Apple Designer Honoured By British Crown

metalcup writes "The vice-president for design at Apple, the man behind the iPod and iMac, has been inducted into the Order of the British Empire as a Commander (a CBE honour)." From the BBC story: "Mr Ive started working for Apple in 1992 but exerted a big influence on its products only in 1997 when Steve Jobs returned to the company he co-founded. Mr Ive's first design for Apple, the iMac, was hugely influential and has been followed by a series of other widely admired gadgets ... Since the launch of the iMac in 1998, Mr Ive has driven the design of almost every piece of Apple hardware. Landmarks include the original iMac, iBook, Power Mac, PowerBook, Mac Mini and iPod."

Comments

Durability

[Marlor]

Now, if only Jonathan Ive could design products that were as durable as they are beautiful. We have all heard about iPods scratching, but other Apple products are just as bad. The top of my Mac mini was scratched within hours of buying it, due to resting a keyboard on it. It really is amazingly scratch-prone. I have heard that iBooks suffer from the same problem (although not as severely).

Jonathan Ive is known for being hands-on in selecting the materials which the Apple devices are made from, but the plastics used in Apple products seem amazingly scratch-prone.

Add that to the hoops that must be jumped through in order to open entry-level Apple products, and you have products that look great out of the box, but are terrible after long-term use.

Re:Durability

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you are right, durability is not the work of the designer, but of the engineers, who have to chose the right materials for the right usage. Obviously if a surface is scratching, it means the plastic coat is not of the correct type.

Re:Durability

[mita bojangles]

Yes please, gadget makers: STOP BUILDING GLOSSY SURFACES!!! Yes, they look shiny and swank in your adverts, but the moment a human hand touches them they're gunked up with fingerprints and scratches. No matter how i clean my ipod or my treo 650, they look like ass 2 minutes after USING them. Matt surfaces people....

Re:Durability

[baryon351]

Even if you are right, durability is not the work of the designer, but of the engineers, who have to chose the right materials for the right usage

That would be true for an average designer but an industrial designer is as much engineer as they are designer. They're hands on throughout the whole process, working with their team experienced in ergonomics, acoustics, heating, cooling and materials. Jonathan Ive would have as much responsibility for the scratchiness or non scratchiness of anything he'd designed as he does for its shape.

Re:Durability

[pelorus]

It's a fair point. Apple and other manufacturers should revert to making their products out of the polycarbonate compounds of the past like the iMac.

Of course, I did meet one person who DROPPED their iMac and complained about how the cracked polycarbonate housing obviously wasn't very durable. I can't think of many 38 lb gadgets that would survive a fall like that, but this iMac did...

Suffice to say, the Mac mini wasn't designed to be the "shelf upon which you place the detritus of your life". I have a scratch on the top of mine but that comes from a month of shoving it in the same bag as it's power supply and other bits and pieces.

Re:Durability

[droleary]

We have all heard about iPods scratching, but other Apple products are just as bad.

As bad as what? The only reason people bitch about their Apple pretty getting beat up is because it is pretty. Nobody gives a rat's ass about scratches they get on their crap Dell box or some junk MP3 players. It's not that other products are more durable, it's that nobody cares half as much for those other products as they seem to care about Apple stuff. People who moan about a scratched nano always sound like they'd be shocked by the very concept of keying a car or getting a ding from someone else's door. Certainly a $20,000 product should be more durable than that!

Re:Durability

[Kadin2048]

Add that to the hoops that must be jumped through in order to open entry-level Apple products, and you have products that look great out of the box, but are terrible after long-term use.

I strenuously disagree with this. I've owned quite a few Apple products, and while not perhaps their full product line, enough so that I'm familiar with how they package and pack things. I think that their packaging is some of the best designed, ever. The iPod packaging isn't anything as special, but it's still not bad.

If anyone bought an original (CRT) iMac, then you remember the packaging that it came in: open box, lift out top foam, grab handle and remove computer, set on desk. Then pull out the mouse and keyboard, plug them in, and go. It was fairly brilliant; IIRC even Consumer Reports was impressed, and this was back when they were really Mac-haters.

It's been a while since I've bought a new machine from Apple, but I can't imagine that they've gone much downhill. They always seemed to put a lot more effort into the design of their packaging and initial "presentation" of the device to the customer than any other manufacturer I'm familiar with. (Granted they'd better, given what they charge for their gear...)

Times have changed.

[Phariom]

That's part of the magic behind Apple's product line. "Back in the day," computers were ugly, huge, clunky, off-white boxes that people generally kept out of sight of guests, perhaps in a spare room somewhere along with their model rockets and comic books--as per a good friend of mine at the time. And this was fine; computers were not mainstream in the individual citizens' world. As computers became more and more integrated in our lives, form became just as important as functionality.

The average non-l33t users of today consider the computer to be just another piece of furniture or just another appliance in their homes--and in many cases, they are correct. Computers are no longer just toys; they are important tools.

Apple's decision to make their products just as appealing outside as inside is a major part of why I am one of their many fans. When people see my Mac sitting on my desk they never ask me how fast it is, how big of a hard drive I have, or if I use high-speed or dial-up; they compliment me on a fine looking machine.

Re:Times have changed.

[Phariom]

People complient each other on their cars all the time and all these individuals did was make a purchase. How is that any different?

Re:Times have changed.

[nathanh]

That's part of the magic behind Apple's product line. "Back in the day," computers were ugly, huge, clunky, off-white boxes that people generally kept out of sight of guests, perhaps in a spare room somewhere along with their model rockets and comic books--as per a good friend of mine at the time. And this was fine; computers were not mainstream in the individual citizens' world. As computers became more and more integrated in our lives, form became just as important as functionality.

Revisionist bullshit. Computers were not all ugly off-white boxes "back in the day", and Apple has made some damn ugly hardware over the years.

To the first point, computers have always been an assorted bag of good looking equipment and ugly beige boxes. The IBM PC was infamous for being an ugly beige box but it was the exception rather than the rule. Most companies competed for attention by producing eye-catching hardware. Commodore was famous for their attractive designs - chunky styling and rounded edges with colours that were fashionable (in the 70s). I still find the C64 to be one of the most stylish personal computers ever made.

Here's another gorgeous design from "back in the day", the Sinclair ZX81. The slim case meant it slipped easily into the television cabinet and the jet-black casing was revolutionary for the time. Remember that back when this computer was released most TVs still had wooden (actually veneer) cabinets and hi-fi stereos were rarely connected to the television. This computer was positively space-aged looking by comparison. It was exceptionally attractive and many houses had this proudly seated under the TV.

Outside the PC world, mainframe companies used impressive designs to showcase their hardware. Cray had achieved legendary status for the bench seat inspired Cray-1. That particular design is still recognized today as one of the most distinctive mainframes ever built. However Cray was never content to stay still and they outdid themselves with the Cray-2 which had waterfall cooling towers. There's still nothing in the PC world that can even begin to compete with Cray for distinctive and attractive form.

Apple's decision to make their products just as appealing outside as inside is a major part of why I am one of their many fans.

Apple has produced some awfully ugly crap over the years as well. Take a look at the horrendous beige box that was the Mac II. It was by far the ugliest PC on the market at the time; even the IBM PC at that time wasn't as cringe worthy as the Mac II. How about the uninspiring Performa 575 which was also an unreliable piece of crap. Or take a look at the ugliest computer that Apple ever made... the PowerPC 4400 (argh, my eyes, the goggles do nothing).

Recently Apple has started making their computers attractive - the trend seems to have started with the iMac - but so what, the rest of the industry is doing the same thing. Everybody is making attractive cases these days; the only difference is that in the x86 world it's a choice and if you don't want to pay the premium for style then you don't have to.

So to your original points - it is not true that "back in the day" all computers were ugly off-white boxes, and it's not true that Apple has some sort of "magic" in their product line. Apple is like the rest of the companies; they've made ugly hardware to cut costs, and now like most PC manufacturers they're producing more attractive hardware to

1705-2005

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly three hundred years after the man who got bonked in the head by an apple.

Re:Honoring Knights

[Anonymous Coward]

In the last few years the honours process has been made a lot more transparent. Some people have said that this hasn't necessarily been a change for the better. Different, yes. Better, maybe not.

In the years Before Blair, the vast majority of honours went to Establishment people and civil servants. Since the reforms, there has been an increasing number of honours given to entertainers, sports people and other flavours of the minute, and while there are undeniably more honours given to those people who work quietly and conscientiously for the public good, this category is still minuscule.

My father was offered an OBE last year for 'Services to the Community', after many years of voluntary work for local charities. He turned it down for exactly this reason. I think he said in his letter of refusal, 'I don't consider myself to be as worthy as Elton John', or something like that.

What do you expect?

[tentimestwenty]

You were resting your keyboard on your Mini? Why? I don't understand. You don't mistreat beautiful things. Do you wash your new car with an old dirty rag? Would you prefer that the mini or ipod was made out the standard beige durable plastic? Hell, even if it was made of steel you'd still dent it and scrape it. Don't blame Apple because you're expecting a gorgeous under $500 consumer product to be impervious to wear.

Quit whining

[snowwrestler]

Every piece of plastic I've ever owned has gotten scratched. My Sony Walkman had scratches on it. My Sony Discman had scratches on it. My cell phone has scratches on it. My damn swiss army knife and my sunglasses have scratches on them. Heck my VCR and TV have scratches on their cases just from being moved a couple of times.

Plastic scratches easily--get over it. I've had 4 laptops over the past 6 years and every one of them has developed scratches on the lid and bottom. But they were not noticed by most people because a) the plastic was matte not polished, and b) the plastic was grey or black.

I now own an iBook and 2 iPods. They don't scratch any more or less easily than my Kyocera cell phone or my swiss army knife or my other laptops. But more people seem to notice the scratches, because more people want to look closely at my iBook and iPod than at my cell phone. Apple products are seen as objects of "high design" and so people look more closely and maybe have higher expectations.

The whole idea of caring so deeply about a few scratches is kind of pathetic I think. If you want your possessions to be flawless things for you to admire, buy them and put them into a case. I want mine to do stuff, and I'll take precautions to protect their function but not their looks (I protect the screens but not the cases). I was brought up to view "babying" products as effete and pointless. Things should be useful first and if they're pretty that's a nice bonus...but keeping them flawlessly pristine is for collectors and people who don't do anything.

Powerbooks are bombproof ...

[jstockdale]

This is in stark contrast to the Powerbooks, which dent quite easily

As a current AlBook owner, I'll agree with you that Powerbooks will dent, and scratch up a bit. Sure they might get beat up, but they also take a hell of a beating before they fail. I've personally dropped my AlBook 4ft. off of a lab bench onto a *concrete* floor. I have a couple dents, and my CD/DVD bay is bent a degree or two off of level ... but everything works. No cracks on the motherboard, no problems with the LCD, NOTHING.

That's fucking amazing. When I heard the *crash* behind me I expected to turn around to at least a broken LCD ... and yet my laptop had traded the lab bench for the floor and was happily turned on and functioning like nothing happened.

I'll take a dented laptop that keeps working perfectly ... over many other manufactures (Dell/HP/Crapaq) plastic construction that breaks apart from that kind of height.

-S ...