A former Apple designer and engineer has hit out at his past employers suggesting that following the death of Steve Jobs there is no one at the company to “say ‘no’ to bad design.”

Speaking out on the redesigned Apple TV user interface, former Apple TV UI designer Michael Margolis has suggested the latest software update is one that was bounded around the company five years ago before being turned down by Apple’s talismanic co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs.

Venting his frustrations at the rehashed and less than popular Apple TV user interface, Margolis has taken to micro blogging service Twitter to lambast the UI and the move Apple has made since losing its all commanding leader last year.

“Those new designs were tossed out 5 years ago because SJ didn’t like them,” Margolis announced via his official Twitter feed. He added: “Now there is nobody to say “no” to bad design.”

Explaining his comments to The Next Web, former Apple employee Margolis said: “The new UI shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. There is a clear effort at Apple to make everything match the look and feel of their popular iOS products – starting with Lion and increasing momentum with Mountain Lion.

“To be clear – he didn’t like the original grid. This was before the iPhone was popular and before the iPad even existed.

“Given that the iPad is far more successful than the AppleTV, migrating the AppleTV to look more like the iPad was probably a very smart move – even if some of the users of the old UI don’t prefer the new one.”

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Via: 9to5Mac