> One of the first devices Ive was
tasked with working on when he
joined Apple was the Newton
MessagePad. These days it’s
remembered as a dismal failure,
but it was very ahead of its time.
Limited by the technical constraints
of the era, Ive helped design a
forward-thinking device that just
wasn’t ready for prime time.Newton
MessagePad,
1993
>Apple has collaborated with the Project(RED)
charity for many years, but Ive teamed up with
Australian designer Mark Newson to create
this one-off Leica camera. It took a team of 50
engineers 270 days to build the only model.
The designers didn’t hold back, going through
561 prototypes until they were happy.
Luckily, the buyer was happy with the
Leica Red too, paying a princely $1.8m for
it at Jony and Mark’s (RED) auction.>Ive mistake 2Leica Red, 2013
>Three years after the
original iMac G3 changed
the world of computing
for ever, Apple decided to
shake things up again in
a somewhat strange way.
That revamp came
in the form of two new
colours for the iMac
G3: the blue-and-white
spotted Dalmatian and
the gaudy Flower Power.
While neither were
exactly masterpieces
of design, it’s the latter
that has aged the most
spectacularly today.
To be fair, the iMac
G3 was all about making
computers approachable
and playful, and was
deliberately made to
contrast the beige boxes
of Apple’s rivals. But we
can’t help but feel that
perhaps Ive and friends
got a little carried away
with the idea. While the
original iMac G3 colours
were fun and unusual, the
Flower Power and Blue
Dalmatian designs were
downright hideous.
In fact, back in 2007
PC World magazine said
the designs were two
of the ugliest products
in tech history. Harsh
words indeed.Flower Power
iMac G3, 2001>The 2013 ‘trash can’ Mac Pro
was Jony Ive unleashed: a truly
groundbreaking design that no one
had ever seen before. Everything
was designed to fit into a cylindrical
case, with a single fan at the bottom
exhausting hot air out of the top. It
encapsulated radical, sleek Apple
design. Unfortunately, that quest
for the perfect form factor meant
Mac Pro didn’t have the thermal
headroom for Apple to swap in
more powerful components.Mac Pro, 2013