Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: And how the tech are you. We are going to
Speaker 1: conclude our episodes about Johnny Ivan his time at Apple
Speaker 1: is Influence at Apple. And in case you have not
Speaker 1: heard the other episodes, three episodes of published before this one, UH,
Speaker 1: so you can go and listen to those before you
Speaker 1: get to that this one, because otherwise, I mean, you're
Speaker 1: you're gonna be This isn't in medias race. This is
Speaker 1: an indus race at this point, which is I know,
Speaker 1: not real. But let's let's pick up where we left
Speaker 1: off in the last episode. So I talked about how
Speaker 1: you know, Johnny Ivan, Steve Jobs had really done a lot,
Speaker 1: along with lots of other people at Apple to turn
Speaker 1: the company around, to really put it into the limelight
Speaker 1: for the mainstream, which Apple really had not been there
Speaker 1: since arguably the late seventies early eighties. Because the the
Speaker 1: IBM PC and the Compatibles and all the Windows PCs
Speaker 1: that followed those became the dominant machines uh in the market,
Speaker 1: both in business and in personal use. Apple had kind
Speaker 1: of carved out a niche in the education sector and
Speaker 1: had a devoted following among the Apple faithful, but outside
Speaker 1: of that they had not made much impact. Well. That
Speaker 1: all changed with the introduction of of devices like the
Speaker 1: iPod and the iPhone. Suddenly Apple was making a much
Speaker 1: bigger impact in the mainstream public. Well. Something that was
Speaker 1: going on around that same time was tragically the the
Speaker 1: declining health of Steve Jobs, one of the founders of
Speaker 1: the company. Um In two thousand nine he would go
Speaker 1: on medical leave. So he had been diagnosed with pancreatic
Speaker 1: cancer in two thousand three and had undergone surgery, but
Speaker 1: over time his health was undeniably getting worse. Uh. In fact,
Speaker 1: people were commenting on it all the time because he
Speaker 1: was a very public figure. He would appear at events
Speaker 1: like Macworld in order to announce new products, and whenever
Speaker 1: he was taking the stage, people would comment on his appearance.
Speaker 1: So in two thousand nine Steve Jobs went on medical leave.
Speaker 1: He had sat out the Macworld presentation that year. I
Speaker 1: believe Phil Schiller took his place. Phil Schiller head of
Speaker 1: marketing over at Apple at that point, and that was
Speaker 1: raising a lot of concern. There were a lot of rumors,
Speaker 1: a lot of people speculating that Steve Jobs would not
Speaker 1: long be in the role of CEO. At that point
Speaker 1: he would actually stay on for a couple more years,
Speaker 1: so go on medically really heightened concerns, and Jobs would
Speaker 1: secretly traveled to Tennessee and there he had a major operation,
Speaker 1: a liver transplant. The Wall Street Journal found out two
Speaker 1: months after the operation actually took place and published an
Speaker 1: article about it. You know, obviously Steve Jobs being a
Speaker 1: just despite the fact that he would publicly appear at
Speaker 1: these events, would be the sort of the face of Apple.
Speaker 1: He was a very private person, so this was a
Speaker 1: real issue. And plus there were questions then about well,
Speaker 1: you haven't disclosed this to shareholders at your investors who
Speaker 1: might find this information important based upon, you know, the
Speaker 1: money that they've invested in the company, which gets into
Speaker 1: a really complicated place, right like where do you balance
Speaker 1: between personal privacy and information that is relevant to the
Speaker 1: health of a company. And when it came to Apple,
Speaker 1: so many people associated Steve Jobs with Apple that they
Speaker 1: almost treated it like they were one the same, Like
Speaker 1: the man the company were the same thing, which is
Speaker 1: a ludicrous thing to do, but a lot of people
Speaker 1: did it, and it was because Steve Jobs had really
Speaker 1: kind of created the cult of personality around him and
Speaker 1: around the company. Well obviously the people at Apple were
Speaker 1: really concerned about this, including his close friends, which Johnny
Speaker 1: I've was one of those. Johnny I've being the lead
Speaker 1: of industrial design, design had become the prime factor that
Speaker 1: determined the direction of products, and then the operations side
Speaker 1: of the company enabled design. Another person very close to
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs was Tim Cook, the chief operating officer. Now,
Speaker 1: Tim Cook had come over to Apple and had really
Speaker 1: started to help on the financial side and was really
Speaker 1: amazing at at his job, and Tim Cook felt, you know,
Speaker 1: very close to Steve Jobs as well. So both men
Speaker 1: were They considered Steve Job to be not just the
Speaker 1: the co founder of Apple and their their CEO, but
Speaker 1: a friend. So Jobs would actually come back to Apple.
Speaker 1: He was recovered a bit and he came back from
Speaker 1: medical leave and he did lead the company for a
Speaker 1: couple more years. In January two thou eleven, he took
Speaker 1: medical leave from the company again, but he stayed on
Speaker 1: as CEO for several more months. He didn't step down
Speaker 1: from his position until August of two thousand eleven. That's
Speaker 1: when he did step down as CEO. He named Tim
Speaker 1: Cook as his successor, and he would pass away on
Speaker 1: October five, two thousand eleven, a day that was monumental
Speaker 1: in the tech sector. Every technology journal, every technology podcast,
Speaker 1: everyone acknowledged his passing, uh and the impact he had
Speaker 1: on the industry as a whole. And meanwhile, at Apple,
Speaker 1: pretty much everybody was devastated by this news. Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: had kind of a rough reputation, Like he was known
Speaker 1: as being very demanding, He had extremely high standards, and
Speaker 1: he was not shy about voicing his opinion if he
Speaker 1: felt those standards had not been met. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: I mentioned in a previous episode that Steve Jobs would
Speaker 1: fire people that he felt were not living up to
Speaker 1: what Apple is supposed to be, and that some folks
Speaker 1: would even refer to the experience of getting fired as
Speaker 1: getting jobs. Um, especially after Jobs first returned to Apple
Speaker 1: and did a massive amount of layoffs of you know,
Speaker 1: like middle management at the company. Well, his closest friends
Speaker 1: had been visiting with him on occasion while he was
Speaker 1: you know, really in decline, and of course they had
Speaker 1: a better idea of what was going on than most
Speaker 1: other people were, but it was no easier for them,
Speaker 1: and Johnny I've was one of the a and Tim
Speaker 1: Cook was another. They both lost a dear friend as
Speaker 1: well as a fierce advocate for their work, you know,
Speaker 1: and in Johnny i've's case, it was the best advocate
Speaker 1: you could have for the importance of industrial design. Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs and Johnny I've together were able to elevate industrial
Speaker 1: design to the most important aspect of a product. And
Speaker 1: in Johnny i've's mind, that was what was right, that
Speaker 1: industrial design should be the key element, and meant that
Speaker 1: he got to design things and have them be built
Speaker 1: to his specifications, to the point where he was given
Speaker 1: incredible amounts of autonomy to seek out the right materials
Speaker 1: and the right manufacturing processes. Like Johnny I've had a
Speaker 1: reputation for just as exacting standards as Steve Jobs. Like
Speaker 1: he would. He would scour the world to find the
Speaker 1: right stuff and the right processes to create why he
Speaker 1: had envisioned, and if it was even a little off
Speaker 1: of what he wanted, he would keep looking. So things
Speaker 1: would change an apple quite a bit over the following decade. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I mean the company lost its co founder, it's CEO,
Speaker 1: it's vision, some would argue it's heart, and a lot
Speaker 1: of the changes that would follow. We're due to the
Speaker 1: fundamental differences between Steve Jobs and Tim Cook. Cook, again,
Speaker 1: he had been the chief operating officer, is absolutely brilliant
Speaker 1: when it comes to ways to maximize profits and to
Speaker 1: maximize the corporate value of Apple. Like Jobs, he's not
Speaker 1: afraid to take risks or make choices that require, you know,
Speaker 1: a greater expense if he believes in the purpose. Like
Speaker 1: Cook did sign off on some pretty massive expenses so far,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure he will continue to do so. So
Speaker 1: it's not like Cook is you know, stingy on spending
Speaker 1: and just one to you know, squeeze out every dime
Speaker 1: to get as much out of it as possible. That's
Speaker 1: not the case. However, he did come to his job
Speaker 1: with a different perspective on industrial design. That was not
Speaker 1: that was not in his his you know, priority list,
Speaker 1: That was not top of mind for Tim Cook. It
Speaker 1: was not something that he particularly had an affinity for.
Speaker 1: He could appreciate it, but that wasn't again his passion.
Speaker 1: So his leadership style was very different from Steve Jobs. Now.
Speaker 1: It also didn't help that the entire world's attention was
Speaker 1: on Apple. The company was at a market value of
Speaker 1: around three hundred billion dollars at the time of Steve
Speaker 1: jobs As death, which was a huge leap from the
Speaker 1: organization that had been teetering towards bankruptcy fifteen years earlier. Right,
Speaker 1: the company went from on the verge of being irrelevant
Speaker 1: to becoming a three d billion dollar company. That was
Speaker 1: when Tim Cook took over, and that meant that Apple
Speaker 1: now had a reputation as a tastemaker, as a trend setter,
Speaker 1: a major influence in computers and electronics. So it had
Speaker 1: become the company for prestige smartphones. So Android devices were
Speaker 1: at this point out selling iPhones for a while. iPhones
Speaker 1: were king because one they came out before Android did. Two,
Speaker 1: they just had a sexy kind of aspect to them
Speaker 1: that Android could not match. But Google smartphone had really
Speaker 1: taken the lead in sales earlier in two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: and the reason for that was pretty simple. Apple was
Speaker 1: the only company making iPhones right the only way you
Speaker 1: could get an iPhone is to purchase it from Apple,
Speaker 1: or to purchase it from a carrier that in turn,
Speaker 1: was working with Apple, so an iPhone was a flagship product.
Speaker 1: But Google's Android operating system was open for all sorts
Speaker 1: of manufacturers, so there wasn't just one line of Android phones.
Speaker 1: It's not like you know, Google Phone and that's it.
Speaker 1: There were all these different manufacturers making phones that were
Speaker 1: running on Android. There were dozens of them, and that
Speaker 1: meant Android phones could cover a much wider range of
Speaker 1: the market, everything from budget smartphones to elite levels, and
Speaker 1: the feature set would vary as well, right, So that
Speaker 1: meant that there were just more Android phones out there.
Speaker 1: So it made sense that they were out selling the
Speaker 1: iPhones for you know, people who couldn't afford an iPhone,
Speaker 1: they would get an Android phone, or some people who
Speaker 1: just didn't like Apple would get an Android phone. That
Speaker 1: being said, the iPhone remained a powerful and iconic product
Speaker 1: for Apple, and people were still tuning into Apple's corporate
Speaker 1: events to see what was coming next. Like every year,
Speaker 1: people in droves were tuning in to watch a live
Speaker 1: stream of Apple's press events to find out what the
Speaker 1: next iPhone was going to be. Like, you know, and
Speaker 1: you've got to keep in mind when the iPhone first
Speaker 1: came out in America. The way that that contracts with
Speaker 1: carriers worked was that you would essentially agree to have
Speaker 1: a two year service agreement with whichever carrier. Let's let's
Speaker 1: say it's a T and T. You would agree to
Speaker 1: have a two year service with a T and T,
Speaker 1: and then at the end of those two years, you could,
Speaker 1: you know, essentially just stay on the plan, or you
Speaker 1: could renew it or whatever. And as part of that,
Speaker 1: the company would subsidize a purchase of your phone, so
Speaker 1: you would be able to get a phone for a
Speaker 1: much cheaper price, sometimes for free, depending on the phone.
Speaker 1: So you would buy an iPhone for a couple of
Speaker 1: hundred dollars because it was being subsidized by the carrier,
Speaker 1: which was going to get way more money because you were,
Speaker 1: you know, paying a monthly fee to the carrier. For
Speaker 1: two years. iPhones would come out, a new one would
Speaker 1: come out every year, so you immediately had this new
Speaker 1: phone that was attracting a very passionate base because they
Speaker 1: love the design, they loved the software, they loved everything
Speaker 1: that made it the iPhone. And you had people who
Speaker 1: are willing to buy a new iPhone even though they
Speaker 1: were still under contracts. So their contract would go over
Speaker 1: two years. A new iPhone comes out every year and
Speaker 1: people are spending huge amounts of money. It was crazy. Um.
Speaker 1: Eventually the US moved away from that model like that.
Speaker 1: That was the norm when the iPhone first came out.
Speaker 1: It is no longer the norm now. Now usually people
Speaker 1: will buy a phone for full price, uh, and they
Speaker 1: aren't aren't getting a subsidized phone from a carrier. Usually
Speaker 1: not always, but you know, that's become more common in
Speaker 1: the US, and which is kind of the way it
Speaker 1: works in the rest of the world too. Now that
Speaker 1: just speaks to the power of Apple's marketing and design
Speaker 1: that they're able to create a product that people will
Speaker 1: they'll endure extra fees in order to be part of
Speaker 1: the group that gets hold of that product phenomenal. The
Speaker 1: question was would that continue now that Steve Jobs was gone.
Speaker 1: I'll talk about that more when we come back after
Speaker 1: this break. So it was inevitable that people would start
Speaker 1: asking the question, is Apple going to survive without Steve Jobs?
Speaker 1: People have been asking that for years at that point
Speaker 1: because Steve jobs declining health was no real secret. You
Speaker 1: could see it whenever he was taking the stage, and
Speaker 1: there were tons of people who were predicting that once
Speaker 1: Jobs was gone, Apple was going to unravel and and
Speaker 1: implode because Steve Jobs it felt like he was the
Speaker 1: one guiding everything and keeping it together again. It was
Speaker 1: this cult of personality. It was also ignoring the fact
Speaker 1: that there were so many other talented people at Apple
Speaker 1: who were key in the company's success us so Johnny
Speaker 1: and I've being one of them. And you know, it
Speaker 1: kind of makes sense that people were predicting that the
Speaker 1: company was going to hit on hard times because when
Speaker 1: Jobs had been forced out of Apple or when he
Speaker 1: left Apple, depending on your point of view. Back in well,
Speaker 1: that's when Apple fell into this pattern of bad decisions
Speaker 1: that nearly brought the whole company down. But the Apple
Speaker 1: of two thousand eleven was a very different organization than
Speaker 1: the one from the eighties and nineties, and Tim Cook
Speaker 1: was the type of leader who could focus with amazing
Speaker 1: clarity on goals like increasing Apple's value, which, boy howdy
Speaker 1: did he do that. We'll talk about that more later
Speaker 1: in this episode, but let's get back to Johnny. I've
Speaker 1: Job's death hit I've very hard, But in early two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve, I was energized to work on something new
Speaker 1: Apple had acquired a company that was working on tech
Speaker 1: in the health sector. Specifically, they were developing technology that
Speaker 1: could use light to detect glucose levels in blood, which
Speaker 1: would be phenomenal for people who, for example, have diabetes
Speaker 1: to have a non invasive way to monitor their glucose levels.
Speaker 1: And I've wanted to make a wearable one that would
Speaker 1: happen to the health space, but it would also serve
Speaker 1: as a beautiful, fashionable watch. He wanted to make a
Speaker 1: smart watch that was the best of all worlds, the
Speaker 1: best in health tech, the best in time pieces, and
Speaker 1: the best in fashion. He really wanted to create something
Speaker 1: that would transcend the gadget world and enter into the
Speaker 1: world of luxury fashion. It would take two years of
Speaker 1: work to bring the Apple Watch to reality, two years
Speaker 1: of design, finding the right materials, finding the right form factor,
Speaker 1: finding the right components to all make it work proper, really,
Speaker 1: and you know, figuring out things like how do you
Speaker 1: have how do you display things on a screen that's
Speaker 1: going to be small enough to fit on a wrist.
Speaker 1: All of these were decisions that would take a couple
Speaker 1: of years to really hone in on. Not during that
Speaker 1: same time, something big happened at Apple That was both
Speaker 1: a blessing and a curse for I've so Later in
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve, under Tim Cook's watch, the company released
Speaker 1: a new iPhone which was per usual, and also during
Speaker 1: that time released Apple Maps. Now. I don't know, my
Speaker 1: little Drew gis if you remember what Apple Maps was
Speaker 1: back in the early days. But it wasn't good. It
Speaker 1: was buggy. It was something you did not want in
Speaker 1: a navigation app, right. You want to be sure that
Speaker 1: your navigation app is actually guiding you to the right place,
Speaker 1: and you couldn't be sure with that with Apple Maps.
Speaker 1: There were some notable and hilarious earl years of the app,
Speaker 1: and Apple got a lot of criticism for the rollout
Speaker 1: of this product. And just to be fair to the
Speaker 1: team that had been working on Apple Naps, they had
Speaker 1: been rushed and it was pushed out before it was
Speaker 1: really ready. They knew that they needed more time, They
Speaker 1: just didn't get it because there was this need for
Speaker 1: the app to be out there. So Apple wanted to
Speaker 1: make Scott Forstall, who was the head of the software side,
Speaker 1: to apologize for the buggy software. Now that was something
Speaker 1: the company had never done under Steve Jobs. You know,
Speaker 1: even during the whole antenna gate, which was an issue
Speaker 1: with a previous iPhone, that's and that the antenna layout
Speaker 1: within the phone, uh, began to create problems. If you
Speaker 1: were quote unquote holding the phone wrong, you were blocking
Speaker 1: the signal. There was a lot of signal dropping, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Steve Jobs was just saying that people were
Speaker 1: holding the phone wrong instead of saying that, you know,
Speaker 1: it was a faulty design. Johnny I was kind of
Speaker 1: similar on that too, and um, and so that was
Speaker 1: very notable. People were thinking that Apple was a brazen
Speaker 1: company for not admitting that it had failed in some way. Well,
Speaker 1: this was a very different approach. This was the boss
Speaker 1: telling Forrestall, hey, you need to sign this apology letter
Speaker 1: and you need to admit that there was fault in
Speaker 1: what we released, and Forestall refused to sign it. Now,
Speaker 1: the rumor is that that is what angered Tim Cook,
Speaker 1: who then chose to let Forrestall go to essentially fire
Speaker 1: the head of software. Now, this was a huge deal
Speaker 1: for several reasons. One is that Forrestall had previously been
Speaker 1: on a pretty short list of folks who could have
Speaker 1: succeeded Steve Jobs as CEO. People thought potentially he was
Speaker 1: going to step into that role before Jobs named Cook
Speaker 1: as his successor. Now, obviously Forrestall didn't become CEO. But
Speaker 1: another a big deal is that for Stall and I've
Speaker 1: had a fundamental disagreement when it came to design approach,
Speaker 1: specifically over skew a morphism. Skill morphism is when you
Speaker 1: make some sort of derivative of an object that retains
Speaker 1: features that were necessary in the original version of that object,
Speaker 1: but not in the derivative. I know that sounds kind
Speaker 1: of messy to to talk about, so let me give
Speaker 1: you a very simple example. So, when you're ready to
Speaker 1: throw something away, something physical, like let's say that you've
Speaker 1: got a sheet of paper that you're gonna need to
Speaker 1: throw away, you wad it up and you toss it
Speaker 1: into a trash can. So when it came time to
Speaker 1: creating a Windows icon for deleting a file, it was
Speaker 1: pretty common to represent the deleting process as an icon
Speaker 1: that looked like a little trash can, and you could
Speaker 1: just drag a file over to the trash can and
Speaker 1: let go, and it would go into the recycle bin
Speaker 1: or the trash can. Now, there's no reason to make
Speaker 1: the icon look like a trash can. Like, it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to look like that, right, because you're not actually
Speaker 1: physically tossing a digital file into the opening of the
Speaker 1: icon of this can in order to throw it away.
Speaker 1: But the combination of the familiar with the digital process
Speaker 1: is an example of skew a morphism, the idea being, oh,
Speaker 1: people know what trash cans are, that therefore they will
Speaker 1: understand that the process in order to delete a file.
Speaker 1: Johnny I did not like skew amorphism. To put it lightly,
Speaker 1: he didn't like the look of Apple's icons on the
Speaker 1: digital screens that he labored over designing. So in other words,
Speaker 1: he felt like he was putting in tons of work
Speaker 1: to create the best physical product that was showing icons
Speaker 1: and software that didn't belong on his work of art. Essentially, So,
Speaker 1: once for stall was gone, there was the opportunity that
Speaker 1: rose up, and Tim cook I saw that opportunity. He
Speaker 1: decided to put I'VE in charge of the look of
Speaker 1: Apple's software. Namely, i was put in charge of human
Speaker 1: interface stuff. So instances like the icons that appear on
Speaker 1: Apple screens that became i've's domain. In addition to industrial design. Now,
Speaker 1: while I've relished the job of making the stuff that
Speaker 1: appeared on the screens of the devices he had designed,
Speaker 1: compliment those designs, and not conflict with them. This seemingly
Speaker 1: victory that he had experienced brought with it additional responsibilities,
Speaker 1: which included lots and lots of meetings, tons of meetings,
Speaker 1: and i've's life began to consist of lots more meetings,
Speaker 1: which he found taxing and distracting. And while I've had
Speaker 1: grown accustomed to working very closely with Steve jobs Like
Speaker 1: often they would meet one on one to talk about
Speaker 1: design things, well, that wasn't Tim Cook's style. Tim Cook
Speaker 1: wasn't the type of person to take a one on
Speaker 1: one meeting with Johnny I've and spend an hour or
Speaker 1: two talking about designs. Instead, Tim Cook would organize much
Speaker 1: larger meetings and Johnny I've would be part of those.
Speaker 1: That meant that other departments would have more input into
Speaker 1: this process. So I've was no longer working directly with
Speaker 1: the CEO of Apple. He was getting suggestions and directives
Speaker 1: from other department heads. So under jobs the design team
Speaker 1: had become the most important department in the company arguably,
Speaker 1: and the operations team like I said was meant to
Speaker 1: enable the design team, but Tim Cook came from the
Speaker 1: operations side, and he flipped that relationship operations would ultimately
Speaker 1: determine which design elements could move forward in which ones wouldn't. Now,
Speaker 1: I've did throw himself into a couple of major projects
Speaker 1: that kept him busy enough to at least cope with
Speaker 1: those changes. So the Apple Watch was a huge one.
Speaker 1: I've obsessed over the materials and design with the watch.
Speaker 1: He wanted the watch to have a crown. So, in
Speaker 1: case you're not familiar with watch terminology. On on classic watches,
Speaker 1: the crown is the little button or dial that you
Speaker 1: use on the side of the watch case that lets
Speaker 1: you set the time. It's what let's you know, move
Speaker 1: the hour and minute hands around the watch face so
Speaker 1: that you get the correct time set on your watch,
Speaker 1: or in cases with spring watches, it's also how you
Speaker 1: wind the watch so that the spring can continue to
Speaker 1: operate the watches clockwork. Now, on the Apple Watch, obviously
Speaker 1: there was no need to have a crown to to
Speaker 1: do those kind of things. You could do everything by touch,
Speaker 1: but the crown was there because one it was a
Speaker 1: classic piece of of you know, watch anatomy, there's something
Speaker 1: you would expect to find on any luxury watch, but
Speaker 1: Johnny I've also wanted it to be a way to
Speaker 1: navigate through menus and things like that. So he wanted
Speaker 1: to make this watch something that would again transcend tech
Speaker 1: gadgets and then be worthy in the world of fashion,
Speaker 1: to be something accepted in the luxury fashion market, because
Speaker 1: Johnny I've, ultimately he's an industrial designer who wants to
Speaker 1: make the best of the best. He wants to make
Speaker 1: the most beautiful thing of whatever it is he's making possible.
Speaker 1: So to that end, he oversaw the design of everything
Speaker 1: with a watch, including things like the straps, which meant
Speaker 1: that he was looking at thousands of different samples of
Speaker 1: materials to pick out the right ones to make up
Speaker 1: the straps for the Apple Watch. He would also obsess
Speaker 1: over the curve of the case, every little tiny element there.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, he was also courting influential figures in the
Speaker 1: world of fashion. He was meeting with them to talk
Speaker 1: with them about this role of the Apple Watch playing
Speaker 1: a part in the world of fashion. He impressed leaders
Speaker 1: in the space with his dedication to detail, an obsession
Speaker 1: over getting it perfect, like those were things that the
Speaker 1: fashion world understood that was common in the fashion world,
Speaker 1: this obsession with detail, and it was a way for
Speaker 1: him to connect to that world, where otherwise the fashion
Speaker 1: world might just look at a at a smart watch
Speaker 1: and say, yeah, that's just a gimmick. It's just a gadget. Now,
Speaker 1: the Apple Watch was an odd product in many ways.
Speaker 1: It had a pretty odd launch. The tech world, which
Speaker 1: had become used to being the target audience of Apple's
Speaker 1: press events, kind of found itself nudged aside in favor.
Speaker 1: You know, the the fashion world got favor over the
Speaker 1: tech world, and that was unusual. It kind of rubbed
Speaker 1: some folks in the text sphere the wrong way, and
Speaker 1: it didn't mesh perfectly well. People liked the watch in general,
Speaker 1: but the Apple Watch when it launched lacked several features.
Speaker 1: A lot of the health features that had been planned
Speaker 1: for the watch ultimately had to get stripped down to
Speaker 1: like the bare minimum because the tech just wasn't ready yet.
Speaker 1: So while they knew what they wanted to do, the
Speaker 1: watch wasn't capable of doing everything out of the box,
Speaker 1: so they had to ship something. That was the issue
Speaker 1: was that they couldn't just delay, they had already kind
Speaker 1: of committed to shipping, so it really meant that they
Speaker 1: had to strip out some of the features they had
Speaker 1: planned for the watch. Enthusiasm in the press for the
Speaker 1: Apple Watch, both on the tech and fashion side, was
Speaker 1: initially pretty high, but it flagged a bit once the
Speaker 1: watch came out. That being said, it would eventually become
Speaker 1: a monumental commercial success over time. In two thousand and fifteen,
Speaker 1: there were naysayers who dismissed the Apple Watches just being
Speaker 1: a flop. They said, well, this was a sign that
Speaker 1: the company had lost its way since Steve Jobs had
Speaker 1: passed away, because it was the first time the company
Speaker 1: had introduced a new product line since Steve Jobs passing.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, this is obviously evidence that Apple
Speaker 1: is no longer the company it used to be. And
Speaker 1: the watch industry also dismissed the Apple Watch, initially saying
Speaker 1: that unlike a true luxury watch, which you know, you
Speaker 1: might spend thousands of dollars on, the Apple Watch wasn't
Speaker 1: designed to last the test of time. Like, it's weird
Speaker 1: to start talking about time and watches, but but a
Speaker 1: true luxury watch is supposed to be timeless. This idea
Speaker 1: that you have this classic design that will remain relevant
Speaker 1: for your entire lifetime, and that you know, you can
Speaker 1: collect other watches that have different, you know, aspects to them,
Speaker 1: but that any individual watch should be a thing of
Speaker 1: art forever. Contrast that with the gadget world, where like,
Speaker 1: just like with the iPhone, every year they're gonna have
Speaker 1: a new model with new features that make the old
Speaker 1: ones obsolete, and and that in fact, the software running
Speaker 1: on older models will eventually get to a point where
Speaker 1: it's no longer supported. So Apple watches, by their nature,
Speaker 1: because they were smart watches, because they were tech, had
Speaker 1: a limited shelf life. They would not last the test
Speaker 1: of time as it were. Plus, initially the original Apple Watch,
Speaker 1: you had to pair it with an iPhone, and obviously
Speaker 1: that limited its customer base. Just like when the iPod
Speaker 1: first came out it could only be paired with a
Speaker 1: Macintosh computer, the original Apple Watch could only be paired
Speaker 1: with an iPhone, and that meant that, you know, you
Speaker 1: had an entire swath of folks who might admire the
Speaker 1: watch for its fashionable appearance, but they wouldn't buy it
Speaker 1: because they didn't own an iPhone. Apple's second generation watch
Speaker 1: course corrected to an extent. For one thing, the company
Speaker 1: decided to drop its attempt to really play the luxury
Speaker 1: goods space. So when the first generation watch emerged, one
Speaker 1: of the models that Johnny I've designed was had a
Speaker 1: had a price tag at an eye popping seventeen thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was obviously being marketed as a
Speaker 1: high end luxury good. The second generation, they didn't do that.
Speaker 1: They didn't produce these extremely expensive luxury versions of the
Speaker 1: Apple Watch. Instead, they really focused more on the active lifestyle,
Speaker 1: health tech side of the market. And obviously that's a
Speaker 1: different a different message in a different market than high
Speaker 1: end luxury brands. So they also eased off on the
Speaker 1: requirement to pair it with an iPhone, which increased its relevancy,
Speaker 1: and the Apple Watch would become the dominant model in
Speaker 1: the smart watch industry, and only that it became so
Speaker 1: popular that it began to outsell the entire Swiss watch industry.
Speaker 1: So the watch industry, which had been dismissing Apple saying, oh,
Speaker 1: they got it all wrong. They don't know what they're
Speaker 1: they don't know what they're doing. We know what we're
Speaker 1: doing because we've been doing this for more than a century.
Speaker 1: Then it turned around where Apple started to out sell them.
Speaker 1: So while the initial launch was a bit rocky, they
Speaker 1: were able to turn that all around. It did cause
Speaker 1: some waves of Apple, Like Johnny I've was on somewhat
Speaker 1: uncertain ground because the rollout did not propel Apple in
Speaker 1: the way that everyone had hoped. It just took a
Speaker 1: little longer for that to to really take off. All Right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take another break. When we come back, we'll
Speaker 1: talk more about how johnny Ives time with Apple would
Speaker 1: come to an end. So before the break, you know,
Speaker 1: I was talking about how there were a couple of
Speaker 1: major projects that occupied Johnny I's time that, uh, we're
Speaker 1: really important. Well, the Apple Watch was one, and the
Speaker 1: other one was something that Steve Jobs had started but
Speaker 1: obviously was unable to finish before he passed away, and
Speaker 1: that was the design of a new Apple campus. I
Speaker 1: would take a prominent role in this design. The building
Speaker 1: would end up costing billions of dollars, and it featured
Speaker 1: curved surfaces and open office floor plans, and some of
Speaker 1: that would end up getting criticized by Apple employees because
Speaker 1: sound would travel really far in the building, like it
Speaker 1: would travel along the curve surfaces, and it made it
Speaker 1: kind of difficult to focus if you could hear every
Speaker 1: passing conversation going on. But uh but the physical design,
Speaker 1: like the look of it was stunning and is stunning.
Speaker 1: So the building is by all measures a phenomenon. If
Speaker 1: you haven't seen it, you should look at pictures of
Speaker 1: the Apple Headquarters. Um. It's it's kind of a loop
Speaker 1: of the building, a circle with a hollow center. There's
Speaker 1: a courtyard in that in the middle of the building.
Speaker 1: And some folks would even call this a spaceship because
Speaker 1: it had this sort of futuristic, otherworldly appearance. Uh. As
Speaker 1: as for the grounds, like, it's stunning another element that
Speaker 1: I've oversaw. So the campus has fruit trees planted all
Speaker 1: around it. It's got hathways for walking. That's something that
Speaker 1: Johnny I've really wanted. Steve Jobs also really wanted that.
Speaker 1: And there are sections of the building where you get
Speaker 1: an amazing view of the sunset in the evening. It
Speaker 1: has a theater that looks like it's floating in place.
Speaker 1: It's a glass rotunda just kind of it looks like
Speaker 1: it's just magically suspended from the pictures and videos that
Speaker 1: I have seen. The headquarters is breathtaking, lee beautiful. I
Speaker 1: don't know how practical it is, like, I don't know
Speaker 1: what it's like to work there, but it's undeniably gorgeous.
Speaker 1: I may have to do a full episode about that
Speaker 1: in the future, because the whole story is fascinating. It's
Speaker 1: obviously a lot more goes into it than just saying, Johnny,
Speaker 1: I've decided to complete this design project that Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: had had started. It goes so far beyond that, but
Speaker 1: I don't want to I want to turn this episode
Speaker 1: just into that story. The other important thing to remember now,
Speaker 1: Johnny I've was tackling these partly because he felt an
Speaker 1: obligation to Steve Jobs, his friend, and partly because he
Speaker 1: felt an obligation to Apple, the company that he had
Speaker 1: fallen in love with. But Johnny I was also burning out.
Speaker 1: He did not like having to go to all these meetings.
Speaker 1: He didn't like the interference that he was encountering from
Speaker 1: other departments. He did not like the design was no
Speaker 1: longer at the helm at Apple, and so he began
Speaker 1: to spend more time away from the office. He was
Speaker 1: still working, but he wasn't coming in to the office.
Speaker 1: This was before the headquarters opened, so this was at
Speaker 1: Apple's old campus, and he just wasn't taking the time
Speaker 1: to commute in. Instead, whenever he had meetings, he would
Speaker 1: have people come out to him to San Francisco rather
Speaker 1: than him making the drive up to Cupertino, and so
Speaker 1: his team began to see him less and less. So
Speaker 1: it probably wasn't a huge surprise in two thousand nineteen
Speaker 1: when I've and Cook reached an agreement for I've to
Speaker 1: step down as the director of Industrial Design, several of
Speaker 1: the top folks in design in that department had already
Speaker 1: left Apple at that point, so some of the superstars
Speaker 1: in johnny Ives team had already gone off to to
Speaker 1: do other things. So the design department wasn't what it
Speaker 1: used to be when when design was king at Apple.
Speaker 1: Not that there weren't talented people. They're They're absolutely word
Speaker 1: and there continued to be incredibly talented designers who work
Speaker 1: at Apple, but it was very different. Like I'm sure
Speaker 1: morale was a little shaky with some of these these
Speaker 1: prominent people in the department having left, including Johnny I've
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe it wasn't that big of a
Speaker 1: of a shock, because I've had seemed to be kind
Speaker 1: of checked out for the last couple of years. But
Speaker 1: I want to be fair to Johnny. I've it's not
Speaker 1: that I think he just got, you know, tired. He
Speaker 1: had a family. He wanted to spend more time with
Speaker 1: his family. Uh. And that includes his extended family who
Speaker 1: were still back in England and he didn't get a
Speaker 1: chance to see them nearly as often as he liked.
Speaker 1: His father had experienced a stroke. In fact, it was
Speaker 1: at a point where they were just about to hold
Speaker 1: this big ceremony about the opening of Apple's new headquarters
Speaker 1: and Johnny I was pulled away because his father had
Speaker 1: a stroke. So he traveled back to England to be
Speaker 1: with his dad. And obviously I was very concerned about
Speaker 1: his father. Uh. And this was a huge deal too,
Speaker 1: because I have a dedicated so much time and effort
Speaker 1: to complete Steve jobs as vision with the Apple headquarters.
Speaker 1: This was not an easy thing for him. It was
Speaker 1: obviously the decision that was right for him to go
Speaker 1: and see his father like that was what was most
Speaker 1: important to him. But you know, it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where you can't really imagine another competing event that
Speaker 1: would have been as hard to miss out on as
Speaker 1: the opening of this headquarters that Johnny I has been
Speaker 1: so long working on. He also was really tired of
Speaker 1: having to fight against other departments in order to justify
Speaker 1: his design choices and to have design have a decent
Speaker 1: place at the table when working on products. Some stuff
Speaker 1: that had been in semi secret development, like an Apple car,
Speaker 1: where anguishing because the projects turned it out turned out
Speaker 1: to be more complicated than they had first imagined, and
Speaker 1: that was distressing too. Write like when you spend a
Speaker 1: ton of time working on something and it never comes out.
Speaker 1: And it's not that it's you know, like there's any
Speaker 1: bad reason for that, it's just that things aren't working out.
Speaker 1: But that's still very frustrating, it's still demoralizing. So I
Speaker 1: was ready to take a further step back from Apple,
Speaker 1: like he was already not showing up as frequently, but
Speaker 1: that was not enough. So in two thousand nineteen, he
Speaker 1: officially stepped down as the director of Industrial Design at Apple,
Speaker 1: and he co founded a design consultancy company with his
Speaker 1: friend Mark Newsom, and they called the company Love from
Speaker 1: Apple would actually be their biggest clients, so I would
Speaker 1: still be involved with Apple, uh so love from security
Speaker 1: one hundred million dollar agreement. That agreement included restrictions on
Speaker 1: the types of alliance that Johnny I've could accept. So
Speaker 1: he was prevented from working with any direct competitors to Apple.
Speaker 1: In other words, like that was against this agreement. He
Speaker 1: could work for other you know, he could design for
Speaker 1: other companies that weren't in direct competition with Apple. And
Speaker 1: the contract also included an agreement that it could be
Speaker 1: extended on an annual basis. So I kind of took
Speaker 1: on more of an advisor role with the design team.
Speaker 1: He would still have input, but the design team wasn't
Speaker 1: obligated to follow his direction. It was more like he
Speaker 1: was providing advice and counsel. And then this year, in
Speaker 1: two ivan, Apple decided that they weren't going to extend
Speaker 1: that contract. That this arrangement is over. Apple is going
Speaker 1: forward without Johnny I've having a place there at all,
Speaker 1: and it seems both parties are at peace with this.
Speaker 1: And the Apple of today is an entirely different company
Speaker 1: from the one that Johnny ive was part of. For
Speaker 1: one thing, earlier this year, it briefly hit the three
Speaker 1: trillion dollar valuation. Now remember it was valued at around
Speaker 1: three billion when Steve Jobs passed away. So whatever you
Speaker 1: think of Tim Cook and his leadership at Apple, there's
Speaker 1: no denying that he made a huge amount of money
Speaker 1: and delivered unprecedented value to shareholders. However, more people are
Speaker 1: looking at Apple as no longer really being a cutting
Speaker 1: edge hardware company, like it's not defining the esthetic of
Speaker 1: electronics and computers anymore. Part of Tim Cook's leadership has
Speaker 1: been a push towards becoming more of a services platform,
Speaker 1: with Apple taking a cut of every transaction, and this
Speaker 1: had subsequently brought the company under a lot of scrutiny,
Speaker 1: as other companies as well as governmental regulators around the
Speaker 1: world have been asking if Apple is perhaps is engaged
Speaker 1: in anti competitive practices in its efforts to redefine the
Speaker 1: company's revenue model. Cook really lad the charge into services.
Speaker 1: He saw that as a sustainable way toward growth. But
Speaker 1: with this growing resistance around the world, we may one
Speaker 1: day see Apple have to pivot again, at least if
Speaker 1: Cook and the executive team wanted to continue to grow now.
Speaker 1: I don't see this being an issue in the short term,
Speaker 1: but if we actually do see more regulation with teeth
Speaker 1: in it, then that could come to pass. Like we're
Speaker 1: seeing how various governments around the world are saying, you
Speaker 1: create the platform, you prevent anyone who builds in that
Speaker 1: platform to go outside of your own process, and you
Speaker 1: charge for your process, which that doesn't feel right. If
Speaker 1: if that continues, an Apple has to give up some
Speaker 1: of that control, it will really impact the revenue model
Speaker 1: that Timo has been building toward. And um, that's gonna
Speaker 1: be tough for the company because that they will have
Speaker 1: to adjust for that. They will not be making the
Speaker 1: same amount of revenue that they have been for the
Speaker 1: past few years if that fundamentally changes now. I don't
Speaker 1: mean to say that all of Apple's service fees are
Speaker 1: going to just disappear. A lot of people, a lot
Speaker 1: of developers are still going to go through Apples systems.
Speaker 1: But if enough of them, especially the ones that have
Speaker 1: some sway, are able to do it in a different way,
Speaker 1: that is money out of Apple's pocket, if you want
Speaker 1: to look at it that way. As for Johnny I've,
Speaker 1: I hope his new work is rewarding and that it's
Speaker 1: fun and that he has the time to spend with
Speaker 1: his family. Johnny I've is definitely not hurting for cash.
Speaker 1: I was one of the best compensated employees at Apple
Speaker 1: and amassed a huge fortune. He also has been knighted.
Speaker 1: He is Sir Jonathan. Uh. He was, so he has
Speaker 1: a knighthood. The guy is not hurting at all. Uh
Speaker 1: he he rides around in Chaufford Bentley's he is not
Speaker 1: He's not sporting one of those change verses that when
Speaker 1: you open it, just moths fly out of it. I
Speaker 1: should also add there were some other Johnny I've designs
Speaker 1: that I didn't really cover in these episodes that we
Speaker 1: could chat about. They are important things. I just had
Speaker 1: to make cuts ultimately, because I mean four episodes is
Speaker 1: a lot for any topic. But I didn't talk about
Speaker 1: the MacBook Air, a laptop so thin that you could
Speaker 1: fit it in a Manila envelope that was viewed as
Speaker 1: a gorgeous, phenomenal design to be able to create a
Speaker 1: form factor that slim, that could still hold all the
Speaker 1: components necessary to be a good computer. Then there are
Speaker 1: other I've designs that didn't get so much so many accolades.
Speaker 1: I guess I should say, like the Apple TV S
Speaker 1: he remote, the first generation. I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: seen these the the remotes, the first generation remotes were
Speaker 1: they had black buttons on a black remote, which means
Speaker 1: that if you were watching television in a dim room.
Speaker 1: Let's say that you've got the lights turned down, the
Speaker 1: shades are pulled because you want to be able to
Speaker 1: view your o lead screen and see it in vibrant color.
Speaker 1: Suddenly you can't find the remote because it's black on black.
Speaker 1: It's like spinal tap had created a remote control. Or
Speaker 1: then there was the Magic mouse to this one also
Speaker 1: was a design that a lot of people kind of
Speaker 1: joked about because the Magic mouse, too was it was
Speaker 1: a wireless mouse and you would charge it by plugging
Speaker 1: it into a cable. But the port for the charging
Speaker 1: cable was on the underside of the mouse, So I mean,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to charge your mouth, you had to
Speaker 1: turn it on its side or or flip it upside
Speaker 1: down to plug it in. And it moreover, mint you
Speaker 1: could not use the mouse while you were charging it,
Speaker 1: right there was no way because the cable would be
Speaker 1: in the way. You could not use it and charge
Speaker 1: it at the same time. And a lot of people said,
Speaker 1: that makes no sense, that is a huge design flaw.
Speaker 1: Then of course, there was the cylindrical Mac Pro that
Speaker 1: came out in UH, and like the power Cube before it,
Speaker 1: I talked about that a couple of episodes, the Mac
Speaker 1: Pro was a revolutionary design. I mean, I guess you
Speaker 1: could say it was literally revolutionary because it's a cylinder
Speaker 1: and you know, you could revolve around it. Never mind,
Speaker 1: but it got some great initial reviews because it really
Speaker 1: was the most powerful Mac produced up to that point.
Speaker 1: But over time some of the shine faded from the
Speaker 1: perception of the Mac Pro. UH. Like the Cube before it,
Speaker 1: the cylindrical power Mac lacked the capacity for internal expansion.
Speaker 1: It had a lot of parts so you could do
Speaker 1: external expansion, but you couldn't upgrade the guts of the
Speaker 1: device because of the the decisions that had to be
Speaker 1: made in order to make this cylindrical computer possible. And
Speaker 1: eventually some folks would derisively call this the Mac Pro
Speaker 1: trash can I honestly think that's going too far. Some
Speaker 1: of my colleagues might disagree with me. I think Matt
Speaker 1: Frederick Tyler Clang both had strong opinions about this, but
Speaker 1: they they're also Mac devotes because they worked in video
Speaker 1: production for so long and Max were really important in
Speaker 1: that field. But yeah, that one didn't go over so well.
Speaker 1: But um, but you know, you're always going to have
Speaker 1: some misses along with the hits. And the thing is,
Speaker 1: Johnny ives hits were out of the park, like, they
Speaker 1: weren't just a decent hit, they were grand slam home runs.
Speaker 1: As for Apple, what's it going to be like without
Speaker 1: Johnny I've Some would say that I've had ceased really
Speaker 1: being a prominent force and Apple a few years ago,
Speaker 1: even before he stepped down. So there's an argument to
Speaker 1: be made that it's probably not going to be that
Speaker 1: much different than the Apple we're seeing right now. There
Speaker 1: are also plenty of talented, brilliant designers who work at Apple. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not like Johnny i was the one
Speaker 1: and only. The process of design is different. Design no
Speaker 1: longer holds the prominent spot it did back when Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs and Johnny I've were kind of defining Apple's company process.
Speaker 1: But again, it's not like the design department has just
Speaker 1: tumbleweeds floating through. It may well be that Apple's most
Speaker 1: breathtaking successful product has yet to come. We have to
Speaker 1: wait and see the company is working on some stuff
Speaker 1: that's really exciting like mixed reality headwear. And you know,
Speaker 1: maybe one day we will see the Apple car. So
Speaker 1: I wouldn't write it off, but it is it's impossible
Speaker 1: to say. It's impossible to deny the fact that Johnny
Speaker 1: I've and Steve Jobs together defined the aesthetic at Apple
Speaker 1: for a stretch of incredible years. Whether that aesthetic continues
Speaker 1: or if it transforms, we'll have to see. Um. I
Speaker 1: suspect we will start to see it slowly gravitate into
Speaker 1: some other design aesthetic. But I think there's going to
Speaker 1: be a piece of I've at Apple for the foreseeable future. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that concludes these episodes about Johnny I've. Hope you enjoyed them.
Speaker 1: Please reach out to me if you have suggestions for
Speaker 1: future episodes of tech Stuff, and I'll talk to you
Speaker 1: again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows. Eight