Slashdot Mirror
Jonathan Ive Named Designer of the Year
no_demons writes "Jonathan Ive, the man behind the iMac and the iPod, has won the first Designer of the Year award from the Design Museum in London. The Independent has the scoop, and BBC2 has the documentary on Wednesday, June 11th."
Now we just need this guy to design a universal remote control since most designs suck!
Now I want this guy to Design a PDA... Palm should hire him for their high end devices...
Almost any room you put a new Mac in is going to look ugly by comparison.
I want to see the iRoom. With an iDesk, an iLamp, and an iSeat.
Them maybe we talk about awards and such.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Though I love the industrial designs of the iPod and the new iMac, I can not seriously consider the professional opinion of any entity whose website is so damned ugly.
IIRC ID (industrial design) is about aesthetics and functionality. Looking at the other three contestants, most are very skewed in one of the two. Actually I have no idea why Vice-City was in there altogether.
Anyway, well deserved regardless. After all the attempts of copy-cat manufactures from Korea and Taiwan, nothing beats the simple and elegance of Apple products.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
was responsible for the new bug? (No, I'm not blaming software glitches on him -- I mean the new beetle)
Good. I think he deserves this. The iPod/iMac are/were "innovative". Even if that word has lost most of it's meaning with the use of it by a certain Northwest company.
I think it goes without saying that this guy has changed the way a lot of people look at computers today.
They aren't just mindless machines that perform a task, thanks to him and apple they are elegant pieces of art and form met with function.
I mean come on, take a look at the iPod for example. It uses a radial menu -- the most efficient menu design, combined with the scroll wheel and a large LCD. It's completely intuitive, and so simple to use that it justifies the extra $100 compared with other mp3 players of it's class.
- tristan
I believe that he has been fundamental in Apple's recent successes. It also speaks well of Apple's management. Love him or hate him, Jobs seems to be making some excellent decisions, including personnel decisions. I'm sure HP would love to get him in to FIX the Athens PC. It's one thing to have visionaries at the helm, which I don't doubt that most execs have visions for their companies, but its another to be able to build a team that will bring it to brilliant fruition.
Pudge, please don't use the slashdot main page to send me messages.
Too many fuckin links, you fuckin tools! I'm looking at the story going, "shit, what the fuck do I click?" I try one. Shit! It's the goddamn iMac site. I KNOW what an iMac looks like, you morons, I'm from EARTH. So I try another one. Augh! Fuckin "Design Museum" site! Bitches! Screw this!
This reminds me of 19-fuckin-93, when hyperlinks were this new and kewl thing. D00D! I can make words to things! So whenever I type "iMac" I should make it link to the iMac site! KEWL! I AM MAD SKILLZ WEBMASTAR!
You guys suck. Oh, you guys suck.
Congratulations to Mr. Ive.
I'm glad there are still companies that care about DESIGN and the feel of something in your hand.
I was thinking of this today when I saw the ugly new Canon G5, an otherwise great camera that looks like a shrunken down 1970's rangefinder, complete with gratutious and useless chrome trim.
The best designs are MINIMAL. The best designs have no more buttons than necessary, that have a screen just large enough, that focus on small details and never add elements unless they are absolutely necessary. If they are held in the hand, they should be smooth and inviting and free of buttons to accidentally press, and not sharp or cold, which may look beautiful, but subconciously you want to avoid touching it.
Although Apple doesn't get 100% right all the time (the best designs are also EGOLESS as well as minimal, and do not draw attention to themselves) they are trying hard where most manufacturers are content to use ugly swooping plastic or cold sharp metal.
Nobody told me this design award was up for grabs. If they had, I would have sent in photos of my cool case mod, which is entirely made of potato chips and twine. That would have easily clinched it.
The radial menu of the iPod is really efficient, but evidentally Apple doesn't know/care. The latest revision of the iPod does away with the buttons laid out around the edge of the wheel, replacing them with 4 similarly-labeled buttons above the wheel. (And they're "touch" buttons, rather than mechanical ones, allowing for easier accidental pushing than the mechanical ones, besides the fact they no longer guard the touch wheel... all in all, meaning you had better have the thing locked when it's in your pocket.)
It seems like they're willing to throw away good design to get upgrades.
Of course this is all just as bad is the newspapers, TV stations, and websites who run these sort of garbage polls and tout them as having any sort of validity. In reality they're just calculated come-on's for for the website being used and anyone with half a clue knows to discount this sort of trivially rigged "slacktivism". Nonetheless I keep getting emails asking me to vote in blahblahblah.com's poll to show my support for #cause.
My advice is not to play sucker for these folks & their fake poles, when you come across them ask the sponsors exactly how valid they consider their results to be. Then ask if this is really the "news" they pretend or are they just being slimers, do they feel this discredits their entire operation?
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
I went to a talk given by British invetor James Dyson (check out their Home Page) a few weeks back. He invented the "bagless vacuum cleaner" and one of his engineers' "inovations" was to have a clear case round the rubbish it sucked up. They thought it was cool. One of the most interested people in the design was Steve Jobs...The rest is history.
-- Free software on every PC on every desk
As we're talking about Apple design ( heh ) this is one of the things that really surprised me when first using the e - the keyboard has very clean lines, nice key size and elevation, and very satisfying tactile response. The special keys are well laid out and chosen ( even if the contrast ones don't seem to be marked? ) and it even shipped with little plastic end-caps over the connector to protect it from dust / particles in shipping.
Its possibly one of the best keyboards I've ever used, including an old "clicky" IBM one I had in one of my old jobs. Is this also one of Ives designs? The only problem I have with it is that if it gets crap in it ( e.g., if you eat crackers at the keyboard while you're working ) the curvature of the transparent plastic optically blows them up into huge Godzilla Scale crumbs, which then attact mockery from nearby friends.
-- YLFI
One god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
I slipped my iPod in my cargo pants "leg" pocket one day as I was getting out of the car. I had totally forgotten that it was there. The car door was partly shut and locked; so, I have it a good body slam with my thigh. My iPod took it head on and it was not broken, not dented, not nuttin.
Buying quality never paid off so well. A cheap mp3 box from Radio Snack would have been flat as a pancake.
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
Remeber folks, this is the man who is responsible for the aisles and aisles of "blueberry" and "lime" and other fruit colored office suplies in the past few years.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I have to admit the iPod design is pretty slick, but I remember a reading a story several months ago with a very convincing accusation that this guy stole the new iMac design from a European Mac enthusiest. Apparently a Mac webpage asked for people to submit designs and some guy posted pictures almost identical to the new iMac, long before the new iMac was released. Anyone know what ever happened to that story?
I very rarely use Apple products for reasons I don't feel like debating right, now but I think this guy does deserve an award. Apple compensates for some of its downfalls with excellent design and the iMac and the iPod are prime examples of this great design. If a sleek design is your primary concern when purchasing electronics then Apple is your company. I wish I got the BBC, I would definately check it out.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
The "Dyson" computer
:)
Skynet?
The coolest voice ever.
I'm still saving up for an iPod, but I've been reading up, asking around, and visiting my local Apple Store.
The original, circular arrangement of the iPod buttons makes for one of the most gorgeous, pure-Ive creations ever, but the outermost circle of buttons (top: menu; left: skip back; right: skip forward; bottom: play/pause) are just that, the outermost, which makes them inefficient for one-handed operation -- say, in your jacket pocket. You've got to slide your thumb (or other finger, if you like RSI) all the way across the middle of the circle to reach the other side, which (1) is too much of a stretch and (2) risks messing with the scroll wheel.
The linear arrangement of those four buttons on the new-design iPod, while not nearly as visually elegant, makes for a much more ergonomic interface. The wheel-touchpad and its center button get their own dedicated space, and the transport controls get theirs. As a user of several past Sony VCRs, I can tell you that having your transport controls separate is far more sensible than having them visually melded with, and thus placed too damned close to, a rotary control.
Actually, the "touch" buttons are harder to accidentally push than the mechanical ones. I've been told that you have to set the hold button on an original iPod just to put it in your pocket; otherwise, something gets pressed, or the scroll wheel (on the early, mechanical-wheel models) gets spun, none of which is good for uninterrupted listening. The new "touch" buttons don't trigger on contact with clothing or even an accidental brush with a finger. The touch wheel doesn't need to be guarded, and you don't have to lock it for your pocket.
The original design has a beautiful geometric simplicity, but don't mistake geometric simplicity for higher usability.
Don't get me wrong: I love the look of the original iPod, and someday I'll pick up a dead one on eBay just to hold and ogle. The thick transparent faceplate, with its sharp edges, is too gorgeous for photographs to convey. But, as with the buttons, it's not a better design.
Something tells me that optical mouse isn't gonna work to well on that entirely glass desktop...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Did anyone else read the headline as "Ive named Jonathan Designer of the year," then immediately went to look for comments on not putting an apostrophe in Ive, then realize what the headline actually said? I know I did.
bananas like monkeys.
In keeping with Apple naming, shouldn't his name be Jonathan iVe?
-twb
I'd like to nominate this
for design of the year. It really makes everything around it look so much better.
Why don't the engineers who fit the stuff into these designs get any credit? Sure he comes up with a neat good looking idea, but it takes a hell of a lot more than a good idea to make a sucessful product. Someone actually needs to implement it and make it possible. I really doubt it was easy to fit a full computer inside the iMac base w/o a fan. Kudos to the 'geers.
Random is the New Order.
..is British (from Stafford), and not a bad drummer. Don't know if he still plays. My then drummer had bought his kit off him. Apple nabbed him in the very early nineties (or possibly the late eighties even), and dragged him off to the US. Prior to Apple, he was working for a design studio, in London I think.
-- Steve
I've gotta post this anonymously. My friend had his iPod and I was working on my car. He had a look at something and handed the iPod to me. I had to look under the car as well so I set the iPod next to the hood latch. 30 seconds later I try to close the hood, it won't latch. So I try harder, 2 more times...arg stupid hood....oh holy crap, what have I done I thought to myself. So I grab his iPod (which was only protected by that little bag apple gives you) and give it a quick run through- everything was fine! I never told him. Am I a jerk or what? Thanks apple for quality construction.
oh and after that my hood closed fine as well.
Firstly, why doesn't Apple push the design edge further?
Ive never actually was a "bleeding edge" designer. He was always a conservatist - iMacs, G3 and G4, were revolutionary but at the same moment they were oddly familiar - like if you saw something like this before and always wanted to have one.
The one most likely to be "pushing an edge" was Hartmut Esslinger from the frogdesign company, responsible for the earliest Macs (Classic, SE etc.). This period of Apple design ended up in a disaster of the Mac portable, arguably the worst Macintosh ever made, now a true collector's item. Then there was the Robert Brunner period in Apple design, most famed by the failed Newton project. Thus the "pushing edge" designers were not always the best cure for the Apple situation.
Look that the Jonathan Ive's reign in Cupertino gives us no really shocking novelties. They just make desktops, laptops, TFT displays and portable music players. They don't try to launch Something That Never Existed Before - their new products are actually just improved versions of the thing you already knew. But they are well thought, well designed, and REALLY ease to use. Ive is not the kind of designer who want to shock the world with "pushing an edge" - he just want to design a device, that will be a true pleasure to use. Like an iPod. Or an iMac. Or an iBook. Etc.
Beg to differ, Sir.
Drives, RAM and cables...of course not. Motherboard...as we agree. The power supply in a new dual processor G4 is BTO from Samsung, and no other manufacturer uses it. The video cards are not PC compatible, nor do they have identical feature sets or ROMs. Lesser commonality means more cost. An aluminum laptop... Who else? Titanium...no one.
No other manufacturer will spend the money for proprietary connectors, switches, tooling, fasteners. most expensive cartons and low yield assembly runs...money is most definitely a factor, and with Dell and HP chasing each other's tails, they will never spend the same...not to mention that Dell has no R & D to speak of...why? Oh, yet again....money. Even Sun is balking at spending the kind of money Apple does these days. I know, I work for the largest electronics manufacturer in Korea, supporting OEMs.
While ID may be the iceing on the cake, unit cost and ROI are the plate that cake is served on.
As for expansion ports, that was probably a decision that Steve Jobs and the engineering team had influence too. Expansion ports are almost against the idea of the iMac: all-in-one computer. Since most of the core functions were built-in (video, sound, modem, Ethernet) Apple's thinking probably was that if somebody needed more functionality, they could use USB or Firewire to get it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Apple keyboards are unsuitable for UNIX users!
(That's just my little joke for those of you who remember that crank from about a year back!)
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.