Design maestro Jony Ive to leave Apple
- Thread starter donbusch
- Start date
Brilliant designer but he jumped the shark in/around 2013 - or - got bored - or (most likely IMHO) was too preoccupied with the Apple Park, which to his credit is insanely well designed.
In the design world it is very difficult to continue to innovate when the form-factors/product remain similar. The trash-can MacPro was a wonderfully conceived item, however the form over function sacrifice choices (no PCI for example) were perhaps too much in that direction.
In the design world it is very difficult to continue to innovate when the form-factors/product remain similar. The trash-can MacPro was a wonderfully conceived item, however the form over function sacrifice choices (no PCI for example) were perhaps too much in that direction.
There was definitely a yin & yang thing going on with the Jobs/Ive work dynamics but all products are the result of extensive collaboration by different people. Needing Steve Jobs doesn’t diminish Jony Ive’s immense achievements. In fact, the media often goes off rails when mythologizing Steve Job and Jony Ive at Apple. Their departures represented an end to their era, there will be negative effects but at the of the day, Apple’s deep bench of talent will ensure that great products will continue being made. That’s why the much under-appreciated super collaborator Tim Cook was long chosen by Steve Jobs to be CEO.
No.
Jobs' main contributions - to design - for both soft/hardware, have always been based around his personal opinion on what he believed people wanted - at the same time - as what he believed could distinguish Apple from "the rest".
His "brilliance" lied in his OCD and the wherewithal to sacrifice resources to achieve it. Ive absorbed those principles and qualities. That said...
One could easily point out that there were more "failures" during his more hands on years, then following when Ive/Federighi assumed the majority of the responsibility.
I could also easily argue that functionally, Apple has significantly increased it's dominance in the industries. I personally think they've done a brilliant job of balancing the exponential increase in available technology during the last decade. The later generation iMacs, Phones and Apple Watch are all still miles ahead of competition even as those competitors try to clone them.
I think that "getting used to" Apple's products have tainted expectations - go and work on a pc, or use a Google phone for a week and get back to me!
All that said, I stand by my comment and think that Ivy needed (and took) a break from device design when he started focusing on the Park - and that in order for Apple to continue dominating design in the coming decade, required a new chef.
Seriously I would not bother. The new mac's are great, much quicker, slicker. Their are some oddities like the keyboard which has been fixed, and their ridiculous business decisions like charging 2-3x market rate for ram. That said...
I picked up a new mini (i7) - awesome machine. From a mechanical design standpoint the aforementioned decision to solder the SSD is very annoying. It is very very fast though - I replaced a loaded up slim iMac 27 and it is a very noticeable speed upgrade.
Very strange bugaboo (or perhaps on purpose) - to set the machine up you need a wired keyboard and/or mouse. The newer lightning to usb keyboards/mice work, but if you have an older bluetooth wireless it will not recognize it because bluetooth is not on by default - has to be tethered. Was a real piss off, had to go to Bureau en gros to buy (and immediately return) a cheapo usb keyboard/mouse.
Other than that, like I said, great box.
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