> 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.
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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?