This year's Time 100 list is now public and
Bono, who wrote the appreciation, compares Ive to the products he designs: "Brushed steel, polished glass hardware, complicated software honed to simplicity." What a relief to those of thinning pate—we aren't balding, we are honing! The Irish singer and activist was honored as a (Hero and) Pioneer in the inaugural Time 100 in 2006. He writes that Ive's "genius is not just his ability to see what others cannot but also how he applies it."
This sense of applied genius as well as the "very rare esprit de corps" that Ive inspires in the designers he manages does seem to be the essence of his success, and to a large extent Apple's. Ive is sometimes compared to Steve Jobs and suggested as his successor. But was Jobs really an artist and, by extension, is Ive?
I don't really think so. The defining difference between artists and designers is that artists create their own context. They don't invent things that their audience doesn't realize they needed—they invent things purely for their own purposes. And in a stark minority of cases, an audience finds these things so compelling (and valuable) that they can't imagine the world without them.
For all of their inventiveness, neither Jobs nor Ive have invented any genuinely new categories of being. "The pursuit of greatness over profit," as Bono characterizes Ive's "Jedi" code is not the same as the level of personal commitment that an actor like Daniel Day-Lewis (also on this year's Artist list) brings to the invention of a role. Through the force of his performance Day-Lewis's Lincoln becomes the movie Lincoln.
We expect this from our artists, but as much as we want to associate our designers with the things they create, we do not, in fact, want their personal journey to overtake the product. The "i" of the iPhone stands for me, not Ive.
Yes, as Bono formulates, it takes "a unique alchemy of form and function for millions of people to feel so passionately about the robot in their pocket." But that "robot" is not a work of art, it is a highly crafted product. This "alchemy" is not just a concoction of form and function, but also a cocktail of social leadership, pioneering innovation, titanic business ambitions and iconic charisma. Today's best designers are generalists, and this is why Ive has been charged with reimagining Apple's software products as well as the hardware he is already known for.
No question, Ive belongs on Time's list, but I think that beret can go back on the shelf.
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