Jony Ive is currently perhaps the most important person in AppleHe is responsible for the design of all the products introduced, as well as the appearance of OS X and iOSBut his connection with the Cupertino company has been going on for many years. So let's dig a little deeper into the past and find out what happened with the very first product he Jony Ive pro Apple created, which was the Newton MessagePad 110. This device was incredibly interesting and in a way ahead of its time and laid the foundation for future products like iPhone and iPads.
The first task of Jony v Apple was to design and engineer the second generation Newton MessagePad. The first Newton wasn't even introduced at the time, but the current design team hated the design of the first generation. Due to a busy schedule and too fast production, the first model had a few bugs that everyone wanted in the Apple repair.
Right before he was supposed to Apple the first Newton to market, it was discovered that the Newton had problems reading memory cards that were inserted into the device in a slot on the top of the product and with a cover that was supposed to protect the entire display. In addition, the memory cards interfered with the open lid. Apple solved this problem by introducing several covers. Another problem was the poor placement of the speakers, which were placed exactly where the user held the device. Anyway, the first generation Newton, for all its faults and problems, was released.
Hardware engineers wanted the second generation Newton (codenamed Linda) to have a slightly larger display for better handwriting recording. Also, the first Newton was really wide and thick, mainly due to the weird looking stylus cover. Of course, the engineers wanted to change that too, the first Newton was so thick and wide that it only fit into the largest trouser pockets. Jony worked on this generation between November 1992 and January 1993. As always, he started with a question "What's the story behind this product?" The Newton was new and unique, so the definition for the intended use of the product was not as simple as for other products. It depended on the software that determined what the essence of this product was - Newton could be a notepad or a fax machine. The then CEO Apple John Sculley Newton called it a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), but that seemed like an insufficient explanation to Jony.
"ProI'm sorry about the first Newt.one"The thing was, it didn't connect with people's everyday lives in any way," Jony said. "It didn't provide a metaphor for users to grasp." Jony decided to solve this problem.
Pro For many people, a lid is just a lid, but Jony paid special attention to it. "It's the first thing you see and use," Jony said. "You must open the lid before using the product. I wanted this moment to be special.”
That’s why Jony designed a clever spring-based mechanism; when the user lightly pressed the lid, it opened. This mechanism was precisely calculated so that the user didn’t have to use too much force to open the lid. Jony also came up with a way to flip the lid to the back of the device, eliminating all the complicated handling and problems that occurred with the first product with memory cards (which got in the way of the lid and vice versa). This method also added a special message to the product. “ Turning the lid to the back was very important because this movement was not culturally specific,” Jony explained.
"Turning the lid sideways, like a book, created problems because in Europe and the US people were used to opening the lid to the left, while in Japan they opened the lid to the right. Pro"That's when I decided to flip the lid over."
Then Jony focused on the special factors that create it magicpersonal charm. The Newton was to be controlled by a stylus. Jony knew that users would want to play with it and gradually fall in love with it. Pro To slim down the body, Jony decided to place the stylus in a spot at the top of the device. “I designed the lid to pivot on the back of the stand, just like a classic notebook. It was a good decision to store the stylus in the upper part where the spiral would be in the notebook.”
"This was a key element of the whole product story."
The space to store the classic stylus was too small, so Jony decided to create a brand new stylus that was cleverly composed of multiple parts, significantly reducing its thickness and height. Pro To eject the upper part, the user had to press on a specific part (just like with a classic pen). Pro The adequate weight was a stylus made of brass.
His colleagues were going wild about the process and design. “Jony Lindau really shined,” said his colleague Parsey.
Jony was also pressed for time and under immense pressure. The first generation Newton was doomed after the popular comic Doonesbury made an incredible mockery of this comic's creator, Gary Trudeau, describing the overall experience with Newtonem as tragic, dealing him a significant blow from which Newton never recovered. Thanks to Gary, the first Newton MessagePad had to be replaced as quickly as possible.
This pressure obviously had an impact on Jony. “When you know that every day the company you work for is losing a lot of money, it gets your attention,” Jony said with his typical British understanding.
To the amazement of his colleagues, Jony was able to create the first concept model just two weeks after the initial design, a record time. Jony was determined to finish the product on time, even going as far as to travel to Taiwan to fix manufacturing issues. He spent the night in a hotel near the factory floor where the Newton was being manufactured. Together with a hardware engineer, he tried to fix the problem with the stylus part being ejected.
Parsey remembers Jony pushing himself to create something special. “To design the best possible design, you need to live and breathe the product.”chatJony worked at such a high level that he loved the product. Pro"It was fascinating… and exhausting at the same time. But if you're not determined to give your all to your work, the design won't be great."
When everything was finished, Jony's colleagues were shocked and amazed by how new Newtonem, and Jonym, who joined the team only two months before completion. Member of the Board of Directors Apple Gaston Bastiaens, who was in charge of the entire Newton project, told Jony that he would win every possible award. He almost did. After introducing Linda in 1994, Jony won several of the most important awards in the design industry: Gold Industrial Excellence Award, the Industrie Forum Design Award, Germany's Design Innovation Award, and Best of Category award from the ID Design Review and the honor of being recorded in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in San Francplaintiff.
One of the things that surprised photographer Rick English was Jony's aversion to prizes. More precisely, his aversion to receiving awards in public. "Jony Ive "He always said he wouldn't attend these events," English said. “That was really interesting because it was unusual. He hated having to go up on stage and receive an award.”
Jony's Newton MessagePad 110 was launched in March 1994, just six months after the first generation. Unfortunately, even the brilliant second generation, due to poor marketing and the disastrous first generation, was unable to save the Newton line. The Newton never nestBoth generations also had battery issues and a poor handwriting recognition system, which Gary Trudeau made fun of in his comics. Not even Jony's stellar design saved the Newton.
Phil Gray, Jony's former boss at RWG, remembers seeing Jony in London just after the MessagePad 110 was launched. "The Newton was of course a clumsy brick compared to contemporary products, but in its day it was a device that had no equal and no one had seen it before." Gray said. “Jony was frustrated because even though he worked so hard on it, he had to make a lot of compromises because of the hardware. Later you in Apple built a strong position in which he could influence both the hardware and the overall product creation process.”
yes, there were times when he still had some ideas... today he only knows the shape of soap :)