Hacker News Reader

Or aluminium plus glass, such a brittle combination just for the sake of aesthetics.

The quote from Jobs gets thrown around pretty heavily, but I also think it is interpreted very narrow sometimes. For me, "(...) how it works" isn't just about functionality, but about "how it works on the user". Yeah, aluminium plus glass may be a brittle combination, but if people like it, it just works. And this isn't on the same level as the "how it looks", because that can be quite different. Facebook Paper for example. It looks good, it "works" well (in functionality and purpose of the app), but it just doesn't work well on the user, because the concept is all wrong.

It only "works" in the sense that users buy it because it's shiny.

Unless you're saying the only point of the iPhone is that people buy it, that isn't sufficient.

It works for Apple and how they want it to work. That's why it is designed well.

Design is very much depending on the intended outcome. Apple wants to sell devices -> design them so that they get bought (make them "shiny", as you put it ;)). Of course this is not the only point of what Apple wants, but it certainly is the biggest one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com