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Apple Designer Honoured By British Crown 194

Posted by Zonk from the and-i-have-to-settle-for-the-spike-tv-vga dept.
metalcup writes "The vice-president for design at Apple, the man behind the iPod and iMac, has been inducted into the Order of the British Empire as a Commander (a CBE honour)." From the BBC story: "Mr Ive started working for Apple in 1992 but exerted a big influence on its products only in 1997 when Steve Jobs returned to the company he co-founded. Mr Ive's first design for Apple, the iMac, was hugely influential and has been followed by a series of other widely admired gadgets ... Since the launch of the iMac in 1998, Mr Ive has driven the design of almost every piece of Apple hardware. Landmarks include the original iMac, iBook, Power Mac, PowerBook, Mac Mini and iPod."
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Apple Designer Honoured By British Crown

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  • Replaces... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 31, 2005 @04:38AM (#14369493)
    Apple narrowly edges Elton John as the fruitiest entity to receive an honor from the Order of the British Empire.

  • Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 31, 2005 @04:38AM (#14369494)
    So the Queen is recognizing intelligent design?

    *doh* I can't believe I just said that!

  • Durability (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Marlor ( 643698 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @04:39AM (#14369498)
    Now, if only Jonathan Ive could design products that were as durable as they are beautiful. We have all heard about iPods scratching, but other Apple products are just as bad. The top of my Mac mini was scratched within hours of buying it, due to resting a keyboard on it. It really is amazingly scratch-prone. I have heard that iBooks suffer from the same problem (although not as severely).

    Jonathan Ive is known for being hands-on in selecting the materials which the Apple devices are made from, but the plastics used in Apple products seem amazingly scratch-prone.

    Add that to the hoops that must be jumped through in order to open entry-level Apple products, and you have products that look great out of the box, but are terrible after long-term use.

    • Re:Durability (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Even if you are right, durability is not the work of the designer, but of the engineers, who have to chose the right materials for the right usage. Obviously if a surface is scratching, it means the plastic coat is not of the correct type.

      • Re:Durability (Score:5, Insightful)

        by baryon351 ( 626717 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @06:04AM (#14369659)
        Even if you are right, durability is not the work of the designer, but of the engineers, who have to chose the right materials for the right usage

        That would be true for an average designer but an industrial designer is as much engineer as they are designer. They're hands on throughout the whole process, working with their team experienced in ergonomics, acoustics, heating, cooling and materials. Jonathan Ive would have as much responsibility for the scratchiness or non scratchiness of anything he'd designed as he does for its shape.
        • "That would be true for an average designer but an industrial designer is as much engineer as they are designer. "

          Strange there was never a Industrial White Band (doh - all of them are).

    • Re:Durability (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mita bojangles ( 897874 )
      Yes please, gadget makers: STOP BUILDING GLOSSY SURFACES!!! Yes, they look shiny and swank in your adverts, but the moment a human hand touches them they're gunked up with fingerprints and scratches. No matter how i clean my ipod or my treo 650, they look like ass 2 minutes after USING them. Matt surfaces people....
      • I use scotchbrite or steel wool on a fair amount of stuff to deal with this very problem. Oh, except on the screen of my new ipod. I haven't even taken the protective plastic off that just yet...
      • Matt surfaces people...
        Libelous nonsense! I've never surfaced anyone.

    • Re:Durability (Score:5, Interesting)

      by evoltap ( 863300 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @07:04AM (#14369757)
      From what you're saying, I gather that the issue of surface scratches out-ranks product atributes such as reliability, amiable UI, and the absence of general problems that seem to plague some personal computing systems.......

      Yeah, I guess I could be real upset that my ipod screen is scratched (believe me, it is)....but wait, it dosn't matter! It still works great and I can see the text fine and the battery is f*****g sugary sweet after 1 year+

      I guess what i'm sayin is those surface scratches have nothing to do with what computers are about. Apple has been a very positive force in the tech world, in my opinion.
      • Fair enough, and I agree with you that for computers, function > form. But the thread is about form, and the guy who designed it. From a design standpoint (and especially given the image Apple wishes to present of its hardware), such a scratch-prone product line is a Bad Thing, and I'm actually rather surprised that it hasn't hurt sales as much as it has (if it even has at all).

        FWIW, my eMac doesn't scratch at all, I always keep my iPod in a case so it has no noticeable scratches, and my PowerBook is i

        • Well, in the case of the Mac mini, you're not supposed to set shit on top of it it. Wireless reception and temperature control both rely on the top remaining uncovered, and also i've been told that the media drive can make some spooky grinding noises if it runs with stuff sitting on top of the mini.

          If a design mistake was made, it was in making the top of it flat and level, which makes it seem like a nice place to rest your beer glass if the mini is sitting on a desk or something.

          My mini has been standing
          • I own one. It rests in one of three places. My desk at home, my shirt pocket, and my desk at work. It is scratched. Trust me when I say that the complaint is not without merit. Cotton scratches these things.

    • Re:Durability (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pelorus ( 463100 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @08:10AM (#14369870)
      It's a fair point. Apple and other manufacturers should revert to making their products out of the polycarbonate compounds of the past like the iMac.

      Of course, I did meet one person who DROPPED their iMac and complained about how the cracked polycarbonate housing obviously wasn't very durable. I can't think of many 38 lb gadgets that would survive a fall like that, but this iMac did...

      Suffice to say, the Mac mini wasn't designed to be the "shelf upon which you place the detritus of your life". I have a scratch on the top of mine but that comes from a month of shoving it in the same bag as it's power supply and other bits and pieces.

    • Re:Durability (Score:5, Insightful)

      by droleary ( 47999 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @09:34AM (#14370042) Homepage

      We have all heard about iPods scratching, but other Apple products are just as bad.

      As bad as what? The only reason people bitch about their Apple pretty getting beat up is because it is pretty. Nobody gives a rat's ass about scratches they get on their crap Dell box or some junk MP3 players. It's not that other products are more durable, it's that nobody cares half as much for those other products as they seem to care about Apple stuff. People who moan about a scratched nano always sound like they'd be shocked by the very concept of keying a car or getting a ding from someone else's door. Certainly a $20,000 product should be more durable than that!

      • My black nano is scratched beyond belief, while my RAZR, which is both "pretty" and gets pretty much the exact same treatment (lots of riding around in my pocket and sliding around in my car) doesn't have a mark on it.

        iPods scratch easily.

    • What do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tentimestwenty ( 693290 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @11:10AM (#14370284)
      You were resting your keyboard on your Mini? Why? I don't understand. You don't mistreat beautiful things. Do you wash your new car with an old dirty rag? Would you prefer that the mini or ipod was made out the standard beige durable plastic? Hell, even if it was made of steel you'd still dent it and scrape it. Don't blame Apple because you're expecting a gorgeous under $500 consumer product to be impervious to wear.
      • You don't mistreat beautiful things.

        It is perfectly possible to make artfully-designed products that are also durable. Anyone who thinks otherwise should take a lesson from the music equipment industry.
        • Geeks should take a lesson from the music industry as well. Watch a serious musician when they're done with their instrument. The carefuly disassable it, clean it, polish it, and put it into a protective case. Compare this to the average geek who when they're done with their latest toy, thows it in a back pack or kicks it under the desk. If you don't want your high gloss product to be scratched, you have to take care of it like the musicians take care of their instruments.
      • You were resting your keyboard on your Mini? Why? I don't understand.

        It was playing up with my LCD monitor when using "expose" (causing green lines all over the screen), so I moved it to a different desk to try it with a different brand monitor. I plugged a USB keyboard into the back of the Mac mini, and since there was not enough room on the desk, I rested the keyboard on the Mac mini. I didn't think that this would cause noticeable scratches, but it did. I was absolutely amazed that the top surface was so

    • iBooks are not a problem.. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by YesIAmAScript ( 886271 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @11:21AM (#14370323)
      I've scratched iPods, I believe you about the iMac mini. But I've had 2 iBooks over 4 years, and I can tell you scratching is not a problem. iBooks are the most durable laptops I've ever had. They might scratch, I dunno. But due to the milky color, you can't tell. Unless you pull out a loupe, they look near to brand-new for years.

      This is in stark contrast to the Powerbooks, which dent quite easily.

      I do have to agree with the other posters, if Apple's stuff didn't look so cool, you wouldn't care about the scratches. My two PC towers next to me have various scars and labels on them, and I don't really notice because they weren't something great to look at even when I got them. And they're both Antec Sonata cases, which are considered quite good-looking as far as cases go.

      • Powerbooks are bombproof ... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by jstockdale ( 258118 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @05:59PM (#14371964) Homepage Journal
        This is in stark contrast to the Powerbooks, which dent quite easily

        As a current AlBook owner, I'll agree with you that Powerbooks will dent, and scratch up a bit. Sure they might get beat up, but they also take a hell of a beating before they fail. I've personally dropped my AlBook 4ft. off of a lab bench onto a *concrete* floor. I have a couple dents, and my CD/DVD bay is bent a degree or two off of level ... but everything works. No cracks on the motherboard, no problems with the LCD, NOTHING.

        That's fucking amazing. When I heard the *crash* behind me I expected to turn around to at least a broken LCD ... and yet my laptop had traded the lab bench for the floor and was happily turned on and functioning like nothing happened.

        I'll take a dented laptop that keeps working perfectly ... over many other manufactures (Dell/HP/Crapaq) plastic construction that breaks apart from that kind of height.

        -S ...
      • They might scratch, I dunno. But due to the milky color, you can't tell.
        That's exactly it. My two-year-old iBook looks perfect until you reflect light off it. Then you can see many, many fine scratches. I have a feeling that, if I cared, some of that polish stuff they sell would take care of it just fine, though.
    • That is pretty unfortunate. My understanding is that the plastic material is very impact resistant, but amlost minimally scratch resistant. I don't understand Apple's obsession with making good looking products if it is so hard to keep them looking good when actually used.

      I don't like Apple's obsession with hiding or eliminating ports, I think it's stupidly awkward to have to reach around to the back side of a monitor or computer and feel around for a port to make an impromptu plug-in such as a thumb driv
      • I think it's stupidly awkward to have to reach around to the back side of a monitor or computer and feel around for a port to make an impromptu plug-in such as a thumb drive.

        This would be why Apple has USB ports on their keyboards. Something I wish PC manufacturers would start doing.
        • If I recall, the USB ports on the keyboard only support USB 1.1, and are therefore unsuitable for plugging in an iPod or other high-speed device.

    • Re:Durability (Score:3, Interesting)

      by allgood2 ( 226994 )
      That's not really a durability issue; that aesthetics, and while I'm in to glossy, shiny things, practically every item I own--plastic, metal, even wood, that have semi to high gloss surfaces, require extra care to keep that aesthetic.

      My shiny black file cabinets, that look so pretty storing items I hate keeping track of, is scratch prone. My high gloss finish desk (which I built) requires annual touch-ups to keep it super shiny, for those times when my desk is actually clear. I polish my Powerbook G4 lapt

    • Quit whining (Score:5, Insightful)

      by snowwrestler ( 896305 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @12:56PM (#14370727)
      Every piece of plastic I've ever owned has gotten scratched. My Sony Walkman had scratches on it. My Sony Discman had scratches on it. My cell phone has scratches on it. My damn swiss army knife and my sunglasses have scratches on them. Heck my VCR and TV have scratches on their cases just from being moved a couple of times.

      Plastic scratches easily--get over it. I've had 4 laptops over the past 6 years and every one of them has developed scratches on the lid and bottom. But they were not noticed by most people because a) the plastic was matte not polished, and b) the plastic was grey or black.

      I now own an iBook and 2 iPods. They don't scratch any more or less easily than my Kyocera cell phone or my swiss army knife or my other laptops. But more people seem to notice the scratches, because more people want to look closely at my iBook and iPod than at my cell phone. Apple products are seen as objects of "high design" and so people look more closely and maybe have higher expectations.

      The whole idea of caring so deeply about a few scratches is kind of pathetic I think. If you want your possessions to be flawless things for you to admire, buy them and put them into a case. I want mine to do stuff, and I'll take precautions to protect their function but not their looks (I protect the screens but not the cases). I was brought up to view "babying" products as effete and pointless. Things should be useful first and if they're pretty that's a nice bonus...but keeping them flawlessly pristine is for collectors and people who don't do anything.

    • Re:Durability (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Kadin2048 ( 468275 ) <.ten.yxox. .ta. .nidak.todhsals.> on Saturday December 31, 2005 @01:07PM (#14370780) Homepage Journal
      Add that to the hoops that must be jumped through in order to open entry-level Apple products, and you have products that look great out of the box, but are terrible after long-term use.

      I strenuously disagree with this. I've owned quite a few Apple products, and while not perhaps their full product line, enough so that I'm familiar with how they package and pack things. I think that their packaging is some of the best designed, ever. The iPod packaging isn't anything as special, but it's still not bad.

      If anyone bought an original (CRT) iMac, then you remember the packaging that it came in: open box, lift out top foam, grab handle and remove computer, set on desk. Then pull out the mouse and keyboard, plug them in, and go. It was fairly brilliant; IIRC even Consumer Reports was impressed, and this was back when they were really Mac-haters.

      It's been a while since I've bought a new machine from Apple, but I can't imagine that they've gone much downhill. They always seemed to put a lot more effort into the design of their packaging and initial "presentation" of the device to the customer than any other manufacturer I'm familiar with. (Granted they'd better, given what they charge for their gear...)
      • I guess I could of phrased that better. When I mentioned "opening up" Apple products, I was referring to opening them to perform maintenance. Opening a Mac mini to upgrade the RAM requires a putty knife and some black magic. I got the guys at my local Apple shop to open mine, and they even struggled. Opening an iPod mini to replace the battery is virtually impossible.

        While the iPod could conceivably be considered a "disposable" consumer item to be thrown away when the battery dies, there is no excuse for th

  • Oh my! (Score:1)

    by c0l0 ( 826165 )
    I misread the title 3 times or so as "Apple Designer Honoured By British Clown" and was like "Are they sure this is actually meant as a serious award?"... and I'm not even drunk (yet)!

  • What About John Ball (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pjay_dml ( 710053 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @04:41AM (#14369506) Journal
    John Ball a math prof at Oxford, and Michael Pepper, professor of physics at Cambridge [bbc.co.uk], also will receive a knighthood. That's also news for geeks.

    There is no entry for John Ball on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], anyone who knows more about him, might want to fill this gap.

    Same for Michael Pepper, who is mentioned in the article on the Quantum Hall effect [wikipedia.org].
  • Bill Gates whas knighted too [bbc.co.uk]. Well, the honor in that's gone now...

    • Re:Well, so was Gates (Score:4, Informative)

      by RotateLeftByte ( 797477 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @06:34AM (#14369700)
      BG was awarded an Honarary Knighthood just like Bob Geldorf and many other FOREIGN citizens. These rank at the same level as Honarary doctorates etc awarded by Universities.

      Real Knighthoods are reserved for British & Commonwealth Citizens.

      They are very different.
      • The obvious point has to be made again. Royalty is a medieval artifact which in my opinion is evidence of lack of development. It's a Bad Thing (tm). I wish more people who are "honoured" or knighted by royalty would take a stance and say it as it is, as opposed to immediately deteriorating to someone grateful and humble and respectful, to people who are irrelevant except in bloodline, but think they are special. In fact they have done nothing for us but spend our money on bling-bling. Snub their PR and mar

        • Re:Well, so was Gates (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Bazzalisk ( 869812 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @07:38AM (#14369818) Homepage
          And so speaks someone who doesn't understand the British governmental system very well. The sepearation of Head of State from Head of Government is important, and the fact that the former is someone who by dint of the hereditariness of the office is utterly un-coruptable and un-swayable by public opinion is a very important element of the way our system works.

          Could it be done with someone other than the Windsors on the throne? hell yes. I'd be perfectly happy if the current head of state was Thomas Cromwell IV or somesuch - but someone needs to take that role for the system to work at all.

          • What you are saying makes no sense. The monarch doesn't talk about politics, and doesn't take any decisions. So why does it matter if she's "un-corruptable" etc.? For your information, the honours list for instance is compiled by civil servants, ok'd by the prime ministers office and THEN presented to the queen. It is "hers" in name only.

            It's the same for all of her "powers" - they are in name only.

            Are you saying an elected representative can't manage to be a figurehead with no powers?

            • Well the Queen's representative in Australia (Governor General? Viceroy? Not sure of his title) once stopped the labour government from voting itself an extended term in office. Would a Labour president have done the same thing?

              That said monarchy is an anachronism, the problem is the alternative is something like the US model but look at the Head of State the voted himself into office! I'd take a our Queen over that corrupt dick any day.

              • Precisely.

                The Queen does have powers - powers she almost never uses (I think that's the only instance of teh royal veto being used during her reign, but I'm not sure). The fact that they aren't used makes them more important - since the threat of them hangs there.

                • Although it would be right to think of it as effectively a veto it's actually termed royal assent. The last monarch to refuse assent was Queen Anne in 1707. One of the most recent examples of UK law being directly affected by a monarch was in Victoria's reign when all mention of female/female relationships were struck from a bill outlawing homosexuality because she simply refused to exist such a thing as a lesbian existed.
        • In fact they have done nothing for us but spend our money on bling-bling.
          Actually I believe the stimulus they give to tourism makes them effectively net contributors to the economy.

  • Times have changed. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Phariom ( 941580 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @04:51AM (#14369523)
    That's part of the magic behind Apple's product line. "Back in the day," computers were ugly, huge, clunky, off-white boxes that people generally kept out of sight of guests, perhaps in a spare room somewhere along with their model rockets and comic books--as per a good friend of mine at the time. And this was fine; computers were not mainstream in the individual citizens' world. As computers became more and more integrated in our lives, form became just as important as functionality.

    The average non-l33t users of today consider the computer to be just another piece of furniture or just another appliance in their homes--and in many cases, they are correct. Computers are no longer just toys; they are important tools.

    Apple's decision to make their products just as appealing outside as inside is a major part of why I am one of their many fans. When people see my Mac sitting on my desk they never ask me how fast it is, how big of a hard drive I have, or if I use high-speed or dial-up; they compliment me on a fine looking machine.
    • Same here. I have an iMac G5 sitting among various other computers, and nobody ever notices the others at all: they are invariably intrigued by the Mac's looks, screen, generally quiet operation, and how it has "a much nicer Windows" than the one that came with their own PCs.
    • "Back in the day," computers were ugly, huge, clunky, off-white boxes that people generally kept out of sight of guests...

      Now if your average citizen could afford an SGI workstation, that would've been different. Where's the knightnood — nay, the acknowledgement — for the person who designed the beautiful O2?

      • The o2 was NOT butifull. It was ugly.

        It was better looking them most of the computers of it's age, but that didn't change the fact that it looks like a stubby troll.

        and the O2 had very little influence and success. see where silico.. SGI.. no! silicon graphics are now.

        and there is that little thing about Ive being a brit.
    • Well put.

      I've often seen computeres as fairly utilitarian. But Macs still have stirred me in their design (inside and out). I guess it's a bit like vehicles; we could all be driving around in utilitarian army jeeps, which would serve the purpose. But the vast majority of car buyers prefer to have some style with their car purchase.

      Given the amount of time people are spending with their computers these days, both work and play (far more than most spend with their cars), having a pleasing style associated

    • Re:Times have changed. (Score:4, Funny)

      by Halfbaked Plan ( 769830 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @07:42AM (#14369824)
      When people see my Mac sitting on my desk they never ask me how fast it is, how big of a hard drive I have, or if I use high-speed or dial-up; they compliment me on a fine looking machine.

      Translation: "Their eyes glaze over, and they say 'ooooh, shiny!'"

    • Re:Times have changed. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by nathanh ( 1214 )

      That's part of the magic behind Apple's product line. "Back in the day," computers were ugly, huge, clunky, off-white boxes that people generally kept out of sight of guests, perhaps in a spare room somewhere along with their model rockets and comic books--as per a good friend of mine at the time. And this was fine; computers were not mainstream in the individual citizens' world. As computers became more and more integrated in our lives, form became just as important as functionality.

      Revisionist bulls

      • Though in my not so humble opinion they still can't hold a candle to that beautiful C64.

        (sigh. Just goes to show you, its all about tone on slashdot.)

        I read your post. I think you are projecting some of your personal preferences onto the memories of these old computers and end up with surprising results.

        For instance - and as we are talking subjectives here it can't go far - I simply cannot understand how you decide a C64 is 'better designed', aesthetically, than a Mac II? They use practically the sam

      • Revisionist bullshit. Computers were not all ugly off-white boxes "back in the day", and Apple has made some damn ugly hardware over the years.

        First, I am not an Apple fan and most especially I am not a Steve Jobs fan. Not only did I program for the original Mac back in the early eighties, I had the deep joy of administering some NeXT boxes in the nineties. They were always, at least from a software point of view, a triumph of surface gloss over good engineering. I've never spent my own money on an Appl

    • That's part of the magic behind Apple's product line. "Back in the day," computers were ugly, huge, clunky, off-white boxes that people generally kept out of sight of guests, perhaps in a spare room somewhere along with their model rockets and comic books

      That's a complete load of crap. Lian-li [lian-li.com] has been making uniquely-styled cases since 1997. Apple's first colorful computer, the iMac, didn't come out until 1998 [wikipedia.org]. SGI was making fancy boxes even earlier than that.

      Lian-li pioneered the brushed-aluminum
  • The British honoring the French, what has happened. The sky is falling, now if the british could honor Joan of Arc. Just a stupid joke. Happy New Year people, Johnathan Ive totally deserves it.

  • Honoring Knights (Score:5, Interesting)

    by oztiks ( 921504 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @04:58AM (#14369537)
    It still amazes me that the British Empire uses the technique of honoring bravery of their Knights and Lords in todays society to honor people who now run multimillion dallor industry and come up with ideas like the iPod.

    What does this mean to us? Nerds are as cool and as handsome as ye'old days knights in shinning armor ....

    • Re:Honoring Knights (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It still amazes me that the British Empire uses the technique of honoring bravery of their Knights and Lords

      It was never about bravery. It was about extraordinary service to the Empire. Of all the people who have been knighted throughout the ages, only a small percentage were ever soldiers of any variety.
    • Touch off-topic - he hasn't been knighted (yet - cf. TBL) and he's certainly not a peer.
    • Er, rtfa? They did not honour him because he invented the iPOD, they honoured him because he designed how it looks. And admitedly, it's iconic! And everybody knows the click-wheel based square that plays music. Personally, I think he deserved it.

      Happy new year everybody!

    • Re:Honoring Knights (Score:3, Informative)

      by drsquare ( 530038 )
      Don't get too excited, these things are decided by unaccountable, pen-pushing civil servants behind closed doors, and every flavour of the week pop star or sportsman gets one these days.

      • Re:Honoring Knights (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        In the last few years the honours process has been made a lot more transparent. Some people have said that this hasn't necessarily been a change for the better. Different, yes. Better, maybe not.

        In the years Before Blair, the vast majority of honours went to Establishment people and civil servants. Since the reforms, there has been an increasing number of honours given to entertainers, sports people and other flavours of the minute, and while there are undeniably more honours given to those people who w

  • 1705-2005 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 31, 2005 @05:06AM (#14369555)
    Exactly three hundred years after the man who got bonked in the head by an apple. [wikipedia.org]

  • The man is a genius (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://www.sharpened.net/images/reviews/Apple_iPod _3G.jpg [sharpened.net]

    A non-descript white rectangle with chamfered edges, representative of many of his designs. To repeat myself: pure genius. Where does he get his inspiration?!

  • Golden ratio.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by electrosoccertux ( 874415 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @05:40AM (#14369600)
    So HE is the clever guy designing all the sexy gadgets. I swear, between their computadora cases, laptops, and most definately the Ipod (Gen 4), Apple's got the best looking set of hardware. Why so sexy? I think its simply the golden ratio. Its why bodies look good. 1:1.6 is everywhere. The best looking body has 1:1.6 ratio in forarm to arm, waste to shoulders, thighs to calfs, calf and knee girth to ankle girth. Plus, for a side profile (on women) breast to waist width, and (on all, a side profile still) buttocks to thigh width.

    So it only makes sense to put this ratio in every product: it makes it inherently more attractive, just because. And thats what this guy did. Width to height, scroll wheel width to Ipod width, etc. Ingenious, really. Its also the reason why I expect the video Ipod and the Nano to not sell nearly as well as their previous incarnations (Gen 4 and Ipod Mini). The Nano and Ipod Video are lacking in the 1:1.6 ratio department.

    • Re:Golden ratio.... (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You mean the Golden Delicious ratio.
    • Why so sexy? I think its simply the golden ratio. Its why bodies look good. 1:1.6 is everywhere. The best looking body has 1:1.6 ratio in forarm to arm, waste to shoulders, thighs to calfs, calf and knee girth to ankle girth. Plus, for a side profile (on women) breast to waist width, and (on all, a side profile still) buttocks to thigh width.

      Nonsense. You can find pretty much any number you like all over people, and since beauty is so subjective you can claim anything is the perfect shape. The "golden recta

      • The "golden rectangle" looks too long if you try and use it for a painting or similar.

        That's not true. I own a painting that is (IIRC) 4x2.5ft (exactly 1.6:1). True, it's not quite the 1.618... that is the true ratio, but that's about a third of an inch shorter. At least at that size, it covers the wall it is hanging in quite well, and seems very proportional to the room.

        Basically, painting dimensions can look good at many ratios depending on the subject and where it will be displayed. We had our painti
        • Basically, painting dimensions can look good at many ratios depending on the subject and where it will be displayed.

          Absolutely. And the "golden ratio" is no better than any other.

          You can see my picture as the 8th picture listed on that site (orion.jpg), though the true colors are hard to capture.

          To me that proves my point. It looks great, but I'd prefer a shorter rectangle, closer to 1.4 or so.

    • The best looking body has 1:1.6 ratio in forarm to arm, waste to shoulders,
      If your waste is one third as big as your forearm, modern medicine considers you a healthy young man!

  • Jonathan Ive (Score:5, Informative)

    by BarryNorton ( 778694 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @05:44AM (#14369611)
    Since the summary doesn't even give the chap's full name, let alone any kind of non-technical biographical information, the following might be of interest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive [wikipedia.org]

    Jonathan Ive was apparently "born in London and studied art and design at Newcastle Polytechnic before setting up his own design house, Tangerine, where he designed everything from hair combs and ceramics, to power tools and televisions. Apple was one of his clients, and was so impressed with his work for them that in 1992 they offered him a job in their Cupertino headquarters to turn around their ailing design division."
  • From now on, it's Sir Mac Fanboy to you!!
  • I think the story is wrong in stating that Ive's first design for Apple was the iMac, because before that he designed the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh (TAM) in 1997 , the eMate 300 (1997) and the Newton back in 1993.
    • I was not aware that he designed the other Newton models besides the eMate 300 (which is a Newton). Are you sure that he designed the other ones? All of them? (OMP, 110, 120, 130, 2000, 2100?)

      One could argue that's only 3 designs sincethe 110, 120, and 130 are basically the same and the 2000 and 2100 are basically the same.

  • Typo (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 31, 2005 @08:57AM (#14369968)
    Unfortunately, there is a typo in the article. The correct spelling of the man's name is iVe.

  • Story error? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @11:01AM (#14370260)
    Mr Ive's first design for Apple, the iMac

    I thought Ives first design was the eMate? [everymac.com]

    Still a wicked design, IMHO.

    • Ive's first design at apple was the second generation newton. the 110, IIRC. I'm not sure if he designed the emate at all (though at arround the time that the emate was brought to market he became the head of the ID dept at apple).

  • What British empire was that? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Flying pig ( 925874 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @11:26AM (#14370342)
    Disclaimer: I'm English, and definitely NOT British. Brits are those horrible people you see reeling around drunk and throwing up in the street in foreign countries.

    After WW2, we very sensibly got rid of almost all the British Empire, except for a few bits of other people's countries (Gibraltar, Northern Ireland). I can't help wondering if the whole thing is some kind of convoluted official joke - sorry, you're not worth a "proper" honour, how would you like to be a Commander of a few dodgy tax havens and a place terrorised by gangsters?

    We already have proper honours - the OM for the arts, the Royal Society for scientists, the Royal Academy for artists (tricky ground there though) - and I really do not know why we cannot simply have properly designated recognition for charity workers,business people and designers. Of course, the work of trawling through all those OBEs, CBEs etc. and deciding what recognition they should now be given would need a whole commission of well paid ex civil servants, so you would think they at least would support such a scheme.

  • Jonathan Ive [wikipedia.org] is doing for computers what Raymond Loewy [wikipedia.org] did for transportation.

    His influence, like Loewy's, will be felt for a long time to come.

    -ch

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