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Apple's Ive on naming products: 'We're really quite careful with the words we use'

Apple design guru Jony Ive gave a bit of insight on how the iPhone maker sets to naming its products in a recent interview, claiming that the company's attention to detail goes down to the very words it chooses for its products.

Ive received an award from Children's BBC program Blue Peter last week, and in the process gave viewers a small tour of one of Apple's design and fabrication facilities. In an extra clip discovered by freelance journalist Tom Davenport, Ive discusses how Apple would hypothetically approach designing a lunchbox:

"If we’re thinking of lunchbox, we’d be really careful about not having the word 'box' already give you  bunch of ideas that could be quite narrow. You think of a box being a square, and like a cube. And so we’re quite careful with the words we use, because those can determine the path that you go down."

Ive, as Apple's Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, led design efforts for the MacBook Pro, iMac, MacBook Air, iPod, iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, and iPad mini.



98 Comments

philboogie 15 Years · 7669 comments

So much for doubling-down on security ¡ LOL at the box remark. Over here some use it to refer to a woman's, well, can't use the C word I presume.

rot'napple 17 Years · 1839 comments

Is that why the Mac "Cube" didn't do so well?!

gordio 18 Years · 66 comments

It's amazing how people stopped mocking the name "iPad". The first time the name was heard, everyone was making fun of it. Now it's a commonplace word.

rogifan 13 Years · 10667 comments

Not sure what his comments have to do with the naming of products.  Seems it's more about not having a name define the path you go down when designing a product.

dasanman69 15 Years · 12999 comments

[quote name="PhilBoogie" url="/t/156080/apples-ive-on-naming-products-were-really-quite-careful-with-the-words-we-use#post_2280969"]So much for doubling-down on security ¡ LOL at the box remark. Over here some use it to refer to a woman's, well, can't use the C word I presume.[/quote] And there's nothing square (all definitions) about it. Lol