In a new interview with The Independent, Jony Ive describes the creation process of the new iPad Pro and shares more details about his design philosophies like what makes a device magical.
The Independent’s David Phelan notes that Ive recently won the 2018 Professor Hawking Fellowship based on his “remarkable role in championing elegant and innovative design.” This of course is the latest in a long list of accolades he has garnered over his career at Apple.
Even with all the praise Ive receives, Phelan says that during the interview he felt “a humility that puts him as part of a team at Apple.”
The first question asked about how Ive views his responsibilities when it comes to updating a “well-loved and commercially successful product.”
Ive continued by saying that when making improvements to a product, you don’t have to make people “fall in love with it again.”
Another interesting question was about how Ive thinks about making magical elements and the history of iPad being described as magical with its introduction in 2010.
He said that the defining factor for a magical product is that it’s hard to pin down what exactly about it is so magical.
Related to the new iPad Pro, he says a new magical and subtle feature is that Apple has removed the idea of a primary orientation.
Ive also says that the new display with curved corners to match the enclosure offers the idea that it’s a “single, clear product” and differentiates itself from the competition.
[…]
What I think marks the new iPad Pro as particularly special is it doesn’t have an orientation. It has speakers all the way around the perimeter. By getting rid of the Home Button and developing Face ID, the tablet is able to work in all of these different orientations.
This extends to the design of the new Apple Pencil.
When looking at the bigger picture, Ive says he looks at his job as a designer as very forward thinking, and rarely reactionary.
The interview also touches on Apple’s success in using 100% recycled aluminum in some of its new products like the Retina MacBook Air.
I could count the occasions that I’ve done that in the last 25 years on the fingers of one hand. It’s extremely rare that what we do is a response to somebody articulating a problem. By definition, you didn’t know it was a problem until you were aware of a better way of doing it. The tremendous challenge here is that when you have been solving a problem a certain way for a long time, so many things convince you that, of course, that’s the best way of doing it, not least habit.
The full interview is a great read, check it out here.
