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

Replaces...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple narrowly edges Elton John as the fruitiest entity to receive an honor from the Order of the British Empire.

Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

So the Queen is recognizing intelligent design?

*doh* I can't believe I just said that!

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

[evoltap]

From what you're saying, I gather that the issue of surface scratches out-ranks product atributes such as reliability, amiable UI, and the absence of general problems that seem to plague some personal computing systems.......

Yeah, I guess I could be real upset that my ipod screen is scratched (believe me, it is)....but wait, it dosn't matter! It still works great and I can see the text fine and the battery is f*****g sugary sweet after 1 year+

I guess what i'm sayin is those surface scratches have nothing to do with what computers are about. Apple has been a very positive force in the tech world, in my opinion.

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

[allgood2]

That's not really a durability issue; that aesthetics, and while I'm in to glossy, shiny things, practically every item I own--plastic, metal, even wood, that have semi to high gloss surfaces, require extra care to keep that aesthetic.

My shiny black file cabinets, that look so pretty storing items I hate keeping track of, is scratch prone. My high gloss finish desk (which I built) requires annual touch-ups to keep it super shiny, for those times when my desk is actually clear. I polish my Powerbook G4 laptop, and use a scratch filler every so often. Why, I even have to put my glasses away in a case or tissue paper each night so they don't get surface scratches. (the horror)

The fact is, if you don't want to provide care, your better off with a matte finish or mesh. Almost all my desktop accessories are matte or mesh, because, who want to spend time keep a pencil holder, stapler or a garbage can shiny. On the otherhand, I am willing to toss everything off my desk once a year, and reapply a finish; just as I'm willing to make sure I use a soft cloth and take other precautions with my iPod.

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...)

Re:Durability

[CWRUisTakingMyMoney]

Fair enough, and I agree with you that for computers, function > form. But the thread is about form, and the guy who designed it. From a design standpoint (and especially given the image Apple wishes to present of its hardware), such a scratch-prone product line is a Bad Thing, and I'm actually rather surprised that it hasn't hurt sales as much as it has (if it even has at all).

FWIW, my eMac doesn't scratch at all, I always keep my iPod in a case so it has no noticeable scratches, and my PowerBook is in fine shape.

What About John Ball

[pjay_dml]

John Ball a math prof at Oxford, and Michael Pepper, professor of physics at Cambridge, also will receive a knighthood. That's also news for geeks.

There is no entry for John Ball on Wikipedia, anyone who knows more about him, might want to fill this gap.

Same for Michael Pepper, who is mentioned in the article on the Quantum Hall effect.

Well, so was Gates

[sirhan]

Bill Gates whas knighted too. Well, the honor in that's gone now...

Re:Well, so was Gates

[RotateLeftByte]

BG was awarded an Honarary Knighthood just like Bob Geldorf and many other FOREIGN citizens. These rank at the same level as Honarary doctorates etc awarded by Universities.

Real Knighthoods are reserved for British & Commonwealth Citizens.

They are very different.

Re:Well, so was Gates

[PietjeJantje]

The obvious point has to be made again. Royalty is a medieval artifact which in my opinion is evidence of lack of development. It's a Bad Thing (tm). I wish more people who are "honoured" or knighted by royalty would take a stance and say it as it is, as opposed to immediately deteriorating to someone grateful and humble and respectful, to people who are irrelevant except in bloodline, but think they are special. In fact they have done nothing for us but spend our money on bling-bling. Snub their PR and marketing! It is no coincidence that they give these honours to people who are influential. Some would call it a moral bribe.

Re:Well, so was Gates

[Bazzalisk]

And so speaks someone who doesn't understand the British governmental system very well. The sepearation of Head of State from Head of Government is important, and the fact that the former is someone who by dint of the hereditariness of the office is utterly un-coruptable and un-swayable by public opinion is a very important element of the way our system works.

Could it be done with someone other than the Windsors on the throne? hell yes. I'd be perfectly happy if the current head of state was Thomas Cromwell IV or somesuch - but someone needs to take that role for the system to work at all.

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.

[Weedlekin]

Same here. I have an iMac G5 sitting among various other computers, and nobody ever notices the others at all: they are invariably intrigued by the Mac's looks, screen, generally quiet operation, and how it has "a much nicer Windows" than the one that came with their own PCs.

Re:Times have changed.

[Halfbaked Plan]

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.

Translation: "Their eyes glaze over, and they say 'ooooh, shiny!'"

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

Re:Times have changed.

[vague disclaimer]

My God! You've cracked it. Apple's new slogan: "OSX, featuring Much Nicer Windows(tm)".

Re:Times have changed.

[thatguywhoiam]

Though in my not so humble opinion they still can't hold a candle to that beautiful C64.

(sigh. Just goes to show you, its all about tone on slashdot.)

I read your post. I think you are projecting some of your personal preferences onto the memories of these old computers and end up with surprising results.

For instance - and as we are talking subjectives here it can't go far - I simply cannot understand how you decide a C64 is 'better designed', aesthetically, than a Mac II? They use practically the same school of thought, that Star Trek II man-ridges and swiss lines sort of thing that was big in the early 80s. I mean, I can understand a slight preference for one over the other (in my case definitely the Mac) but saying they are worlds apart is baffling.

Ditto the Amiga - I had 5 of those suckers and I would say their meager efforts went no fruther than the token swoop that Dell puts on their cases. Again, I would compare an Amiga 3000 to the supposedly hideous Mac II and say, you see a difference?

The Sinclair was beautiful I'll give you that. But the rest, I think you are basking in the warm glow of Amiga memories or the bitter reverie of changing a video card in the Mac II. But design wise, they are not far apart at all, not even remotely so. Put a Mac Classic case design versus, oh, any of them. The Smithsonian agrees with me.

Re:Times have changed.

[Simon Brooke]

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.

First, I am not an Apple fan and most especially I am not a Steve Jobs fan. Not only did I program for the original Mac back in the early eighties, I had the deep joy of administering some NeXT boxes in the nineties. They were always, at least from a software point of view, a triumph of surface gloss over good engineering. I've never spent my own money on an Apple box, and I've never advised a customer to do so.

But.

OK, it's true that there have been very occasional ugly Apples. OK, it's true that there have been very occasional attractive case designs by other makers (I particularly like some of the mid 90s Silicon Graphics case designs, and, of course, the NeXT cubes were fantastically good to look at). But - and I say this with a very expensive designer PC case sitting under my desk - I've never seen a PC case design that didn't look awful, whereas by contrast some of the Apple case designs (Lisa; PowerMac G4 and G4 cube; Mac Mini) have been really excellent.

So no. Steve Jobs has excellent visual taste, has a history of employing good industrial designers, and generally of producing better looking products (and often better physically engineered products) than anyone else in the consumer computer industry.

It's just a shame about the software engineering.

Oh My GOD !!!!!!!

[markiv34]

The British honoring the French, what has happened. The sky is falling, now if the british could honor Joan of Arc. Just a stupid joke. Happy New Year people, Johnathan Ive totally deserves it.

Re:Oh My GOD !!!!!!!

[Gogo Dodo]

Ive is British.

Honoring Knights

[oztiks]

It still amazes me that the British Empire uses the technique of honoring bravery of their Knights and Lords in todays society to honor people who now run multimillion dallor industry and come up with ideas like the iPod.

What does this mean to us? Nerds are as cool and as handsome as ye'old days knights in shinning armor ....

Re:Honoring Knights

[drsquare]

Don't get too excited, these things are decided by unaccountable, pen-pushing civil servants behind closed doors, and every flavour of the week pop star or sportsman gets one these days.

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.

1705-2005

[Anonymous Coward]

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

The man is a genius

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.sharpened.net/images/reviews/Apple_iPod _3G.jpg

A non-descript white rectangle with chamfered edges, representative of many of his designs. To repeat myself: pure genius. Where does he get his inspiration?!

Golden ratio....

[electrosoccertux]

So HE is the clever guy designing all the sexy gadgets. I swear, between their computadora cases, laptops, and most definately the Ipod (Gen 4), Apple's got the best looking set of hardware. Why so sexy? I think its simply the golden ratio. Its why bodies look good. 1:1.6 is everywhere. The best looking body has 1:1.6 ratio in forarm to arm, waste to shoulders, thighs to calfs, calf and knee girth to ankle girth. Plus, for a side profile (on women) breast to waist width, and (on all, a side profile still) buttocks to thigh width.

So it only makes sense to put this ratio in every product: it makes it inherently more attractive, just because. And thats what this guy did. Width to height, scroll wheel width to Ipod width, etc. Ingenious, really. Its also the reason why I expect the video Ipod and the Nano to not sell nearly as well as their previous incarnations (Gen 4 and Ipod Mini). The Nano and Ipod Video are lacking in the 1:1.6 ratio department.

Re:Golden ratio....

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the Golden Delicious ratio.

Jonathan Ive

[BarryNorton]

Since the summary doesn't even give the chap's full name, let alone any kind of non-technical biographical information, the following might be of interest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive

Jonathan Ive was apparently "born in London and studied art and design at Newcastle Polytechnic before setting up his own design house, Tangerine, where he designed everything from hair combs and ceramics, to power tools and televisions. Apple was one of his clients, and was so impressed with his work for them that in 1992 they offered him a job in their Cupertino headquarters to turn around their ailing design division."

Re:The Queen has never been on a computer

[ettlz]

The Queen has never been on a computer

Yeah, except for that JPEG with the— nevermind, it's probably high treason or something...

First Design at Apple was iMac?

[wackymacs]

I think the story is wrong in stating that Ive's first design for Apple was the iMac, because before that he designed the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh (TAM) in 1997 , the eMate 300 (1997) and the Newton back in 1993.

Typo

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, there is a typo in the article. The correct spelling of the man's name is iVe.

Story error?

[thatguywhoiam]

Mr Ive's first design for Apple, the iMac

I thought Ives first design was the eMate?

Still a wicked design, IMHO.

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.

iBooks are not a problem..

[YesIAmAScript]

I've scratched iPods, I believe you about the iMac mini. But I've had 2 iBooks over 4 years, and I can tell you scratching is not a problem. iBooks are the most durable laptops I've ever had. They might scratch, I dunno. But due to the milky color, you can't tell. Unless you pull out a loupe, they look near to brand-new for years.

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

I do have to agree with the other posters, if Apple's stuff didn't look so cool, you wouldn't care about the scratches. My two PC towers next to me have various scars and labels on them, and I don't really notice because they weren't something great to look at even when I got them. And they're both Antec Sonata cases, which are considered quite good-looking as far as cases go.

What British empire was that?

[Flying pig]

Disclaimer: I'm English, and definitely NOT British. Brits are those horrible people you see reeling around drunk and throwing up in the street in foreign countries.

After WW2, we very sensibly got rid of almost all the British Empire, except for a few bits of other people's countries (Gibraltar, Northern Ireland). I can't help wondering if the whole thing is some kind of convoluted official joke - sorry, you're not worth a "proper" honour, how would you like to be a Commander of a few dodgy tax havens and a place terrorised by gangsters?

We already have proper honours - the OM for the arts, the Royal Society for scientists, the Royal Academy for artists (tricky ground there though) - and I really do not know why we cannot simply have properly designated recognition for charity workers,business people and designers. Of course, the work of trawling through all those OBEs, CBEs etc. and deciding what recognition they should now be given would need a whole commission of well paid ex civil servants, so you would think they at least would support such a scheme.

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 ...