Jony Ive - page 13

This week on the CultCast—its layout, its machinery, and the creative people and processes that build the amazing products we love—we go behind the veil of Apple’s insanely secretive design studio. Plus, how to get great paid apps for free (it’s legal, promise!), and could an Apple/Microsoft merger be in our future? One analyst thinks so…

Have a few laughs whilst getting caught up on each week’s finest Apple stories! Download new and past episodes of The CultCast on iTunes or hit play below and let the audio enjoyment commence.

Thanks to lynda.com for sponsoring this episode. Learn at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at lynda.com.

Tony Fadell, father of the original iPod and creator of the Nest home thermostat, sparked all kinds of speculation earlier this week after appearing in photos posted to Twitter alongside Jony Ive’s (RED) Mac Pro and rose gold Earpods, which were recently sold at a Sotheby’s charity auction for just under $1.5 million.

It seemed as though Fadell has snapped up both items himself, but he has today confirmed that he is the owner of neither.

We’ve seen a bunch of “OS X meets iOS” concepts for the Mac over the last few years, most of which have been pretty meh, but this recent submission to us is the first one I wouldn’t mind using if OS X 11 absolutely has to take all of its design cues from iOS 7.

Created by Andrew Ambrosino, the OS X 11 concept is dripping in translucent blurs with flatness and minimalism spread all over. I really like the transparent menu bar with the expandable menu, though I’m not a fan of forcing OS X app icons to be rounded squares just like in iOS.

Take a look at what the Mail app could look like if given the iOS 7 treatment:

Ever wanted to take a tour of Apple’s secret Industrial Design studio in Cupertino? Now you can — a virtual one, anyway — just for writing a review of my new book about Jony Ive. It doesn’t even have to be a good review!

Located on the ground floor of Infinite Loop II behind frosted glass windows, the industrial design studio is where Ive and his team of design elves cook up Apple’s awesome products.

Few have been inside — even some of Apple’s own executives haven’t seen it. Rumor has it that the former head of iOS, Scott Forstall, wasn’t allowed inside, even when he was developing the iPhone’s operating system. Only one published photograph has ever been taken inside the studio. And no, Blue Peter and the Objectified documentary weren’t filmed there, contrary to popular opinion.

Now you can take a tour. I had a 3-D model of the studio created, based on detailed descriptions and diagrams by former designers who worked inside. I used it to create a video tour of the studio, showing the layout and explaining how everything works. I think the video turned out great, and here’s how you get a sneak peek.

It’s our T-Day edition CultCast! This time: Jony Ive’s golden touch makes millions for charity; Apple teases underwhelming Black Friday deals; how Apple’s blacklist keeps bad press at bay; the new money in old macs; and we pitch our favorite Thanksgiving Day foods on our holiday edition Faves ’N Raves!

Have a few laughs whilst getting caught up on each week’s finest Apple stories! Download new and past episodes of The CultCast on iTunes or hit play below and let the audio enjoyment commence.

Thanks to lynda.com for sponsoring this episode. Learn at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at lynda.com.

Apple’s Industrial Design studio is one of the most secretive corporate locations in the world, where even some of the company’s own high ranking execs can’t get in unless Jony Ive wants them to. So with the ID group barred tighter than a nuclear lockdown, how does one go about getting secrets about the design processes at Apple for a book?

Bloomberg TV’s Emily Chang sat down with Leander on her show this afternoon to talk about some of the secrets he discovered about Jony Ive and the design team at Apple for his new book. Not only did The Gov dive into how hard it is to cover Apple, but he also dished on rumors he’s heard about Ive butting heads with top execs who have left Apple – and not just The Felt King, aka Scott Forstall – as well as how Tim Cook has become the ultimate peace keeper at Apple in contrast to Jobs diabolical ways of pitting execs against each other.

You can hear all the secrets in the video below:

Now here’s one for the record books – a special one-of-a-kind Product (RED) Mac Pro, created jointly by Jony Ive and Marc Newson, sold at Sotheby’s on Saturday for $977,000! The upper six figure bid makes the (RED) Mac Pro the most expensive desktop computer ever built or sold.

While there are plenty of revelations about how Jony Ive’s aesthetic developed in Leander Kahney’s NYT bestselling biography, Apple fans got a unique glimpse into an informative childhood inspiration for Ive this past week thanks to a television appearance on the Charlie Rose show.

Ive and industrial design pal Marc Newson have been making the media rounds recently to promote a charity auction featuring special items customized by the pair.

However, one item in the auction was neither designed nor modified by the pair: a Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet signed by none other than George Lucas.

Affix your party hats, fine friends, and join us for a rip-roarin’ good time as we celebrate our 100th episode of The CultCast—recorded live! We’ll recall some of our favorite moments from episodes past, tell you how you to win a free signed copy of Leander Kahney’s new much-hyped Jony Ive book, plus, we talk the new iPad mini Retina; killer Black Friday iPad deals; and more rumors iPhone 6s with way bigger screens.

Have a few laughs and get caught up on each week’s best Apple stories. Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below adventure begin.

Thanks to Reflector for supporting this week’s episode. Looking for a great way to mirror your iPhone or iPad’s screen on any Mac or PC? You need Reflector.

We’ve dedicated this issue of the magazine to Sir Jony Ive, the Apple designer whose imagination brings us all the gadgets we love.

Inside, you’ll find an exclusive excerpt from publisher Leander Kahney’s brand-spanking-new book “Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products” along with the story of how Leander met Ive for the first time. (It turns out Jony is nice, especially to forgetful reporters.) The book excerpt takes you back to where it all began: in the UK where a young Jony started working with his father in the garage.

As we do every week, we also bring you the best in new apps, picks from what’s worth your while in books, music and movies in iTunes and our exclusive Apple genius column delves into getting hired and what to do if you happen to find love while getting your iPhone repaired.

Keep the feedback coming — we’re listening!

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple is blocking the donation of 30-year-old documents to a museum, claiming they contain valuable trade secrets.

“It’s silly,” said Hartmut Esslinger, the design guru recruited to help Apple become a leader in design in the early 1980s.

Speaking at a Jony Ive book launch party on Thursday night, Esslinger explained that Apple has prevented him from donating some historical old documents to a museum.

Esslinger’s design firm, Frog Design, was hired by Steve Jobs to bring world-class design to Apple. Esslinger’s “Snow White” design language, characterized by elegant off-white plastic cases, influenced the entire computer industry for more than a decade.

Hartmut Esslinger, Apple’s first celebrity designer, is coming to the Jony Ive book launch party on Thursday!

This is super exciting. Esslinger is giant of the design industry. He was hired by Steve Jobs in the mid-1980s to bring world-class design to Apple. Jobs wanted to make Apple “the Olivetti of Silicon Valley,” a world leader in design. He succeeded amazingly well. Esslinger was responsible for Snow White, a distinctive design language that dominated the entire computer industry for more than a decade, and other industries too.

A lot of fuss has been made about the iPhone’s lack of repairability ever since it debuted in 2007 without *gasp* a removeable battery. Six years of design updates later and the iPhone is still as hard to tinker with as ever, unless of course you work at Apple.

Yesterday, Cult of Mac revealed a few pictures of the new tools Apple created to make iPhone 5s and 5c repairs easier than ever for Geniuses.  Now our tipster is back with a bunch of GIFs of Apple’s fancy new toys in action, straight from Apple’s official iPhone 5s and 5c repair training videos.

Along with detailed animations of the new iPhone 5s and 5c components, the exclusive shots below show the exact methods Apple staff use to repair broken iPhone 5s, thanks to an array of tools created to make the process more efficient, including a new Universal Display Removal Fixture and an iPhone Battery Fixture Apple keeps hidden in the back of Apple Stores.

Want to know how fix your iPhone the Apple way? Study the GIFs below and you’ll be swapping out batteries like a Genius in no time:

Apple Design Genius, Jony Ive and famed designer Marc Newson have teamed up to create a one-of-a-kind collection of items to be auctioned off for Bono’s Project (RED). Not only have the pair collected a number of objects for the auction that are fantastic in their own right, but they’ve also teamed up to create some truly lustworthy products like the gorgeous Leica M, a super-minimalist aluminum desk and this $60k red Mac Pro.

The auction is set to take place on November 23rd and even though mere mortals like us can only dream of having enough cash to drop 70 large on a “Zvezda” Soviet Cosmonaut Suit – all in the good name of fighting AIDS and Tuberculosis of course – Sotheby’s has published a video of Jony and Marc discussing why they chose the items in their collection.

Short answer, via Jony: “The criteria that we both had was that we both just wanted to own each one really badly.”

Here’s the video:

Jony Ive. He’s the private man who some say is Apple’s own heart… and on our newest CultCast, our own Leander Kahney, with his new book Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products hitting stores Nov. 14th, reveals inside information about the design icon, and how he and his teams create the world-renowned products we all use every day. Plus, J.D. Power says, for the first time ever, Samsung tabs are better than iPads… we’ll debunk!

Have a few laughs and get caught up on each week’s best Apple stories. Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let baseline roll!

I had a jokey book trailer made to promote my new book about Jony Ive, Apple’s head designer. And Apple’s had it pulled off YouTube!

The video wasn’t even public. It was unlisted. I offered a sneak peek to readers who pre-ordered the book, which is being released next Thursday November 14.

The video pokes fun at Jony Ive, Apple and myself. But last night I got an email from Google saying that it had been disabled because of a copyright claim from Apple.

I had hoped that the video was protected by fair use. The rules of fair use are ambiguous, but in general, you are allowed to remix and re-use previous material, as long as the resulting work is “transformative.” If it adds “new expression or meaning” to the original, then it’s fair use. I think the book trailer did. It’s a classic remix of several previous Apple product videos. A parody. And parody is a form of expression generally protected from copyright claims.

I’m pleased to formally introduce my new book on Apple’s head designer, Sir Jonathan Ive — Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products.

Published by Penguin Portfolio on November 14, it’s the first full-length biography of the worlds’ most-celebrated designer.

I’m super psyched about it. It turned out great. I managed to talk to a bunch of inside sources, who reveal some of Apple’s most guarded secrets about how the company really works.

The term “planned obsolescence” has achieved negative connotations, but it originally referred to a long-standing tradition of changing designs to sell more products.

It was coined by the car industry in the 1930s to refer to annual model updates. Over the years, however, the term has taken on a darker meaning. But planned obsolescence is a good thing. It’s the driving force behind much innovation.

This morning, New York Times reporter Catherine Rampell accused Apple of breaking her old iPhone 4 with the iOS7 update, which made it unbearably slow. “It seemed like Apple was sending me a not-so-subtle message to upgrade,” she wrote in a piece entitled, Why Apple Wants to Bust Your iPhone.

According to Rampell, Apple is feeling the heat from Samsung, HTC and others, and is resorting to sabotaging older iPhones with a software update and force users to upgrade their hardware.

This is bullshit from every angle. The iOS7 upgrade isn’t obligatory, it’s voluntary, and pissing off customers isn’t a good way to keep them as customers. There’s no mention that Apple sold a record-smashing 33.8 million iPhones last quarter.

Truth is, Apple’s products are so far ahead of the curve, it’s a constant criticism leveled at the company: that it is a willing practitioner of planned obsolescence.

Over the past couple of months we’ve seen tons of concept designers dream up ideas of what Apple’s smartwatch might look like, but this concept iWatch GIF by Thomas Bogner is one of the best ideas we’ve seen yet.

Did Jony Ive design iOS 7 in Microsoft Word to win a bet at the bar? Almost certainly not, but he could have. Every single one of the new iOS 7 icons — including the more intricate ones like Game Center, Maps, and Stocks — can be recreated almost perfectly in Word.

Vaclav Krejci demonstrates the whole process in the video below.

Although his products now touch every aspect of our modern lives, we all tend to be agnostics when it comes to Jony Ive. Even as he appears on video during Apple’s developers’ conference to speak with soft-spoken intensity about the design of the latest iPhone or iPad, his personality seems inherently unknowable. Yet it is possible to know Jony Ive. He’s at least one person’s friend.

Granted, that friend, Marc Newson, is a design legend in his own right. For over 15 years, he and Ive have laughed together, talked about cars together (a mutual love), and vacationed together. During that time, they have shared countless conversations about the purity of form, material, and process that drives them both. About designs they like, and designs they don’t like.

So when you look at the (RED) Desk, which will be auctioned off on November 2nd by Sotheby’s to raise money for the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, it’s important to see something more than just a collaboration between two of the most influential designers on Earth. It is also the physical embodiment of a friendship.

Check out the full story below.

Source: Co.Design

When you spend thousands of dollars on a new Mac, you don’t want to take it home and put it on anything — you want the desk beneath to look just as good. So, wouldn’t it be awesome if the Mac’s designer, Jony Ive, designed the perfect desk to accompany it.

Well, he has — but you won’t be able to purchase it. Like the special edition Ive-designed Project (RED) Leica unveiled earlier this week, the solid aluminum (RED) Desk is a one-off created by Ive and industrial designer Marc Newson for a charity auction. And it’s likely to fetch a fortune.

A couple days ago we showed you a custom Leica camera designed by none other than Jony Ive. The camera will be auctioned to raise money for Bono’s Product (Red), a campaign Apple has partnered with for years to fight the spreading of H.I.V. in Africa (if you’ve ever bought a red iPod, you’ve helped contribute).

Ive and legendary designer Marc Newson have created their own designs of over 40 products for the auction, including a Steinway grand piano. The two men also designed a desk from scratch that looks like an extension of the iMac.

Ive and Newson recently sat down with Vanity Fair for an extensive interview about designing for the Product (Red) charity auction, and as you can imagine, it’s a great read.

Ever since Phil Schiller admitted that Apple considered making a standalone camera at one point, we’ve wondered what the results would look like if Sir Jony Ive’s obsessive attention to detail was applied to a full-framed camera. As part of Bono’s charity auction for Project (RED), Leica unveiled The Leica M for (RED) designed by Jony Ive and Marc Newson that will be auctioned off at Southeby’s on Nov. 23rd to fight AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.

Jony and Marc redesigned the Leica M by going through a total of 561 models and nearly 1000 prototype parts over 85 days to create the one of a kind camera that features a laser machined aluminum body, and an anodized aluminum outer shell to go with the full-format CMOS sensor inside.

Get a glimpse of all the impeccable details in the gallery below:

We’ve all had more than enough time to get used to iOS 7 now that it’s been out for a few weeks, but some people still hate Sir Jony’s parallax masterpiece. For those of you dreaming of a different interface on your iPhone, devoid of gradients and helvetica nue, there’s a new tool from UsvsTh3m that will let you create your own iOS 7 redesign masterpiece.

Visitors can tweak iOS 7’s icons, background, font, colors, and most importantly, those horrific shadows. Of course these changes aren’t really going to show up on your iPhone but you can have a bit of fun with friends and share your masterpiece with the world.

Think your version is better than Jony’s? Post your iOS 7 redesign in the comments below and we’ll add it to our gallery.

Source: USvsTh3m