So you're telling me Apple should have taken a major risk and hired a complete stranger on one of the biggest iOS changes ever rather than go with their in home designer who has brought success to the company?
It's more of hiring someone qualified for the position. Ive is a great hardware designer but does that automatically mean he could design software as well? Michael Jordon is considered to be the greatest basketball player in the world but did that particular talent translate well into his ill-fated baseball career?
The point is, Jobs knew Ive was brilliant if he had the proper guidance but I don't think Tim Cook provides that at all. Jobs also knew how important and talented Forstall was as well. Both were needed to continue the vision, now there is no balance.
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We may never know the entire story, and will have to agree to disagree, but from what I know, Scott was proving to be more trouble than he was worth. He might have been a talented software engineer, but his abrasive personality was causing a lot of friction and problems within the company, especially Ive.
For the good of the company, he really had to go. There was no other way around it.
That said, I am not sure if it is because of him, but I find myself actually liking the post-Scott Forstall Apple. I am seeing a lot more cooperation and integration between iOS and OSX after he left. Most notably, iMessage finally coming to the Mac, as well as other services playing nice with each other. This would require a lot of communication and collaborative effort between the two software teams, which seems like it would not have been possible were Scott still head of iOS.
Forstall was probably the last remaining executive at Apple with the characteristics and traits of Jobs. Obviously Cook was more concerned with appeasing the other executives with firing him than realizing how vital Forstall was to the success and quality of Apple's software. Forstall may have been a nightmare and a prick to work with, but so was Jobs! We need more people like that at Apple, not softies like Cook or incompetent ones like Federighi.
Apple products were at their best when the hardware and software teams were kept separate. I think Jobs had a reason for that: so each department could focus on their own projects which in return, resulted in products that felt top-notch and extremely refined because everybody was doing their own part.
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Hardware and the "ease" of it being able to render (assuming you're moaning about translucency) have absolutely nothing to do with how cluttered it is.
Sure, one could load up widgets in iOS 9 but it wouldn't be as cluttered. iOS 9 doesn't have boxes around everything. iOS 9 doesn't have busy textures on or around everything. iOS 7-9 NC and pretty much everywhere in iOS are far cleaner because the removal of all the things that clutter the screen. Boxes around everything cramps and confines things, busy textures on or around everything is just too much to look at, fatter/bolder font also contributes to clutter.
iOS 7-9 is directed towards a minimalistic look. Which it succeeds at. Doesn't mean it's the best and also doesn't mean it's the worst. It's all individual preference.
Even if Apple tomorrow released a totally redesigned iOS that 100% suited everything you like/want visually, someone else would just take your current place of hating it. You would change from "I don't like it therefore it's the worst ever, it's fact because I say so" to "I like it therefore it's the best ever, it's fact because I say so".
iOS went too far with its redesign. It's one thing to just simply remove the skuemorphic textures (like Mavericks did) but they definitely went overboard with completely stripping away every aspect of the design, even the buttons! There's practically no contrast or depth anymore and the icons look they were designed in a high school Adobe Illustrator class.
Believe it or not, I was interested to see what iOS 7 was gonna be like, but then I watched the WWDC 2013 Keynote...
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I don't believe Ive sat down right after Scott was fired and thought to himself "You know, I think iOS needs to be redesigned" and proceed to pull the ideas out of his rear end. Ive likely already had his own ideas about how iOS ought to be even as the first iPhone was being conceptualised, and had been steadily making notes and sketches way back, and refining his ideas along the way. Once Scott was gone and the opportunity presented itself, all he needed to do was to dust off his notes and communicate his ideas to the rest of the team.
The way I see it, Apple chose the man who had control and influence over the design of the hardware to design the software. This actually helps in ensuring a cohesive design for both the hardware and software which happen to go very well with each other, even if each looks rather unassuming on its own.
You see the problem prior to iOS 7 - Ive and Scott basically didn't see eye to eye, and the end result was a skeumorphic OS design which looked out of place with the industrial design of the iPhone. Neither is wrong in their own right, but then you see the problem when two diametrically opposed design philosophies are forced to co-exist with each other.
I have no doubt that Apple will continue to make minor refinements to the UI in subsequent OS updates, but for now, I am pretty satisfied with the design direction of the software.
It seems almost obvious that Ive was ready to make his mark on iOS the moment Forstall was fired, it was something he seemed to be itching to do.
Ive was definitely the wrong guy to design the software from the get-go, minimalism is a great design strategy for hardware, but the lack of details there should definitely be made up for for onscreen. There is no cohesive design, you have an elegantly designed device running an OS that looks childish and half-completed.
The fact that Ive and Forstall didn't see eye to eye gave us some of their best work. Just like how Fleetwood Mac gave us Rumours, a classic and acclaimed album made when everybody was constantly at each others' throats. Tension creates masterpieces, but Cook is too soft of an individual and short-sighted to realize that.