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Samsung's more daring phone designs: a visual history
With Samsung poised to reveal its latest take(s) on the smartphone in a matter of hours, we thought it was as good a time as any to take a look back. The Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge+ are rumored to be on tap for tomorrow's festivities, two devices that would continue the company's affinity for super-sized phones and curved displays -- both of which are trends it started years ago. Of course, Samsung has experimented with a number of unique design flourishes. Some of them ended up setting the tone for the entire industry. Others, well, never really achieved liftoff (and with good reason).
Jonathan Ive on Apple's design philosophy
Late last year, Tim Cook put Jony Ive in the position of heading up Apple's Human Interface (HI) design across the company's products. Known for his work on Apple hardware, the British designer has worked his way up the ranks at Apple. He was highly regarded by Steve Jobs, who called him his "spiritual partner at Apple" in Walter Isaacson's biography of the Apple co-founder. While his hardware products speak for themselves, a spate of recent interviews gives us some insight into the design philosophy that drives this Apple executive. We know that Ive, like Tim Cook, is focused on making products the best they can be. In a May 2012 interview with the Telegraph, Ive said, "We're keenly aware that when we develop and make something and bring it to market that it really does speak to a set of values. And what preoccupies us is that sense of care, and what our products will not speak to is a schedule, what our products will not speak to is trying to respond to some corporate or competitive agenda. We're very genuinely designing the best products that we can for people." Ive also looks at products in their own right, and doesn't design a new model as a copycat or a clone. In this iPad mini video, he explains that "there is inherent loss in just reducing a product in size" and notes that Apple looked at the mini and "took the time to go back to the beginning and design a product that was a concentration of, not a reduction of, the original." Ive also spoke recently on Blue Peter about how Apple names its products and suggested that Apple is as careful with names as it is with outward design. Ive spoke about the term lunchbox and noted that Apple wouldn't use that name as it conjures up the image of a cube. He said "we're quite careful with the words we use, because those can determine the path that you go down." So what Ive influences will we see in the next version of iOS and OS X now that he is in charge of HI design? I honestly don't know, but I will say this -- if Ive puts his mark on it, it will be outstanding.
Sir Jony Ive discusses design on Blue Peter show, receives Gold Badge
Blue Peter is the world's longest-running children's television program, broadcast on BBC since 1959, so it's not surprising that Apple Senior Vice President of Industrial Design Sir Jony Ive was an avid viewer of the show as a child. Ive was recently a guest on Blue Peter where he talked about an early design experience tied to the show and then commented on children's designs for a combination school bag / lunch bag / pencil case. As you can see in the video clip below, Sir Jony was also awarded the rare high honor of a Blue Peter Gold Badge. Ive seemed genuinely touched by receiving the award from host Barney Harwood, and reciprocated by having a CNC milling machine make a large "aluminium" badge for the show staff.
Jony Ive: Apple's goal isn't to make money
Speaking at the British Business conference running in London during the 2012 Olympics, Sir Jonathan Ive -- Apple's Senior Vice President of Industrial Design -- told attendees that Apple's "goal isn't to make money." Instead, per the Daily Telegraph, he told attendees that the company's primary goal is to make great products. Ive started with Apple in 1992 and attributes Apple's success to its "near-death" experiences in the mid-1990s. "Apple was very close to bankruptcy and to irrelevance [but] you learn a lot about life through death, and I learnt a lot about vital corporations by experiencing a non-vital corporation," said Ive. Talking about late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Ive noted that "His observation was that the products weren't good enough and his resolve was we need to make better products. That stood in stark contrast to the previous attempts to turn the company around". Apparently the fixation on making great products nearly resulted in the iPhone never making it to market. According to Ive, "There were multiple times when we nearly shelved the phone because there were multiple problems. I hold the phone to my ear and my ear dials a number. The challenge is that you have to develop all sorts of ear shapes, chin shapes, skin colour, hairdo... it seemed insurmountable". Fortunately for the world and for Apple, the iPhone went on to be an amazing success, with 26 million of the devices selling in the last quarter alone. [via The Loop]
Visualized: What the new Samsung Series 9 could have looked like
In case you haven't noticed, we've gotten multiple opportunities to talk shop with Samsung executives over the past couple days. After we finished grilling the R&D team on higher-res displays, we sat down with the designers behind the latest Series 9 Ultrabooks, and they surprised us by whipping out a late-stage prototype -- aka, a glimpse at what these laptops might have been, were it not for a little extra hemming and hawing and at least one executive veto. You know what they say: a picture tells a thousand words, and we've got quite a few embedded below for your viewing pleasure. If you're obsessed with minutiae like the keyboard backlighting color, however, follow past the break for more on all those rejected design ideas, and feel free to let us know in the comments which ones you would've preferred.%Gallery-155616%
HP on laptop design similarities with Apple's: it's a struggle as we drive to simplicity
HP's spent the afternoon here in Shanghai to share some details about its latest products and strategy, and to our delight, there was one session dedicated to "Style Meets Function," during which Vice President of Industrial Design Stacy Wolff talked about his design philosophy and design goals for the current market. Most notably, we learned that some of HP's latest laptop designs were based on the work of its research centers from 11 different cities, and the company isn't afraid of admitting that it used consultants for an outside perspective as well. Despite Stacy's upbeat presentation and interesting stats (apparently these days men have a boring color preference, from first to fourth favorite: black, gray, blue and white), the inevitable question popped up: One lady expressed her concern that the brand-spanking-new Envy Spectre XT reminded her of the MacBook Air a lot, so she wondered if HP's ever worried that Apple might sue. Stacy kept his initial reply pretty brief: "I would go back to the TC1000 [Tablet PC] from about 10 years, and that's a tablet. I think if you look at the new Spectre XT, there are similarities in a way, not due to Apple but due to the way technologies developed. Apple may like to think that they own silver, but they don't. In no way did HP try to mimic Apple. In life there are a lot of similarities." As always, we wanted more from the horse's mouth, so we grabbed hold of Stacy right after the session and had a little chat over this topic -- you can see the full and surprisingly candid interview after the break.
Jonathan Ive wins British Visionary Innovator award
Jony Ive can add British Visionary Innovator to his long list of design awards. The Apple design head was given the award by Britain's Intellectual Property Office as part of its World Intellectual Property Day celebration. As noted in a Macworld UK report, Ive won with 46.6 percent of the vote. He was followed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man behind the HTTP protocol and the World Wide Web, who grabbed 18.6 percent. Ive certainly has earned the award. Since he joined Apple permanently in 1997, the UK-born designer has played a prominent role in the design of the iMac, iPad, iPhone, Mac Pro, MacBook Pro/Air and other recent Apple products. [Via Macworld UK]
Jony Ive nominated for British Visionary Innovator award
Apple's senior VP of Industrial design, Jony Ive, was nominated for a British Visionary Innovator award by the UK's Intellectual Property Office. This list includes other notable innovators including Sir James Dyson who created the dual cyclone vacuum cleaner, Sir Tim Berners-Lee who played an integral role in the early development of HTTP and the World Wide Web, J. K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame and others The competition honors World Intellectual Property Day 2012 which is celebrated on April 26. Voting in the competition begins today and ends Tuesday 24 April at 17:00. The person with the most votes will be announced April 26. [Via Macworld UK]
Apple's Sir Jonathan Ive: our competitors have 'completely the wrong goals'
London's favorite only remaining evening free-sheet has snagged an interview with Apple design maven Sir Jonathan Ive. In the piece he talks about being thrilled and humbled by his recent Knighthood, the importance of his London upbringing and why Apple's competitors can't win. Pointing to a desire not to make "genuinely better" products, Cupertino's unnamed rivals instead are "interested in doing something different, or want to appear new," which he says is the wrong goal. The difference is that he and his team aren't tied to a price, a schedule or a marketing scheme -- which he believes "have scant regard for people who use the product." There's also a barbed reference to consumers being able to sense "great care in the design and when there is cynicism and greed" in products on the market. Head on down to the source link to read more, including his frustration with designers who "wag their tails in his face" -- who knew designers had tails, eh?
The Engadget Interview: Nokia VP of Industrial Design Stefan Pannenbecker at MWC 2012 (video)
Today at Mobile World Congress we spent a few minutes talking with Stefan Pannenbecker, VP of Industrial Design at Nokia about Espoo's past, present and future handsets -- including the just announced 808 PureView, Lumia 610 and Asha 302 / 203 / 202, as well as the Lumia 900 we played with at CES. He shared his insights on Nokia's design language and philosophy and some interesting details such as the clearcoat finish used on the Lumia 800 / 900 and N9. Enjoy the video.
Cryoscope gadget simulates tomorrow's weather today (video)
This multi-layered device can't shower you with hail or tan your outdoor-deprived complexion, regrettably. What it can do though, is deliver a direct haptic sensation of how warm or cold it'll be tomorrow, just in case you decide to venture out of your bedroom. An Arduino controller pulls in forecast data from the web and uses it to adjust a Peltier element and a cooling fan, which are housed along with a heat sink inside a neat and tactile aluminum box. The Cryoscope is the handiwork of industrial design student Robb Godshaw, and it's the reason he already knew he'd be wearing a skinny t-shirt and stripey socks in the video after the break.
Apple lead designer Jonathan Ive knighted for the New Year, how's your 2012 looking?
Apple Senior VP Jonathan (or Jony) Ive has been credited with fueling the company's resurgence alongside Steve Jobs with products like the iMac, iPhone and iPad, and for these successes has been made a Knight Commander of the British Empire as a part of the New Year's Honour's List. Aside from having a much better NYE celebration than yours, he'll be tapped on the shoulders by the Queen's sword and that will forever be Sir Jony to you, commoner (we'll see if he can make it through the ceremony without suggesting some tweaks for better balance and usability -- you can see his passion above as he eats an invisible sandwich pontificates about new iMacs). It's a bump up from his previous title of Commander of the British Empire and keeps the cycle going, as he released a statement appreciating the benefit of a "wonderful tradition in the UK of designing and making". [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
The Engadget Interview: Nokia's Peter Skillman talks design (video)
Peter Skillman knows a thing or two about making beautiful devices. He's Palm's former VP of design, and he's the man behind Nokia's glorious N9 -- its look, feel and user experience. We bumped into him at Nokia World here today and asked him what went into the N9's -- and by association the Lumia 800's -- design. He shared quite a few interesting details with us, including tidbits about the "curvature continuous form" of MeeGo's icons, Nokia's Pure font and the nuances of the N9's sinuous taper. We even discussed the Play 360 Bluetooth / NFC speaker, which follows the same aesthetic principles. Take a look at our exclusive video interview after the break.
Plick hitches an elastic ride on the DIY robotics train (video)
Man, we hope Gumby's collecting some royalty checks for this one. One part incredible-stretching toy, and one part DIY robotics kit, the Plick project takes the traditional hobbyist approach to brick-building your own bot and slaps a little rubber all around it. The industrial design prototype from Brazilian engineer Gabriel Paciornik combines programmable robotic parts with an elastic wired connection suitable for strapping your mad scientist creations to everyday objects. So, what can you make? The kit packs a variety of sensor-based circles that react to distance and sound, giving your mod-jobs the power of movement and light. It's safe to say this not-for-market toy veers far from LEGO Mindstorms NXT territory -- and that's exactly the point. Far out video demo and its 60s beach music soundtrack after the break.
Rumors of Jon Ive moving to the UK reportedly false
Jonathan Ive, Apple's senior vice president of product design, has no plans to take his talents back to the United Kingdom, an in-depth profile of the designer in the Daily Mail revealed last week. Recent speculation suggested the 44-year-old planned to cash in his US$30 million in Apple stock options and relocate to a mansion he owns in Somerset so that his children could receive an education in the UK. Last month, the Times of London reported that Ive might be looking to leave Apple whose trend-setting designs he's helped shape for nearly 15 years. The Times suggested Ive remained an Apple employee only to reap the benefits of a "golden handcuffs" option grant from 2008 that he is now eligible to sell. With his net worth currently estimated at $128 million, many believed Ive could easily retire from Apple and return home to the UK with his family. Fortunately for Apple, last week's profile in The Daily Mail states, in no uncertain terms, that Ive has no plans to leave California and that his $4 million home in Somerset, UK, will remain empty. "I'm not sure there is any truth he wants to come back," a former colleague told the Daily Mail. "My last conversations with him were that he was planning to sell his house in the UK." Ive's career at Apple started quietly in 1992 when he often worked out of his own basement office, cranking out futuristic prototypes that were entirely under-appreciated by his superiors. "For the first three years Jony was having a pretty miserable time designing Newton PDAs and printer trays," Clive Grinyer, who co-founded tangerine, a UK consulting firm, with Ive in 1989, told The Daily Mail. "It was a bad existence." Then, Steve Jobs returned to Apple and quickly recognized the value of Ive's design talent. With the responsibility of designing Apple's future, Ive got off to a fast start with the iconic and colorful iMac. Despite falling short of Jobs's high standards for perfection, the iMac was a huge hit with customers and rejuvenated Apple essentially overnight. Since then, Ive has become one of Apple's strongest assets, consistently raising the standard for industrial design both at the company and throughout the world. Many consider Ive and current acting CEO Tim Cook to be Apple's most valuable executives behind Steve Jobs. With Ive apparently staying with Apple for awhile longer, Apple fans can look forward to more beautiful Macs, iPads, iPhones and iPods that define thoughtful, modern industrial design that's both functional and beautiful.
IDEO constructs RFID turntable, hearkens back to mixtapes of yore (video)
Once upon a time, you could touch your music -- or at least caress a 7- or 12-inch vinyl disc -- but these days the cool kids stream MP3s (and OGGs, and APEs) off the internet. However, design studio IDEO recently decided to see if they could get back in touch with their audio roots, and -- taking a page right out of the industrial design treatise I Miss My Pencil -- they built the above machine. To put it simply, what you're looking at is a box filled with specially-angled Arduino Pro Mini boards constantly searching for RFID tags on top, and a set of cards each with two RFID tags, with each tag representing one song. When you drop one on the turntable, it begins playing within a second, thanks to the clever array of Arduinos underneath, and you and your High Fidelity soulmate can leave multiple cards on the table to create an impromptu mixtape, or, presumably, flip one of the "cassettes" to play Side B. It's a good thing IDEO isn't selling the device and packs of cards, because we're afraid we'd be compelled to collect them all, and our poor wallet doesn't need any more heartbreak. Don't miss the video below!
Visualized: a treasure trove of modern design in one amazing Flickr photo stream
Looking for a crash course in modern industrial design? Then you could do a lot worse than the Flickr account of one known only as "afghtiga," who has compiled an amazing photo stream (and seemingly an amazing collection) of some key design touchstones of the past fifty years or so. As you might be able to discern from some of the curves and colors in the image above, there's a particular emphasis on products from the 1960s and 70s, but he does also include a few more recent gadgets, and we won't even begin to mention the number of watches on display. Head on past the break for another taste of what's in store, and hit up the source link below to dive in.
Nokia's Peter Skillman talks design priorities, gives us hope for a sunny MeeGo future
A day before jetting off to London to commence his role as MeeGo's head of User Experience and Services, Peter Skillman was kind enough to sit down with the design junkies at ZURB and dish out his thoughts on what makes for good mobile design and where it is that most companies trip up. Lest you forget, this is the dude that was in charge of putting the Palm Pre together, so he's not exactly without credence in these circles. Which is a good thing, because he doesn't bother with pulling any punches. Peter namedrops Motorola's Motoblur as an unnecessary layer on top of Android, criticizes the failure of different groups within companies to communicate effectively, and finishes off his treatise with a list of priorities for successful design: consistency, emotional content, and a paranoid fear of mediocrity. Inspiring stuff, we're sure you'll agree. Other tidbits of import include the fact that Pete had to withstand nine days of interviews before getting the Nokia job, and also this memorable quote on the topic of smartphones: "if you're not succeeding at the high end, then you're absolutely doomed to failure." We've been saying the same thing for ages and it's encouraging to know that Nokia now has an exec with his finger on the market's pulse. Now let's see him deliver on those words. You'll find the full interview at the source link below.
Guust Hilte's tactile texting device solves the 'every pixel feels the same' problem (video)
Moving away from buttons on phones has lead to a higher level of design purity, but has also made life a lot more difficult for the blind or seeing impaired -- or anyone who doesn't want to look at their phone while texting. We've seen how solutions like the Brailliant-32 can let users interact with mobile devices, but that's hardly portable. Guust Hilte's device is. Looking like a cross between an egg and a rubber stamp, or perhaps the abdomen of a Cyclocosmia spider, it features a series of what Hilte calls gullies on the top that users can trace over with their thumb to enter letters, shown after the break (complete with chill Röyksopp soundtrack). However, that's just a prototype, a Masters project at the Eindhoven University of Technology, with the ultimate goal to integrate the thing into the back of phones. Hilte's vision is users flipping over their celly, entering their message, and then sending away without looking. We think the same could be done without flipping, instead using your index finger, and finally making use of all that wasted space 'round back. %Gallery-100358% [Thanks, Fabian Hemmert]
Life after death: Phantom game console remembered in design mockups
Man, talk about a blast from the past. The Phantom game console aimed to change the video game landscape as we knew it back in the wild days of 2004, but for one reason or another, the box never actually materialized. Of course, just because you never saw one on a Walmart shelf doesn't mean that no mockups ever existed, and core77 managed to dig up the industrial design firm who was responsible for engineering the admittedly handsome box. Robrady won't ever get the credit it deserves for piecing together a shell that never went anywhere, but you can visit the links below to hand over your own tribute.
