million, or the north testing building, which
cost another $31 million.
Although the Apple Campus was a breathtaking
example of architecture and design, the real
testament to Ive’s time at Apple was the iPhone
X. That product allowed Jony to achieve his
lifelong ambition at the company. For years,
Ive had bounded around the idea of making
an iPhone from a single piece of glass, a design
that was so basic yet so functional. The iPhone
X was Apple’s first phone to be made from a
third-of-an-inch-thick glass. Apple wasn’t the
first to launch an iPhone without a home button,
nor did it launch the first all-glass smartphone,
and it has yet to launch an edge-to-edge
display to rival the likes of Samsung’s, but
when Apple does something, it does it right.
Indeed, as it has shown with smartphones,
tablets, and smartwatches, Apple’s design
and user experience are always executed at a
higher level than competitors’ products - and
the iPhone X, and subsequent XS and XS Max,
embody everything Jony Ive is about.
And that’s without mentioning products he’s
played a role in of outside of Apple. The British
designer worked for London agency Tangerine
before he joined Apple, designing a toilet and
basin, which were mocked for being overly
modern and expensive, according to an
interview in Time Magazine. Jony was also
behind the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh,
called Tam, which launched for $7,499 in 1997.
He was also responsible for the ‘hockey puck’
mouse that came alongside the iMac G3 in 1998,
an old-diamond ring in collaboration with Marc
Newson, which sold for a quarter of a million,
and a one-off Leica Digital Rangefinder camera