I couldn’t disagree more. But damn he’s a good writer.
https://theoutline.com/post/2352/apple-is-really-bad-at-design
https://theoutline.com/post/2352/apple-is-really-bad-at-design
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Other Apple is Really Bad at Design - Joshua Topolosky [MERGED]
- Thread starter NoCleverSNForMe
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Josh is great, but the notch is something that will be accepted in time and will be an iconic part of iPhones going forward. Design is often so subjective.
I really abhor Topolsky in general, but I think this article brings up many good points.
I like its sass too
And the picture of Apple Pencil sticking out of an iPad awkwardly (and I love my 12.9 gen2, and pencil)
Sums up modern apple perfectly,
Even as specs get nice, and Apple has good stuff going on, golden days of Apple are dead in terms of perfection design wise. And lack of viable competition and jailbreak love is what keeps me around (I dislike android strongly, and google even more— and i have plenty of gripes with apple’s management too, but thats another topic. But i dont want android/non-iMessage i can a void it period, even though they have some nice head turning handsets out v30 note 8 pixel 2 soon and the budget one plus five) personally, but I’m frustrated as heck too. And innovation, thats long gone. Unless u consider being able to express your self through a poop animoji. Then fair enough,
But innovation? Not even sure what that means anymore, its been a serious drought of that since the iPad
Camera humps, ridiculous bezels, notches, pencils sticking out, lightning charge port for the mouse on the UNDERSIDE of the mouse, so you cant use and charge, removing a feature many love and have gotten acquainted with in just the past couple years, rather than complemented with FaceID (tho thats subjective like many of my gripes)
Edge to edge not being truly edge to edge, 4 generations of same design thats an android ripoff, making the dual cam uglier flipping it vertically, removing the headphone jack while producing the largest physical smartphone in the industry pretty much especially relative to screen size (Plus models, and I love my 7+ and AirPods/Solo3 its all I’d use but still... ‘courage’ eh?), red edition not offered with a black front (ymmv, but a common complaint of that variant),
I personally wish they extended the glass feel to the sides of 8, its slippery, even with aluminum frame, they coulda added that glass gloss over the aluminum, and it would feel even better. Like a complete jet black build.
Design elements are just gone.
iOS 7 UI is terrible too, it looks ok on my SE for some reason but on my 7+ I have to use Ayeris theme, which is a flat theme fixed. Stock UI just looks so disgusting to me, and stale, and too much white space, and no dark theme? On an OLED with infinite blacks? Or a solid status bar with blacked out bunny ears to be consistent with notch? I coulda offered this keen consultative advice within 5 minutes of being pitched the final product, and it would make a world of difference over some small tweaks.
And an excessive horizontal bar to indicate u can swipe up on app, always at the bottom? I dont have short term memory loss, ive been swiping up on apps for over half a decade now with jailbreak, and many users who still haven’t, will remember to swipe up. Thats awful.
And scroll bar going “under” the notch when scrolling sites on safari or whatever, in landscape
And nothing new for the most part except landscape home screen on PLus models, not taking full advantage of 5.5” if they were wise, they just blew everything up. oh and a 5.8" device where you swipe from top right vs bottom, ha. haha. "theres a jailbrreak tweak for that ! " coulda chose bottom left or right depending on preference, and the opposite side on the bottom for close app. it would be magical.
And Macs, no longer remotely professional and turning a lot of people off, scissor keyboards that dont have travel ( I like it, but u could have implemented more key travel and the mechanism i doubt any one would take issue with more raised keys), and a touchbar no one was asking for, in fact people want 15” without it? But you can only get it if you buy the cheapest base 13”?
WTF.
It’s stupid how cluttered and non-cohesive the product lines are within themselves and by that i mean There’s an insane amount of options, but its all relatively the same just a matter of size preference and compromise on the internals since apple treats sizes differently on specs (Barring 10.5/12.9 current pro's, I wish they continue this trend), and update them whenever the heck they feel like it if at all-- people don't even know if SE or mini iPad will return. OR THE MAC MINI. Lots of fear uncertainty and doubt.
I like its sass too
And the picture of Apple Pencil sticking out of an iPad awkwardly (and I love my 12.9 gen2, and pencil)
Sums up modern apple perfectly,Even as specs get nice, and Apple has good stuff going on, golden days of Apple are dead in terms of perfection design wise. And lack of viable competition and jailbreak love is what keeps me around (I dislike android strongly, and google even more— and i have plenty of gripes with apple’s management too, but thats another topic. But i dont want android/non-iMessage i can a void it period, even though they have some nice head turning handsets out v30 note 8 pixel 2 soon and the budget one plus five) personally, but I’m frustrated as heck too. And innovation, thats long gone. Unless u consider being able to express your self through a poop animoji. Then fair enough,
But innovation? Not even sure what that means anymore, its been a serious drought of that since the iPad
Camera humps, ridiculous bezels, notches, pencils sticking out, lightning charge port for the mouse on the UNDERSIDE of the mouse, so you cant use and charge, removing a feature many love and have gotten acquainted with in just the past couple years, rather than complemented with FaceID (tho thats subjective like many of my gripes)
Edge to edge not being truly edge to edge, 4 generations of same design thats an android ripoff, making the dual cam uglier flipping it vertically, removing the headphone jack while producing the largest physical smartphone in the industry pretty much especially relative to screen size (Plus models, and I love my 7+ and AirPods/Solo3 its all I’d use but still... ‘courage’ eh?), red edition not offered with a black front (ymmv, but a common complaint of that variant),
I personally wish they extended the glass feel to the sides of 8, its slippery, even with aluminum frame, they coulda added that glass gloss over the aluminum, and it would feel even better. Like a complete jet black build.
Design elements are just gone.
iOS 7 UI is terrible too, it looks ok on my SE for some reason but on my 7+ I have to use Ayeris theme, which is a flat theme fixed. Stock UI just looks so disgusting to me, and stale, and too much white space, and no dark theme? On an OLED with infinite blacks? Or a solid status bar with blacked out bunny ears to be consistent with notch? I coulda offered this keen consultative advice within 5 minutes of being pitched the final product, and it would make a world of difference over some small tweaks.
And an excessive horizontal bar to indicate u can swipe up on app, always at the bottom? I dont have short term memory loss, ive been swiping up on apps for over half a decade now with jailbreak, and many users who still haven’t, will remember to swipe up. Thats awful.
And scroll bar going “under” the notch when scrolling sites on safari or whatever, in landscape
And nothing new for the most part except landscape home screen on PLus models, not taking full advantage of 5.5” if they were wise, they just blew everything up. oh and a 5.8" device where you swipe from top right vs bottom, ha. haha. "theres a jailbrreak tweak for that ! " coulda chose bottom left or right depending on preference, and the opposite side on the bottom for close app. it would be magical.
And Macs, no longer remotely professional and turning a lot of people off, scissor keyboards that dont have travel ( I like it, but u could have implemented more key travel and the mechanism i doubt any one would take issue with more raised keys), and a touchbar no one was asking for, in fact people want 15” without it? But you can only get it if you buy the cheapest base 13”?
WTF.
It’s stupid how cluttered and non-cohesive the product lines are within themselves and by that i mean There’s an insane amount of options, but its all relatively the same just a matter of size preference and compromise on the internals since apple treats sizes differently on specs (Barring 10.5/12.9 current pro's, I wish they continue this trend), and update them whenever the heck they feel like it if at all-- people don't even know if SE or mini iPad will return. OR THE MAC MINI. Lots of fear uncertainty and doubt.
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Well said article.
I am surprised more don't agree. It's not just the iPhone 10 notch, how long have Macbook Pro owners put up with sharp edges that dig into your palms as you type? Power cords that self destruct? Glued in lithium batteries that are known to expand? Keyboard designs that easily allow liquid to enter and take out the main board? ...
I am surprised more don't agree. It's not just the iPhone 10 notch, how long have Macbook Pro owners put up with sharp edges that dig into your palms as you type? Power cords that self destruct? Glued in lithium batteries that are known to expand? Keyboard designs that easily allow liquid to enter and take out the main board? ...
OP you cant just “not disagree more” and not provide any points to substantiate why you feel this way.
Mostly because I’m really curious of your views now
Do you equate acceptance wth approval?
In this instance I see acceptance as surrender.
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I blame Ive.
It’s impossible not to be hyper critical of apple since they created the standard and benchmark for excellence imo, but also they have dropped the ball, because its a company's products* many of us have legit loved for so long. Now it so obviously feels like a bean counting corporation thats a bunch of talented engineers glued together without a laser focus philosophy or vision, also with deep pockets.. more than a company that always commanded high prices, but in exchange for a very personal feeling, appeal wise, type of products. The cracks are showing and they’ve busted out a lot of lipstick for the pig , thats still, a pig.
It’s like breaking up with bae, its tough.
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I think love is as strong a word as hate. In the threads about hate I have said I don't hate Apple, but I do have a critical opinion of some of their current decisions.
In the same way, however, I don't love Apple either. But I do love some of their products.
Perhaps it stems from the fact that my background is PC. I used Macs only at work and I didn't convert to Apple until 2003. I didn't get my first brand new iPhone until 2012.
My point in bringing that up is that I have never been one of those all-in Apple fans. I get and use what I like and don't what I do not like. I also do not like being dependent on any one particular company for a product or service.
I'm just disappointed with Apple is all.
Yeah thats what I mean is their products being in love with, not Apple themselves, but just saying ‘Apple’ as an extension of the products they make.
never was a SJ- kool aid drinker but i think he made results happen concretely.
Firing Forestall feels political/emotional/like a bad move on iOS front at least.
And maybe even design.
What is Jony up to, for real? Design wise, and iOS look wise? Been chilling since iOS 7 2013 and iPhone6 2014 bod, eh?
he looks like he's NEVER seen the X until this photo, like 'what is that right there?'
And Tim is cheesing so hard. Classic Car salesman, snake oil without reality distort field enabled, Tim.
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OP you cant just “not disagree more” and not provide any points to substantiate why you feel this way.
Mostly because I’m really curious of your views now
Hahaha! I love it
Infinitewisdom pretty much summed it up for me: It truly is in the eye of the beholder. I love Steve Jobs, however we totally have a tendency to do the whole "grass is greener" thing. His tenure wasn't perfect either - remember Antennagate? "Your hands block cell phone signal? No worries! I'll just use my iPhone without my hands. Wait..." Yeah, that was a pretty major design fail.
As a consumer and a fan of technology, there's no one who offers what Apple does: the integration of software and hardware. Sure, with iOS getting bigger and having more features, it's not as neatly designed as iOS 1...but what do you expect? What do you want them to do now that iOS 11 offers 10,000 more features than iOS 1? To me, it's still the best offering out there, compared to Android Oreo.
I admit, it took Apple FOREVER to offer a bezel-less phone. They could've given us a "Touch ID on the back" bezel-less phone two years ago, but they chose to work on Face ID and decided that was the future. I still remember when everyone was upset about using a PIN vs using Touch ID ("Will people put their fingerprints on a phone?" YES! Looks they will!) I'm going to give Face ID a shot before I pass judgement.
I don't dismiss Joshua's comments. He's a great writer, and clearly he's writing from his love and passion for Apple. He has every right to believe what he does. For me? I've never been more excited to see what they're going to do with iOS and future iPhones.
I will be up ALL NIGHT on October 26th to make sure I'm awake at 3:01am on October 27th. I am so psyched!
Here is something I've noticed at the risk of comparing Jobs/Cook.
Steve told you what he thought: You're holding it wrong! A live funeral for OS9. We're done with floppy drives., etc. It was up to you to deal with it - or not.
Tim justifies things. The other day he justified the price of the iPhone X on live TV as Apple providing a better product for it's customers. That may be true, but it's a justification.
That's what I see with Apple now, a move from conviction to justification.
Just my opinion.
As to Ive…I think he exists in an echo chamber of like minded people.
Wow. That's a really good observation! Thanks for sharing, man!
But honestly, the X can bring enough and arguably does ('only' $49 more than the 256GB 8Plus at $949 before it for a 64GB X if you don't care about space or can make do thats comparatively *QUITE* a deal in my opinion when u look at it that way, OIS in second camera, an OLED screen/new screensize+aspect ratio thats what I'd be most psyched about... and that a jailbreak could fix those bunny ears right on up, a 'new' design though iterative of iPhone 6 --its best version it would appear/you could say, excited and not afraid and/or skeptical of competency of FaceID if you're into that whole thing, can accept omission of TouchID, and embrace the notch, staleness from iPhone lineup to where ITS SOMETHING NEW, pent up demand kinda thing) that you can wanna preorder it the second preorder go up and be a hypocrite, thats fine.
I'm just disappointed in how things have turned out. They could do A LOT better. And only last year they removed the headphone jack. And people can accept removal of headphone jack. but do I *LOVE* that headphone jack is gone? Not particularly, but I still really dig my 7+ overall.
you can buy the X, really enjoy it, and still be disappointed in Apple. that sounds weird but,
Apple should have offered X at 128GB at $999 on top of it all, and stop presenting new predicaments. I don't care the semantics, supply side of things, cost breakdown, anything.
Thats what they should have done. Plenty of people who got 128 7/7+ cause 32 was too little are gonna go to a 64 X and probably be alright but be halving their pool of storage to get some other upgrades.
There's no way in hell Im paying $1250 after tax for a 256 X.
No WAY. Thats premium laptop tier pricing, and that thing will depreciate like no other next year, its a 'drive the new car off the lot' and get half of what you put down, if you're lucky after tax.
$999 X is a hard maybe to probably not to SHOULD BE definitely not if I came to my senses. It's a trap regardless of whether I buy and keep one, or don't go near it, or test drive one cause I have no idea and return it.
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The title is a bit clickbaity, but he’s spot on for the most part.
There is nothing subjective about the notch being unintelligent design. That’s a fact governed by human intelligence. Intelligent humans know why the notch is unintelligent. It’s really as simple as understanding how humans perceive, and in this case the perception is sight and the fact that light enters into the eye and is translated into electro-chemical stimuli that travel to the brain and produce an image to the brain as to what this thing in existence looks like (for the propagation and sustainment of the lifeform of course), and this perception is extremely sensitive to uniformity in the light, it became such evolutionarily. When you take a display and make it non-uniform, you then draw the attention of the brain toward this. It’s the exact opposite of what intelligent humans would do. Your goal is not to distract, but to focus. Ironically Apple used the term most opposite of what this experience will result in: immersive.
Saying you love the notch is like saying you love the antenna lines. you don't, but you deal.
the notch for others is a deal breaker since it interacts with the screen by being overlaid into it. its not even implemented properly without black to the left and right to make it seamless when on. looks super protoype-y/not ready for primetime.
6/6s honestly didn't look ready with those antenna lines running horizontally across the back. with a case didn't matter, but on its own, meh.
the 7/8 do, however stale the design may be/is.
as do OG, 3g/3gs, 4/4s, 5/5s (the latter being under Cook's reign of course)
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If the notch is something that Apple is banking on to be iconic, then I fear they’re sadly mistaken. The notch, when not blacked out, looks bad. Websites with the white bars in landscape, the white “ears” in portrait mode, etc. I struggle to see why people find it aesthetically pleasing.
The X has decently thick bezels around the screen, as well as the notch at the top. It’s far from “all screen” IMO. My hope is that the X is a beta test of a design that they need to perfect. If this ends up being a design that they keep long term, notch and all, it will feel like a misstep.
Then again, what do I know? Apple is one of the most successful companies in the world.
Saying you love the notch is admitting you follow and jump off the bridge if the person leading you does. It’s accepting what you think is good because of who did it, it’s not thinking for yourself as to why it’s objectively terrible.
Can’t believe he didn’t show the magic mouse 2 with its charging cable attached, but then I suppose there have been so many Apple design snafus of late...
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and you can think the notch is garbage, and still try and keep an X, and its ok in my view to be a hypocrite as I've stated before. enjoying all the other upgrades, and settling, effectively.
but from a man-to-man, heart-to-heart, the notch is 100% a mistake
