Not so much irrelevant as superfluous, and possibly a negative influence.
To give credit to Cook he listened to the chorus of complaints and acted on it. The results aren't as pretty as the Ive era designs. But they give users a lot more of what they really want, instead of a nice case with missing useful features.
Ive actually had a lot of misses, from the gradients and flat look in iOS 7, to the infamous butterfly keyboard and missing USB ports, to the early versions of Watch, to (at a guess) the touchbar. There were also Jobs-era failures like the hockey puck mouse and the Siri Remote for Apple TV.
And personally I'm not a huge fan of the current Apple typography and branding.
So - not really missing his influence. I'd love to see Apple find a new design head who could inject more personality than the current products have, but I don't think Ive's departure was a terrible loss in any way.
I don't think they were suggesting it was irrelevant, I think they were saying that Apple and fans often value aesthetic over functional quality, which is certainly not wrong.
I tend to think the opposite. When you think of design you think of Apple (which in turn means Jony Ive). Whether or not they cause some functional issues doesn't matter. The market has spoken and they love the sleek design that this man has come up with. If it weren't true people wouldn't be all out copying the designs of Apple. I think history will look favorably on him, and pretty much forget the functional issues (whether real or just perceived) his designs caused.
>The results aren't as pretty as the Ive era designs
Not saying Ive hadn't had some great designs in his time at Apple but saying the new designs aren't as pretty is highly debatable. From what I can tell, I don't think many people found the touchbar to be particularly "pretty".
Genuine question: Who cares? I love design, and I love the engineering Apple has done, but, I've got to believe that Apple keep their aesthetic without keeping the same exact people. I think I would count this as a win for Apple - an opportunity to change the guard and give permission for some new designers to give a critical eye to the products they make. I would love to see them take maybe 1 or 2 steps back from minimalism.
If you believe the motto "design is how it works" (and Apple should, because the phrase was coined by Steve Jobs), Apple's design in the Cook era has been abysmal: charging your Apple Pencil by sticking it out of the lightning port. The mouse that has to charge by flipping it upside-down. The beautiful trash can that couldn't be upgraded. And this fucking keyboard that dies and sets you back $700 if it gets so much as a speck of dust in it.
Jony Ive is way overdue for a re-evaluation as "the greatest designer of our generation". Left to his own devices without Jobs as a moderating influence, he produces hot garbage.
There are so many examples of Apple doing something weird and reversing direction, with or without Jobs at the helm. Especially picking out a minor detail like stripped icons seems akin to reading tea leaves. The iTunes and Mac App Store UI and the iTunes symbol have been “universally derided”, too.
(I would also like to note that, on the grand scale of things, your examples are minor. Sure, they matter, but they are at least rectifiable at a minimal loss.)
Yeah, same here. If he meant that design was integral to Apple's ability to break into the market and gain a few early successes then it makes sense. But I thought along e same lines as you. Apple can be considered an example of how design didn't matter, the competition mopped the floor with them back then. I think they were only marginally successful for a few years in the 80's and didn't become really relevant again until 2001.
He made his point. Apple’s design has turned into a performance piece for other designers at the cost of UX. That’s a substantive loss for the end user.
Ok, I usually don't do this, but it would be good to understand why I'm being downvoted here.
Therefore it makes sense to talk about design and not downplay its importance with a comment like "Yet some think that's the most important part..."; because one of those "some" was Steve Jobs and I don't think Apple has changed its policy much in that regard.
I'm not judging if he would have released this iPhone 7 or not, I'm just saying what I've said.
I think what bothers me about all these Jony Ive articles is that they rarely differentiate between Ive the designer, Ive the art director, and Ive the product manager. Similarly, they fail to differentiate between whether something was good or bad based on its aesthetics, functionality, or market reception. In these articles, Ive is just functioning as a stand-in for Apple, as Jobs did before him. It betrays a lack of understanding of how companies (and design) actually work on the part of pundits and journalists.
> However, when building new technology Apple often unfortunately neglected their own design history.
One might argue that good designers and designs move on as they co-evolve. This "new" design is a nice piece of borderline-functional retro chique, but apart from being thin it hardly qualifies as futuristic or practical from our perspective today.
As components shrink, people expect the display to become the only visible component of the computer - and Apple is clearly on that path. I would consider it the right path from a usability as well as a design perspective.
I'll take your word for that, and I'm also encouraged by your comments. Nevertheless it's clear from their products that Apple in recent years became infected with an "aesthetics is all that matters" approach to design. So maybe my general complaint should be narrowed from "modern designers" to simply "Jony Ive and those who emulate him" while still admiring designers who carry on the traditions exemplified by e.g. Raymond Loewy, Ray Eames, and Herman Miller.
The negativity in these comments is shocking and smug. However you feel about Apple and specific design decisions, Jony Ive is inarguably an exceptionally talented, successful, and influential designer that pushed entire industries out of chintzy, eye-sore, fast-fashion territory. High quality materials and (largely) enjoyable user experiences. Every human values that. The reason companies prioritize that is because of Jony Ive and Steve Jobs, like it or not.
Jony Ive is a brilliant designer, but I sense that he also requires a strong-willed critic in order to reign in some of his impulses. Steve Jobs was exactly that kind of person. Tim Cook takes a hands-off approach and as a result I believe that is why Apple products took such a sharp turn towards removing ports and trying to be as thin as possible in the mid 2010's. Think only having a single USB C port, the butterfly keyboard, and the touchbar. This is just speculation, but once Ive left MagSafe returned, more ports were added back on to the MacBook, and the keyboards returned to normal.
I'm inclined to take Ives' complaint with a grain of salt.
After all, as the face of Apple design, Ives might be getting some amount of credit for designs that his underlings have made. He might not be seeking it, but that's how it's working out.
Ives is pretty much the only designer at Apple who gets any credit at all, at least in the media. And that's been the case for years now. He hasn't exactly been laboring in obscurity while Jobs sucked up all the credit and adulation.
Exactly. Apple's influence with regards to design and aesthetics is unparalleled, to downplay it is either straight ignorance or naivety.
Everything from naming schemes (iPhone -> Core i3/5/7/9, Macbook -> ASUS Zenbook, et al.), to desktop interfaces (MacOS -> Windows 11 Explorer, GNOME), to phone interfaces (iOS -> Android), to connectivity (rather the lack thereof), to form factor (Macbook Air -> Intel ultrabooks and EVO), to entire markets (smartphones, tablets, portable music players) and more have all been defined or redefined and led by Apple.
To suggest anything Apple does concerning design would be an isolated incident is ridiculous. If Apple says "jump", the IT industry asks "how high?".
To give credit to Cook he listened to the chorus of complaints and acted on it. The results aren't as pretty as the Ive era designs. But they give users a lot more of what they really want, instead of a nice case with missing useful features.
Ive actually had a lot of misses, from the gradients and flat look in iOS 7, to the infamous butterfly keyboard and missing USB ports, to the early versions of Watch, to (at a guess) the touchbar. There were also Jobs-era failures like the hockey puck mouse and the Siri Remote for Apple TV.
And personally I'm not a huge fan of the current Apple typography and branding.
So - not really missing his influence. I'd love to see Apple find a new design head who could inject more personality than the current products have, but I don't think Ive's departure was a terrible loss in any way.
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