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Comment by CGMthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Apple has not had an SVP of Industrial Design for 7 years, since Jony Ive left. This is why every phone is a copy of the last and there is no real product innovation anywhere

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Crocodiles haven't changed much in 200 million years. Maybe it's possible that a form factor is largely correct for its use case after a while?

I'm inclined to see Apple Silicon as fairly innovative.

> Maybe it's possible that a form factor is largely correct for its use case after a while?

very much so -- same for UI components, which they keep changing for no good reason except to feel "fresh and new"

Fresh and new is a feature. And it is one that affect purchase decisions and brand perception.

I love boring-that-works but that's just me. Right about brand preception, it made me move to jolla, lots of suffering and a sense of acomplishment because fewer cents of my money going to far right pockets.

> it made me move to jolla

Where's Jolla? I did a quick place search (explicitly excluding La Jolla) but nothing turns up.

It's a place like Apple is a place !

you make it sound customer-hostile

"delightful"

"yo we heard you like camera bumps so we put camera bumps on your camera bumps so you can camera bump while you camera bump"

I wouldn't say they're an exact copy...

>Crocodiles haven't changed much in 200 million years. Maybe it's possible that a form factor is largely correct

Then why is Apple releasing a folding phone now?

> Then why is Apple releasing a folding phone now?

We'll see. I remember when the Apple Car was imminent, and it wouldn't be the first bullshit rumor in the Mac world.

Hell, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPower_(Apple) was officially announced.

Yes they haven't shipped keyboards that break after a while for being too thin

Ive has been working at other stuff, like building a Ferrari that looks more like a giant RC car

Industrial Designer here and I believe Ive became too influential in areas. I believe a boring and consistent form factor is better than new models every year. This is what killed the USA auto-industry. Personally the iPhone 4 was a great form factor and I was glad for the reversion to that design. Minor tweaks and scaling for size is really all that is needed.

they've started to get a big bulge on the top-left of the device and no longer sit flat on a table. Oh and they popularized silicon cases that dont go in or out of pockets.

> big bulge on the top-left of the device and no longer sit flat on a table

Fucking hate this trend so much. My Pixel 8 is an absolute dogshit phone compared to my Pixel 2 for the same reason. Phones are giant now, impossible to use with one hand anymore, and slide off of fucking everything because they don't lie flat, and are uncomfortable to hold with how top-heavy they are too. I wish phone design would have stagnated, about 10 years ago. A phone's form factor did not need innovating! It was already perfect!

I don't get the markets obsession with big phones. May be size is a proxy for battery life...

Depends what they're used for, if it's for lightweight-demands mobile communications and simple tasks then I'd definitely agree. However the phone has become the personal computer for many and covers a broad range of tasks, let alone before you consider demanding users.

If you've got one device for all your computing then you want something more capable, I think there's more scope for variation is when it's in conjunction with another device, mobile plus your choice of watch/tablet/laptop/desktop/etc. that doesn't necessarily have to be on your person or quickly accessible, task dependent.

For people who use the phone for everything, this is great. But I hope we will start to see at least some smaller options return to the market for those who just want a simple communication device / have small hands.

I recently booted up an old Samsung S10, and the size is just chef's kiss.

That said one could argue that phones are now "solved" and the idea of iterating and changing just for the sake of changing is unwelcome. Much like laptops?

I don't want my next phone to be something I need to figure out all over again. I want the buttons in the same place, the OS to work the same way..

My phone is just another thing in my daily life like my car or my coffee machine. The less I have to think about any of those things - vs. just using them and getting on with my day - the happier I am.

A phone can only get so big, and there's only so many viable shapes and form factors. I don't know what more innovation anybody expects in a rectangular tablet form factor that can still fit into pockets and purposes. Folding phones are expensive and a gimmick so far and have not achieved much market share.

There's advances to be had in cameras, battery life and other tech inside the rectangular slab, but in terms of innovating on the form factor, the practical reality of what people want to hold and put in their pockets will dictate the maximum size and form factor.

Tbh I want my 3GS form factor back. That design was the "right" one imho, and we lost it due to market pressure for bigger screens and better cameras, when what we needed to do was keep the utility but largely stay off our screens.

But they do keep evolving the iPhone and its functionality. You need taste and a great sense of user experience to do it well. Apple also sells more things than juts iPhones.

you can’t think of a single thing that could be better about the hardware and software experience of phones?

not one?

I never said that. I said I don't want to see change for change's sake.

If you can come up with a better experience and it's a worthwhile change that materially improves the product, I will take it of course.

On the software side iOS introduces new useful features for sure, I don't deny that. They also took a nice simple flat UI and glass-ified it in a really dumb way. And the OS is so bloated that I lose 10-15% of my storage to packages and installation files (seriously go look up how much of your phone's storage is used by "System files").

But on the hardware side these days they're just fiddling with the camera and moving the buttons around, and that's not something I want to have to care about when I upgrade.

This is of course all subjective, I'm sharing my view here, not implying that I speak for the world.

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