14 DAY TRIAL // Apple celebrates the 10th anniversary of the iPhone this year with a very special model called iPhone X, which represents a dramatic overhaul as compared to the existing and previous generations.
But when it comes to the original iPhone and how it came to be, Jony Ive, Apple's chief design officer, says the motivation came from a different place: the state of the mobile market in 2007.
Ive explained in an interview at The New Yorker TechFest conference Friday in Manhattan that most people at Apple were disgusted with their phones at that time, so the best way to deal with this was creating a phone that addressed all their complaints.
“When we worked on the iPhone, certainly a significant part of our motivation was the loathing we had for the phones that we were using,” Ive explained.
“Lack of ambition in smartphones”
When asked what was the main problem with smartphones in 2007, Ive highlighted several issues, but emphasized that the lack of ambition was the worse of them all.
“Because they felt horrible in the hand, they didn't work, they looked like crap? What was it? I think all of that. They were poorly made ... to me they testified to convenience and a lack of ambition. I just find it hard not to take affront to that. I think we're important and we deserve at least a sincere effort,” he continued.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that Apple got everything right, Ive reckoned, but he explained that it wasn’t the said lack of ambition the one that eventually had the company making a wrong decision for a specific project.
“We've made, I think, numerous mistakes,” Ive said. “But I am confident that the mistakes weren't all from laziness or some self satisfying belief that it inevitably can be successful. I think we are a bunch of very anxious, worrying individuals who generally assume it's not going to work.”
Jony Ive is the man who designed several highly successful Apple products, including the iPhone, the iPad, and the iPod, having worked together with co-founder Steve Jobs on transforming the company into the highest valued brand in the entire world.