Executive Management changes at Apple. Forstall & Browett out.

Good news about Browett. Kind of concerned about Forstall, though I know some of his design choices have brought us many of the "skeuomorphic" textures in recent versions of OS X and iOS.

I kinda like the skeuomorphic designs of iOS…OS X is a bit over the top with it though…but I guess it's a change from the flat 2D designs of the 90s

Well, since Forstall is out, perhaps we have the option of seeing a redesign of iOS? OSX is great where it's at, iOS is getting kind of old with the grid design...

This is literally all positive news. I'm excited about Apple's future for the first time since before OS X Lion was released.

- Jony Ive's great design sense will now be part of all the hardware and software
- Browett is being pushed out after half a year of contributing nothing positive to Apple Retail
- Forstall is finally being tossed after years of letting iOS stagnate, ruining Apple's software with his terrible design aesthetic (Calendar and Podcasts being the worst offenders...), and hindering collaboration by being as big a jerk as Steve Jobs but without the good taste
- Bob Mansfeld will stay on for an additional 2 years
- iOS will now be developed under the same VP as OS X, probably leading to iOS actually picking up some good elements from it once again
- The company's responsibilities are now divided in such a way that any single product will require collaboration and a unified vision among the senior VPs

As Darth Vader once said,

This will be a day long remembered. It has seen the end of Forstall; it will soon see the end of skeuomorphism.

Good riddance to skeuomorphic design. What an eyesore. There's a reason that people were rushing to return iCal to it's normal glory after it succumbed to skeuomorphism. Let's hope that Forstall's departure let's Ive be a little more involved (in other words, less skeuomorphism).

From what I've read, Forstall's departure was a long time coming. It seems like Jobs liked him which may have been the only thing saving his role in the company.

I find it interesting that Forstall ripped into the iOS team for not being innovative enough (source). While in some respects I agree with him, he was responsible for that stagnation so I'm not sure his aggression was warranted.

To be fair to him, he did bring Unix support to OS X, Aqua and was responsible for Leopard (a fine release).

Dumb question perhaps, but *** is skeuomorphism please?


Is that the 'torn off previous day' thing in iCal and Address Book?

Nighthawk4 said:

Dumb question perhaps, but *** is skeuomorphism please?


Is that the 'torn off previous day' thing in iCal and Address Book?

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It's when you make the user interface of a software product look like a real, physical item. For example, iCal with a leather-like skin. Or Game Center with a green felt background (like a pool table). That sort of thing...

I've always found it to be cheesy.

Thanks

vansmith said:

I find it interesting that Forstall ripped into the iOS team for not being innovative enough (source). While in some respects I agree with him, he was responsible for that stagnation so I'm not sure his aggression was warranted.

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Agreed, I laughed when I read that he was complaining that the project he was directly in charge of was stagnating.

vansmith said:

To be fair to him, he did bring Unix support to OS X, Aqua and was responsible for Leopard (a fine release).

Click to expand...

That article is far too generous to him in terms of Mac OS X contributions. Forstall was only one of a number of engineers carried over from NeXT that made the UNIX-based OS X possible, and Avie Tevanian and Bertrand Serlet were both more significant to that effort than Forstall (not to mention Serlet had oversight over Forstall for OS X releases and was the DRI for Tiger, Leopard, and Snow Leopard). Scott has made some great contributions to OS X's development and is directly responsible for iOS being what it is, but claiming he brought all those things to OS X is more than disingenuous on the part of the article.