Jony Ive on iPhone X and Apple's future products: Design and ideas must wait for technolog...
In a conversation at The New Yorker's TechFest conference in Manhattan on Friday, Apple chief designer Jony Ive gave a small glimpse into the development of the upcoming iPhone X, and the time that it takes for technology to catch up to ideas.
Building a product like the iPhone X takes time at patience, Ive stressed, revealing that Apple was internally toiling away on the design of the revamped handset for 5 years before it was unveiled in September.
In the beginning, as Apple sought to build a handset with an edge-to-edge display, the company worked with large, cumbersome prototypes -- and that was all they could do, until technology itself became available to achieve the vision they had internally.
"There are certain ideas that we have, and we're waiting for the technology to catch up," Ive said.
Calling it an "extraordinary process," he gave some insight on the type of internal struggle that designers must go through to create a successful product that melds advanced technology with consumer-focused usability.
"There really are two very distinct behaviors that I have to sort of engage in and I sort of have," he said. "On one hand, it is to be so curious and inquisitive and you know what that looks like with the constant questions, being light on your feet and being prepared to be wrong.
"And then at the same time, if you're going to do something new, that means that the reason it hasn't been done before is -- there are 55 reasons why it hasn't been done before And so you have to be so focused so resolute."
Moving between those two, almost polar opposite behaviors is "exhausting," Ive said.
In his conversation with David Remnick of The New Yorker, Ive was asked what his "most interesting failure" was. The question seemed to catch Ive off-guard, who quipped that he's not sure if he finds failure itself to be interesting.
But he did admit that Apple is not perfect, and the design process can be a challenging exercise -- one where learning to say no, even to things you are excited or passionate about, usually produces the best results.
"We've made, I think, numerous mistakes," Ive said. "But I am confident that the mistakes weren't all from laziness or some self satisfying belief that it inevitably can be successful. I think we are a bunch of very anxious, worrying individuals who generally assume it's not going to work."
Building a product like the iPhone X takes time at patience, Ive stressed, revealing that Apple was internally toiling away on the design of the revamped handset for 5 years before it was unveiled in September.
"We've made, I think, numerous mistakes. But I am confident that the mistakes weren't all from laziness or some self satisfying belief that it inevitably can be successful." - Jony Ive
In the beginning, as Apple sought to build a handset with an edge-to-edge display, the company worked with large, cumbersome prototypes -- and that was all they could do, until technology itself became available to achieve the vision they had internally.
"There are certain ideas that we have, and we're waiting for the technology to catch up," Ive said.
Calling it an "extraordinary process," he gave some insight on the type of internal struggle that designers must go through to create a successful product that melds advanced technology with consumer-focused usability.
"There really are two very distinct behaviors that I have to sort of engage in and I sort of have," he said. "On one hand, it is to be so curious and inquisitive and you know what that looks like with the constant questions, being light on your feet and being prepared to be wrong.
"And then at the same time, if you're going to do something new, that means that the reason it hasn't been done before is -- there are 55 reasons why it hasn't been done before And so you have to be so focused so resolute."
Moving between those two, almost polar opposite behaviors is "exhausting," Ive said.
In his conversation with David Remnick of The New Yorker, Ive was asked what his "most interesting failure" was. The question seemed to catch Ive off-guard, who quipped that he's not sure if he finds failure itself to be interesting.
But he did admit that Apple is not perfect, and the design process can be a challenging exercise -- one where learning to say no, even to things you are excited or passionate about, usually produces the best results.
"We've made, I think, numerous mistakes," Ive said. "But I am confident that the mistakes weren't all from laziness or some self satisfying belief that it inevitably can be successful. I think we are a bunch of very anxious, worrying individuals who generally assume it's not going to work."
Comments
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-jony-ive-talks-design-in-new-york-2017-10
Think about the A7, the first ever mobile 64bit processor. It allowed them to achieve amazing things but they developed it themselves because the progress of the current processors was flailing. They've developed so much technology in the camera as well figuring out how to get more light into tiny sensors.
And unlike their competition they are constantly making sacrifices that seem bad but in the end make sense. For example the removal of the headphone jack. Sure, to some having to carry around an adaptor sucks but in truth it adds far greater potential sound. The 3.5mm jack can't carry power and yet the Lightning port can and so you can actually get potentially better audio from this arrangement than the physical port. A sacrifice that seemed bad but has great potential. That pretty much sums up Apple's approach to everything.
Unfortunately if Apple has to wait for others to develop better technology (think OLED) then they have to make such big sacrifices that people think once they finally get there they were too slow to market (AppleTV, Apple Watch, iPhone 6 Plus...) but it was that they deemed the sacrifice of using crap technology was not the sacrifice they wanted to make and low and behold we the consumer are better off for those decisions.
What racerhomie is saying is that Apple may have wanted something distinct in the look of their new phone. If there was no notch there would be little distinctive about it. As it is, the notch creates a recognisable silhouette in the same way the home button has for so long. People know it’s an iPhone because of it.
This is more clear when you realise that not having any screen on the sides of the ‘notch’ would have made things a lot easier for Apple. They made it like that on purpose. It was not a ‘necessary evil’.
You may not like the notch, but I think it’s excessive to dislike it. Who cares? It affects the user experience little more than zero. It’s not confusing or disorienting, just a little weird at worst. At best it’s a nice little usage of extra screen space on the sides.
"There are certain ideas that we have, and we're waiting for the technology to catch up," Ive said. I hope one of those ideas is to get rid of the notch completely.
Man, he is definitely an industrial design version of a Terrence Malick film.