Apple’s removal of the pricey Designed by Apple in California book from its online store marks the end of an era.
Apple released the book, which retailed in two sizes for $199 and $299, in November 2016. The retrospective paid homage to the design work of Jony Ive since the late 1990s. Now that Ive is no longer at Apple, the company seemingly decided to draw a line under the book as well.
While the Apple store still contains a page dedicated to the book, 9to5Mac points out that the purchase link now leads to an error page.
The book has been harder to find in Apple stores for some time. The removal of this page suggests that Apple does not plan another print run anytime soon, though. If you’re keen to get your hands on a copy, eBay may be your best shot.
Designed by Apple in California
The giant, 300-page design book boasted 450 photos of Apple products, spanning 1998’s iMac G3 to 2015’s Apple Pencil. Typical for Apple, it was both expensive and luxurious. Designed by Apple in California was printed on custom-milled sheets of paper with gilded silver edges, using special low-ghost ink.
Responses at the time veered from dismissing it as a Jony Ive ego trip to thinking that it was actually a pretty neat tribute to Apple’s design work under Ive. Had we known at the time that the book marked the beginning of the end for Ive’s time at Apple, I think a lot of detractors would have taken the second tact.
Bye-bye, Jony Ive
Ive has now left his role at Apple and moved on to new things. He started a new design agency called LoveFrom, a name inspired by Steve Jobs. Designed by Apple in California is a tribute to everything Ive achieved at Apple.
Obviously, a book like this was also always going to have a limited shelf-life (pun intended). The last designs in the book are now almost four years old. That’s approximately the same length of time between Apple introducing the iMac G3 and the substantially different G4. It’s time to move on.
Now the question is whether the book will get an update at some point in the future. I guess a lot depends on what the post-Ive era holds!
