Originally published at: https://appletalk.com.au/2019/07/monday-night-news010719/
Make no mistake: Sir Jony Ive is leaving Apple, and John Gruber’s take on the situation is that there’s more than one way to see this. Either you think that Ive is to blame for all of Apple’s missteps of late, particularly in an era of ever-thinner and lighter devices, or that Ive has checked out of Apple for a while now, and all of Apple’s recent product designs haven’t had as much of his influence as they once had. The most interesting take, however, is that without a product guy at the helm, without someone to make those decisions about what products/design are good, and what are bad, Apple may be in the more trouble than we realise.
Apple CEO Tim Cook’s email to Apple employees about Chief Design Officer Jony Ive leaving doesn’t say a lot about the reasons behind his departure, but does give us a few hints at how Apple is run internally. Jony Ive’s successors in Evans Hankey and Alan Dye will report to Apple COO Jeff Williams, who Cook praises in forming a cross-organisational team to make the Apple Watch the product it is today. It’s also interesting that Ive says his proudest accomplishment at Apple is the team he helped to build; not the design of any singular product, or even a lasting design legacy, but his team. Maybe it’s akin to the whole parent/child relationship dynamic.
Bloomberg gives us the overview of the events that have led up to Ive’s departure from the company he’s spent 25 years at. While Ive may not have been involved in the operational day-to-day workings of Apple, several of Apple’s core design leadership team have left in the past few months, which has to have some impact on team morale. With Ive’s successors now reporting to Williams, some say that adds an additional operational barrier to having truly breakthrough products and designs.
The Verge takes a more lighthearted view of things, sharing a collection of Jony Ive’s most important and most indulgent product videos. Ive may be most proud of the team he’s built, but thanks to the internet, we’ll always remember him as the British voice narrating Apple’s design videos from his all-white office.
An open letter from the OpenID Foundation to Apple regarding Sign In with Apple outlines their concerns with Apple’s implementation of OpenID Connect. While they applaud Apple’s efforts, they claim that the current differences between OpenID Connect and Sign In With Apple both reduce the number of places that Sign In with Apple can be implemented, as well as exposing users of Sign In with Apple to some security and privacy risks.
Apple has identified an issue with a very small number of 2018 MacBook Airs that necessitates a logic board replacement. The post on MacRumors is light on details, with no symptoms of the issue or what the logic board replacement is expected to resolve. As there’s no public repair program for this particular issue, 2018 MacBook Air owners with affected units should get an email from Apple advising them to take their machine to the nearest Apple Store or Apple Authorised Service Provider.
TechCrunch sings the praises of the still-beta Sidecar feature in both iOS 13 and macOS Catalina. It’s a great implementation of using your iPad as an external display for your Mac that requires nothing but both devices being in close proximity to each other and wireless turned on, reminding us that for all of the issues that we may encounter with other Apple hardware or software, there’s an awful lot that just works, and works well.
Tidbits has the ins and outs of non-destructive photo editing in Photos for Mac and iOS. Written by none other than the lead developer for Aperture and the guy behind the editing engine in Photos, it’s filled with useful information if you’re looking to dip your toes into improving your photos. If you take one thing away: Photos extensions are never passed a RAW image, which means you shouldn’t bother editing a RAW image with Photos extensions, as you lose many of the benefits of working with RAW files.
Secure Shellfish is a file provider app that lets you add an SSH or SFTP file server to your iPhone or iPad. Once that’s been done, your files on your SSH or SFTP server show up in Files, with all of the integrations that allows; drag and drop, easy transfers of files between providers, and more. MacStories has the full review.
Apple Bondi reopened over the weekend, complete with Today at Apple experiences. But unlike any of Australia’s six other redesigned Apple Stores, Bondi also features a floor-to-ceiling green walls surrounding the central Forum area, watered by a custom irrigation system. Judging by the photos, the rest of the store remains largely unchanged.
