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.

Perhaps I'd like to design cars, but I don't think I'd be much good at it.

Simplicity is not the absence of clutter.

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

It's very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better.

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?

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