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.
Jonathan IveWeโre surrounded by anonymous, poorly made objects. Itโs tempting to think itโs because the people who use them donโt care - just like the people who make them. But what weโve shown is that people do care. Itโs not just about aesthetics. They care about things that are thoughtfully conceived and well made. 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.
Jonathan IveOur goal is to try to bring a calm and simplicity to what are incredibly complex problems so that you're not aware really of the solution.
Jonathan IveSo much of what we try to do is get to a point where the solution seems inevitable: you know, you think "of course it's that way, why would it be any other way?" It looks so obvious, but that sense of inevitability in the solution is really hard to achieve.
Jonathan IveApple 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 Jobsโ] preoccupation. His observation was that the products werenโt 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.
Jonathan Ive