Following friction between top Apple Human Interface Vice President Greg Christie and Senior Vice President Jony Ive, Apple’s hardware and software design is being dramatically shaken up, according to sources familiar with the matter. After adding human interface design direction to his responsibilities in 2012, Ive will soon completely subsume Apple’s software design group, wresting control away from long-time human interface design chief Christie, according to sources briefed on the matter. Previous to this shakeup, all Apple software design has been led by Christie, who has reported to Craig Federighi, and Ive has been attending interface design meetings and providing instruction…
The design shakeup at Apple will result in Christie soon leaving the company, with all software designers now working directly under Ive with the rest of his industrial design team instead of within Federighi’s engineering group. Sources say that Christie’s upcoming departure is significant and stems from a falling out with Ive.
When Ive tasked Apple’s Human Interface team with redesigning iOS 7 to include an entirely new look, Christie and Ive reportedly clashed over design direction, after which Ive is said to have circumvented Christie’s leadership of the team during the new operating system’s development.
Christie’s impending departure comes in the months ahead of significant updates to both iOS and OS X. While iOS 8 will retain the same overall design as iOS 7, OS X 10.10 will be revamped with a flatter look that loses the textures that Christie utilized to make the iPhone the most popular gadget on the planet.
Christie is also known to App Store software creators as the herald of Apple’s design aesthetic as he frequently held application design sessions and user-interface review meetings with developers at Apple’s WWDC conferences.
<a href="http://9to5mac.com/2014/03/26/this-is-the-room-where-the-iphone-was-born/">The room where Christie tested the original iPhone</a>
Christie’s exit from Apple also comes amidst the encore for Apple and Samsung’s high profile trial in San Jose, California. While Christie has long worked under the shadows of Apple’s most senior executives, the original iPhone designer was given stage time last week as a key witness for Apple in court and Christie was made available for interviews with the Wall Street Journal and NPR. The interviews position Christie as critical to the iPhone’s success, making his departure a significant loss for the Cupertino-based company.
Christie also has hundreds of Apple patents in his name such as the iconic “Slide to Unlock” patent that is crucial to Apple’s patent infringement claims against Samsung. It is unclear at this time if Christie plans to join another company or retire from the industry completely.
Christie has been a part of Apple and the technology industry long enough to have worked on the first Newton and the transition of Mac OS to OS X and its Aqua interface in the early 2000s. Both Apple PR and Christie did not reply to multiple requests for comment on the matter.
Christie’s upcoming leave from Apple will mark one of the most significant design exits in several years and represents a complete changing of the guard for Apple’s software design style. Over the past two years, Scott Forstall and Christie will have both exited Apple, and Ive will have secured his position at Apple as the central product design decision maker for the foreseeable future in the post-Steve Jobs era.
While Apple’s executive shakeup in 2012 unlocked the silos separating hardware and software, this latest change will completely remove any internal boundaries between Apple’s hardware and software design and will likely result in even more well-integrated products. (Top image by Michael Steeber).
Update: Apple has confirmed to the Financial Times that Christie is leaving Apple.
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Looks like design over function won this round, but it’s the customers who are the real casualties.
It helps if you have the slightest idea of what you are talking about.
P.S. You don’t have any idea how much of iOS 7 is Ive’s full vision. If anything this suggests it may not have been.
If you read the article it clearly states that Johnny Ive went above Christies head to implement his design ideas anyway… This piece of crap that is iOS 7 ui is all Ives fault.
iOS 7 is about a trillion times better than iOS 6. Sorry you have poor taste. I’m sure you’re one of the people that has one of those jailbreak themes that can actually blind people it’s so hideous
I agree, iOS 7 is much better and people don’t realize that unless they revert back to using iOS 6
The first two products Jony Ive designed without input from Steve Jobs are flops. On the hardware side nobody seems to want the iPhone 5c despite heavy marketing focus on the 5c. On the software side iOS 7 is a design disaster. The icons look horrible, the colors garish, and the flatness un-intuitive. Just look at what Apple is now stuffing under the “Accessibility” settings in the latest iOS update. Basic usability features such as making buttons look like buttons are now stuffed under “Accessibility”.
I was a huge Apple fan up until the release of iOS 7.
All I know is I have done nothing but miss iOS6 since I ‘accidently’ upgraded to iOS7 during an iTunes upgrade….I am so bummed and miss iOS6 terribly. I don’t know what happened to Jony Ives’ taste but everything looks like a 2D palm pilot now and skeumorphism is one reason why we all have retina screens! We are all waiting for the Holodeck in our virtual worlds, not candy-crush de-evolution! And on what Apple planet is a complete flushing of UI intuitiveness? It’s like Apple’s artsy fartsy love of their so so elegant but boring new interface comes with a big snobby RTFM if you want to use it….Jobs is rolling in his grave I know it and its’ Ives doing the shaking! Come back Christie!!!
Those of you declaring iOS7 “a disaster” are without a clue. iOS7 was a much needed leap forward in UI design, and it will only get better with time. My wife has an old iPhone 3G running iOS6 – going back from iOS7 to iOS6 is unbearable. IOS6 UI looks archaic in comparison.
Oh, shut up.
Tallest Skil – aren’t you the loser who had been banned from MacRumors? Keep it up, you will get thrown out from here as well.
If you have any manner of actual comment to make, feel free. Otherwise kick on back to MacRumors with the rest of the trolls.
Trolls‽
Try rereading your original comment. You’re one to talk.
What on earth are you even talking about? So you agree with the “design over function” moron?
No, he agrees you’re the troll here! Its bleedingly obvious.
Yes, the person telling lies about Apple is not a troll and the person calling out those lies is not.
Sure thing, kid.
Good. Maybe they will redesign the home screen now. It is OK on the iPhone, but it doesn’t translate well to the iPad.
The iPhone and iPad were already “Ive-ified” (it’s called iOS 7). This time around it will be OS X (10.10)
If OS X 10.10 looks like iOS 7, I’m not upgrading. Ever.
Some people like rhubarb pie. Some people like Windows. Some people even like the iOS 7 UI. What’s important is that iOS7’s UI is the first and only UI that Apple has ever produced that is controversial and widely reviled for, of all things, it’s appearance.
I mentioned my dislike of the iOS7 interface at the Apple Store last night, and the employee said, “I think they are probably doing something about that.” Did he mean, “[I think] they are [probably] doing something about that”? I can only hope.
OMG if they destroy my laptop I will be blown away!! I’m sure the functionality will have all kinds of new bells and whistles but the look and feel will be horrible de-evolution!! Please or why will we ever need a retina screen on our devices? On what planet did he learn “elegance” from?
So who was to blame for iOS7? Ive or Christie?
To that point, who is to blame dor the MAPS fiasco?
Poly9 who wowed everyone with a tech demo, but couldn’t deliver a realworld product?
Forstall who looked at that mess & thought it was OK to present to Tim?
Tim who also looked at that mess & thought it was OK to present to the public?
Like an earlier comment says: WE are the losers in all of this ….
There is no one at Apple with the vision or eye for detail like Steve. Tim is a great CEO, but he does not have the passion and vision for gadgets like Steve did. He has to deffer judgement to his staff. You can’t teach or delegate this stuff.
Who is to BLAME? Where do you people come from.
I agree, using the word “blame” when a company continues with record breaking numbers, new iOS, China market, and products coming in the pipeline is strange. I guess we can start blaming some Apple exec for not sending us all to the moon by 2016
If any of you are developers and watched or attended the WWDC13 sessions, then you would know that Greg Christie was very much a part of the design direction of iOS 7. You’d also know that Apple has an army of talented designers who are very capable and probably look up to Ive just as much as Christie.
This certainly isn’t good news, but its not the end of the world. Apple has lost many key employees throughout the years, no employee is permanent. They either retire, or move on, or get fired, etc. As long as Apple continues to ATTRACT A+ talent. And I imagine there are just tons of talented designers out there who would kill for a chance to work under Jony Ive.
iOS 7 is a big improvement over the previous design language, while unfinished in some areas. Christie himself championed the “content over chrome” direction of 7. As time marches on, they’ll refine the vision of 7 into something much better than today.
thats the problem
i watched WWDC 2013 last year with horror
im a, autistic developer who has been (and still is) a huge apple fanboy from the beginning
i saw design changes and saw CorGraphics become a big part of my design tool
i learned how to work with it very good to draw stuff
until then they made iOS 7
i was shocked, flatter design ?
the technology they put in it was great (the panel at the bottom is great) but the design was changed to much
and now with iOS 7.1 they changed it again, and with iOS 8 they will again change it
i hope they don’t make the same mistakes again with the “design”
for autistic people is hard to be an iOS fan these days because its hard to make changes for us
the maps thing, i love the 3D maps, and i love the apple maps to
No, any self respecting hard core A+ designer would not want to work “under” anyone else. Thats pretty much why Ives is alone in this iOS7 failure :(
Are you sure about that Andre? Lol, and where exactly have you come up with this ridiculous hypothesis? No A+ designer admires anyone or finds inspiration anywhere? Ok then. Meanwhile on planet Earth, all kinds of A+ designers admire certain people and work under those people they admire. I guess all these designers at Apple who admired Steve Jobs and the company he built aren’t real designers in your book.
Once again, iOS 7 was a collective process. It was not “Ive alone.” Not even close. As I said previously, go pay for a developer account if you feel so strongly about being correct, and watch the WWDC 13 sessions about the iOS 7 user interface. Mike Stern, Greg Christie, and numerous other Apple employees involved with the project talk about the design, why its better, why they did it, and what exactly they did.
There’s a lot of insight there, for people who wish to enlighten themselves with actual knowledge, rather than tech blog gossip and nonsense. Hear it from the actual designers themselves, rather than pretending to know more than they do.
You’re probably right, especially about WWDC and listening to the designers speakfor themselves and gaining more insight. thanks for the heads up :)
As per the A+ designer not wanting to work under anyone – perhaps I should elaborate – A real hardcore designer can (as you said) find inspiration from others e.t.c. but will not adhere to dictation about HOW to design.
OK. So now “this latest change will completely remove any internal boundaries between Apple’s hardware and software design and will likely result in even more well-integrated products”; and the idea of ‘aesthetics’ endowed in Apple Product by Jobs and carried on by Christie are slip-slidin’ away. It was always part of the coversation: “…its look and feel are so different/better…” and that was ALWAYS a positive tone–is this the final throes of one of the three pillars that IS Apple and now it’ll be like all the rest…? Am a 20yr Mac guy, and there IS a particular ‘feel’ and ‘look’ that is the attracter. Hell, we all know of the products’ functionality and the smooth operation but ‘…what’s it gonna look like?’ put people in lines to be ‘one of the first’… Two ‘Q’s: who’s gonna keep the aesthetics at that high level? What would Jobs do about Ive–or anyone–effecting a ‘backdor, behind your back’ work-a-round Christie stunt?
iOS7 is fantastic and the best version of iOS yet. I can’t understand all this “iOS7 disaster blame” talk here. Go get an Android phone please and leave if you hate it that much, because you are in the minority by a long shot…
28% vs 72%
http://9to5mac.com/2013/08/07/online-poll-finds-users-prefer-ios-7-design-to-ios-6-fingerprint-scanner-to-replace-passwords/
This reminds me in a weird way of the break up of Yugoslavia. Once the guy who is holding it all together through fear and intimidation is gone, the infighting and sheering starts, often with disastrous results. I don’t see this latest development as a good thing at all. Any kind of counterpoint seems like it is being removed. Without it, the end result may very well be more well-integrated products. However, will they be better as a result? If you love apple, you should fear this news.
It could just be a rise of Ive into the Jobs position–that’s the optimistic view and the one I’m taking for now. It might not have been easy for all of Ive’s co-workers who came in with him to submit to his decision making. However, fresh but still great talent will likely respect Ive’s opinion as their predecessors did Jobs’ as long as Apple continues to put on great products. Only time will tell, but I don’t think this is necessarily bad news–especially if you like the direction of iOS 7 and I do.
Poor analogy on many fronts.
Serbia and Croatia were the main (though not the only) constituents of the former republic.
Once global market forces came calling through the door, love flew out of the window, and the final deed of separation was ironically carried out by Germany, a country that had itself just been reunified after over 50 years of induced separation by global forces (it was mentioned at the time, but no-one was listening).
However, how this translates to the OS design changes at Apple, where hardware and software are becoming more closely aligned, baffles and mystifies me no end.
Ohhhh dear…
I’m already not looking forward to the amount of white that is no doubt ready to sear my retinas out in Syrah. I sincerely hope Ive’s singular vision doesn’t overwrite everything about OS X that’s tasteful.
If so, just go back to original Aqua.
It helps if you know what you’re talking about. Since you aren’t in UI meeting at Apple, you know no more than my dog.
Trolls should be quiet
I will reiterate that I don’t want white, white everywhere. I don’t need insider knowledge to know what I like and don’t like, and I don’t like the flat white all that much. If you do, that’s good.
I’m sure we can both agree on one thing, though: Like or dislike the look of iOS 7, it’s still better than Android! :D
You’re just being an idiot. Replying to two comments with the same remark. Comments are about opinions, and their opinion is as valid as your attempt to shut them down.
Ya along with the thin red font on those white backgrounds. Makes for a real easy to read screen. Not to mention the removal of selecting an album under an artist in iTunes which makes selecting music in the car really easy.
>> the amount of white that is no doubt ready
Except they have explicitly said otherwise.
>> Syrah
Thanks for pretending a made up name is in any way accurate.
So this a GOOD thing, huh?
Overburdening a guy with already too much pressure on him to perform CONSTANTLY at 101% to begin with, but now
in a field that’s not really his forte ….
Can somebody please induce a seance and bring back Steve NOW, please?
While there’s still time ….
UI design is no one’s ‘forte’ that’s the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard. People like Ive with incredible taste, can make it amazing.
>>UI design is no one’s ‘forte’
YEAH, NO ONE COULD POSSIBLY BE REALLY GOOD AT COMING UP WITH INTERFACE DESIGN.
Are you insane?
It helps if you know what you are talking about.
I have a feeling Ive enjoys the UI re-design process and does not feel overburdened.
I don’t trust Ive, he looks two-faced to me, I would much prefer Forstall back and Ive out.
Forstall looked like a moron. His iOS was embarrassingly bad, hence why he is no longer in the company. Look at iOS 6 features. Look at the iOS 6 menu bar colors. Those two reasons alone should have gotten him fired.
Yeah, he’s so untrustworthy. He only designed the MacBook Pro, iMac, MacBook Air, iPod, iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, iPad Mini. Get that guy out.
Don’t forget the new Mac Pro too. I have one and its an amazing piece of art.
Really? And Forstall was more trustworthy how? By making he initially half-baked Maps app that everyone else had to swoop in to save? STFU troll.
“When Ive tasked Apple’s Human Interface team with redesigning iOS 7 to include an entirely new look, Christie and Ive reportedly clashed over design direction, after which Ive is said to have circumvented Christie’s leadership of the team during the new operating system’s development.”
The question is what was Christie fighting about? I honestly don’t think Ive knows software design well enough to justify taking over the entire design stack. He does great work on hardware designs but we haven’t seen him much with software design. So far, I’m not impressed with iOS 7 at all and I also have to consider all the concessions they’ve done since iOS 7.0 release, which also suggests majority of folks don’t like it either.
Some designers do lose their touch over time, especially Ive. I don’t want a single designer taking over the whole design stack at Apple, there should be a few designers going back and forth coming up with better designers, not one person who thinks he knows better than everybody. Ive isn’t perfect.
If they redesign OS X into something close to iOS 7’s silly guidelines, I’ll be very pissed but I’ll hold all judgment until I gave it a few months first.
Great work on hardware design? Really? Then how come nobody wants iPhone 5c? Jony Ive did great work under Steve Jobs’ direction. Without Jobs’ guidance Ive can’t do good work, or at least so far he hasn’t done any.
How about Macbook Air, iMac, rMBP, iPhone 5S, iPad Air, and etc, those are still some of the industry-leading hardware designs.
So, yes, they do great work on hardware design. They don’t have a 100% success rate, nobody does but they do better than most.
As for Ive under Jobs’ direction, that’s still debatable. Jobs wasn’t perfect either, he screws up just as plenty as everybody else but it doesn’t mean that everybody starts falling apart just because he’s gone.
We’ll just have to wait and see how it turns out but so far, iOS 7 was not impressive and if they keep screwing up with horrible QA on the OS X as well, I guess it’s time to go back to Windows.
“No one wants iPhone 5c” is a gross exaggeration. May not have been a sales hit Apple had dreamed about, but I see colored 5c phones everywhere. It’s a bit ridiculous for your to declare “without Jobs Ivy cannot do good work” – there is zero evidence of that.
Funny thing your uninformed comment there. The iPhone 5c outsold and continues to outsell the second tier phone the 4s from last year. I would hardly consider that an iPhone nobody wants. My daughter loves hers, and 4 of her friends at school have one to.
You mean the iPhone 5c that’s the #2 or #3 phone on all US carriers behind the 5s? I hope to have a failure like that someday.
You’re a complete imbecile. The iPhone 5C is selling better than the 4S did in its slot. Shut up.
Dude I f*cking love my 5c, and in my opinion, it’s a sharper design than the 5s. That’s just option, you don’t need to agree but you have nothing to base your claim on. It’s pretty much confirmed that the lack of sales in the 5c are at the hand of the more profitable 5s. Pretty sure that’s a great surprise to Apple. 5c still creams the sales of last years $99 price point. The only thing you have to base your claim on is that Cook mentioned they expected to sell more 5c’s. And once again, that’s likely because a lot of people opted for the 5s. Sooo…ya
Sure, nobody wants the 5C so much that it outsold the Galaxy S4 and was the second most bought phone in the US after the 5S for months.
GTFO
Interesting to see people saying how popular this is with their KIDS.
Thats about how I see it – plain white and jelly bean colours is targeting the child demographic.
People who are not children like it less.
Perhaps time to move on to another brand with my next phone, but hope this is not going to spread to my MacBook.
No one wants the 5C because its an iPhone 5 (last years tech) with an insignificant discount over the vastly more powerful 5S. The 5C needs to be cheaper, then it would sell very well indeed.
I have already heard that many computer graphic companies have been jumping ship away from Apple, because of their “Controlled experience”, simply has been getting in the way of these companies writing code for the programs they use.
I know that my lightwave 3d never worked right on my Mac book Pro, and I have heard horror stories of other programs not working right.
Like who? I haven’t heard anybody jumping ship yet. If anything, I’ve heard more were producing native OS X ports like Autodesk with their iOS/OSX apps.
I’ve worked with many developers on OS X, yes, it is a bitch to develop a consistent interface on OS X if you’re using Auto-Layout but it has been improving over time. If you follow Apple’s recommendations and their guidelines, you should be fairly okay. It’s worse than Windows but manageable.
If you’re building a completely custom UIs on OS X, you’re going to have a bad time. That is true for any platform. Look at Adobe, they built a custom UI on Windows for their apps and it’s biting their ass because those apps can’t scale up to higher DPIs properly on Windows 8+.
Stick with the native GUI guidelines and it’ll be mostly okay.
Also, it sucks to say this but many companies need to start developing on later OS X versions rather than maintaining support for older versions. I see your Lightwave 3D is supporting Snow Leopard, I’d suspect if they drop everything except Mavericks, their app will work better.
I wasn’t talking about the computer graphic development companies, I was talking about the consumer. The graphic shops who make the advertisements, movies, TV shows, ect.
These graphic design companies are finding no benefit to Apple computers, but only a higher cost because they cannot build and upgrade the computers as cheaply as you can with a windows based system.
Further writing applications for the graphic programs is much easier on a windows computer than a apple, exactly because Apple is a controlled experience and doesn’t allow for deviation.
So when pixar decides that they need a program to do X and it doesn’t do it, they develop a small patch of their own to do X. This is much easier to do on a windows computer, which is what many colleges still use.
This is awful. Now even more than ever iOS and from the looks of it OS X will look like Fisherprice colored blocks for infants. This white on white trash has to go… Now with no one to at least give some level headed input to UI design Ive is going to make the UI just a rainbow colored mess.
You could try Android or WP?
Gotta love the design armchair quarterbacks here in the comment section peanut gallery. I literally lol’ed at the guy who said blah blah blah iOS 7 yackety yack this surely “suggests majority of folks don’t like it either.” What part of 85% adoption rate of iOS 7 don’t you get pal? I’m so sure the lot of you are brilliant UI designers who have done oh so much more with your twitter / Facebook backgrounds that Sir Ives should be worried sick. Not.
Personally I don’t like the white, and would have preferred for them to simply ditch the skeuomorphic elements. I liked the nice combination of gray and dark blue gradients from 6.
But if I have to take 7’s design just to get rid of the stupid tucked leather crap, I’m all for it! :D
I do rather like the iconography of iOS 7, and hope that the design team pushes toward something like the “universal language of icons” from the System 7 and before days of the classic Macintosh. That would be killer!
I’m with you James C – I had no need at all for fake leather stitching but the IOS6 colour schemes had a much more professional and adult image, less glare and easier use.
I would have loved to see the improvements of IOS7 (working properly) with the fake leather gone and either an adult colours or – better yet – the ability to chose a colour scheme. Choosing your own scheme, which is available on phones/tablets costing 1/3 the prices, would keep both the adults and the children happy. A lot of this is down to personal taste.
Ditching skeuomorphism is a non-starter for many many elements of touch and non-touch UI that are so embedded in the technique, so natural that they are not even noticed or debated, and are still present in iOS and OS X to this very day. Software calculators, 2D and 3D maps, desktops, music sheets and many other UI elements look like their hardware, real-life or paper equivalents because they are the result of decades and even centuries of design evolution ingrained in all human perception.
iOS 7 was a natural, inevitable progression that “trimmed the fat” of skeuomorphic excess, once the touch paradigm was rightly seen by Apple as a resounding success of adoption by ordinary users. In the absence of the fiasco surrounding the divergence of Maps away from Google, I have no doubt that Scott Forstall would have led or collaborated in this change himself. In other words, the “training wheels” would have come off even if the “gloves” didn’t :-)
I for one miss Scott for his engaging presence and presentation skills, his awesome software track record and yes, for his acerbic and ill-concealed disdain for Ives’ aesthetic. Some of us love to see two supreme horse riders in the act of trying to unseat one another, and the delicious eternal paradox of the Inescapable in pursuit of the Uncatchable…
Bottom line is Tim Cook gave Ive responsibility for both hardware and software design. If Christie was a holdover from the Forstall era and constantly clashing with Ive that certainly was/is not healthy and may have resulted in inconsistencies in design with Ive wanting one thing and Christie another. I always thought it was odd that Ive was given control of Human Interface butter they still rolled up to Federighi. At least now there is no question who is accountable and if Ive really f–k’s up then it’s his head that needs to roll.
How horrific.
We can now expect acres of white glare and blotches of jelly bean colours on OSX as well.
Pre-school kiddie operating system comes to our laptops.
Seriously? You know this to be fact how? Hate you god damned trolls, like someone here said, you know less than the neighbours dog.
Expressing an opinion is not “trolling.”
Expecting an Ive led redesign of OS X, to be similar to the recent Ive led redesign of iOS seems quite rational to me also.
“…blotches of jelly bean colors…”
That’s pretty much word-for-word what everybody said about Aqua circa 2000.
Is there anyone on this site that has any concept of Apple’s design history since the late 90’s? Were you all just still in diapers? Does the phrase ‘Flower-Power iMac” mean anything to you?
Shut up and go away, you useless, pathetic troll.
This is an interesting twist, especially given the fact that he was so prominent in the recent trial. We’ll see how design functions and progresses now that it is basically all under Ive.
Jon Rubenstein, Tony Fadell, Scott Forstall, and now Greg Christie…all of those who were pushed out by Ive…Ever wonder if there was a bully in Cupertino?
Am I the only pne around here that actually like iOS 7? Except Game Center, the OS is fast, cohesive and beautiful. I love how the home/lockscreen changes completly based on your wallpaper, how the system is based on stages (first, homescreen, 2nd apps, 3rd notifications and the basement is for folders) and how the UI disapears when you use it. I still think that Forstall screw up iOS 6 with this weird coloured menu bar and Maps. Ive and Federighi seems like a great tandem.
Nope. I just think were tired of fighting ignorance or people that don’t realize that just because they don’t like the change doesn’t make it bad. It’s actually remarkable from an interface standpoint. They may not like the design, but the structural wire frame kills. If they can’t separate the two, I usually don’t engage.
I for one absolutely love iOS 7. 6 was very dated, and was hardly different than 5. I never used iOS 6 much, except maybe the month prior to iOS 7 release due to the slow jailbreak for 6, and the lack of much difference in 6 and 5. The same people hating on 7 for being different would likely be moaning that things hadn’t changed if 7 would have been just a small update from 6 (like 6 was from 5). Haters gonna hate, and understanders are gonna understand.
I’m not optimistic about this. Greg was the guy that basically *wrote* the HIG back in the day wasn’t he?
And despite it’s supporters, there can be no denying that the iOS 7 makeover *reduced* functionality. I’m not sure giving Ive a free hand in the design of OS X will go very well at all. People are passionate about this stuff, more so than iOS, and there is a long design history involved as well.
Ive is a good designer, but he’s no Steve Jobs, and his talents have been oversold. Do people even realise that there are more than a dozen other people who actually design the hardware and that he isn’t personally designing everything? I’d be happier to hear that the design *group* that he leads in the hardware design was being put in the drivers seat, not just Ive himself.
For that matter, when is Apple going to start recognising and talking about the actual employees that do all the work and stop pretending that it’s just the head guys? I’d like to see some Apple employees step out from behind that screen of secrecy they’ve held up for so long.
>>there can be no denying
Explicitly denying it.
I don’t know how this would look like later, but I’ve really liked the changes from ios 6 to ios 7.
ios7 is hideous and makes finding things harder because all the icons look alike with no shape cues. I have been using Mac since 1984 so don’t tell me what I don’t understand about Apple. When OSX goes to this gastly mess I won’t be upgrading my machines any more. If I want something that looks like Windows 8 I don’t need Apple to copy it.
I totally agree my friend!
People don’t like changes. But they’ll get use to it. And giving them some time, they’ll even love them. And then, there’ll be the need / time for changes and people will protest against it and… the cycle begins, again.
Consumer’s rules of parting with their money.
1) If you do not like the product as is and within 5 minutes… don’t buy it.
2) If you are told that you will learn to like it, don’t buy it.
3) If your experience is controlled and you do not like the experience within 5 minutes, do not buy it.
Three simple rules to design.
1) You have 30 seconds to make the user like it.
2) If you must tell the user that they will get use to it, you need to return to design school.
3) The guy with the money is always right, so design loosely. For interfaces, empower the user to make changes, but give them a reset button to fix errors they make quickly.
As stated by the report, Ive will assume control lead of the ios Software outline aggregation, relocating Christie. The assembly beforehand was headed by Christie, who http://goo.gl/JLzueu
See Daring Fireball’s followup post today (Wed, Apr 9) for an explanation that puts Christie’s departure in a less confrontational setting.
So, Tim Cook really has no idea what the hell is going on then? It shows!
Poor Apple, the decline starts now….
Wonder if there will be a retraction of the story now that more facts are in.
iOS7 is a minimalistic aberration.
I’m an architect so I understand good design when I see it.
IMO the iOS7 redesign was as bad as iOS Maps.
It is one of the less ergonomics (inhuman) peace of GUI design I’ve seen.
That is a huge disappointment considering Apple attention to detail and a pioneer in GUI design that goes back decades.
Currently I’m using an iPod and iPad with iOS6 and 7 respectively.
After several months of usage I still prefer iOS 6 by a long shot, it is more readable, intuitive, and humane.
Unfortunately Apple is no longer the same, the key people that made things happen in the priod from iPod to iPhone 4S is no longer there.
Ive is one the most overrated designer, the magic of Apple devices came from other people not him or his design.
I’ve seen some of his interviews and I am not impressed at all. There are many issues with his designs that are obvious to me.
I hope Apple makes a good GUI redesign for iOS8 before I get so frustrated and switch brand.
“I’m an architect so I understand good design when I see it.”
You obviously haven’t been to NYC lately, one of the preeminent architectural capitals of the world. Are you and your “good design” sense in any way responsible for the hideous new buildings popping up all over the damn place? ;)
“I’m an architect so I understand good design . . . ” Puhlease.
Jony Ive went to industrial design school and has received from his peers the highest honors in the design field.
So if you’re going to use credentials as a basis for design expertise, I think we’ll go with the other guy.
Industrial design is a very different field that hardware and software design. Being able to design the exteriors of cars and toasters doesn’t really translate to computer hardware and software design.
I agree with you. Ive is overrated. Hope his turn comes soon to leave Apple. I do not think that coming up with chamfered edges and then applying them to the rest of the line-up takes that much genius. IOS7 is just not right on so many levels. Even after the latest update, battery life sucks, and you have to go into obscure settings menus to turn off features which seem to be major additions to the UI, just to make it bearable on the eyes or on the battery. Just ridiculous.
Looking forward when Apple comes to its senses, and not looking forward to more Jony Ive release videos for any product.
On top of it all, 87% adoption rate is touted, when the option of going back to IOS6 is not there, and when IOS6 holdouts are penalized with a download that takes space away from the meager storage. Give me a break.
Now cue the “I’m a troll” comments, from all the people putting their fingers in their ears and screaming while anyone dares challenge Apple on their latest head-scratching moves. C’mon, who’s first? Tallest Skill? Spread your genius comments as you do on so many Apple forums.
Hate the latest updates to IOS and that is why I haven’t updated and am keeping my old 4s for as long as I can and then may even decide to buy a non Apple phone. Jobs would be rolling over in his grave if he saw what Ives was doing and I speak from experience bc my husband worked closely with Jobs. Apple has clearly lost its way since Jobs died. It is very sad. I used to love Apple products.
Since iOS 7, I found my iPhone to be more buggy, drain my batter quicker, and more difficult to use. And what the heck is going on with the number displayed on top of my mail icon? It used to just show me the number of unread messages. Now it shows me the total number of messages I have. WTF?!?
Apple used to be run by a visionary. Now it’s run by a bean counter.
Bean counter, yes, but a profound master of supply and logistics that even the sublime Jobs recognised as accomplished enough to leave Apple in his safe if unglamorous hands.
The creative and technical side of Apple is more than healthy enough (hence all the design and innovation arguments pro and con in this very thread!). The massive and unprecedented global demand and appreciation for Apple products, however, need its production line to be as seamlessly scalable as practicable in order to manage the terrific growth that has been achieved since 2001. And this is where Tim Cook is irreplaceable at the moment.
Don’t forget, as well, how the likes of Schiller and Fadell overruled an angry Steve Jobs in favour of releasing iTunes for Windows, and the sales avalanche that followed is now the stuff of history, creating the “halo effect” that paved the way for the iPhone, iPad and other marvellous things yet to drop down the awesome Apple pipeline of products.
The way I see it, things can only get better at Cupertino for the foreseeable future as long as they don’t lose their nerve and do another Forstall ouster, which I think was a panic measure.
You guys really need to read the Jobs biography. This move is very much in line with what Steve himself would have done – consolidated power under himself, because hardware and software have to work together.
Jony & Tim were Steve’s favorites, and the two are showing what they learned from him. Who, i you’ll remember, had his fair-share of failures.
Lisa? NeXT? The iMac “puck?” Power G4 Cube? ROKR? The HiFi? MobileMe? Hell, even the AppleTV has been lackluster, and I own the damn thing!
This year, we’ll see the release of the iPhone 6 and the iWatch. If those two products are failures, then there may be some credence to this line of thought, but otherwise, Jony seems to be doing what Steve taught him to do. I think it’s a potentially great thing for Apple & its future.
Jonny Ive is an industrial designer. That’s a totally different discipline than software and computer hardware design. Being able to design things in one discipline doesn’t typically translate into being able to design things in other disciplines without further education and experience.
I have used IOS 3, 4, 5, 6 and now 7, out of all IOS 7 has the most confusing UI. I still can’t get used to it. Buttons are not noticeable, background colour and foreground colour are similar. Font size become larger and smaller switching from one screen to another. The transparent effects make some apps in iPhone 5 laggy and so on. I don’t expect much good thing to come out from iPhone under Ive’s leadership in design. :(
I have bought 5 iPhones since the beginning, and I think “flat design” SUCKS. There is nothing exciting about it, and it makes using the iPhone less compelling and useful. Jony Ive needs to talk to customers for a reality check and stop bullying experienced staffers! (like Steve Jobs always did!).
Am I the only one who thinks that 10.10 actually equals to 10.1 and that mathematically 10.9 + 0.1 = 11?
The next iteration of Apple’s desktop operating system should be OS XI.
yea seeing .10 is weird.
10.10 means they’re not done with X yet.
Minor revisions will be dubbed 10.1x and major revisions 10.2, 10.3 etc
Apple was once, not long ago… (Prior to October 2011)… “The Light on The Hill”…. Now, “The Apple is falling further from the Tree”… as each year goes by. It’s hard to remain a leader, while steadily playing catch-up to all the other players on the field (i,e Samsung, LGT etc)…. Every year since “Steve Job’s passing” Apples yearly presentation meetings always starts with that lame quote…. “If we don’t get it right, we start over from scratch”…(Something to that affect)….In essence, all Tim Cooke has done since Steve Job’s passing, was to make… The iPad smaller & The iPhone Bigger….Stop fooling yourselves, Tim Cooke only cares about the numbers….Tim Cooke, is just Cooking The Books!…
design design design… many new software changes in Mavericks are stupid and as long IOS7 and Mavericks forces me to sync my personal data through an external server instead a usb cable, i will be one of those who will leave Apple again. Yes, even if it means to go back to horrible MSFT after all these years. Thank’s a lot Jony and all the rest of your NSA-friendly team, good job!
I’ve not worried about the Steve Jobs to Tim Cook transition. Cook seems to be a sensible, smart guy. If anything, I believe that he could free Apple to have host of creative divisions whose existence and funding isn’t dependent on whether what they’re doing excites Jobs. A company as huge as Apple needs that. It can’t be a one-man show.
But this Greg Christie out and Jony Ives on top squabble does have me worried. Ives strikes me as the sort of artist who talks about ‘art for art’s sake’ when they really mean ‘art for my expressive freedom’s sake.’ In practice that can mean something awful, with UI changes made for the sake of change (aka artistic vision, accompanied with a lot of words with no real content) rather than because it makes interacting any better.
It’s the difference between Picasso and Norman Rockwell. Yes, Picasso can draw a crowd. I worked at the Picasso exhibition in Seattle. We expected 250,000. A few days before it closed, attendance hit 400,000. But who’d want to actually live in a Picasso world, with both objects and people twisted, distorted and ugly. Living in the world of Rockwell is better and far more human. The latter is art for the sake of people not the artist.
From what I’ve heard from their employees: it’s transitioning from a design and engineering culture to a old-school MBA command-and-control structure. And supposedly, marketing is determining all the strategy now. And don’t get me wrong: marketing is an important component to a successful product. But I think this may be taking it too far to their own detriment.
Yep. That’s why I moved on.
bleh.
Ive is a temperamental moody artist! Jobs knew how to keep him in check, Cook is just scared of him. I’m afraid one of the iWatches will look like one of my kids toys r us watches. iPhone 5c? Really? Jobs rolled over in his grave over that one actually being released (He was alive for the idea, but never would have given the cheap plastic green light)! IOS is getting prettier (matter of opinion, of course Willie Wonka would love the candyland look), but not more user/business friendly and usable!? Who benefits other than people who only have enough time on their hands to worry about whether an icon looks “glassy” enough? Ive has always fought with Christie over these things, Ive’s “pretty” tulips over Christie’s “functional” swiss army knives. An example, Christie has been for extending the NC in IOS to show more info like an Android does. EMail, updates, FB, etc. Not necessarily widgitized, but customizable by the user (not just Ive making everybody’s decisions for them). Users want customization, businesses need it. The world is moving to fast. Ive, it has been reported, is simplifying the NC in IOS8 by only having one screen that shows only todays info. Thats useless!. Ive lives in a world of simplicity and less is more, a world where he’s fine wearing a black t-shirt every single day. Others do prefer more is less, but not many (Give us more, and if you like simple, turn some things off!!). He builds what he likes, but “NEVER” listens to what users want. I’m surprised Christie held on so long under Cook, innovation is dying at Apple. To many executive chefs in the kitchen thinking they are Julia Child. Jobs was the Executive chef, everybody else was a Sous Chef. Now it’s a food court with battling primadonna’s! I’m not saying other companies are doing any better, but Apple is no longer cutting edge. I was forced to use an Android for the month of February when my iPhone was stolen, and it was awful!! But when I went back to the iPhone 5s I really noticed how limited I was. How I was being told how my screen and phone should be. Apple has the chance to be “the” phone. Hardware and software. The whole package. But Ive’s “art project” is getting in the way.
Good post!
I was also exposed to Android, because I bought my dad a Nexus 5, however, I was disappointed at the lack of customization, which is what you hear so much about Android. In all, I think Microsoft will do well under their new leadership, as much as I’d dread it. Hopefully Apple wakes up.
Always believed UX has always had more roots in Product Design vs. Visual.
Christie has been publicly tell his team for over a month that he would be moving on. This is not a sudden move or a power-play by Jony.
Love Jony Ive and am very thankful Apple’s got him. iOS7 is great. Love the flat, minimalist look. Makes it easier to work. Looking forward to the new OS 10.10. Criticism is easy and second-nature to the second-rate. Thanks Jony. Will keep buying the stuff and so will my friends and family.
Not sure if you’re sincere, or just trolling. No-one can “love” that design as much as you proclaim.
Not a troll. A relatively new Apple user who came over from 25 years of Windows. It’s a breath of fresh air. Have brought over friends and family, too.
And, I don’t like critics who couldn’t do anything close to what they are criticizing themselves, but don’t have any more self-awareness than to mouth off ignorantly about the successful creativity of others who work extremely hard at their craft.
I appreciate the artist and creator, not the critic.
Ah ok, that would explain it then. You came over into iOS 7 without experiencing the beauty of previous iOS iterations. Yeah, I suppose that iOS 7 is still better than the kindergarten Windows 8 tiles. Would have been better if you’d seen iOS 6 first, then you might feel differently.
I also came over from DOS/Windows after 25 years and so far the experience is positive and one can appreciate all the hard work e.t.c. Though the question remains, why oh why did Apple think iOS 7 design would be a good idea :(