Jonathan Ive

Jonathan Ive (born 1967) is Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple Computer. Ive is credited with designing the iMac, a key product in turning Apple's fortunes at a difficult time for the company and reestablishing its reputation for mold-breaking products.

Related Topics:
1967 - Industrial Design - Apple Computer - IMac

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Ive was born in London and studied art and design at Newcastle Polytechnic before setting up his own design house, Tangerine. Apple was one of his clients, and was so impressed with his work for them that in 1992 they offered him a job in their Cupertino headquarters to turn around their ailing design division. Until 1997, when Steve Jobs returned to the company and became interim CEO, Ive's influence at Apple was limited. Jobs recognized Ive's talent and chose him to lead the iMac project.

Related Topics:
London - Newcastle Polytechnic - 1992 - Cupertino - 1997 - Steve Jobs

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Since then, Ive has headed the industrial design team that produces most of Apple's major hardware products. Ive's team designed the original iMac and its successors, the original iBook and its successors, the Power Mac starting with the Blue and White Power Mac G3, the Power Mac G4 Cube, the PowerBook starting with the Titanium PowerBook G4 (or possibly earlier), the eMac, the Mac mini, the Xserve and Xserve RAID, the iPod family, the AirPort base station family, and the Cinema Display and some later Studio Displays. The team has also assisted in the design of some third-party Mac accessories such as the Harman Kardon Soundsticks speaker system.

Related Topics:
IBook - Power Mac - Power Mac G4 Cube - PowerBook - EMac - Mac mini - Xserve - Xserve RAID - IPod - AirPort - Cinema Display - Harman Kardon

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Under Ive's direction, Macs radically changed, becoming more beautiful, stylish, and functional than the Macs of the mid-90s. For this reason, his works are powerful symbols of the "new Apple." After replacing Gil Amelio in an executive coup, Steve Jobs transformed the company, and nothing made the change in Apple's attitude more apparent, or impressed it more into the public mind, than Ive's Macs.

Related Topics:
90s - Gil Amelio

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