If Apple made a turntable, would it cost $60,000? Almost certainly not, but that’s the lofty price tag on the new 50th anniversary Linn Sondek LP12-50, sketched out by former Apple chief designer Jony Ive and his firm LoveFrom.
It’s his first hardware design project since leaving Apple in 2019. And he did it for free.
When former Apple design honcho Jony Ive released his super-premium Apple design book in 2016, a lot of folks thought it was an overpriced ego trip. After all, Designed by Apple in California went for $299 for the large size and $199 for the small size.
And now? Well, now you’d be lucky to get the fancy coffee-table books for dollar amounts in the high hundreds and low thousands.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: The upcoming 15.5-inch MacBook Air might be the perfect laptop for many people. In fact, Erfon plans to buy one almost immediately. And he might get his chance in as little as six weeks! How can he contain his excitement?
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This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: The first reviews of the 2023 HomePod make Apple’s updated smart speaker sound pretty formidable. We can’t wait to hear for ourselves. (Unfortunately, if you didn’t already place your HomePod order, you’re probably looking at a substantial hang time.)
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Apple reportedly stopped looking for a replacement industrial design chief. This is surprising, as it’s a high-profile position once held by Jony Ive, who led the team that created the iconic look of the iPhone, iMac and more.
The corporate rearrangement increases the power of Jeff Williams — Apple’s chief operating officer and possibly Tim Cook’s eventual replacement as CEO.
Legendary Apple design chief Jony Ive, responsible for the look and feel of iconic products like iPhone, grabbed headlines Wednesday for a new creation — a big, red paper nose. That may sound odd, but it’s for a good cause.
Ive and his team came up with the nose to go along with Red Nose Day, March 17. That’s charity Comic Relief’s day of giving in the U.K. and around the world to help end poverty, particularly among children.
Three years after the influential Jony Ive vacated the role of hardware design chief at Apple, it’s opening up again, according to a report.
Vice President of Industrial Design Evans Hankey, who stepped into the top job in 2019, plans to step down. And Cupertino hasn’t said yet who will take over when she goes.
Something unexpected came out of Vox Media’s Code conference Wednesday — a birth announcement for The Steve Jobs Archive. The new repository celebrates the Apple co-founder’s life and strives to share his values. Various programs are planned.
In a panel discussion, Apple CEO Tim Cook, former design honcho Jon Ivy and Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, discussed the man’s legacy and introduced the archive.
Designer and Apple maven Basic Apple Guy offered a delightful surprise Friday with his new “Apple Stage” wallpaper for Mac, iPad and iPhone.
The stunning rainbow wallpaper sports a design inspired by the real-life, six-color stage structure created by Cupertino design legend Jony Ive at Apple Park.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Everyone’s raving about the new M2-powered MacBook Air — and so are we. Although Erfon just bought a different Apple laptop (and offers up a pro tip for anybody thinking of getting the hot new MBA).
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Now that Jony Ive and Apple have finally severed ties completely, it’s time for Cupertino’s current Industrial Design team to get the recognition it deserves.
Ive’s old Industrial Design team at Apple has been doing stellar work in his absence, but without getting the full credit. As long as Ive was still an Apple consultant, the credit was muddied: Was this Ive’s work or someone else’s?
Jony Ive’s 30-year partnership with Apple is over.
Ive and Apple have reportedly severed ties completely, ending a relationship that spanned more than three decades and resulted in some of Apple’s biggest products, including the iPhone, iMac, Apple Watch, spaceship campus, numerous retail stores and much more.
Editor’s note: We originally published this illustrated history of the iPod to celebrate the device’s 10th anniversary on Oct. 22, 2011 (and updated it a decade later). We republished it on May 10, 2022, when Apple finally pulled the plug on the iPod.
The iPod grew out of Steve Jobs’ digital hub strategy. Life was going digital. People were plugging all kinds of devices into their computers: digital cameras, camcorders, MP3 players.
The computer was the central device, the “digital hub,” that could be used to edit photos and movies or manage a large music library. Jobs tasked Apple’s programmers with making software for editing photos, movies and managing digital music. While they were doing this, they discovered that all the early MP3 players were horrible. Jobs asked his top hardware guy, Jon Rubinstein, to see if Apple could do better.
Former Apple design chief Jony Ive recently served as a guest editor for the UK’s Financial Times. In the magazine’s “How to Spend It” issue, he lists a dozen tools he finds indispensable for “making.”
More specifically, these are his top picks “for making, for marking, for measuring, and carrying with you every day.”
But don’t break your neck craning to see if he included any Apple items, or even computing products. He didn’t.
One of the many things that set an Apple Watch apart from traditional watches is the massive selection of inexpensive straps. Cupertino made installing Apple Watch bands so easy that you can change up your look on a dime — and for almost that little money.
While seemingly millions of options exist for a mere $10 or so, Apple makes some of the best bands in the business. They cost a little more than most, but they may be worth it.
And one band, in particular, stands as the “most ambitious” watch band Apple ever made, according to Evans Hankey, Apple’s VP of industrial design.
In 2016, Apple proudly unveiled a new MacBook Pro that rejected the HDMI port, the MagSafe charger and the SD card reader of the past. Fast forward to 2021, and the company just released new MacBook Pro models with an HDMI port, MagSafe and SD card reader.
Why the reversal? Apple’s head of design Jony Ive left in 2019 after decades with the company. His tendency to push form over function led Cupertino down the wrong path in many ways. And Apple is just now undoing mistakes Ive was responsible for. Like taking out ports that most buyers wanted.
A new video for the Google Pixel 5a pokes fun at the ones Jony Ive used to make gushing about the smallest details in designs of Apple products.
While an homage, the video also exhibits a cutting edge. It highlights the new Android smartphone’s headphone jack, a feature Ive removed from iPhones. Still, Apple fans shouldn’t miss this well-made parody:
Former Apple design boss Jony Ive has hired at least four of his former Cupertino colleagues to work at his LoveFrom design firm, according to The Information.
Since leaving Apple in 2019, Ive reportedly hired Chris Wilson, Patch Kessler, Jeff Tiller and Wan Si. All four worked with Ive in Apple’s design team. Wilson created GUI elements such as icons and menus. Kessler worked in product design and helped create the MacBook Force Touch trackpad. And Tiller is a communications specialist who worked for the Apple design team.
The latest hire is Wan, who designed on app icons, home screens and buttons.
Former Apple design chief Jony Ive emphasized the power of imagination and innovation in a virtual commencement address to graduating students from the California College of the Arts.
“Without imagination, without profoundly new thinking, and potent ideas, our practice has no purpose,” Ive said in a stylized video against a black background.
Steve Jobs didn’t turn off his phone often. But if he did, it probably meant that he was in Jony Ive’s Industrial Design department, where Jobs relaxed by scouring prototypes of future Apple products.
That’s according to Jobs’ former assistant, Naz Beheshti, in a new book titled Pause. Breathe. Choose: Become the CEO of Your Well-Being. While the book focuses mainly on Beheshti’s practice as a wellness coach, it includes a few memories of her time at Apple. Including how Apple staffers would go into meltdown when they couldn’t reach Jobs — and how they eventually figured out where this meant he was.
Today marks 45 years since a little outfit called the Apple Computer Company was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. Apple set out to build and sell personal computers. Since then, it’s risen from a hobbyist startup to a tech giant valued at more than $2 trillion.
In the last four and a half decades, Apple changed the tech world in all kinds of ways — some big, some small. Here, in no particular order, are 45 of the most notable ways Apple put a ding in the universe.
Something weird is brewing in Apple land. The company, which for years wasn’t big on embracing its past, has gone retro.
While the innovations — ranging from the first 5G iPhones to the exciting new Macs powered by Apple’s proprietary processors — keep coming, Cupertino is reportedly revisiting some of its past designs for its next generation of products.
And you know what? I like it.
Don’t expect too much from Apple’s first virtual reality headset. A new report warns that Cupertino’s first stab at a wearable VR system, which could come in 2022, will be expensive with a limited set of capabilities.
The device is believed to be designed primarily as a “niche precursor” to more ambitious AR/VR glasses that Apple plans to launch later.
Since leaving Apple in the middle of last year, Sir Jony Ive has launched a new design agency, LoveFrom, and taken on clients including Airbnb. Now he could be headed for the figurative driver’s seat at Ferrari — as the Italian luxury carmaker’s next CEO. Possibly.
According to a report from Reuters, Ive — by far the best-known designer in Apple history — is in the running to take over as Ferrari’s next CEO. Given Ive’s love of high-end cars, that has to be a job he would be tempted by!
This week on The CultCast: The reviews are in, so let’s talk about iPhone 12! Plus: The honest truth about iPhone 12’s 5G; the original HomePod gets powerful new features, and Jony Ive gets a brand-new job.
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