But it wasn't for executives. It was supposed to be a downmarket phone. You may think the colors were horrid, but I think they added much needed character to the iPhone line, much like the XRs.
Except Apple has previously found wild success in selling brightly colored devices down market, see the original iPod Mini for example. A selection of colors both appeals to the sort of person they are targeting with the lower end device (teens/young adults) while also preserving the marketshare of their higher end device by turning off the kind of older, more reserved buyer who might otherwise buy the less expensive option. There's also the entire Apple lineup in the early "Second Coming of Jobs" era with the iMac and, to a lesser extent, the Power Mac G3.
Design-wise, I really wanted one. Technology-wise, I couldn’t justify it.
Prominent finance people criticize other finance people for their decisions all of the time (Buffet et al). I think I could name a hundred other professions where this is also true (I use finance as a good analog). Just because <insert prominent professional> makes a criticism doesn't make it suddenly true.
I personally hated iOS7. Guess what, it clearly didn't stop people from buying more iPhones[0]. At the end of the day, Arment, Heliemann, and Gruber can all take a seat while iOS single-handedly rakes in billions for Apple. This is how business works.
[0] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/276306/global-apple-ipho...
Furthermore I also thought I put in enough qualifiers in my statement that I did not have to defend it as being my overarching philosophy regarding every situation it might possibly be applied to. After I wrote the preceding sentence I proceeded to write another 3 paragraphs until I realized that I was actually writing a bad version of an essay on aesthetics and requirements for being able to speak with critical insight, so I erased those paragraphs and here we are.
And what about Jony's other responsibility, industrial design? The iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air and other Apple products are all amazingly well designed and breathtakingly beautiful. But these products weren't designed by Jony Ive all by himself. He designed them under Steve Jobs's guidance and direction. Steve was the tastemaker. Apple's post-Steve products are nowhere near as well-designed.
Consider iPhone 5c, for example. The colors are horrid, and when you add those Crocs-like cases it looks more like a Fisher-Price toy than like a device an executive would want to be seen holding. Then they released some ads for the 5c, and I kid you not, one of the ads had sounds of bleating farm animals. (It was titled "Every color has a story", published on tumblr.) That the 5c didn't do well in the market shouldn't surprise anyone.