>“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.
But that's "good" ideas. I wouldn't object to that. Instead, Jony said the best ideas. By definition, this means you're necessarily choosing a worse idea, because there's nothing better than the best idea. Seems like a bad process to me!
Quantifying best is very difficult. Is it the best technically but market conditions makes it less appealing? Or is it the best fit for the market but it’s a nightmare to build and so they can’t pump enough of them out to be reasonable.
The products that launch end up being good enough in all areas but rarely/never the best in all areas.
If quantifying "best" is so difficult, then maybe Ive should have worded his words of consolation better, maybe? Otherwise it's just an empty platitude.
Someone like Ive, and anyone within his professional circle, would necessarily be intimately familiar with the concept of “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, just as best is. Any one designers design is the best for that designer. Best, by anyones definition, doesn’t always make the cut.
There is Product Category A, Product Category B, and Product Category C. In each of those categories there is a "best" product.
But a company may not have the bandwidth to release in all three categories. So it may choose to focus on Product Category B, and the best implementation for B, and leave A and C (for now). Even though there are "best" implementations/ideas available for A and C.
Sometimes it is not possible for a company to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Not all the best ones do, it is quite straightforward. Some bad ones also do occasionally make the cut, but it tells more about the nature of ideas than Apple’s process at this point.
Excellent point. I don't know, maybe there was no clear-cut "best" in that case. Refreshing my memory about that formats war by reading Wikipedia, it wasn't obvious Betamax was "better" (it didn't check many of the boxes consumers wanted, like cheaper, longer running time, faster; instead, it checked boxes video professionals wanted, so it can be argued Beta was not "the best" for consumers!).
That said, in this case Ive seems to be arguing even in cases where the "best" can be identified and has a known meaning, it won't make the cut. By definition of "best", this means something "worse" will be chosen instead. Seems like a flawed process to me!
PS: if you ask me, I think Ive wasn't careful with his words, and instead he meant "even extremely good products sometimes don't make the cut, because they are competing with something even better here at Apple". But he said "best", an unfortunate word which made his statement... wrong. Someone so careful about design should also be careful about words, because words are also design.
An unqualified "best" means it's the best. It was an unfortunate turn of phrase by Ive, a person known to make mistakes, as pointed out several times here on HN.
No not really, real life does not work that, you can be best in some aspect while not the best in other aspects but for some reason you dont seem to understand nuance, its probably your hatred for Ive that seems to be clouding your judgement.
"Best in some aspects" is not an unqualified best. Maybe Ive should have been more careful about his wording -- which was my point, after all!
> its probably your hatred for Ive that seems to be clouding your judgement
Wow. Hatred. I don't even know the guy, how can I hate him? I don't own a Mac, I just use one provided by my work. I don't own an iphone. I really don't pay much attention to Ive at all, just pointing out a flaw in his wording.
-Steve Jobs.