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Scott Forstall Reportedly Forced Out of Apple
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Well, that's you. 99% of users can't be bothered playing around with icons and are happy that they are always in some reasonable order. If you make it an option, then 20% of these 99% will turn on the option by accident and be unhappy because their icons are always in a total mess.
Maybe they just change the way they do the releases. They could get Lindsay Lohan to present the new device.
Errrm... What? Most profitable? There are more Android devices out there... Do you mean iTunes App Store profits or what?
Well... he did it with Steve looking over his shoulder. The iOS/OS X look we have today took shape under Steve's supervision, and I think everyone knows that he was big on micro-managing. Steve wanted to make the user totally forget that he/she was using a hi-tech product and probably found skeumorphism a powerful tool for creating the illusion of tangible UIs that mimicked their real world counterparts. Forstall may be an idiot for all I know, but the look and feel of the software carries Steve's seal of approval and is likely the result of him sending the designers back to the drawing table a hundred times... "I'll know it when I see it"-style.
Hardly the end of the world
iOS was becoming bitty and much of the Skeumorphism was too much. With iOS and OSX converging, the user interface in need of a clean-up, and maps and Siri still effectively Betas, Apple has a lot of work to do. Forstall's style and ego were slowing that work, so when he gave Cook a chance to fire him, Cook took it. Brits including Ive were a bit surprised at Steve Jobs hiring Browett (a "pile them high, sell them cheap" retailer) and his exit is no surprise.
Ive has kept rectangles interesting for longer than most of us thought possible - let's hope he can do the same for the user interface. And that broadening his responsibilities gives scope for younger designers to do new cool interesting things for both rectangles and the user interface.
iOS was becoming bitty and much of the Skeumorphism was too much. With iOS and OSX converging, the user interface in need of a clean-up, and maps and Siri still effectively Betas, Apple has a lot of work to do. Forstall's style and ego were slowing that work, so when he gave Cook a chance to fire him, Cook took it. Brits including Ive were a bit surprised at Steve Jobs hiring Browett (a "pile them high, sell them cheap" retailer) and his exit is no surprise.
Ive has kept rectangles interesting for longer than most of us thought possible - let's hope he can do the same for the user interface. And that broadening his responsibilities gives scope for younger designers to do new cool interesting things for both rectangles and the user interface.
The overall design of the OS is very nice, let's not be too harsh on the guy. I'm not saying everything he did was wrong. BUT, I still think that Apps should have uniform designs, it makes the OS look much more elegant and mature. For instance the Calendar App.. it fits in with the rest of the OS design ethos. It would look pretty awful if it was designed like a paper pad like a real calendar. Why then do Notes, Find Friends etc not comply with this? It just looks messy.
We do not need the Apps to look like real life counterparts, because guess what.. they aren't. With that logic, the Messages App should be a piece of paper and the text on it should look like handwriting.. but it doesn't and quite rightly so. Same goes with Contacts, Clock etc. It is not a realistic design choice, so what is the point in putting it in a few Apps? It looks messy.
How profitable are they? How much money has Google made from Android? (And when you find the answer, you might ask yourself: Why is Google pushing Android at all).
If you want to do X, and the person responsible says "no, I can't do X", then you don't go ahead with it. So much more likely the events were "we'd like to replace Google maps with our own maps. Scott, can you do that?" Scott: "Absolutely. ". One year later: "Scott, are maps ready?" Scott: "Hmmmh... Let me think... Yes, absolutely ready.". Later: "Scott, I just wrote this press release that maps are not as good as they could be and we will work hard to make it better. Would you please sign this as well?" Scott: "Not my fault. "
If there's something that you can't do, you stand up and say you can't do it. They'll ask someone else. If that person says they can't do it either, your boss gets the message. If that person makes promises and can't do it, they fail and you can be the hero later. If that person makes promises and does it, well, you lost to someone who is better.
I wonder if this means the internal divide over skeumorphic versus functional design has now been settled in favour of the latter? Not that I mean skeumorphic interfaces can't be functional, but I prefer apps to be more about what they do and less about what real-world items they look like.
Yes. One or the reasons he worked at apple for the time he did was because he wanted to.
Skeumorphism is not the problem, the problem is what style of real world item you chose to mimic. There are lots of different desk calendars around and hardly any of them have the old fashioned leather look that the Apple desktop calendar imitates. This is the problem, they chose a style that has no resonance with today's users of calendars. Same with game center, it has notes of nicotine stained pool hall and seedy casino about it. Again it has no resonance with computer game players and looks more 1912 than 2012. With any luck Jony Ive will push things in a more relevant direction for today's users. Simpler and cleaner designs are what we see all around us today. Apple used to lead in UI design but now their UIs look stale and old fashioned because of these style decisions, the software may be great to use but doesn't look like it is. The brushed metal Apple used to use by comparison still looks current even today because it mimics what people still see around them all the time, a material associated with good quality and utility that evokes subliminal feelings of quality and utility in a users mind.
I Hope Ya NEVER COME BACK to i-Phone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stick to Gigantic DISTASTEFUL MONSTER that Satisfies Ya, Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Skeumorphism is alright when it's subtle and logical - like a folder icon meaning a folder. That's okay. That's intuitive. Because computer folders are kinda like folders.
But when you get jarringly different look and feel in each inbuilt app so the App Store looks nothing like Game Center, which looks nothing like iBooks, and iCal has daft leather all over it, and some of the graphics look like they're from an Amiga circa 1992, well, iOS starts to look like its been covered in the most tasteless Jailbreak skins.
It's 100% pulling in the opposite direction to the minimalism and ditching of the old and unnecessary that drives the hardware team. Ive must've felt iOS was utterly tarnishing his work. It must have been really frustrating to think about user interaction with the product all day then have to take a step back and see all this sloppy rubbish poured into the device.
I'm really positive about the changes. Tim Cook has me back onside after he lost me over the ridiculous Browett appointment. Jobs presided over cock-ups too. It's how you get back on track that shows your leadership.
But when you get jarringly different look and feel in each inbuilt app so the App Store looks nothing like Game Center, which looks nothing like iBooks, and iCal has daft leather all over it, and some of the graphics look like they're from an Amiga circa 1992, well, iOS starts to look like its been covered in the most tasteless Jailbreak skins.
It's 100% pulling in the opposite direction to the minimalism and ditching of the old and unnecessary that drives the hardware team. Ive must've felt iOS was utterly tarnishing his work. It must have been really frustrating to think about user interaction with the product all day then have to take a step back and see all this sloppy rubbish poured into the device.
I'm really positive about the changes. Tim Cook has me back onside after he lost me over the ridiculous Browett appointment. Jobs presided over cock-ups too. It's how you get back on track that shows your leadership.
Maybe not that particular skank, but it would be nice if Apple was fronted by at least one female. A lot of countries on Apple's international market are way ahead of the US in gender equality and the fact that all of Apple's public faces are male makes them look much more conservative than they really are.
They shouldn't do it just for the heck of it, she'd have to be every bit as competent as the guys, but it's not like those chicks don't exist in that world... M$ put a woman from the Office team in charge of Windows Experience during Windows 7 development to clean up much of the UI mess that was Vista, and Win7 was arguably the least crappy release in Windows history on this side of Win2K.
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They have been working on mapping for years and with it in the state that it was in at release there is no excuse. Basic functionality was not working correctly and the cartographic data was not correct in many areas. This should have been managed by the head of the project but it wasn't. Forstall was in charge of this from the start and failed to scale the team sufficiently to deliver a basic working system. There are no excuses for this kind of incompetent management and in many ways Apple have had no choice but to replace someone that clearly was struggling to perform at this level.
Maybe Sir Jony will smile a bit more now! Seriously, take a look at the leadership webpage....
I just hope he doesn't screw up the UI like he did the new iMac - form over function that removed yet another truly usable machine from the line up whilst we wait for the Mac pro replacement...
I just hope he doesn't screw up the UI like he did the new iMac - form over function that removed yet another truly usable machine from the line up whilst we wait for the Mac pro replacement...
You're absolutely right about this.
I've seen touchscreen based smartphones that allow users to drag icons around all over the place and, quite honestly, they always look a mess. What on earth is the value in being able to move an icon half an inch up or down?
The even and regular icon spacing on iOS keeps the small screen looking neat and makes locting apps easy. If I know an app I use is in the top row, on the right, I can find it almost without looking.
The ability to endlessly customise a device isn't always for the best. I want my device to work for me. I don't want to be the caretaker. I want to be the customer.
Non-compete
I'm willing to bet there's a significant non-compete clause in Forstall's contract. I don't believe he'll be instantly working anywhere, let alone for MS or Google. My guess is he'll start his own software company, wait for it to be acquired by someone, then join that company.
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I think that's just his hipster, artsy look
I'm willing to bet there's a significant non-compete clause in Forstall's contract. I don't believe he'll be instantly working anywhere, let alone for MS or Google. My guess is he'll start his own software company, wait for it to be acquired by someone, then join that company.
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I think that's just his hipster, artsy look
There's no way some major competitor dosn't hire him. If not the guy is so loaded he could retire already.
