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The Shiny Surface of Jonathan Ive

My ‘longreads’ to-read list is as bad, if not worse, than the pile of books I have to read right now, so it’s taken me until today to get to that very, very long New Yorker profile of Jonathan Ive, the senior vice-president of design at Apple.

Unfortunately, the whole thing is a bit disappointing and, I thought, even a little sad. By the end, Ive remains an enigma. What lingers is his famous friends, love of bland luxury brands, and just how remarkably wealthy he is (writer Ian Parker reminds you several times that Ive owns a private jet).

It seems Ive is either depressingly shallow or, more likely, these superficial things are all that he is willing to reveal about himself, which is depressing too in its own way. Ive is, no doubt, just politely protecting his privacy, but he comes across as peevish and sadly unlikeable, which is a shame. Or maybe I’m just not interested enough in industrial design and luxury brands, or Apple if it comes to that.

The article does, however, give me an excuse to post this blistering 15 minute video of NYU Stern marketing professor Scott Galloway talking a mile-a-minute about Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google. I’m sure he’s wrong about a lot of things, but not only does he talk about Apple’s transition from tech company to luxury brand, he also offers some of the most cogent insights into the current problems facing Amazon I’ve heard in a while:

 

Interestingly, Ian Parker says in his New Yorker article that watch manufacturers are not worried about Apple stepping into the market. Galloway says they should be. I guess we’ll see who is right.

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