Jony Ive Describes the 20th Anniversary Macintosh in 1997

This was so early in Ive’s career that he still had hair, and went by “Jon Ive”. The 20th Anniversary Mac was a weird beast, starting with the fact it commemorated the 20th anniversary of the company, not the Mac (which was 11 years old at the time). The main thing is it was never meant to sell at scale — it started at $7,500 and according to Wikipedia Apple only ever made 12,000 of them. It was a shipping prototype, effectively.

But the design clearly presaged what we now know as the modern iMac, which effectively is the modern desktop: all-in-one design, LCD display (this was truly radical in 1997), good built-in speakers, and an attempt to minimize the tangle of cables most PCs and Macs had in the back. All the hallmarks of Ive’s design sense are there.

★ Friday, 19 July 2019