Apple designer Sir Jony Ive holding up iOS 7 development: Report Visionary designer Sir Jonathan Ive’s perfectionism could be holding back the development of the latest version of the software used on iPads and iPhones, according to a recent report. Famed as the head of Cupertino’s industrial design division, the knighted Essex lad was recently handed control of software design in a …
The stupidity and ignorance of some people is hard to credit. I venture to say, there must be hardly a single genius in any field who would not acknowledge the influence of the work and ideas of others, whether a good teacher or the proponent of a good theory or design or even a bad one!
Your comment displays not just copying others but also the inability to build on it to create a new one.
The mail and calender apps are hardly uncompetitive. The core weaknesses with iOS that make it worse at some things than Android (inter app communications and sharing, for example) aren't going any time soon. On its own strengths, iOS is competitive enough. I doubt Apple will lose many sales if, for example, the 5s comes out before iOS 7.
I agree. If you compare the Mail apps for iOS and Android, I'd say they are about the same; and both do their job just fine. I've never had a problem with the Calendar App on iOS, I'd say it is slightly better than the Samsung one on my Android but it is a close call. I don't have the stock Android Calendar App so can't comment on that.
But the book case, actually there's three of them, for iBooks, iTunesU and Newspapers; they need to go. The Podcasts app needs to go. The Maps app is probably OK from a UI perspective, it is the underlying data that is the problem there, and that isn't Ive's department.
I disagree about the Maps app. I've not seen a content error in quite a while, but there are things I want to be able to do, such as look at alternative routes, or switch transport mode, that just don't work very well.
Agree that the bookcase apps are especially rubbish.
I agree, the mail and calendar apps fulfill their basic purposes just fine. The main thing I'd like to see is an active standby screen. Instead of just notifications and the time, it would be good to pin things like train departures and transport status so you can check them out easily!
Apple stock has dropped back because everyone is waiting for the next iThingy.
Apple buys back lots of stock... Because the price is low.
Apple keeps dropping the stock by holding back products.
Its not like they really need the sales right now, theyve got plenty cash.
At the crucial moment.. 'TaDa!' New iThing released. Much hooray from the analysts. Stock price goes up.
Apple makes money on its own money.
Shows how little you know about markets. Apple is actually making well over a billion dollars from this buyback, even if the stock price never moves at all. How? Because they're currently paying about a 3% dividend, but borrowing money at about 2% to buy back stock. Every share they buy back is one they no longer have to pay dividends to. The whole thing is in essence no different than if you had a 3% mortgage and refinanced it at 2%. You'd be an idiot not to take that deal, so why shouldn't Apple?
The fact that that they might save money on taxes by not bringing overseas money into the US (if the tax laws are changed or a new "tax holiday" happens) is potential icing on the cake. Who knows what the odds are but just about every large company in the US with any significant overseas earnings is playing the same game, that's why US corporations have record holdings of over $2 trillion in cash these days
One can of course argue that this is unfair, immortal, etc. or that "everyone is doing it" is not an excuse, but the way US securities laws work, if a company like Apple brought in $100 billion in overseas cash, paid ~$25 billion in taxes on it, and then next year another corporate tax holiday was passed taxing repatriated money at only 10%, meaning Apple threw away $25 billion by not waiting a year, they'd be subject to shareholder lawsuits for breach of fiduciary duty. The suits may not be successful, but a CFO/CEO wouldn't want to take a chance on that. Passing that first corporate tax holiday was a huge mistake, because companies will wait forever hoping for another bite of the apple (small 'a')
Can't help thinking that there is (a little) trouble-at-mill, but you are not going to be able to replace a Jobs-like character in a hurry - so you need to change things and do things in another manner... very similar to Riker when Picard is captured by the BORG in the Best of both worlds.
Saying that - Jobs would never have allowed Maps to go out in the state it did so kudos to Ive for correcting that balance up front.
Joba also though had Apples divisions "compartmentalised" for a reason. Letting an aesthetic designer (albeit a very lauded one) own both hardware and software, and aesthetic - is a landmine and symptomatic of a weak leader (Cook) wanting to offload the responsibility of managing them all - again, something Jobs wouldn't have done. Si, if that is that case then the very real worry that Apple is now very much a one trick design pony and if Ive decides to leave... well - I probabaly don't need to expand.
Other than that... I think the Apple and media community needs to be more realistic in its expectations of IOS7 and what it will be - there won't be any "gamechangers" or "killer apps" and also realise that it'll just be an iteration of what has come before with a few updated *shiny* *shiny* bits to distract the ADHD community from that fact that its just another IOS release - end of.
As the doom mongers - Apple as a company will still be trading many years after IOS7 does release so keep the noise down over there will you...
>aesthetic designer
Which Ive isn't. In Dieter Ram's term, he is a 'Form Engineer', a more holistic thing that takes into account everything including manufacturing, functionality, ergonomics and yes, aesthetics. UI design has been taught on Product Design BSc (and to a lesser extent Industrial Design BA) courses since the late 1990s.
The original iPod was shiny- but an important part of its function was that it slipped into a pocket easily, like cigarette cases have done for decades. So it happened to look like a cigarette case.
>Under Jobs, Ive worked as the head of product design, churning out game-changing products like the iPod, iMac and iPhone.
The iMac - the original Boni Blue model, with colour options - was certainly an Ive classic.
The iPod was famously invented by someone else. Ive slapped a reworked design from the 60s on it. The iTunes software to run it was bought in.
Macs - well, yes. But not so much OS X, so far as anyone can tell.
The problem for Ive is that although he's good at visible design, I doubt he has much of a clue about APIs and code. Changing iOS isn't just about making the icons brightly coloured and wibbly-wobbly, it's about creating high quality frameworks so devs can use them to do cool things.
That's not really an Ive strong point. And Forstall, who used to be good at it, has gone.
So who's doing it now?
I had to do a double take. Head of user interfaces, head of interface design, etc... maybe but head of software design? Next someone will spill all and say they do UI prototypes in Visual Basic then when the boss says it's okay, hastily knock up something behind it which more-or-less works.
@Dan 55. But its his job to say 'make it so'. He doesn't need to know about API's, scheduling, or any software at all. He designs, software monkeys code. It's the monkeys who need to know about API's, and if necessary tell him what he wants isn't possible,. Then implement it anyway.
In many ways designers should NOT know about the underlying tech, as it will pollute the design process. It's their job to design, not implement.
I'll try and explain it again. The UI and how people interact with programs is a component of OS X, OS X isn't a component of the UI. Better to have someone from a technical background saying "make it so" for the UI features than a design background saying "make it so" for the technical features. Not everything is a black-and-white case, there are trade offs to be made over how different parts of the OS interact with each other and if we end up with OS X being driven by how a user interacts with it then everything behind the scenes and OS X Server is by default given a lower priority.
Ten minutes to go, before presenting the new iPhone 4 to the Apple board... as he walks down a Cupertino corridor, suddenly, Mr Ive realises... "I haven't designed the casing for my new wonder gadget"
"You, lend me your shiny Macbook"... Apple minion hands it over
"Where's the CAD software?"
"I'm a beancounter... I don't have any"
"Damn... err.... Excel... right.... Insert, autoshapes, umm, rectangle, no... rounded rectangle"
And thus, the beautifully designed iPhone 4 was born.
Also in the series "The iPhone as a modern design classic"... "The Emperors New Clothes"
I'm perfectly happy with the current design. Works fine. I am not a teenager who needs his icons to look different every 5 minutes. In fact I think it was a mistake to allow people to change the wallpaper for the app launcher, since now I see people with iPhones with such horribly garish backgrounds that I don't know how they can see the app icons.
The "notification center" does need a redesign though, since its current design and functionality don't square with anything else in the OS.
I don't trust him. Apple is a thorn in the side of the elite by providing the unwashed masses with advanced technology the blue bloods would rather they not have. Now a "knighted' by blue blood individual is in charge of the project? I expect this is going to result in many more problems for Apple to get anything out the door because of it. This, like the move by Sony to put Sir Harry Stringer in charge of operations of the Corp directly in Japan, is likely not to work out well for them. I hope I'm wrong. Like or hate Apple, it is they who forced the hand held device and mobe development forward into the 21st century, without out Apple to keep moving the football down the field we may find ourselves once again in technological stagnation.
It's disconcerting to read all those Ives, like the writer has the worst grammar in the world:-
Ive will be keen to avoid the drama
Ive has pulled the team so far behind deadline
Ive was given responsibility for the look and feel of software
Ive has finished talking rubbish now. Bye! :)
Please please DON'T copy MS with the world's most boring, least data dense crap flat interfaces. Shockingly I LIKE the skeumorphic stuff, at least it follows some reasonable design principles giving cues as to what to touch/not touch and it's far nicer on the eyes than the flat boring (yes I said it again) metro crap.
Why a whole screen is required for a messenger (MS) I don't know but the flat look deserves to be quite short lived, at least in the forms I've seen so far. If Apple follow it, I'll do everything I can to avoid updates. Yuck.
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