Question for web / app / UI designers

[Yinzer]

I wonder whether Apple has hit the point where there is nothing left to do but decline.

From an article in the New Yorker about Apple's new headquarters building:

This is VERY interesting to read. Twice in my I've lived thru working at two large companies that invested heavily in real estate/building upgrades during times of significant upswings instead of finding ways to stay lean & mean as a hedge, only to have to significantly downsize about 5 years later. Very interesting... The only difference here being that Apple can be as self-indulgent with as many new white rooms and grey desks as Jony Ive so desires since Apple has so much cash from selling so many over-priced dongles.

I continue to be amazed at the new Apple that no longer just works. Some of this article about attracting customers from Apple's iOS news app laughingly resonates so well with the new Apple: LINK

1. Simplicity...Customers love simplicity and...hate complexity (which is so amazingly ironic since so much of Apple's new simplistic UI is riddled with complexity from hiding things that used to be out in the open & intuitive)

2....Remember, form is often more important than function. (ugh..gag...except that philosophy is completely incorrect in the long run. Nobody smart stays with the hot blonde bimbo if she can't carry on a decent conversation and they don't share similar reasonable & maintainable lifestyle habits... Interesting link)

5. Looks so Good on the Outside, it'll Make You Feel Good Inside (keep convincing yourself of this, Apple. Certainly nobody will ever grow tired of average battery life and overly-delicate easy-to-shatter designs)

 

[Tom239]

2....Remember, form is often more important than function. (ugh..gag...except that philosophy is completely incorrect in the long run. Nobody smart stays with the hot blonde bimbo if she can't carry on a decent conversation and they don't share similar reasonable & maintainable lifestyle habits... Interesting link)

Thanks for posting that link. From that page I followed links to https://www.fastcodesign.com/3053406/how-apple-is-giving-design-a-bad-name which is a pretty extensive article, and includes this in the way of explanation:

Many of the worst of Apple’s hidden principles are often excused by claiming that Apple is only following the teachings of the famous German designer Dieter Rams, who for many years was responsible for the beauty and understandability of the products of the German company Braun. They specifically cite Rams’s 10th Principle: "Good design is as little design as possible" (Vitsoe, 2015). But note that this is his 10th Principle, not his 1st. It might be rewritten as, "If you’ve followed the first nine principles, well, it’s time to stop. Don’t start cluttering things up." Apple, however, has violated many of those earlier principles. [...]

That gives a partial answer to the question you asked in starting this thread (why is Apple doing these things). It doesn't excuse what Apple did (I don't know that there is a good reason for bad thinking) but it gives an idea as to what happened.

That principle ("good design is as little design as possible") could explain how Apple thinks this is a good design for a book cover:

 

[Yinzer]

Thanks for posting that link. From that page I followed links to https://www.fastcodesign.com/3053406/how-apple-is-giving-design-a-bad-name which is a pretty extensive article, and includes this in the way of explanation:

Yeah, I read that article back when it came out. Ugh. It's sadly enlightening at least to know someone smarter than me agrees about Apple's misguided narrow minded focus on minimalism at the sacrifice of function...thinness vs. battery life & upgradeability...delicateness vs. durability...consistently simplistic but boringly repetitive appearance at the sacrifice of "it just works" and readability in daylight... It's as if Scott Forstall used to grille perfectly brown striped seared steaks with juicy pink centers at company picnics, followed by Steve Jobs dusting just the right amount of salt to magically turn good steaks into REALLY GREAT steaks...followed by Jony & Tim later taking over the grille...except Tim has poor (or no) vision and an inability to taste, so he sits back counting the tip jar contents while giving Jony free range to boil steaks into lifeless grayish blobs followed by pouring an entire salt shaker onto each, a complete white-out on each plate...since obviously people needed a change from GREAT steaks, and adding more magic salt would make things even better than Steve's & Scott's... Maddening.

Just a few reminders of how intuitive & readable things used to be as I secretly dream that at least one Apple board member with half a brain is an NSX Prime member and sees the light.

 

[Yinzer]

$25 Starbucks card to whoever can convince me that this grey text fad has an ounce of merit beyond keeping web designers employed and out of the bread lines, letting them unnecessarily redesign things that used to work really well. This week at work I found it impossible to easily read a lengthy website at Aisc.org and was inspired/disgusted enough to send a feedback email suggesting away from all the grey text on their site. Got a response to same day that they acknowledging grey text being occasionally hard for some users to depending upon monitor settings, and thanking me for my suggestion. That not being enough of course, I responded and asked why would they stick with a font/UI so prone to readability issues based on the feedback they've received, instead of going with something more robust across varying monitor conditions, like black font. No answer, of course. I could hear her eyes rolling 500 miles away in Chicago as she returned to her "how to create horrible UI" article written by Jony Ive. Seriously, what gives with some much god awful UI nowadays, why are we regressing? I keep posting here because, if Apple employs people with such good taste, certainly several of them have to own a gen-1 NSX.

Good read:
http://contrastrebellion.com/