I was always inspired more by Jony Ive over Steve Jobs. In interviews he was always more real to me, more humble. A simple take away I've had from Johny (and steve to some extent) is to simply pay attention, to everything and anything. That kind of care and focus is how they get to be apple, versus good enough.<p>But will their products get better as a result of this? or will they continue to decline? Design has always taken more prominence at apple over usability (do they even have a Chief Usability Officer?) To some degree it's a tolerable tradeoff to make; but I've noticed their products have become significantly more design focused and well, pretty much everything else has taken back seat.<p>Perhaps there's TOO much design, and not enough of everything else. Maybe Steve was that balance to Jony and now the ying is yangless. Or maybe they're just optimizing their business for other things, and the things that matter to me are insignificant to them now.
While I have tremendous respect for Sir Ive as a designer, I'm beginning to notice a trailing-off of quality in Apple's software products ever since Jobs departed. Little quirks and irritants which would never have made it to the outside world in Jobs' days, are now sneaking out.<p>Apple has the design part covered, but it seriously needs a fanatic who will make sure that every iOS release is perfect. They lost that fanatic, and he hasn't been replaced.
I think it's nonsense that Ive would be working on future Apple Stores or even spending much time on Campus 2 (it has largely been already designed). Pretty clear he will be spending more time with Marc Newson designing the next category of products i.e. the much rumoured Apple Car.
Ive will be remembered as the man who succeeded (for only a while I hope) in removing graphics completely from graphic design. Flat "design" is uniformly featureless to make it easy for developers to make apps while requiring no skills in graphic design or expense on the same. Lower the bar and level the field. It's about apps, apps, apps...
Jonny Ive and his team spent 18 months perfecting the 'tap' notification for the Apple Watch. This attention to detail has everything to do with Usability and nothing to do with design. So, as with other commenters on this topic, I strongly disagree that design has always taken prominence over usability, to me it't the exact opposite.<p>It's not all 'roses in the garden' however. Apple have really let themselves down with OSX, which in terms of Usability doesn't hold a candle against Windows OS. Agreed, some will argue that Windows evolved out of OSX in terms of interface - but for me, the usability attributed to Windows is far superior.
The Peter Principle in effect. Apple wants Ive to be the new Jobs but his software taste just isn't as refined and it's distracting from his hardware work which is getting lazy. The Apple Watch is literally an iPhone on your wrist[0]; it's quite ugly for a watch. I'd rather have Jony back focused on hardware instead of failing upwards.<p>[0] <a href="http://i.imgur.com/8pcfcbk.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/8pcfcbk.jpg</a>