The Latest Apple Scuttlebutt | Hacker News Reader

The Latest Apple Scuttlebutt

daringfireball.net

39 pointsmactitan38 comments

Wow.

Even though they must be (given the realities of software development and the time windows they want to hit), it is still mind-boggling to think of a company like Apple (with its vast cash hoard) as resource-constrained with respect to what is probably the most important component of their flagship products.

I think Apple is a much smaller company than they look, by profile or even employee count. I think their core OSX/iOS developer staff is small, and rather mobile in terms of what they're working on. Those core devs have been shifted around before, delaying an OSX release to help out on iOS.

I think that the constraints are not cash, so much as bandwidth and team size.

It seems to me that the 'Jobsian' management style has some inherent boundaries in how large such an organisation can get. By that I mean if you have

a) a micro manager that wants to be involved in all important and medium important product and marketing decisions and

b) this micro manager as the actual CEO of the company

you will run into some limitations. There's only so much a man can review and decide on. Now, of course, Tim Cook is probably not that person, but the Jobs legacy seems to live on in how the 'second line' (Ive, Schiller,..) and everyone after them still acts.

In the longer run, from what we can see from the outside, only Ive has the potential to step into Steve's shoes when it comes to designing new product lines. I'm very curious about how he will manage iOS, at the least we're in for a few surprises in the near future I'd say.

Software teams rarely scale well -- sure management styles and culture will come into it -- However, scaling and layering up software teams is horrendously inefficient. I'd argue that's a bigger boundary.

If you take software out of the equation - Apple is pretty huge. Both in their own right & positively massive when you consider their contractors and partners.

> If you take software out of the equation..

I'd argue that you really can't do that in this case. Apple's main value proposition is hardware/software integration and if your software teams can't keep up it will limit the product lines you can manage. However, in Apple's case, most of their product lines sell so incredibly well that they still operate at a massive scale, even though they have a limited amount of chips in the game. This is of course where Tim Cook comes in, and why he's CEO now.

> It seems to me that the 'Jobsian' management style has some inherent boundaries in how large such an organisation can get.

I'm waiting for the new CEO to make a Secret Speech denouncing the Cult of Personality and ushering in a new post-Jobs era for Apple.

They can keep the posters and statues, but maybe the anthem gets a few words changed and some unpersons get rehabilitated.

OTOH, it's not like iOS is a monolithic thing, and people just work on the new version of iOS as a general concept. It's hundreds of little pieces that all work together. If a few of the new ambitious parts are behind schedule, then those particular teams may need to have more people added to them. But there's probably some guy working on the updated Calculator app that think iOS 7 is going just fine from where he sits.

"but will also apparently make rich-texture-loving designers sad." Thank God!

As an iOS designer and developer. I love using non-textured design as it's easier to do code wise instead of having manage multiple versions of assets.

What is commonly refereed to a flat UI is really better to do as it's mostly possible to do with code instead of images.

Go Ive!

Think using css3 instead of images on the web.

Easier to code is not necessarily better for the user.

What do you mean by manage multiple versions of assets? If you use the @2x naming scheme for double resolution images, there is nothing to manage.

Fewer images loaded might lead to less memory in use and less load time which could lead to faster apps though..

You're probably right, but do you know of any heavily textured apps that suffer from slowness?

iOS apps don't use much more images than they did back in 2008, but the iPhone 5 has a lot more memory than the iPhone 3GS did.

It also has a faster CPU which makes code based design perform better. That was the downsides pre iPhone 4, slow cpu made images necessary. Memory has yet to be concern. So not using images because of memory concerns is a bad idea.

Not true. Code based design is heavy on the CPU and not as fast as images. The part of load time might be true, but in general image based design is easier on the CPU.

Images run under cache. So images that are not currently in use usually get purged. Not using images because of memory is not a good idea.

As in code is better to manage in general compared to images in most parts. Could hotswap, could use variables, easier to maintain with a repo. Not to mention the ability to make themes easier.

There are just benefits, the downside is CPU cycles. But as performance improves with each iPhone, this is now negligible.

"Go Ive!"

It's almost as if no other mobile ecosystem has tried, or indeed is using, a flat UI.

But I'm sure this will be lauded as a brave, revolutionary step by many in the Apple world.

@taligent: you’ve been hellbanned. All comments of the last 24 hours are dead, starting with your comments in the Feedly thread.

I wasn't praising the concept, I was praising the decision.

@taligent: I wasn't criticizing Ive so much as: 1) Apple fanatics, and 2) Apple marketing / "the RDF" (that will inevitably describe things thus, like when "video on the iPod is stupid".

"I love using non-textured design as it's easier to do code wise"

Can I suggest that (apart, perhaps, for rough prototypes) that's one of the _last_ things you should be letting drive your design process.

I don't agree. I do let that run the design decision, as amongst other things has to get under the cost/benefit analysis.

Things that take time to implement should always be under cost benefit analysis. Design is one of them.

It matters if I can get 9/10 with 2% effort, compared to 10/10 for 90% effort.

Something many non-software engineers don't understand. Cost benefit matters.

Of course the old Mac OS in black and white wasn't particuarly "flat", but (at its best) it had a spare beauty that probably hasn't been matched yet, even though the fonts have become a little dated: http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&biw=1378&bih=839&... . You can see what was lost even in moving to a colourised version http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&biw=1378&bih=839&... , let alone to the tarty and unserious desktop GUIs we've had since. If Ive's team get back some of that visual restraint and unaffectedness I'll be properly impressed.

Wow! Thanks!

Apple hasn't had a significant iOS UI change in too long. I know people who have left the iPhone just for that reason. About time.

If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. I know some people will always look for something new, but just because it’s new doesn’t mean it’s better. Every major version of Windows looks completely different, while OS X receives UI tweaks in smaller increments.

I do think it would be good to simplify the look of some apps, like Find Friends and Game Center on iPhone, and Calendar and Contacts on iPad.

I believe the recent redesign of the Podcasts app[1] shows what we should expect from iOS 7: less textures, less color, dark gradients – but nothing that could be described as ‘flat design’.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/03/hands-on-apples-podcast...

"Every major version of Windows looks completely different"

Except for XP to Vista...

Except for Vista to 7...

7 to 8... I'll somewhat grant you, but a lot less so after you hit the desktop.

XP and Vista look completely different. Not only was Aero introduced in Vista, the taskbar and Start menu were redesigned.

Vista and 7 look very different. The UI was cleaned up a lot, the taskbar was redesigned again, Live Thumbnails and multitouch support were added.

Let's compare that to OS X: most people won't be able to tell Mountain Lion (released 8 months a go) from Leopard (released in 2007), just by looking at the desktop.

Here are two screenshots. One is Mountain Lion, the other is Leopard. See if you can tell which one is which. http://i.imgur.com/VDVPvV2.jpg http://i.imgur.com/0fG7xNu.jpg

Wow, I didn't realize how little the basic interface has changed. I mean, I know there's been no radical changes, but I still didn't expect it to take me nearly as long as it did to tell the difference between a 1-year-old and 6-year-old OS.

Amazing how much they've improved "under-the-hood" while keeping the basic interface the same.

PS. If you can't tell the difference between the two, look at the dock - the only way I could figure it out is spotting the new/changed app icons (Launchpad, iTunes, etc).

It'd be a lot easier if there was any real UI on the screen at all in your examples. Of course "just looking at the desktop" is not going to provide much hint.

Not sure what relevance multitouch has to the appearance of the UI.

That's like saying that there's almost no difference between XP and 7, mere polishing, because of http://i.imgur.com/yZcifMF.jpg vs http://i.imgur.com/Z4TqGSV.png

Vista and XP looked pretty close. The real difference was the Gadgets: http://i.imgur.com/kYt9Xqm.jpg which can be turned off (and if that's a big difference, well, "Mission Control" and "Launchpad" mean a big difference for OS X).

This seems like a disadvantage in the medium-term, but imagine what happens if the iOS UI reaches appliance level of familiarity.

I don't know if it's possible, but if they're constantly making changes it certainly won't be.

I would argue it already has reached appliance level familiarity. Do you know anyone between the ages of 7 to 60 that doesn't know how to use an iPhone (or iPod, or iPad) with ease? Probably not many.

But the UI feels stale after a while. I would argue that a significant UI refresh that peaks the interest of your users and excites them to upgrade is better than appliance level familiarity. If the familiarity is the measure of success then why do car companies constantly redesign their interiors, or why do appliances change their colors or button layouts from year to year?

Are they wise to do that? I recently replaced a broken microwave with as similar a model as I could find, from the same company. But I would have paid more to avoid continuously stubbing my fingers on their design regressions.

That is a good point. New is not always better but consumer products need to be "new and improved!" in order to give the customer a sense they are buying something better than the model from five years ago.

But at the same time I can't help but feel that progress can only be made with change and at this point Apple can't keep relying on minimal hardware advances to keep their marketshare.

> consumer products need to be "new and improved!" in order to give the customer a sense they are buying something better than the model from five years ago

Where is the proof of that? I feel that it's an "internet truth" where early adopters have the loudest voice. Yet Apple is full of cash earned on machines that look almost like their predecessors (iPad 1-4, iPhone 1-3GS & 4-5, similar for the Mac).

The refactors often rely on the fact that for every one of you (and me) there are 2x or more of new users who want something looking fresh and appealing, even if we see it as a regression (just don't go too far like MS did with Metro)

You have a point. As a consumer I'd like the option to toggle between various UI's. Empower the user and you might be surprised.

My three year-old is an "ios expert."

In all honesty, my guess is the "flat" design for iOS is going to be no different than the evolution of OS X.

Compare 10.2 to 10.8. Gone are the pinstripes, much of the jewel-like gleams and candy coating, as well as many gradients and brushed metal. Mountain Lion is far more "flat" than when I started out with Jaguar.

You can walk through the past 12 years of OS X to see how the design language has evolved since the turn of the century: http://www.iotechie.com/macintosh-2/the-12-year-evolution-of...

Honestly, why is this being upvoted?

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