THE LEGACY THAT IVE WILL LEAVE APPLE
At a time like this, it’s easy to eulogize Ive’s many
achievements during his lengthy stint with
Apple. Clive Irving has done exactly that in an
article for The Daily Beast, enthusing: “More
than anyone of his generation, Ive provided that
fastidious industrial design can lift a consumer
product above all its competitors.” Ive had a
large hand in helping Apple to beat every other
public U.S. company to a trillion-dollar market
capitalization, Irving acknowledged.
But what is the single greatest legacy that Ive
has left to Apple? Irving calls the iPhone “his
most consequential single work”, explaining
that Ive was responsible for the world-changing
“eureka moment” of figuring out “how to make
a smartphone much smarter by directing all its
functions through a touch screen and icons.”
9to5Mac’s Zac Hall, meanwhile, has hailed
the Apple Watch’s “impact on health that could
outlive any object shaped by Ive”.
One thing that Ive might not bequeath to
his soon-to-be-former company, however,
is a potential Steve Jobs-style successor
to Tim Cook. Various recent reports have
drawn attention to the not-always-flattering
differences between current Apple CEO
Cook and the previous incumbent of that
position. CNET’s Ian Sherr has joined Irving
in declaring Ive’s exit the end of Apple’s “Steve
Jobs era”.
Given Ive’s many obvious talents, it’s
understandable that, writing for the New
York Post, Jonathan Trugman has deemed
Ive’s looming departure “as big a loss as could
be for the company.” However, even he has