Jony Ive on the Apple Watch and Big Tech's responsibilities

Jony Ive on the Apple Watch and
Big Techʼs responsibilities
Appleʼs chief design officer on Steve Jobs, the
$5bn new campus — and why the unforeseen
consequences of tech keep him awake
yesterday
It is one of those October days that thinks it is still early September, so
I choose an outside table at Londonʼs River Café with a view of
Hammersmith Bridge. As Sir Jony Ive is a little late for lunch, I do the
next-best thing to talking to Appleʼs chief design officer and pull out
his most famous creation to watch a recording of last monthʼs “Apple
Special Event” at the tech giantʼs new Norman Foster-designed
campus in Cupertino.
It is a film of two parts. The first is a dramatised Mission: Impossible-
type sequence showing a young woman dashing to the Steve Jobs
Theater with a metal briefcase — a bit of high-production-value fun
that allows us to take in the swish yet democratic 21st-century
grandeur of the HQ of the worldʼs most valuable company. Things
have come a long way since the early 1990s, when Ive joined the then
struggling computer maker before the second coming of Jobs. I scrub
through part two, an orgy of Californian self-congratulation that
features a series of chronically upbeat senior Apple employees,
dressed in varying shades of anthracite and olive and explaining,
among other things, how the new model Apple Watch can now sense
https://www.ft.com/content/20aad4d4-d2ba-11e8-a9f2-7574db66bcd5?desktop=true 10/20/18, 10C11 AM
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irregular heart rhythm, and call an ambulance if it detects that youʼve
fallen down and not got up.
It sets me wondering what Apple consumers would make of the
designerʼs wardrobe as he makes his way along the outside tables at
an amiable amble. The 51-year-old is wearing a suit tailored by
Caraceni of Milan in a lightweight pied-de-poule, a white linen shirt
and his signature Clarks Wallabees. He over-apologises for being 10
minutes late. He spots the architect Lord Rogers at the next table;
there is an outbreak of mildly abashed mutual effusiveness; then he
settles into his chair, picks up the menu and lets out a sigh of
satisfaction.
Ive was last in London in the summer, in his role as chancellor of the
Royal College of Art, to preside over a degree ceremony. But this visit
of around 50 hours is in a more private capacity. “Iʼm in town for the
wedding tomorrow,” he says — referring to the wedding of Princess
Eugenie, younger daughter of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.
“Then, opportunistically,” he adds, “thereʼs always a number of Apple
things for me to do.” He has to do one of those “Apple things” shortly
after 3pm. So we order immediately.
Having seen the pot-bellied pizza oven in the restaurant, I choose to
start with the pizzetta with figs, thyme and Gorgonzola and try and
persuade him to do the same, but he opts virtuously for the carpaccio
di branzino. We concur on a main course of scallops with chilli,
marjoram, pumpkin and cannellini beans. The manager takes our order
and the opportunity to thank Ive for his Apple watch, as well as to have
a quick tutorial on its cardiac capabilities. Similarly, I ask advice on how
to position my iPhone to record our conversation. (It does not matter
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— “the microphones are all the way around”.)
Ive first met the Duke of York “about 10 years ago”. The prince was, he
insists, “interested in the contribution that technology makes to
individuals and the implications for culture and society”. He gave Iveʼs
design team a tour of Buckingham Palace, which for those colleagues
who hadnʼt been to London before “was quite an extraordinary
introduction to the city”. Prince Andrew also hosted a dinner for
them . . . at the River Café. Ive is delivering a little paean to the
restaurant when, on cue, and in pink gingham, owner Ruth Rogers
appears at our table to say hello. She stays just long enough for Ive to
share the anecdote about how they first met in Barack Obamaʼs White
House. “Ruthie and I were both at a state dinner, but by ourselves, and
we were both pretending to be browsing a library. Iʼd always heard Paul
Smith talk with such high regard about Ruthie . . . We became firm
friends very fast.”
The River Café
Thames Wharf, Rainville Rd, Hammersmith, London W6
Natia mineral water £3.50
Pizzetta with figs, thyme and Gorgonzola £22
Carpaccio di branzino £23
Scallops x 2 £78
Chocolate nemesis £10
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Ice cream £15
Macchiato £3
Double espresso £3.50
Ferrarelle mineral water £3.50
Total (inc service and donation) £183.69
It says much for the influence of Appleʼs designer-in-chief that he is
now mixing with presidents and royalty. Yet had it not been for a
Staffordshire sanitary-ware company, the world might have had to get
along without the iPhone (as well as the iMac, PowerBook, MacBook,
Apple Watch, iPod and iPad). After studying design at what was then
Newcastle Polytechnic in the north-east of England, he co-founded a
design consultancy based in London. But he realised he had to make a
change when he found himself being lectured by the potteryʼs chief
executive on the risk that his washbasin posed to young children
should it fall. Unsurprisingly, he went just about as far from
Staffordshire as he could, and in 1992 started working for Apple in
California. He was already clearly a rising star when, in 1997, Steve
Jobs returned to run and rescue the company he had founded.
Jobs formed a close bond with Ive, calling him his creative partner.
They ate lunch together most days; Jobs was always in and out of the
design studio; they and their families took holidays together. Their
partnership set the course for technology in the 21st century. Apple is
now a company where designers rule. Ive has encouraged Appleʼs
recruiters to sit in their ranks so that they are infused with the “values
and philosophies” of the designers.
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Built at a reported cost of $5bn, Apple Park comprises a 2.8m sq ft
ring encircling 30 landscaped acres, plus the 1,000-seat Steve Jobs
Theater. But as an expression of corporate might, this is uniquely . . .
well, Ivean: when he has spoken about the building in the past, he has
been at pains to stress that the parkland is “not dominated by built
structure at all”. It is something of an architectural metaphor for the
man.
As I start slicing my pizzetta into little triangles, I detect an envying
glance at my plate — but Ive assures me that the sea bass carpaccio is
excellent. While we eat, I channel my inner Apple Kremlinologist and
ask if there was a reason why the design team was one of the last to
move into the new building. The revelation set Apple-watchers
feverishly speculating over whether it signified a security lapse. Ive
deftly deflects my probe.
“It wasnʼt late, it was always scheduled to be then. When youʼre
moving 9,000 people, you donʼt do it in one day. Weʼre one of the last
groups. Itʼs a loaded and significant event because it meant leaving a
studio that has decades of history, where we designed and built first
prototypes. This is the studio I went back to on the day that Steve
died. And itʼs the place where we figured out the iPhone and the iPod.”
But for all that, the move manifests a historic change at Apple — to a
different type of management. In the past, Ive has expressed
admiration for the “quiet consideration” of Tim Cook, who took over in
2011 after Jobs stepped down a few months before his death from
pancreatic cancer. While Ive constantly uses the first-person plural
and invokes the “team”, with his mentor and friend gone, much
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responsibility for the vision of the company now rests on Iveʼs
shoulders. Apple Park is a good example. For all his overt diffidence,
he has been deeply involved in the creation of the new HQ — “a quite
remarkable building”. The move there will lead to a radical
reorganisation of the design teams.
He lists all the different types of designers, from industrial to product
to graphic to sound to haptic designers and more. “But weʼve never
been in the same studio. If all we were doing was changing where we
sat, and apart from that there was an expectation that we would retain
the status quo, I would be enormously concerned, but it couldnʼt be
more different. Moving to Apple Park represents the coming together,
at last, of these different areas of creative expertise that are incredibly
diverse. Iʼm fairly confident that this has never happened before, to
have industrial designers next to font designers, next to prototypers,
next to haptic experts. The best haptic experts in the world are sat
next to a bunch of guys who have PhDs in material science.” He
believes that “to understand what the opportunities and the
possibilities are for the future requires this collaboration”.
So is the integration of designers part of the preparations for the
rollout of the Apple autonomous driving system, which seems to be a
fairly open secret in northern California? Cars are a passion of Iveʼs. He
and I first met at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where we are both
long-serving jury members in the competition dedicated to vintage
cars. He will happily enthuse about his drophead “Chinese Eye” Rolls-
Royce Silver Cloud and Aston Martin DB4. But, he makes clear in the
nicest possible way, Appleʼs possible contribution to the future of
transport is off-limits.
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“We explore so many different thoughts and so many different
technologies for products or services. Some companies use the fact
that they are exploring lots of different ideas as a PR tool — we donʼt.
If you are genuinely working on something, itʼs better to be working on
it and struggling with the associated issues and challenges, rather
than talking about it. Our capital, our equity, is our ideas and the
technologies that weʼre developing. Itʼs important that as long as
possible that remains ours, to try and postpone that point when they
will then be copied — which is what history suggests.”
We are distracted by the arrival of our scallops. “This is gorgeous,
isnʼt it,” he says, surveying his plate. With its seasonal colours, it is the
perfect complement to the vortex of leaves swirling in front of us as an
autumnal gust chills the air. Rather than let his scallops cool in the
breeze, he silences an incoming call on his Series 4 watch — a
product that was launched last month.
The Apple Watch is the latest in the bloodline of the totemic Apple
products, but sales were slow initially. Increasingly, the watch is being
positioned as a health device. In his September address, Cook spoke
of numerous messages from customers whose lives had been saved
by the product. It is a project dear to Ive, he has said, adding that the
Series 4 watch “will be a more marked tipping point in understanding
and adoption of the product”.
Sales are now such that Apple claims to be the number-one watch
brand — though I question whether a wrist-worn device of this type is
really a watch. His answer is surprising. “No, I think that this is a very
powerful computer, with a range of very sophisticated sensors, that is
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strapped to my wrist. Thatʼs neither very descriptive nor very helpful.”
He laughs. “You and I share the same perspective and we had this
same challenge with the product that we called the iPhone. Clearly the
capability of the iPhone extends way beyond the function of what we
would traditionally call a phone.”
A glass of white wine lands on our table; looking up to see who sent it,
Ive spots a smiling Ruth Rogers and hoists the glass in a toast. “If I
compare my watch to this glass: the effort necessary to make this
glass could be the product of one person, but the effort, expertise and
collaboration to make this watch is daunting. It is an achievement that
we are truly proud of: that you can work with an expert in sapphire
crystals and figure out a way to create a form which has never been
created before in sapphire crystal.”
His voice is infused with a sense of wonder at the capabilities at his
disposal. Yet he is also aware that this digital world that he has done
so much to create is seen by many people as a corrupter of youth, an
enslaver of the masses, an enemy of human interaction and all the rest
of it.
“I think we have been lulled into this sense that people will accept new
products and services very quickly, and I donʼt believe thatʼs true at
all,” he says. “Very often, so much of what a product ends up being
able to do isnʼt what you initially thought. If youʼre creating something
new, it is inevitable there will be consequences that were not foreseen
— some that will be great, and then there are those that arenʼt as
positive. There is a responsibility to try and predict as many of the
consequences as possible and I think you have a moral responsibility
to try to understand, try to mitigate those that you didnʼt predict.”
Page 8 of 10

“If you genuinely have a concern for humanity, you will be preoccupied
with trying to understand the implications, the consequences of
creating something that hasnʼt existed before. I think itʼs part of the
culture at Apple to believe that there is a responsibility that doesnʼt
end when you ship a product.” As he speaks, his face rearranges itself
into a troubled frown. “It keeps me awake.”
While we wait for technology to provide an Ive clone to guide us when
we buy a new phone, Apple has devised an app that tells us how much
of our lives is spent peering into the touch-sensitive glass. It is akin to
a foodmaker listing harmful ingredients. It is easier to see Iveʼs
character in the message from Appleʼs Photos app that sometimes
pops up announcing a “new memory”. At first, like many people, I was
annoyed — then I was charmed.
“We have such a high-quality camera with us all the time. But it
becomes irrelevant if you canʼt actually enjoy the photographs youʼve
taken. Even 30 years ago there was always a box somewhere
containing hundreds and hundreds of photographs. So this isnʼt a new
problem. What is a new problem is the sheer degree, the colossal
volume of memories that we have recorded, and as important as the
recording is the way of enjoying what youʼve recorded, and I think
thatʼs something thatʼs just an ongoing experiment, and itʼs an ongoing
creative project for us.”
But it is a different project that is claiming his time today. Coffee, bill
and Ruthie arrive in quick succession. He is off to discuss the new
Apple building rising from Battersea Power Station. As he stands to
leave, he talks of the new Apple store in Milan and his desire for it to
relate to the cityʼs culture.
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Are we, I ask, seeing the rise of Jony Ive the urban planner? Iʼm
wondering what an Ive-designed city would look like. He laughs,
insisting that he is happy just “to play a part”.
Nicholas Foulkes is a longstanding FT contributor
Follow @FTLifeArts on Twitter to find out about our latest stories first.
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