted wine at a place where the host was too slick, too smooth, too rehearsed. I had to walk out and leave our group with it. He reminds me of that.
I think you have a lot of animus for someone who is basically making up a story about someone else "acting like" something, from whole cloth. What do you know about what Ive "acted like" precisely?
Jony is an industrial designer by trade and heart. So "design" for him and everyone else doesn't just mean how it looks but how it is made.
I don't know about the process for making the Mac Pro red but given how much time Apple spends on material engineering I would assume it is non trivial.
If the Mac Pro was the first object ever made with red anodized aluminum, I'd agree that it was probably a non-trivial process. That's clearly not the case here.
Another perspective would be that by having Ive hype the design for the red Mac Pro, it's value was increased and so too was its contribution to the charity in question. Love him or loathe him, Ive is the preeminent celebrity industrial designer.
That person didn't give a million dollars to charity because he actually thought that a red Mac Pro was worth a million dollars, he gave a million dollars to charity because he was an incredibly nice person.
> In interviews he was always more real to me, more humble.
Guessing you haven't seen TLI. Watch it then come back and tell us he wasn't humble deep down inside. Steve was just really proud of his company and wanted it to excel past the norms.
I had not, no. I'm not sure that was a particularly humble interview, but he's at least more down to earth than I've seen him otherwise.
The little voice in me still critiques his methodology of working with others: he may have been smart, but he didn't need to be such a dick. I don't say that so much to put him down, but as my own reference that I don't need to be a jerk to people to get good work from them. (I feel some people have different take aways)
I'm a little disappointed how the top post in here presents design almost as an opposite to usability. That's not how it should work and certainly not how Apple got so successful. I think you might mean "aesthetics", that would be an important difference.
Good design is never just decoration, it's not just an aesthetic hull with the "real" functionality hidden behind it. Good design is from the ground up, how the entire experience is structured, including the stuff under the hood. Apple's main strength is in putting a ton of research into how users actually use their devices (textbook "usability") and making sure things are always ranked by importance. There's stuff iOS doesn't do that most Android devices do and it's not missing because Apple can't pull it off, it's because they decided not to waste space/learning-time for the user on something that might, for most people, not be important. Meanwhile, niche functionality is supported through a myriad of apps. That's not minimalism for the sake of aesthetics, that's a really smart usability decision that has payed off over and over for them. For a counter-example, I'm sure Apple was very tempted to make the Apple Watch touch-only but instead included a somewhat clumsy looking scroll wheel because that makes more sense for such a tiny display.
The few places where aesthetics clash with functionality (a lack of physical buttons that might seem reasonable, some questionable font choices,...) tend to get replaced by a more all-around solution (forget about buttons and go straight to touch) or a willingness to identify and fix problems (a new font for Apple Watch and iOS9).
I really don't think we'll get very far by calling out usability, of all things, as an area where Apple lacks. Apple has other problems, they're not perfect. But if they fail, it'll probably not be because of usability issues. It might rather be that people start asking what reason there could possibly be to upgrade to the next iPhone.
While I have tremendous respect for Sir Ive as a designer, I'm beginning to notice a trailing-off of quality in Apple's software products ever since Jobs departed. Little quirks and irritants which would never have made it to the outside world in Jobs' days, are now sneaking out.
Apple has the design part covered, but it seriously needs a fanatic who will make sure that every iOS release is perfect. They lost that fanatic, and he hasn't been replaced.
I've seen similar across their products too. Like the volume up/down display that appears whenever you change the volume; it's supposed to have rounded corners, but they goofed and it displays the area between the rounded corner and actual corner as black instead of transparent. At least for me.
I think it's nonsense that Ive would be working on future Apple Stores or even spending much time on Campus 2 (it has largely been already designed). Pretty clear he will be spending more time with Marc Newson designing the next category of products i.e. the much rumoured Apple Car.
I think there's a very good chance he'll be working on Apple Store design, alongside Angela Ahrendts. I think there's a very good chance she'll want a redesign and, for something so critical to Apple's success, Ive will definitely want to be involved.
He was involved in the design of the new Apple Watch display tables[1] that have arrived in Apple stores, as mentioned in the fairly recent interview with Ive in The New Yorker, so I don't see any reason why he wouldn't be involved in store design, too.
Did you read one of his interviews? For the campus, he's personally designing new doorways and new hallways and prototyping 50 kinds of cafeteria seating and two dozen other things... kinda crazy, but perfection isn't going to make itself.
I worked on Campus 2 for quite a while. I can testify that Ive was present in meetings for the project. Quite regularly. It's not really relevant that the basic design is complete; Ive is heavily involved with the execution.
That's a serious rumor? The amount of critical parts in designing a car seems so overwhelming, I don't even see Apple having any real advantage, here. No real overlap with Apple's strengths. Even Google will probably at best just sell their navigation software, not full blown cars. Speaking of Google... maybe an Apple version of Google Glass?
Ive will be remembered as the man who succeeded (for only a while I hope) in removing graphics completely from graphic design. Flat "design" is uniformly featureless to make it easy for developers to make apps while requiring no skills in graphic design or expense on the same. Lower the bar and level the field. It's about apps, apps, apps...
Jonny Ive and his team spent 18 months perfecting the 'tap' notification for the Apple Watch. This attention to detail has everything to do with Usability and nothing to do with design. So, as with other commenters on this topic, I strongly disagree that design has always taken prominence over usability, to me it't the exact opposite.
It's not all 'roses in the garden' however. Apple have really let themselves down with OSX, which in terms of Usability doesn't hold a candle against Windows OS. Agreed, some will argue that Windows evolved out of OSX in terms of interface - but for me, the usability attributed to Windows is far superior.
The Peter Principle in effect. Apple wants Ive to be the new Jobs but his software taste just isn't as refined and it's distracting from his hardware work which is getting lazy. The Apple Watch is literally an iPhone on your wrist[0]; it's quite ugly for a watch. I'd rather have Jony back focused on hardware instead of failing upwards.
> The Apple Watch is literally an iPhone on your wrist[0]; it's quite ugly for a watch.
I agree; it's literally an iPhone 1. But I think the iPhone 1 looked the way it did due to some pretty heavy design-constraints—it wasn't simple, back then, to get the amount of hardware they did into the package-size. And the same is true today with the Watch. I fully expect the package to shrink and the design to become less "forced" and more "designed" over time.
I didn't have much against the Apple watch myself. It's an incredibly tricky thing to pull off and I don't really think anyone has so far. What were you expecting in terms of design? It seems like it's hands down the best watch with straps very well done. I prefer a circular look but then I can easily understand going for a regular look both technically (more hardware volume) and design wise (most information is displayed much better in rectangular form).
There'll be a few iterations to make it nicer looking, can't say they did a bad job.
About the rectangular/circular form thing... I think the problem may be calling it a smartwatch. A smartphone isn't really a smartphone. It's a portable all-in-one (built in screen, speakers, microphone etc) computer, whose telephone functionality happens to be the least interesting (and at one point shifting to voice over ip, meaning it's as much a smartphone as your laptop or desktop computer is). Calling phones small tablets makes more sense, at least until recently when phones rival tablet sizes. But nobody really complains because the semantical evolution makes some sense and doesn't cause any real friction. But with a smartwatch, people expect it to look like this [0] but it doesn't, because it's main function is not telling time. Its main function is being a wrist computer, which happens to also be able to tell time. And that wrist computer does things that fit better in a rectangular form, which creates friction with people to whom a rectangular watch happens to be pretty ugly.
Anyway I didn't think the first iPhone was particularly pretty. I can't say the apple watch is different. In today's context it is nice in my opinion, just like the iphone was back then in comparison, but I still don't want an apple watch right now. I'm happy to wait out the 2016-17 versions.
Completely the opposite from what I see. They're everywhere I look, at work, at home, on the train, at restaurants. Kids especially can't get enough of them.
Sales have dropped off, but even the browser market share for iPad remains high among tablets.
I am surprised that your personal experience is one of many iPads in the wild. When I'm going about cafes, bookstores, and libraries, in or about Cupertino, Mountain View, and Palo Alto, I find that people almost exclusively use laptops as their sit-down device. I wouldn't be surprised if phones were the second most-used sit-down device.
Was in Red Rock Coffee in Mountain View last week and (guestimating) saw about 60% laptops (mostly Mac) and 40% tablets upstairs. Didn't count who was on phones (including me).
Most of my travels are in Canada however, and in Vancouver , Calgary, or Toronto the ratio is inverted - more iPads than laptops. Business meetings too - lots of iPads.
I know my 5 year old prefers our iPad to any other device or toy - even the big screen projector. This is similar with other parents in our circles where iPad grounding is one of the more effective forms of discipline.
These are all anecdotes and in the grand scheme mean little, just a counter example to the "collecting dust" theory. They're also still outselling all Macs by 3x though it used to be 5x. So something is happening to iPad purchase trends but it's not clear why.
According to Tim Cook on a recent earnings call, usage of iPads and customer satisfaction has remained the same. It's pretty much just replacement cycles that will determine iPad sales going forward.
That's not true. iPad SALES are down, but that doesn't mean USE is. My mom still loves her iPad one. I know someone who wouldn't have replaced their iPad mini if they hadn't stepped on it (despite being basically an iPad two).
Without the subsidy of mobile phones people don't seem to buy new ones as fast. Doesn't mean the iPad is dying, just that the market is closer to saturated than it was 2 years ago.
I think this is mostly due to the replacement cycle. Most people who want the iPad, bought one. But -- you don't replace an iPad every year or two like you do an iPhone.
Even if you have the iPad 2 for instance, it's a very capable device, there's no reason to go out right now and buy the latest iPad unless you specifically want extra features like Touch ID.
Agreed, I haven't seen any iPads, nor any iPad advertisements either lately. The product is a lemon, only bolstered by the endless consumerism of Apple fans. Apple Watch will meet the same fate.
The Apple Watch is a hardware device so I think you've picked the wrong reference for his supposed unrefined software taste (which I think iOS 8+ proves this incorrect).
Also you've shown a comparison between a first generation device and first generation device, what is particularly wrong with the watch?
It might look like an iPhone in a way but frankly, it'd be odd if it didn't. The question is whether they just shrank the iPhone software - that's what matters - and quite clearly, they didn't. There are a few changes they could make but for a first generation product, they nailed it on so many levels.
Regarding aesthetics, clearly that's subjective, but many traditional watch enthusiasts (such as Benjamin Clymer of Hodinkee and Ariel Adams of aBlogToWatch) have had a number of good things to say about the hardware design.
From Hodinkee's fantastic Apple Watch piece[1]: "Apple got more details right on their watch than the vast majority of Swiss and Asian brands do with similarly priced watches, and those details add up to a really impressive piece of design"
Finally, to address your initial point, I see no evidence that his software taste is less refined, nor that his hardware work is getting lazy. iOS 7, which I suspect is what you're referring to regarding his software taste, received some negative feedback when first unveiled but has since become well liked, albeit with a few lingering usability concerns, especially since they refined it with iOS 8. The Apple Watch bands alone are incredibly well designed, with a number of improvements over traditional watch bands that the Swiss ought to be ashamed they hadn't invented yet[2]. I'll give two examples.
1. If you've ever changed a leather watch band, you'll know how much of a pain it is. Most people go to a watchmaker to change them. Apple Watch bands are easily interchangeable. How obvious, right? Yet nobody else does this.
2. If you've ever bought a watch with a metal link bracelet, you need to have it adjusted for you at the store. Why? Because you need a specialist tool to do it. If you ever need to change the size, you need to go into a store to get it readjusted[3]. Again, incredibly obvious to make this user interchangeable, yet nobody else did it.
If Ive was as lazy as you say, he would have been happy to use traditional watch bands, the type that every other watch and smartwatch uses, and require users to go into an Apple Store to change them or to adjust them. Two examples of great design, off the top of my head, just for watch bands - I can't imagine how you think he's lazy.
[2] And this isn't due to a lack of innovation. The Swiss (and watchmakers of other countries too) spend a lot of time sweating the details on watch straps, buckles and deployant clasps, e.g. http://www.rolex.com/about-rolex/bracelets.html
[3] In addition, the tools for this often proprietary or vary by brand. Check out the variety of tools that are available for adjusting watch bracelets: http://www.ofrei.com/page237.html
Leather watch strap spring bars (the little bit of metal that attaches the band to the lugs) are also often proprietary.
It isn't an iPhone on your wrist and when you actually use it has its own identity, behaviour patterns and user interface paradigms (tap, digital crown). Your argument is no different to the "iPad is just a bigger iPhone" which has been shown to be baseless by anyone who has ever owned one.
As for it being ugly I respectively disagree and given the popularity amongst fashion circles and in general I am guessing most others do too.
Being a bit disingenuous, no ? Literally has two definitions the first being the more correct as it is an extension of the word literal. The classical definition and the more recent definition (last few years).
Not at all. If you pay attention to how people actually use the language, the word has both meanings, so either is correct. Such is the fluid nature of language. If you can't appreciate that, then I think you're very nice (in the original sense of the word).
Well, it would be nice if on the whole the fluid nature of our language added rather than subtracted. Allowing literally to add emphasis rather than being a statement of literalism makes it no easier to add emphasis but much harder to state something is literal in the classical sense. You are right that language changes and evolves, but that doesn't mean we have to passively sit by and watch it get worse.
That it makes it worse is your opinion, though. If the prevailing opinion agreed with you, the additional meaning of the word would have been unsuccessful. Nobody is using it because they're forced to; they're using it because it feels right to them to do so.
But will their products get better as a result of this? or will they continue to decline? Design has always taken more prominence at apple over usability (do they even have a Chief Usability Officer?) To some degree it's a tolerable tradeoff to make; but I've noticed their products have become significantly more design focused and well, pretty much everything else has taken back seat.
Perhaps there's TOO much design, and not enough of everything else. Maybe Steve was that balance to Jony and now the ying is yangless. Or maybe they're just optimizing their business for other things, and the things that matter to me are insignificant to them now.