Jony Ive Profile in Vogue

Robert Sullivan, writing for Vogue:

“Feels nice, doesn’t it?” On my second visit to Cupertino, Ive has finally handed it over: the new Apple Watch. It is more watch than the computer geeks would ever have imagined, has more embedded software than in a Rolex wearer’s wildest dreams. When Ive shows it to me — weeks before the product’s exhaustive launch, hosted by new CEO Tim Cook — in a situation room that has us surrounded by guards, it feels like a matter of national security. Yet despite all the pressure, he really just wants you to touch it, to feel it, to experience it as a thing. And if you comment on, say, the weight of it, he nods. “Because it’s real materials,” he says proudly. Then he wants you to feel the connections, the magnets in the strap, the buckle, to witness the soft but solid snap, which he just loves as an interaction with design, a pure, tactile idea. “Isn’t that fantastic?”

That Sullivan got to see Apple Watch before it was announced is pretty interesting, as is the fact that such access was granted to Vogue, of all magazines. “The Man Behind the Apple Watch” is an interesting headline, too.

★ Wednesday, 1 October 2014