Over the weekend, former Apple engineer Mike Margolis made a statement on Twitter that sparked some controversy over whether Apple was losing its way without its late co-founder Steve Jobs. When responding to a comment from a user who liked the old Apple TV UI—on which Margolis worked—he stated that the “new designs were tossed out 5 years ago because [Steve Jobs] didn’t like them.
Now there is nobody to say ‘no’ to bad design.” While most of the discussion has focused on his first comment, subsequent comments explained that the new design is a logical next step “given their desire to match the iOS home page”, and that Jobs may have loved this new iOS-style grid. Margolis also added that the “new AppleTV UI excites me because it is just begging for apps – the old home screen UI was not app friendly/ready at all.” Finally, speaking with TechCrunch, Margolis explains that the original grid designs made little sense in a world where the iPad didn’t exist, people weren’t used to app-grid interfaces, and there was little third-party content for the device to tap into.
.
