Blaming any one person doesn't seem very useful without extraordinary insight into the development process. It could be this approach was dictated, and it's not like the rest of the product team didn't have say, and it allows scapegoating them even if both the above are true.
Being on the E team is literally about being the one person to blame when things aren’t right.
When you’re an exec in charge of a whole area, the buck stops with you and, to quote Steve Jobs - the reasons stop mattering.
As a user I don’t care about having “extraordinary insight into the development process”. All I know is you’re vice president of interface design and the interfaces are getting worse over time.
Well that's all well and fine when you're trying to scapegoat someone in the corporate hierarchy, but it doesn't make very much sense to respect if you're trying to make sense of it in general.
Isn't that the point of a hierarchy, though? The important decisions come from the top.
When I worked for someone else (now self-employed), some bugs were my fault. But with features and other intentional changes, the bosses had to sign off on them, and in some cases there were vigorous internal debates, but the bosses had the final say and could overrule objections.
In a vague sense, yes, but in a specific sense, no.
The stockholders do not make design decisions but only elect the board of directors. The board of directors do not make design decisions but only elect the CEO. The former CEO Steve Jobs did make design decisions, but the current CEO Tim Cook appears not to make design decisions, delegating that to subordinates. Alan Dye is Vice President of Human Interface Design at Apple. He does make design decisions; indeed that's in his job title. Dye previously reported to Jeff Williams, COO, but Williams just retired, so it's unclear who Dye reports to now. In any case, Dye is likely the person at Apple who has the final say on design decisions.
it bothers me when this kind of thing needs spelling out in such detail. the initial claim of scapegoating showed an incredibly childish world view and then when it was pointed out what this role was, they doubled down. do people really hold that kind of world view, or do they enjoy being contrarian?
It is not scapegoating. It is actually helding people responsible for the huge compensation they are getting. If something is successful it is these people who gets the big bonus.
Even when everyone is to blame, one person is to blame. That's why prime ministers resign when they can't hold together a government. That's why leaders step down.
There are tens of thousands of interface designers who would be able to make a better interface than what is Tahoe and iOS 26. One of them should have the job.
So if you hired a plumber to install a new faucet or whatever, and he totally fucks up (eg. floods your entire kitchen), you're saying we shouldn't blame him, we should blame... you, for hiring him in the first place?
>not the people who could have said no?
Going to the plumber example, you're saying that you should be hovering over him to catch any mistakes? Isn't the whole point of hiring a professional is that you don't have to worry about stuff like this? If you're able-bodied and are going to have to supervise the whole thing, why bother hiring someone?
