Jonathan Ive and the Future of Apple
There were times, during the past two decades, when he considered leaving Apple, but he stayed, becoming an intimate friend of Steve Jobs and establishing the build and the finish of the iMac, the MacBook, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. He is now one of the two most powerful people in the world’s most valuable company.
Fascinating article on Apple's lead designer and de facto direction maker. A long read, but a very good one.
A couple of things that stand out to me:
- I've commented before on the old MacBook "sleep" light. The one where it blinks as if a sleeping heartbeat. There's an anecdote in the piece that says people complained about it keeping them up while it sat on their nightstand. I always liked that little touch in he older laptops.
- The designers who work under Ive are said to work 12 hour days. 12 hours. Do these people have families? Significant others? Lives outside of the office? Those kinds of working hours seem unsustainable. And borderline unhealthy. Just my initial, gut reaction.
A well-written piece am definitely worth checking out.
Source: The New Yorker
