Apple’s most popular products owe much of their success to their design, and by extension, to their designer, Jony Ive. In a new interview with the London Evening Standard, Ive dished about his secret sauce — and where his competitors are falling short.
Ive is the aesthetic brain behind groundbreaking Apple products like the iPhone and the iPad. These products were new, yes, but Ive says that’s not what makes them important. Newness is necessary but insufficient. That, says Ive, is what distinguishes the design process at Apple from the rest:
Most of our competitors are interested in doing something different, or want to appear new — I think those are completely the wrong goals. A product has to be genuinely better. This requires real discipline, and that’s what drives us — a sincere, genuine appetite to do something that is better.
Every year we’re inundated by new products that are supposed to be exciting but end up disappointing. The reason Apple stays on top, according to Ive, is because the company strives to make every new product markedly better than the ones that came before. It’s hard to argue with that logic. And even harder to replicate it. [London Evening Standard]