Sam Oliver
Apple design chief Jony Ive provided a rare glimpse into Apple's product development process on Wednesday as part of an even-rarer interview, revealing that Apple's new smart watch was in the works for some three years before its unveiling in Cupertino.
"It's strange when you've been working on something for three years..." Ive told Vogue columnist Robert Sullivan when discussing the Apple Watch. The interview appears in the magazine's October issue.
If accurate, it would mean that the Cupertino company began development of the Apple Watch approximately one year before even the earliest rumors of the product began to circulate.
While CEO Tim Cook has previously said that work on the Apple Watch began after the death of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, it remained unclear exactly how long the device had been in progress. Jobs resigned as Apple's chief executive in August 2011, then died in October of that year.
Since Cook's ascension, his lieutenants — Â especially Ive — Â have increasingly found themselves in the spotlight as the company attempts to counter the widely-held belief that it would find survival difficult without Jobs. Ive has been even more visible during the launch of Apple Watch, which has seen Apple push into an entirely new industry — fashion.
Apple has ample industry expertise on board, in the form of Paul Deneve — Â the former Yves St Laurent CEO who now reports to Cook — Â and retail chief Angela Ahrendts, late of British label Burberry. But it seems that Ive, rather than Cook, Deneve, or Ahrendts, has been chosen to be the face of Apple in fashion.
Ive and fellow design superstar Marc Newson — Â formerly of Swiss watchmaker Ikepod, now part of Ive's team — Â personally introduced the Apple Watch to a number of fashion luminaries on Tuesday in Paris. Vogue editor Anna Wintour, Chanel creative chief Karl Lagerfeld, and supermodel Karlie Kloss were among those who scored rare face time with Ive and the chance to try on the Apple Watch at Parisian boutique Colette.
It remains to be seen whether this strategy will continue, but it appears — Â at least for the moment — that Ive is prepared to shed his famously behind-the-scenes persona and become Apple's standard bearer.
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
Malcolm Owen
174 Comments
Someone has to pick up the design mantle left by Steve. No better person than Ive.
Amazing designer. The Apple watch turns the geeky gadget watch into stylish jewelry.
Just one request... besides wanting the watch to have standalone GPS so I can use it accurately to track running and hiking without having to lug around a big phone...
Dear Apple, please stress test the hell out of the watch. Make sure it holds up to rough and tumble use (running, hiking, and malicious attention-seeking teenagers who will video themselves trying to pry open the watch in Apple Stores). Etc.
Three years to design a $350 iPhone accessory that sits on your wrist so that people don't have to go to all the trouble of taking their iPhone out of their pocket to look at it? I guess this is what passes for "innovation" in the post-Steve era.
grooming Ives to be the next CEO. amazing.
Brilliant marketing here. Going straight to the fashion world to build cool factor is the strategy that may win while other tech watches are floundering. What's brilliant is that unlike a phone - watches are a wearable that are not hip or cool - especially to tech heads or I dare say Andriods core market. In order to grow a market that isn't there --Apple seems to be going straight to the fashion market to attempt to make wearing a watch fashionable again.. Using this strategy is more likely to work unlike other watches out there as they (Google, Samsung) are just throwing those devices against the walls of technoites and praying that that strategy will make watches cool like smartphones... Wrong... Watches and phones are totally different animals.. Whomever at Apple thought to bring in top fashion industry execs into their management fold and go for a more trend leader market -- in terms of the watch --could pay off in spades and leave others in the dust.. Of course the watch will be sold in retailers other than Apple Stores and its traditional partners.. Also brilliant. This gives them product real estate in a shitload of retailers their competition couldn't dream of -- yet. Seems they are working overtime to really differentiate from the rest..