Hello? Earth speaking to whoever is out there.
I realize information takes time to reach the end of our solar system and beyond, but Steve Jobs died long ago. He also ceded control to Tim Cook months before doing so.
Steve Jobs HAS run Apple like a cult of personality.
Steve Jobs appointed Ive head of everything hardware-design-related and made him untouchable on purpose. He groomed him to lead design at Apple, which is the major department.
Steve Jobs would have vehemently disagreed with Ive about skeumorphism and probably wouldn't let him create iOS 7 this way, or if it happened, would chew him out the way he did Forstall, even though he liked him.
That said, the reason Ive is now telling everyone it's his way or the highway is a direct extension of how Steve Jobs ran the company. Get it?
Because in the last 2 years, Apple's design took a nosedive. I hate to say it but Google's interfaces are now way more pleasant than Apple's. And there is one reason for it:
FLAT INTERFACES
If it comes to the MacOS, I will probably abandon ship. I liked my iPhone and its familiar look and feel. Jobs got it, Ive didn't. It was all thrown out the window with the word "skeumorphism".
Let me be clear: iOS 7 was a leap forward DESPITE the interface, not because of it. It was all the other things, like the drawer on the bottom (whoopee) that made up for the horrible clown-like icons and complete lack of textures. My videos with white backgrounds now are indistinguishable from the controls. At least they fixed the neon-green color of the bar on top when you have a phonecall. The white text was almost impossible to read on it. How did it ever pass design QA at Apple? Probably while Jony Ive was desigining his much-touted icon grid.
Apple, your design was so good -- why'd you have to go copy Google and Microsoft after decades of leading design-wise? Why'd you have to break your browser only to fix it in 7.1? Argh.