![]() This book is positively chockablock with insights regarding Apple's unique Industrial Design and Product Development process, making it a worthwhile read for people in the industry trying to get a better sense of how Apple keeps managing to churn out hit after hit. If you want to know more about Jony Ive this book will leave you disappointed. Perhaps the book would have been better titled Apple Design: Success and Failures or something similar. The result is littered with minor errors and no insights of any worth - even the style of writing doesn't compensate for the lack of new insights. Perhaps he want dot know more about Apple than Ive and that would always place sources on the defensive. Jony Ive has famously given interviews in the past about design and his beliefs so why Kahney had so much difficulty with primary research is puzzling. As a result, for anyone remotely interested in Apple, there is nothing new here. My biggest disappointment here is that this book does t deal much with Jony Ive and his personal philosophies but churns through Apple in general as a source of innovation and controversy. It was always the case even before the Infinite Loop complex was constructed that employees could not move freely from one building to another 0 that the holding of a badge did not grant a person access. ![]() ![]() The idea of Fortress Apple is dated and not a new phenomenon at all. I can tell you that Apple is more more secretive now than in 1990, that engineering teams are incredibly personally diverse in their thinking and interests and that they do indeed socialise outside of their immediate colleagues. I lived through many of the product and organisational issues that confronted Apple during the mid 90's through to Jobs' return and culminating in a personal meeting with Steve, Jon Rubenstein, Avi Tevannian and Phil Schiller on the 4th floor of Infinite Loop that led to my decision to leave the company. The rest is mostly requiting and restating information already in the public domain and drawing conclusions that are frankly wrong. This book admits its failure to open up many primary sources, except as far as the beginnings of Jony's career is concerned. ![]() I approached this book with an open mind - could Leander Kahney have persuaded the famously private Jony Ive to speak? The answer is a resounding 'no'. I have to declare my hand here as I have had a long association with Apple, from commercially programming the Apple IIe through 10 years working for the company, to the many friends I still have there. From his early interest in industrial design, fostered by his designer father, through his education at Newcastle Polytechnic and meteoric rise at Apple, we discover the principles and practices that he developed to become the designer of his generation.īased on interviews with Jony Ive’s former colleagues and Kahney’s own familiarity with the world of Apple, this book gives insight into how Jony Ive (now senior vice president of design) has redefined the ways in which we work, entertain, and communicate with one another. He shows us how Jony Ive went from an English art school student with dyslexia to the man whose immense insights have altered the pattern of our lives. Leander Kahney, the bestselling author of Inside Steve’s Brain, offers a detailed portrait of a creative genius. Jony Ive reveals the true story of Apple’s real innovator-in-chief. Yet despite his triumphs, little is known about the shy and soft-spoken whiz whom Jobs referred to as his “spiritual partner” at Apple. Along the way, Jony Ive has become the world’s leading technology innovator, won countless design awards, earned a place on the 2013 Time 100 list, and was even knighted for his “services to design and enterprise.” The designs have not only made Apple a hugely valuable company, they’ve overturned entire industries, built a loyal fan base, and created a globally powerful brand. Jony Ive’s collaboration with Jobs would produce some of the world’s most iconic technology products, including the iMac, iPod, iPad, and iPhone. It was then that Jobs realized he had found a talent who could reverse the company’s long decline. One night, Jobs discovered a scruffy British designer toiling away at Apple’s corporate headquarters, surrounded by hundreds of sketches and prototypes. In 1997, Steve Jobs returned to Apple as CEO with the unenviable task of turning around the company he had founded. Doing something that’s genuinely better is very hard.” -Jony Ive
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