[Dorian Gray]

Jonathan Ive, or Sir Jonathan, has been made a Knight Commander of the British Empire for his design efforts.

A decent way to start the new year, I suppose!

The BBC article has an interesting titbit about Ive being hurt by Jobs taking credit for design innovations. I haven't got to that bit in Isaacson's biography yet. However, the article also disparagingly calls the iPod and iPhone gadgets!

[chucker]

While I've seen definitions of 'gadget' that make it out to be a toy, that's neither universal nor modernly common. OS X's dictionary says "a small mechanical device or tool, esp. an ingenious or novel one". I wouldn't call "ingenious" a disparaging adjective.

Plus, sites like Engadget and gdgt clearly embrace the idea of gagdets as being interesting, if not quite useful.

[torifile]

I wonder how much of this "hurt" is just played up by the media to provide tension in a story. I don't think any of us though it was Jobs who actually designed any of Apple's gadgets () but his aesthetic is clearly present. We all know it was Ive and his team that put pencil to paper, which is, IMHO, much harder to do. I know what I think looks or sounds good, but it's a great artist that has to actually make that a reality.

[Dorian Gray]

I haven't got to that section in the book yet, but I do think Jobs' aesthetic was a driving force in Apple's design, regardless of who actually came up with the concrete ideas.