“Steve and I spent months and months working on a part of a product that, often, nobody would ever see, nor realize was there,” Apple's Jony Ive opens up about design in a recent interview with Time - Photo by Gadjo C. Sevilla
By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
It's that time of year where the scarcity of Apple product news and announcements leaves a void that is soon filled with rumours, unbridled speculation on new products and services that haven't been announced.
With a news cycle running dry until around June, publishers seem to have timed the release of Apple-related books focusing not just on the company but on the personalities that shape its future.
Deliniating Genius
I recently started reading Leander Khaney's Jony Ive The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products, a meticulously researched look into the growth and development of one of our generation's greatest design geniuses. While the book draws information mostly from second and third-hand accounts, it does manage to give us a greater understanding of Jony Ive's relationship with design and with his involvement in all aspects of a product's creation.
The Jony Ive bio is engrossing not just because it focuses on Apple lore and traces the development of some of the company's most important and memorable innovations, it also speaks about Ive's unique skillset and gift for being laser focused on each detail of a product's design, while being able to see the big picture of what a product will mean for the world at large. So far, it has been an enjoyable and informative read, although since it is unofficial, it may not be completely accurate even if it is unabashedly admiring of the subject.
Ive, who is a very private person, rarely gives interviews, but on the heels of the Kahney biography, gave Time Magazine a feature profile, that delivers a rare insight into Apple and Ive's creative team. “Everyone I work with shares the same love of and respect for making,” Ive explained in the interview.
There are lots of great quotes in the Time piece, the one that stood out for me is this one. "We make and sell a very, very large number of (hopefully) beautiful, well-made things. Our success is a victory for purity, integrity — for giving a damn.”
Haunting
Haunted Empire: Apple after Steve Jobs, by former WSJ reporter Yukari Iwatani Kane, seems like a hatchet job on Apple's CEO Tim Cook.
The book's very title smacks of sensationalism and plays on the unfounded fears that an Apple under anyone but Steve Jobs is doomed to fail.
Early reviews of Kane's book are pointing out innacuracies, a penchant for conjecture and unfair bias against Apple.
Haunted Empire: Apple after Steve Jobs comes out today, while the book manages to shed light on some of the recent news stories affecting Apple such as entry into China, the patent case it won against Samsung and other events, reviewers seem to have found it lacking and somewhat disorganized.
There's definitely a hungry market for books about Apple, its executives and its inner workings, and Kane's synopsis is that her book is a result of over 200 interviews with Apple employees, 'past and present,' which should spark the curiosity of potential readers.
I'll have to read it to see how deep the focus goes.