Apple’s Chief Design Officer, Sir Jony Ive, has stepped down from his role at the tech giant, marking the end of an era of design-thinking, and cutting-edge industrial design.
In his 20+ year career at Apple, he pioneered and lead the design of some of the world’s most influential and transformative products. Working directly alongside the late Steve Jobs, Ive had a slew of huge breakout successes, from the original iMac, to the best selling product of all time, the iPhone.
We were suckers for his smooth product introduction videos, describing the design thinking and industrial processes, in his flawless British accent.
Leaving Apple to pursue his own company, LoveFrom, Ive will continue to work with Apple on their design projects. Yet it’s impossible to deny that it’s the end of an era for the company that wanted us to Think Different.
The behemoth today is much more interested in selling you iCloud and Apple Music subscriptions, than continue to pioneer new consumer products, with industry leading design and attention to detail.
Below we take a look at several of the groundbreaking products that Jony Ive was responsible for the design of. We’ll be sad to see him leave the company, although his legacy is firmly intact, having pushed our collective tastes towards a more thoughtful, minimal, and well-crafted place. Thank you, Jony!
The original ‘jellybean’ iMac, which coincided with Steve Jobs return to the company.
The equally colorful iBook notebook.
The original iPod with scroll wheel and black and white screen. Remember this gem?
The “lampshade” iMac that introduced a flat-panel display.
The original iPhone, the product that would go on to make Apple the most valuable in the world, and sell hundreds of millions of copies.
The aluminum MacBook Pro, ushering in a new era of metal and glass design to Apple.
The original iPad, Steve Jobs’ last product introduction before his death, continued the clean minimal design.
iOS 7, the iPhone’s software platform, ushered in a new, flat design language, lead by Jony Ive, and showcasing his design flourishes.
The original Apple Watch, a classic design that would go on to become the most popular wearable in the world.
Apple Park, Jony Ive’s last ‘product’, their incredibly advanced and minimal headquarters in Cupertino, California.
The years since have filled in the story. Ive’s studio, LoveFrom, took Apple on as its first client, then the two parted ways in 2022. The studio went on to design for Ferrari, Airbnb and the coronation of King Charles III, and in 2025 OpenAI acquired Ive’s hardware startup, io, to build a new generation of devices with him, which makes the question of what comes after the iPhone his to answer once again. Apple, meanwhile, has kept the language he set, thinner, quieter and more unified, while slowly loosening some of his strictest rules, including the ports and keyboards he removed. For more on the buildings and objects that defined his era, see inside Apple Park, Steve Jobs describing the spaceship campus, and Chair Times, a documentary that treats industrial design with the same seriousness. Ive appears in our reference library of the makers who defined the craft.
1 Comment
Pingback: 让苹果看起来像苹果的他，自创公司上线官网也很「苹果」 – 技术点滴