The surface area of the Apple suite is now enormous. We now have an incredible array of devices, physical environments, and purposes. It's really quite staggering: just look at the spans between a) checking the UV index on Apple Watch and writing code in Xcode on Mac, b) tracking an outdoor run and navigating with Car Play and watching a movie on Apple TV, and c) messaging and maneuvering spreadsheets and designing/building. Huge expanse across each spectrum.
Apple's effort to maintain some semblance of consistency across this incredible array is laudable. (Which is not the same as letting the grievances highlighted in this article slide; I agree with the author 100%.) We all want consistency (probably to a degree greater than Apple is capable of delivering) simply so that we can use the metaphors we're familiar with.
I imagine Apple has dozens of design teams, each of which cannot talk to more than a sliver of the others, with probably not a single person aware of exactly how many design teams exist at once. There was probably a period in Apple's history – and probably not that long ago – when a single employee could assess the iconography across the entire suite. Those days are over.
My question: beyond preventing the obvious and severe transgressions (Liquid Glass), what systemic solutions are available on a scale like Apple's to maintain high-quality and strong consistency?
(I appreciate that Apple does generally one design refresh per year, in contrast to the continuous zero-utility tinkering observable in Google's products, for example.)
> We all want consistency (probably to a degree greater than Apple is capable of delivering)
This thinking is the fatal poison of the tech industry. The further you repeat it, the faster the industry dies. Watch:
"We all want privacy, probably to a greater degree than Facebook is capable of providing."
"We all want browser competition, probably to a greater degree than Microsoft is willing to provide."
"We all want advertisement options, probably to a greater degree than Google can tolerate."
See what's happening here? You're not making a concession, you're flat-out accepting their failure. Apple can provide consistency, they're a trillion-dollar business that has every incentive to compete on their own merits. Instead they carve out arbitrary and harmful rules for each platform and then steelman it when any authority of any kind suggests that they're wrong.
This isn't a "perfect being the enemy of good" situation, it's degraded into "good being the enemy of intolerable defaults" instead.
My question "what systemic solutions are available on a scale like Apple's to maintain high-quality and strong consistency?" was sincere.
I'm neither complacent (as you seemed to imply) nor magically hand-waiving a "just do it" notion (as you seem to exemplify). I'm seriously interested in what it takes to effectively manage complexity as this scale.
Apple's effort to maintain some semblance of consistency across this incredible array is laudable. (Which is not the same as letting the grievances highlighted in this article slide; I agree with the author 100%.) We all want consistency (probably to a degree greater than Apple is capable of delivering) simply so that we can use the metaphors we're familiar with.
I imagine Apple has dozens of design teams, each of which cannot talk to more than a sliver of the others, with probably not a single person aware of exactly how many design teams exist at once. There was probably a period in Apple's history – and probably not that long ago – when a single employee could assess the iconography across the entire suite. Those days are over.
My question: beyond preventing the obvious and severe transgressions (Liquid Glass), what systemic solutions are available on a scale like Apple's to maintain high-quality and strong consistency?
(I appreciate that Apple does generally one design refresh per year, in contrast to the continuous zero-utility tinkering observable in Google's products, for example.)