Just a couple of days ago we were handed an award for "consumer product design". Interestingly enough it was for the iPod Shuffle, the smallest and cheapest piece of hardware we make.
It's true: winning awards and prizes gives you that 'top of the world' feeling. No doubt about it, people. However, the best rewards are not awards but a kind word from someone who bought your product and took the time to tell you that they really, really love what you did. Because we do love what we create, and when you put love out you get love back.
My lord, I'm starting to sound like Steve! Can't have that now, can we?
Saturday, 24 February 2007
Monday, 19 February 2007
Tower redesign
We're currently finishing work on a new design for the Mac Pro (née G5) tower. It's about due for a replacement, but not quite yet.
The previous tower case, starting with the blue and white G3 and ending with the mirrored door G4, went from early '99 to late '03. That's a span of about five years. The G5's aluminium case, a much more spacious design (especially now due to the Core CPUs where we have room to fit four hard drives and two optical drives), is into its fifth year ('03 to present and counting).
So, a change is imminent. We're not sure whether to change early or late this year - or whether we should keep this model going until next Jan. We don't really need to but at least we're ready if Steve gives the go-ahead.
Thought you might like to know: when we changed to the a-loo-minum tower from the polycarbonate G4 tower, some people said they preferred the 'squeaky clean' look of the latter. But after the new Xeon replaced the G5, we had all this free space (for more drives) and now even those who prefer the old tower are happier.
And I noticed that sometime after the G5 launched, Sun had released a tower similar in appearance to ours. I don't mind it at all but I still prefer ours. I think it's fine for others to copy us but it seems that few if any can actually improve on our stuff. I think it's because we think about things deeply, and this shows in not just the aesthetics but the functionality. And you can't just copy that.
The previous tower case, starting with the blue and white G3 and ending with the mirrored door G4, went from early '99 to late '03. That's a span of about five years. The G5's aluminium case, a much more spacious design (especially now due to the Core CPUs where we have room to fit four hard drives and two optical drives), is into its fifth year ('03 to present and counting).
So, a change is imminent. We're not sure whether to change early or late this year - or whether we should keep this model going until next Jan. We don't really need to but at least we're ready if Steve gives the go-ahead.
Thought you might like to know: when we changed to the a-loo-minum tower from the polycarbonate G4 tower, some people said they preferred the 'squeaky clean' look of the latter. But after the new Xeon replaced the G5, we had all this free space (for more drives) and now even those who prefer the old tower are happier.
And I noticed that sometime after the G5 launched, Sun had released a tower similar in appearance to ours. I don't mind it at all but I still prefer ours. I think it's fine for others to copy us but it seems that few if any can actually improve on our stuff. I think it's because we think about things deeply, and this shows in not just the aesthetics but the functionality. And you can't just copy that.
Sunday, 18 February 2007
Introduction
Good evening (well, it's evening here in the West Coast anyway). Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Ive, Jonathan Ive. You can call me Jonny if you like. Just no 'h' please, right?. Nah, just kidding with ya! I work at Apple, Incorporated in Cupertino, USA. I was born in the United Kingdom, made a name for myself as an industrial designer and was blessed enough to be asked by Apple to fly all the way over to Cupertino and design computers for that great company.
One evening I was having a fake conversation with Fake Steve. I was having a Martini (the only cocktail worthy of a capital letter, except maybe the Manhattan even though I don't like those) and he a glass of tom-ay-to juice. We had finished a discussion about the last details to add to the iPhone (which we might call the Apple Phone anyway - Steve just enjoys giving people he sees as inferior a hard time - brilliant, I reckon). I was asking him if he enjoyed the feedback he got from his weblog and he seemed quite enthusiastic about it. As you've noticed he posts several times a day occasionally.
And the thought occurred to me that maybe I should start a little blog of my own. I mean I love what I do but you know what? I like to play around with designing (or talking about designing) things other than computers. And a good outlet for this would be to get in contact with the Collective Internet and see what kind of inspiration I can get.
Besides, I don't like interviews, and hopefully this little journal of mine will give enough information to those interested. I'll still give the odd interview once or twice a year, but you know, I really don't need those once-a-week, five-minute jobs where the interviewer just asks the same questions as the last guy (I wonder how Steve puts up with all those quesitons about Apple's future products - but he's totally okay with that, that is just part of the job).
Plus, there's a lot I have to say about my own work and that of others - designers, artists and so forth. This could be the best place to vent about it. I'm quite busy (I'm working about 70hrs a week, sometimes more) but I think one or two posts a week is a fair target to aim at. No pressure that way. And if I post more, that's fine, too.
BTW I was having a hard time choosing the blog title, then I looked outside my window at my car and got inspired. :-)
One evening I was having a fake conversation with Fake Steve. I was having a Martini (the only cocktail worthy of a capital letter, except maybe the Manhattan even though I don't like those) and he a glass of tom-ay-to juice. We had finished a discussion about the last details to add to the iPhone (which we might call the Apple Phone anyway - Steve just enjoys giving people he sees as inferior a hard time - brilliant, I reckon). I was asking him if he enjoyed the feedback he got from his weblog and he seemed quite enthusiastic about it. As you've noticed he posts several times a day occasionally.
And the thought occurred to me that maybe I should start a little blog of my own. I mean I love what I do but you know what? I like to play around with designing (or talking about designing) things other than computers. And a good outlet for this would be to get in contact with the Collective Internet and see what kind of inspiration I can get.
Besides, I don't like interviews, and hopefully this little journal of mine will give enough information to those interested. I'll still give the odd interview once or twice a year, but you know, I really don't need those once-a-week, five-minute jobs where the interviewer just asks the same questions as the last guy (I wonder how Steve puts up with all those quesitons about Apple's future products - but he's totally okay with that, that is just part of the job).
Plus, there's a lot I have to say about my own work and that of others - designers, artists and so forth. This could be the best place to vent about it. I'm quite busy (I'm working about 70hrs a week, sometimes more) but I think one or two posts a week is a fair target to aim at. No pressure that way. And if I post more, that's fine, too.
BTW I was having a hard time choosing the blog title, then I looked outside my window at my car and got inspired. :-)
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