Out Appling Apple
From Zanecorpwiki
Work in progress.
There are many useful ways to talk about what Apple does right. For the sake of this discussion, I'm going to put it like this: Apple understands the importance of a pleasant user experience.
They also understand the 3 C's that make for a pleasant experience: understandable Concepts, clear Communication, and Consistency. The good news for everyone else is that this isn't hard to learn. Many people think user interface is difficult because achieving a highly polished aesthetic is difficult--which it is. The truth is that while aesthetics are important, they're secondary and only become meaningful after the 3 C's have been achieved. (TODO 1)
The weakness of Apple is it's failure to appreciate that the same techniques which have allowed the company to create wonderful user experiences are antithetical to the development of a solid technical foundation. Apple absolutely understands the relation between the technical foundation and the user experience--as evidenced by their insistence on generally superior components. The problem is that while they understand the importance of the relation, they don't understand how to manage that relation.
working on the apex vs. working on the base: it's a matter of scale, and the scale itself fundamentally changes the game
- the efficiency in an open base outweighs the benefit of tight control because it invites many individuals to make small improvements in precisely the area that they are best able to make improvements
TODO 1: Provide side essay on ideas of how to develop aesthetic founded in the 3 Cs. The secondary nature if aesthetic is not just functional and subjective, but structural.
