Submitted by “Earlier this week Apple fired Scott Forstall, the architect of its iOS platform, and handed his duties over to the company’s chief industrial designer, Jonathan Ive. Ive and Forstall had an infamously chilly working relationship, and one of their biggest disagreements was over the role of so-called ‘skeuomorphic’ design in Apple’s products. Forstall, like his mentor Steve Jobs, favored it; Ive disliked it. To many observers, Forstall’s forced exit looks like a vindication of Ive’s stance. But if he wants to continue Apple’s enviable trend of innovation, he’d be a fool to throw the baby of skeuomorphism out with Forstall’s bathwater.” Hoped for a thorough article on the benefits of skeuomorphism – got the age-old and intrinsically invalid excuse ‘because it sells’. Windows isn’t he best desktop operating system because it sells so well. Lady Gaga isn’t the best artist because she sells a lot of records. This argument is never valid, has zero value, and adds nothing to what should be an interesting discussion.
Windows is, indeed, the best operating system for all the people that are happily paying for it. If Windows wasn’t the best for them, They wouldn’t pay for it. But certainly Windows isn’t the best for me.
My point here is “best” is a 100% subjective matter. So It’s an invalid argument. Discussing about the beauty/ugliness of skeumorphism is a total waste of time. Sales are not. Sales are hard data.
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That’s why I think “because it sells” is one of the most accurate measure that We have. It’s not perfect, but at least, It’s objective and measurable.
“Because it sells” is a _much_ more powerful reason that “best” or “not best” non-sense discussions.
If skeumorphism sells… let’s use it!
> If Windows wasn’t the best for them, They wouldn’t pay for it.
Did you sleep through the 1990s? Did you miss the news about mandatory Secure Boot for Windows 8 badging? For over a decade, Windows has been the ONLY CHOICE on most preinstalled computers unless you want to pay four figures for a Mac, or you already know what you’re looking for and hit up a niche Linux retailer like System76 or ZaReason. Some company around the turn of the millenium wound up in the absurd situation of installing Win98 and BeOS in a dual boot but not configuring BeOS to fucking BOOT by default because that would have violated their license agreement with Microsoft.
MS certainly played dirty (OTOH I wonder how many companies wouldn’t, in such position?) – but even without that, Windows would quite possibly still get the market position it enjoys …simply because it was the best choice – or rather the least bad out of all more or less meh options, at the time when it really mattered.
When Windows got big, with 3.x & 95, there was hardly any alternative – Macs were too limited and expensive, RISC OS machines similar, Amigas even more limited & from a failing company & their “productive” side never really grabbed people’s attention, Atari TOS, GEOS, or GEM even more so, OS/2 too demanding on hardware and with the underlying goal of returning to IBM the control over the PC (so of course the clone makers didn’t go along, rebelled Gang of Nine style, chose MS), NeXT self-exiled into the “premium” market & ported too late to PCs, as BeOS will do half a decade later (way too late), Linux in its cradle and DEs for X not yet viable for general consumption.
For better or worse, picking up Windows was sensible – network effects and economies of scale did the rest.
That was the case also in places where people rarely paid for Windows, when they chose to pirate it, when they still choose that… (or grab a MSDNAA license, at best)
Edited 2012-11-03 05:00 UTC
Amigas were more poorly marketed than anything else, the hardware was perfectly capable while the OS was in many ways better than anything from MS or Apple. They were also extremely competitively priced, with a usable system being far cheaper than any of the competitors with plenty of scope for upgrades if you wanted.
Even if the Amiga had been better marketed the PC would have won out simply because it was more open. Commodore would have to have been good at so many more things simultaneously to have had any chance.
I disagree. The Zorro 2 slots had flexibility and auto-config capabilities that the PC didn’t get until PCI, and the OS was very enhancement-friendly. There was a thriving third party market that pushed the limits in very creative and impressive ways!
You people don’t get it… even despite some rough edges and limitations of the PC, it was still winning big time in the market (owing largely to its open architecture)
& http://www.osnews.com/permalink?541884
That’s a non sequitur*, largely irrelevant to what I said & way to miss the point. Sure, the 500-generation was nice, the OS nice and generally well-utilising, tied into the hw (though it was also not particularly stable; and come on, its contemporary versions still don’t have memory protection).
But people barely used Amiga for their OS – they were gaming machines, and mostly with console-like dynamics (but without matching business model): most people never upgraded past 500-generation, most devs were targeting nothing more than 500 (but Commodore couldn’t extract money from the devs, like for example Nintento could; so they bled out the same way Atari did at 1983 video game crash …curiously, this one was largely brought by Commodore, seems they didn’t realise what they did in 83).
And all this highly tied hw & sw made improvements difficult and expensive, it’s what killed Amiga (& that approach in general; note that no Amiga-style platforms survived, apart from consoles which have a matching business model of course; even Macs are just PCs nowadays) – 1200 was not much better than 500, and already worse than PCs at the time.
Oh yeah, and WRT PCs, their less rigid architecture, economies of scale from many OEMs… look at this onslaught http://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/5/ (and the next 6; and keep in mind that most of those were inexpensive “toy” Amigas) – there was nothing Commodore could do, maybe except releasing a PC GFX&sound expansion card loosely based on Amiga tech…
BTW, Amigas were very popular at my place, NVM marketing …people still moved en masse to PCs at the first chance they got (and usually pirating Microsoft OS, which means they want it)
*how you get upvoted through the roof and me… downvoted for some reason, shows that logical fallacies in short posts do work; and perhaps also that Amiga myths are strong with some people.
Now with 75% of the sales done world wide, I wonder when people will start saying the same about Android.
Only WinRT devices have mandatory secure boot, any devices based on x86 can be unlocked, and I think the default is unlocked.
BluenoseJake,
“Only WinRT devices have mandatory secure boot, any devices based on x86 can be unlocked, and I think the default is unlocked.”
Secure boot is mandatory on both x86 and ARM. Devices must be sold with it enabled to secure boot windows, but with x86 MS was compelled to require devices to have a platform specific override mechanism so owners can decide what to boot.
Unfortunately secure boot wasn’t really designed to be used by owners or 3rd party platforms, so there is no standardised way to boot alternate operating systems other than disabling secure boot entirely, which is a shameful oversight by the secure boot engineers.
Edit: Was not my intent to drag this thread completely off topic, just wanted to point out that secure boot is enabled by default, it would not make sense to have it disabled from the manufacturer.
Edited 2012-11-03 18:18 UTC
If you can turn it off, it isn’t mandatory. OEMs are not required to turn it on, so it isn’t mandatory.
BluenoseJake,
“If you can turn it off, it isn’t mandatory. OEMs are not required to turn it on, so it isn’t mandatory.”
I’m not sure how you are deducing that OEMs are not required to turn it on? OEMs are obligated to turn it on as stated in the windows 8 client system requirements:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/jj128256.a…
“Mandatory. Secure Boot must ship enabled Configure UEFI Version 2.3.1 Errata B variables SecureBoot=1 and SetupMode=0 with a signature database (EFI_IMAGE_SECURITY_DATABASE) necessary to boot the machine securely pre-provisioned, and include a PK that is set and a valid KEK database. The system uses this database to verify that only trusted code (for example: trusted signed boot loader) is initialized, and that any unsigned image or an image that is signed by an unauthorized publisher does not execute. The contents of the signature database is determined by the OEM, based on the required native and third-party UEFI drivers, respective recovery needs, and the OS Boot Loader installed on the machine. The following Microsoft-provided EFI_CERT_X509 signature shall be included in the signature database:”
There is alot more information there. They disable unauthorised main-board flashing. They say over and over again the ways a user cannot bypass secure boot without disabling it.
“Mandatory. No in-line mechanism is provided whereby a user can bypass Secure Boot failures and boot anyway Signature verification override during boot when Secure Boot is enabled is not allowed. A physically present user override is not permitted for UEFI images that fail signature verification during boot. If a user wants to boot an image that does not pass signature verification, they must explicitly disable Secure Boot on the target system.”
They even go so far as prohibiting OEM system tools from being secure booted.
“Mandatory. UEFI Shells and related applications. UEFI Modules that are not required to boot the platform must not be signed by any production certificate stored in “db”, as UEFI applications can weaken the security of Secure Boot. For example, this includes and is not limited to UEFI Shells as well as manufacturing, test, debug, RMA, & decommissioning tools. Running these tools and shells must require that a platform administrator disables Secure Boot.”
As we know, MS was heavily criticised for banning all other operating systems on computers where they hold a monopoly, so they added a clause for disabling secure boot on non-arm systems.
“Mandatory. Enable/Disable Secure Boot. On non-ARM systems, it is required to implement the ability to disable Secure Boot via firmware setup. A physically present user must be allowed to disable Secure Boot via firmware setup without possession of PKpriv. A Windows Server may also disable Secure Boot remotely using a strongly authenticated (preferably public-key based) out-of-band management connection, such as to a baseboard management controller or service processor. Programmatic disabling of Secure Boot either during Boot Services or after exiting EFI Boot Services MUST NOT be possible. Disabling Secure Boot must not be possible on ARM systems.”
I’m posting this in the hopes that the information is useful to you, but I recognise this isn’t the right place to be debating secure boot. On the next secure boot article that comes up, I’ll probably be there
Edited 2012-11-04 22:42 UTC
Win 8 looks to be a Vista bomb, since they’ve spent 2 BILLION on ads and sold 4 million copies, that $500 spent for every $40 sale…I’d say Vista and 8 prove you’re incorrect.
And as for the “other OSes in the 90s? As someone who was actually in retail then, let me fill you in on a few facts you may or may not have known..
1.- IBM tried to make the PC proprietary when they lost control of the platform by trying to force the MCA bus on us, thank goodness the gang of nine got together and came up with EISA or your desktop would be as proprietary…as well your average laptop or tablet, so naturally NONE of the OEMs was gonna touch an IBM backed OS with a 100 foot pole. Oh and the fact that IBM stuck with the 286 while everyone else went 386 and 486 because they had second source rights to the 286 which Intel wouldn’t sell for later chips? Its was DOA, no matter if it was a good OS or not.
2.- BeOS was first designed for an AT&T chip…which flopped, then to the PPC…too high per unit, so by the time they finally got hit with the cluebat that “Hey, there are millions of X86 chips out there, we should make our OS for that!” it was already midway into Win98 so the moment was past, no different than how WordPerfect could have ruled the Office market but they kept putting out badly done DOS ports until VERY late into the 90s.
3.- Finally as for Linux? Sorry but then as now its just too niche, has too many problems, why you can’t even get Nvidia Optimus tech working right because the “FOSSie” faction demanded that the DMA be GPL ONLY, thus insuring that Nvidia couldn’t hook their driver into…the thing required to make major hardware Nvidia uses work…great job guys..
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/10/11/1918251/alan-cox-to-nvidia…
So I’m sorry but it wasn’t required for MSFT to bribe anybody, they had a competition made up of fools. in fact we haven’t had ANY real competition to speak of until Apple got Steve Jobs back in the driver seat so he could keep the company from going over the cliff, and last I heard they are making insane amounts of profit. of course they’ll never crack above 10% because they don’t want to as part of what makes them crazy money is their “product for the rich and elite” branding, no different than how if Air Jordans were $50 a pair they’d have warehouses full of the things, but at $300 a pair they have lines around the block.
Finally as for SecureBoot? That is ONLY locked in WinRT, that’s because they don’t want people hacking them and putting Android on them because…well it’d look like an even bigger fail, that’s why. On the desktop front it helps the BSAA spot the “Win 8 all versions pre-activated” if they ever actually come across a corp using it in the wild (doubtful) but the main reason is the same one that has driven Steve “ZOMG I want an iPad too!” Ballmer for the last 5 years…ripping off Apple. You name it, whatever Apple does MSFT will make a half baked copy. Apple locks their devices so by God MSFT will too, even though all it means is that Woot! will have an even harder time moving them at $99 a pop in 6 months.
Memory sharing in kernel space is a pretty big indicator of a combined work. If they caved on the DMA for nvidia, the GPL would become essentially worthless. They really had no choice but to tell nvidia to fuck off.
Then don’t cry if nobody wants your product because it is BROKEN, okay? because you have JUST stated that the GPL is more important than a functional OS which is frankly why Linux gained NO share during Vista and will gain NO share during Win 8, because honestly that is the attitude of the devs and nobody wants to stare at a broken PC going “Well I’m at least free of “the man”, fight the power!” so you go NOWHERE.
Hell I could wallpaper this page with fails caused by the GPL, from AMD having to hand over half their code to FOSS which led to an UGLY hack where Linux sucks more than 30% more power than Windows because hardware acceleration can use ONLY the shaders and NOT UVD which was actually designed for the task, to Dell having to run their own BADLY behind repos just to keep the drivers from breaking every other month, but why bother? Your statement says it all, there will be NO compromise therefor your product will go nowhere, simple as that.
So I wonder, maybe the trick to not get down-voted for exposing the ~errors of MS Windows competitors is to… overlook brainfarts of Amiga? ;P ( http://www.osnews.com/thread?540890 ) Or maybe throwing in that MS does half-baked copying of Apple…
WRT Apple & Jobs return: ehh, if only he didn’t make the mistake of limiting Nextstep to niche, proprietary hardware – the world of ~computing could look very different now, MS possibly mostly making ~Office & not for their own OS.
But come on, I think it’s safe to assume we’ve only seen the beginning of Win8 sales; probably also that this ad budget is meant for some longer campaign.
The “Vista bomb” still shows similar numbers of web users as all OSX combined (so there are probably more Vista users, they should be on average less “web active”), and an order of magnitude more than all Linux combined; is the 3rd most used OS. Such “bomb” wouldn’t be bad for MS …and Win9 (and its Metro 2.x? …just like Windows got good only at 3.x, and took the world by storm) might yet be loved, just like VistaSE “let’s use the marketing trick of ‘lucky 7′” is.
BTW SecureBoot and WinRT – I wonder of MS isn’t setting things up so that OEMs could seel their devices below cost, subsidised by part of profit from appstore sales going to the maker of the device.
Of course, for that to work, people must be pretty much blocked from replacing OS on their(?) device…
True enough… but I just bought Windows 8 for my not-newly-purchased computer because it IS the best choice for me right now. And I think all the attention Apple has gotten has spurred Microsoft on to actually make some interesting improvements and changes to Windows.
But I sure do miss BeOS, and OS/2… I haven’t really enjoyed the latest releases of Mac OS X. I prefer earlier versions. But maybe that is because I really liked NeXT/OpenStep… I don’t know.
sergio,
“My point here is ‘best’ is a 100% subjective matter. So It’s an invalid argument. Discussing about the beauty/ugliness of skeumorphism is a total waste of time. Sales are not. Sales are hard data.”
“That’s why I think ‘because it sells’ is one of the most accurate measure that We have. It’s not perfect, but at least, It’s objective and measurable.”
Your jumping to the conclusion that because IOS sells, then users want skeuomorphic interfaces. But you haven’t shown any evidence that the two are connected (like data showing that people would stop buying IOS without skeuomorphic interfaces). You might say that IOS sells in spite of skeumorphic interfaces, I honestly don’t know…
I just finished talking about the fallacy of using sales numbers to make assertions over singled out variables like this. I don’t feel like repeating too much so I’ll just cross link my earlier post (sorry):
http://www.osnews.com/thread?540827
(edit: fixed link!)
Edited 2012-11-03 04:27 UTC
The skeumorphic-free Android platform current marketshare rate is already provided such evidence: skeumorphic may have sold, but isn’t the best seller feature anymore.
phoudoin,
But…you are doing it too…Argh!
Just as IOS isn’t proof that people like skeumorphic UI, Android isn’t proof that people don’t like skeumorphic UI. Sales numbers by themselves CAN NOT prove such things.
Here’s what I’m going to do. I’ve never attempted this before, but I’ve created a poll on surveymonkey. I urge everyone to fill it out.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/R7JRTW9
I know we’re not representative of users at large, but this is really what you’d have to do across the general population to find statistical correlation between device choices and specific device characteristics.
Edit: I failed to dogfood the survey, but I’ve fixed it now. Please follow the new link to the survey!
Edited 2012-11-03 20:01 UTC
That was not my point. Sorry for not making it clearer.
My point was that *if* “because it sells” is the only valid reason here, then the fact that a platform far less skeumorphic-addict than iOS have now taken its leading place is an evidence.
Either that “because it sells” is *not* that the only valid reason (as it’s less selling than it used to be) or that there is no connection between skeumorphic and sells (as what most sale today is less skeumorphic than what used to sale the most).
My point is that is an evidence that there is no evidence between skeumorphic and sales.
phoudoin,
Thanks for clarifying. I reluctantly agree, if you believed that sales correspond to skeumorphic preferences, then you should concede that competing sales are votes against skeumorphism. But the whole premise is so flimsy I don’t want to go there.
hm, but OTOH Apple appstore has premumably by far the most app sales / profit …and I suspect many of those apps have some noticeably skeumorphic UI.
The results are in!
I didn’t have a good place to put all the information together, so I created a blog and uploaded the data/charts there.
http://skeuomorphicsurvey.wordpress.com/
The data isn’t surprising to me, but it might be surprising to others who thought that skeuomorphic tendencies are highly correlated to platform.
Hopefully in the future, we don’t have posters claiming that owning a device implies demand for arbitrary features among users. Surveys are great tools for finding such correlations, so maybe we should try to use them more often? I’m always in favor of increasing objectivity through data!
BTW, anyone doing this in the future: avoid surveymonkey! Their “basic” account is useless because a 10 question limit is too low, and then they hold your data hostage
Edited 2012-11-06 23:39 UTC
This is a fallacy. The fact that someone pays for something does not mean it’s necessarily the best for them.
It’s like saying McDonalds is healthy food because people eat there a lot or that smoking is good for you because a lot of people buy cigarettes.
Did you honestly just compare using an OS to eating crappy food or smoking cigarettes? Does that mean that using OS X is equivalent to eating organic? Is using Linux the same as eating hot dogs and sausages? That analogy is broken in 19 different ways.
No, I compared the way he came to the conclusion that it must be the best for them.
Windows may, or may not, be the best for them but it does not follow as a logical conclusion from the fact that they purchased it. Purchasing itself is not a measurement of how good a product is for you.
Wrong. Purchasing decisions are certainly a metric by which you can measure value to consumers. Is it the end-all, painting the full picture? Of course not. That’s just as ridiculous as the opposite, …saying it’s useless.
People that go to McDonald’s do so because they /think/ (rightly or wrongly) it is the best means of fulfilling all their relevant needs. Those needs include convenience, price, kid-friendliness, taste/enjoyment, time preference/hyperbolic discounting, risk tolerance, medical history, lifestyle, &c. All those factors weighed individually and subjectively lead some people to, and others away, from McDonald’s.
So, good for you in what sense? Most the time that comes off (and in any public mention of McDonald’s is always lurking) as good for your *health*. But health is not the only relevant factor, and is not valued as an end with identical weight by all people.
Of course sometimes people make mistakes or have poor information, whether choosing OS’s or burgers. But the fact they chose otherwise than we would is not proof it was a bad decision for *them*.
Edited 2012-11-04 03:35 UTC
telns,
As long as people have a wide range of choices to choose from, then sure…but it’s not always so strait forward.
For starters, there are monopolies:
– If you want to fly from point A to B, your local airport may not give you a choice of airlines.
-If you want internet, your local options may not give you a choice of services.
Second of all, there’s coercion:
– Your employer/clients may require you to use a specific platform that is not of your choosing to connect remotely.
Thirdly, there’s lack of meaningful choice:
– If you go to vote, your election many not have candidates who give you meaningful choices in your eyes.
– Your hardware store lacks quality faucets, so you buy a bad plastic one instead (happened to me).
It’s wonderful to have as many choices as we sometimes do, but sometimes people forget that there aren’t always *ideal* choices. Unless we’re filthy rich, we usually cannot get exactly what we want. I’m not whining about it, it’s just life.
If you really want to know what someone believes is best, why not just ask them instead of assuming their purchases speak for them?
Edited 2012-11-04 05:06 UTC
You made some good points. However, I would say the answer is both in asking (talk) and in purchasing (action).
Both sources tell you something about the person’s preferences–whether stated or revealed–and since neither source can offer a complete picture, neither source should be disregarded.
Cognitive biases. Go through a list of them), veblen goods. In reality, we have relatively poor grip on ourselves, what makes us tick.
Also consider: veblen goods (very much desired, but not many can have them & with skewed overall demand dynamics),
http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2008/pr-wine-011608.html
http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/ratrace.html
(of course I’m not saying that direct surveys aren’t useful, when properly made & used)
using completely different markets that use completely different consumer selection mechanisms/criteria and affect those consumers completely differently.
Doesn’t matter.
“They bought something therefore it’s the best for them” is flawed reasoning regardless of the market and regardless of the product.
No, its not.
Show me real objective negative impacts on every single consumer who decided to buy windows over OS X or Linux or iOS or Android….
With food there is objective negative impacts on a person’s health if they buy McDonald’s or some other fast food. Same goes for Alcohol and cigarettes.
Wow, you really don’t get this?
That’s not the point.
If you don’t get why “I bought it therefore it’s the best for me” is flawed reasoning there’s really nothing we can do for you.
The reason that the logic fails for food is because there are negative health impacts for poor food choices….there is none with technology so the logic holds up in that case.
There are other parameters for “best” than health.
Well, we could re-read the actual article and not its comment in the posted story and see that the point “it is good because it sold a lot of copies” is not the point the author tries to make.
oh, ok then.
I agree.
Many people use Microsoft’s operating systems because at some level these operating systems work for them and they implicitly accept Microsoft’s monopoly of the desktop space due to having no interest in who dominates this space and most probably being forced to use a Windows operating system itself; e.g. workplace only providing a Windows option and no flexibility for access to a Unix-related operating system. Obviously no person in that situation would be able to logically claim that one of these Windows operating systems is the “best” for them if they decided to adopt the “sheeple” attitude of blindly accepting a monopolist’s product just because the monopolist’s product exists in the market place (just in case the person made such a claim).
Actually,
AmigaOS is the best OS every (BeOS is the second best). Yes, they failed miserably but that should not be the measure of success. If it is then we may as well end society as we think we know it!
Problem is, there’s no real reason to believe that skeumorphism does sell. At most, it’s an aspect of the product that Apple sells; it not the product itself or even the primary feature of that product. At best, it could be concluded that skeumorphism doesn’t appear to substantially impede sales of Apple’s products… without specific evidence, anything beyond that is a stretch.
Of course, it could be the case that Apple’s products would be selling even better if it weren’t for the skeumorphism. Not that I think that’s particularly likely, but it’s just as likely as your interpretation of how skeumorphism relates to sales figures – in that there’s no definitive evidence for either possibility.
Does someone understand why skeuomorphism is so attractive? Its because it makes our instincts to react. Our subconscious ourself. Animal inside. It feels like something familiar, something it is used to. Not something “authentically digital”. Just watch rich texture and feel how it touches your deeply. It is powerful, bacause we are still animals, all our motivation is still there, and motivation to buy as well. So I predict: end of reasonable skeumorthism will be the end of commercial success.
While excessive skeumorphism does wake up my animal self, it’s more often about primal rage than feelings of endearment
hmm, So those who don’t find skeuomorphism attractive are somehow perverse. Don’t buy it or the idea it’s removal would end Apples commercial success.
Personally, I find skeuomorphism has a place in design just not the absurd level it’s reached at Apple. Besides, and I suppose this is even more subjective, so many of them just suck. They look crap and dated which doesn’t mean skeuomorphism is bad in-itself just Apples design team really suck at visuals.
The interesting thing in the article is that the argument “it is good because it sells” is not the argument put forth by the person writing the article and not the reason I submitted it. Confuting an argument by misrepresenting it is the textbook definition of strawman right?
If you wanted to stretch things you could cut a few parts in the following argument (which is similar to the argument made about OSX and iOS by the article writer), re-arrange it, and call it a day
“skeuomorphism can lead to visually pleasing and familiar UI’s (when not abused) –> iOS is liked because it has a well designed, mostly very coherent, familiar UI and does use skeumorphic elements in a few places –> iOS sells because it has some good qualities, nice UI being one of them”
I really don’t understand the argument, could you possibly fill in the blanks left by the author?
Where is skuemorphic design good? Showing concrete examples would be a good thing. I think he briefly touched on the calculator in ios. How is the ios calculator better as a calculator because of its design than the one in android? There are only so many ways to do a calculator, almost all of the obvious ones are intuitive to anyone who’s ever used one. I’ve only seen bad skeu, never good.
I’d still prefer a comment showing “good” skeumophic design rather than simply modding downward. You can’t just say “skeumorphic design is great! Because it is!”. That’s not very convincing….
Skeuomorphism is behavioral economics. It is always about marketing products to a particular socio-economic class of consumers – the bourgeois middle class.
If you are poor, you get an item, if you can afford it, for its purpose. I buy a used car to get to work. If you are rich, you get an item, because you can afford it, for purposes other than its true use. I buy a car that has real leather seats, real wood paneling, etc. It is a show of wealth and prosperity.
If I am in the middle aspiring to be upper, I am susceptible to marketing that uses skeuomorphism. I get that car for work, yes, but hey look at the fake leather seats. That must show that I am wealthier or ‘cooler’ than all the others. This has been done for hundreds of years, and Apple is making millions with this model.
The new iPad mini has specifications far below its price tag. And consumers in this demographic which are now ‘hooked’ will continue to buy it until something new displaces the ‘coolness’ of it.
If they get rid of skeuomorphism too much, will that sink future sales? Will Metro RT & Surface become the new ‘cool’?
If Ives can apply a little more taste to the skeuomorpic design that Apple uses and tone back the gaudiness of the worst offenders, it would be nice. Just let the calendar app in OSX use the normal window widgets and drop the damn leather. It just looks like someone crapped on the screen and left torn bits of toilet paper stuck to it.
Edited 2012-11-03 07:08 UTC
The article makes some good points. The fact that the iPhone 5 is selling like hotcakes, faster than Apple can make them, sortof belays all the whining against skeuomorphism from all the technorati and pundits. It has become the rage among them to gripe about it and call it uncool lately, but the great mass of consumers has so far indicated that they either don’t care or really like it, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The ultimate test will be to see how Windows Phone 8 does in the market place over the next few months, which, along with the “desktop” version of Windows 8, have moved just about as far away from skeuomorphism that one can get. I will be among the first to say I don’t care for the stitching in some iOS apps, but I do understand why its there and do agree that such touches need to be used with a definite degree of restraint, or they do start to become tacky.
Why Ive SHOULD kill Apple’s skeuomorphic interfaces
To be blunt: Steve Jobs is dead, he (not Ive) was the driving force behind most of Apple’s interface design; Steve steered other creative talents (including Ive) to articulate his own ideas that he could not fashion himself.
Without Steve Jobs, regardless of what you regard as his motive talent, be it: charisma, taste, insight, or just the ability to lead and get things done — there is no path forward following a dead Ideologue’s ideas; to do so would would be more retromorphism then skeuomorphism in terms of design.
Apple’s products have never been original or brilliant, but have been a combination of good design ideas, a lot of talented hard working people, a ton of powerful marketing that leverages some of the best brainwashing R&D to make it’s way into the private sector — and Steve Jobs leading, running and micromanaging the show and giving everything the focus only a ‘one man show’ can have.
Sans Steve, there’s no sustainable path forward for what are essentially vertical market fashion products, and like any fashion product Apple’s will go out of fashion… As well, there are as many (if not more) that consider Apple’s products well past their prime as far as ‘taste’ no less good design implementations of ideas — skeuomorphic or otherwise.
Post Steve Apple is still a company that still has an enormous well of design and development talent, but sans Steve if there’s to be any strong design statement to move products forward in any way that’s compelling and competitive, no less ‘tasteful’ it’s going to have to be something people working on it feel passionate about.
While there may be a lot of affection, nostalgia, and sentimentality for what what is already a legacy design; Apple’s current interface doesn’t even present a particularly good implementation of skeuomorphism as they’re still loaded with inconsistencies (aesthetic and functional), poor ergonomics, histrionics, and art assets that as many as not consider ‘tasteless’ or even ugly.
Let Ive do what he wants, especially if it’s something new and stunning…
Edited 2012-11-03 13:42 UTC
I got my first Mac, an iBook G4, a couple weeks after Apple Computer, Inc. released Mac OS X Panther, but I think the Platinum look in Mac OS 9 is the most aesthetically pleasing UI, I have seen. I do not expect Apple to revive the exact theme, but it would be nice to have a UI with a consistent look and feel.
“Skeuomorphism” to a lesser degree has been in existence since Windows 3.1, take a look at the various media player software bundled with sound cards that are skinned to resemble real-world audio players. Even Sony and NEC sold external CD-ROM drives came with a basic version of GEOS that had a CD player skinned as the drive itself. It’s just been taken to a higher level today.
A conversation about “what is best product” and one about “what should a company produce” can be very different conversations.
The main, if not the only, question in the latter is in fact “does it sell?” But if we as observers are to probe into the issue of what is best then yes, I agree that “because it sells” does not add anything. That goes without saying, however.
What does need to be stated is that “best is subjective” is not an argument either. Seems like a lot of people here (engineering types, duh) like to use that excuse the same way they like to refer to the dictionary in the middle of an argument to define the “correct” word. People: you don’t need and can’t have a mathematical proof backing up each statement in order to string together subject, verb, and predicate. All statements are in the end subjective.
What is more important is your ability to convince people of your vision of what is best. Apple has that ability, or more specifically Jobs had that ability. People worry that Apple is resting on its laurels assuming that the laurels are its products. Really what Apple is coasting on is its ability to be a trendsetter, but people conflate the two.
By the same token, Microsoft keeps failing to be a trendsetter. Yes, the cons of Windows Phone keep being raised here, but we all know that the commenters here are not representative of the market. The real reason MS fails isn’t because of the product but because people are still able to make images like this in Photoshop that still resonate and bring back horrible memories: http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n205/dj_flipster/IMG_1568.jpg When, in truth, Surface is one hell of a slick looking platform, consumer Windows has been rock solid since XP SP1, and all this Metro design language that people are raving about was already there in Zune. It means nothing until MS is able to convince people that it means something; it means nothing until they make the world understand that it is the best. (And that is what they’re trying to do!)
Edited 2012-11-03 17:55 UTC
“Windows isn’t he best desktop operating system because it sells so well. Lady Gaga isn’t the best artist because she sells a lot of records. This argument is never valid, has zero value, and adds nothing to what should be an interesting discussion.”
Best is a matter of opinion, however, sales do shed light on reality.. Windows sells so well because people like it. Lady Gaga sells well because people like her. You can’t say that something is the best because it sells well, but you can certainly say it sells well because it has value to the people who buy it. Trying to deny that by suggesting consumers are mere mindless sheep, or somehow forced into their purchases, is completely ignorant & idiotic. The average Joe is perfectly capable of deciding what software works for him and what doesn’t, just like he is perfectly capable of deciding what music he likes and doesn’t.
Hi,
So you’re saying that companies spend millions of $$$ on advertising campaigns that have no effect whatsoever?
You’re saying that (what I’ll call) “unethical practices”; like using a monopoly in one area to gain an advantage in another area, or like forcing vendor lock-in on consumers, or like charging OEMs more for something if they dare to offer a competing product to consumers, or like perverting standards and/or patents to stifle competition; has no effect on consumers at all?
Trying to deny that consumers aren’t sheep and aren’t influenced in their purchases, is equally ignorant/idiotic.
The truth is somewhere in between – consumers aren’t mindless sheep, but they also aren’t able to choose the best product.
For some things (smart phones) I don’t even think it’s possible for a normal person to choose the best product. I mean, how many people are able to try each different smart phone for a few weeks so that they can make a truly informed decision? It’s much more likely that a consumer will walk into a shop, get completely confused/bewildered and choose a product based on hype (and price) alone.
– Brendan
I neither made nor implied any such claim. I simply pointed out the fact that people are perfectly capable of making decisions for themselves as to what they like and dislike.
However, since you brought it up, I guess that depends now doesn’t it? No amount of advertising will ever get me to eat peas. Know why? Because I don’t like peas. The exact same statement is true if you replace eating peas with smoking cigarettes.
Ok, …again, I neither made nor implied any such claim. And again, people still have the final say in how they spend their money. The truth is people do have choice and the only people who fall into the trap you describe are the ones who choose to.
No, it isn’t equally ignorant or idiotic. Why? Because I’m a consumer and am nowhere near being a sheep. I’m almost unmoved by the massive amount of advertising I’m subject to. Do you want to know why all those millions of dollars are spent on advertising? Do you want to know why companies run ads on radio, tv, in print, on the internet, mobile, and everywhere else they can find space? Because advertising isn’t nearly as effective as you claim. Advertising is more like carpet bombing and cross your fingers that you got something good, rather than a precision strike and hits the target every time.
You clearly don’t give people enough credit. While it’s true, certain people lack the proper knowledge to make certain good purchasing decisions, for the most part people do just fine deciding what’s best for them. As much as you would like to believe you are a more effective judge & jury to someone elses opinion, you are not and never will be.
Here’s a more likely scenario…. A person walks into a cellphone store and tells the salesman what he’s looking for. He also provides a ballpark price he’s willing to pay. The salesman shows him different cellphone options that suit his needs, and the customer decides which one to buy.
What’s more likely, that the guy made a bad purchase (one that doesn’t suit his needs), or a good one (one that does). And in the event he isn’t satisfied with the phone, is it more likely he returns it for a different one, or keeps it and complains for the next X years?
Here’s a terrific piece of advice… Never underestimate peoples ability to think for themselves. Further, their ability to make good decisions based on their own needs, wants, and (dis)likes.
Everybody who claims this has no idea how advertising works. Your behaviour is, in fact, motivated by boatloads of advertising. Unless you research every purchase you make – from bread to toothpaste to detergent to peanut butter to phones to computers – you ARE influenced massively by advertising.
Wrong. As I said, “I’m almost unmoved by the massive amount of advertising I’m subject to”. And, I’m in a position to gauge that whereas you are not. Aside of the fact I know exactly how advertising works as it relates to my daily work, I am one of those people who does their homework. Not on every little thing of course — that would be pointless. But on everything I deem as relevant, important, or of interest, yes.
The people who tend to have no idea are the ones who think they know more about other people than those people know about themselves.
I hate this argument. Three or four people on this board have tried this one on me and I still don’t buy it. It’s not because there is no truth to it, its because it is often used as supporting evidence for a completely different claim – that certain products are successful solely because of marketing, or that people believe certain things because they are brain washed by marketing.
That somehow, merely as a 3rd party observer, someone can actually tell another person why they bought a product – to the point they will actually tell the person they are wrong when they try to explain why… “Im sorry, but you are just confused – the product you like is actually shitty and you are just a sheep”.
This whole thread of discussion started because one guy said that people who bought Windows did it because they like it. Others contend that because people are motivated by marketing than that explains why they do things (i.e. they are sheep). Im not saying you are making this argument directly, but you brought the “everyone is affected by marketing” into this…
The two things can both be true at the same time, and in fact I would contend that “I like it” is ultimately way more important than marketing – and the two concepts are not necessarily related to each other.
What I see is that people who don’t like a certain product simply use this argument to explain why other people buy it. Lady Gaga sucks, therefore her success can only be explained by marketing. Windows suck, therefore its success can only be explained by marketing.
I put forth a different hypothesis – not everyone likes the same things. People are willing to ignore some deficiencies in a product when it makes up for them in other ways. Everything is a tradeoff, and a consumers opinion of a product is made up of more than just the advertising budget of the manufacturer…
Some people like Fiona Apple and the Gilmore Girls – I have no idea why
But I certainly won’t try to tell them it is because they are in fact being influenced subconsciously by marketing.
Strange, the huge amount of monies expended on advertising which is almost impossible to avoid in some form or another and yet almost everyone says has little effect on them. Have my doubts.
I think advertising has a dramatic effect on influencing someone to buy a product. It may even influence them once they have the product and are trying to decide if they are really happy with it or not (i.e. it influences what features they do or don’t consider important). But ultimately, they decide they are either happy with their purchase or not.
If they go back to the same company a 2nd and 3rd time and continue to be happy with the results… I argue at that point marketing is much less of a factor, they buy again because of past experience.
The reason I made an issue over it is because the reasons someone becomes a repeat customer are personal – it coud be price/value, it could be build quality, it could be ease of use, hell – it could be practically anything really. But what usually isn’t any longer is marketing… So saying “people buy Windows because they like it” is a perfectly accurate statement, because it is obviously limited to those who have used it before (otherwise they wouldn’t be capable of liking it).
Again, there’s a reason why mind-boggling amounts of money are spent on advertising, and why you get smoothered with it practically everywhere. The reason is because advertising is simply not nearly effective as people like Thom claim, hence the `spray & pray` techniques commonly used in advertising campaigns.
And again, people do have minds of their own. The vast majority of the population are not mindless zombies. Most of the time they’re perfectly capable of deciding what they want and what they need. If people were so easily persuaded, as Thom, you, and few others suggest, you would see much small advertising budgets with much better results.
Nobody has said advertising is ineffective. Obviously it is to some degree. But, the degree to which people are influenced & make decisions based on advertising varies greatly. Are you the type who see’s a commercial for McDonalds chicken nuggets and then goes and buys them? Or could you watch a million of those commercials and never go buy them because you simply don’t want to or don’t like them? Do “you” like burgers because you’re told you like them, or because you actually do like them (what a crazy concept to grasp)?
I guess for people who are easily influenced, it’s easy to think others are the same way. It appears that the fact people may not be so easily influenced seems truly alien to you & Thom. No matter how alien it may seem through your eyes, it is none-the-less fact.
If everyone used the same advertizing agency with the same advertizing team, then you’d have a point. But they don’t, so you don’t.
Another strawman that gets raised is that marketing and advertising is synonymous. THEY’RE NOT. Marketing includes a whole lot more than just advertizing.
Everyone, stop conflating the two.
Go to Youtube and search “Derren Brown”. You don’t have to be a mindless zombie to be affected by marketing.
Yet how many people actually default to McDonalds instead of a competitor like Burger King? Most people don’t actually consider eating from elsewhere. Again, commercials are just one part of marketing. The whole franchise “familiar appearance” across all McDonalds “restaurants” are part of marketing.
Repeat after me:
MARKETING IS MORE THAN JUST ADVERTISING OR COMMERCIALS.
No it’s not. It is not fact and the science shows otherwise. Humans are scarily predictable and malleable.
The only real reason why people oppose the MARKETING-NOT-JUST-ADVERTISING argument is because the think their desire that humans have a special dignity that makes the truth wrong.
Wrong. My points are not secrets. What I’ve been describing is commonplace, hence my use of “commonly used”. Does it describe every single application or use case? No, of course not. But I’m not the one trying to shoehorn anything here, you are.
The conversation is about advertising, not marketing. I guess you’re one of the people you’ve described.
We’re not talking about marketing.
You failed to answer my question. Why someone defaults to a particular product or service if often the result of convenience and/or preference… Not “programming”. And, we are talking about advertising, not marketing.
The more you mumble that, the more convinced I am that you don’t actually know the difference between the two. A conversation about marketing is a different conversation and it’s not one we’re engaged in at the moment so, …. Repeat after me, “this conversation is about advertising, not marketing”.
To what degree people are predictable not only varies greatly but also depends on what you’re attempting to predict. You not knowing that only shows how little you know about the subject.
We aren’t having a discussion about marketing so what are you talking about?
It’s so ironic, or not, that the people cheerleading the idea that people are so easily programmable with no true individuality, ability to think and make decisions based on their own opinions & preferences, are the ones who are seemingly the most brainwashed and disconnected from their own identity. You would do yourself justice by learning about how people think & make decisions before trying to discuss this topic — “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman would be a great place to start.
At the very least you should try to grasp that human beings have the capacity to think for themselves, and make decisions based on their own opinions rather than what they’re told/”programmed” to. That is reality afterall.
You completely didn’t understood the point at all. The point was that you can’t claim advertising is simply not as effective, because to make that claim, all advertisements have to be of equal quality for comparison.
The fact that not all advertizing campaigns are successful doesn’t negate anything about advertizing’s effectiveness when done right.
You guys use the word advertizing. But you obviously are veering towards marketing.
Yet both contains techniques of suggestion and influence. You are being nitpicky without actually making any useful point.
I didn’t say programming. SUGGESTION IS NOT PROGRAMMING.
Sorry if you think you’re just talking about advertizing, but clearly it is ALL OF MARKETING that is required to get people to instinctually make a default decision. Stop trying to use words to narrowly define reality and start using words that describe reality.
And you are also wrong. People may reason to themselves that it’s convenience and preference, but advertizing and marketing can still sway that – A LOT.
No, you’re just splitting hairs and being nitpicky so you don’t have an argument you simply can’t defend from the facts.
Again this fucking strawman.
You don’t have to be a complete zombie to be affected by marketing or advertizing.
Maybe it offends to find that humans are easily influenced and manipulated, but whatever you get offended by does not mean it’s false.
You should read the science about how easy it is to predict people and how to suggest people do what others want. You completely dismissed my suggestion you look up Derren Brown simply because of a difference in words, but you would see how relevant it is if you weren’t being intellectually dishonest.
First, I directly said the effectiveness of advertising varies greatly. I also said the level of influence and susceptibility of a person varies greatly as well. That is reality whether you like it or not.
I’ll pretend by “when done right” you mean the campaign successfully connects to it’s target demographic. However, what you said doesn’t actually mean anything at all. There will always be a success rate AND failure rate with any campaign. One typical way success is gauged in the advertising world is by comparing dollars spent vs. dollars earned. How often do you think the pendulum swings each way? I already know you have no clue because you don’t actually know anything about this subject so now .
…No… You are trying to turn a conversation about advertising into something else, because you’re confused and don’t know the actual difference between the two.
Do you have any idea how ridiculous you look right now? So because two subjects may share some common bulletpoints, you can’t distinguish between the two. You then proceed to call those who can, “nitpicky”. Using your logic, you must also be unable to distinguish the difference between a laptop and a tablet, a car and a truck, ice and frozen yogurt, …the list goes on forever. That’s where your silly logic gets you.
I’ve got a better idea. How about you stop trying to pretend you know anything about this subject when it’s so blatantly obvious that you don’t. So far you haven’t even been able to show you know the difference between advertising and marketing, much less have any real knowledge of how the two work, or the ability to answer what should be very simple questions about it.
For people like you, probably. But what about people like me? Ask me why when going to buy a sandwich for lunch, most of the time I choose the closer of the two local sandwich shops. Is it because the closer one has better prices? No. Is it because the food tastes better? No. Is it because they’re advertising has subconsciously programmed that as my default? No. The answer is because it’s simply more convenient. My choice in this scenario is based the vast majority of the time on convenience, nothing else. Could any amount or type of advertising alter my decision? No. Is the same true for everyone? No, and I have already pointed this out. Your problem is that you seemingly believe the opposite is true for everyone, otherwise you wouldn’t be trying to argue about it.
The facts only support what I’ve said. It’s neither my fault nor problem you can’t distinguish between advertising and marketing, and as a result are making a fool of yourself. I would have a better discussion about this with my cat because the cat would recognize it’s failure to communicate anything useful and walk away.
I know who Derren Brown is and I know what he does. I also know what he does works best on people who are easily manipulated and since you think he is your ace-in-the-hole, you must be one of those people.
Please, for your own sake, research psychology and human behavior like I did in college. I’ve already provided you with a great place to start in my recommendation. You can only gain by opening your eyes and obviously staying in the dark isn’t getting you anywhere.
You overlook (purposefully?) one very important factor: advertising campaigns COMPETE with each other – for what is essentially a scarce “resource”.
Go through a list of cognitive biases. It’s a fact that they represent our default daily mode of operation.
(and BTW, in the above quote you display at least three major cognitive biases – nicely done, for such a short quote)
Also, consider http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2008/pr-wine-011608.html
Or, more loosely related: despite our strong belief in “monolithic me”, split-brain patients are almost unchanged (mostly just with “glitches”). There’s also one very localised brain trauma, which results in people becoming completely blind …without them realising it. Or actual research demonstrating that eyewitness identification is essentially barely better than chance – and yet look how often we trust and depend on it in very serious, life-deciding matters.
We have generally much weaker grip on ourselves than we like to think – that’s one of the biases.
(now, I agree that the reach of marketing varies, is not total, and that other factors are also important especially with repeat purchases; but here and there you seem to go slightly too far the other direction / build strawmen)
Edited 2012-11-09 20:10 UTC
You don’t buy it because you’ve completely mischaracterized the argument into nothing but a strawman. No surprises there.
I have yet to see anyone, including speaking for myself, argue that it’s SOLELY because of advertizing.
Try again, and try not to misrepresent anyone’s argument as you are prone to do.
Im not terribly interested in another pointless debate with you on this. Ill just add the following:
You said this in a previous debate on this very subject:
Fine. You did not say solely – but you did imply that it is the most significant difference between Apple and it’s competitors.
And I would argue that the DIFFERENCE is NOT about marketing, it is about people ultimately liking the product they get (and therefore becoming repeat customers and buying again). Over half of all iphones purchased are bought by people who have owned one before…
You are entitled to your opinion of course, but in my opinion a repeat purchase rate of over 50% over 5 generations of the same product indicates that there are other factors involved. In the case of Windows (and Apple to a degree), the repeat purchase rate can certainly be viewed as skewed by network effects and other forms of purchase pressure – there are a lot of things that effect the products success or failure, and they are not all marketing or advertising related.
Anyone saying “I bought it because I like it” are by definition repeat purchasers, as such marketing and advertising may have played a significant role in their first purchase, but attributing significant weight to it on the 2nd purchase is foolish – there are other factors that are more significant.
In other words, yes, marketing and advertising can convince people they want something they may not have wanted otherwise. Once they have it, however, if they want more or better of it and spend money to get it – well there is something else going on and pretending it is “just marketing” is silly.
A voice of sanity. The truth is that advertising works and it wouldn’t be a trillion dollar industry if it didn’t.
No one, not even yourself, can look into the depths of your subconscious and this is where advertising/marketing does its job. I hear people proclaim that advertising just simply doesn’t work on them but unless you live under a rock, it has some influence on decisions. It just more rarely creates a conscious noticeable influence that your brain can distinguish from all the noise.
I have yet to see a single person suggest that advertising simply doesn’t work on them period, or any other person. Nobody has claimed advertising is entirely ineffective. You’re not even offering anything new. I myself have stated that advertising works to varying degrees.
Also, the subconscious has been greatly studied. It’s not some mystical thing that nobody knows anything about.
Lastly, advertising dollars spent per year adds up to a tremendous amount of money — you are right about that. But, you are wrong about why. The use of advertising as a tool to manipulate and influence is not an exact science. Every single campaign is trial & error. Running identical campaigns always produces different results. Why do you think that is?
Edited 2012-11-06 01:18 UTC
The subconscious is something that most people do not understand and what I know is limited because psychology is not my field. My point is that the general populous do not understand that they are not in control of their subconscious and that this is one of the conduits marketers use to ‘get in your head’, so they say.
Extended point: people think they are in control of their own mind, when they are not as in control as they feel they are. If I’m ‘not offering anything new’ it may because you are not getting my point.
this whole design paradigm is why IOS is a piece of sh**
But Lady Gaga is a very good artist.
Yes, but she sold out from simply being a great singer/songwriter to becoming a circus act. On the other hand that shows that people want entertainment, not necessarily just talent.
…has it’s place. It’s not needed everywhere, nor is a more abstract UI needed everywhere.
Skeumorphism “can” give the user who is experienced in a certain interface an easier time to migrate to a new system. A good example is GarageBand and the foot pedals it uses. I was able to set up the sounds I wanted for my guitar very easily. If they controls had been more abstract, maybe I might have hard a harder time, who knows. But certainly I felt more at home with how it works.