If one chooses to be extremely cynical, this is exactly the story Apple would want to tell shareholders in the wake of Ive's departure: Everything is fine, Ive was already detached from the company's recent successes, Eurasia has always been at war with Eastasia. Nothing to be worried about.
Dialing that back a few notches, I genuinely hope that Ive's departure means Apple is considering a new approach for the design of their products. Years of product releases with crummy butterfly keyboards, nixed headphone jacks and missing magSafe have left me with no desire to purchase my next laptop from Apple. Maybe once the current pipeline drains we can look forward to Mac laptops that gain useful features and don't fall apart in months.
> Dialing that back a few notches, I genuinely hope that Ive's departure means Apple is considering a new approach for the design of their products
I'm more worried that without a chief of design with a strong will and veto power, the next generation of designers will just cargo cult Ive and we'll get products with all the downsides and no upsides. If it's true he's has been absent maybe that's what we've already been seeing?
I have a feeling that Ive went off the deep end with his obsession with thinness and it reached a point with the MBP keyboards where Apple couldn't turn a blind eye anymore. Similar to Scott Forstall being forced out over the Apple Maps disaster.
If there's one thing more important to Apple than Ive, it's the Apple brand and nothing says "premium" like adding a product to a repair program on the day it comes out. I suspect that the knives were out for Ive after that humiliation.
Would Apple fire Ive over a MacBook issue? That's not where the money is by any means, is it? As long as the iPhone is doing well, business is good at Apple.
I don’t blame Ive/Apple too much for the butterfly keyboard issues, at least not per se. It’s hard to predict how a design will hold up after multiple years of use, and the failure rate isn't at world-on-fire levels.
However, I absolutely fault Apple for sticking with this keyboard after so many years. I know hardware designs are planned well in advance, but the 12-inch Macbook came out in early 2015. How did they look at the failure rate of that model and decide “yep, we should definitely release a Macbook Pro with this type of keyboard.” And then, why have they stuck with that design for four years and counting?
If Apple didn't or doesn't have anything else ready... well, first of all, why did they not have an alternative design ready, especially when they also ran into this problem with the Macbook Pro? But, secondly, Apple could just update the guts of the 2015 MBP, which is what everyone wants them to do anyway.
I realize it's misguided to assign feelings to entire corporations, but... Apple just strikes me as so needlessly stubborn sometimes. As if we consumers are small children, and Apple can't go back to the old keyboard lest we be rewarded for whining.
> It’s really hard to predict how a design will hold up after multiple years of use
It's really not - predicting lifetime expectancy and failure rates is a discipline of industrial engineering. That is why it's possible to estimate the number of open/close cycles of hinges is possible to estimate with a great degree of accuracy. A company has to master art this for selfish reasons - so that they can minimize repair costs during the warranty period
Sure, but how do you know if your tests match real-world use?
I'm not an engineer, so you may well know much more about this, but it seems reasonable to me that real-world people, or some percentage of real-world people, aren't going to hit your keys in the exact way you tested for. If the effects don't appear for years out, what type of user test can you design to account for that?
> Sure, but how do you know if your tests match real-world use?
As a product category, laptops have existed for close to 40 years, and Apple has been a successful and high end participant in that category for close to thirty. If they can't produce a reasonable keyboard reliability test or lack the willingness to do so, then they have other problems that are vastly more concerning than anything about a couple specific computer models.
But aren't the problems being caused by dirt particles? That's not the same kind of thing as cycle life. I can imagine them originally overlooking the need to test for, and indeed design for, dirt rejection. And now I think the extreme thinness of the keyboard has left them no room to fix the problem.
They first introduced this keyboard in April 2015 on the new 12" and first added it to the MacBook Pro in October 2016. So they had 18 months to notice and resolve the issues.
From everything I understand, the design cycles for most Apple products run 18+ months, and given that the late 2016 MBPs were the first ones with the Touch Bar (sigh), the chances are it had an even longer design-to-ship cycle. By the time reports of keyboard failures were coming in around late 2015, the MBP design was almost certainly set in stone. Also, I suspect Apple spent a more than a year after that genuinely believing they could just tweak the keyboard to resolve the problems.
The 2016 MBP's may have been designed, but Apple did not need to ship them.
More importantly, Apple did not need to also ship the 2017 MPB, the 2018 MBP(s), or the 2018 MBA. If they didn't have any alternate designs in the pipeline (why is that?), they should have reverted back to the 2015 design, with new parts.
Maybe? I don't think you're wrong, but I think all of those have reasonably easy explanations if you assume that Apple genuinely believed they had a good design that just needed some tweaking to correct, and I think they genuinely believed that. There weren't new designs in the pipeline that used fundamentally different keyboards. There weren't designs in the pipeline that went back on "all you need is USB-C." (I wouldn't be at all surprised if they stick with that, actually; it's conceivable that the 16" MBP that's rumored as their next release will add back an SD slot, but I'd be a little surprised if it adds back a USB-A port. I also expect it to continue to have a Touch Bar, although it may add back a physical escape key.)
> if you assume that Apple genuinely believed they had a good design that just needed some tweaking to correct.
Well, that's the point where I'd call Apple's judgement into question. They should have put the breaks on new releases with the keyboard until they had a clearer picture of what was going on.
Very real environmental issues aside, I'd question how many consumers ever actually repair their laptops. If it's not many, then you're making everyone's computer thicker to benefit a few.
The environmental angle, then, just comes down to whether Apple can recycle parts in as eco-friendly a way as they claim.
I'm personally willing to give up repairability for a thin laptop. I'm far less willing to give up actual usability—I want a good keyboard, and I want compatibility with the most common types of thumb drives in active use today.
>Very real environmental issues aside, I'd question how many consumers ever actually repair their laptops.
Actual consumers? Very few. But a repairable machine retains much greater tradein/resale value reducing the chances it heads straight for the landfill. Witness the mighty 2012—2015 MacBook Pro and the resale value it commands to this day.
It's quite typical to replace batteries. And this machine solved that problem really well. Or it made it trivial to run on A/C, without battery.
Furthermore, having easy access to components means the effective lifetime of hardware is much longer. You can repair things when it is no longer economical to do so at an Apple Store.
I wish some laws were passed forcing manufacturers to display a repairability score, similar to the one that already exists for energy usage.
>Furthermore, having easy access to components means the effective lifetime of hardware is much longer. You can repair things when it is no longer economical to do so at an Apple Store.
And now you know why Apple dropped those features.
But how well the iPhone does depends a lot on Apple's premium brand image. They better not jeopardize that by selling any kind of rotten fruit under the same brand.
In my view, leaving that keyboard issue unresolved for years has been a terrible mistake.
"Fire" might be the wrong word with someone as Ive, but it might have pushed a decision which was long in the coming, according to the article. If Ive had been already unhappy, any disputes about the keyboard and possibly returning to the previous designs might cause him to finally cut the ties into Apple. Or, it might have made Tim Cook to demand a level of involvement of Ive, what Ive is no longer willing to have.
Haha there's been quite a few Apple products that have failed out of the gate. Remember, they released an iPhone that couldn't make calls if you held it wrong and that was when Steve Jobs was still alive. Or what about the Power Mac Cube?
They didn't know about those at the time of release; they were mistakes. The recent MacBook Pro got an extended repair program as it was released. Which could be either a way to assure customers, or a recognition of the fact that the kb was still too delicate and they had no choice but to put it out anyway.
I own a Cube, it’s 18 years old and still runs. The problem with the Cube was that it cost too much - it was basically a low-end PowerMac at a high-end PowerMac price. Turns out there wasn’t a market for it.
Still the best looking computer ever made in my opinion.
I think Jony Ive lifted an entire industry and perhaps a generation to “good design” (and brought a lot more attention to Dieter Rams[0][1][2]). That we’re here talking about it (for the 3rd(?) time on HN front page) is a testament to that. That said, I think humans got lost in the process, at least occasionally, but not just recently. I don’t recall which models, but sometime the MacBooks adopted really sharp edges on the bottom slab - I found it uncomfortable to sit at (did my piano teacher have input, as a final “keep your wrists up!” order?). Or the orientationally challenged hockey-puck mouse[3]... Compare with the (not problem-free, mind) Thinkpad, which may seem more designed and exciting when you see it’s got a singular inspiration that they seem to have honoured for years[4] (how brave is that, to not change?).
I wonder if Apple didn’t feel self-imposed pressure to keep asserting its design dominance, and therefore look for ways to change. We’re all just armchair quarterbacks here though. in the end I think Jony Ive did more good than harm.
The sharp edges are a crystal clear example of Ive's pursuit of form over function. It's insane to have sharp edges that users may touch with their wrists, especially the sharp points on each side of the cutout below the trackpad. Ever since Macbooks had that "feature" I've been rounding off the edges with fine sandpaper and then polishing them. It's a wonderful improvement.
Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.
To me, pretty much any modern Thinkpad[0] looks like 90s laptops[1] made out of crappy, flexing plastic whereas something as sleek as a MacBook Air[2] from the same year looks positively futuristic.
If (when?) I jump ship I'll either get an XPS 13 or a T4XXs, and the only reason I'm undecided is because of Thinkpads their design, especially the gratuitous logo-ing.
Although there is research that people perform measurably better on attractive gear. Aside from that, I believe around a third of all GitHub commits originate from macOS. Perhaps form and function often go hand in hand :)
are good starting points.
The essence is that people rate appealing devices as better performing, even if they factually work identical. Due to that halo effect they will perform on them better. The second source points out that if you measure something like 'type these 100 words' there will be no factual performance difference between appealing and unappealing devices, but on a higher level it does lead to things like more creative thinking.
My own guess would be pretty much what the studies say: people enjoy using appealing devices more, which leads to aggregate benefits: less stress which leads to more creative thinking, more use of the device, the device is better maintained, etc.
Industrial design includes materials science and process design as well as aesthetics.
In fact the aesthetics are the easy part. Ive has always talked about materials and processes in interviews and videos, so it's unlikely his sole contribution has been doodling rounded rectangles on napkins.
The question is the extent to which Apple's recent missteps are his fault.
Jobs seems to have had veto power over bad or self-indulgent design. Cook isn't aesthetically sophisticated enough to do that with any flair.
That leaves complicated collective politics in charge of the design process. Promoting Ive out of the company may or may not improve that - time will tell.
I bought plenty of Apple hardware with fundamental thermal issues or other problems caused by overreaching design during Jobs' reign, so I'm not sure how much he exercised this veto.
Again, purely from the thinness issue, ( and not the keyboard )
The current 2016 MBP design were likely done in 2014/2015, with Intel's roadmap pointing to 10nm in 2016 and 7nm in 2019. Intel over promised on 10nm super low power capability ( Well may be that is still true, but no one know it couldn't yield ), and you would naturally expect 7nm with EUV to be better.
The 2016 MBP design had 45W TDP for CPU in mind, Imagine the 2016 MBP came out with 10nm, and updated with 7nm this year. That is easily an 8 Core CPU with much better IPC. Even the 10nm Icelake offered 20% IPC improvement, who knows what Intel Promised for 7nm.
So I don't think it really was an overreaching issue. Intel had a 3 years delay in delivery, and now looking likely at 4 years as 45W 10nm wont come until 2020.
Ives has led the entire design process for Apple's device range, at least until the relatively recent past. Like you I'm not sure to what degree Apple's problems as a whole are attributable to him (certainly not everything of course), but as a designer of his calibre he should be able to make the design decisions that produce a better UX in the product, with or without Jobs. It's why he earns the big bucks.
With that in mind, I'd say the issues in Apple's recent range (of a design nature) can be attributed to him. He's taken minimalism past its extreme in recent years, getting rid of things that are part of the device's essential nature in favour of aesthetics and creating something that has great UI but terrible UX.
There are a couple of failures (trashcan mac for example, Macbook Pro butterfly keyboard to a degree) but it is hard to argue that Apple's product designs over the last decade haven't been a massive success in general.
Sure you can point out gripes (the touch bar, lack of ports, no headphone jack etc.) but in almost every product category there are at most a couple other products which can compete in terms of build quality, aesthetics, and functionality. And people have certainly bought a lot of units of most of these products, so it's hard to classify them as "failures" by any objective metric.
If anything I think Apple has such a strong reputation for having categorically the "best designs" that they can't help falling short of expectations, and there's a whole category of journalism dedicated to catastrophizing every perceived flaw.
In other words they're not perfect but they're undeny
to me the butterfly keyboard is an example of operations overruling design. follow me, design came out with this new keyboard to fit their requirements and manufacturing of the final product had some issues. so one would expect design to iterate and adapt looking for a new means to accomplish their original goals but operations, concerned about the dollar, will stick with the current format to save money. that focus on profit is probably the reason for the iMac languishing on its seven year old chassis and the fact Apple will keep production in China even after all the recent abuses of human rights to include pressure on Hong Kong. The profit is more important than the product
now if I can find fault with the design side it is in the Mac Pro. Both models seemed to have been created for Apple, if not Ive, instead of the customers who had been using the Mac Pro platform for a decade plus. Just from the presentations of both its all form over function, look at how cool we are in making this. Sadly the new one is so over priced it left the original market still without a valid replacement for even the 2013 model.
Given that the HQ was supposedly Ive perhaps Apple design can be summarized as audacious to the point of pretentiousness. If that has got to go to focus back on what people want then so be it.
If it works, the butterfly keyboard is a very good keyboard. For a laptop. It boils down all the nerd arguments about why the IBM model M is still the best keyboard in the world (tactile and overall feedback) and brings it to the modern era. Combined with the restriction of mobile devices. Perfect. If it would not break down so easily.
I’m in the minority but for me the butterfly keyboard is the best of all keyboards. Personally I want to have tactile feedback but also as little pressing effort as possible. The keyboard does both. Somehow my back and arm just don’t tire as much.
I have a 2017 MBP for work and a 2015 personal MBP. I love good laptop keyboards, my fingers tire out using heavy mechanical keyboards with long travel. I loved my 2015 keyboard. Until I got the 2017. Now the 2015 feels like mush, like I'm typing on silicone. The 2017 is nice a clicky and satisfying while still keeping the shallow travel.
I haven't personally encountered any issues of the keys sticking though I know people who have. That's a real and serious problem, although it sounds like Apple may have figured it out in later models. But personally I love the feel of the clicky short-travel 2017 keyboard. About the only thing I don't like is the arrow keys, I miss the cutouts above the left/right arrow keys to help find them easier.
I don't think you are in minority. I work with many apple users and noone actually likes pre-tb keyboards more if they worked on new ones. I think it's just vocal minority at work here.
I hate it when I sit in the train and people are using mechanical keyboards. The noisy ones are always MBPs. They get a thin device, I get the noise.
(Obviously, I'd hate this in an office space as well.)
I also don't get the point that MBPs need to weight less or become thinner. My MBP 2015 13" and 15" are light and thin enough as it is. The sacrifice isn't worth it.
Agree. Going back to the prior keyboards feels like typing on mush. There is an adjustment period though where constantly swapping back and forth could be uncomfortable.
I’m with you. I’ve used Apple laptops for ages (and ThinkPads before that) and prefer the newest MBP keyboards, when they’re not repeating kkeys at least.
And if you really want to go down the rabbit hole, check out this insanely detailed description of how the old selectric typewriters work (the beam spring was designed to replicate the feel of the selectric's wiffletree mechanism): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJITkKaO0qA&t=597s
Indeed. I think Apple's biggest risk isn't what happens when Ive leaves, it's that he left five years ago and we're seeing the results now - except with no chance of a significant correction coming as a result of Ive's departure.
You can pry from my dead hands my one cable from the monitor to the laptop and ability to charge the laptop from both sides. Not to mention that I can use chargers from anyone, not just from Apple, I can buy non-Apple charging cables, and with my Mac charger I can charge growing numbers of gadgets (so far iPad and Nintendo Switch).
Yeah, MagSafe had a nice, satisfying "click" when engages, but I find USB-C charging much more convenient.
If my laptop already had usb-c and could be charged through it, why would I want an extra, different format charging port? Why not add a micro-usb one, for three different charging ports?
I read their message as saying USB-C with MagSafe technology to prevent the cord from pulling the machine off your desk if tripped over, and not two separate ports. Basically as it exists but a modification to the cable or connector to have magnetic breakaways or something?
Presumably people think the magsafe connection is better. I wonder about that though. I have a magsafe mac and my cable wears out after a year or two. Do the USB-C charging cables have the same problem?
Magsafe 2 seems better than either version of Magsafe 1 (there was straight and then right-angled).
I broke a ton of those Magsafe 1 chargers over the years, have yet to break a Magsafe 2 charger.
Probably, but why? When every laptop had it's own proprietary charging cable, MagSafe was the best. But I'll take standard charging cable over proprietary every time. I don't feel any need for MagSafe and I don't want MagSafe socket on my laptop (because I think that would made already slow USB-C adoption slower)
My laptop, a Surface Go, can be charged either with USB C or with the little flimsy microsoft magnetic connector. I like having both options. At home, my surface dock uses that connection so I didn't need to buy new hardware when I upgraded to the Surface Go. When travelling, I carry its own proprietary charger which charges faster than USBC. When going to coffee shops or small co-working sessions, I carry either a battery pack with USB C PD or a USB C charger that is smaller than its own proprietary one and also charges my phone. I enjoy having options and using the best for the occasion.
Man, Mac users are the clumsiest beings on the World. Macs are what? Below 7% market share? And somehow 7%, based on constant whining, trips over their power cords much more than the silent 93% of the population.
You have a computer with four sockets on both sides, you can plug into each of these holes a standard (non-Apple) cable, on the other side of the cable can be a standard USB-C (non-Apple) charger or a battery pack that can charge your laptop together with your phone and your gadgets. And yet, that's much less important than the glorified party trick.
Does this really need to be trolled into a Mac-PC flamewar? MagSafe was popular (and widely recognized as a good feature even by PC users) because people use laptops in crowded places, have pets and kids, etc.
Nobody is saying that USB-C doesn't have strengths but this was a feature which many people felt valuable for valid reasons. It's also annoying to lose since it'd be an easy change to fix by putting the safety release on the charger so you'd have the same protection in the most common configuration.
Flamewar? I'm Mac user. And I consider USB-C the best thing on new MacBooks. If I ever change platform, I would not consider buying laptop with proprietary charging.
I have three Mag-Safe chargers in my drawer (one broken), from my previous laptops. If they're standard (USB-C) chargers, I would use them for something. So I hope Apple will not put any non-standard "safety releases" on their chargers in the future.
I hope someone will make a cable with something similar to mag-safe (I know there's couple of kickstarters, I don't know how good these thing works) so we can finally put this story behind.
>Man, Mac users are the clumsiest beings on the World. Macs are what? Below 7% market share? And somehow 7%, based on constant whining, trips over their power cords much more than the silent 93% of the population.
Or, you know, Mac users actually use their laptops outside, and in situations where one might trip on the charger cable much more often than PC users with clunky "desktop replacement" behemoths.
Besides, one obviously cares more for a $2000+ laptop going flying off the table than for a $500 POS PC laptop.
Which both sides? I'm typing this on the MacBook Pro. And I'm really pissed off on Apple because of half-baked touch bar, and because letter N on my first generation butterfly keyboard is starting to stutter. But USB-C power? That's the thing I'm expecting Apple to do - to drive the whole industry kicking and screaming into the new direction. Do you really think we would see Dells and Lenovos and HPs with USB-C power without MacBooks being first, without compromises like "let's include MagSafe too"?
The new Mac Pro was the first glimmer of hope. Now I read that they are releasing updated mbp 13 without touchbar. If they start offering full powered full port mbp 13 without touchbar my optimisim will be back.
I think Apple’s problem will be that Jobs usually had a very good feeling which radical change will get accepted and which won’t. The current Apple will probably listen to customer feedback but I doubt they will be able to release game changers like iPod or iPhone.
Apple Watch has been a game changer in some respects.
I don't think anybody expected it to be as successful as it has been. And the feature set and their acquisitions e.g. Beddit gives a really interesting insight into where Apple is heading in the health sector.
> Apple Watch has been a game changer in some respects. I don't think anybody expected it to be as successful as it has been.
It has disappointed, actually, according to the very article we are commenting on: "The company sold about 10 million units in the first year, a quarter of what Apple forecast"
You're not wrong, but the context here is that iPhone sells over 200 million units a year. The chances of them having any other products which can even come close to matching that, is very very low.
The original iPod is a peripheral for people who already have Macs. Even later on, the iPod is a peripheral for people who already have either a Mac or a Windows PC.
My point is, peripherals can be successful and game-changing.
You're right, but I think the key here is that Mac and Windows support - essentially covering near 100% of the addressable market - made the iPod what it was.
The day watch becomes standalone and/or compatible with Android is the day it has a chance of becoming a true game changer. Until then I wouldn't even describe it as a peripheral, but just an accessory for an iPhone really.
> I don't think anybody expected it to be as successful as it has been
How do you measure success? Because there is no way any comparison with the number of people who own an iPhone or any other kind of Apple device. Even in Japan where Apple has the lion share of the smartphone market I hardly see people with an Apple watch.
> Because there is no way any comparison with the number of people who own an iPhone
Apparently you measure success by "besting the single greatest consumer product success story in a generation". By this metric, virtually nothing would be considered a success.
Meanwhile, Apple became the biggest watchmaker in the world as of 2017. After only three years of producing watches, they unseated literally every other watchmaker in the world on revenue. That seems pretty damned successful to me.
Funny thing was that stories about how the Apple Watch is a flop continued well past the point when Apple lapped all of the watchmakers out there. Some bullshit stories just won't die.
Certainly in Sydney. I notice because I think they're over priced at AU$250, and I'm surprised how many school kids have them. I would lose them in a week.
Heaps in Melbourne as well. Personally I find them daggy; if they're anything like the earphones included with the iPhone 3 they'd fall out of my ears if I just turned my head.
Samsung Buds OTOH stay in (and don't have the daggy bits hanging out).
I also have had problems with Apple's wired earphones staying in, so I was skeptical of the AirPods. But they stay in great. Turns out that most of the problem was the weight of the cord.
The amazing thing about the classic Apple designs was the way they managed to be textbook Veblen goods while also appearing to be gender and class neutral. They were aspirationally expensive, but not blingy.
That changed when gold and pink started to creep into the design vocabulary and the prices started moving up. The classic designs were more democratic. Not everyone could afford them, but they managed the neat trick of appearing to be visually inclusive rather than aggressively exclusive.
From that POV, Watch has been a design failure. It lacks the social status of the high-end I-have-money watch brands. It's neither expensive-but-neutral nor an outrageously self-indulgent statement product. The expensive straps and stainless steel variants made a pitch for the latter, but it was never convincing.
As a signifier it's visually bland and even slightly vulgar, which is why it hasn't had the same cultural impact. It's also why it works for C1/C2s but not for the ABs. Sales may be fine, but in its current form it's never going to be the covert high status product that Apple used to do so well.
Apple products, while expensive in a general consumer goods sense are not anywhere near the pricing of a typical Veblen good, they have never been particularly status driven throughout their history in either computers or phones, and their sales violate the textbook definition of a Veblen good, sales dropped substantially when prices increased.
Apple is much more in line with a premium brand driven good like Nike, or Sony.
A true Veblen good phone would cost like $20000, be gold cased and nobody you know would own one.
Not just the Mac Pro, but the iMac Pro, Mac mini, and iPad Pros are all outstanding computers. (No, Apple will never make an affordable, upgradable mid-tower, but the new Mac mini plus an external GPU is close.)
I'd say keep the Touch Bar, but add an escape key.
Regardless of how you feel about Apple's design choices, recent improvements in both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi mean that it's clear to even those that can't predict the future that wired/corded connections are going to be obsolete for all but the highest bandwidth (i.e. Thunderbolt/PCI/uncompressed UHD+ display) interfaces (and, of course, power). Most peripherals used by most people will be entirely wireless. This isn't an Apple thing, this is just the way things are going in our industry.
If you want "full port", invent a time machine and travel back to the time when people accepted cables. That time is gone now.
I hope the pairing experiences we will commonly have will be much improved, because just about every time I use Bluetooth to pair anything I have to go through a struggle.
Airpods still have annoyances for me at times. Sometimes doesn't connect, sometimes connects. Sometimes won't disconnect from another device. It's a bit better than a standard bluetooth device, but still not great.
My impression of airpods is they added on demand 'connect to me' and always on device listing to the bluetooth protocol.
I think a way to solve the 'which device to connect to' conundrum is to make NFC re-association a standard thing with bluetooth devices. So instead of screwing around with software menus, you would bash your 2 devices together and have them (re)connect within 200ms.
The nintendo switch kind of gives this to you with their joycons. Slide the joycon in and it's associated & connected with that switch, no software fuckery required. It's a lot nicer than many other BT experiences for me.
Wifi on the other hand, has been fairly good since day 1.
The general direction an industry is going isn't usually the issue. Most designers can predict the general trends in an 'infinite timescale'.
The issue comes to when it's a acceptables trade-off. I think for now the wireless future is not here yet, and won't be for the next year or 18 months.
Apple didn't pull it off with it's AirPods (too pricy for wide adoption, still lag in the bluetooth stack, only 3 or 3 designs available for something that needs to fit on people's ear), I'd say they were too early to pull the plug on wired.
This argument has been made since the iMac without a floppy drive or non-USB serial port.
If they were too early, people would stop buying their devices because of the "lack" of functionality. They haven't. That means that the people who claim they're too early were wrong.
It turns out that most people who buy computers and most people who complain about the range of ports on computers are not the same size groups, and are mostly not comprised of the same people.
The pace of purchase of the laptops and iPhones slowed down though. It can be attributed to a lot of factors, but we can't make the blanket argument "it's selling more than ever so they can't be doing it wrong" anymore.
This "it's not for you" eliteism that creeps in when defending this product is getting ridiculous.
I feel I very much should be in Apples target for a pro-machine considering my Windows workstation is a dual GPU 1080Ti machine (cost a fraction of an iMac Pro and outperforms it) I use for 3D rendering, animation and video editing. Yet when I point out it's terrible value I again just get told it's not for me and it's for people who edit "Marvel movies" for a living.
I mean the only real complaint you could have with their pre-Mac Pro lineup was it just didn't have any way to fill niches, everything had to be good for the 80% and not right for rest. Wouldn't it have made a lot more sense to target this product as modular enough to fill the rest of those needs instead of targetting it specifically at the highest-of-high-end blockbuster movie editors.
Indeed, the "it's not for you" argument is tiresome precisely because the people who seem most disappointed about Mac Pro pricing are the people who actually need a powerful, expandable Mac. My mom doesn't care what it costs, because she doesn't need one, but I've used Mac Pros for years, and I actually need one.
There was a time when Mac Pros were an excellent value, and you could afford one if you were a modestly successful entrepreneur. But with the new Mac Pro, Apple seems to largely ignore the needs of entrepreneurs and small studios. It appears targeted at large studios where the cost premium is a rounding error.
But contrary to popular belief, many "professionals" do consider cost when buying equipment. Being able to depreciate this stuff on your taxes doesn't suddenly make the cost irrelevant.
I've got to admit, it has some "object appeal". I definitely would not dismiss the aesthetic aspect of it.
On the other hand one has to wonder, however, if at some point around the same specs as the "low-end" mac pro, that a server wouldn't make more sense? Can you stuff a pro graphics card into a Dell R740 and have it far enough away that the fan roar won't be an issue when editing 4K video?
I mean, there's no "making sense" here. The minute anyone invokes "value" regarding this unit, it's a failed argument on both sides. Of course the Mac Pro is overpriced as hell and there is no way to extract actual value from this device. It is also very specifically not the point of it, which means it's like arguing about the value of a Bugatti.
The Mac Pro is a luxury good and should be viewed as such. The fact that the tech community is up in arms about it because it's technically a computer is really their own fault for misclassifying the device.
I feel the same way about the Tesla semi truck. I have a pickup truck that I use to haul a trailer and it certainly didn't cost $150,000. People keep trying to tell me the Telsa semi was made for a market that sits above my own market, a market where the price makes sense, but I just can't imagine that market even exists.
Why would anyone buy a Telsa semi truck when the Ram 3500 HD costs half the price?
You are mixing up the vehicle categories. The Tesla Semi is for pulling 40 ton trailers, it is not a pickup truck. Independant from the Semi, Tesla is expected to introduce a pickup truck in a couple of months, which supposedly costs around $50k.
That was the entire point of my comment. I'm saying whywhywhywhy is confusing two different product categories just because those categories happen to overlap slightly at the high end of one category and the low end of the other.
Then your posting was pure mockery and not only necessarily recognizable as such, but also not adding anything to the discussion. If you had made a clear statement about what you disagreed with, it might have improved the discussion.
And I don't think that the posting you answered was wrong. Apple calls this machine a "Mac Pro", so any professional users should be targetted by it - they don't have any other machines for professionals who require a desktop machine. Instead, they should have called it the "Mac Hollywood", as this seems to be the target audience.
Mockery? Hardly. The real intention was to use an analogy to prove the absurdity of the comment. I’m sure plenty of Ram 3500 HD drivers consider themselves professionals yet have no need for a semi truck. Any argument for/against these machines that hinges on the definition of “professional” is inherently worthless because “professional” is such a broad spectrum.
I know plenty of professionals who use an 11” MacBook Air. Your definition of professional is not the same as everyone else’s, and it’s ridiculous to try to fit everyone else to your own mold.
Basically, stop using the argument “no REAL professional would ever...”. It’s a worthless argument.
Mockery? Hardly. The real intention was to use an analogy to prove the absurdity of the comment.
There was no absurdity in the comment you answered on. Apple pitches the machine for a general "professional" audience, especially as it is the only modular Mac offerring. But in fact they only designed (and more importantly) priced it for a very special subsection of the professional audience. So they should be more specific in their pitch and also offer a modular machine for the rest of the professional users.
And your original comment would have been more constructive, if you had tried to make your point explicitly, as you are doing now.
Your definition of professional is not the same as everyone else’s, and it’s ridiculous to try to fit everyone else to your own mold.
I am not doing so. The original poster (and I agree) just also wants a modular Mac machine.
Basically, stop using the argument “no REAL professional would ever...”. It’s a worthless argument.
I have nowhere said that, please stop putting words into my mouth.
It's absolutely ridiculous. The very fact that the tech community can't even come to a full consensus on who the device actually is for... it's very telling that it's really for no one.
Serious question. Can you manipulate 8k streams in real time on your workstation? Can you playback 3 streams of 8K or 12 streams of 4K simultaneously?
I'm not in the industry but from what I have observed of friends who are this Mac Pro is a machine that will evolve workflows compared to a DIY build workstation. As far as audio is concerned which I know more about this Mac Pro will be the industry standard for quite some time. They are already redesigning DAW software to facilitate the extra potential it provides.
The Mac Pro can't do any of that either unless you get the add-in cards that specifically accelerate that. There's nothing magic about the core system. Same Xeon-Ws that everyone else has. Same ECC RAM as everyone else. Same PCI-E lanes as everyone else. Same GPUs as everyone else. Same performance as everyone else.
The video accelerator card is the only Mac Pro-specific thing, and it's competing against existing (albeit more expensive) products that enable that, too. Like the RED ROCKET-X. Or the CUDA-accelerated decoders on Quadros that you can't put in a Mac Pro.
I bet he can do that more effectively on his DIY build than a top of the line Mac Pro can. Hell, he can put a faster Xeon in for half of the price and already beat it on whatever the Xeon would beat an I7 in.
The graphics card in the Mac Pro is older. You can add multiple. There's nothing revolutionary about it that can't also be done with (for example, as mentioned above), dual 1080 Ti systems or better.
Except... if your content is all in ProRes. Then the accelerator card makes an appearance and could make life more pleasant. But if your workflow isn't ProRes, then that pleasantry comes at the cost of 1) more than doubling storage requirements, and 2) transcoding time (which is slow, because the ProRes accelerator won't help in turning something else _into_ ProRes).
For DAWs, I'm struggling to see the "extra potential" - it's a Xeon processor.
I know there are some configurations at some points in the product refresh cycle where Apple computers are price-competitive with Windows computers, but this isn't an example of it.
And you need to consider that Xeon W by the time the Mac Pro ships will be an even worse value in light of what AMD is doing. The W-3223 is a $749 chip and has only 8 cores and 16 threads. At a similar price point (rumors are 700-ish) we expect the EPYC 7282 with 16 cores and 32 threads at only a slightly lower clock (rumors are 3.2 base vs 3.5 for the Xeon W). And let's not forget the ... well what else can be said? ... the epic amount of PCIe bandwidth these EPYC chips will bring. Without using very expensive data center oriented PCIe 3.0 x8 SSDs, normal PCIe 4.0 x4 SSDs are going to give these EPYC servers a very serious boost.
I had actually set some money aside ahead of the WWDC, wanting to replace my iMac 5k with a Mac Pro, if such a thing was announced. So for the starting price of the "can" Mac Pro (2999), or somewhat above, I would have hit the trigger. But there is no way I can afford or justify the 5999 - and until you have a working system, there is so much more money to spend.
> Pretty good value for money for pros who need what it is designed for.
Come on, this is just not true. It's an 8-core with 32GB of RAM and 256GB SSD for 6000$. Just because Apple found some PC workstation that's even more expensive than the Mac Pro doesn't mean it's good value.
Not for "pros" in general. For a certain group of video editors it is great. For other professionals, it would be nice, but is priced far outside of the budgets.
> And you should only be buying the monitor if you are after a reference quality display. In which case you would know how cheap it is.
Apple's display specs are impressive but it's not actually going to compete with reference displays. It's missing all the actual reference display features (interlacing controls, SDI inputs, programmable LUT, info overlays, etc...). You can buy more products that add that, like this input box from Blackmagic: https://www.studiodaily.com/2019/06/blackmagic-caters-apple-... But now the price is adding up and you've got more boxes and dongles to deal with.
But out of the box the display itself is competing with high-end color accurate displays, the content creation displays. It's not competing at all with reference displays.
All that said more relevant to this discussion is the fact that Apple doesn't have a cheaper display at all. If you want a workstation and you go to an Apple store the only monitor option they have is the Pro Display XDR, when all you may actually want or need is the display from an iMac just in a standalone case for use with the Mac Pro.
I've argued that that's probably deliberate - everyone buying the new Pro ought to need a lot of something. For some people it'll be CPU, some people GPU, some people RAM, some storage, etc. The base model has a good enough CPU if all you need is loads of GPU, a good enough GPU if all you need is loads of CPU, etc, etc.
tl;dr the only people who buy the base model will be the enthusiasts who just want a Mac Pro, and they are indeed getting a bad deal, but this machine isn't for them, however much they want it to be.
I think the bottleneck for nearly everyone is the 256GB SSD, which is borderline insane for a $6000 machine. A 512GB or even 1TB SSD over 256GB is peanuts (well, unless you purchase the upgrade from Apple).
256GB does not store you a lot of RAW photos, video, or whatever Pros are editing with this machine.
Pros aren't using the drive in a machine as the authoritative storage for raw photos, videos, or whatever they're editing with that machine. Hell, I don't even do that, and I'm just a nerd with a couple of cameras.
A couple year ago I started buying computers with the smallest hard-drives offered, because my primary storage is now on an NFS NAS across a VPN (if I'm not home.) Everything is in one place and the storage is cheaper. NFS thankfully works better on MacOS than it did a few years ago.
Not a good configuration for everybody, but pretty good for me.
Recent pro hardware (Mac Pro, iMac Pro, iPad Pro, and yes, the Mac mini is "pro" now) has been excellent. The laptops haven't been refreshed since Apple started firing on all cylinders in this regard.
Going all-in on USB C was the right move. I love having just one cable sticking out of my MacBook Pro to connect to a 4K display and provide power to the MacBook (and use the display as a USB hub for wired Ethernet, etc). And being able to pick either side. So for me it's the right tradeoff. For non-me's they should make a breakaway USB C charging-only cable.
(Charging the first generation Apple Pencil from the iPad Pro itself was great design, by the way, until wireless was ready. Charging the mouse from the bottom was not.)
I have the latest Macbook Pro, and I hate the USB-C. I have a keyboard, stereo, and 4k monitor; none of which can be plugged into my laptop without a dongle.
In fact, I do not yet have a single device that I can plug directly into my laptop. And this years after they made the switch.
It seems most of the comments have an assumption that current Apple hardware is not doing well, pushing more for aesthetics and failing to be a truly useful computer.
I don’t really think so, negative reviews get to have much more spotlight and views than positive ones; (One reason is that positive people about the devices won’t be ‘whining’ as loudly as the negative ones do; another one is that post-SJ Apple is constantly criticized by ‘not becoming innovative as much as SJ’) and HN is a particularly great place for these negative reviews take place.
While I also think time to time that Apple could do better than the current HW(e.g. turning on haptic feedback on the TB as default), the current HW lineup is pretty great, I would say.
I find the TB immensely useful in my workflow, (partially because I use a custom Emacs that I took my time to hack on to display touchbar buttons for my workflow... why doesn’t Emacs/gVim gain TB support?̊̈) especially when I’m using Finder or Safari, Emacs, MS Office... and my friends that sneered at using an Apple laptop started to evaluate using it after '18, when the keyboard issues got pretty much fixed.
I also find the discussion around the butterfly mechanism of the MacBooks pretty much disconcerning, there are pretty much people who love the feel of the butterfly, (not all people like long pitched keyboards, especially on laptops), and Apple managed to fix the keyboard issues with dust in 2018, which I would say, pretty much immediately after it was discovered.
I’m fine with Mr. Ive departuring from Apple, as far as Apple designs great products that value on both function and form. If Apple becomes a usual computer company that starts to listen to all consumer complaints and makes and sells usual computers that other companies can make, that’s a pretty concerning future.
AFAIK 2018 and 2019 models are just in the program ‘just in case’, and it’s more to give confidence in buying the new MBPs to potential customers, not because they have problems.
Getting rid of the headphone jack is to me much like getting rid of the floppy. I love having four usb-c ports on my mbp that is either power or data transfer. I bought a 13” mbp last year when they got four cores, loving how portable and light it is, and just connecting one cable gives me display, power etc,
Every day I love my expensive current rig of mbp, iPad Pro with pencil, AirPods and bose q35.
But I don't get the impression that "everything is fine" from reading this story. First, there's the context that Apple's iPhone business is "faltering" and its product line has flatlined. For anyone who thinks that the spirit and innovation of Jobs lives on through Ive, this story throws cold water on that. In addition, the story emphasizes how much less Steve-like Apple has become since Cook over, with Ive seemingly being the last holdout of the glory days. If you buy into the story that Apple lives and dies by its emphasis on revolutionary design, this story is a major downer.
I guess it depends on your viewpoint on engineering vs. design, but I imagine the story's last graf is depressing for those who prioritize the latter:
> Mr. Ive’s old design team—a group of aesthetes once thought of as gods inside Apple—will report to COO Jeff Williams, a mechanical engineer with an M.B.A.
> this is exactly the story Apple would want to tell shareholders in the wake of Ive's departure
That is so not true. This story paints the picture of a dysfunctional org under Cook’s watch who is dramatically less inspiring than Jobs to their key design team. I don’t know if it’s true but it’s definitely not what a company would want to feed to the press.
The ideal story in situations like this is that they’ve been working on a transition for a awhile and the company is in good hands, without all the dissatisfaction stuff.
I'm so glad they finally removed magsafe. FINALLY, both cables going into the powerbrick are replaceable. It never once saved my laptop from cord trip doom, but did cost me a lot in buying whole new powerbricks when the cord eventually wore out.
But whatever, who buys apple for the hardware? I mean, its a super nice bonus that it is overall the best hardware, but that's not the key reason.
The actually desirable feature was for the cable not to fray and disintegrate every 2 years. Making it replaceable at the expense of Magsafe is hardly the solution.
The first I do when I get a new power brick is tape both ends of the cord with electrical tape. It looks ugly but they last as long as I have the laptop (usually 6+ years), and I don't care about how it looks.
Ugh I hated MagSafe. If I used the computer on my lap, any movement of my leg would push up on the charger and stop charging because the tiniest force would move it up and down. But if I trip on the cable and pull it straight out, the whole laptop comes clattering down because it requires super-human force pulling straight out if you want to break the connection.
Basically in my experience MagSafe is that annoying thing that keeps unplugging my laptop when I bump the charger while still damaging my laptop if I trip on the cable.
Unless you mean because they need Xcode, are you joking? My personal Mac runs Linux, and my work Mac (with mandated image) frustrates me with macOS all day.
I bought my Macbook for OS X as well. I was extremely unhappy with Windows 10 (and Linux wasn't an option because one of my core uses is music production which is barely supported)
I buy them for hardware actually (and wipe OSX, install Windows instead). My 2013 MBP is fantastic, but I probably won’t get the new MBP as the next machine, as the hardware just got too weird (huge trackpad, touchbar).
Same thoughts here. Apple lost it 4-5 years ago, Jobs was never replaced and the old magic just died, but slowly.
Ive alone cant handle ship, as is evident.
Here we are.
I can't say I am happy about where the Mac headed (though I have hope after the last WWDC). However, the Apple Watch and AirPods are absolutely stellar products. I love them both and wouldn't want to live without them. Both are post-Jobs.
Hopefully I'm not the only one that thinks that prices for iphones are insane. I use a handful of apps (yelp, maps, mail, news, music, and (occasionally) browser) which are readily available on all phones. Paying $300 for my moto vs 700-1000 for an iphone is a no brainer..
Well, if you don't mind uploading your private live to the Google cloud, Lenovo, and whoever else paid enough to get stuff shipped on a Lenovo phone.
For most people who do not want to spend much money on a phone, I just recommend them to buy an iPhone 6s or perhaps 7. You get most of the privacy benefits of an iPhone, for an affordable price. And even though it is an older model, it will probably get updated longer than most new Android phones at the $300 price point.
I don’t know why it would be cynical to think that Apple has known about his departure for some time, at least in terms of a general timeframe. I’d be very shocked if he blindsided Apple.
I like the butterfly, at least more than the previous generations keyboards. However, the problems with the butterfly keyboards are inexcusable for the price of the laptops (along with one-week repair times). Luckily, my MacBook Pro 2018 seems to hold up fine.
Nope I’m the same, my 2018 MBA keyboard is the best keyboard I’ve used, and I loved the old Thinkpads too. The 2016 MBP keyboard on the other hand is terrible.
I think the thing is, that Apple is missing a chief engineer rather than a head of design. I really like most of the Apple designs from an aesthetic perspective, but they need an engineer to loudly tell them, when their beautiful designs cut too much into proper engineering and usability.
Keyboards need to work, "pro" laptops need enough cooling and repairability, in general, you shouldn't have to throw away working parts just to repair other parts glued to them (how can they have the desktop iMac being glued together at all?).
Interesting - I read it as something rather different - a hatchet job on the management style of Tim Cook - not exactly what I would be presenting to shareholders
It might be partly the truth. People often leave for lessened control/interest rather than other gains. It takes years after the leave to reveal that kind of reasoning anyway.
The key product has been the phone. The computers and the tablets don't have the volume or the convenient payment mechanism. People on contracts just pay for these iPhones without caring too much about it being real money.
Anyway, the oxygen supply died on the phone a while ago but the momentum of the whole mobile phone business was such that nobody has noticed that the solid rocket boosters ran out of fuel and were chucked away three years ago.
Only if you work in the sector do you really appreciate how it has all changed. But if you build a business and an eco system around constant growth then things do fall back to earth rather quickly when everything stops growing. Sales may be magnificent but that is no good if there is no growth and the world has come to expect growth.
An ever growing business does not have to be efficient. Losses can be covered over because more sales make the previous mismanagement of expenses seem like small beer money.
Apple de-coupled the figures so we don't know how many units were shifted. Then they say that they are selling services now. But this isn't going to fill the hole left by the lack of iPhone opening day queues (remember that madness?).
These Chinese phones are going to be the default devices for a lot of people. When it comes to price or function they have it covered. Trade wars are not going to stave that situation off forever.
If you have bought into the Ive Apple eco system it all works perfectly. But if you are an outsider a lot of it seems daft. You can't plug your Apple phone into your Apple computer without dongles, then it doesn't rapid charge if plugged in that way or even move data quickly.
Then, with your Apple computer the touchscreen doesn't work. If you have had pinch to zoom for a while on a normal laptop you find it odd that Apple machines don't have that. The keyboard failings and much else is not necessarily design, sometimes things just don't work out. But when the phone doesn't plug into the computer, then you know that is a design thing.
The product lifecycles have also been bad, same Apple computers year in year out when most laptops get refreshed when new CPUs come out. It is absurd how Apple make what they feel like making not what their customers want. Ive was at the helm and the ship went off course five years ago with only those in the thick of it realising not all was well three years ago when sales started to slow on the product that matters - the phone.
It's interesting that a lot of the frustrations being expressed online over the past few years about Apple's product design choices (Macbook Pros losing their developer focus, iPhones getting more ridiculous with their designs, etc) are linked directly to what this article claims -- that Ive has been pretty absent since 2016, and it's not just the lack of a strong product leader at Apple, but also a rudderless design team that has led to these issues.
Whether any of that will improve now remains to be seen.
For all anyone knows Ive probably was a proponent of the touchbar. If for one am proponent of the touchbar, and as such I have no need to be very vocal about the support (if you don't like it then you don't).
I think it looks kind of cool seeing the various things flying across it, but ultimately it's just a cool looking distraction, and the lack of escape key for an emacs user is death.
Oh goodness, it's wonderful. I have a Quake-style "visor" Terminal available everywhere at a touch, mapped difficult to remember key combinations (ctrl-opt-command-D for responsive design mode? really?), a button to turn toggle javascript in the browser, 1Password everywhere… frankly it's a drag going home to the external keyboard.
It gives you a limited amount of control of a second app while you have another one one fullscreen.
For example: You can use Quicktime to record yourself speaking to a set of PowerPoint slides, and then use the touchbar to end the recording without needing to exit the slideshow (leaving an ugly view of your desktop that you'd have to edit out with postprocessing afterwards).
After remapping my caps key to be both control and escape I honestly don’t know how I used to work with the real escape key. If anything, Apple should build this mapping into macOS so I don’t have to use some third-party app to do it.
- It does everything the function keys do (volume, brightness) but more. It lets you turn the volume/brightness key into a slider, or you can flick it left and right to quickly adjust.
- Replaces otherwise mostly unused row of F-keys. Let's be honest, most people never used these (at best 1-2 of the F keys).
- You can add your own buttons for quick actions
- Context sensitive touch controls based on app. Few apps support it but it's only a plus here.
- Escape key has a bigger hit box now. Granted it no longer has "physical feedback", but as someone who codes day and night on it I can assure you that you will get used to it if you simply keep an open mind.
People just hate on it as they always do with new things they are not used to. Change always comes with resistance.
It bothers me when people say this because it's just not true. And what's worse is it's just true enough that someone can argue "well you know what I meant" while still saying something entirely untrue.
The touchbar Macbook has no physical Esc key but it does still exist and works just like any other button. Nearly every image of a touchbar Macbook on Apple's website shows an Esc key plain as day on the touchbar: https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/
The only people who say "touchbar Macbook doesn't have an Esc key" are either people who have never used it and have been misled by others on the Internet, or are the people who did the misleading in the first place.
You might as well criticize a smartphone keyboard because it doesn't have an Enter key or an "e" key. How can you type on a smartphone when it doesn't even have a spacebar!? A touchbar Macbook doesn't have an Esc key in the exact same way your smartphone doesn't have a spacebar. As in: it entirely does have a spacebar and anyone who says it doesn't is deliberately misleading you.
A button on a screen is still a button. The “reply” button I’m clicking on right now does not cease to exist just because it doesn’t have a physical switch under it. It’s functionality still works the same.
A context based escape touchscreen is not a fucking escape key.
I'm a daily driver of one of these crapboxes for work. IT DOES NOT HAVE AN ESC KEY. I am not misled. I am not someone who has never used it.
>You might as well criticize a smartphone keyboard because it doesn't have an Enter key or an "e" key
Yes, because everyone knows that touchscreen typing on a smartphone is the paragon experience for typing. The experience that beats all else. Clearly, I want this experience on my development machine. THANKS APPLE!
Oh wait, touchscreen typing fucking sucks. It sucks everywhere. It sucks SO badly that the ONLY place it ever became acceptable was a form factor so small that they were forced to compromise the experience to fit in screen real-estate.
Why I'd want that experience front and center on a macbook is fucking unfathomable.
So there's your criticism. "The touchbar Macbook Pro has an awful Esc key". That's true and is something worth mentioning. "The touchbar Macbook Pro does not have an escape key" is being so deliberately misleading that you might even call it a lie.
The iPad Pro does not have an escape key on the keyboard. This makes it impossible to use vim without remapping the keys. This is a fact and is a serious problem if you want to use vim on an iPad Pro smart keyboard.
The touchbar Mac does have an escape key, even if it's not one you enjoy using. It is possible to use vim with the default configuration of a touchbar Macbook Pro without remapping keys.
Again, there is no reason to lie and say "the touchbar Macbook Pro doesn't have an Esc key". You don't like it. That's fine. But if it actually doesn't exist, you should sue Apple for including it in almost all of their press pictures.
He is not responsible for the features that goes into a product. Nor is he responsible for which demographic a product is targeted towards. It's a combination of various executives in particular Phil Schiller and Jeff Williams.
He used to be responsible though. Until 2011. And even if Steve wanted something batshit insane, he made it work.
I've said it elsewhere, but I've suspected (as this article seems to confirm) that he's been coasting / lost the spark he once had a while ago.
Designer's and artists have fickle motivation. He clearly fed off of Job's "fuck you, fuck this, this is trash, make it better" style of challenges. Because Job's actually 1) knew when it was a good design and 2) appreciated it. I'm doubtful that the flock of MBAs who took over have that same passion, so Mr Ive has lost his own.
It's not like Apple has thousands of products. The entire executive team would be discussing the strategic direction for their products and the R&D investments needed e.g. TouchBar. But ultimately Apple is product marketing driven just like other large product companies.
And people like thin devices (hence the keyboard) and shiny new features. What users think is far more important to Apple than what Ive thinks.
Probably because there's effectively not a single person who explicitly _doesn't_ want their RAM soldered on to the mobo, and soldering on the RAM allows them to make the product thinner, which people _do_ want (or at least can be convinced they want through advertising).
If the amount of extra people who will be convinced to buy a Mac because it's thinner outweighs the people who otherwise would have bought one but didn't because it has soldered-on ram, they're gonna do it.
"Mr. Ive’s old design team—a group of aesthetes once thought of as gods inside Apple—will report to COO Jeff Williams, a mechanical engineer with an M.B.A."
That's how journalists used to sneak their opinion into otherwise factual reporting. WSJ still has enough old-school editors that Tripp Mickle couldn't go full WaPo or NYT and write a pure opinion page rant, so he used a factual statement to thinly veil his opinion.
That is not a good defense of covertly editorializing in an opinion piece.
Great journalism is more than just fact regurgitation. But most modern journalism would be improved if it was replaced with fact regurgitation because most journalists cannot distinguish between their opinion and objective beyond-the-facts reporting.
> I don’t worry that Apple is in trouble because Jony Ive is leaving; I worry that Apple is in trouble because he’s not being replaced.
I think that's spot on. Jobs is dead and Ive checked out. Who's doing the thing that they did, now? I don't want to buy products that are designed by committee.
I was struck, reading this, of the analogous situation at Boeing: a company founded on engineering talent and propelled to stardom by a string of successful moonshots, merges with McDonnell Douglas, a government contractor par excellence. At first, it seems synergistic: the dynamic Boeing can build amazing planes and MD can secure a steady defence revenue stream.
But then the moonshots quietly end. Boeing makes cost effective tweaks to its current lineup, and lands fat defence contracts that pad the bottom line and drive the stock to stratospheric prices. It gets comfortable, it gets efficient, and it stops being what made it great in the first place.
Apple post-Jobs will likely be an extremely profitable company for many years to come. But it will never again be the pioneering company that forged whole markets from vision and belief.
1. If Ive has been on his way out for over a year ago (some say since 4) why is he so prominently featured in the design videos?
Give a little room to the next guy, surely someone must have been in the pipeline for such a long departure.
2. If Ive have been practically absent all this time, working on the office rather than product, why will his actual departure turn things around with regards to product design?
1. Because in most Apple videos, the product is the most important person in the room. Ive is a great storyteller when it comes to design (probably the best at Apple) so it makes sense that he is the one telling that story. Steve Jobs was by far the best keynote speaker at Apple so he did most of it himself.
2. Because the organisation is now structured with the design team reporting directly to Operations which is unusual as designers at Apple didn't use to report to anyone (except the CEO).
1. It's great PR. Ive is very well known and liked outside of Apple (and probably inside, depending on who you worked with if we're to believe the article is correct). You're not wrong, though. They should have included more people to showcase as designers.
2. Yeah I agree, that doesn't make much sense. I've also seen a lot of places saying his departure will severely hurt Apple but he leads a team, he probably is rarely directly involved in anything anyway. I don't see how him leaving changes anything, honestly.
The WSJ article was so inconsistent in terms of which products are hitting/failing, whether Ive was absent or setting up new structures, whether the claimed failures are his fault or not, etc.
For me, the real impact of Jony leaving, is what will happen to the other members of the design team. His team has been reported to have had very very little churn in the last couple of decades - with him leaving it seems likely that others will also look around. That will definitely have some kind of an effect - maybe for the worse, maybe for the better.
This seems like a reasonable summary. I can understand his (apparent, based on the internet :D) frustration with finance and ops people filling the executive ranks.
But never forget the wireless "magic" mouse with the lightning plug in the bottom.
It still means the thing is unusable when charging, no matter how long a charge lasts.
In the grand scheme of things, no, it isn't that big of a deal. But it showcased a stereotype people associate with Apple: aesthetics over function. The plug could have gone in the top of the mouse, so you could use it just like you would a wired mouse while it charged. But no, the plug must be invisible, damn the inconvenience.
> It still means the thing is unusable when charging, no matter how long a charge lasts.
That was the whole purpose of putting it in a bottom.
The thing works several months on a single charge and it takes just a couple of hours to recharge. And it starts giving notification at least a day before battery's depleted.
It's not aesthetics over function mantra, but realisation that they can't be decoupled or developed by separate divisions.
That's what concerns me about Ive leaving. He and Jobs evidently had enough courage to ignore public opinion to make things the right way and in most cases it turned to be excellent decisions. With no successor I'm seriously afraid they'll eventually resort to safe decisions and become another Samsung/MS/Android/whatever..
> That was the whole purpose of putting it in a bottom. The thing works several months on a single charge and it takes just a couple of hours to recharge. And it starts giving notification at least a day before battery's depleted.
But... why? Logitech managed to build a significantly more comfortable mouse that can still be plugged in while charging. It's a nicer, more usable and practical product.
Aren't you really going out there on a severely stretched limb to defend this mouse design?
idk exact reasoning, but it seems like they've decided to maximise design focus on primary user experience from device sacrificing almost nothing.
> Logitech managed to build a significantly more comfortable mouse
Can you please prove it by a link? I had to build a specific PC for a work-related project about a year ago, wasn't a pleasure.
> Aren't you really going out there on a severely stretched limb to defend this mouse design?
I honestly don't understand the popular kind of critics that Apple receives. Those details and choices are what hooked me into their products. When I see somebody complains about no CD-ROM in laptop or that mouse charging thing or that monitor stand, it feels more like trolling.
I mean really, more comfortable mouse? Which one is that?
Pretty much any mouse is more comfortable and ergonomic than the wrist pain inducing Magic Mouse.
But if you want more concrete models - Logitech's MX Master 2 is incredibly comfortable once you put your hand on it and it's significantly better than anything Apple ever did in mouse area. I can't understate how good it felt to switch away from the Apple's mouse to the Master. And it can even charge while in use and remain connected via both USB receiver and Bluetooth to three devices (which is very useful because you can just leave the USB receiver in the monitor hub and avoid the BT pairing process everytime someone else sits down on a workplace).
If you want a smaller, laptop portable, alternative, MX Anywhere 2 is again a rather comfortable mouse (although nowhere near the Master due to its smaller size) and can still charge while being used.
> I honestly don't understand the popular kind of critics that Apple receives. Those details and choices are what hooked me into their products. When I see somebody complains about no CD-ROM in laptop or that mouse charging thing or that monitor stand, it feels more like trolling.
I don't understand what kind of details are there in the Magic Mouse? It's not comfortable, it doesn't give very clear click feedback, the gestures are finnicky even on macOS... Which mouse are you comparing it to?
I don't think I'll convince you to try the latest MM, so I've ordered the one you've mentioned (Logitech's MX Master 2). It should be delivered to me tomorrow. I'll be using it for at least 1-2 weeks just for the sake of this argument.
After that I'll contact you in this thread and share the results if you're interested. I don't expect your or mine opinion changed, but I guess it'll be stupid not to test.
What happens when the battery conks out? throw away the mouse and buy a new one is what apple wants you to do but most people would prefer the safety net of being able to run wired in case the mouse battery started acting up. Remember this was a wireless mouse at a time when wireless was definitely not the preferred choice
> What happens when the battery conks out? throw away the mouse and buy a new one
That's the easiest thing to do, yes. But you can bring it to apple care, they do battery replacement for smth like $35 I guess.
And if it's factory problem they just replace it, afaik.
> Remember this was a wireless mouse at a time when wireless was definitely not the preferred choice
At the time it had regular batteries you could replace by yourself and we were talking about latest versions. But anyway, I don't see how it can be relevant.
I think a lot of people forget the original wireless Magic Mouse was battery powered. I still have mine, and a couple of AAs (I think) will see it running for a good 'ol while. Nothing made me contemplate upgrading, and it's still a darn good experience.
Seriously I never ever ever found this to be a problem when I was using one. It charges from zero to usable in as long as it takes to type “ha ha this mouse charging port is on the bottom” on the internet, and a full charge lasts a long time.
The bad keyboards and no hardware escape key are real problems. Magsafe was a real loss (although of course they lost MagSafe to standardize on a third party standard with usb-c).
The rumor is that USB-C was an Apple invention, quietly pushed into the USB-IF so that it wouldn't have the Apple stink on it, and so that it would become a global hardware standard in the way an "Apple Thing" never could: power and high speed data, in a convenient and reversible plug.
Now they're on Chromebooks, WinTel machines, and the Raspberry Pi.
If the rumor is true, it was a really smooth move by Apple.
It would be an extremely Apple-esque thing to hack an industry-wide movement just so that your laptop could be charged by any power brick made by any manufacturer at any time (even if your competitors get this functionality too).
Actually it's worse--it's explicitly inconvenient to the point of being impossible to use in a wired fashion. The inconvenience of the user is a designed-in feature. They purposefully screwed over the user for aesthetic reasons.
Please. "Purposefully screwed over" is pretty dramatic and almost certainly not true. The mouse is sold as wireless. That seems to me a more likely reason it's impossible to use in a wired fashion. It also eliminates the need for a me to keep a giant pack of AA batteries at both my office and home office. It does require power occasionally, but then very briefly and almost never. The OS will also remind you almost comically early that the battery is getting low, and then you just plug it in when you go for lunch or a coffee run. When you get back you're good for another month or something like that.
My time has value. It has particularly high value when I'm in the middle of working on something. Interruptions in this state have especially high opportunity cost.
We could live in a universe where, when the "battery low" notification pops up I take a few seconds to plug in my mouse and go back to whatever I was working on. Instead, Apple purposefully chose to make me unable to use my mouse for a significant duration of time, at a moment that is NOT of my choosing.
On a laptop this is fine as I have the trackpad. On a desktop workstation (where my time is more valuable!) this means getting up and taking a walk, or getting a cup of coffee at the very least. Those are good activities to do, but only when they fit into my routine. As a sudden abrupt interruption, it is actually a cost. And at my hourly rates, a particularly high one greater than the amount I paid for the mouse in the first place.
So yeah, I do consider that "purposefully screwing over" the user. They could have made another perfectly reasonable design choice that would have had greater functionality, but opted not to for purely ephemeral reasons of branding and image.
Don’t use it wired; it lasts a very long time. A port on the side would break its continuous curve, the sharp contrast of a dark port would be visually jarring (especially since the mouse is small and the overall tone is bright and smooth; it’s relative), and invite unnecessary long-term imperfections (e.g. deformities to the sharp aluminum cut, dust, etc.).
I’m very thankful Apple doesn’t always listen to what “people” want. True creativity (especially in a pervasive aesthetic sense) is rare and most can’t envision new concepts or feelings before experiencing them.
Yes, it sounds silly to most. Most people would also say an asymmetric phone notch and chin doesn’t bother them. That’s why pushing pragmatic and perfectionist design (it’s a delicate balance, and Apple isn’t perfect) is difficult. But on a deeper level, most people feel good design and experiences without ever noticing them.
I dislike Apple for many of their user hostile decisions, but for this I love them. I'm bothered by phone bezels not being consistent, for one example, and Apple are the only ones who seem to care about it as well.
I've used a magic mouse for over 3 years, and I've never ran into a situation where I couldn't use it because it was charging. When I see the battery is low, I plug it in during my next bathroom break, and then fully charge it over night.
I had a Magic Mouse at work and I fought it for days at a time forgetting to charge it when I went home. Thinking about stuff like this is a waste of mental energy.
I also never ran into a situation where I couldn't use it because I didn't buy it because it looked like a tremendously stupid idea. It's entirely possible the idea wasn't as stupid as it looked, but it still looked stupid enough that it cost them sales.
That means you never build up a habit, but it still comes up fairly regularly. If you forget to charge it before it dies completely, then you either find another mouse or take a forced break. Not ideal.
That’s not the point. It looks completely ridiculous coming from a world-renowned designer and company (or anyone, really). It might be excusable if it were a case of “form over function“, but it’s not even that. It’s Apple going to great lengths to avoid putting the charging port in the most obvious place possible, lest someone try to use it as a wired mouse.
That and sticking the Apple Pencil into the iPad’s Lightning port are two of the most baffling design decisions to come out of Apple in recent memory. Well, I take that back, I completely understand why they did the Apple Pencil that way. It’s because doing it the right way would require redesigning the iPad, so ehhh, just stick it in the Lightning port. Another brilliant design by Ive and company!
Of course, the next generation of pencil and iPad charges differently - and without question in a more sensible manner. Are you QUITE sure you’re not attributing to incompetence what is obviously better explained by shipping schedule?
I never said it was incompetence, I said it was a rush job. Viewed without any additional context though, one would probably conclude that an incompetent designer had had their hands over such a goofy looking design.
Time was when you'd never see a "poor choice but not that big of a deal" issue with an Apple product. Sure, there were things which would piss you off but they were big bold statements, not minor details.
Everyone goes on about the charing port. Personally I think the much more fundamental problem with the Apple mouse is that its just not a very good mouse. I've tried using them several times and I just can't get used to the lack of actual physical buttons, or the fact it doesn't sit in the hand comfortably.
My personal opinion is that they should have just gone all in on the external touch pad, and quietly recommended that if you want a mouse you should go and buy a Logitech one.
For me, the trackpad and multi-touch gestures are pretty much indispensable. I occasionally consider switching to a PC, but having to go back to using a traditional mouse would be a real painful experience.
Having a specific vision for how your products will be used and designing them to be used that way doesn’t need to be portrayed as a low opinion of the customer.
> thought that was intentional so people wouldn’t treat it like a wired mouse?
The "specific vision" we're talking about here intentionally makes the product harder to use. There is no technical limitation behind the decision, it was purely for aesthetics. If the comment I responded to is correct, then Apple though that people would _forget_ they purchased a wireless mouse to begin with. C'mon.
I think that's the exact scenario they tried to avoid. The lightning cable is actually pretty stiff, it won't take long for it to break if one could use it pluged in like a wired mouse.
I dislike most things Apple has done recently. But I can understand this one.
It's fine for the trackpad, designed and released together with the mouse, to have the lightning port on the back and be used plugged in, because it doesn't move so there shouldn't be much stress on the cable.
You go grab a cap of coffee and by the time you are back it is charged for the rest of the day.
This is a perfect example of the problem which is more imagined than real. I'd bet most people making fun of this design never used the said mouse, and those who use it never found placement of the charging port to be an issue.
The solution would have been to allow use while charging, but once battery is full, pop up regular warnings to unplug it to "prevent battery degradation" or some other white lie
Well, that's a hit piece if I've ever seen one. They even manage to paint spending time with his ailing father in the UK as a sign he was neglecting Apple.
It seems most of the comments have an assumption that current Apple hardware is not doing well, pushing more for aesthetics and failing to be a truly useful computer.
I don’t really think so, negative reviews get to have much more spotlight and views than positive ones; (One reason is that positive people about the devices won’t be ‘whining’ as loudly as the negative ones do; another one is that post-SJ Apple is constantly criticized by ‘not becoming innovative as much as SJ’) and HN is a particularly great place for these negative reviews take place.
While I also think time to time that Apple could do better than the current HW(e.g. turning on haptic feedback on the TB as default), the current HW lineup is pretty great, I would say.
I find the TB immensely useful in my workflow, (partially because I use a custom Emacs that I took my time to hack on to display touchbar buttons for my workflow... why doesn’t Emacs/gVim gain TB support?̊̈) especially when I’m using Finder or Safari, Emacs, MS Office... and my friends that sneered at using an Apple laptop started to evaluate using it after '18, when the keyboard issues got pretty much fixed.
I also find the discussion around the butterfly mechanism of the MacBooks pretty much disconcerning, there are pretty much people who love the feel of the butterfly, (not all people like long pitched keyboards, especially on laptops), and Apple managed to fix the keyboard issues with dust in 2018, which I would say, pretty much immediately after it was discovered.
I’m fine with Mr. Ive departuring from Apple, as far as Apple designs great products that value on both function and form.
If Apple becomes a usual computer company that starts to listen to all consumer complaints and makes and sells usual computers that other companies can make, that’s a pretty concerning future.
I had not heard about mr. Ive before his departure. I must be a function over form person. But I'm just wondering if he wasn't just tired of his design leadership turning into people leadership (increasingly so, from the article). Apparently the design team "ballooned" into a big organization, and overseeing those people may not be where your ambitions lie, as a world-renowned designer. As a (small? -- don't know what he has in mind there) design firm, it may be clearer that he comes in as a design brain, not as a department head. He is accomplished enough to be just working on where the true passions lie, or even just tuning out when a loved one is in bad shape, or retire altogether (if he chose so).
Is Apple Park such a success? Agree it looks wonderful but I saw reports of people getting injured from walking into glass and it not being a comfortable place to work. Style over substance?
AirPower and the macbook butterfly keyboards are probably good examples of what is not working in terms of design. The balance between thinness and function is not right the last few years at Apple and change is most definitely welcome. Still Ive departure is hard to swallow and marks a huge shift in Apple's history. Time will tell if is the right move.
Ive is a great soldier, but Jobs knew which battles to fight. Apple has lost its way and doesn't know what directions to go in, where technology needs to move to serve its users. And Apple's huge money chest and insularity are of no help. They need an inspired product leader.
There was no point in Jony Ive hanging around when the passion was gone. It is good to know that Apple is engaging the new firm launched by Jony to help Apple continue to design and improve their products.
That ship has sailed; Andy Rubin tried to do that but the market has matured to the point where it doesn't have room for a new entrant (look at the super low end android market: lots of churn).
I was talking with my gf's kid today and the same point came up: Linux, the MacOS and iPhone didn't displace Windows; Windows continues to dominate a market that simply doesn't matter hugely any more (desktop/Laptop PCs). A post on the HN front page right now says that Linux exceeds Windows on the Azure cloud...but nope, not on the desktop.
I don't think that comparison is warranted. Tim Cook seems to be spearheading Apple's new strategic focus on services and privacy. I'd say that's a strong path forwards for the brand and business overall. He's not a product designer like Jobs, but he's not taking a MBA-style bean counter approach like Balmer.
Steve Balmer spearheaded Microsoft's strategic focus in enterprise. It's a good analogy, actually. He's a different person and Apple's value proposition is evolving, potentially to a different target audience.
It really isn’t. They used to sell to a very discerning but tiny slice of the public who was very bought into the brand. Now the sheer numbers dictate that they are addressing a much larger slice of the market (most of the market in some geographies and product categories) that isn’t anywhere near as bought in to the brand.
iPhone sales have been over 200 million units per year since 2015 and over 100 million since 2012. I'm not sure that "used to" and "now" and "tiny slice" necessarily match up with what your comment implies.
Jony Ive hasn't had a lot of design successes since Steve Jobs died. Some would even say he's had a lot of design failures since then.
If Tim Cook made a mistake, it was letting Scott Forstall go instead of Jony Ive back in 2012. The two were widely reported to not get along. The fact that Tim Cook couldn't, or wouldn't, mediate between them like Steve Jobs used to do does reflect poorly on Tim's part.
From a business point of view Ballmer did an excellent job. The company grew every year and was always one of the top tech companies. The same will probably happen to Apple (and Google) too. They magic touch goes away but they will be solid companies run by business people.
2000-2013 was pretty... frozen.
You don't need to remind of the failed battle of Mobile (that even Gates said it would give them at least 400b).
Also the Xbox One launch fiasco, Surface RT, etc. And of course, the longhorn... Which I don't think is a Ballmer problem exactly, but it happened.
> To lose a person of this caliber indicates a total lack of vision and trust in the executive leadership at Apple.
Alternative explanation: paying a premium for a person like this could be a lack of vision; Ive/Jobs could have been a Lennon/McCarthy situation, where neither were as effective alone.
Also in Cook's defense: Job's avowed plan was "milk the Mac for all its worth and develop the next hot thing". And frankly the Macs became neglected children under Jobs.
Although I hate it myself, I think the touchbar is probably a really good innovation -- but not for the high end Macs but for the consumer ones: for people who look at the keyboard when they type and who, used to phones, don't want to send the mouse way up to the top of the screen. I think the mistake was introducing it on the MBPs, rather than on the 12" MacBooks and MacBook Air (thankfully they didn't as I just traded my TB MBP for a new MB Air).
And now the new cheese grater.
And cook and his team have clearly recognized that the end of the tunnel for the iOS/MacOS train is visible, even if it's dim and very far away. And they are staking a position and trying experiments, more, frankly, than Jobs was ever willing to do, though admittedly the company now has much more resources than he had access to.
I am a firm user of MacOS/iOS but only because I believe it continues to suck less. Every time I need to replace my gear Apple has to "win me as a customer" again. So far they have, and I'm guessing they will continue to in the next few years. We'll see though.
It’s extremely silly that you (and others) are trying to say Tim Cook did something wrong when the actual article says he bent over backward to keep Jony in control.
I don't know if Apple is still the biggest company on earth, but they're pretty big in tech. They are also a notoriously design focused company and their main designer is leaving after 20 years. The story feeds in to people's fascination with the company, which has an added aura of being part of the original Silicon Valley boom.
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Dialing that back a few notches, I genuinely hope that Ive's departure means Apple is considering a new approach for the design of their products. Years of product releases with crummy butterfly keyboards, nixed headphone jacks and missing magSafe have left me with no desire to purchase my next laptop from Apple. Maybe once the current pipeline drains we can look forward to Mac laptops that gain useful features and don't fall apart in months.
Maybe. I'm not holding my breath.