A Bite Out of the Apple

I have been reading a long article about the chief designer of Apple Jonathon Ive, a great British genius, although in the way of all British genii he has taken American citizenship. I find such articles about the inner workings of corporations fascinating and compelling.

Apple is the most profitable corporation on the planet and has produced a series of must have products which appear to be design led. They appear to have overcome the death of Steve Jobs their charismatic CEO. The article was autobiographical tracing Ive’s early life in Chingford and Stafford and his early years at University and his first design ventures.

What was less clear was how he rose to the top at Apple, was he a good leader, and was he solely responsible for the IMac design. All this appeared to be a little bit problematic. There were some dark hints that he had a type of Machiavellian relationship with Steve Jobs, which seemed to exclude other colleagues.

So what we got was a slightly reverential article where all the deigns were an astounding success, and there were fawning comments from peers and peripheral celebrities like Stephen Fry and Bono. I felt I was reading one long PR puff piece. To my mind there must have been huge debate and lots of multi-disciplinary processes around bringing a product like the Ipad to market. I cannot imagine that all was sweetness and light throughout the process. Unfortunately in such articles you are only getting the perspective from the winners, the masters of the universe.

The other impression I received is that companies are a lot easier to run when money is not a constraint. For instance the deign team has three permanent recruitment advisors, and they hire on average one designer a year. Now no average company could afford this ratio.

So I read a long article but really had no insight into Apple or its design team. Probably it is like an Apple Shop, a lot of gloss but no real substance.