Jony Ive was at the heart of Apple‘s design philosophy for generations until he left the company in 2019 to start his own venture. But his influence throughout his nearly 30-year tenure at the firm is undoubtedly still prevalent in the company’s products today.
“When something exceeds your ability to understand how it works, it sort of becomes magical.”
Wonder in simplicity
Ive has been responsible for some of the technology industry’s most iconic designs, with landmark devices including the iMac, iPod, and the iPhone.
He delivered his thoughts on the potential for technology to transcend the mundanity of the ordinary when promoting the first generation of the iPad in 2010.
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Describing the iPad, Ive sought to explain how Apple’s core philosophy when engineering this device — by all accounts a game-changing piece of kit — was to strip away any and all complexity and clunkiness.
When you achieve this, the thinking goes, users are left with technology that hides the engineering smartly and makes the device as accessible as possible. They then stop questioning how the technology works and instead focus on their experience using it.
Simplicity in modernity
Jony Ive’s new venture, LoveFrom, continued to work with Apple until 2022 before the relationship between the designer and the tech giant ended.
The company has since embarked on various projects, both in and outside the tech world, but the New York Times reported in 2024 that Ive’s company was collaborating with OpenAI on novel AI-native hardware. OpenAI later announced it would acquire Ive’s AI venture, IO, for $6.5 billion in May 2025 ahead of a push toward a wearables-centric future.
There’s scant information on what this hypothetical new AI-native device might look like or how it might work. Also unknown is how it might coexist with smartphones, which are increasingly being stuffed full of AI functionality. Whether a new device gains traction might hinge on how well it cuts through complexity — and with Ive at the helm of its design, it’s something consumers would certainly expect.
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