Top all-time · #2030
Eli Schiff
Personal blog · elischiff.com/blogdesignwriting
Eli Schiff's personal blog at elischiff.com covers design and writing. Since 2015, 36 different Hacker News readers have linked it 67 times, most often “Fear of Apple”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-06-08, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (14) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Eli Schiff writes essays on Apple, design and pop culture. HN readers link his "Fear of Apple", "You Could Almost Do Anything" and "Fall of the Designer" series, and his review of The Last Jedi.
- Recommended for · 4 comments
- Called a great post on logo design, a good review of The Last Jedi, an excellent "Fear of Apple" post, and a good primer on the designer series.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 14 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Eli Schiff: Writing, Design, Design Criticism
Most-linked posts?
- Fear of Apple6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2015-03-24
- Fall of the Designer Part I: Fashionable Nonsense5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2015-04-07
- Racemoji3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-05-10
- You Could Do Almost Anything Part 12 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-04-12
- Instagram's Abomination – Part 12 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-05-18
- Fall of the Designer Part III: Conformist Responsive Design2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-04-23
- Star Wars: Death Drive2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-12-27
- You Could Almost Do Anything Part II2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-04-20
- Critical Sharks Part III: Design Fallacies2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-03-17
- You Could Almost Do Anything Pt. III2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-04-27
What Hacker News says?
Haha reminds me of the article from the other week: http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2015/3/24/fear-of-apple
Comment linking /blog/2015/3/24/fear-of-apple
on “Hidden backdoor API to root privileges in Apple OS X”- q7 · 2015-03-24
Submitted Fear of Apple as a story · 558 points
HN discussion My headphones are out of juice so you have settle for this summary: > Coincidentally, Russell Ivanovic is a case in point for what could happen if you defy Apple and launch on Android first. Ivanovic had initially been very lucky to have been assigned an Apple Developer Relations representative who gave him exclusive promotional opportunities. Few developers get assigned these representatives. Among the benefits Iva…
Comment linking /blog/2015/3/24/fear-of-apple
on “Seeing AI for iOS”Submitted Uber's Design Meltdown as a story · 465 points
HN discussionI'm just going to note that the people most frequently mentioning the "Apple is Doomed" narrative are Apple apologists themselves. I discussed this in the previous article: http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2015/3/17/critical-sharks-part... Yes the media distorts things. But that does not mean that it is invalid to say 'this wouldn't have happened under Steve.' Jobs had clear differences from the new leadership. Further…
Comment linking /blog/2015/3/17/critical-sharks-part-iii-design-fallacies
on “Fear of Apple”Submitted Apple's Indies as a story · 182 points
HN discussionThe guidelines have since been updated. https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/has-apple-been-plain-creepy-by-war... http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2015/3/24/fear-of-apple
Comment linking /blog/2015/3/24/fear-of-apple
on “Apple was warned about the FaceTime eavesdropping bug last week”Submitted You Could Do Almost Anything Part 1 as a story · 181 points
HN discussionSome [1] report that Apple pressures app developers into doing iOS-first releases. [1] http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2015/3/24/fear-of-apple (search for "Pocket Casts" in the article to find the relevant paragraph.)
Comment linking /blog/2015/3/24/fear-of-apple
on “Periscope by Twitter”Submitted Crafting Icons as a story · 76 points
HN discussionOklahoma rebrands as a gas station that's going to the Olympics. If you haven't read Eli Schiff's great post on logo design, "You Could Almost Do Anything", you should: http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2016/4/12/do-almost-anything
Comment linking /blog/2016/4/12/do-almost-anything
on “State of Oklahoma's New Brand Identity / Logo”Submitted Humanist Interface: The Entrenchment of Modern Minimalism as a story · 75 points
HN discussionEli Schiff wrote a good review of TLJ a while back that similarly describes the dead emptiness/meaninglessness of Star Wars nowadays: >The sequels, and in particular, Rian Johnson's latest episode, have now fully deconstructed the Star Wars universe, and shown the characters and their motivations to be vacuous. The only character remaining who really grasped the depravity of the situation is Kylo Ren. Now that there…
Comment linking /blog/2017/12/27/star-wars-death-drive
on “The Growing Emptiness of the “Star Wars” Universe”Submitted You Could Almost Do Anything Pt. III as a story · 71 points
HN discussionFor reference, Eli's 4-part series of blog posts (where those images are from) starts here: http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2015/4/7/fall-of-the-designer-... Each part links to the next at the bottom.
Comment linking /blog/2015/4/7/fall-of-the-designer-part-i-fashionable-nonsense
on “Crafting Icons”Submitted Keyboard Smörgåsbord as a story · 43 points
HN discussionLinks to part 1 and 2: http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2016/4/12/do-almost-anything http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2016/4/20/do-almost-anything-i...
Comment linking /blog/2016/4/20/do-almost-anything-ii
on “You Could Almost Do Anything Pt. III”Submitted You Could Almost Do Anything Part II as a story · 40 points
HN discussionSee Eli Schiff's excellent blog-post "Fear of Apple" ( http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2015/3/24/fear-of-apple )
Comment linking /blog/2015/3/24/fear-of-apple
on “Apple TV is a rethinking of users’ relationship with hardware and games”Submitted Uber’s Undoing Part I: Whipping Boy as a story · 39 points
HN discussionBy blue, you mean black people? It turns out blue may not be the best neutral solution, as blue stood for black characters like Skeeter in the TV show Doug. - http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2016/5/10/racemoji
Comment linking /blog/2016/5/10/racemoji
on “Facebook, Instagram and Twitter Provided Data for Surveilling Activists of Color”Submitted Fall of the Designer, Part 4: Credible Threats as a story · 37 points
HN discussion> the modern 'hamburger' menu, absence of menu bar, unnecessarily dynamic UI elements, hidden swipeable menus, etc all serve their role as annoyances These issues you pointed out are fads, trends, and attempts to appeal to the modern design hive mind. They are not "design". They too will die and new fads will emerge. What stays constant throughout is quality aesthetics, a devotion to user centric study, homage to fo…
Comment linking /blog/2015/4/7/fall-of-the-designer-part-i-fashionable-nonsense
on “Engineers Build Ugly Products”Submitted Fall of the Designer Part V: Self-Flagellation as a story · 28 points
HN discussionThis series should be a good primer: http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2015/4/7/fall-of-the-designer-...
Comment linking /blog/2015/4/7/fall-of-the-designer-part-i-fashionable-nonsense
on “Implausible Hypothetical Eastern European App”Submitted Implausible Hypothetical Eastern European App as a story · 22 points
HN discussionYou only say that because Apple didn’t update the look of its skeumorphic icons. And because you are so used to the white backgrounds that shine in your face: Go here and tell me which screenshot looks better: http://static1.squarespace.com/static/54bb4cfce4b045585ada36... The answer is obvious. Now go here and tell me which row looks better: http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2015/4/7/fall-of-the-designer-... Many would…
Comment linking /blog/2015/4/7/fall-of-the-designer-part-i-fashionable-nonsense
on “If Steve Jobs Still Ran Apple”Submitted Mirror Images: Similarity in Design as a story · 17 points
HN discussionSubmitted Fall of the Designer Part I: Fashionable Nonsense as a story · 11 points
HN discussionSubmitted Hard Drive Icons Through the Ages as a story · 10 points
HN discussion
