Don't Blame Me
Amidst all the hoopla over the launch of Apple's new iPhone (which I'll write about soon) there have been some inspired quotes from Jonathan Ive, the British industrial designer behind almost everything Apple since the original candy-coloured iMacs.
On the complexity of electronic devices:
I think there's almost a belligerence—people are frustrated with their manufactured environment. We tend to assume the problem is with us, and not with the products we're trying to use.
– (Time Magazine)
It's painfully obvious that most electronics companies place design — in the all-encompassing sense of both function and form — far below other priorities such as profit and technological box-ticking.
Just last week we had a frustrating couple of days trying to get a DVD recorder to download a program guide (something worthy of a mere paragraph or two in the NASA-grade instruction manual).
Three days and as many tech-geeks down, and it's still not working.
If you're interested in design, it's worth tracking down some of his (very rarely granted) interviews to get some background on the way he and the Apple design team work. The following, on the design of his design team at Apple, is from November last year when he returned to the UK to receive an Honorary Doctorate:
A huge amount of what we try to do is simplification, solving very complex problems without making the complexity evident. In so many products you see the designer wagging his or her tail in your face. Our obsession is being very, very pure and inevitable, in some cases getting design out of the way.
– (International Herald Tribune)
Amen.
Posted on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 and filed under Life.
