Today's iPhone has dug up an old video of Jony Ive from 1997. It's definitely a step back into the wayback machine. Just to make sure you know it's an old video, he has hair. Yet what's interesting, other than the hair no one really remembers him having, is even though this is a video from fifteen years ago, he's highlighting things on the Apple Macintosh that he still seems to feel is important in design.
This video was promoting the 20th anniversary Apple Macintosh. Ive is showing the computer with whirring machinery all over the place, assumably creating a computer. He's ultra-serious throughout, and you just want to jab the guy in the side and tell him, “Lighten up, Frances.”
Throughout Ive's seriousness, he talks about what Apple feels is most important in designing their computers. He talks about them taking up too much space on a desk. Think about what they created after 1997. A few years later they came up with the iMac. While bulky, everything was within one unit. Next they did the Pixar-styled iMac, and now they're making ultra-light and thin MacBooks, and have just introduced iPad Minis.
Ive also mentions the back of the 20th anniversary Apple Macintosh and how they feel it's just as important in design as the front. Look at the current products. All the computers have a very stylish back, or at least as stylish as possible given the required usage of it. The mobile devices all have clean backs with the logo.
Those ideals from 1997, in Apple's twentieth anniversary year, still hold true today, fifteen years later. Perhaps even more interesting than this is Ive's statement that, “Apple is prepared to innovate; maybe ask more questions than provide answers for.” We can definitely say now that Apple is nothing, if not innovative.
