![]() Perhaps this would have happened under Ive, but Evans Hankey, who now heads the industrial design team, has overseen plenty of other tweaks that seem to indicate a change of philosophy. Gone is the so-called “butterfly” keyboard, which rendered the device thinner but whose clunky mechanics made typing more difficult farewell too to the Touch Bar, a touch sensitive strip display along the top of the keyboard which could show functions for the web browser one moment and mixing tools for music apps the next, but was almost impossible to use without looking back are HDMI ports, which let you plug the computer into high-definition displays without using an adapter. Headline features released five years ago under Ive’s aegis have been scrapped. ![]() From the iPhone to Apple TV to the Macbook, gone are the days of “The user be damned, we think this looks cool.” Monday’s unveiling of a new Macbook Pro lineup of laptops provides evidence of the shift. Since he stepped down as chief designer at the end of 2019, Apple seems to have reemphasized function. It was written almost like a novel and I got the Audible version and the narrator makes it sound like a sequel to "The Circle".There was a sense that, without the moderating influence of the late Steve Jobs, perhaps Jony Ive started to prioritize aesthetics a little too much. I nearly didn’t bother getting it, not being a real Apple fanboy, but I am glad I did, it was really fascinating. There was nobody to reign in his excesses and nobody to praise him, when he got things right, so he looked more and more to the outside.The Tripp Mickle book is really worth reading, if you are interested in what was going on. Some have since speculated that Project Juggernaut was little more than a fishing exercise to reel in the British designer. Ive and Jobs were on a similar wavelength, they could bounce ideas off each other, that was missing, when Cook took over. The time and care taken in the packaging was ignored, the product was pulled out of the packaging and inspected, the "experience" failed, which I believe irked Ive. He would stroll in, take a brief look at the product and leave again. And it’s not like people loved his influence on Apple’s software design. Jobs would come down regularly, actually look at the products, discuss minutiae with Ive and give him some direction.Cook, on the other hand had no real feeling for what Ive and the team were doing, according to the book. In the case of the Mac, it is inarguable that Apple’s offering has improved dramatically post-Ive. Cook didn’t really care about the design side, oh, it was important and Ive got a lot of what he wanted and needed, but the camaraderie was missing. He is a great designer, but he is a designer, not a team leader, first and foremost, and he needed the hands-on that Jobs had with the design department. Don Norman, a former member of the Apple design team (19931996) who now heads the Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego, beats the drum that Apple has abandoned user-centered. The 52-year-old has spent the better part of his adult life. He wanted the role and took it on, but was soon over his head. Sir Jony Ive has designed some of Apples most iconic products over the years and was a key influence on the firms simplistic design. The firm is still recovering from those mistakes, with less svelte new hardware releases that offer the features customers have demanded. But the short version is that Cook erred in letting Ive take over software design and become a manager, and his overly-thin, form-over-function designs held back Apple for years. Those interested in this part of Apple’s history should read After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost its Soul by Tripp Mickle. Ive was a close friend and confidante of Jobs, but his relationship with Cook has icy and distant at best. Apparently, Apple’s contract with LoveFrom was up for renewal and it declined to do so, despite an earlier pledge to work with Ive “long into the future.” The New York Times reports that Apple has severed ties with Ive and his new company, LoveFrom, which Ive founded in 2019 when he stepped away from day-to-day work at Apple to consult with the company to the tune of $100 million. Left unsaid: Cook cannot stand Ive and he was unable to work with him in the wake of co-founder Steve Jobs’ death. “Jony is a singular figure in the design world, and his role in Apple’s revival cannot be overstated,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. Source: AppleĪpple has had it with Jony Ive, and it has walked away from its 30-year relationship with the one-time design darling. See if you agree, and let us know in the comments of any other Apple products that you think. Tim Cook feigns interest in Jony Ive at the September 2018 iPhone XR launch. Here we take a look back at a handful of Apples most questionable design decisions in recent memory.
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