Ive has been great, but I truly believe his best designs and ideas came when he had Jobs there to balance his ideas with practical common sense. His original iMac, the iterations that followed, those were clever, creative, and functional. In the last few years we have thinner and thinner at the expense of keyboards that are comfortable to use. We have flat color schemes that are simply less user friendly. We have less interesting designs now that Ive does not have Jobs to push back.
I wish Ive well, but I'm very interested in what the new blood in the design office does. We won't see what that is for three or more years, but it will be interesting.
Thanks to Ive, the necessary interface changes required by the high resolution Retina display has been achieved the best way, considering the absence of Steve Jobs. Thinness is not an artist snobbism, it is an engineering requirement for the dissipation of heat. Take the Watch, for example, reminds me of Jethro Tull’s album Thick as a Brick. Take the Pencil 1, not thin not short, thick and unnecessarily long. Design must bow to engineering requirements. Regarding keyboards, the repair statistics are there, and Apple certainly makes the necessary changes as new statistics emerge.
There will be no new blood etc. The designs in these markets are exhausted until the release of a breakthrough new invention. Of course one can always come with a steampunk or really cyberpunk computer or smartphone design (with or without Alcantara cloth). Those can only be niche ephemeral products and Ive or Apple wouldn’t deal with these.
What I find amusing is the people claiming Ive was semi-retired because he was spending his time on Apple campus and Apple stores are the same people attributing every product decision they don’t like to Ive. As though he’s the only one in the company who has a say about anything. While he’s semi-retired. What nonsense.
That certainly explains the lack of the typical Ives' narrated design video for the upcoming Mac Pro during the recent WWDC. Certainly felt a little unusual without his vocal presence at that event.
That certainly explains the lack of the typical Ives' narrated design video for the upcoming Mac Pro during the recent WWDC. Certainly felt a little unusual without his vocal presence at that event.
No, it doesn't. Ive (not Ives) hasn't done a narrated video for the last several keynotes. They were always the highlight for me.
That certainly explains the lack of the typical Ives' narrated design video for the upcoming Mac Pro during the recent WWDC. Certainly felt a little unusual without his vocal presence at that event.
You missed LoveForm. I've seen it called that by news outlets as much as I've seen LoveFrom in the last hour. I have seem the other two you mention.
I've only seen the two incorrect versions mentioned – here. If somebody said LoveForm, I did indeed miss it.
Some background as to why the name:
“There was an employee meeting a number of years ago and Steve [Jobs] was talking . . . He [said] that one of the fundamental motivations was that when you make something with love and with care, even though you probably will never meet . . . the people that you’re making it for, and you’ll never shake their hand, by making something with care, you are expressing your gratitude to humanity, to the species.
I so identified with that motivation and was moved by his description. So my new company is called ‘LoveFrom’. It succinctly speaks to why I do what I do.
That certainly explains the lack of the typical Ives' narrated design video for the upcoming Mac Pro during the recent WWDC. Certainly felt a little unusual without his vocal presence at that event.
Reading about this on Twitter I feel bad for all the Apple employees we’ll never hear about. If you believed blue check mark Twitter every Apple product was destined by Steve and Jony and no one else. Obviously so not true.
That certainly explains the lack of the typical Ives' narrated design video for the upcoming Mac Pro during the recent WWDC. Certainly felt a little unusual without his vocal presence at that event.
Ives has done some great work while at Apple, but with or without him, things will continue to move on.
His surname is Ives as much as Steve's is Occupation.
I have no idea why, since I must've seen his name a million times before, but I always thought his last name was Ives. I was obviously mistaken. Ive just sounds like it's missing an "S" and perhaps I subconsciously added it to his last name.
The idea of Ive and Newson being principles in a high end, high powered design firm is exciting. Ive was at Apple for 30 years and I'm happy for him to have the oppoturnity to cut loose and to work out from under the Apple umbrella. Newson is probably the most famous and capable designer in the world besides Ive. I'm expecting cool stuff and maybe their new work for Apple will turn some corners. This could be a way to open up Apple's design idiom.
That certainly explains the lack of the typical Ives' narrated design video for the upcoming Mac Pro during the recent WWDC. Certainly felt a little unusual without his vocal presence at that event.
Ives has done some great work while at Apple, but with or without him, things will continue to move on.
His surname is Ives as much as Steve's is Occupation.
I have no idea why, since I must've seen his name a million times before, but I always thought his last name was Ives. I was obviously mistaken. Ive just sounds like it's missing an "S" and perhaps I subconsciously added it to his last name.
A long time ago I was corrected for writing Ives. Now I just remember it (and both his chosen nickname despite being a professional adult) as being "slimmed down" in true Jony Ive fashion.
Well Apple does know how to keep secrets. I still think all these hot takes of [insert Apple product I don’t like here] is because of Ive is a little too simplistic. John Gruber was pretty scathing in his blog post. But if you read the New Yorker profile it’s clear Ive never wanted the role of “THE product guy” at Apple. It’s everyone else crowned him that person.
He is now one of the two most powerful people in the world’s most valuable company. He sometimes listens to CNBC Radio on his hour-long commute from San Francisco to Apple’s offices, in Silicon Valley, but he’s uncomfortable knowing that a hundred thousand Apple employees rely on his decision-making—his taste—and that a sudden announcement of his retirement would ambush Apple shareholders. (To take a number: a ten-percent drop in Apple’s valuation represents seventy-one billion dollars.) According to Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’s widow, who is close to Ive and his family, “Jony’s an artist with an artist’s temperament, and he’d be the first to tell you artists aren’t supposed to be responsible for this kind of thing.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/shape-things-come
It seems pretty clear with his working on Apple Campus and Apple Stores that he was getting bored designing computers. Which makes me wonder just how much he was involved in things like the butterfly keyboard. I doubt he spent much time at all on software design.
I do wonder what will happen now. Surely Jeff Williams overseeing his teams is temporary. But I wonder if they’ll put the human interface team under software engineering and the industrial designers under hardware engineering and get rid of the CDO position for good.
I expect that position to be phased out for good. After all, the Chief Design Officer position is not very common so in that sense, he had one foot inside Apple and the other foot outside of it. And yes, boredom does happen when creative burnout occurs. I'm sure he'll do some contractual work for Apple time to time but when it comes to some of the work, I suspect the internal design team will keep it in-house for NDA purposes. The allure of going independent as a designer or creative is very strong even though he claimed that his work with Apple is not done even though with some limits so that he can juggle between clients. The signs of him wanting to get the F out were there.
I'm curious, what were the signs? I never saw any.
That certainly explains the lack of the typical Ives' narrated design video for the upcoming Mac Pro during the recent WWDC. Certainly felt a little unusual without his vocal presence at that event.
Nope, Ives narrates the video about the Mac Pro.
It just wasn't shown on the keynote.
It's on Apple's youtube channel.
Thanks. Reminds me of when Samsung hired a guy with a fake British accent to narrate their design video lol.
One of the things about even the best of the best going independent is that their may be no market for your skills. Apple had all the other ingredients for Jony Ive to be successful. Innovative technology, customer service, elite retailing capabilities, in short, the whole package. You can’t have a brilliant design aesthetic and expect it to sell itself.
Well Apple does know how to keep secrets. I still think all these hot takes of [insert Apple product I don’t like here] is because of Ive is a little too simplistic. John Gruber was pretty scathing in his blog post. But if you read the New Yorker profile it’s clear Ive never wanted the role of “THE product guy” at Apple. It’s everyone else crowned him that person.
He is now one of the two most powerful people in the world’s most valuable company. He sometimes listens to CNBC Radio on his hour-long commute from San Francisco to Apple’s offices, in Silicon Valley, but he’s uncomfortable knowing that a hundred thousand Apple employees rely on his decision-making—his taste—and that a sudden announcement of his retirement would ambush Apple shareholders. (To take a number: a ten-percent drop in Apple’s valuation represents seventy-one billion dollars.) According to Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’s widow, who is close to Ive and his family, “Jony’s an artist with an artist’s temperament, and he’d be the first to tell you artists aren’t supposed to be responsible for this kind of thing.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/shape-things-come
It seems pretty clear with his working on Apple Campus and Apple Stores that he was getting bored designing computers. Which makes me wonder just how much he was involved in things like the butterfly keyboard. I doubt he spent much time at all on software design.
I do wonder what will happen now. Surely Jeff Williams overseeing his teams is temporary. But I wonder if they’ll put the human interface team under software engineering and the industrial designers under hardware engineering and get rid of the CDO position for good.
I expect that position to be phased out for good. After all, the Chief Design Officer position is not very common so in that sense, he had one foot inside Apple and the other foot outside of it. And yes, boredom does happen when creative burnout occurs. I'm sure he'll do some contractual work for Apple time to time but when it comes to some of the work, I suspect the internal design team will keep it in-house for NDA purposes. The allure of going independent as a designer or creative is very strong even though he claimed that his work with Apple is not done even though with some limits so that he can juggle between clients. The signs of him wanting to get the F out were there.
I see a lot of chatter about certain products or design decisions and his involvement but my first thought after him just being burned out is, is there another reason he might be leaving, maybe some other decisions inside the company that made him think it’s time to go? Maybe Apple becoming more and more of a services company just isn’t appealing to him. Maybe he thinks design will have less of a place inside the company in the future. Who knows. What is interesting is the person taking over for ID isn’t the same person who got that job when Ive was promoted to CDO. So I wonder if he’s no longer at the company or it didn’t work out with him in charge?
apple ][ said: I have no idea why, since I must've seen his name a million times before, but I always thought his last name was Ives. I was obviously mistaken. Ive just sounds like it's missing an "S" and perhaps I subconsciously added it to his last name.
A long time ago I was corrected for writing Ives. Now I just remember it (and both his chosen nickname despite being a professional adult) as being "slimmed down" in true Jony Ive fashion.
Well Apple does know how to keep secrets. I still think all these hot takes of [insert Apple product I don’t like here] is because of Ive is a little too simplistic. John Gruber was pretty scathing in his blog post. But if you read the New Yorker profile it’s clear Ive never wanted the role of “THE product guy” at Apple. It’s everyone else crowned him that person.
He is now one of the two most powerful people in the world’s most valuable company. He sometimes listens to CNBC Radio on his hour-long commute from San Francisco to Apple’s offices, in Silicon Valley, but he’s uncomfortable knowing that a hundred thousand Apple employees rely on his decision-making—his taste—and that a sudden announcement of his retirement would ambush Apple shareholders. (To take a number: a ten-percent drop in Apple’s valuation represents seventy-one billion dollars.) According to Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’s widow, who is close to Ive and his family, “Jony’s an artist with an artist’s temperament, and he’d be the first to tell you artists aren’t supposed to be responsible for this kind of thing.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/shape-things-come
It seems pretty clear with his working on Apple Campus and Apple Stores that he was getting bored designing computers. Which makes me wonder just how much he was involved in things like the butterfly keyboard. I doubt he spent much time at all on software design.
I do wonder what will happen now. Surely Jeff Williams overseeing his teams is temporary. But I wonder if they’ll put the human interface team under software engineering and the industrial designers under hardware engineering and get rid of the CDO position for good.
I expect that position to be phased out for good. After all, the Chief Design Officer position is not very common so in that sense, he had one foot inside Apple and the other foot outside of it. And yes, boredom does happen when creative burnout occurs. I'm sure he'll do some contractual work for Apple time to time but when it comes to some of the work, I suspect the internal design team will keep it in-house for NDA purposes. The allure of going independent as a designer or creative is very strong even though he claimed that his work with Apple is not done even though with some limits so that he can juggle between clients. The signs of him wanting to get the F out were there.
I'm curious, what were the signs? I never saw any.
I think it goes way back some time after Jobs passed away and Jony didn't have much of a sounding board from someone who speaks on his wavelength. And when Apple apparently brought Marc Newson on board, it was for that reason and to deal with the Apple Watch design and probably a few other things just so that Ive's creative juices continue to flow. So I get that and know what it's like to create without having some critique or feedback.
Fast forward to the iPhone 6 and then on with the same design language, along with the MacBooks. Even iMacs. They seemed to not have changed much but only to a small degree. It's as if Joy was sitting there content with the design and focused on side projects outside of Apple such as the Christmas Tree, Holga(?) camera redesign for auctioning, a chair ( if I recall ), and several other things that seemed to take up his time along with the Apple Park planning. It was as if he was twiddling his thumbs, itching to do things outside of Apple's scope.
And then the next signs were Angela Arendts exit and the industrial design team members which was a big hit. It was right there is when I smelled a big exit is in the making. If I were Jony and I see a bunch of my close design colleagues leaving Apple Park, life would get very lonely and seeing all new faces there would probably make things worse. It's that sense of creative isolation that probably drove him to decide that and also he did mention wanting to go back to England/UK. It would make sense for Jony to follow them that way.
Ive did some good work - thank you. It’s now time for him to move on. Ridiculous if they hire his firm - what’s the point? So he can charge more?
However, Ive had his fair share of fails - I’m not going to list them — I’ve already done that through the years in my comments.
I’m actually very excited to see some new designs - hopefully the new team will embrace the ‘think differently’ mantra. I’ve seen some spectacular designs for the watch, OS UX, glasses, etc from ‘amateur’ designers and students that are more exciting and compelling than what Apple ended up with.
Comments
It just wasn't shown on the keynote.
It's on Apple's youtube channel.
Some background as to why the name:
Thanks for that!
I'm curious, what were the signs? I never saw any.
Thanks. Reminds me of when Samsung hired a guy with a fake British accent to narrate their design video lol.
Fast forward to the iPhone 6 and then on with the same design language, along with the MacBooks. Even iMacs. They seemed to not have changed much but only to a small degree. It's as if Joy was sitting there content with the design and focused on side projects outside of Apple such as the Christmas Tree, Holga(?) camera redesign for auctioning, a chair ( if I recall ), and several other things that seemed to take up his time along with the Apple Park planning. It was as if he was twiddling his thumbs, itching to do things outside of Apple's scope.
And then the next signs were Angela Arendts exit and the industrial design team members which was a big hit. It was right there is when I smelled a big exit is in the making. If I were Jony and I see a bunch of my close design colleagues leaving Apple Park, life would get very lonely and seeing all new faces there would probably make things worse. It's that sense of creative isolation that probably drove him to decide that and also he did mention wanting to go back to England/UK. It would make sense for Jony to follow them that way.
However, Ive had his fair share of fails - I’m not going to list them — I’ve already done that through the years in my comments.
I’m actually very excited to see some new designs - hopefully the new team will embrace the ‘think differently’ mantra. I’ve seen some spectacular designs for the watch, OS UX, glasses, etc from ‘amateur’ designers and students that are more exciting and compelling than what Apple ended up with.