Harrah!

The nerd behind Apple's adoption of skeuomorph designs is on his way out. Wohooo! Now we can look forward to a return to minimalist simplicy not tacky look likey gimickry.

It seems they're also loosing the ex Dixon's head from their retail unit, which always seemed like an odd appointment to me.

Edited by Desmond (Tue 30-Oct-12 07:39:58)

In reply to a post by Desmond:

It seems their also loosing the ex Dixon's head from their retail unit, which always seemed like an odd appointment to me.

It's no worse than hiring someone who used to sell soft drinks.

At least somone selling soft drinks is not tainted by being part of an over-priced retail operation with ugly stores and truly terrible customer service.

Just read the Mr Ive has neen put in charge on interface design. We can thus look forward to some radical, minimalist and seiously sexy changes in the next iteration of both Mac OS and iOS. That can only be good news in the face of the dogs breakfast that is Windows 8, which I suspect will soon have Mr Balmer spending more time with his family.

Edited by Desmond (Tue 30-Oct-12 07:14:09)

Very apposite. I seem to remember Sculley firing an Apple executive who had become a thorn in his side. Forstall was just a little too much like Jobs for comfort. We may yet see him back at Apple.

As for Browett, why stop there? What about the guy who hired him in the first place?

Post deleted by billford

Edited by ian_c (Tue 30-Oct-12 09:48:10)

I think design geeks have to be a little careful what they wish for.

Good skeumorphic design adds warmth that appeals to those uncomfortable with technology - it can help overcome barriers. If something looks like a calendar, that's what it is.

The problem with Apple's approach was that it had no real visual narrative and too much of it was just eye candy.

You might get away with a post like that in Free Chat, but not elsewhere.

Adds warmth my anus! Adds bloat, adds CPU cycles, reduces battery life and is visually offensive to anyone with design sensibilities. It's one thing to have a toolbar have a button like a button. or even a calculator app that pays homage to Braun's classic design. However, its perverse to have an iOS podcasts app to have a retro reel to reel recorder animation. More so when Apple removed the CD from the iTunes icon because it had become irelevant to users, who no longer used CDs. Why didn't they replace it with a grammaphone icon instead?

I cannot recall the last paper calendar I saw never mind used other than the many that arrive at work pre christmas and go striaght into the bin. I certianly don't need tacky fake stitching and torn bits of paper or faux spiral binders or paper shredder animations or book shelves or a clock app where Apple forgot to check whether the team responsible for it may have ripped off a classic design - I could ahve told them that it was a straight copy of the Swiss railways design because I have a legitimate one just like it on my kitchen wall.

Good riddence to bad rubbish.

visually offensive to anyone with design sensibilities

And that is what percentage of the market. I think it would be fair to say that we are atypical consumers.

In reply to a post by Desmond:

That can only be good news in the face of the dogs breakfast that is Windows 8, which I suspect will soon have Mr Balmer spending more time with his family.

I do hope Stevie B remains at the helm. He's given me a lot of laughs over the years. He must be in contention for funniest corporate nabob, much funnier than Donald Trump or Conrad Black.

I'm further hoping that if we ever have to upgrade our Apple kit, the OS has got a calmer, cleaner look. I'll be happy to stick with 10.6.8 for a good while, having dodged Lion and Mountain Lion.