Jony Ive on the iPhone and Apple's Design Process

Part Two of my full "Objectified" conversation with Apple's former head of design, in which we get deeper into Apple's process, discuss his concerns for the future, and his advice for design students.

Some designers work is so closely associated with a single brand that it’s impossible to imagine that company’s products without them. Jonathan Ive’s design work at Apple on products like the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, the Apple Watch, and countless desktop and laptop computers, has made him arguably the most influential designer of our time.

A lot has changed since 2008, when I sat down with Jony at Apple’s design lab in Cupertino and interviewed him for Objectified. He left Apple in 2019 and launched LoveFrom, alongside designer Marc Newson. LoveFrom, (the comma is part of the name) is a creative collective that has since consulted for Ferrari, Moncler, AirBnb, and Apple, and they recently announced the design of a bespoke typeface.

This interview was another instance where I spoke with someone for hours, but only a few minutes ended up in the film. I won’t be releasing the unedited video from my conversation with Jony, but here’s the full text transcript which I’ve split it into two parts. If you haven’t read Part One yet, you can read it here.

Gary:
Can we talk about the iPhone a little bit? We’ll probably have to use yours as an example. A lot of people in the film talk about interaction design, like, “What is good interaction design? Well, it’s good if it works, and if it doesn’t work, then it isn’t.” I’d like to get into those intangibles about what makes something feel natural to use.

Jony:
Right.

Gary:
And it also speaks to what we were saying before. Letting you do what you need to do with the object in the most direct way possible.

Jony:
Well, I think an object invariably defines an experience, even an object that you don’t touch. When you see something, you’re trying to figure out—of course, not consciously, but I think you’re trying to place that object. You’re trying to make sense of it. So even something you don’t touch defines an experience, and it’s engaging you and forcing you to try and come to terms with what it is. Those products that you touch, as the degree of interaction increases, the object and the user interface sort of combine to define your experience. And I think with the iPhone, from an industrial design point of view, I think we had a really clear sense of what the object needed to do and needed to be relative to that overall experience. Of course, you can’t disconnect the user interface from the physical object, but if you aren’t developing them in tandem and sympathetically, you can completely undermine things and end up with a product that just seems not clear. It seems confused.