Jony Ive's departure reveals new details of Apple's car and TV plans
As current and former Apple staff discuss Jony Ive's departure, new details are emerging about the company's previously secret work on a self-driving car, a television -- and just what happened when Ive famously one-upped Scott Forstall.
Apple's Jony Ive
Jony Ive is famous for designing countless Apple products that have been worldwide successes. Now that he's leaving, however, Apple staff are also revealing details of his projects that were never released. They include hardware such as the origins of Apple's Project Titan car, the secret Apple TV set and politics such as how Ive snuck in to replace Scott Forstall as head of Apple's Human Interface team.
Forstall was the senior vice president of iOS Software and was ousted following problems at the launch of Apple Maps. It was known that Ive replaced Forstall, putting him in charge of both software and hardware design, but it wasn't known how swiftly that change was made.
According to The Information, in 2012, Ive joined a regular meeting of Apple's Human Interface team, previously overseen by Forstall, just prior to Forstall's departure.
One of the designers present asked where Forstall was, and it was Ive who answered.
"Scott isn't with us anymore," he reportedly said from the back of the room.
Following that meeting, Ive took direct charge and immediately brought that team over to see Apple's industrial design studio. According to The Information's source who was there, the team got to see a prototype of the Apple Watch three years before it was released. They also got to see an Apple television set.
"It was super-minimal," says the source. "Just a piece of glass with nice details."
Apple never released that television set, and so far it also hasn't released the much-rumored self-driving car. However, other sources speaking to The Information have revealed how Ive approached the idea.
Mockup of an Apple electric car (based on a Tesla)
Reportedly, Ive was so involved in the original design of an Apple car that he made a prototype model out of leather and wood specifically to show CEO Tim Cook. The most visibly notable feature of the model was that Ive insisted it should not have a steering wheel.
Instead, the car was to be predominantly voice-controlled. And for his demonstration to Cook, Ive hired an actress to perform as Siri, responding to voice commands.
It's not known how that prototype was received or how close Apple's car plans hew to it, but the company did at least temporarily table the initiative. While Project Titan continues to this day under hardware engineer Bob Mansfield, Apple is not as chasing a full-functioning vehicle as aggressively as it was in 2015.
Ive was more clearly successful with his design work on Apple Park, the new campus that he and Steve Jobs had pushed for -- but which Ive now reportedly rarely works in. According to Bloomberg sources, Ive began backing away from day-to-day business shortly after Apple Watch launched in 2015.
Instead of Apple Park, Ive has been working out of the a studio in San Francisco that he has now made the base of his new LoveFrom business. The Information reports that he has been working there for some years.
"It felt special to get invited to his private studio," said a source who has not been there but whose colleagues had.
Nonetheless, enough people do visit the studio in San Francisco's Pacific Heights region that neighbors have reportedly complained. .
Read on AppleInsider
Apple's Jony Ive
Jony Ive is famous for designing countless Apple products that have been worldwide successes. Now that he's leaving, however, Apple staff are also revealing details of his projects that were never released. They include hardware such as the origins of Apple's Project Titan car, the secret Apple TV set and politics such as how Ive snuck in to replace Scott Forstall as head of Apple's Human Interface team.
Forstall was the senior vice president of iOS Software and was ousted following problems at the launch of Apple Maps. It was known that Ive replaced Forstall, putting him in charge of both software and hardware design, but it wasn't known how swiftly that change was made.
According to The Information, in 2012, Ive joined a regular meeting of Apple's Human Interface team, previously overseen by Forstall, just prior to Forstall's departure.
One of the designers present asked where Forstall was, and it was Ive who answered.
"Scott isn't with us anymore," he reportedly said from the back of the room.
Following that meeting, Ive took direct charge and immediately brought that team over to see Apple's industrial design studio. According to The Information's source who was there, the team got to see a prototype of the Apple Watch three years before it was released. They also got to see an Apple television set.
"It was super-minimal," says the source. "Just a piece of glass with nice details."
Apple never released that television set, and so far it also hasn't released the much-rumored self-driving car. However, other sources speaking to The Information have revealed how Ive approached the idea.
Mockup of an Apple electric car (based on a Tesla)
Reportedly, Ive was so involved in the original design of an Apple car that he made a prototype model out of leather and wood specifically to show CEO Tim Cook. The most visibly notable feature of the model was that Ive insisted it should not have a steering wheel.
Instead, the car was to be predominantly voice-controlled. And for his demonstration to Cook, Ive hired an actress to perform as Siri, responding to voice commands.
It's not known how that prototype was received or how close Apple's car plans hew to it, but the company did at least temporarily table the initiative. While Project Titan continues to this day under hardware engineer Bob Mansfield, Apple is not as chasing a full-functioning vehicle as aggressively as it was in 2015.
Ive was more clearly successful with his design work on Apple Park, the new campus that he and Steve Jobs had pushed for -- but which Ive now reportedly rarely works in. According to Bloomberg sources, Ive began backing away from day-to-day business shortly after Apple Watch launched in 2015.
Instead of Apple Park, Ive has been working out of the a studio in San Francisco that he has now made the base of his new LoveFrom business. The Information reports that he has been working there for some years.
"It felt special to get invited to his private studio," said a source who has not been there but whose colleagues had.
Nonetheless, enough people do visit the studio in San Francisco's Pacific Heights region that neighbors have reportedly complained. .
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
LoveForm - function can take a hike....
Seriously though, Ive should have gone a long time ago. He really needed Jobs to keep him grounded and that didn’t always work either. He should be forced to work the rest of his days with a hockey puck mouse.
LoveFrom? Sort of an odd name on first hearing, right? Well, there’s a story there. The name comes from this Steve Jobs quote, paraphrased by Ives in a Financial Times piece today.
Instead they produced the AppleTV device as a portal to video services.
"Scott isn't with us anymore," he reportedly said from the back of the room."
Man they wouldn't even let him say goodbye to his team. What a burn
The 2019 Sony XBR A9G OLED, which just won the Value Electronics shootout held during TV Week in NYC (although by a very narrow margin) has already dropped from $4500 to $3800 in the 65". The XBR A8G has already dropped from $3500 to $3000. The previous year's A8F has dropped from $3800 to $2900. The 2017 A1E has dropped from $6500 to $3200. And Sony is relatively pricey compared to Samsung and others. Big box stores sell 65" UHD TV's for well under $2000, including currently a Samsung for $1080 including delivery. That's a rough market for Apple to be competing in, especially considering that it's unlikely that the picture quality would be any better in an Apple TV, since they'd be buying someone else's panels anyway.
I think Apple is going to have a tough time creating a compelling streaming service because the studios who are developing their own streaming services are going to hold back content from everyone else. So Disney is going to hold back Fox/Disney/Lucasfilm/Pixar content, Comcast is going to hold back Universal content and AT&T is going to hold back Warner Bros. content. That's why Netflix and Apple, among others, are spending so much on new original content, but I don't think that's going to be enough. Now in the long run, the studio-based services might fail because of that limitation and they'll have to let others distribute their content again. But that's years away. Although I think Disney overpaid for Fox, Apple probably should have bought it and sold off the pieces they didn't want. Or they should have outbid AT&T for Warner.