Jony Ive’s vision was killed today

[JMacHack]

Hot take:

Nobody here knows exactly how much Ive was involved with the design of the products delivered. Or even the product design process inside Apple.

Everyone here is just assuming that the product was designed by Ive and then the engineers went along with it. Would it be so far fetched to assume there was more of a collaborative process than a Reich ruled by Fuhrer Ive?

In fact nobody here knows the extent of Ives involvement in the design process of Apple products since he departed. He very well could have collaborated with the current design team and led the move towards the clearly “retro inspired” design.

Consider putting down your pitchforks and torches for a minute and do some critical thinking.

 

[hasanahmad]

Apple's real test post IVE will be the AR device

 

[darngooddesign]

Hot take:

Nobody here knows exactly how much Ive was involved with the design of the products delivered. Or even the product design process inside Apple.

Everyone here is just assuming that the product was designed by Ive and then the engineers went along with it. Would it be so far fetched to assume there was more of a collaborative process than a Reich ruled by Fuhrer Ive?

In fact nobody here knows the extent of Ives involvement in the design process of Apple products since he departed. He very well could have collaborated with the current design team and led the move towards the clearly “retro inspired” design.

Consider putting down your pitchforks and torches for a minute and do some critical thinking.

To be fair, as Apple's design chief JI was still responsible for approving all designs created under his leadership, even ones he didn't work on, and SJ set him up with ultimate authority so if he didn't want the 2016-2020 MBPs to be designed as they were, he had the power to veto/modify any designs he didn't like.

 

[JMacHack]

To be fair, as Apple's design chief JI was still responsible for approving all designs created under his leadership, even ones he didn't work on, and SJ set him up with ultimate authority so if he didn't want the 2016-2020 MBPs to be designed as they were, he had the power to veto/modify any designs he didn't like.

Naturally, but I think there’s a distinction between marketing a design for a product as “ship it” is different from designing the product in the first place.

In my head, I imagine Ive being mostly absent from the design processes while planning the Apple Campus. I find it difficult to believe that after making excellently designed products at Apple for 20 years he somehow lost all talent and made lemon after lemon.

Now, part of the reality is that during this time Intel was missing their roadmap deadlines and releasing increasingly inefficient processors, instead of the pleasantly efficient chips they had promised, and up to that point had delivered. That’s only one issue the products had though.

Of course I’m willing to admit I’m wrong and that Ive went off the rails, but I feel like people aren’t giving enough credit to him.

 

[Argon_]

Now, part of the reality is that during this time Intel was missing their roadmap deadlines and releasing increasingly inefficient processors, instead of the pleasantly efficient chips they had promised, and up to that point had delivered. That’s only one issue the products had though.

Of course I’m willing to admit I’m wrong and that Ive went off the rails, but I feel like people aren’t giving enough credit to him.

Intel couldn't hit their roadmap goals, and just turned up the juice to compensate. Their TDPs deteriorated from a reasonable estimation of heat load to a propagandistic falsehood that you'd expect a mustachioed dictator to spout.

As for giving Ive credit. We should. When working within checks and balances, his work advanced the industry. Unrestrained, he made the frustrating touch bar, and the well meaning but miserable butterfly keyboard.

Ive also designed the Unibody MBP. Those machines were a turning point for Apple. Machining a laptop out of a solid block of metal. Not the easy way, but the right way. A beautiful design that also withstood the hard knocks of life.

So many of those Unibody MBPs are still used today, not because their chips were faster than contemporary Windows machines, but because they were so well built. Even as technology leaves them behind, their two core processors cooled by a dust choked fan, powered by an aging battery, fed by four gigs of slow RAM, running on an unsupported OS. Those Unibody MBPs march on.

 

[MrAverigeUser]

Intel couldn't hit their roadmap goals, and just turned up the juice to compensate. Their TDPs deteriorated from a reasonable estimation of heat load to a propagandistic falsehood that you'd expect a mustachioed dictator to spout.

As for giving Ive credit. We should. When working within checks and balances, his work advanced the industry. Unrestrained, he made the frustrating touch bar, and the well meaning but miserable butterfly keyboard.

Ive also designed the Unibody MBP. Those machines were a turning point for Apple. Machining a laptop out of a solid block of metal. Not the easy way, but the right way. A beautiful design that also withstood the hard knocks of life.

So many of those Unibody MBPs are still used today, not because their chips were faster than contemporary Windows machines, but because they were so well built. Even as technology leaves them behind, their two core processors cooled by a dust choked fan, powered by an aging battery, fed by four gigs of slow RAM, running on an unsupported OS. Those Unibody MBPs march on.

nice storytelling you do…
my 2008 2-core ore-unibody MBP died just some days after end of guarantee the infamous GPU death.

I purchased the 2011 MBP 15“ , 3 days after end of guarantee, 2013, one line of the keyboards went dead. Apple refused to repair it, wanted a fortune for repair.

I found someone who did the repair for 30% of apples price.
two years later also this MBP died its GPU dead (like sooooo many others).

MBP from 2007-2012 were very badly designed and it took many years and a class action suit to force the worlds richest enterprise to stop denying their bad design.

the 2012 and 2015 MBP are a short episode of reliable MBP.

Then, the sudden deaths of GPUs restarted, though less extreme than before.
Do you really think the 2016 - 2018 MBP with their butterfly keyboard are reliable?

To sum up:

In 12 years of MBP just 2 Models (2012 and 2015) were reliable… the rest was more or less garbage , very expensive garbage….

and I am not even talking about „You are holding it wrong!“

or the total Desaster of the trash-bin MacPro , of which I remember still very well how Joni Ive explained how perfectly this s*** would be cooled… ridiculous… a maniac telling us that he has abolished the laws of physics…

And I am not talking about „thinness“ , about „no ports needed“, „using a mouse while charging is not possible“, or „we abolish function keys“, … or.. or.. or…

 

[Argon_]

nice storytelling you do…
my 2008 2-core ore-unibody MBP died just some days after end of guarantee the infamous GPU death.

I purchased the 2011 MBP 15“ , 3 days after end of guarantee, 2013, one line of the keyboards went dead. Apple refused to repair it, wanted a fortune for repair.

I found someone who did the repair for 30% of apples price.
two years later also this MBP died its GPU dead (like sooooo many others).

MBP from 2007-2012 were very badly designed and it took many years and a class action suit to force the worlds richest enterprise to stop denying their bad design.

the 2012 and 2015 MBP are a short episode of reliable MBP.

Then, the sudden deaths of GPUs restarted, though less extreme than before.
Do you really think the 2016 - 2018 MBP with their butterfly keyboard are reliable?

To sum up:

In 12 years of MBP just 2 Models (2012 and 2015) were reliable… the rest was more or less garbage , very expensive garbage….

and I am not even talking about „You are holding it wrong!“

or the total Desaster of the trash-bin MacPro , of which I remember still very well how Joni Ive explained how perfectly this s*** would be cooled… ridiculous… a maniac telling us that he has abolished the laws of physics…

And I am not talking about „thinness“ , about „no ports needed“, „using a mouse while charging is not possible“, or „we abolish function keys“, … or.. or.. or…

I referred to the butterfly keyboard as "miserable" and the touch bar as "frustrating." Other Jony Ive-isms, however, are now industry staples, like the all button trackpad debuted with the Unibody MBP. Those twelve year old trackpads still feel capable today.

 

[darngooddesign]

nice storytelling you do…
my 2008 2-core ore-unibody MBP died just some days after end of guarantee the infamous GPU death.

I purchased the 2011 MBP 15“ , 3 days after end of guarantee, 2013, one line of the keyboards went dead. Apple refused to repair it, wanted a fortune for repair.

I found someone who did the repair for 30% of apples price.
two years later also this MBP died its GPU dead (like sooooo many others).

MBP from 2007-2012 were very badly designed and it took many years and a class action suit to force the worlds richest enterprise to stop denying their bad design.

the 2012 and 2015 MBP are a short episode of reliable MBP.

Then, the sudden deaths of GPUs restarted, though less extreme than before.
Do you really think the 2016 - 2018 MBP with their butterfly keyboard are reliable?

To sum up:

In 12 years of MBP just 2 Models (2012 and 2015) were reliable… the rest was more or less garbage , very expensive garbage….

and I am not even talking about „You are holding it wrong!“

or the total Desaster of the trash-bin MacPro , of which I remember still very well how Joni Ive explained how perfectly this s*** would be cooled… ridiculous… a maniac telling us that he has abolished the laws of physics…

And I am not talking about „thinness“ , about „no ports needed“, „using a mouse while charging is not possible“, or „we abolish function keys“, … or.. or.. or…

Im confused. Do you think that JI designed the logic board and GPU of your laptop or the part of your keyboard which failed? Those MBPs certainly weren't compromised by thinness. The fan on my 2014 MBP died several years ago, as did the trackpad last year, and that's one of the reliable ones, but JI didn't design those components either. Did Apple refuse to repair your keyboard, or did they want a lot of money to repair it? Apple likes to replace assemblies instead of repairing components and the keyboard is part of the top plate. When my MBP's screen died I ended up getting an assembly from eBay because Apple's cost to replace the whole thing was twice what I payed.

Complaints about the mouse charging, something you only have to do once a month or every other month, are overly dramatic; plug it in, get a cup of coffee, and you have enough charge for the day; then charge it that night.

 

[russell_314]

How many people "care about design" vs performance, utility and affordability? As to "include every feature under the sun", that's not how engineers design things.

I care about design. I mean it still has to function but how a device looks and feels is a big factor. A good example is the backlit Apple logo. I loved that but it serves zero function

 

[russell_314]

Complaints about the mouse charging, something you only have to do once a month or every other month, are overly dramatic; plug it in, get a cup of coffee, and you have enough charge for the day; then charge it that night.

Yeah I never understood how this is an issue. If it took twenty minutes I could see but even with two minutes plugged in you can use it for a while.

 

[jjcs]

Enough people evidently did to make Apple one of the most successful companies in the world. And we see more companies care about design today than they ever did in the past. Even Microsoft and Samsung. It used to be that PCs were these boring beige boxes running crappy, uninspiring software, because the makers simply didn’t care. Apple totally upended that line of thinking. And we are all better off today for it.

They weren't the first in that, not really. NeXT had somewhat interesting design language and SGI was very "cool" hardware design wise after the Personal Iris systems with the Indigo on to the Octane. Form should follow function, not the other way around, however. Cool skins are all well and good, but the design must have sufficient capability or it won't sell well. Hence the veritable explosion in uptake of the Mac systems after the Intel changeover. I'd be interested in learning how many switched to Mac in the pre-G5 era for the looks. Switching for OS X would make sense, as it was definitely superior to the lowend desktop Windows of that timeframe (NT4 was actually decent, Win95/98/Me whatever was a steaming pile much like pre-OS X Mac OS).

IRIX was cool back in the day. Any desktop with a hidden Spinal Tap reference.... OS X isn't as fun. It does, however, "just work" well enough.

The only Mac I have purely based on its physical design is an iMac G4. The lamp works perfectly under the cabinets in the kitchen. Pity they stuck with the cheaper-to-make iMac concept from G5 on. Not as cool. However, costs - and the lamp costs more to make - are something engineers have to consider in design, so.... can't necessarily pin that one on Ives....

What made Apple what it is today is purely due to the iPhone. Product "looks" are important, but it shouldn't be the primary consideration. Hence the slightly thicker new Macbook Pro with more ports. Attractive design without sacrificing much capability (it's inelegant requiring the users to carry dongles for EVERYTHING).

 

[jjcs]

I care about design. I mean it still has to function but how a device looks and feels is a big factor. A good example is the backlit Apple logo. I loved that but it serves zero function

YMMV. I focus on function first, looks second.

 

[darngooddesign]

YMMV. I focus on function first, looks second.

Design is as much about function as it is looks.

 

[russell_314]

YMMV. I focus on function first, looks second.

Well not everyone always puts function over looks. I think there is a balance to be had. Looks shouldn't significantly impair something's function but some function can be sacrificed for looks. Of course everyone is different and Apple tries to appeal to what the majority of its customers want.

 

[SalisburySam]

Well not everyone always puts function over looks. I think there is a balance to be had. Looks shouldn't significantly impair something's function but some function can be sacrificed for looks. Of course everyone is different and Apple tries to appeal to what the majority of its customers want.

Correction: “…Apple tries to appeal to what the majority of its customers will buy.” Your welcome.

 

[MrAverigeUser]

Correction: “…Apple tries to appeal to what the majority of its customers will buy.” Your welcome.

may I correct again?

“Apple has since many years the economical power to make people think that they absolutely want what apple wants to sell them, if these believers obey and praise their god (in former times Steve Jobs and now Paulus…. Ehem… Joni Ive… ) and pay a fortune to the holy church of apple….

Apple has become a religious trend in our commercialized world…

If someone had told me 20 years ago that there will be people who pass night and day in front of a shop - just to be one of the first to pay too much for an overpriced thing - I‘d never ever believed that will get true… mass-hysteria is not only a phenomenon of fundamental religion, not only of totalitarianism, it has become part of perverted commercialism…

 

[darngooddesign]

If someone had told me 20 years ago that there will be people who pass night and day in front of a shop - just to be one of the first to pay too much for an overpriced thing - I‘d never ever believed that will get true… mass-hysteria is not only a phenomenon of fundamental religion, not only of totalitarianism, it has become part of perverted commercialism…

Meh. I've camped out for concert tickets and the first iPhone because I was excited about them; other people have camped out for sports tickets, video game, and movie releases which they were excited about. For subsequent phone releases it was fine to just show up early with coffee and donuts and socialize with like-minded people. After a while online reservations with in-store pickup replaced the lines. In all cases it was a fun social experience with zero negatives, other than having judgmental, and apparently self-righteous people cluck their tongues about it. Upon reflection, we had fun being social while the critics had fun...being sour.

 

[JMacHack]

may I correct again?

“Apple has since many years the economical power to make people think that they absolutely want what apple wants to sell them, if these believers obey and praise their god (in former times Steve Jobs and now Paulus…. Ehem… Joni Ive… ) and pay a fortune to the holy church of apple….

Apple has become a religious trend in our commercialized world…

If someone had told me 20 years ago that there will be people who pass night and day in front of a shop - just to be one of the first to pay too much for an overpriced thing - I‘d never ever believed that will get true… mass-hysteria is not only a phenomenon of fundamental religion, not only of totalitarianism, it has become part of perverted commercialism…

Permission to post this on /r/iam15andthisisdeep ?

 

[russell_314]

Correction: “…Apple tries to appeal to what the majority of its customers will buy.” Your welcome.

Yes in contrast to making something that customers won’t buy. That’s how things work companies make things that people want and then those people buy them. The more people want it then that’s more people buying it.

 

[iPadified]

How many people "care about design" vs performance, utility and affordability? As to "include every feature under the sun", that's not how engineers design things.

On this site, very few. Of the 99.9999% other customers, probably the majority.

 

[iPadified]

As an engineer myself, industrial designers are often viewed as idiots.

This is how many engineers in, at least, my space, view people like Ives: Marketing vs Engineering

I'm glad I don't work for Apple or even in the consumer space at all. Cuts down on the stupid we have to work around. I'm impressed that the actual engineers at Apple have been able to deliver reasonably-performant machines over the years given the restrictions imposed by the art majors like Ives.

I here the same about construction engineers and architects...

The tower and 2 inch thick laptops are the engineers solution to computing. The AIO, laptops that are portable and iPads are the industrial designers solution to computing. Hmm, which one are selling best? Any person make design choices that fits them, therefore engineers (towers and thick laptops) cannot live without marketing and industrial designers if other market then those fulfilling the engineers needs to be addressed (portable laptops, iPad and AIO).

 

[AustinIllini]

As an engineer myself, industrial designers are often viewed as idiots.

This is how many engineers in, at least, my space, view people like Ives: Marketing vs Engineering

I'm glad I don't work for Apple or even in the consumer space at all. Cuts down on the stupid we have to work around. I'm impressed that the actual engineers at Apple have been able to deliver reasonably-performant machines over the years given the restrictions imposed by the art majors like Ives.

Couple of things (I'm also an engineer)

• His name is Jony Ive
• No respected engineer would ever say "industrial designers are idiots"
• Marketing organizations are what keep your work relevant. Without marketing, your products would likely be exactly as you design and completely out of context with the demand of your customer base.
• Apple's ability to delivery incredible products (which, by the way, the MacBook Pro today is still heavily influenced by Jony Ive's owork) is why they are supremely relevant in the market today.

With views like yours, I'm surprised any engineer is respected in any field. If we didn't have marketing challenging R&D, you wouldn't be needed.

 

[AustinIllini]

Hot take:

Nobody here knows exactly how much Ive was involved with the design of the products delivered. Or even the product design process inside Apple.

Everyone here is just assuming that the product was designed by Ive and then the engineers went along with it. Would it be so far fetched to assume there was more of a collaborative process than a Reich ruled by Fuhrer Ive?

In fact nobody here knows the extent of Ives involvement in the design process of Apple products since he departed. He very well could have collaborated with the current design team and led the move towards the clearly “retro inspired” design.

Consider putting down your pitchforks and torches for a minute and do some critical thinking.

It's well documented Jony Ive's involvement, but if someone thinks his involvement was for anything but the extreme betterment to the products doesn't remember Apple before Ive.

 

[jjcs]

Couple of things (I'm also an engineer)

• His name is Jony Ive
• No respected engineer would ever say "industrial designers are idiots"
• Marketing organizations are what keep your work relevant. Without marketing, your products would likely be exactly as you design and completely out of context with the demand of your customer base.
• Apple's ability to delivery incredible products (which, by the way, the MacBook Pro today is still heavily influenced by Jony Ive's owork) is why they are supremely relevant in the market today.

With views like yours, I'm surprised any engineer is respected in any field. If we didn't have marketing challenging R&D, you wouldn't be needed.

"Marketing" isn't the force challenging most R&D outside of the consumer space.

"Without marketing, your products would likely be exactly as you design and completely out of context with the demand of your customer base."

I don't work in the consumer space. Not a bit. Never have. Never will. Requirements are set by the customer. We meet said requirements. No one cares what it looks like as along as it meets or exceeds those requirements. Again, not consumer stuff.

"No respected engineer would ever say "industrial designers are idiots"

I didn't specifically say that, just that they are often viewed AS idiots.

Edit: especially in environments where the design process isn't really iterative - where they impose constraints for artistic reasons that impact functionality of what is, although Apple is really a lifestyle brand, not a computer company, a set of tools (phone, laptop, desktop....). What was Apple's corporate culture at the time?

 

[MrAverigeUser]

R&D means to know as much as possible about REAL WORLD customer needs (Market-analysis).
R&D means to develop products that fulfill customers needs the best possible.
R&D means to do research to find the best existing technical means for the product and for the production-process.
R&D means to do deeper research to invent better technical means or even new products or new means for the production process. The latter is the „work“ of visionists. Visionists can be either persons in the company, even a single customer can have good ideas.

Market-Research, Marketing, engineers and designers should works together from the very beginning to prevent dead-end development.

Early controlling prevents that engineers and designers develop products that fulfill perhaps customers needs, but are too expensive for being accepted on the market or will not be too expensive for the enterprise and lead to economical losses.

All these and even more departments have to work in a balanced way to make a successfully product and holding an enterprise at life.

If any of these departments gets too much power over a certain time this tight cooperation will not work and puts the company in potential danger.

the industrial history is full of examples for catastrophic unbalanced cooperation and decisions.

apple had to face this several times.

Steve Jobs was a visionist, but for a certain time he did not respect economical needs. And his visions were to a certain part just not able to be realized because the technical status of that time did NOT allow this to realize. One example was the „newton“ project and product.
He did mostly perfect marketing, but for a certain time he did not and apple‘s products did not meet customers interest Nor fulfill the overdone primises of apple‘s marketing.

He got fired and was replaced by someone who did his job even worse.

when Steven Jobs came back he was NO more the old Steve Jobs, because he had learned his lesson.

He changed things radically, not only the mistakes of his successor, but his own mistakes as well.

At that moment the young Joni Ive did a perfect job. He was extremely productive and had a sense for marketing as well. Evidently he was even able to cooperate with the engineers in a successful way.

There exists a bad psychological phenomenon which is a danger for extremely successful people who get more and more power:
many of them are tempted to start believing they are like GOD and will never ever fail and that they will never ever do wrong decisions.

So they lose self-critical potential and - which is even more dangerous - they abuse their power to supress (expression of) critical thoughts even of absolutely loyal people. They become little dictators and instead of a symbiotic cooperation the departments start to play offense and (mostly) defense. People have fear to lose their job.

Joni Ive was very important for apple and did a good job.

But if you have a psychological look at his videos praising himself often enough and more and more presenting ridiculous changes as revolutions you understand that this is not only overdone marketing, but someone who loses more and more contact with reality because nobody around him has the balls to put his decisions in question in a loyal way. I am pretty sure Joni Ive had already eliminated all people that did not praise him and did not think he is Godfather himself. There was evidence that things went worse…

That was the time when Joni Ive HIMSELF killed his own work

because he made exactly the same mistake like Steve Jobs did before he got fired by his own company.
YES, history repeats himself often enough, especially on the basis of psychological weaknesses of people….

what can everybody who is a decision-maker learn from this?

NEVER lose self-critical potential and never abuse power to intimidate people trying to help you with critical statements. Just the opposite: Be THANKFUL to those who are critical in a constructive way and who are regarding critical thoughts as a very important mean to get things right.

Now, IMHO Joni Ive got fired because he did commit the same mistakes that Steve Jobs did when he got fired as well.

Maybe Joni Ive will learn his lesson as well - but I think he will not.

.