Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Be 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? So? On Monday, I
Speaker 1: published an episode about Johnny I've's journey to Apple and I've,
Speaker 1: if you don't know, is a designer famous for his
Speaker 1: influence at Apple. He had a hand in the look
Speaker 1: and aesthetic at the company for twenty years, and recently
Speaker 1: he and Apple have cut ties. So we're going to
Speaker 1: continue his story in this episode. But this is really
Speaker 1: not just an episode about Johnny I've and his influence.
Speaker 1: It's really an episode that's about Apple in its transition
Speaker 1: from a company that was in serious trouble to one
Speaker 1: that became a tastemaker. Like this is the period in
Speaker 1: which Apple itself underwent a massive transformation. So while I
Speaker 1: is going to take a crucial part of that story,
Speaker 1: it's going to require us to talk about some other
Speaker 1: stuff too. Now where we left off, I was in
Speaker 1: a really delicate position. He had recently been promoted to
Speaker 1: Apple's director of Industrial Design. This was just five years
Speaker 1: after he had joined Apple. He joined Apple as a designer,
Speaker 1: the ninth member of the design team. Five years later,
Speaker 1: the outgoing director of industrial design recommended I've for the job.
Speaker 1: So this was a really remarkable journey. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: a short amount of time to go from entering in
Speaker 1: as a basic member of a team to becoming the
Speaker 1: leader of that team. I've came into Apple in the
Speaker 1: early nineties, which was a period where co founder Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs was effectively banished from Apple. I talked about that
Speaker 1: in the last episode, and you know, Jobs at or
Speaker 1: he had been pushed to the side. In the mid eighties,
Speaker 1: he left Apple and founded a different computer company called
Speaker 1: Next Big End, Little E, Big X, Big T. This
Speaker 1: company would end up designing computers meant for the educational sector,
Speaker 1: at least primarily, but the computers were really expensive and
Speaker 1: they had a fairly limited suite of software. Because you know,
Speaker 1: software developers aren't likely to dedicate the time and resources
Speaker 1: to make stuff for a platform that doesn't have a
Speaker 1: very large install base. It just doesn't make sense. You're
Speaker 1: never going to make back the investment you made in
Speaker 1: order to make the thing in the first place. So
Speaker 1: it would just make more sense as a developer to
Speaker 1: create software for computers that a lot of people use,
Speaker 1: instead of an upstart company that's trying to muscle its
Speaker 1: way into a pre existing market. And over at Apple,
Speaker 1: things had become pretty rocky, in no small part due
Speaker 1: to the chaos going on with the team that was
Speaker 1: responsible for building the next generation of the Macintosh operating system.
Speaker 1: That whole project had ballooned out of control with feature
Speaker 1: creep and internal struggles within the team, and so the
Speaker 1: then CEO Gil Emilio moved to acquire the Next Computer Company,
Speaker 1: and the idea was that while Next wasn't getting much
Speaker 1: traction in the market, it's operating system was really good
Speaker 1: and it could serve as the next generation of the
Speaker 1: mac operating system, and the internal build of the next
Speaker 1: mac os at Apple could be set aside for the
Speaker 1: time being. Maybe it could be rescued and fixed. But
Speaker 1: Emilio felt that in the state that it was in
Speaker 1: within Apple, it just wasn't going to be ready for
Speaker 1: the market, so he decided to acquire Next and use
Speaker 1: that operating system instead. So Apple acquires Next, and then
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs came back to Apple, initially as an advisor,
Speaker 1: but within short order he became the interim CEO. And
Speaker 1: then eventually the permanent CEO, and Jobs was not happy. Actually,
Speaker 1: if you read up on various stories of Apple's history,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of tales about Jobs not being happy,
Speaker 1: and part of that was the fact that Jobs, as
Speaker 1: standards were at the tippy tippy top, and when products
Speaker 1: failed to meet his standards, he got mad. Jobs had
Speaker 1: come back to Apple and hated what he saw. Apple
Speaker 1: was producing so many different models of Macintosh computers because
Speaker 1: the previous leaders thought the way to address the issues
Speaker 1: Apple had was to expand the product line by making
Speaker 1: a ton of different Macintosh models. But it got to
Speaker 1: the point where the company's own sales team had trouble
Speaker 1: explaining why one model would be more suitable for a
Speaker 1: specific customer over any other model. If your sales team
Speaker 1: can't say, oh, based upon your needs, this what you
Speaker 1: should get, then you know you're in trouble. So the
Speaker 1: message was buddled, the products were confusing, and Jobs was enraged,
Speaker 1: and he wasn't shy about voicing his opinions. Now, i've
Speaker 1: as the head of industrial design, was really concerned for
Speaker 1: his team. Jobs was particularly angry about the direction of
Speaker 1: Apple's design team. He said that he felt the quote
Speaker 1: unquote sex had been taken out of the products that
Speaker 1: they no longer had the appearance of something people wanted
Speaker 1: to interact with, and word got around that Jobs was
Speaker 1: planning on looking outside Apple to find someone in design
Speaker 1: to come in and realign the company and to lead
Speaker 1: that team, meaning I would be out of a job.
Speaker 1: So I've talked with his team, and they even discussed
Speaker 1: the possibility of creating their own design firm if the
Speaker 1: whole department should find itself sacked. But I've advised his
Speaker 1: colleagues to wait and see what Jobs would do, and
Speaker 1: the team created a kind of showcase within the design department.
Speaker 1: So I've knew it was just a matter of time
Speaker 1: before Jobs would make his way to the design department
Speaker 1: and see exactly how things had gone totally wrong, at
Speaker 1: least in Jobs's mind. And I've wanted to showcase the
Speaker 1: work his team had created with designs that the company
Speaker 1: had not accepted. These are these were ideas that no
Speaker 1: one else in Apple had approved, So they put on
Speaker 1: display a lot of the more radical designs that had
Speaker 1: failed to find their way through Apple's bureaucratic process. And
Speaker 1: sure enough, when Jobs did come down and take a
Speaker 1: look at the design department. He was impressed by what
Speaker 1: he saw. The things that he was looking at from
Speaker 1: the team, they weren't at all representative of the actual
Speaker 1: products the Jobs had found so boring and uninspired. According
Speaker 1: to Trip Michael, the author of After Steve, a book
Speaker 1: that I used extensively in my research here, Jobs turned
Speaker 1: to I've and essentially he said, you haven't been very effective,
Speaker 1: have you. I am paraphrasing because Jobs could use a
Speaker 1: lot of what uh Mr Spock would call colorful metaphors
Speaker 1: in his language. What Jobs meant was that I've and
Speaker 1: his team were astounding designers. They were creating amazing work,
Speaker 1: but they weren't adept at getting that work accepted by
Speaker 1: leadership at Apple. And that's, you know, a big component
Speaker 1: of being a department head. It's not enough to be
Speaker 1: an effective manager. A leader has to have vision and
Speaker 1: a way to communicate that vision to others and get
Speaker 1: buy in to get them to support that vision. So
Speaker 1: a leader has to be able to convince other people
Speaker 1: to try new things, or at the very least come
Speaker 1: to the table and negotiate a way forward. I've was
Speaker 1: unquestionably a great designer, but it might have been that
Speaker 1: he was not yet a great leader, at least in
Speaker 1: that sense. But then Jobs also felt that the previous
Speaker 1: regime at Apple was rife within competence, and so while
Speaker 1: Jobs gave I've a little bit of a hard time,
Speaker 1: it was clear that he placed almost all the blame
Speaker 1: on Apple's previous leadership, that the company had become so
Speaker 1: weighed down by people afraid to take risks, or more
Speaker 1: interested in competing directly against the ensconced PC market rather
Speaker 1: than creating a compelling alternative, that they were incapable of
Speaker 1: listening to I've and his team, and so really the
Speaker 1: fault was on them more than it was on i've.
Speaker 1: And the good news was that Jobs saw this and
Speaker 1: felt that the design team was doing great work, that
Speaker 1: they were brilliant and innovative. So Jobs knew that the
Speaker 1: department was the right group of people to make his
Speaker 1: vision of what Apple could be into a reality, and
Speaker 1: this began the working relationship that would develop into a
Speaker 1: fierce friendship between Jobs and I've. And it also meant
Speaker 1: Jobs would end his search for a new head of design,
Speaker 1: so i was safe in his job. Jobs and I've
Speaker 1: bonded over a shared fascination with the form of products,
Speaker 1: and and by form, I really actually mean a bunch
Speaker 1: of different things, not just the physical shape, although that
Speaker 1: is a huge part of it. I've was actually really
Speaker 1: obsessed with materials. He would carefully go through each and
Speaker 1: every sample of various materials to determine what was right
Speaker 1: for any given project. He had in his mind specific
Speaker 1: effects that the materials should pull off, whether it was
Speaker 1: a shiny metal surface or a very smooth curve of
Speaker 1: glass or a pebbled leather cover. And Jobs was very
Speaker 1: much the same way. So the two spent ages talking
Speaker 1: about different materials and what was possible with each one,
Speaker 1: or what limitations existed with them, and how to find
Speaker 1: a solution to meet those limitations or you know, in
Speaker 1: most cases is with I've, if he found fault in
Speaker 1: a material, he was far more likely to just reject
Speaker 1: the material outright and find something better that met his expectations,
Speaker 1: even if it meant scouring the entire world to find
Speaker 1: what he wanted. And Jobs wasted no time. Once he
Speaker 1: returned to the leadership role, he gave the Newton program
Speaker 1: the Acts in n I talked about the Apple Newton
Speaker 1: in the last episode that was a little less than
Speaker 1: six years after the Apple Newton had debuted, and that
Speaker 1: was an attempt to create a new product line, but
Speaker 1: because of some real limitations with the hardware and more
Speaker 1: more over, the software, it did not work. It was
Speaker 1: a failure. But Steve Jobs didn't just acts products. He
Speaker 1: acted entire layers of management. Jobs essentially laid off the
Speaker 1: general managers overseeing the various business units within Apple. In fact,
Speaker 1: he did that in a single day, like it was
Speaker 1: an armageddon, where he laid off, you know, legions of
Speaker 1: general managers, and that probably contributed to some people at
Speaker 1: Apple using the phrase getting jobs as a way of
Speaker 1: saying you got fired. Apple had created silos of departments,
Speaker 1: so little feudal states, each with its own leader that
Speaker 1: was largely cut off from the other departments, and Jobs
Speaker 1: knocked those silos down. He essentially reorganized the entire company
Speaker 1: into a more cohesive and collaborative operation. Now the teams
Speaker 1: would still have leaders, you know, like I've was leader
Speaker 1: of the designers for industrial design, and these would be
Speaker 1: people who had deep expertise in whatever field it was
Speaker 1: that they were representing. So they were people who could
Speaker 1: manage others, but they also knew how to do the
Speaker 1: stuff that the team was doing. You know that the
Speaker 1: team they were managing was doing. Jobs said, One really
Speaker 1: big mistake that he and Wozniak made way back in
Speaker 1: the seventies was to bring in people who are really
Speaker 1: adept at business, but they didn't know how computers worked,
Speaker 1: and that that disconnect led to all sorts of trouble
Speaker 1: down the line. And then Jobs gave I've a critical assignment.
Speaker 1: Jobs knew that the company needed to launch a product
Speaker 1: that would put it back in the minds of consumers.
Speaker 1: They needed to capture the rebellious and innovative spirit of
Speaker 1: the company in its early days. Jobs also saw how
Speaker 1: the Internet was playing an increasingly important role in well everything,
Speaker 1: and so he wanted Apple to create a desktop computer
Speaker 1: with the express purpose of being a machine that would
Speaker 1: work well with the Internet. Jobs also wanted to ditch
Speaker 1: some traditional features found on most personal computers of the day.
Speaker 1: For example, he didn't want this new computer to have
Speaker 1: a floppy disk drive, something that was standard on other
Speaker 1: machines at the time. He also wanted to ditch serial boards, which,
Speaker 1: if you're not familiar, were used as a communication interface
Speaker 1: with computers. They could connect with other peripherals right and
Speaker 1: send information to and receive information from those peripherals. Jobs
Speaker 1: instead wanted to incorporate USB technology in this new Apple computer,
Speaker 1: and he also gave Ive's team one other directive. He
Speaker 1: wanted the design for this computer to be quote joyful
Speaker 1: end quote, and I've and his team would take on
Speaker 1: that challenge. We're gonna take a quick break. When we
Speaker 1: come back, we'll talk more about this project and how
Speaker 1: it really helped turn things around for Apple. But first
Speaker 1: these messages. So Johnny I've and his team got this
Speaker 1: assignment from Steve Jobs, and they got to work. Uh,
Speaker 1: they had the parameters and then pretty much a blank
Speaker 1: canvas that they could use where they could create the
Speaker 1: next generation of consumer Macintosh computers. It would be called
Speaker 1: the iMac. And yeah, this was the beginning of Apple
Speaker 1: using that lower case I in front of its various
Speaker 1: product names. The iMac would be the first of those
Speaker 1: those products, the first major one anyway. So the team
Speaker 1: led by Johnny I've decided that the computer should be
Speaker 1: innovative but not threatening. So I needed to look futuristic,
Speaker 1: but it also needed to look accessible. It couldn't be
Speaker 1: something where you're like, oh, that looks cool, but I
Speaker 1: don't want to touch it. So one big point of
Speaker 1: inspiration was the cartoon The Jetsons. You know, Meet George
Speaker 1: Jetson and so on. Well, the Jetsons lived in a
Speaker 1: world that was simultaneously futuristic and also anchored in the
Speaker 1: aesthetic of the nineteen fifties. While the iMac wouldn't look
Speaker 1: like it came straight out of the nineteen fifties, they
Speaker 1: did have elements of the familiar along with the novel. Now,
Speaker 1: the original iMac was not a flat screen computer like
Speaker 1: later models would turn into. It was an all in
Speaker 1: one computer that looked like a very colorful CRT monitor.
Speaker 1: Before the iMac, the team had created a laptop prototype
Speaker 1: that had translucent plastic built into the body of the computer,
Speaker 1: and I've decided he wanted to incorporate that element into
Speaker 1: the iMac design. I've presented his ideas to Jobs, and
Speaker 1: Jobs rejected a lot of them, but one that Jobs
Speaker 1: really liked was a sketch that I've showed him, and
Speaker 1: I've described it as a computer that looks as though
Speaker 1: it was about to jump off the desk and go
Speaker 1: do something, and that really resonated with Jobs. So I've
Speaker 1: returned to his team with Jobs as input, and they
Speaker 1: refined that design. They began to move more in that
Speaker 1: specific direction, and they created a model. The Jobs like
Speaker 1: so much they would actually take that to other departments
Speaker 1: in order to show it off to them. The team
Speaker 1: chose a polycr abinate shell for the computer for a
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. One, it's a very strong material, so
Speaker 1: it's it's resilient, but also it can hold a tinted
Speaker 1: color really effectively. It doesn't fade over time, at least
Speaker 1: not rapidly, so so it would hold whatever color you
Speaker 1: wanted to give it. And as for those colors, they
Speaker 1: initially created computer shells that were either orange or purple,
Speaker 1: or a bluish greenish color that would end up being
Speaker 1: called Bondie blue. The process to make the shells was expensive,
Speaker 1: both because of needing to make the polycarbonate translucent, and
Speaker 1: also the process itself was sort of a customized one.
Speaker 1: They couldn't rely on existing manufacturing processes. It all had
Speaker 1: to be built from scratch in order to mass manufacture these. Now,
Speaker 1: this meant that it would cost Apple sixty dollars per
Speaker 1: unit per per computer case, just the case, not the internals,
Speaker 1: and that was much more expensive than typical computer case was. However,
Speaker 1: I was very happy to find out that Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: wasn't really concerned about manufacturing costs because Steve Jobs saw
Speaker 1: the need to bring customers back to Apple as well
Speaker 1: as to attract new customers to the company, and he
Speaker 1: thought it was going to be shortsighted to worry about
Speaker 1: production costs and that this was really going to be
Speaker 1: a swing for the fences kind of product. A we
Speaker 1: need a home run, so we're gonna swing as hard
Speaker 1: as we can. So because the case was translucent, I've
Speaker 1: and his team worked with other departments to figure out
Speaker 1: how the circuitry layout that would be in the computer
Speaker 1: underneath would be visible and attractive. They wanted it to
Speaker 1: look sophisticated and not messy, So this was another consideration
Speaker 1: that really set Apple apart. It would also be the
Speaker 1: foundation for the types of computer rigs that are are
Speaker 1: very popular today. There are a lot of computer cases
Speaker 1: out there that have trend his parent glass panels so
Speaker 1: that you can see the interior right. You can see
Speaker 1: the the fans and the various components, many of them
Speaker 1: decked out with L E. D s and that's the
Speaker 1: kind of rig that gamers prefer these days, and I
Speaker 1: feel that we can thank Apple in particular, and specifically
Speaker 1: Johnny I've and his team for setting us down that
Speaker 1: kind of pathway. I feel like the iMac was sort
Speaker 1: of an early example of that aesthetic that extends all
Speaker 1: the way down to today. Obviously, the shapes are very
Speaker 1: different today than the iMac was, but there are those
Speaker 1: those elements I feel that have carried through. When it
Speaker 1: came time to unveil the iMac, things nearly went pear shaped.
Speaker 1: One of the components the Jobs really wanted in this
Speaker 1: computer's design was a c D slot so that users
Speaker 1: could just insert a compact disc into the slot. It
Speaker 1: would go into the computer and then they could, you know,
Speaker 1: load information from the c D. So he wanted it
Speaker 1: to be a little slit in the computer and to
Speaker 1: be as unobtrusive as possible. But when it came time
Speaker 1: to actually unveil the design and Jobs looked at the
Speaker 1: prototype that he was going to show off. He saw
Speaker 1: that the iMac had a c D tray that would
Speaker 1: extend out from the computer. You would put the CD
Speaker 1: into the tray and then retract the c D tray
Speaker 1: back into the computer and he was furious. But when
Speaker 1: he was lashing out super angry that the thing he
Speaker 1: wanted wasn't part of the iMac, he was told the
Speaker 1: problem was the technology he wanted in the computer didn't
Speaker 1: exist yet. No one had built a working version of
Speaker 1: what he was envisioning, and that, you know, that was
Speaker 1: the issue. Johnny. I've actually stepped up to talk Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs down, Johnny. I've said, you know what you're thinking
Speaker 1: of right now, that's the next one of these, that's
Speaker 1: the next iMac. We can't do it yet, but ex
Speaker 1: generation we will. However, we have to ship this version.
Speaker 1: And remarkably, Johnny Ives approach really worked. It calmed down
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs and he went on to rehearse what the
Speaker 1: presentation that would unveil the iMac would become. And you
Speaker 1: can actually watch that presentation online. This was done way
Speaker 1: back in so if you do find a copy of
Speaker 1: it that there are copies on YouTube. The video quality
Speaker 1: is pretty bad, but it is late nineties and you
Speaker 1: can watch as Jobs calls the iMac quote the excitement
Speaker 1: of the Internet, the simplicity of Macintosh end quote. Jobs
Speaker 1: then goes on to essentially slam the competition, saying that
Speaker 1: consumer computers that are on the market are all slow
Speaker 1: and ugly, that they have lousy displays, and if they
Speaker 1: have any networking capability in them at all, it's pretty limited.
Speaker 1: So he was really trying to set up how the
Speaker 1: iMac would contrast with what he was claiming to be
Speaker 1: the status quo. And the technical specs on the iMac were,
Speaker 1: you know, they were impressive for the time, but you
Speaker 1: would laugh at them now because Jobs talks about having
Speaker 1: a ton of memory in this computer, which was thirty
Speaker 1: two whole megabytes worth, and that the processor ran it
Speaker 1: up blistering two three mega hurts. That processor was the
Speaker 1: G three power PC processor, by the way, that's why
Speaker 1: this computer is sometimes referred to as the iMac G three,
Speaker 1: because that was the processor that powered it. But he
Speaker 1: really wanted to focus on the impact of industrial design
Speaker 1: of the computer, and that's really what we want to
Speaker 1: talk about. Two. We don't want to I'm not going
Speaker 1: to run down all the technical specs because that's not
Speaker 1: really what these episodes are about. We're talking about the
Speaker 1: aesthetic of Apple. So when Jobs revealed the iMac, the
Speaker 1: crowd could only see the front of the machine. Initially
Speaker 1: they could just see the face of the iMac right,
Speaker 1: it looked like a sleek, rounded computer, so instead of
Speaker 1: sharp corners, that had rounded corners. And while they could
Speaker 1: only see one face of the computer initially, they went
Speaker 1: ahead and went banana. And then Jobs brought in a
Speaker 1: camera that could you know, the camera operators could circle
Speaker 1: the iMac and the feed was sent live to movie
Speaker 1: screens that were in the presentation hall, so everyone could
Speaker 1: see the translucent plastic along the sides and the back
Speaker 1: of the computer. Um and Jobs showed off how the
Speaker 1: iMac had a handle as well in the back, like
Speaker 1: along the top, and that was a design factor that
Speaker 1: Johnny I've had suggested because he thought it looked cool.
Speaker 1: It wasn't practical. People weren't going to be carrying around
Speaker 1: their iMac computers everywhere, but it was something that just
Speaker 1: made it look like you wanted to get your hands
Speaker 1: on it. That was the whole point of it. So
Speaker 1: this was not a practical component added into the design.
Speaker 1: It was one at least not practical in the sense
Speaker 1: of physically practical. It was practical in the sense of
Speaker 1: marketing because it was another thing that made you want
Speaker 1: to pick one of these things up and purchase it. Right.
Speaker 1: So Jobs agreed to that design change, even though it
Speaker 1: meant that the production costs of the case of the
Speaker 1: computer would be even higher because it would require a
Speaker 1: special approach to make this handle that's incorporated into the
Speaker 1: case itself. Jobs would end up saying it looks like
Speaker 1: it came from another planet, a good planet, one that
Speaker 1: has better designers, which huge accolades for Johnny. I've right
Speaker 1: saying that Johnny Ivan his team were better than all
Speaker 1: the other designers on Earth. Now, the IMAX solved a
Speaker 1: ton of issues. For one thing, the all in one
Speaker 1: design meant that Apple could actually ship an iMac in
Speaker 1: a single box that contained the computer, the keyboard, and
Speaker 1: the mouse. More on the mouse in the second there
Speaker 1: were no components to connect apart from the keyboard and
Speaker 1: mouse to the computer, right, So you didn't have to
Speaker 1: connect speakers to it, you didn't have to connect the
Speaker 1: monitor to the tower. All of that was integrated. It
Speaker 1: was one thing, So that really simplified the setup process Apple,
Speaker 1: and to make sure that the customer wouldn't need to
Speaker 1: install any software or do anything complicated, they wanted it
Speaker 1: to work out of the box. Like this was the
Speaker 1: beginning of that idea of it just works, although that
Speaker 1: wasn't how Steve Jobs described it yet he would later
Speaker 1: describe Apple products as it just works. That would become
Speaker 1: one of kind of the mottos of the company. So
Speaker 1: all you really had to do was take the iMac
Speaker 1: out of the box, plug it in, turn it on,
Speaker 1: you know, have the keyboard and mouse connected, and you
Speaker 1: were good to go. They really simplified the process of
Speaker 1: connecting to the Internet as well and doing so well
Speaker 1: using a really attractively designed computer case. And it really
Speaker 1: was a showcase for ives work and his team's work.
Speaker 1: Their collaboration on each design element got the spotlight. And
Speaker 1: like I said, the iMac was a watershed product for Apple.
Speaker 1: The company had been in danger of bankruptcy due to
Speaker 1: mismanagement of the previous regime, and Apple and Jobs both
Speaker 1: needed a slam dunk hit or a grand slam hit
Speaker 1: if you prefer, and the iMac delivered. Now, I did
Speaker 1: mention the computer mouse that was one part of the
Speaker 1: iMac that was not a slam dunk. The computer mouse
Speaker 1: for the iMac was small and it was circular in shape,
Speaker 1: not like egg shaped or oblong like your typical computer mouse,
Speaker 1: but more like almost like a perfect circle, and it
Speaker 1: also had a very short chord. So it was very
Speaker 1: pretty to look at. It had the same translucent polycarbonate
Speaker 1: plastic and had the same color features as the parent
Speaker 1: iMac that it came with, But the mouse itself was
Speaker 1: awkward to use. The size and the shape meant it
Speaker 1: was a little challenging to keep things on track, because
Speaker 1: if the mouse rotated even a little bit under your hand,
Speaker 1: then it meant whenever you moved the mouse, the cursor
Speaker 1: was going to go in the direction you had not
Speaker 1: intended it to go on um and the cable length
Speaker 1: also meant it could get a little hard to use
Speaker 1: as well. It could, you know, limit you. And so
Speaker 1: this particular mouse, which would gain the derogatory nickname the
Speaker 1: hockey Buck, wasn't lauded like the iMac was. It was
Speaker 1: very pretty, but it was not practical, and this would
Speaker 1: not be the last time that I've and his team
Speaker 1: would design something that would be criticized as emphasizing form
Speaker 1: over function. But the iMac it became the fastest selling
Speaker 1: computer in Apple's history. At that point. The company moved
Speaker 1: eight hundred thousand units by the end of its first
Speaker 1: year in existence. More importantly, it marked a reverse soul
Speaker 1: of Apple's fortunes. So for two years, essentially the company
Speaker 1: had been reporting massive losses. It had been operating in
Speaker 1: the red, but the IMAX popularity gave Apple a profitable
Speaker 1: quarter in early and then it was off to the races.
Speaker 1: The company that so many people had shrugged off as
Speaker 1: having lost its way appeared to be not just back
Speaker 1: on track, but leagues ahead of the competition. And it
Speaker 1: was largely thanks to Ive's design team that tam was
Speaker 1: already hard at work on another product, one similar in
Speaker 1: many ways to the iMac, and this was the eye Book,
Speaker 1: which was a nod to the iMac and the intended
Speaker 1: purpose to serve as a computer that could quickly connect
Speaker 1: to the Internet. So this was a clamshell laptop computer
Speaker 1: that also featured rounded corners, so you didn't have these
Speaker 1: sharp corners of your typical laptop. It also featured colorful
Speaker 1: rubber accents that bordered a polycarbonate white plastic case to
Speaker 1: give it kind of a whimsical appearance. There are elements
Speaker 1: of translucent plastic in that case as well, and a
Speaker 1: lot of the design elements that made the IMAX so
Speaker 1: compelling found their way into the Eyebook design. By the
Speaker 1: time Steve Jobs is ready to unveil this new computer
Speaker 1: in nine, a year after the iMac had come out,
Speaker 1: the crowd was already on board. You should really watch
Speaker 1: this presentation, the Eyebook unveiling presentation, to see how the
Speaker 1: cult of Apple was off to a big start. Even
Speaker 1: as early as nine, the crowd had not even seen
Speaker 1: a single image of the laptop. But as soon as
Speaker 1: Jobs revealed that Apple had a new consumer laptop to
Speaker 1: show off after referencing the incredibly popular iMac, he was
Speaker 1: already getting crazy amounts of applause. He got even more
Speaker 1: when he revealed that the name of the laptop was Eyebook,
Speaker 1: and he still hadn't actually shown off the ding dang
Speaker 1: darn thing. Because Apple was known as using this naming
Speaker 1: convention of power in front of its professional grade hardware,
Speaker 1: so a power Mac was meant for professionals, whereas the
Speaker 1: iMac was meant as a consumer product. Well, the professional
Speaker 1: grade horrible Mac computer was called a power book. So
Speaker 1: he said, since we have the iMac, this is going
Speaker 1: to be the Eyebook, and that alone got a huge
Speaker 1: ovation from the crowd. I mean, it really was bonkers,
Speaker 1: and Jobs had to have been flying high. His audience
Speaker 1: was already on his side. He didn't have to win
Speaker 1: them over. They were providing him a ton of energy.
Speaker 1: So he then went through the technical specs of the laptop,
Speaker 1: which again not really important for this podcast, so I'm
Speaker 1: not going to go through them, And then he finally
Speaker 1: showed off the design. And when he did, he showed
Speaker 1: off this tangerine colored, rubber accented laptop, so like, all
Speaker 1: the color parts are rubber that overlay the white polycarbonate plastic.
Speaker 1: And it was a nice nod to Ive's past I
Speaker 1: think because in case you don't remember from the last episode,
Speaker 1: Johnny I've came to Apple after he had been working
Speaker 1: at a design consultancy firm called Tangerine. Even the Apple
Speaker 1: logo on the front was tangerine and color against the
Speaker 1: white polycarbonate plastic on the back. You had the entire
Speaker 1: bottom of the laptop coated in this, you know, tangerine
Speaker 1: shaded rubber, except for the Apple logo which was in white.
Speaker 1: So very nice little accent nods. Jobs continued with the presentation,
Speaker 1: even though you can hear the audience roaring like he
Speaker 1: didn't pause for them too a shout out their their
Speaker 1: joy at seeing this, and they would roar again when
Speaker 1: Jobs revealed that the computer had a handle near the
Speaker 1: hinge of the laptop, which would let you carry the
Speaker 1: laptop like a briefcase, which just goes to show we
Speaker 1: were easier to please way back in. He also showed
Speaker 1: how the laptop didn't have a latch, so it wouldn't
Speaker 1: latch closed and you wouldn't have to press anything in
Speaker 1: order to open it. Uh, the hinge was had enough
Speaker 1: tension in it to keep the laptop closed under normal conditions.
Speaker 1: He also showed how the communication ports didn't have covers,
Speaker 1: which made them easier to access. You can really see
Speaker 1: ives influence here, his desire to make the products something
Speaker 1: that you would want to use, and trying to avoid
Speaker 1: any components that would make that experience frustrating. Jobs announced
Speaker 1: that the Eyebook would be available in the colors tangerine
Speaker 1: or blueberry upon their first release. Later on, Apple would
Speaker 1: include a couple of other colors. They had Indigo, graphite,
Speaker 1: and key line. I never owned an Eyebook, but I
Speaker 1: have to say that the color and do signs really
Speaker 1: actually do look super inviting. I mean, I know that
Speaker 1: my phone is technically more advanced than those computers are,
Speaker 1: but still I kind of would like a Tangerine eyebook
Speaker 1: because it's just really pretty. And that goes to show
Speaker 1: how i'vean his team were geniuses. They tapped into something
Speaker 1: really powerful. They were able to come up with an
Speaker 1: aesthetic that had an instant appeal, and I've, with his
Speaker 1: tendency towards simplicity and minimalism, kept his team from adding
Speaker 1: in superfluous or distracting features or embellishments. Now we're gonna
Speaker 1: take another quick break. When we come back, i'll talk
Speaker 1: about and I've designed product that sadly did not see
Speaker 1: the kind of success that the iMac and eyebook would.
Speaker 1: But we'll do that after these messages. So I don't
Speaker 1: want to give the impression that Johnny I've was incapable
Speaker 1: of failure. We already saw that the IMAX mouse was
Speaker 1: kind of a misstep that people didn't really like using it.
Speaker 1: And if you don't like using a product, that's a
Speaker 1: that's a huge design problem. Right. It can look as
Speaker 1: gorgeous as anything, but if people don't like using it,
Speaker 1: it's a failure. Well, ivan Apple did turn out a
Speaker 1: few misfires. The eyebook and iMac were both really well
Speaker 1: performing products, but one that wasn't was the power Mac
Speaker 1: G four Cube, which had a G four processor in it,
Speaker 1: which is what gave it its name, just as the
Speaker 1: iMac G three would be called that well. The power
Speaker 1: Mac G four Cube was meant for professional users because
Speaker 1: it had the power designation right, so it was more
Speaker 1: powerful and included more features than what you would find
Speaker 1: in consumer Macintosh computers, and also had a hefty price
Speaker 1: tag to go along for the ride. The design of
Speaker 1: the power Cube was incredibly striking, because, as the name
Speaker 1: tells you, the computer's form factor was that of a
Speaker 1: cube rather than a tower. However, I should mention it
Speaker 1: wasn't a perfect cube and measured seven point seven by
Speaker 1: seven point seven by nine point eight inches or twenty
Speaker 1: by twenty by twenty five centimeters. Further, the cube had
Speaker 1: a housing that was made of clear acrylic glass, and
Speaker 1: i've's team chose that design because it gave the computer
Speaker 1: this sort of illusion of hovering just above the desk
Speaker 1: it would sit on because the bottom of the case
Speaker 1: of this acrylic case would uh hold up the computer
Speaker 1: a couple of inches. The computer had no internal fan
Speaker 1: inside it to dissipate heat. Instead, it relied on a
Speaker 1: grill in the top of the computer case that allowed
Speaker 1: heat to escape passively. It also didn't have a physical
Speaker 1: power button. Instead, it had a touch sensitive button that
Speaker 1: as soon as you made contact with it, would power
Speaker 1: on the computer or would make a power down computer
Speaker 1: go to sleep, which was a problem some people had
Speaker 1: where they would accidentally graze this touch sensitive button and
Speaker 1: turn their working computer into sleep mode, and that was frustrating.
Speaker 1: The cubic form factor placed other limitations on this computer,
Speaker 1: namely in order to fit all the components into that
Speaker 1: small space, and meant Apple would not be able to
Speaker 1: include expansion slots, so you couldn't expand out the capabilities
Speaker 1: of the computer beyond what it could do out of
Speaker 1: the box. The trail list CD slot that jobs had
Speaker 1: wanted for the iMac would find its way into the
Speaker 1: G four Cube and Johnny I've relished the challenge of
Speaker 1: creating a form factor of a computer that was unique
Speaker 1: among PCs. And while the design meant Apple had to
Speaker 1: make some massive compromises, Johnny Ivan his team did manage
Speaker 1: to get it all working, and the process really solidified
Speaker 1: a shift in Apple's operations. The design team would now
Speaker 1: have a much larger influence in product development than it
Speaker 1: had ever had before because Jobs was such a huge
Speaker 1: ally for industrial design. While the physical appearance of the
Speaker 1: Cube was striking, it failed to find a real market.
Speaker 1: Critics said that Jobs actually didn't identify a target market
Speaker 1: for the device, and that the lack of features, paired
Speaker 1: with a high sticker price meant that most folks in
Speaker 1: the market for a more powerful Mac We're gonna go
Speaker 1: with a more traditional PowerMac computer, not the Cube. Also,
Speaker 1: the injection molding fabrication process for the Cube's case sometimes
Speaker 1: had errors which introduced flaws like cracks in the clear
Speaker 1: acrylic case, so some customers were frustrated that it wasn't
Speaker 1: up to the standards of the previous models. Where you know,
Speaker 1: Johnny I was known for going and inspecting the manufacturing
Speaker 1: process to make absolutely certain that the design he created
Speaker 1: would come out flawlessly. This was a case where that
Speaker 1: did not happen, at least in some instances. Leading up
Speaker 1: to the Cube's release, Apple had enjoyed nearly three full
Speaker 1: years of profitability, but the Cube underperformed drastically, and Apple
Speaker 1: said that poor Cube sales led to a ninety million
Speaker 1: dollar shortfall for the company just won the cube alone.
Speaker 1: I think it was a hundred eighty million dollars less
Speaker 1: than what they had projected total, so the Cube accounting
Speaker 1: for about half of that shortfall, and so that was
Speaker 1: a pretty tough quarter, and it was another reminder that
Speaker 1: leaning more on form over function can sometimes have negative consequences.
Speaker 1: Now we'll say that despite the poor sales, the presentation
Speaker 1: the Jobs gave in order to introduce the cube went
Speaker 1: over like gangbusters, so that initial excitement didn't progress into
Speaker 1: sales unfortunately. But it was another case where the cold
Speaker 1: of Apple was in full display. Jobs came out and
Speaker 1: the crowd went gaga for the presentation once they saw
Speaker 1: the design of the cube, particularly when Steve Jobs turned
Speaker 1: the case upside down and revealed that there was a
Speaker 1: handle on the underside of the computer and by unlocking
Speaker 1: the handle, he could pull out the internals of the
Speaker 1: computer in one smooth motion. You didn't have to fiddle
Speaker 1: with with screws or anything like that and remove a panel,
Speaker 1: You just lifted it straight out of the case. I
Speaker 1: will say that was an amazing design choice, like something
Speaker 1: that made it super easy to access the internals, really
Speaker 1: really cool. It's just unfortunate that because of the form factor,
Speaker 1: there wasn't a whole lot you could do, Like you
Speaker 1: couldn't really slot in expansion cards into it or anything
Speaker 1: because there wasn't the space for it. But the design
Speaker 1: choice to make that a feature super cool, now it
Speaker 1: just didn't sell well. So it was a kind of
Speaker 1: a black mark on Johnny i'ves record at that point,
Speaker 1: not that it was entirely his fault, I mean it
Speaker 1: was it was a company wide failure, right because again,
Speaker 1: the decision to go with that form factor placed so
Speaker 1: many limitations and restrictions on the rest of the teams
Speaker 1: that it was pretty much impossible to create something that would,
Speaker 1: you know, go toe to toe with the other more powerful,
Speaker 1: professional level computers that Apple was creating and also justify
Speaker 1: the very high price tag. So a lot of people said,
Speaker 1: it's more like a very expensive toy rather than a
Speaker 1: computer that justifies the high price. However, it was the
Speaker 1: next big product line that would really push Apple into
Speaker 1: a new trajectory. It was the product line that I
Speaker 1: argue really saved Apple and put it on a pathway
Speaker 1: to becoming ridiculously uh successful. The product wouldn't come out
Speaker 1: till two one, and the first really breakthrough model of
Speaker 1: it wouldn't emerge until two four. I am, of course
Speaker 1: talking about the iPod. Now, I have done episodes on
Speaker 1: the iPod before, so we're not going to go through
Speaker 1: all of that. I will say it was not the
Speaker 1: first MP three player. It was Apple's first MB three player,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't the first in the world. So Apple
Speaker 1: is very rarely first to market with a technology that's
Speaker 1: not really the company's m oh, that's not what it does. Instead,
Speaker 1: Apple is known for designing top of class examples of
Speaker 1: technologies that someone else has already created. So no, iPod
Speaker 1: was not the first MP three player. It was just
Speaker 1: the first one that would become a runaway success, though
Speaker 1: as I said, it took a bit of time for
Speaker 1: that to happen. Now, the first model of the iPod
Speaker 1: had some features that the company would quickly drop. For
Speaker 1: one thing, it had a mechanical method for scrolling through songs.
Speaker 1: If you looked at the face of the iPod, you
Speaker 1: would see there was this circular device that's on the
Speaker 1: face of the iPod. Underneath the screen and you would
Speaker 1: put your thumb on this and you would physically turn
Speaker 1: this circle. It was a scroll wheel in other words,
Speaker 1: and you would use it to click through playlists or songs.
Speaker 1: You can scroll through menus this way. Um. But it
Speaker 1: physically would turn on its axis. So it had this
Speaker 1: tactile uh feature that other iPods would lack in the future,
Speaker 1: probably because this was a mechanical point of failure. Although
Speaker 1: there's something really satisfying I think of turning a mechanical component.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've seen plenty of fidget devices that are
Speaker 1: that's all they are, right, They're just a little physical
Speaker 1: things that you can play with in order to, you know,
Speaker 1: burn off some excess energy. And the original iPod had
Speaker 1: one of those mechanical elements to it. Uh. Sadly, I
Speaker 1: guess well, I guess it depends on your perspective. In
Speaker 1: my view. Sadly, they would get rid of that in
Speaker 1: the future versions of the iPod. But surrounding this scroll
Speaker 1: circle were four buttons that made up a perimeter around
Speaker 1: the circle, and these buttons had controls like play and pause,
Speaker 1: and rewind and fast forward, that kind of thing. Now,
Speaker 1: the original iPod could hold about a thousand songs, and
Speaker 1: it lacked a few things that really prevented this first
Speaker 1: generation from becoming a superstar. For one thing, it didn't
Speaker 1: have a USB port. Instead, it had a FireWire port,
Speaker 1: which really limited how you would be able to use it. Also,
Speaker 1: there was no compatible software that you could run on
Speaker 1: a PC to interact with an iPod, so it that
Speaker 1: if you wanted an iPod, you had to have an
Speaker 1: Apple computer in order to make it work. And those
Speaker 1: limitations kept the original iPod from becoming the success it
Speaker 1: would later be, but it did show the direction of
Speaker 1: the company and it set the tone for moving forward.
Speaker 1: The next generation of the device ditched the mechanical wheel.
Speaker 1: Instead it had a touch sensitive wheel so capacity of
Speaker 1: touch instead of mechanically turning a circle around. But physically
Speaker 1: it resembled the first generation. It was not a huge
Speaker 1: departure in design. Uh the mechanical wheel was gone, but
Speaker 1: the layout of the device was pretty much the same.
Speaker 1: There were a couple of other minor changes of the
Speaker 1: FireWire port then had a cover instead of it being
Speaker 1: open like it was in the first generation of the iPod,
Speaker 1: and ives team would take a larger departure with the
Speaker 1: third edition of the iPod, the entire interface became touch based.
Speaker 1: There was not yet a touch screen, but there were
Speaker 1: touch buttons instead of mechanical buttons. Two access all the controls.
Speaker 1: IVES team moved the control buttons above the touch wheel
Speaker 1: rather than around the perimeter of it, and the team
Speaker 1: would continue to make adjustments to the iPods design, including
Speaker 1: the creation of spinoff products. You know, you had the
Speaker 1: iPod Mini, which only lasted two generations, and you had
Speaker 1: the iPod Nano, which was the replacement for the iPod Mini,
Speaker 1: so was an even smaller version of the iPod, and
Speaker 1: then later on you had the iPod Shuffle as well.
Speaker 1: We'll probably touch on those a little bit in the
Speaker 1: next episode that we won't go into as much detail
Speaker 1: as we have for the you know, i amac and
Speaker 1: eyebook and the Cube for example, so we're gonna leave
Speaker 1: it off here, and in our next episode we'll talk
Speaker 1: about how the iPod design would influence Apple's direction and
Speaker 1: the general public's perception of the company. I mean, we
Speaker 1: call them podcasts because we named it after the iPod.
Speaker 1: That's how definitive a product that became. And we'll talk
Speaker 1: about ives role in creating this kind of momentum. Then
Speaker 1: we'll also talk about other products, the big one obviously
Speaker 1: being the iPhone and how that design ended up just
Speaker 1: cementing Apple's place as a tastemaker in consumer electronics. And
Speaker 1: then we'll also talk about the various things that played
Speaker 1: a part in I've becoming less enamored of Apple and
Speaker 1: ultimately his decision one to leave the company as an employee,
Speaker 1: and then too to essentially cut ties with Apple by
Speaker 1: not extending the contract that his design firm had established
Speaker 1: with the company. Those will be things we'll talk about
Speaker 1: in the next episode in this series. I hope you're
Speaker 1: enjoying these episodes. If you have suggestions for topics I
Speaker 1: should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, please reach
Speaker 1: out and tell me. You can do that in one
Speaker 1: of two ways. One way is to download the free
Speaker 1: i art radio app, navigate to the tech Stuff podcast page,
Speaker 1: use that little microphone icon to record a voice message
Speaker 1: up to thirty seconds in length, and let me know
Speaker 1: through there, Or you can reach out on Twitter. The
Speaker 1: handle for the show is text Stuff hs W and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Yeah. Text Stuff
Speaker 1: is an i Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from
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