Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products

by Leander Kahney

Overview

“An adulating biography of Apple’s left-brained wunderkind, whose work continues to revolutionize modern technology.” —Kirkus Reviews

In 1997, Steve Jobs discovered a scruffy British designer toiling away at Apple’s headquarters, surrounded by hundreds of sketches and prototypes. Jony Ive’s collaboration with Jobs would produce some of the world’s most iconic technology products, including the iMac, iPod, iPad, and iPhone. Ive’s work helped reverse Apple’s long decline, overturned entire industries, and created a huge global fan base. Yet little is known about the shy, soft-spoken whiz whom Jobs referred to as his “spiritual partner.”

Leander Kahney offers a detailed portrait of the English art school student with dyslexia who became the most acclaimed tech designer of his generation. Drawing on interviews with Ive’s former colleagues and Apple insiders, Kahney “takes us inside the creation of these memorable objects.” (The Wall Street Journal)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781591847069
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/28/2014
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	353,806
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Leander Kahney, the bestselling author of Inside Steve’s Brain and Cult of Mac, has covered Apple for more than a dozen years. He is the former news editor of Wired.com, and now the editor of CultofMac.com. He lives in San Francisco.

Table of Contents

Author's Note ix

Chapter 1 School Days 1

Chapter 2 A British Design Education 13

Chapter 3 Life in London 30

Chapter 4 Early Days at Apple 62

Chapter 5 Jobs Returns to Apple 101

Chapter 6 A String of Hits 138

Chapter 7 The Design Studio Behind the Iron Curtain 159

Chapter 8 Design of the iPod 172

Chapter 9 Manufacturing, Materials and Other Matters 187

Chapter 10 The iPhone 211

Chapter 11 The iPad 232

Chapter 12 Unibody Everywhere 240

Chapter 13 Apple's MVP 251

Acknowledgments 271

Secrecy and Sources 273

Notes 275

Index 295

Photo Credits 306

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“An adulating biography of Apple’s left-brained wunderkind, whose work continues to revolutionize modern technology.”
—Kirkus Reviews

Editorial Reviews

An adulating biography of Apple’s left-brained wunderkind, whose work continues to revolutionize modern technology.”

—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

12/02/2013
Supported by essential, insider research, Kahney (Inside Steve's Brain), who has covered Apple for over a dozen years and is now editor of CultofMac.com, puts the spotlight on Jony Ive, one of the most significant designer minds behind Apple's remarkable products. Ive grew up fascinated with taking things apart and, after a rebellious goth stage in the 1980s, showed excellent design skills at school. Following an apprenticeship at the prestigious Roberts Weaver Group, Ive teamed with another London designer, Martin Darbyshire to found Tangerine Design, and it was those cutting-edge designs that brought him to the attention of Apple's Bob Brenner. Apple tried to recruit Ive several times before they landed him in 1992, putting his maverick creativity to work on a wide of products such as iMac, iBook, Power Mac, and iPod. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple before his death, he said of Ive: " has more operational power than anyone else at Apple except me." It is the powerful message of unbridled creativity and a rebel spirit of Ive that Kahney captures so ably in this respectful tribute to the man. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Simon Vance gives dramatic momentum to what might otherwise be a dry life story. Author Kahney provides the 411 on Jony Ive, the visionary designer of Apple products, a modest man with an unerring ability to find the story behind each new design. "’Different’ and ‘new’ are relatively easy,” says Ive. "Doing something that's genuinely better is very hard." Vance's reading is classy and flawless, much like Ive's designs. Try listening to this audiobook on an iPhone or iPad, so you can examine Ive's handiwork up close. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2014 - AudioFile

Simon Vance gives dramatic momentum to what might otherwise be a dry life story. Author Kahney provides the 411 on Jony Ive, the visionary designer of Apple products, a modest man with an unerring ability to find the story behind each new design. "’Different’ and ‘new’ are relatively easy,” says Ive. "Doing something that's genuinely better is very hard." Vance's reading is classy and flawless, much like Ive's designs. Try listening to this audiobook on an iPhone or iPad, so you can examine Ive's handiwork up close. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2014 - AudioFile

2013-11-03
The life and creative influence of Apple's unassuming design savant. Former Wired.com news editor and Apple authority Kahney (Inside Steve's Brain, 2008) examines the company's senior vice president of industrial design, Jonathan "Jony" Paul Ive, a 46-year-old British expatriate and technological whiz. Born in a conservative London suburb and raised by an intuitive, innovative silversmith father and a psychotherapist mother, Ive's penchant for tinkering wasn't hampered by a dyslexia diagnosis in his teens (a dysfunction shared with Steve Jobs, the author notes). Emboldened by his father, Ive excelled in drawing and sophisticated technical design throughout college and, upon bonding with the Apple's Mac platform, worked through an escalating series of high-profile assignments and co-partnered his own firm. In 1991, he scored an Apple consultancy and induction into then–Chief of Industrial Design Bob Brunner's "dream team." Ive's induction into the computer hardware culture was seamless since he had already taken several exploratory jaunts to northern California, an area that attracted him for its embrace and cultivation of emerging tech talent. Through an impressive roster of interviews with a variety of authors, design experts, and former and current Apple employees, Kahney conveys the urgency and the demand for Ive's immense talent within the tech universe. In the endnotes, the author takes delicious delight in describing Apple's notoriously steely reputation for secrecy and remarks that while those same forthcoming interviewees are more than likely bound by Apple's stringent nondisclosure agreement, the book wouldn't have been possible without their risky participation. From his award-winning work with the Newton MessagePad to the iMac, iPad Mini and a seventh-generation operating system, Ive has become an indirect preceptor on how the world exchanges information. An adulating biography of Apple's left-brained wunderkind, whose work continues to revolutionize modern technology.

Kirkus Reviews