Unpopular view - Jobs kept Ive focussed. Jobs, for all his many faults, had very, very good taste, and also had a user's-eye view of design.
Ives seems to have a designer's eye view on design. Without Jobs to keep him on track he started designing for posterity and for design magazine pictorials - not for customers.
The classic designs - blue iMac, iPod, iPhone, laptops, possibly the initial MacPro sketches - all happened under Jobs when Apple was trying to expand its share of the mass market.
The failures - gradient tint flat UI in iOS 7, butterfly keyboard, disappearing ports, end of MagSafe, HQ glass wall injuries, etc - are all failures of form over function and happened after Jobs died.
There's some overlap - Anglepoise iMac, some of the special editions, puck mouse, that plastic clamshell laptop - but the hit rate under Jobs was far higher.
I agree with this. I think even under Jobs there were plenty of silly things but one of the things he was great at was attracting talent and keeping them busy. So squirt out the odd dud here and there but they're ready and available for coordinated moonshots.
Ives seems to have a designer's eye view on design. Without Jobs to keep him on track he started designing for posterity and for design magazine pictorials - not for customers.
The classic designs - blue iMac, iPod, iPhone, laptops, possibly the initial MacPro sketches - all happened under Jobs when Apple was trying to expand its share of the mass market.
The failures - gradient tint flat UI in iOS 7, butterfly keyboard, disappearing ports, end of MagSafe, HQ glass wall injuries, etc - are all failures of form over function and happened after Jobs died.
There's some overlap - Anglepoise iMac, some of the special editions, puck mouse, that plastic clamshell laptop - but the hit rate under Jobs was far higher.