Hasta La Gadget!

The New York Times’ excellent Bits Blog wrote this morning about how Apple’s management changes could lead to user interface changes. In particular, this concerns skeuomorphic elements and textures: Forstall (and Jobs before him) were apparently enamored with recreating real objects in the iOS interface. You can see this in apps like Game Center (hideous felt and a casino table motif), Newsstand and iBooks (they’re not real texts unless they’re on a virtual shelf), and the linen texture that pervades iOS and now OS X. That’s not even counting the design disaster that is Find My Friends and Calendar–fake leather is tacky in real life, but virtual fake leather is inexcusable. However, there hasn’t been an Apple statement saying that they’ll change these elements, only conjecture. According to the ol’ anonymous Apple employee, interviewed by the NYT:  (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: iOS 6.0.1 available for iPhone 5 users, Apple Is Keeping Siri Out Of The Loop,

Apple has just announced that Senior Vice President in charge of iOS Software Scott Forstall will be leaving Apple next year. They’ve spread his responsibilities to Apple’s other top brass, and for the moment he’s still listed on Apple’s website. Also leaving is retail chief John Browlett, who had a significantly shorter tenure than Forstall. From the press release:

Apple today announced executive management changes that will encourage even more collaboration between the Company’s world-class hardware, software and services teams. As part of these changes, Jony Ive, Bob Mansfield, Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi will add more responsibilities to their roles. Apple also announced that Scott Forstall will be leaving Apple next year and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim.

Make no mistakes, this is a major management change relating to the most profitable and successful products (iPhone and iPad) the world has ever seen. Read the whole press release here.

Update: internal sources say that he was actually fired.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Microsoft reveals more Windows Intune details, Logitech unveils Broadcaster Wi-Fi Webcam designed for Macs,

Huge news out of Apple today, as its senior vice president of iOS software, Scott Forstall, will leave the company next year after putting in some 15 years. Furthermore, John Browett — head of Apple retail — is also on his way out. The memo was delivered late today, on a day that is littered with other news that the company may hope will bury the bulk of it — and, on a day where trading on the New York Stock Exchange is halted due to Hurricane Sandy. It’s practically a given that Forstall is taking the brunt of the impact from its decision to forge ahead with an obviously subpar Maps application, all while trumpeting it as one of the pillars of iOS 6 during his keynote speech at WWDC 2012. The introduction of Siri as a beta product is also on Forstall, and we all know what happens to executives who flub something related to iPhone….

As the shakeup unfolds, Jony Ive, Bob Mansfield, Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi will add more responsibilities to their roles. In other words, Tim Cook isn’t about to usher in new help who may thwart the company’s efforts to continue at its breakneck pace. Curiously, Mansfield will be heaping more on his own plate just months after he had originally planned to retire. As for Ive? He’ll be responsible for providing “leadership and direction for Human Interface (HI) across the company in addition to his role as the leader of Industrial Design.” Eddy Cue will be gifted burdened with Siri and Maps, while also keeping an eye on the iTunes Store, the App Store, the iBookstore and iCloud. Needless to say, he probably won’t be seeing too many walls outside of Cupertino for the foreseeable future. Federighi is being tasked to lead both iOS and OS X, while Mansfield chairs a new Technologies group that bundles Apple’s wireless teams across the company. (Of note, Dan Riccio — who was scheduled to take over for Mansfield prior to his retirement retraction — isn’t among those who are gaining duties.)

Just months after Browett was brought in from Dixons in order to lead up Apple’s retail efforts, he’s on the outs as well. Of course, he’s also responsible for the branch having to tell stores that it “messed up” when he fiddled with staffing levels back in August. A search for a new head of Retail is underway and in the interim, the Retail team will report directly to CEO Tim Cook.

Update: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Forstall was asked to resign after refusing to sign his own name to Apple’s Maps apology, leaving Tim Cook to sign his name instead. Yikes.

Continue reading Apple executive shakeup: Scott Forstall and John Browett are leaving the company

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Tablets, Apple

Apple executive shakeup: Scott Forstall and John Browett are leaving the company originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Oct 2012 17:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Its name is enough to send CEOs into cold sweats, which is why the rest of the mobile world spent last week announcing their hardware back-to-back to steal a march on this handset. Now, after all of the rumor, speculation and leaks, Apple’s sixth iPhone has finally been unveiled in San Francisco. We’ve got around 45 minutes before the world begins idly speculating about next year’s iteration, so let’s spend what little time we have delving into what’s changed between now and the last time we were here.

Check out our liveblog of Apple’s event to get the latest news as it happens!

Check out all the coverage at our iPhone 2012 event hub!

Continue reading iPhone 5 vs. iPhone 4S: what’s changed?

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

iPhone 5 vs. iPhone 4S: what’s changed? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Sep 2012 14:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The back and forth of Apple and Samsung’s spat can be tiring, it’s true, but the legal debacle has its moments. Cupertino’s Scott Forstall, for instance, took the stand on Friday to give some insights on the beginnings of what Apple called “Project Purple,” and the secrecy that surrounded the first iPhone’s development. “We’re starting another project,” Forstall would tell potential recruits to the project, “It’s so secret I cannot tell you what the project is. You are going to have to give up nights and weekends for a couple years.” These were the words that conscripted much of the team that would eventually build Apple’s first phone. Forstall said that the engineers he recruited weren’t told anything about the project or even who they would report to — eventually, Apple locked down one of its Cupertino buildings, affectionately calling it the “purple dorm” for its vague pizza-like aroma.

When Apple’s attorney questioned the senior vice president of iOS software about how the Project Purple team drove innovation, Forstall went on to describe the challenge of building a touch-centric OS. “Everything we dealt with before was based on mouse and keyboard, and here we were changing the entire user interface to be based around touch. We had to rethink everything about what big controls would be knowing where you are in the document, knowing when you reach the list… Every single part of every device had to be rethought for doing touch.” Samsung’s legal team was more concerned with how Project Purple was inspired by competitor devices; Forstall responded by saying that Apple simply tested Purple’s call performance against other devices, noting that “it’s fine to benchmark for performance reasons, it’s not OK to copy and rip something off.”

The comments are interesting, but they probably won’t weight too heavily on the jury’s final decision. Still, the stories are entertaining, and worth a read for those interested in the iPhone’s origins. Even so, we’ll be glad when the patent wars are finally over.

Filed under: Cellphones, Misc. Gadgets

Apple exec talks about the iPhone’s early days, the secrecy of ‘Project Purple’ originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Aug 2012 10:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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