Comment by jballanc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jballanc | Hacker News Reader

My favorite story of Jonny Ive happened in the summer of 2008. At the time I was in the student internship program at Apple, and as part of the program each of the executives at Apple would sit down in Town Hall for a chat with that year's group of interns. Some of the executives would come with a slide deck briefly explaining what they did, something about the company, etc. Johnny just came in, sat on a stool in the middle of the stage, said "What would you like to know?", and started taking questions.

About 20 minutes in to the conversation, one student asked him: "Why are so many of Apple's products white?" I think all of us expected some long explication of the clean and unassuming quality of white as a color.

Instead, Johnny closed his eyes, took a breath, and said (as best as I can recall), "Imagine something that doesn't exist. Imagine something completely new. A new shape. A new device..." After a beat he continued, "Can you imagine something like that?" At this point he was obviously doing the very thing he was suggesting we all try. Then he opened his eyes and plainly said, "Well...when I do they're always white!" Then he laughed like a little kid and said, "I guess that sounds pretty ridiculous, huh?" and moved on to the next question...

It always strikes me how things that other companies obsess over and create entire vocabularies for (we don't sell products, we sell experiences!) and experiment with obsessively come so naturaly to Apple. Other companies produce hundreds of tweaked and targetted models of things in dozens of colours and patterns that are produced by different market oriented product groups and focus-tested to death.

Apple makes two products in the same category and they're both white, and they're white not because marketing, esperiences, focus groups or demographics but becuase Johny thinks it feels right for new things to be that way. Every 3-5 years or so they produce them in 5 different vivid primary colours, just for fun.

Conversely Apple absolutely obsesses at the executive level over and exhaustively iterates on seemingly trivial details like optimising the exact minimum necessary number of buttons in a UI screen, the precision and fluidity of a scrolling action and bounce animation, even just exactly the correct shade of yellow in an icon (real example). Things most companies would assign to a random intern and then forget about.

> exhaustively iterates on seemingly trivial details like optimising the exact minimum necessary number of buttons in a UI screen, the precision and fluidity...

This is a myth. The iOS maps debacle is just one example.

got Forstall fired. pretty significant. other companies move those people to some X labs futuristic research dead ends.

If I'm not mistaken the "debacle" had to do much more with the underlying data rather than the actual UI or design of the application.

And it might be just one example, but for some reason when speaking of "Apple f..k ups" it's often the only one that comes up in discussions (at least in recent times)... I would say that it's a pretty impressive record.

Anecdotes aside, from a design standpoint, they tend to be significantly more successful than their competitors. There is a maximum to the level of quality that can be achieved in a given amount of time.

For your particular example, look at the outcome: Apple Maps is now arguably on par with the Google data set and has several unique refinements. It's a much more successful product than when it was released.

No it is not. Even Steve Jobs obsessed over such details while he was Apple CEO like the shade of yellow in an icon mentioned by parent[1].

[1] Icon Ambulance: https://plus.google.com/+VicGundotra/posts/gcSStkKxXTw

In a naïve sense, there is a bit of Zen philosophy in it. As you say, other companies obsess and work extremely hard to design products that are ultimately worse; what of the paradox that extreme effort results in a poor result? Why, that's one of the tenets of Zen.

At the same time, while reducing certain parts to a paradoxical simplicity, Apple knows where the effort should be directed: at building systems. Getting to the root of problems and optimizing them away. Asking the question, what is the core from which all of this grows? What is its form? And working diligently on that, trusting that the output will be pure because of it. That's how quality is done; it's why the Japanese so readily accepted the teachings of W. Edwards Deming, and it's fundamentally how Jobs turned Apple around.

Lots of lessons here, the most important of which are not technological in the slightest.

Recommended reading:

Zen in the Art of Archery: http://rum1.aarch.dk/uploads/media/Eugen_Herrigel-Zen_in_the...

The Zen of Steve Jobs: http://www.forbes.com/special-report/2012/the-zen-of-steve-j...

A Short intro to the teachings of W. Edwards Deming: https://shrikale.wordpress.com/2012/04/28/a-short-introducti...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

Most modern "business practices" are little more than hedges. Things like focus groups, market fit, etc. are not recipes to build amazing products, but rather ways to avoid making really bad products. It's not that being authentic is hard, but being authentic and profitable is. So we end up with a plethora of artificial-feeling mediocre-yet-profitable product companies, with the rare, exceptional, truly authentic company.

'Things like focus groups, market fit, etc. are not recipes to build amazing products, but rather ways to avoid making really bad product'

Never thought of it that way. I like this

But the question is, why does he see new things in white?

I'd submit that in the West, and in particular Britain, white has a long history of being a color of privilege. It's hard to make things white, and even harder to keep them white. Even a little bit of soiling, grease, or hard use is noticeable on white fabric, white paint, or white paper. This is why white tie is more formal than black tie, for instance.

Even today, when it seems we should be able to paint, bleach, or mold consumer items as white as we want, it can be more difficult than we think to get a true bright white. Look at how late the white iPhone 4 was, for instance, because of difficulties with the white faceplate.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com