Not That Largo

TLDR: it’s been clear for some time that Ive was on his way out. Creativity is a process defined by renewal and change, and the only surprising aspect to all of this is that Ive stayed around for so long. Gruber is concerned that there is no replacement for the Chief Designer role, and as such, no clear indication of who will be the final arbiter of design at Apple. I hear his concerns, but believe it’s time to think differently about how good design happens and focus not on design messiahs but rather on the teams that build great products together. 

There is much panic throughout the web - and I am sure on the 11 o’clock news across America tonight - about Jony Ive’s departure from Apple. The stock has dropped in after hours trading, and panic has or will set in for many. However, Apple’s institutional structure will, in my view, take it far and the design house within the company is, by all accounts, still strong. After all, we’ve seen many good products in the last few years (Airpods, iPhone X, iPad Pro (2018), and Mac Pro (2019)), even with Ive clearly focused elsewhere. I don’t think this change of leadership is fatal, though things are certainly shifting into unknown territory.

John Gruber shared his thoughts this evening about the announcement. Starting with his thoughts on the relationship between Steve Jobs and Jony Ive.

My gut sense for years has been that Ive without Jobs has been like McCartney without Lennon. Or Lennon without McCartney — take whichever analogical pairing you prefer. My point here is only that the fruit of their collaborations were, seemingly magically, far greater than the sums of the duos’ talents and tastes.

One thing I do know — which Cook alludes to in his statement above, and which I think was made crystal clear in Ian Parker’s extraordinary 2015 profile of Ive in The New Yorker, which is, in my opinion, the most insightful piece ever written about post-Jobs Apple — is that Jony Ive had moved beyond designing computers. And let’s be clear: the entire point of Apple has always been and should always remain designing computers. Everything they make is a computer. Their genius in recent years has been making things that don’t seem like computers but really are computers. Apple Watch is a computer. AirPods are computers. We’ve got computers — excellent computers — in our fucking ears. That’s Apple.

Gruber goes on to say that Ive’s focus had clearly turned elsewhere, including most notably on Apple Park. 

Ive is being “replaced” by two people, a hardware design lead (Evans Hankey) and a software design lead (Alan Dye). Both reporting to COO Jeff Williams. Gruber is, to say the least, concerned:

It makes me queasy to see that Apple’s chief designers are now reporting to operations. This makes no more sense to me than having them report to the LLVM compiler team in the Xcode group. Again, nothing against Jeff Williams, nothing against the LLVM team, but someone needs to be in charge of design for Apple to be Apple and I can’t see how that comes from operations. I don’t think that “chief design officer” should have been a one-off title created just for Jony Ive. Not just for Apple, but especially at Apple, it should be a permanent C-level title. I don’t think Ive ever should have been put in control of software design, but at least he is a designer.

I don’t worry that Apple is in trouble because Jony Ive is leaving; I worry that Apple is in trouble because he’s not being replaced.

And, for what it is worth, Gruber is not a fan of the knighthood designation mentioned in the Apple PR Announcement:

Fuck this “sir” shit. We don’t have titles in the United States.

This seems like an odd thing to focus so strongly on.

In any event, I think Gruber’s main point - that there is no clear indication of who will be leading design decisions at Apple - is fair. This does seem messy. In particular, there is some suggestion in the announcement that Jeff Williams is now a big product guy (b/c there is now some new leadership underneath him in the operations wing who will take on more responsibility, freeing up Williams for other work). Williams has indeed been leading the Apple Watch program, which has seen success. But, my feeling is that his interest has been driven by the health capabilities of the Watch, and not on the overall product (including hardware and software design). Maybe I’m wrong and Williams has transformed himself into a design and product type, but the chief of operation seems like an odd lead of the design wing of Apple. 

Neil Cybart at Above Avalon has long opined that Apple’s key differentiation is its strong sense of design as a singular guiding principle. Design of the UI, the hardware, the experience. Apple’s products are a complete thought, designed and crafted from end to end. Will this continue to be true, can it?

It is, as they say, dangerous to compare then to now, but Apple’s best years have correlated with strong design leadership. Jobs, and then Jobs-Ive, and finally Ive alone.

What’s next? What will we, one day, call this coming era? Will it have a single headline name, will it be the “Williams” era? Or, is it time to think different?

Why does everything have to be “Insert Product Name” killer? It’s a click-baity headline, I know; but its clear that every “killer” product (usually aimed at an Apple product, like the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, etc...) doesn’t actually kill the original product. Sure, it competes, but usually is differentiated through a lower price and different software (here, Windows 10). You can’t “kill the Macbook,” not totally, unless you have OSX onboard and equal brand cache/loyalty. Only one company can do that, and it’s Apple itself. 

In addition, Apple doesn’t care if your product sells more, what matters for them, from a financial perspective, is the profit and margins made off the premium experience they build and ship. Tim Cook and Jony Ive always talk about the notion that profit doesn’t drive what they do, and I think that is because they know it will naturally follow if you create a thoughtful and premium experience (backed by a proven supply chain, retail stores, support, etc... this stuff isn’t there by accident). It’s never a perfect experience, but it is usually is a great one.

Donald Trump on his first 100 days in office. via The New York Times 

Why do I still stick with iOS? Two reasons: software updates and support. 

Apple has typically supported phones up to four years old with the newest software update. Yes, not every feature trickles back and yes, sometimes those updates are not perfect, but the situation on Android is pretty dire. While efforts are being made to get Android security updates out in a timely manner, the software update situation over their isn’t tenable in the long run (outside of Nexus phones).

In terms of support, I’m lucky to live near Apple Stores and continue to be thankful for their presence. Just yesterday I got a new battery for my 5S. When issues arose minutes after receiving my phone, I walked back in and they gave me a replacement device at no charge - all while being super apologetic and appreciative of my patience. That is how you keep customers. 

A SD filled Galaxy

Andrew Martonik at Android Central says this about the behaviour of storing photos on an SD card with your S 7,

If you like to use another gallery app, you may not be able to properly move around and delete photos that are stored on the SD card. For example in Google Photos, and many other popular gallery apps, you'll be able to view and apply extra edits to the photos but you can't delete the original files from within the third-party app.

This becomes particularly bothersome in a cloud-based gallery app like Google Photos where you can delete photos remotely and have those changes sync back to your Galaxy S7 — in this case Google Photos will never be able to delete those local files on your phone, you have to do it manually from within Samsung's Gallery app.

This is pretty stupid and, to me, reflects the ongoing issues in Android and Samsung’s custom skin in particular. In comparison to iOS it’s particularly problematic. I’m not saying iOS “just works” all the time, but it’s way closer to that ideal than this. 

I wish Apple would include SD card support, if only because it could mean I could add as much storage as I want over time and, come on, 16GB phones. But, getting the implementation right is tricky. What goes on the SD card? What doesn’t? How does it work and how does the user control it (if they do at all)?

Modern Android supports “adoptable storage”, which in my understanding simply combines the internal and external storage volumes into one contiguous whole. However, Samsung and LG has not gone that route this year for their flagship phones, either for competitive reasons or because the reliability of SD cards is not bullet proof. 

These are hard issues to work on and it’s clear that for Apple at least, maintaining a strong business means using storage capacity as a way to drive up ASP. I don’t like it, sure, but I get it. After all, they make the most money from phones in the entire handset industry, by a long shot.  

For LG and Samsung (and HTC?), I’m not sure how this play out in time. It may mean fewer SKUs, but does it lead to more problems and less potential revenue? Maybe, I don’t know. I’m just the guy on the sideline. 

The Bored Tech Press

2016 is an interesting year for smartphones and tech in general. My impression from podcasts, websites, and the tech zeitgeist is that people are bored and not excited about new technology and new phones in particular. But, as with everything, I believe the pendulum will swing back to “excitement mode” once again as the next wave of change in the industry occurs. 

I always have to remind myself that it’s not just the world around me that changes, but my own perception of it. I think of this when I hear tech-obsessed people complaining about being bored, or not excited about new stuff - did you consider that maybe your interests are changing or that perhaps the constant flow of new tech eventually becomes boring?

Put enough garlic in food and eat that food long enough and you will not taste the garlic. Review enough new phones and talk about those phones enough, and you will no longer be “excited.” We change as the world changes too. And remember to focus on the long run - just because it’s quiet today does not mean it will be tomorrow. 

As of early 2016, autonomous car technology is making huge strides and it seems, more and more, that we are not far off from having autonomous cars in our driveways or serving people as Ubers or taxis.

In the midst of all this, Apple seems to be working on a car (as Elon Musk recently said, it’s an “open secret” that Apple is working on building a car). We know nothing about it at this point, but I believe that whatever comes out (maybe by 2020?) it will probably not be autonomous. In fact, I think the Apple Car will be, in many respects, an old fashioned car.

I don’t mean to say that it will have a combustion engine. It will likely be electric and chock full of technology and driver aids (think, “semi-autonomous” tech). In short, I think they will simply make an electric car that is designed for individual use (in the traditional “ownership” model of today). It will be a luxury car, but one that is accessible by the global upper-middle class. It will have a steering wheel, and two pedals, and four wheels. It will be a lot like today’s full electric cars - the Chevy Bolt, Teslas, etc... - but with the fit and finish of an Apple product. 

Oh, and it will benefit from an ecosystem of services and products made by Apple. Think of Apple’s Continuity and iCloud services, but now it encompasses  your car, your home, your Mac, your Watch, and your i-devices.

Surely, one day, the Apple Car will be autonomous. But the legal and regulatory environment is still too uncertain and the technology still not there yet (think about the difficult navigation of snow, rain, traffic, animals, parking garages, etc...). Like the Apple Watch, and the iPhone in some ways, the Apple Car will likely seem almost too plain and not mature enough in the view of many. People will criticize it for not being revolutionary enough, for not being fully autonomous, etc...