Jony Ive, Apple’s longtime design chief, is leaving Apple to start his own firm.
Ive has been prolific during his time at Apple. His name can be found on 1,628 patents in the US Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) database. The first one he was part of, filed in 1994 when Apple was still called Apple Computer, was for the design of a product now seen as being far too ahead of its time, the Apple Newton handheld digital assistant.
Ive went on to have a hand in just about every major piece of hardware Apple has released since the turn of the century, including the seminal designs of the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. His designs have sold billions of units, helping turn Apple into one of the most valuable companies in the world.
But not everything Ive has done at Apple has been as momentously important as kicking off the mobile computing revolution.
Some of his designs were true howlers. And in reality, Ive’s name is likely on many of these patents (often in a group of a dozen or so other people) because he was the top of the design chain at Apple, signing off on other employees less, um, consequential projects.
Beyond Ive’s legacy of award-winning, massively popular products, here’s a short list of some of the stranger things his name is on in the USPTO database:
- A table
- A different table
- A lanyard
- A different lanyard
- Yet another lanyard
- A credenza
- A drawer
- A clasp
- A shopping bag
- A different shopping bag
- A fabric design
- A USB stick
- The bit of the Apple Watch that connects the strap to the body
- The packaging for EarPods, the Apple Watch, the iPhone, the iPad, an iPhone case, a MacBook, and one of those lanyards.
- A single link in a watch bracelet
- Some sort of display stand
- The cap of the Apple Pencil
- The tip of the Apple Pencil
- The AirPower mat, a product Apple canceled
Disappointingly, some of Apple’s other more bizarre patents (such as this one for a plant pot, and this one for a round pizza box) do not bear the mark of Sir Jonathan.
Perhaps this newfound freedom will allow Ive to design the one thing that’s been burning inside him for years that he could not realize at Apple: a cup.