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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."
Apple narrowly edges Elton John as the fruitiest entity to receive an honor from the Order of the British Empire.
So the Queen is recognizing intelligent design?
*doh* I can't believe I just said that!
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.
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.
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.
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
Exactly three hundred years after the man who got bonked in the head by an apple.
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.
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."
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.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
Unfortunately, there is a typo in the article. The correct spelling of the man's name is iVe.
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.
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.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
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.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.