Re:The Windows 11 taskbar is an annoying step backward
by CRConrad on Friday January 21, 2022 @04:30AM
(#30021189)
>> When the iPhone became successful, before that it was all utility, then fashion took priority when the iPhone out sold literally everything.
> Pretend everything else about the iPhone happened; The charisma and leadership of Steve Jobs, the brilliant marketing, the countless number of talented software engineers, but instead the device basically looks like a blackberry.
> Physical keyboard, plastic case, More or less a knock off aesthetically.
> We're deep in counterfactual territory but I think it can be argued that this imagined iphone with a very conventional aesthetic would have done effectively just as well.
Yeah, but AFAICS that doesn't really contradict the hypothesis. Sure, I might agree with your counterfactual and also conclude that it wasn't really the design -- and, side note, I think what was originally meant here was the narrower sense of the ever-dumbed-down GUI, not physical characteristics like keyboard or not -- that led to the iPhone's breakout success... But just because you and I think so, CEOs didn't (necessarily) agree.
If they thought it was the cheery skeumorphic (and later stylised, then rounded-corner, then sharp-edge-rectangular, then rounded-corner again... yadda yadda) graphical design that led to the market success, then they started listening only to graphical designers, and that is what has elevated graphical designers to "gods" over actual developers.
And that's not just a counter-hypothesis to yours, but my theory; it's how I think it actually happened.
> Pretend everything else about the iPhone happened; The charisma and leadership of Steve Jobs, the brilliant marketing, the countless number of talented software engineers, but instead the device basically looks like a blackberry.
> Physical keyboard, plastic case, More or less a knock off aesthetically.
> We're deep in counterfactual territory but I think it can be argued that this imagined iphone with a very conventional aesthetic would have done effectively just as well.
Yeah, but AFAICS that doesn't really contradict the hypothesis. Sure, I might agree with your counterfactual and also conclude that it wasn't really the design -- and, side note, I think what was originally meant here was the narrower sense of the ever-dumbed-down GUI, not physical characteristics like keyboard or not -- that led to the iPhone's breakout success... But just because you and I think so, CEOs didn't (necessarily) agree.
If they thought it was the cheery skeumorphic (and later stylised, then rounded-corner, then sharp-edge-rectangular, then rounded-corner again... yadda yadda) graphical design that led to the market success, then they started listening only to graphical designers, and that is what has elevated graphical designers to "gods" over actual developers.
And that's not just a counter-hypothesis to yours, but my theory; it's how I think it actually happened.