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"Obsession with Design" is a major red flag for any person/company. Someone obsessed with design fetishizes meaningless details (mm of keyboard thickness) even when it hurts usefulness (keyboard reliability).

The title of the article is now "The Design Vacuum: How Apple Lost Its Aesthetic Soul to Pure and profitable Functional".

Focus on "aesthetics" is equally as concerning when divorced from any meaningful customer value.

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Design and aesthetics should be aligned for optimum function. Perfect design will almost always align perfectly with something that is aesthetic. Look at the form function of most phones, design and aesthetics have reached a singularity. Compare to the apple mouse, superficially ok, great superficial looks, but poorly designed as it does not do the job as well as a well designed product should.

The iPhone's invention was the result of deeply intentional design.

I do agree somewhat however; it is a pointless obsession to put aesthetics over function. The macbook 12 inch's keyboard is a case that proves your point.

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