Apple: Ergonomic Simplicity- the story behind the greatest idea in technological history

Jonathan Ive is a talisman to Apple, albeit a reclusive one who is generally unknown to the world and doesn't like personal questions in interviews. But despite all these 'shortcomings' on his part, he is still an essential part of the make-up of AAPL corp. In fact, once Ive, Jobs and Wozniak leave Apple (probably within the next 10 years) I would bet Apple will seriously struggle to maintain the market share it now has. But whereas the two Steve's make up the more public side of Apple, Ive is (and has been for the last ten years) the creative mind at work, behind the scenes. Who is behind some of the most revolutionary designs over the last decade? Ive- and yet if you mentioned him to Joe Bloggs you wouldn't get a whisper of recognition.

Since Ive rejoined Apple as Senior Vice President of Industrial Design back in 1997, Apple's standing in the technology market has distinctly shifted. Ive dreamt up the brilliant (if risky) iMac G3 in 1998, and from that point onwards a long list of commercially successful and world-renowned products have come out of Cupertino, all based on exactly the same principal as the iMac: simplicity sells. Since the original CRT screen iMac (I know you remember those screens which took up half the desk), every new incarnation has been smaller and more powerful, which if you think about it, isn't exactly the most complex idea. Yet, year on year, Apple's market share is growing, most evidently this quarter, where the combined influence of the iPhone, new iPod lines and the new iMac have all contributed to massively boosted sales, whereas other companies are lagging behind. All three of these product (lines) share strong design parallels- they're all sleek, solid, one part pieces of technology. There are no moving elements: what you see is what you get. As the old saying goes: anyone can use an Apple, and unlike most similar claims, this could be true.

To avoid waffling on about how much I love this company (a huge deal, just for the record) I'm going to cut straight to the point: Ive's idea of ergonomic simplicity has saved this company: on how many other computers do you find slot load disk drives and a magnetic power adapter? None, is the answer, and for this reason, Apple is king of the hill.

Written by Will on October 9th, 2007 with no comments.
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