Apple Senior Vice President of Design, Jonathan Ive has been made a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE), in recognition of his work at Apple and contributions to the industry.

He described the honour as “absolutely thrilling” and said he was “both humbled and sincerely grateful”.

Mr Ive added: “I am keenly aware that I benefit from a wonderful tradition in the UK of designing and making.

“I discovered at an early age that all I’ve ever wanted to do is design.”

Ive was previously made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2005. Known to have been one Steve Jobs‘s closest friends and co-workers, he’s been responsible for making manifest everything from the original iMac to the iPhone, MacBook Air, and iPad.

Source: BBC News

Cult of Mac has an interesting post up that shows some of the truly spectacular LiquidMetal injection moulding and manufacturing processes that will let Apple make stronger, better, faster unibodies, antennas, and pretty much everything else. Here are some choice quotes:

• Apple will soon start experimenting with a new prototype injection molding machine, says Drew Merkel, who is perhaps the most knowledgeable third-party expert on Liquidmetal Technologies. It may allow Apple to make advanced iPhone antennas and seamless gadget cases with holographic logos cast right into the metal.
• The part in the picture above is a good example of the machine’s capabilities. Made for the aerospace industry, if it had been manufactured traditionally, it would have undergone several rounds of cutting, milling, drilling, threading, deburring, routing and sandblasting, Merkel said. Instead, the part was cast in one operation and requires no further processing.
• The alloys, also known as bulk metallic glasses, are as strong as titanium but use only one-third of the material. It can be mixed with very small amounts of precious metals to make jewelry-like finishes, or optimized for functions such as an antenna. And while titanium scratches and magnesium corrodes, Liquidmetal is scratch and corrosion proof, and resistant to greasy marks. “You get fingerprints all over them and they just disappear,” Merkel says. “You could add gold or silver to get a beautiful look you’ve never seen before.”

Read the full article for more, but suffice it to say Apple SVP of design, Jony Ive, might just have some new toys to play with for iPhone 6 and iPad 3.

[Cult of Mac]

Core77 spoke with Apple Senior Vice-President of Design, Jonathan Ive, about iPhone 4′s including the Retina Display, custom stainless steel antenna array, aluminosilicate glass front and back, and even the microSIM tray.

“A big part of the experience of a physical object has to do with the materials. [At Apple] we experiment with and explore materials, processing them, learning about the inherent properties of the material–and the process of transforming it from raw material to finished product; for example, understanding exactly how the processes of machining it or grinding it affect it. That understanding, that preoccupation with the materials and processes, is [very] essential to the way we work.”

Jonathan Ive focuses extensively on the importance of real material in an increasingly virtual world and seems driven by just how far he can push the manufacturing process to achieve his goals. For design aficionados and anyone wanting some insight into the mind behind iPhone 4, check out the link below.

[Core77 via Daring Fireball]

Based on everything we’ve seen to date, debate about what Engadget showed glimpses of on Sunday and Gizmodo went hands-on with on Monday is over — it’s a next-generation Apple iPhone HD (iPhone 4G). It might not be final hardware, but with the public unveiling expected to be in WWDC this June and the shipping date soon thereafter, it’s close.

We’ll go over the purported specs in a post to follow, but right now we’re going to concentrate on the design. Some are complaining it doesn’t look Apple-like, doesn’t look like something that came out of the Star Trek-style labs of Apple SVP of design, Jonathan Ive. We thought so too at first, when all we had to go on were the pics of the initial post. We thought it looked like a Japanese knock-off. We were wrong. The pictures posted from the hands-on today were much clearer and they show lines that are much cleaner and a design much more in harmony with the other major releases Apple’s done recently — unibody MacBook Pro, 2009 iMac, 2010 iPad. Sure, they typically have subtle curves along one large surface — back of the iMac, rear of the iPad, and this iPhone HD looks flat as a pancake, but the language is unmistakable. Mostly.

Yeah, the breaks in the aluminum siding. Screws in the iPhone 3GS and iMac is one thing, but breaks in the aluminum? It’s possible that those were there to grant easy access to the guts of the prototype and will disappear when Steve Jobs pulls the final production model from his pocket at WWDC. Or it’s possible that those are there to grant access to the guts and are a compromise we’ll see up to and after release. (We choose to believe the former rather than the latter, of course).

Also, the volume buttons. Gone are the toggles found in the first three generations of iPhone, last two of iPod touch, and one and only iPad to date. In there place are something that looks like the battery level indicator button from a MacBook Pro [tip of the hat to @richardlai] as seen through double vision.

Gizmodo knows/guesses they’re there to serve as additional, contextual hardware buttons. Specifically, that when in camera mode (where volume is not needed) they’d serve as a hard shutter button for taking pictures or starting/stopping video recording.

A toggle could perform multiple functions as well, however, though perhaps less intuitively.

If we go through the checklist, however, we have the rounded rectangle with the hardened angles, the glass to the very edge, and the black and aluminum that has become this generation of Apple trademark.

That’s our take. Now it’s time for yours. WWDC is still well over a month away, when it comes to the iPhone HD/iPhone 4G design, what do you hope Apple keeps the same, and what do you really wish they’d change?

Time Magazine has given their April 12, 2010 cover to Steve Jobs, and features a massive interview of Apple’s CEO alongside design SVP Jonathan Ive, marketing SVP Phil Schiller, and internet (iTunes, MobileMe, App Store) SVP Eddy Cue by none other than Stephen Fry. (He also talks to publishers, educators, developers, and more).

Fry meeting with Steve Jobs:

His pleasure in showing me the Winnie the Pooh iBook bundled with every iPad is unaffected and engaging. He demonstrates how the case can be used as a lectern and as a stand. “I think the experience of using an iPad is going to be profound for many people,” he says. “I really do. Genuinely profound.” That rings a bell. “I’ve heard it said that this is the device for you,” I reply. “The one that will change everything.” “When people see how immersive the experience is,” Jobs says, “how directly you engage with it … the only word is magical.”

Jonathan Ive on the missing features:

“In many ways, it’s the things that are not there that we are most proud of,” he tells me. “For us, it is all about refining and refining until it seems like there’s nothing between the user and the content they are interacting with.”

And Fry’s final thoughts:

It is possible that the public will not fall on the iPad, as I did, like lions on an antelope. Perhaps they will find the apps and the iBooks too expensive. Maybe they will wait for more fully featured later models. But for me, my iPad is like a gun lobbyist’s rifle: the only way you will take it from me is to prise it from my cold, dead hands. One melancholy thought occurs as my fingers glide and flow over the surface of this astonishing object: Douglas Adams is not alive to see the closest thing to his Hitchhiker’s Guide that humankind has yet devised.

Read the full article, it’s well worth it, and let us know how you think Fry did with his thus-far unmatched time and access to Apple’s iPad brain trust.

[via Apple Insider, thanks pcdsim for the tip!]

Apple VP of Industrial Design, Jonathan Ive discusses the philosophy behind everything from the iPhone to the iMac for the documentary Objectified and, quite frankly, shows why he’s the best there is at what he does, and why what he does is oh, so nice.

Watch the video. Especially if you’re designing for Apple’s competition. Please.

[via Ryan Block]

While conducting a follow-up interview for the upcoming documentary, Objectified, the film makers were able to catch not only a rare glimpse inside Apple’s design guru Jony Ive’s studio, but managed to snap an almost unheard of picture of the man himself at work. (via Daring Fireball)

This is where the iPhone was designed and prototyped, people. We’re talking unicorns being born or Norse dwarves forging Uru hammers or something…

Jonathan Ive, me thinks you’re going to need a bigger mantle, what with all the awards Apple’s VP of Design keeps taking home!

This time it’s the IDEA (International Design Excellence Awards) handed out by BusinessWeek. In addition to the Gold prize for the original iPhone 2G, Apple also received Gold IDEA’s for the MacBook Air and Bluetooth Keyboard, and a Silver for the redesigned iMac. These four — the most of any company this year — brings Apple’s lifetime IDEA total to 13.

Congratulations!

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At the rate Apple’s Vice President of Design keeps winning awards for the iPhone, he’s going to need a bigger mantle! Last time it was the unprecedented (and continued!) domination of the uber-elite Black Pencil, now it’s the Mobile Data Association 2008 MDA Personal Achievement Award.

Said the judges of Ive’s iPhone design:

“It sets the bar very high for all present and future competitors and as such, is shaking the mobile phone industry. We look forward to seeing Ive’s design innovation continuing to challenge the mobile world.”

They’re right. For the last long while, when it comes to consumer electronic design, there’s been Apple’s Ive and pretty much nobody else.

Read

If Steve Jobs is the patron behind the concept of the iPhone, then Jonathan Ive is certainly the artist whose hand crafted its ultimate realization.

Apple’s reclusive Vice President of Design recently spoke with the Independant’s Claire Beale on the nature of design, winning an unprecedented six (6!) Black Pencil awards, and what drives Apple’s success:

“We have a very clear focus that all the development teams at Apple share, a focus around trying to make really great products. That can sound ridiculously simplistic, almost naive, but it’s very unique for the product to be what consumes you completely. And when I say the product I mean the product in its total sense, the hardware and the software, the complete experience that people will have. We push each other, we’re very self-critical and we’ll take the time to get the product right.”

Witness, of course, the iPhone.

Be sure to hit the read link for the complete article.

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The D&AD Black Pencil, an award so prestigious they would rather not give it away at all than give it to just any flashy objet-de-ans, is now joining what must be a mantle-straining load down at Apple Design VP Jonathan Ive’s house.

Steve Jobs, Ive, and their iPhone, which has already been cleaning up on the award circuit, secured the creative industry’s top prize, with a second award being given to the latest aluminum iMac as well.

This makes 6 total Black Pencils (and “innumerable”, if lesser, Yellow Pencils) for Apple and Ive, the most for any company since the D&AD began handing out the trophy instruments back in 1963.

Makes sense. Apple not only cares deeply about design, but understands how form is inextricably linked to function.

Congrats!

Read Via

Pop quiz, hotshot: You’re the acclaimed director of Finding Nemo and a Bug’s Life. Your latest project, Wall-E, requires a state-of-the-art-of-design robot straight from the 26th century. What do you do?

If you answered, call your boss Steven P. Jobs, who also happens to run a little, perennially design-award winning, consumer electronics company called Apple, and see if he can hook you up with uber-designer Jonathan Ive, than you, like Andrew Stanton, are correct.

Ive, the genius behind Apple’s industrial design team, oft-(poorly)-imitated industry trend-setter, and innovator of the twin-injection plastics technology seen in the iPod and the aluminum and glass innovations in the iMac and iPhone, was uniquely positioned to glance just that far into the future, whether or not he could declassify said glance:

Stanton said that it was a “lovefest” with Ive, but that the notoriously tight-lipped design wizard offered few specific modifications. “Apple is so proprietary and so secretive that he couldn’t even really allude to where the future of technology was going,” says Stanton. “The most he could do is nod his head to the things we said we wanted to do.” (Through a spokesman, Ive declined to comment.)

Is Eve just a cute CG character for this summer’s Pixar blockbuster, or a glimmer of iPhone (iDroid?) designs to come? Only Ive knows for sure, and he ain’t sharing.

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