Engadget has been testing and reviewing consumer tech since 2004. Our stories may include affiliate links; if you buy something through a link, we may earn a commission. Read more about how we evaluate products.
Jony Ive named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world
Time magazine's annual list of the top 100 most influential people in the world is out and Apple design guru Jony Ive made the list.
Ive's write-up in the magazine was penned by none other than U2 frontman Bono, who you might remember had a particularly close relationship with Steve Jobs and a long-standing working relationship with Apple with respect to Bono's Project Red initiative.
Bono writes of Ive:
Jony Ive is himself classic Apple. Brushed-steel, polished-glass hardware, complicated software honed to simplicity. His genius is not just his ability to see what others cannot, but also how he applies it. To watch him with his workmates in the holy of holies, Apple's design lab, or on a night out is to observe a very rare esprit de corps. They love their boss, and he loves them. What the competitors don't seem to understand is you cannot get people this smart to work this hard just for money. Jony is Obi-Wan.
Ive's inclusion on the list shouldn't be all that surprising when you consider that there are currently hundreds of millions of Apple products in use worldwide that bear the design influence and sensibilities of Ive.
What's more, Ive's influence on the products we use is only bound to increase in the years to come. While Ive has historically been a driving force in the industrial design of Apple's products, his design taste will soon be apparent in Apple's software as well. Remember that Ive, following the unceremonious departure of Scott Forstall, was put in charge of Apple's Human Interface design this past October.
We should get a first glimpse of Ive's software aesthetic when Apple unveils iOS 7 at WWDC this year. That is, of course, if Apple can get it finished on time. Recent reports have suggested that Apple's next-gen mobile OS is running a tad behind schedule, so much so that Apple was reportedly forced to pull engineers working on OS X 10.9 to help out with iOS 7 development efforts.
Returning to Time's list of 100 influential figures for a second, there are two other points of interest worth mentioning.
First, Samsung CEO Oh-Hyun Kwon made the cut, and his write-up was, oddly enough, penned by former Apple CEO John Sculley.
Second, Greenlight Capital hedge fund manager David Einhorn also made the list. You might remember that Einhorn caused a small stir in financial circles earlier this year when he sued Apple for not returning enough of its cash to shareholders. Einhorn subsequently dropped the suit in March.
