The end of an era: Jony Ives indelible mark on Apple and tech

Jony Ive — aka Sir Jonathan Ive, who for the last two-plus decades has been the creative mind behind nearly all of Apples iconic hardware — is officially parting ways with the technology company to form his own design firm, LoveFrom. And even though Ives firm will continue to work with Apple from the outside, this is still the end of an era for Apple, with the help of Ives guidance, return from the brink and become one of the largest and most important companies on the planet.

Ive first started at Apple in 1992, as a member of the design division, where he primarily helped create the Apple Newton. Five years later, and Ive was ready to leave, but the then-returning Steve Jobs appointed him as Apples senior vice president of industrial design, starting a creative partnership that would put Apple back on the map.

As Ive tells it (in a story published in The New Yorker), the two began work on what would become the iMac the day that they met, kicking off a slew of products that would not only turn Apple into a corporate force to be reckoned with, but set the gold standard for design across the technology industry at large.

The iMacs success would soon be followed by another even greater one: the iPod, another Jobs / Ive collaboration that would cement Ives place as Apples de-facto right hand man. If Jobs was the visionary whose ideas would change the world of computing, Ive was the one who would dress them up and make them irresistible to consumers. At the height of the iPods popularity, Ives designs were so ubiquitous that even the white headphones that came with the device were instantly recognizable.

And of course, theres the many generations of the iPhone, Apples most important product and one that literally would change what we even thought about a phone to be. All of that design — the touchscreen, the home button, the form factor — came from Ive. And that influence would reverberate through the industry, to the point where many phones today still follow Apples lead in terms of design.

In 2012, Ive was placed in charge of all of Apples Human Interface projects to replace Scott Forstall, giving the designer the keys to the look and feel of all of Apples hardware and software. That role would culminate in the release of iOS 7 the following year, the biggest visual redesign to the iPhone and iPads software in the decade-plus theyve been around, and one that still exists today as the guiding aesthetic across all of Apples software.

Ives influence would ebb and flow over the years: in 2015, he was appointed as Apples chief design officer in a more hands-off role that would see him hand off day-to-day management duties for Apples hardware and software teams to new managers. Instead, Ive would “remain responsible for all of our design, focusing entirely on current design projects, new ideas and future initiatives.” Many at the time viewed the move as a precursor to Ive leaving the company entirely.

But in 2017, Ive took control of the design divisions again, but if this was a comeback, it was short lived, seeing as Ive is set to leave again for good at pending departure at the end of this year. All this goes to show that its hard to tell exactly what Ives exact role has been at Apple the past few years — outside of making his famous “white room” videos — or how long his transition away from the company has been in the works.

Ives designs would change over time: the bright plastics of the start of the iMac and iBook would shift towards uniform white designs and eventually Ives beloved “aluminium” that still dominates Apples lineup to this day. Its a career of spectacular highs, like the aforementioned iPhone, iPod, and iMac, as well as some bewildering lows, like the iPod Hi-Fi or the just plain awful