Daily Archives

30 October 2012

The Ive mind

Apple has recently let go of the former head of iOS and OS X, ending an era – and support for a particular kind of design, one with a reliance on skeuomorphic elements.  Now that the top proponent of the opposing mindset within Apple – chief hardware designer, Jonathan Ive, is at the helm, what might we expect?

[…] the logical guess, given his interest in streamlined, relentlessly consistent design, is that skeuomorphism — the kind-of-campy mimicking of real-world details like plush leather and shiny wood surfaces — may become a thing of the past.

The bottom line: Ive has always been one of the most important people at Apple, but with this reshuffling, he gets the opportunity to become the most important person at Apple. That makes this the most important thing that’s happened at the company in the post-Jobs era.

It’s an important move, and one that is sure to herald in an age of Apple’s software taking on the sparse elegance of its striking hardware.  Count me in.

(Time)