Jonathan Ive Quotes

We don't do focus groups - that is the job of the designer. It's unfair to ask people who don't have a sense of the opportunities of tomorrow from the context of today to design.

Titles or organizational structures, that’s not the lens through which we see our peers.

But one of the things that really irritates me in products is when I'm aware of designers wagging their tails in my face.

Apple was very close to bankruptcy and to irrelevance [but] you learn a lot about life through death, and I learnt a lot about vital corporations by experiencing a non-vital corporation. You would have thought that, when what stands between you and bankruptcy is some money, your focus would be on making some money, but that was not [Steve Jobs’] preoccupation. His observation was that the products weren’t good enough and his resolve was, we need to make better products. That stood in stark contrast to the previous attempts to turn the company around.

At the start of the process the idea is just a thought - very fragile and exclusive. When the first physical manifestation is created everything changes. It is no longer exclusive, now it involves a lot of people.

The memory of how we work will endure beyond the products of our work.

The most important thing is that you actually care, that you do something to the very best of your ability

I figured out some basic stuff: that form and colour defines your perception of the nature of an object, whether or not it is intended to.

To design something really new and innovative you have to reject reason.

There's no learning without trying lots of ideas and failing lots of times.

The goal of Apple is not to make money but to make really nice products, really great products.

Design is a word that's come to mean so much that it's also a word that has come to mean nothing.

We’re keenly aware that when we develop and make something and bring it to market that it really does speak to a set of values. And what preoccupies us is that sense of care, and what our products will not speak to is a schedule, what our products will not speak to is trying to respond to some corporate or competitive agenda. We’re very genuinely designing the best products that we can for people.

The computer industry is creatively bankrupt.

It's just easier to talk about product attributes that you can measure with a number. Focus on price, screen size, that's easy. But there's a more difficult path, and that's to make better products, ones where maybe you can't measure their value empirically.

Simplicity is not the absence of clutter.

If something is not good enough, stop doing it.

What we don't include is as important as what we do include.

Simplification is one of the most difficult things to do.

My father was a very good craftsman. He made furniture, he made silverware and he had an incredible gift in terms of how you can make something yourself.

I’m always focussed on the actual work, and I think that’s a much more succinct way to describe what you care about than any speech I could ever make.

What I love about the creative process, and this may sound naive, but it is this idea that one day there is no idea, and no solution, but the next day there is an idea. I find that incredibly exciting and conceptually actually remarkable.

We don't do focus groups - that is the job of the designer.

There's no other product that changes function like the computer.

The more I learnt about this cheeky - almost rebellious - company, the more it appealed to me, as it unapologetically pointed to an alternative in a complacent and creatively bankrupt industry. Apple stood for something and had reason for being that wasn't just about making money.

With the early prototypes, I held the phone to my ear and my ear [would] dial the number. You have to detect all sorts of ear-shapes and chin shapes, skin colour and hairdo... that was one of just many examples where we really thought, perhaps this isn’t going to work.

It became an exercise to reduce and reduce, but it makes it easier to build an easier for people to work with.

And I said couldn't we be more moderate? And he said why? And I said because I care about the team. And he said, 'No Jony, you're just really vain. You just want people to like you. I'm surprised at you, because I thought you really held the work up as the most important and not how you are perceived by people.' People misunderstand Steve because he was so focused.

We shouldn't be afraid to fail - if we are not failing we are not pushing. 80% of the stuff in the studio is not going to work. If something is not good enough, stop doing it.

Different and new is relatively easy. Doing something thats genuinely better is very hard.

Really great design is hard. Good is the enemy of great. Competent design is not too much of a stretch. But if you are trying to do something new, you have challenges on so many axes.

It feels like each time we are beginning at the beginning, in a really exciting way.

I think there is a profound and enduring beauty in simplicity; in clarity, in efficiency. True simplicity is derived from so much more than just the absence of clutter and ornamentation. It's about bringing order to complexity.

A beautiful product that doesn't work very well is ugly.

We are really pleased with our revenues but our goal isn't to make money. It sounds a little flippant, but it's the truth. Our goal and what makes us excited is to make great products. If we are successful people will like them and if we are operationally competent, we will make money.

I get an incredible thrill and satisfaction from seeing somebody with Apple’s tell-tale white earbuds. But I’m constantly haunted by thoughts of, is it good enough? Is there any way we could have made it better?

If you're not trying to do something better, then you're not focused on the customer and you'll miss the possibility of making your business great.

Apple's goal isn't to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products.

We shouldn't be afraid to fail- if we are not failing we are not pushing.

One thing most people don't know is that Steve Jobs is an exceptional designer.

As a kid, I remember taking apart whatever I could get my hands on.

The absence of clutter is just a clutter-free product. That's not simple.

The word design is everything and nothing. The design and the product itself are inseparable.

As consumers we are incredibly discerning, we sense where has been great care in the design, and when there is cynicism and greed.

If you are truly innovating, you don't have a prototype you can refer to.

We make and sell a very, very large number of (hopefully) beautiful, well-made things. Our success is a victory for purity, integrity - for giving a damn.

The design process is about designing and prototyping and making. When you separate those, I think the final result suffers.

I left London in 1992, but I'm there 3-4 times a year, and love visiting.