There’s no understating the influence of Jony Ive – the man responsible for designing so many iconic Apple products – in changing the way that manufacturers approached consumer and business electronics.
“There is a beauty in simplicity, in clarity, in efficiency. True simplicity is derived from so much more than just the absence of clutter and ornamentation — it’s about bringing order to complexity.”
Modern design
Ive, Apple‘s former chief design officer, first publicized this way of thinking during the introduction to iOS 7 at WWDC 2013.
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The operating system was widely lauded at the time for revolutionizing the structure of the iPhone’s layout – ditching the skeuomorphic approach (where digital objects deliberately mimicked real-world counterparts).
Instead, the new iOS 7 introduced a sleeker and flatter design as well as crisp typography, alongside a visual parallax in which a 3D effect allowed the background to subtly shift and tilt behind app icons as you moved the device. This came alongside a host of functional additions including the Control Center and AirDrop.
Setting trends
At the core of Ive’s approach was to perform something of a magic trick: making technology – an inherently complex area – appear simple to the unsuspecting.
To exude simplicity, Ive believed, you first had to understand how to wield and package powerful and complex technology in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the user. Mastering chaos and complexity, in this way, is about being so on top of it that you can then disguise it.
Such was the success of Ive’s entire approach to design at Apple that a long list of manufacturers have long strived to mimic not just the hardware, but software layout too. This is despite Ive having moved on in 2022.
A recent example is the introduction of the Dynamic Island – an interactive pill that sits atop the iPhone screen. Phone makers like Xiaomi have integrated similar features into their latest devices with HyperOS. The introduction of Liquid Glass in 2025 is also something that Android-based developers are borrowing.
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