Apple has been responsible for some of the most iconic and innovative consumer products the technology market has ever seen. As Apple continues to grow annually their competition is lagging behind.
According to Sir Jonathan Ive, designer on some of Apple’s successes as Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, their competitors have it all wrong.
“Most of our competitors are interested in doing something different, or want to appear new — I think those are completely the wrong goals,” he told The Evening Standard yesterday.
“A product has to be genuinely better. This requires real discipline, and that is what drives us — a sincere, genuine appetite to do something that is better,” he added.
He also said Apple’s goal is to simply make better products. “Our goals are very simple — to design and make better products. If we can not make something that is better, we will not do it.”
As for designing products for Apple, Ive says to get it right you need focus, immense focus.
“If something is going to be better, it is new, and if it is new you are confronting problems and challenges you do not have references for. To solve and address those requires remarkable focus. There is a sense of being inquisitive and optimistic, and you do not see those in combination very often.”
Apple’s users feel very strongly about the brand and Ive ascribes this to the fact that consumers can feel the care that went into designing and making the products.
“It sounds so obvious, but I remember being shocked to use a Mac and somehow have this sense I was having a keen awareness of the people and values of those who made it. I think that people’s emotional connection to our products is that they sense our care, and the amount of work that has gone into creating it.”
Charlie Fripp – Online editor
