back to article Greg Christie to leave Apple as Jonathan Ive seizes design reins

Apple design boss Jony Ive appears to be consolidating his power within the fruity firm, with longtime software UI chief Greg Christie reportedly leaving the company. Cupertino confirmed Christie's exit in a statement to the Financial Times, saying, "Greg has been planning to retire later this year after nearly 20 years at …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Scott L. Burson
    FAIL

    "seizes design reigns"???

    Someone has been learning to spell by reading blog page comments.

    1. andreas koch
      Facepalm

      @ Scott L. Burson - Re: "seizes design reigns"???

      It never reins, it poors.

      SCNR

      1. frank ly

        Re: @ Scott L. Burson - "seizes design reigns"???

        It's a pun! Read it as ".... seizes design; reigns."

        1. frank ly

          Re: @ Scott L. Burson - "seizes design reigns"???

          I see that the sub-headitor had second thoughts.

  2. SuccessCase

    For me the striking thing with Ive and iOS 7 is that the result is good where you expect he would have struggled but not so good where you would have expected him to be strongest. If we split UI design work into two parts, interaction design and visual design, you would have expected Ive would have been good with the visual design and struggled with the interaction design, but in fact, in iOS7 it appears it was the other way round. The interaction design improvements were balanced, powerful and well implemented (example: swipe from the right/left edge to go forward and back through hierarchical menus and web pages is a joy to use, especially on the iPhone), but the visual design elements (example, the Safari Icon) were not so good. That said, Ive clearly wanted to shake things up and as expected some of the more jarring extremes (read garish colours) have been dialled back in more recent updates.

    From a high-level the visual look and feel is consistent and balanced but in the detail often seems naive and childlike (those icons again). Ives level of skill, achievements and experience make me undecided as to if this is simply a failing or a wholly deliberate and quite radical philosophy. Many artists seek to recapture the purity of expression young children have because at a young age there is an honesty and simplicity in children's drawings that captures the essence of things with an ease that is lost when we enter adolescence. That ability to capture an essence and so directly convey an idea serves the *functional* purpose of UI elements perfectly. Ive is either of the mind that designs with a naive "non-designery" appearance serve the purpose, serve the role an icon plays, better than something more refined, in which case he is actually being quite radical and a bit of a genius successfully making appearance wholly subservient to interaction design, OR the interaction design advantages are accidental, and his visual design aesthetic is, just a bit shit. I'm not wholly convinced, one way or the other and can genuinely argue both sides. To all accounts he was very single minded in driving out old thinking, and enjoyed disrupting the established cosy visual design pipeline, provocatively selecting the flat icon designs of non-pro-designers over those of the pro designers; that single minded ness speaks to the coherent philosophy I have described - and a brave one at that. But then, on the other hand, the removal of button outlines, while visually simplifying (also a theme in Ives design philosophy) also remove what interaction designers call an "affordance" cluing the user in on how to interact with the element (or more simply that they can interact with the element) and this runs counter to the purposes of interaction design.

    So Ive, design genius across hardware and software, or a very lucky Barbie and Ken toy designer (at least where software is concerned). All will become clear in subsequent releases as things either further improve and his philosophy beds down such that there are improvements both interaction design-wise and visual design-wise, or they become a bit more unlaced. We shall see.

    1. Intractable Potsherd

      Thank you for a well thought-out post, SuccessCase.

    2. Andrew Newstead

      An excellent analysis. I have been using IOS7 since it's release and, apart from a short period of adjustment at the start, I have to say I have no complaints. I'm not an artist or designer so I can't offer any informed comment on design but I mostly find the UI to be quite unnoticeable in use, which I should think would surely be the aim of UI designers.

      1. SuccessCase

        @Andrew Newstead, agreed. The UI does fade away, in which case the bold, bright and distinct icon images are useful for helping the identification process. I think they do offer a small but real advantage and yes, very much agree the UI getting out the way of what you want to do is a key measure of success - if not THE key measure of success. I do think Ive has thought very carefully about these things. Additionally if there is one thing that I have learned regarding UI's, it is that users hate change. There will always be complaints. So with a change like iOS 7, the alternative scenarios are, complaints but no user revolt, or higher level of complaints plus user revolt. The former = success and after a while the complainers fall in line anyway.

  3. Brian Catt

    I use a SH Mac Mini for Desktop but am too poor for iPhones and MacBooks so use Android Moto G and Windows Laptop (poweful refurb ones available at £180 in UK), which are affordbable for a retired person. (I do set up my rich friends Mac Books and iPhones from time to time).

    I have worked on Mac Desktops since OS 6. in 1989, and the Apple Computer before that. Currently up to Snow Leopard. My 2 x 2GHz CPU Mini cant handle Lion, but is stil working well. No significant delays, except loading clunky bloatware WORD/Office apps.

    Its UI is so much easier than the Windows devices, and Android looks like its OK - until you try to o use it and have to perform unnatural / counter intuitive acts to do anything. "WHERE IS IT?" Brian

    The only problem with Apple IMO is settings and diagnostic software under the top level hood when things do go wrong, the tech toggles are hard to find and use, not well thought out as the top level UI. Such as Printer and network configs, fixed and WiFi. Hard to find and set the precise properties if that is what you need to do, it is easier with Windows in some regards.

    Perhaps the tech UI is made for numpty users and not people who understand layer 2 tech?

    Just what I think.

  4. All names Taken
    Pint

    That explains a lot?

    skeuomorphism - Aha!

    Was it Snow Leopard that introduced an icky filofax looking address book contrary to what had gone before?

    It looked oh-so Lotus Smartsuite Organiser-like and oh-so late 1990's out of charaterness with most if not all previous OS realities.

    I think I'll start saving for iOS 8 devices and next OS to be

  5. Slap

    iOS 7 is actually pretty cool IMO

    iOS 7 is actually pretty cool, I think. I've no problems running it on any of my iToys, even my ageing 4S handles it with aplomb. I do like the minimalist look of it, and it feels like it's there to get the job done rather than try to represent the physical world (I can never spell that skeuwy word)

    Mind you, I would have preferred something like LCARS - now that's minimalist, even if it does look somewhat dated now.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like