I do believe it would only be fair if we’ve been talking all these times about Apple’s products such as iPhone, iPod & Macs; we should also talk or at least knew the people behind those great gadgets.Especially when we’re about to be introduced to iPhone 2.0 tomorrow, where Steve Jobs is expected to show it off during his keynote speech at WWDC ’08.
Oh no, I’m not going to talk about Steve Jobs. Well, actually I will talk about the Apple’s CEO along the way. Because it’s obviously impossible not to talk about Apple, without talking about the ‘psychedelic’ Steve Jobs.
But who I’m going to focus right now, is the person that has been in crucial position to design most of Apple’s products that we love so much these days. He is Jonathan Ive, the shy boy from Essex-England who turns into 41 year old this year.
The shaven-headed and gym-toned chief designer in Apple’s design team, started his career in designing toilets and combs way back years ago before he jumped into Apple boat. Ive was nearing the end of his four-year industrial design course at Newcastle Polytechnic (now the University of Northumbria) when he first used a Mac. After years of combat with PCs, the instinctual Mac was a revelation.Unlike his boss (read: Steve Jobs), Ive is shy, he's modest and private. He rarely gives interviews, but Claire Beale from The Independent has struck gold with a private interview with the Aston Martin driving-Brit just last month. It was a special interview based on the prestigious two Black Pencils awards that Apple won again this year, for the design of the iMac and the iPhone.
These awards are incredibly rare D&AD Black Pencils. There are few creative awards more jealously coveted than a D&AD pencil. Yellow pencils can be career makers. But the elusive Black Pencil is a marker of creative genius.
At front, Apple consumers and fans will only know Steve Jobs as the main man to be worshiped. But for many people working in the creative industries, the bedrock of Mac believers, Ive is a hero, a creative genius: the man who transformed computers from grey boxes to objects of desire, design statements.That's what D&AD has recognised and rewarded. But you don't have to be a creative purist to appreciate what Ive does. For everyone who loves Macs and iPods and iPhones for their intuition, for their clean aesthetics, for their leading edge, elegant functionality, Ive is the man who made technology both beautiful and accessible.
When asked about the ubiquity of his designs, Ive insists that he doesn't get an ego rush from seeing so many of us using his products. "I'm not driven by making a cultural impact," he says. "That's just a consequence of taking a remarkably powerful technology and making it relevant."
Apple is unique, Ive says, by being in the hardware and the software games; design permeates through everything. "We have a very clear focus that all the development teams at Apple share, a focus around trying to make really great products."Ive then conceed, "That can sound ridiculously simplistic, almost naive, but it's very unique for the product to be what consumes you completely. And when I say the product I mean the product in its total sense, the hardware and the software, the complete experience that people will have. We push each other, we're very self-critical and we'll take the time to get the product right."
No doubt creatives the world over would like to know where Ive gets his inspiration from. So Claire asked him, and Ive replied, "It's easier for me to talk about my motivation, the focus on finding something that's better and new and that becomes self-perpetuating. My goal is simply to try to make products that really are meaningful to people. Ultimately there is something motivating and inspiring in seeing someone using an Apple product and enjoying an Apple product."
What a guy, eh? So very different and the very opposite of Steve Jobs, the reign controller of what’s happening in Apple – where Steve will not bow to anyone, from his most skillful engineers even to Apple board members. --Not many knew Jonathan Ive’s contributions, when the cool slim-stainless steel iMac hits front page of Time magazine.-- And that’s perhaps what makes him the sole controller of Apple Inc., as the long running time CEO at the one-bitten fruit logo company.
But no matter how good and almighty Steve is, he won’t be around forever. Some investors would be happier if there’s someone that can be named as “Steve 2.0”, the Apple CEO’s successor to avoid future disaster. There are sceptics, of course. Some have suggested that Mr. Ive lacks the charisma to become “Steve 2.0”, and that he could never deliver Mr. Jobs’s Hollywood-style press conferences, replayed endlessly on YouTube.
Which according to Claire, Jonathan Ive is charming, polite, quiet, no sense of self-importance, no desire for attention. Nice. He has displayed absolutely no ambition to rise to the top of Apple Inc. He seems content to lead a design team that is without equal in the world of consumer electronics. Just watch Ive’s rare video appearance below and prove it yourself, courtesy from 9to5Mac that has kindly dusted off from their archives.
Again, it’s so contrast with Steve Jobs. Where he seems to take all of the credits from the design and invention of Apple’s products, like what has been revealed at US Patent and Trademark Office’s documents. The iPhone Patent signed there, is a 371-page spectacular that covers Apple's handheld multi-touch UI paradigm in excruciating detail. The no. 1 or the first person mentioned on the front page, is none other than Steven P. Jobs a.k.a. Steve Jobs himself. If Steve can be asked for a comment on this news, maybe his reply would be a simple answer: “Bite me.”
It’s like seeing a different side of Steve, that we once knew when he made one of the Macintosh Classic with Wozniak long-long time ago. I’m not talking about the obvious though; more hair and handsome. ;-D
No one, I mean no one can phantom the mind of Steve Jobs. He can be sometimes so naively stands firm on his own believes, but changes immediately on the next very day. Unarguable, his un-common way of leadership has put strong sales of the iMac and the launch of the stunning iPhone has soared profits at the company by 36 per cent to more than $1 billion. I can’t even dare to imagine how the most awaited up coming iPhone 2.0 tomorrow will do…
Philip Elmer-DeWitt from Fortune, asked: “Is this the next Steve Jobs?” –referring to Jonathan Ive, of course not that other “Steve”. <;-p ~LOL~ IMHO it’s too early to ask and at the same time answer that question, surely time will tell. 
But in the meantime, all of us can’t deny one simple fact; that we’re enjoying so much what Steve Jobs has done with Apple. The combination of simple and humble Ive with the ego-centric and ambitious Jobs, is indeed a rare mix to find. It goes along with the saying, “Two heads are simply better than one”; in this case: “Two apples are much better than one” right?
So, why we should change something that’s already this good?
Sources are from:
[blogged with my Treo 750v]
No comments:
Post a Comment