"What the menu is that?"
Makradar Technologies / / December 19, 2019
Do you know who made Apple a great company?
Steve Jobs.
you know as Steve Jobs made Apple great?
Limiting.
Choosing between the possibilities and sensations, Steve always put in the first place sensations. Here, for example, a small anecdote from blog Glenn Reid, founder of the iPhoto application and iMovie, which reveals some of the changes made by Steve shortly before the release of iPhoto 1.0.
Steve passes through the menu for the last time before putting his gaze on this menu:
Then there was talk about the following:
Steve: "Why is the menu"
Glenn: "To help you sort your photos according to different criteria"
Steve [proglyadyvaya menu]: "Photos are sorted chronologically, by default, right?"
Glenn: "Yes"
Steve: "Get rid of the item" Sort by date "
Glenn: "Okay"
Steve: "Why do you want to sort the photos by the description?"
Glenn: "I can not think of a good reason for this sort"
Steve: "Get rid of it"
Glenn: "Okay"
Steve: "Why did you have to sort the photos by some of the other criteria?"
Glenn: [inconclusive several assumptions]
Steve: "Get rid of all the menu"
Glenn: "I can easily remove it from the interface, but the documentation, in particular localized, have to change, too, and for that we do not have time"
Steve: [after a moment's thought]: "Fuck the documentation in French and German"
Of course, the menu was changed, and, of course, the team responsible for the documentation, time to time to update it by working overtime. Glenn realized that Steve rights, in fact, the user does not need all of these sorting capabilities, when an application already offers a number of options for this. So the menu was just an unnecessary waste.
Today Apple problem is that no one asks, "why do we need this menu." No one investigates each team. No one will say, "Fuck the documentation in French and German."
Be sure Tim Cook does not. And with all of its designer duties on software and hardware, Jonny Ive is too busy to do it. Someone has to limit the scope. Someone must limit design. Someone has to set an example that even checking each menu item, Apple takes the right decisions.