Comment by coldtea
1 year ago
>And also: Jony Ive.
The person who created the distinctive Apple design language, several iconic products, got tons of awards, and his designs are still guiding today's Apple products (they're all Ive-derivative still), is one of your examples of failure?
The butterfly keyboard is undoubtedly the biggest fail in hardware design of the past 10 years. They took something that we figured out in the 1970s and somehow managed to screw it up and held onto it for three consecutive generations.
You’re only as good as your last product, and Johnny Ive under the hand of Steve Jobs is a lot different than Johnny Ive under the hand of Tim Apple.
>The butterfly keyboard is undoubtedly the biggest fail in hardware design of the past 10 years. They took something that we figured out in the 1970s and somehow managed to screw it up and held onto it for three consecutive generations.
Well, while a fail, obviously we haven't "figured it out in the 1970s", as no laptop today has a (or could have a) 70s-style keyboard and be convenient.
And there are lots of things we haven't yet fixed with keyboard design, or are too expensive still, e.g.I'd like full dust protection.
>You’re only as good as your last product
Obviously false, as any designer (or product makers) has ups and downs. Ive had big failures in the late 90s/early 00s to o (e.g. the Cube).
If we valued people like that (and not by a weighted average of their track record) he'd never had a second or third or fourth chance - and similar for artists and other professions.
The context for this thread is about keeping persons on even when they are either no longer adding value, or even potentially detracting. In Ive's case, he absolutely created many successful aspects of Apples design language. But, he also put an over emphasis on minimalist design over function. The butterfly keyboards are one example. Was the removal of the ESC key something that happened on his design watch? The reduction of ports on their highest end pro models? Those are design decisions that have been undone as Apple realigns with the actual needs of its users rather than trying to dictate how they should use their hardware.
Exactly. When Ive ran out of Dieter Rams designs to rip off, it became clear that he only had two "ideas:"
Actually, I can think of one more idea he had:
As far as "design language" goes, I don't know which parts of it Ive was responsible for, but a lot of it sucked and continues to do so. Secret menus, peek-a-boo UI that doesn't exist unless you happen to roll the cursor across it... or plug something in...
One of my favorite Apple UI blunders was the iTunes control that disappeared if you didn't have an iPod plugged in... but controlled what happened when you DID plug it in: "Sync on connect," which was enabled by default.
Guess what happened when your hard drive went bad (or suffered some mass deletion), you replaced it, and then you plugged your iPod in?
His designs were fine when reined in by Jobs. Now they take simplicity too far to the extreme.
Yep.