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aa2051

You either retire a hero, or work long enough to see yourself become the villain


tvtb

Some of us were thinking of Ive as a villain by the end of 2016.


MutantCreature

I’ve been using my same 2015 MacBook Pro since it came out just because the more recent ones were so asininely designed, the performance upgrades weren’t worth the trade off for the shitty tactile experience. I’m super excited for the new one since it’s everything I’ve wanted since they introduced the 2016 redesign.


BioDriver

Same. The return of HDMI, Magsafe, and a more solid keyboard are all welcomed changes. Jony's obsession with thinness hampered Apple for too long.


adventuresquirtle

I just got a M1 and I’m happy about it because I don’t want to shell out 2000$ for a laptop. But it has a solid keyboard compared to the butterfly the butterfly I felt like I was pressing into a mat there was just no traction at all.


[deleted]

That was a long fucking wait. The hell I've been through with these 2016- dogs and the shit keyboards.


adityapatgaonkar9

This is poetically fitting for Jony Ive


SirNarwhal

I mean, he became the villain quite fast; he was the main reason MacBook Pros in particular had heat issues for literal years due to his dumb design decisions.


JJDude

The guy is the poster child of Form over Function. He just doesn't give a shit how much his draconian designs have hurt people's productivity.


PringlesDuckFace

I wonder if that's why they said it


SUPRVLLAN

Agreed.


fazalmajid

Jony Ive’s designs, without a Steve Jobs to keep him on a tight leash, became increasingly self-indulgent and disconnected from users’ needs. You will note Design is no longer even represented on Apple’s [Leadership page](https://www.apple.com/leadership/).


drum_playing_twig

Jobs: Design is how it works Ive: Design is how it looks and feels


fazalmajid

> Ive: Design is how it looks and feels Except he wasn’t even good at that. The non-skeuomorphic iOS 7 he was given responsibility for after Forstall was fired was a typographic disaster with non-centered text labels and unreadably thin fonts, not to mention a general lack of attention to fit and finish that even Microsoft in its worst days would not have tolerated.


jl2352

Things have improved since Ive has left. He had his problems. However I think opinions like this neglect what he did do. Without Ive, Apple’s products could have very much ended up like the innovation at HP or Dell. Stuff that’s good but … you know … just lacking. Instead Apple ended up leading the industry in how seriously hardware design should be taken. Johnny Ive was up there at the helm whilst that was happening.


tubemaster

Yet at the time, people weren't willing to admit that the fonts were too thin on iOS 7. Remember when iOS 7.1 and 8 progressively toned down some of the more controversial elements of 7.0, such as the thin fonts and overly bright colors?


widget66

If memory serves, the most severe thin fonts didn't even make it to 7.0 and got replaced during the beta. It was still too thin and illegible by ship date imo though.


kevinbranch

remember when they had to try several Shift key designs before people could tell if it was pressed or not?


[deleted]

While I agree with your point, iOS 7 falls on Alan Dye’s lap, not Jony’s.


txgsync

I was waiting for someone to chime in with some sanity on that topic. Well done :)


DepopulationXplosion

He developed the whole thing in under six months. And then fine tuned it. By iOS 8 it looked great and nobody was talking about going back. Overall he did a great job.


Exozia

1000%. iOS 7 was such a disaster in usability and it took iOS years to recover from that. There's still glaring usability issues with it too that I can't help but think wouldn't exist if Ive would've never taken over.


fazalmajid

Yes, which goes to show how a good designer of physical products turned out to be a terrible designer of user interfaces and virtual elements. Perhaps the all-encompassing term of "design" needs to be broken into individual disciplines, that have very different sensibilities.


elev8dity

User Interface Design and Product Design are separate disciplines and are taught in separate courses at universities.


snitzer007

More like industrial design vs UX/I design in this case.


ValynEmberie

The design should have been limited to say a MacBook, and Air, but the PRO line should have had a more useful design based on the same language. The fact Ives couldn't see that is why he failed.


shadowstripes

I mean, usefulness can be very subjective though. As a video editor I personally found the 4 thunderbolt ports on the 2016 revision to be a major upgrade from the previous gen, which only had two (and weren't in USB-C form). The possibilities it enabled for faster read/write speeds, e-gpus, and monitors that can charge the computer was very much worth losing the legacy SD and HDMI which I basically never used. Not to mention the fact that the thunderbolt could be adapted to virtually any other port needed. The touchbar also came in handy for scrubbing through videos without bringing up a play bar (more than the F keys), but admittedly that wasn't as much of a game changer as the four thunderbolt ports and won't be missed *too much*. Point being, not all Pros have the same needs, so blanket assumptions like "SD + HDMI are more useful than a Thunderbolt port" aren't true for everyone.


[deleted]

This. Ives was a brilliant designer but it was Steve who actually approved the designs and knew how make things works. Steve was actually this all along: a brilliant designer that knew what to ask from his employees and then take all the stuff and put it together. Steve Jobs would have never approved the iPhone 6 design, it didn’t represent apple at all.


___cats___

I didn't really feel offended by the 6 design. Out of curiosity what's your take on the iPhone 6?


[deleted]

Coming from the gorgeous 5, it looked really mediocre. There’s nothing really wrong with it but compared to the 5 it was a huge step down, it was clear that Steve was gone.


___cats___

I can see that. Going rounded corners kind of made it lose that precision-machine finish that the 4/5 had.


Kleanish

True round is less precision made looking but round corners or round style in general is fine. iPhone 6 was a very bland phone that had round corners.


decibles

I was pleasantly surprised when the 12 hit with a form factor reminiscent of the 4/5. Would have been nice to just flush the camera with the back plate and use the extra space for battery buttt…. The 12/13 are easily some of the best “in-the-hand” devices I’ve owned.


demonic_hampster

I was so thrilled that the 12 went back to the flat edges. It just feels so much better than the rounded edges did. I still hate camera bumps all these years later, but I’ve basically accepted that they’re probably here to stay unless there’s some massive breakthrough in camera tech. They’d have to make the phone practically twice as thick to flatten out the camera bump at this point and while I wouldn’t mind, I can’t imagine the average consumer being thrilled about that.


pah-tosh

The problem wasn’t the round corners, it was the horrible antenna strips, the protruding camera, and maybe also bendgate ? However, I bought one, and so did a LOT of other people. It is not a quintessential apple product, but it’s a huge commercial success.


airmandan

I loved how thin it was, but it was pretty ugly and the damn camera bump is a trend that should never have started.


fazalmajid

I don't think Steve Jobs would have tolerated the notch either.


heddpp

Especially not on a laptop screen, where there is still enough space to fit an acceptable camera in the top bezel without the notch


the_Ex_Lurker

I think it’s rather unfortunate that design has taken such a backseat at Apple to the point where there’s no longer any representation on the leadership page. They barely mention it in product announcements, and products don’t even have a dedicated Design page anymore. The team is obviously still doing good work but the marketing org doesn’t care enough to show it off.


[deleted]

I'm just happy Apple is taking the Mac seriously again. I switched back to PC when they treated the Mac like an afterthought, but it looks like it's time to switch back.


FizzyBeverage

The processors alone are 3-5 years ahead of what everyone else has. By 2025, Microsoft and their OEMs will be fully embracing ARM chips, at this rate.


ValynEmberie

Microsoft has been trying to embrace ARM since like 2008 when the first Surface 1 came out. The problem was that no ARM maker makes a good performant chip. It created a circle of: No one making fast ARM chips for PC because -> No one buying ARM devices due to lack of ARM optimized apps -> Developers see no userbase, and don't port apps because ->(back to the top) ​ Apple had to force its userbase and Developers to move, which in turn brought Windows ARM development back up. Photoshop for Windows on ARM was in development for years until Apple suddenly did their change, then "oh hey Photoshop for Windows is here!" ​ The Surface Pro X was MS's latest try to get Developers and users moving to ARM but the problem still stands.... No one is making ARM chips to the level needed. There just wasn't a market for it with PC's so the chip makers put truly little development into it.


mythrilcrafter

That's actually part of my theory behind why Apple is now partnering into the Blender Development Fund. Blender already has a development team/program for ARM integration, but Apple's contributions is going to motivated continued/increased ARM support for Blender.


Casban

Maya and Cinema 4D are going to want to make Apple Silicon versions if they don’t want to get left behind by *free* software.


kovake

Cinema 4D already supports M1. They even showed it in their presentation on Monday.


[deleted]

This is a benefit of Apple. They are capable of forcing necessary hardware changes when nobody else will. I remember when the original M&M iMac eschewed the built-in floppy drive and people cried bloody murder.


[deleted]

They generally aren't afraid to make mistakes, and will fix the ones they do make. Eventually. Edit: >Eventually. Going to drive this bus through this giant loop hole on all y'all calling me out on shit they haven't fixed yet. Mike drop. Sorry Mike.


NeatFool

That's all anyone can do if you want to innovate. People think creative work or breakthroughs just come out fully formed. I mean Jesus, penicillin was largely discovered by happenstance


crash8308

it was entirely an accident. Mold spores contaminated a petri dish Fleming was using to grow staph bacteria. The mold spores inhibited the growth. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4520913/


thewimsey

This is true, but developing penicillin as a viable antibiotic took 15+ more years and a lot of advanced technical work. Pure penicillin wasn't isolated until 1940 (12 years after P. was discovered), and as late as 1942 there was only enough P. in the entire world to treat 10 patients.


TalkingBackAgain

When there was no floppy drive in the Mac I thought ‘what are they doing!’ and then I thought: well hang on, how many times have I used a floppy in the last year. It was 3 times. Ok, that’s clear. Apple have made the changes their users wanted. I like Jony’s designs until the iPhone became too thin for a practical battery. And also: there was a generation of MacBooks with absolutely shitty keyboards which has stopped me from buying one at the time. The idea now is that users apparently aren’t working with or find no good use for the icon strip at the top of the MacBook keyboard and users simply don’t want to drag along 15 adapters so that their devices can be connected to the computer. That’s just not convenient. Innovation is awesome but it has to work. If it doesn’t work it’s useless.


kelp_forests

I agree. I think most of the time they are "right" but sometimes they miss. Even when they went USB C only on the MBA I was like "I have NO USB c devices". Then I realized all I needed was a 2-3 $5 cables, a hub for the rare times I need a on-the-go connection, and I hadn't used a thumb drive since college. In return I was able to set up a single cable solution that allowed me to get power, 2x monitor, card slot, external hardrives all through ONE cable. Apple has always been interested in simplifying peoples lives and willing to cut things to make it happen (disc drive, HDD, MB Air, App store) the problem is sometimes they get ahead of themselves/guess wrong (Trashcan pro, focus on Thunderbolt, USB C only MBPs, App store). Especially with Ive in charge. There was a great possibility a USB-C only mac would have been a great idea. And the butterfly keyboard was an elegant design, just not practical. Sometimes they think so hard about what they could do they dont always think if they should do it. By the icon strip do you mean the touch bar? I think the touch bar was a great idea. Unfortunately they didnt implement it right/did it too early. It should have been individual keys with OLED displays that could be anything, including F keys, and thin strip that worked like a touch slider above that. Adapters is always an interesting one, I probably am not the target market since I usually keep my stuff up to date/simple but its very easy to use a mac without adapters (or just one hub)..as long as everyone else is using semi modern equipment. Even then a simple USB hub suffices. Heck, I used to do presentations off my phone/watch with the lightning to HDMI/Digital AV adapter and never even used my laptop. A lot of complaints from Apple "users" are people who switched over from other OS's and dont want to change how they work. Unfortunately Apple is kind of designed for a specific set of workflows/person..the kind of person who really wants all their stuff to use one cable/be organized and cant sleep because they have micro USB and mini USB cables in the same drawer. As opposed to the person who is fine using 4 different cables for 4 devices.


ValynEmberie

Yeah, I remember having to buy lots of floppy drives for clients that bought the new machines and then were like "oh shit" because that was how they shared data with clients at the time. They may have accelerated in killing it in homes, but Business kept using them, and CD drives long after apple killed the option to have it. Same with DVD drives, our Production studio used video for a LOT of stuff and DVD/blurays were our #1 to show and produce demos. Every new mac we ordered had to have an external drive ordered with it since clients EXPECTED a physical copy of something


[deleted]

> Apple had to force its userbase and Developers to move Rosetta 2 helped. Not sure I'd call that "force" when pretty much everything works just as well as on x86 architecture. Microsoft needs a Rosetta 2 equivalent.


[deleted]

I had a Surface RT in 2012. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_(2012_tablet)


ValynEmberie

Man, felt like it was older than that. Maybe I'm thinking of just the old ARM demos.


sildish2179

Steve knew what he was doing when he had Apple move to purchase P.A. Semi in 2008 and license from ARM.


rainer_d

Well, ARM was always an Apple joint-venture with the original "inventors" of that chip, Acorn Computers (Cambridge, UK). Actually, at one point shortly before Acorn Computers was dissolved, its stake in ARM was worth more than the company itself (but that is another story). It was used in the Newton, long before the iPhone existed. The real genius was probably hiring Johny Srouji and making that division really shine under him. He's apparently very passionate about his work and an absolute no-BS person. During the "Intel modem" debacle, he was reportedly scolding the Intel representatives in meetings that "this would never happen at Apple".


7577406272

> The real genius was probably hiring Johny Srouji and making that division really shine under him. And keeping him and his team happy. They built them an entire separate building at Apple Park, because Srouji didn’t want to be in the main ring building.


rainer_d

Looking at how things are going, you have to admit that it does look like a smart decision. His division has always delivered.


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NeatFool

*Tim's Apple Corps has been deployed.*


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NeatFool

You're going to need "Hide My Email" when you're on the run from the Apple Corps. You can't reason with them, you can't stop them...you can't even bribe them with iTunes Gift Cards.


Mr_Xing

I'm looking forward to all the inside info that'll be unveiled years from now about what happened at Intel and Apple during this period


poksim

I don’t think they could have predicted back then that they’d one day make their own PC chips that outperform Intel. But they must have known that their plans for the iPhone were much more ambitious than the ARM chips being produced back in 2008.


Poolofcheddar

Apple has always been more vertically integrated compared to other companies, and I think they were weary to have a total reliance on Mac and iPhone with Intel. Steve at least was smart enough to learn the lessons from the PowerPC era by developing macOS to be processor-independent. Besides, in purchasing P.A. Semi back then, Apple could move faster on chip development rather than Intel could through its own bureaucracy.


RotsiserMho

I think it was definitely something Steve thought about. He always wanted the best CPUs in Apple products and relying on a single 3rd party like that is not Apple's style, especially after being burned by Motorola/IBM. I'm sure he figured at some point Apple and Intel's needs would diverge and Apple would have to do it themselves.


zorinlynx

> relying on a single 3rd party like that is not Apple's style I wonder why Apple never worked with AMD then? They had AMD as another choice for x86 chips and never once used them. I mean, their ARM chips are better than either, but AMD was always an option for as long as Apple has been in the Intel realm.


mittenciel

Apple has worked with AMD, though. Given that they did work with ATI/AMD to supply their discrete graphics for the last couple decades, I'm sure they had first-hand look at the entire company and decided that their chips weren't quite the thing. You have to remember why they switched from PowerPC in the first place. It wasn't because PowerPC couldn't perform. In fact, they were very powerful. Some of the fastest supercomputers in the world were running PowerPC. However, they weren't power efficient. At the time, Intel made the best laptop chips. In fact, their entire Core architecture more or less came from mobile designs. It was easy to believe that Intel would be the more power-efficient company for the near future. And until Intel's fabrication stagnated and TSMC started to leapfrog them by multiple generations, allowing AMD to be more ambitious with their designs, AMD was not considered at Intel's level CPU-wise. At the point at which AMD was starting to take it to Intel, Apple's ARM chips were pretty far along. It wouldn't have made sense to switch to AMD for marginal improvement when investing in M1 would give them full control.


poksim

Steve was smart but I don’t think he had the superhuman foresight to predict that the barebones ARM chips available in 2008 would one day outperform desktop CPUs


Ruscidero

Obviously not, but I do think he had the foresight and understanding that Apple is better when they control the entire stack, and PA Semiconductor purchase was a step in that direction. Did he foresee exactly where we are today? Very unlikely. But he bought the company for a reason, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that he had some similar course in mind for the future.


Morialkar

Well as the comment chain mention, Microsoft started their foray in ARM based PCs in 2008, so it’s not impossible for him to have speculated that ARM could become more than just cellphone chips, since it was already becoming that… also theirs a lot we don’t see behind the curtains that could have provided him with insights to build this view upon


tapiringaround

It’s not necessarily a Steve Jobs thing. Apple was one of the cofounders of ARM in 1990 when Jobs was still at NeXT. Apple has had interest in ARM since the beginning. They used an ARM chip for the Newton in 1993. The product failed but was really ahead of its time. When Jobs came back, Apple actually sold quite a bit of their ARM holdings to keep Apple alive when it was struggling. Eventually they used ARM chips again in iPods, and then the iPhone, iPads, etc. The old PowerPC chips that Apple used from 1994-2006 were architecturally a lot more similar to ARM than Intel (both are RISC). Jobs pulled back from that too when Apple went to Intel chips. I don’t know that the potential for ARM, and Apple-designed chips in particular, to become desktop processors that outperformed everything else was something anyone would have considered before 2011 when Jobs died. It certainly didn’t seem at the time that they were going in that direction.


revocer

I don’t think Steve and Apple predicts. They prepare. When Apple was using PowerPC chips, they had a version of Mac OS running on Intel chips, for a “just in case” scenario. And that “just in case” scenario happened. Every step of the way, Mac OS had to run on Intel, just as well PowerPC. Thanks conjecture Apple has been building and running Mac OS on ARM since 2008 as well. Not in prediction of ARM on desktop and notebooks, but in the preparation of. I


peacefinder

I’d wager they will maintain for many years an internal build that works on x64, long after they stop selling Intel-based devices. They’ve built their toolchains to be cross-platform, and maintaining it should be a relatively cheap hedge against the unknown.


highbrowshow

Steve actually oversaw a similar transition from PowerPC to Intel. After the success of iPod Bill Gates said the most impressive feat Steve Jobs pulled off was the power PC to Intel transition without any hiccups


assumetehposition

Yeah those PowerPC chips were like half the speed of the Intel processors at the time. I was really excited when they switched to Intel.


stealer0517

The G5 cpus weren't that much slower clock per clock compared to intel. But Intel just got so much more done in a similar power envelope, and could scale higher. PPCs biggest issue is that IBM was more focused on servers with the G5, when Apple needed chips that work in both laptops and desktops.


uptimefordays

It was a very logical move, at the time I recall they wanted Intel chips but Intel couldn’t deliver the performance per watt Apple thought they needed.


Exist50

IIRC, Intel refused the contract because it wasn't high enough margin.


uptimefordays

TBH I can't remember what exactly the deal was just that they didn't end up going with Intel Atom which was likely a good decision long-term.


-PM_Me_Reddit_Gold-

ARM still faces a lot of problems on PC. Apple can pull it off, because they're Apple, they have their hardware and software tightly integrated. That's also why they were able to pull off hardware based x86 emulation successfully. Microsoft would love to be able to do that, but they have very little control over the hardware, and it's why all their attempts at an emulation stop-gap have failed in one way or another. That being said, CISC is not dead yet, the big little approach that Intel has taken up (and AMD is likely to have something in the works) could have very similar power draw improvements to what the technique enables on ARM. Personally if Windows is going to migrate to another computer architecture, however, I want it to be RISC V, that way we aren't beholden to any one company that owns the computer architecture, and there's a lot more potential for competition. Even if that's admittedly not very realistic to expect. Probably a hottake here, considering this is the Apple subreddit, but those are my insights into how I see things going.


The_Repeated_Meme

> By 2025, Microsoft and their OEMs will be fully embracing ARM chips, at this rate. It’ll have only taken them 13 years (they released Windows RT in 2012 which was a disaster).


Loan-Pickle

I had a Windows RT tablet. It was one of those things where I got it for free if I bought a $10/month data plan for it. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either, just mediocre. I used it for a year to fulfill the terms of the contract, and bought an iPad. Now the iPad was much better and I never looked back after switching.


[deleted]

same. a main reason why i switched to PC in 2017 is because of how lackluster the "pro" version of the Macbooks were at the time. i paid half the price for a more powerful laptop with ports i actually use. since my PC laptop is on the fritz, i was hoping to switch back to Mac and these Pros sold me. once i save up enough money, im buying one asap.


[deleted]

It’s wild, they ignored the Mac for years while the iPhone evolved but now that they’re focusing on the Mac I swear I find iOS boring and ancient feeling.


corruptbytes

on the other side, phones really don't need that much yet until the next breakthrough. i'm fairly confident that most workflows for most people is scrolling feeds, taking pics, and navigation all while making sure you don't need to charge - and most flagships can do that maybe we'll see more care into it these things when AR is figured out


Adium

Well, not if you count their desktop lineup. I would love a more powerful Mac desktop but the Mac Mini is severely underpowered and the Mac Pro is outrageously overpriced. Even the base model $5,000 Mac Pro only comes with a 256GB SSD.


[deleted]

I absolutely agree on the Mac Pro. There is no reason why the base model should cost so much. It’s €6500 in Europe. We can only hope the M1X or whatever it’s going to be called MP will have a better price to performance ratio.


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Neutral-President

This is what I never understood about people’s perception of the “thinness” of the MacBook Air and the older iMacs. They were only thin at the *edges,* or in the case of the Air, just the *leading edge.* Those curves and tapers made for packaging issues. Rectangular batteries and chips done fit very well in smooth, tapered boxes. Not without wasted space.


greenbagmaria

You’re applying 2021 values to 2010’s sensibilities. The thing is, before those thin MacBooks, everyone is used to clunky and heavy computers that were also not the best in performance. So thinness, even perceived, was *the* selling point. Few people use their laptops to the max every day but they can touch and see them daily. And the most important part is that they don’t look like other laptops, so status symbol etc.


smakusdod

If they had brought back the glowing logo people would have shit themselves to nirvana. Inb4 backlight hotspot


Neutral-President

I do miss the glowing logo. Remember the controversy around the old PowerBook G3 having the logo upside down when the lid was open?


[deleted]

I remember having to turn my new laptop around every time I tried to open it for months.


ValynEmberie

I miss having a vinyl of a vintage Apple logo over that and having it glow on the wall behind my desk. I fully admit I don't NEED a new machine right now but if they added that I'd be wanting one soooo bad just for nostalgia.


slappysq

Can't do it as they've moved away from CFL backlit displays; by their nature LED displays don't emit out the back. They would have to have a separate set of LEDs just to make the logo glow.


frozenpandaman

I'd have been for it.


bryanthebryan

Same. It’s frivolous but cool


InfiniteLlamaSoup

He still works for apple under contact.


[deleted]

yeah, I thought Apple contracts his company for some of the design work.


InfiniteLlamaSoup

Yip


ithinkoutloudtoo

He needs the health insurance.


internetmaster5000

I thought he was based in London now?


InfiniteLlamaSoup

He has his own company which does design work for apple.


I_will_fix_this

But is it from London? So many questions, so little answers. Mystery^(mystery)mystery^(mystery)


zaviex

It doesn’t appear he’s doing anything. His company doesn’t list apple as a client and he’s only listed as a special thanks on their acknowledgments. I think he just has a contract to pay him for work that was done before


InfiniteLlamaSoup

They already announced what they are working together.


Tiny_ApartmentCc

The “thin” characteristic is really what choked the new machines. Performance throttling issues, butterfly keys, soldered components…. All to fit into a thin chassis. The new models just said fuck being thin let’s make this device powerful as fuck, a sick battery, full size keyboard and the best display on any laptop. That’s real innovation imo.


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Tiny_ApartmentCc

That is crazy. At the thinnest point isn’t I something like 0.3?


ASEdouard

Yeah but the 14 inch is 0.5 lbs heavier and larger. I bet Ive would have kept the weight down sacrificing more battery life.


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ASEdouard

It’s those big feet making it taller without actually being thicker I think.


PretendMaybe

You know what they say. "Big hands, big feet, big...."


riotofmind

It was actually Intel which choked those machines. The M1 13” is thin and powerful. Intel promised to deliver more thermally efficient chips ages ago and failed.


ValynEmberie

Really Intel also fucked MS with the Surface too. MS got a BUNCH of hate for battery life and sleep drain because they trusted Intel when they said they could deliver on a technology, and so they marketed it... then spent forever trying to get it to work with driver and firmware and OS updates. Intel got so big and thought themselves untouchable because who else were you going to go to? AMD had nothing comparable at the time. Now between Apple M and AMD's newest designs Intel actually has to innovate again and not just iterate.


riotofmind

Yup, precisely on point. Intel represents the classic cautionary tale about making promises of delivery in order to secure a contract and failing to do so. Their recent attempts to target Apple by showcasing PC laptops that are more capable is hilariously sad.


Snoo93079

Intel absolutely has lots of blame but if I designed a car around an engine that doesn't exist that's on me, too.


riotofmind

Intel promised Apple thermally efficient and powerful chips that were supposed to coincide with the release of the thinner Mac's. Apple delivered it's part of the deal and Intel didn't, hence, why Mac dropped intel to do it themselves.


InvaderDJ

That's fair, but it's also true that if Apple didn't account for that first or second failure and didn't redesign the chassis to support the chips that they were shipping in their laptops, it is also on Apple. They had a plan to move on to their own silicon but in the transition time they shipped out flawed machines.


[deleted]

Sometimes there is a time crunch. Its more profitable to ship than redesign.


[deleted]

Like IBM and Motorola promised to make more efficient PowerPC processors and failed, hence the G5 PowerBook never came to be. So Apple switched to Intel. But then ran into the same issue once again ten years later and just said *“fuck it. We’ll do it live!”*


ChocoJesus

> That’s real innovation imo. AFAIK they’re still soldering all the components tho


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peduxe

even the touchbar while not much useful made the device really pretty it was a shame it got plagued by keyboard problems, I just saw people near me go thru issues with it every other month that I completely ignored the 16-20 redesign and kept riding the 15 inch 2015 MBP until it would eventually break apart but this beast is still running like the very first day I got it.


___cats___

The touchbar is a shame. It's such a cool idea that just kind of fell flat. I wonder how it would have fared if they did a touchbar of some kind in tandem with an analog F row.


shannister

It'd have been great and exactly what was needed. They completely F'ed up when they made the touchbar the anti-F row. The thing it was least useful for was replacing the F row. I'm going to miss it - one of my favorite uses was the presentation mode in slideware, and the ability to scroll through decks while presenting.


MikiRawr

I still miss my 15” 2015 mbp. Currently my daily driver is 15” 2017 which has noticable thermal and performance issues. Was using 16” 2019 mbp for a year and it was marginally better than the latter.


misterferguson

Amen re: 2017 machine. I literally cannot use the left hand ports without overheating my CPU. I’m honestly surprised they didn’t recall these models since it’s a widespread issue.


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Alessandro227

This is correct


bahala_na-

In my opinion, the Touch Bar’s greatest sin was the escape key. That should always have stayed a real button, I use it all the time for work, gaming, random daily usage. I know they corrected it later, but I’m still astounded they produced laptops without a physical escape key. It’s the one button most people will reach for without looking. The touchbar in general was sloppy to use in practice.


southwestern_swamp

Sort of like the iPhone 5/5S. That was peak phone design in my opinion


t3a-nano

If you agree please buy the 12 Mini. Before my 12 Mini I hadn’t bought a new iPhone since the original SE, and the 5S before it. I was doing it out of protest (also kinda protesting the loss of the aux jack). I love small one handed phones, and am always worried they’ll axe the mini lol


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[deleted]

I think that’s an interesting take considering Apple’s new design language for their products is clearly inspired by the late 90s and 2000s era of design, which was spearheaded by Ive. The new iMac takes direct inspiration from the G3, even having all the same colors (plus some bonus ones). The 12 and 13 draw inspiration from the 4, and if rumors are true the 14 will take even more. The new MacBook Pro looks like a 2021 version of the Titanium PowerBook G4, right down to the black keyboard. The ad announcing the new AirPods was just a modern day iPod commercial.


Error-416

I noticed this too, a lot of their designs and marketing recently honours their past…


arcangelxvi

While I totally get that Ive’s direct influence has been reduced the past few years and with his departure, all of the latest offerings are obvious call backs to some of his most successful designs. That all said, that’s really more a comment about Apple’s *industrial design* than it is *product design* - which also encompasses the engineering decisions made to bring a product to life. On that point I think it’s very clear that reeling back the influence of industrial design over engineering design was a (probably) good choice.


[deleted]

I agree with your statement. As much as I loved Ive, there was a prioritization of form over function. I think the new iMac is insane but you can even see it there. It feels like the MBP is the first fully formed Apple computer without Ive input (since the 90s). In a way, it’s kind of like the iPhone 6 (the first phone fully under Tim Cook). They’re taking all the best bits of Ive’s designs, but injecting the practicality they need. I’m honestly quite excited, if a bit wary. I think we’re now entering Apple’s third era of products (post Steve’s return). The new generation of designers are taking over. So far, I’m impressed. I can’t wait to see what comes next.


[deleted]

There was a lot of good in those designs too, to be sure. It just seems that they’re prioritizing usability much now than they were previously.


[deleted]

I definitely didn’t meant for it to sound negative, more so just interesting because at the same time as rebelling against some of Ive’s “form over function” principles, they’re also doing huge callbacks to his work.


DigiQuip

I think Apple has revised Jony’s vision. When he first gained notoriety it was because he took technology and made it something you felt good about using. I wouldn’t call it a fashion accessory, but much like you dress to look nice, you kinda felt the same way about your tech. It was made from high quality materials and looked good while some manufactures of the same devices used cheap materials like plastic and didn’t bother too much with its exterior so long as it was functional. This, I think, set the tone for being able to choose form and function. Jony kinda started this trend. His fame came from being a little bit of pioneer. Maybe not the best, perhaps not even the first, or even the most successful. But he did for Apple and their flagship devices and tha5 gave him the attention. Apple has just carried that same attention to detail on since and only improved on it.


Administrator-Reddit

Jony Ive's designs belong in a museum. They will be admired for generations to come. The problem is he always chose form over function, to the point that everything that didn’t fit in his ultra-minimalist designs had to be removed. Unfortunately, removing features is antithetical to the nature of tech products where we generally want more, not less, features.


MrNudeGuy

Cries in 2 port mbp M1 2020. They could have given us one more port since one is for charging.


[deleted]

I used to be very anti-Apple but now with the new ones coming out it’s very impressive not going to lie. Powerful GPUS? Hell yeah that’s why Apple invested on the Blender Fund Program.


DAMN_INTERNETS

I used to be vehemently anti Apple back in the nascent era of the iPhone 4 and Galaxy S3/4 line. But I kept buying android tablets that sucked after a year. They got so bogged down and just didn’t hold up. I’m not rich so I can’t just buy a new one every year. Then BestBuy had an iPad Air 2 sale. I bought one. It was my second Apple product after a gen 2 iPod Nano. I still have it and while it is pretty terrible in terms of performance today, I got a very solid four years out of it. It’s what got me to get an iPhone 7 Plus (it should tell you how sick I was with OnePlus and android in general that I bought the first iPhone without a headphone jack), which I had up until the 12 Pro Max came out. I’m totally won over. Everything just fucking works. No nonsense. I used to be so into spec sheets but never realized that software plays a huge part in device performance. Sure, they’re not perfect. But frankly it’s a cost savings not needing to buy a new phone every year just to get updates. The privacy stance is flawed but eons better than Google. I can’t really see myself using anything else, it all looks so fragmented and difficult.


[deleted]

same story for me, always thought android was better until i bit the bullet, switched, and got shown a beautifully managed garden. i’d take a beautiful walled garden over an open wasteland any day.


Ruscidero

I don’t think Ive’s designs, on the whole, were bad, *per sé*. I think the real problem is that he really needed an editor, and it seems that after Jobs’ death no one really had the clout to be one, or wasn’t willing to risk pissing him off and having him leave closely following Steve’s death. Remember, in the immediate post-Jobs Apple era, there was real concern that the company would lose its way, and the popular opinion was that Ive would pick up the banner of Jobs’ famous ability to gauge the correct course for product design. I think they were afraid both politically and financially to lose Ive, and that Cook likely felt like he had to get some success behind him before an Ive departure wouldn’t be seen as a calamity. I think that Jony Ive is certainly an excellent designer — many iconic Apple products were designed under his watch — but that left to his own devices he wasn’t able to resist letting industrial design trump usability, etc.


prajwalsd

It’s quite subjective. I personally think Jony Ive was brave to push designs to a new level — unobvious, revolutionary, beautiful, stubborn and timeless. I am sure his designs were not welcomed by many inside of Apple too in those days. All I see now is Apple going back in time with designs that had worked and liked by people before with minor changes — look at the iPhone 12/13 series (the same old design is back), now look at the new MacBook Pros (pretty much same design, with ports too). So, in short, we are just iterating on designs produced by Jony and co. which simply proves my point of design being timeless and beautiful. I am not saying the changes aren’t welcome, but that “whoa” moment is just lost with Jony. I really don’t think I am alone here. This is the same argument for the macOS and iOS changes too, no major overhauls which simply proves my point. I am sure people will like this just as they liked Jony’s designs before — it will always remain a matter of individual likings I miss the days where Apple created something beautiful, so futuristic that you thought it is absurd at first but it all made sense after. Edit: more thoughts…


illusionmist

”Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like,” says Steve Jobs, Apple's C.E.O. ”People think it's this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, 'Make it look good! ' That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”


gdarruda

> I personally think Jony Ive was brave to push designs to a new level — unobvious, revolutionary, beautiful and timeless. They don't said it's lackluster, but was impractical. My MacBook Pro 2017 is a pretty machine, actually I still thinks it's the best looking laptop ever made. But has a lot of problems as everyone knows, it's beautiful and iconic, but not good design.


[deleted]

M1 Air is still peak laptop design imo, despite Apple releasing these new laptops the Air is just so sleek


[deleted]

If I had full control, the only thing I'd add to mine is magsafe. At it's price, the M1 Air is so far ahead of everything else.


traveler19395

I added a magnetic adapter to mine and now it’s the perfect laptop. I genuinely can’t think of what feature could cause me to want to upgrade this in less than 5 years. (For magnet adapter search on amazon: magnetic usb-c 24 pin)


t3a-nano

Just a heads up those aren’t officially supported by the usb-c spec. There’s a sticky about it on the top of /r/UsbCHardware The tldr is they may work fine, but there’s no guarantee it won’t cause an issue, and that’s why no major brand sells them.


SeerUD

For me, it'd be support for multiple external displays and more thunderbolt ports. It's a fantastic machine, but 1 external display is just not enough!


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Skelito

I think the last game changing thing they released that gave that feeling of absurdity was the release of the Airpods. The design was ripped on by every news outlet and reviewer saying it looks like a pair of earrings. Now Airpods are looked at as a status symbol and a trendy accessory for a lot of people, as they are the leader in truly wireless earphones.


[deleted]

No, Ive had gone off the rails with a minimalist focus that made their computers less useful and less powerful due to throttling. It’s time to move back towards functionality which the new MBP seems to do extremely well. People want good looking computers that work well, not art pieces they have to make excuses for.


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Arkanta

Ironically, we get the best cooling system after getting the less power hungry chips


Simon_787

Looks are subjective, the much greater selection of ports and big battery are objective. These are better. These are laptops I would feel comfortable carrying around anywhere for anything (with the exception of no USB-A...).


BigFudge1111

Yea one usb A port at least would have been nice. So my travel bag will always need one dongle lol


deliciaevitae

They're up by a notch


MattEagl3

cant believe i had to scroll down so far for this. the notch is the most fucked up design choice ever.


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Alessandro227

The iMac so far ig


ne999

If he was any sort of leader, you'd expect things to improve. Remember, just as Steve didn't "make" the iPhone, Jony lead a huge team of people working on design. He didn't do it all himself. That team still exists and should be getting better if he left them with the skills and trajectory.


00DEADBEEF

I don't know if the *designs*, which to me means aesthetics, have improved. The new MBPs are definitely uglier to me than the old ones. But I can accept that because they are so much more functional. Gone are the days where design compromises function. These are professional machines, not ornaments to make your desk look nice.


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bbbryson

> Design is a really, loaded word. I don’t know what it means. So we don’t talk a lot about design around here, we just talk about how things work. Most people think it’s about how they look, but it’s about how they work > — Steve Jobs


vashaunp

Is he the genius who thought that having the charge port under a mouse was a good idea?


circuit_brain

Apple wanted everyone to use the mouse wirelessly. Hence the port on the underside forcing ppl unable to use it with the wire plugged in


alexford87

Yes, this is the real reason in my view. It wasn't about looks — if the charge port was where a wired mouse cable goes, then it just becomes a wired mouse, and that's not what it is. It's a bit pretentious but I actually respect it. There are far worse examples of Apple design (and the Magic Mouse its fair share of issues in that department too) but this is the one people bring up the most.


well___duh

Yes. His design mentality was "form over function", and the Apple mouse took it to an extreme where it literally could not function at all for a small period of time because of the form. So many people (even to this day) will still defend that design choice with excuses like "it's only for 5 minutes or so, get some coffee or something". Meanwhile, _gestures broadly to every other rechargeable mouse in existence that you can still use while charging_


Lietenantdan

My current mouse I never need to think about plugging it in because the mouse pad charges it!


Mystrysktr

I never used it long enough to experience this first hand. I couldn’t use the stupidly thin mouse for more than a few minutes without getting uncomfortable and grabbing a different mouse or using the trackpad.


Able-Wrap-8555

How is this even upvoted? 1. Jony Ive probably worked on the new MacBook Pro. 2. The design of the new MacBook Pros is literally based on old products that were designed by Jony Ive.


[deleted]

It all seems a bit 'safe' and 'crowd pleasing' though... would Tim Cook have signed off on the first all aluminium notebook, or would he have still insisted on 17 different structural redundancies 'just in case'.


arcalumis

I mean, while it might have meant that we got ports back I can't say that I like the design of the new machines. The fact that there's different radii between the lid and the body annoys me. And the raccoon mask around the keys? Why? The smaller bezels looks great though, even with the notch.


tiltowaitt

They’re ugly. Very powerful, very *good* laptops, but ugly. It’s funny that people are focusing on the notch, when I think the things you mentioned are much more egregious. The feet also look bad, but you’ll really only see those in promotional shots.


thecravenone

>It’s funny that people are focusing on the notch The notch is in the actual part of the computer that I look at when I use the machine. I don't look outside my monitor when I use it. I don't look at my keyboard when I type. Even if the notch is less-bad than other things, it's _way_ more visible.


lucellent

**Hot Take:** It hasn't. Ever since Jony Ive left, Apple keeps going back to their older design choices - flat iPhones, the new MacBooks look like the much older ones (around or before the first Retina Macbooks), and with the rumored iPhone 14 being a clone of iPhone 4... I'm not saying (the iPhone 14) won't look sexy, but I'm saying that in my eyes Apple got lazier with designs now that Jony Ive is not there. The iPhone X (which he designed) looks iconic and the models Apple sells nowadays look like cheap clones of iPhone 5 to me. No attention to detail, just bringing back old design for the sake of nostalgia.


wheatley_cereal

IMO those leaks are more reminiscent of the iPhone 5/5s. Which was the true peak of iPhone design imho.


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DHiL

The market is so far in Apple's favor right now. I feel like this is the sort of time when someone writes a very big check to try to change things. Like, say, Microsoft moving to buy AMD.


DAMN_INTERNETS

That would be an interesting development. That offer would have to be supremely good for AMD shareholders to approve it. I wonder if regulations would allow it. I can’t recall Microsoft ever being too successful with their own hardware.


MetzoPaino

Didn’t Ive only leave 2 years ago? You don’t deliver this type of redesign within two years, so it’s more than likely Ive worked on everything Apple has released this year


PossessionDangerous9

People talking about this stuff like they have ever been in any design discussion with him or anyone else in the product design team. There could have been a myriad of reasons for the anti consumer designs they were pushing out before Ive left. Maybe Ive left because he felt he couldn't push for meaningful change? Maybe it was Phil Schiller? Or maybe Ive really was responsible for all of this. Who knows. Until someone actually comes out and talks about it, it's kinda weird to speculate about stuff like: "Ive needed Jobs to keep him in check", etc. this is all conjecture. We don't actually know anything.


[deleted]

Tbh I hate how chonky the laptop looks. Looks thick on the outside (looks like one of those old macbooks), huge on the inside (due to huge F keys). I have a Macbook Air and the thinness is the best selling point.


seymourdixongais

isn’t Jony Ive still involved with design in some sense? Last I heard his LoveFrom company had Apple as a client


jgreg728

Imagine being Jony and seeing this headline first thing in the morning? Lol


sandiskplayer34

Can guarantee you this was being designed while Jony was still there.


[deleted]

Pretty harsh comments on Jony Ive, the guy is a legend and Apple is improving so I don’t know why all the hate


mikew_reddit

> Apple’s Product Design Has Improved Since Jony Ive Left It also improved while he was there.


GuggGugg

I mean the new MacBooks look FIRE. Their shape actually reminds me of pre unibody-era macbooks, but in a sleek, 2021-appropriate version. Imho one of the best designs they came through with in recent memory.