Sir Jony Ive admits he would stop designing for Apple if it ever runs out of things to invent
Sir Jonathan Ive has said that he would cease designing for Apple and go into business for himself, or for friends, if the tech giant ran out of ideas for things to invent.
Apple has been plagued with speculation since the death of its leader, Steve Jobs, with many analysts wondering if in pushing out so many revolutionary products within such a short space of time it has now simply ran out of ideas.
In one of his few in-depth interviews, the famed British designer told The Sunday Times writer John Arlidge that if Apple ever did stop pushing the envelope he would leave.
“Yes. I’d stop. I’d make things for myself, for my friends at home instead. The bar needs to be high,” he said.
However he added: “I don’t think that will happen. We are at the beginning of a remarkable time, when a remarkable number of products will be developed. When you think about technology and what it has enabled us to do so far, and what it will enable us to do in future, we’re not even close to any kind of limit. It’s still so, so new.”
The topic of design plagiarism was also broached, to which Ive bluntly said that he believes the reworking of his Apple designs to be nothing short of theft.
“What’s copied isn’t just a design, it’s thousands and thousands of hours of struggle. It’s only when you’ve achieved what you set out to do that you can say, ‘This was worth pursuing.’ It takes years of investment, years of pain.”
However, the D&AD award winner refused to be drawn on one particular design which has been rumoured for some time now. An Apple watch.
“Obviously, there are rumours about us working on... and, obviously, I’m not going to talk about that. It’s a game of chess, isn’t it?”