Sir Jony Ive

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book, and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:45

My castaway this week is the designer Sir Johnny Ives. He is, by any measure, one of the most, if not the most, celebrated and influential designers today. The products he created at Apple, alongside his best friend and colleague the late Steve Jobs, have changed our lives and our world in ways we're still only just beginning to understand. His designs for phones, music players and watches shifted our ideas about what a computer could be and do, taking what was once a workplace tool and making it personal, something we carry with us or even wear. In the process they helped to make Apple the world's first trillion dollar company.

Presenter1:24

His father was a silversmith and influential educator, who spent his working life making sure design was taken seriously as part of the British school curriculum, and by his son, though the projects they worked on together, including a go-kart, a treehouse, and a toboggan, were often devised for fun. His name is on over 14,000 patents worldwide, and alongside technological icons, his creations include a comb, a desk and a foldable comic relief red nose. In 2019, he set up his own design firm, Love From, named in honour of his late best friend, who believed creating designs was an act of generosity to humankind. He says, In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer, but to me nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation.

Presenter2:13

So Johnny Ive, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Sir Jony Ive2:15

It's lovely to be here, Lauren. Thank you.

Presenter2:17

We're absolutely thrilled to have you. You describe yourself, Johnny, as very present in the world. The artist Grayson Perry talks sometimes about his job as being to notice things. And I wonder if you can relate to that, that idea of being alive to the world and noticing it.

Sir Jony Ive2:32

Innately I'm hugely sensitive, so I I'm um was a painfully shy child that would spend a lot of time, I think, in my own head. But that's not because I was doing nothing, I was in my own head observing and and I guess reacting to what I saw.

Sir Jony Ive2:54

Yeah, I think it's both a blessing and a curse. Um.

Presenter2:58

In what way? Tell me more about that.

Sir Jony Ive3:00

Well, I think we can all see the same thing and it's what you take away, how you interpret, whether it's an interaction, whether it's an object. But it is that acute sensitivity to the way people relate to each other, the way they relate to their built environment, even the natural environment. I think that the one of the struggles I have though is in some ways I think ironically I I struggle with being present in the the now because I spend so much of my life in my head in the future.

Sir Jony Ive3:34

The way I try to understand the future is I'm obsessed with the past, and so the bit that often gets missed out is is right now.

Presenter3:42

Do you think that's part of your makeup and who you are and why you became a designer? Or is it part of having spent so much time in your life just thinking about who made that? Why does it work that way? Could it be better?

Sir Jony Ive3:56

I I think spending too much time in my head, f really not feeling I had a choice, what I did have a choice about was that this started off as just innately who I was, was I'm so curious.

Sir Jony Ive4:11

Not in a gentle or passive way, but furiously curious. It drives me crazy if we just accept someone's dogma, whether it's a theory, an idea, or whether it's a way that we're supposed to behave, or whether it's a building, an object. I just want to understand why, why, why is it like that? I mean, this is an example of how noisy my head will get. I mean, every single made object, to me, I see as in a way an ambassador or certainly a representative of the people that made it. I mean, it gives you such a clear idea about what motivated them, what their values were. And so I think it's quite easy to be completely lost in the wonder of just questioning why things are the way they are.

Presenter5:02

Many of the products that you work on, Johnny, have been technologically advanced. Now, would you describe yourself as a techie person?

Sir Jony Ive5:10

No, I'm not interested in technology for technology's sake. I'm interested in people.

Sir Jony Ive5:16

And I actually think that not rolling around in the in the joys and gorgeousness of technology for technology's sake is a good qualification to try and figure out how can people connect in an intuitive and natural way to extraordinary capability.

Presenter5:37

It's time for your first disc, Johnny, what have you got for us, and why?

Sir Jony Ive5:40

This is Really Saying Something by Banana Rama.

Sir Jony Ive5:45

And Famboy 3. To me, when I listen to this, I can smell morning toast. So, I would listen to this a lot at college, and I was a real night owl. I've always done my best, and I think the best work has been at night. I would work through the night. And if it had been a productive and creative night, as the sun would come up, I can see and smell the toast and listening to Banana Rama.

Speaker 36:18

He was really saying something

Speaker 26:22

Uh

Speaker 36:22

Uh

Speaker 26:22

Billy's saying something.

Speaker 26:26

Bob is a bit wild.

Speaker 26:30

One but should be you are

Speaker 26:33

I was walking down the street.

Speaker 26:36

Yeah.

Presenter6:37

It's all over with me.

Speaker 26:39

Uh

Presenter6:39

Oh yeah, I ignored all the things you say

Speaker 26:40

Yeah.

Presenter6:44

We never

Presenter6:47

Bananarama and Funboy Three really saying something. So Johnny Ive, you were born in Chingford in East London in nineteen sixty seven and your parents, Mike and Pam, were both teachers. Now I know your dad was a huge influence on your choice of career. Tell me, how did he inspire you?

Sir Jony Ive7:04

He was a maker and

Sir Jony Ive7:07

There's something about watching him work. I mean, it started by watching him take a piece of silver.

Sir Jony Ive7:15

And

Sir Jony Ive7:17

Workshops are quite scary. I mean, as a small boy, you had these furnaces and there were the oxyacetylene torches that would breathe and spit fire. And then there's the bashing, the relentless bashing and bashing. But somehow, from something that may appear dirty, something beautiful emerges.

Sir Jony Ive7:43

Ultimately what I think I don't know struck me was that process was him that took a sheet of metal and it became a beautiful bowl with utility, purpose and value.

Presenter7:56

And the two of you made together? What what kind of things did you work on? What sort of projects?

Sir Jony Ive8:00

We didn't have much money as as I was growing up, and the the most remarkable and precious gift was his time. And at Christmas he would promise me a day.

Sir Jony Ive8:15

that we would go into the workshop having designed and I didn't really know what that word was and really what it meant but that we would decide we were going to make a toboggan or we were going to make a treehouse and that I would have to describe what I wanted and that was with drawings and with some words and some with and some hand waving.

Presenter8:41

That's a bit of a tricky ask. I mean, what age would you have been to in that?

Sir Jony Ive8:46

I was probably seven or eight, and he was always so busy and always doing other stuff. So I think it was probably this perfect storm of having his attention and being able to participate in something that I'd only been a spectator in before.

Presenter9:04

Your dad went on to become an educator who was hugely influential. He advocated to get DT, design technology, onto the school curriculum. I think it would have been C D T initially. He helped write the curriculum too. When did you start to understand his legacy and how much he had changed things?

Sir Jony Ive9:22

Well, I think when I I started to confront some of the prejudice that I think was at the heart of his conviction and work in education, this sense that if you make something that's that's of lesser value than if you write it, this idea that it's dangerously close just to being a hobby.

Speaker 29:36

Then if you write

Sir Jony Ive9:42

and every bone in his body and his gift and you know he wanted to study silversmithing and cabinet making and the academic pressure to do something other than that, I think had a huge impact on him.

Presenter9:56

And as we've heard, your mother Pam was also a teacher. What was her influence on you when you were growing up?

Sir Jony Ive10:02

Later in life, you know, she trained as a therapist and she was, I mean, very thoughtful, constantly reading. You know, like me, I think she spent a lot of time thinking, but she was very clear in her sense of herself.

Sir Jony Ive10:19

and w was never bullied into or did not easily accept received wisdom, the dogma of others. Sometimes that would make her appear contrarian, but she was very clear and very boundaried. And I think her influence would have been learning to become comfortable

Presenter10:34

Rid.

Sir Jony Ive10:40

with having a different opinion.

Presenter10:42

And you were very close to your dad's parents. You spent a lot of time with them. What do you remember about those years?

Sir Jony Ive10:48

They grew all of their own food, you know, up in North London in this, you know, greenhouse in the garden. But they had the Tom and Barber good lifestyle. I mean, some of my early memories were going up to Neil's Yard in my father's old Volvo Amazon, and it was the one place in Neil's Yard where you could bulk by lentils.

Sir Jony Ive11:09

And I hate lentils. I hated them then and even more now.

Presenter11:14

They're very good for you, John.

Sir Jony Ive11:16

Uh

Presenter11:16

Uh

Sir Jony Ive11:17

It's well, do you know what I associate them with was apart from them always being available in enormous volume, which was

Sir Jony Ive11:25

ominous was what they tasted like, but mainly I remember using do you remember those using P V A glue, like these little green spreaders, and sticking them onto paper as a collage?

Presenter11:35

Might be

Sir Jony Ive11:40

And as as a

Presenter11:41

You couldn't relate to it as a food.

Sir Jony Ive11:43

I I just thought this is the place for these lentils stuck to this paper and not in my tummy.

Presenter11:51

I think it's time for some more music. Disc number two, if you wouldn't mind, Johnny, what are we going to hear next?

Sir Jony Ive11:56

De doo doo doo de da da da, the police. This is me, I think I was sort of 12, 13 in London. What really struck me was how powerfully simple it was when it drops back to Andy Summers' Riff in the verse and Copeland's rim shops. How simple and in all of that space and the discipline of the framework, how powerful.

Speaker 212:22

When their eloquence so scares me

Speaker 212:28

Their logic ties me up and wrecks me.

Speaker 212:34

Da do do do, da da da da. That's all I want to say to you.

Speaker 212:43

Da da da, making those stuff will home be through

Speaker 212:49

The da da da, it's all I want two cents.

Presenter12:53

Da do do do, de da da da, the police. Johnny, I've you've described being very shy when you were a little boy, but you have said that that quality was useful to you in some ways. Tell me a little bit more about that. Why exactly?

Sir Jony Ive13:08

That drove me into my head. Or perhaps it wasn't that, it's that I daren't venture out.

Sir Jony Ive13:17

struggled to speak to, you know, in front of more than just uh half a dozen people, really into my early twenties.

Speaker 213:22

Uh Uh

Speaker 313:22

Uh

Speaker 213:22

Yeah.

Sir Jony Ive13:27

But I think being in my head

Sir Jony Ive13:31

I learnt to be comfortable, I suppose, with myself, not needing the affirmation of other people.

Sir Jony Ive13:39

And so in that space that was private and somehow inviolate, I could ask a lot of questions and not feel embarrassed about their apparent naivete. And while their loneliness wasn't particularly easy and feeling odd wasn't particularly joyful, wait to spend a lot of my adolescence and childhood. I really found it was a fabulous foundation for being able to I mean, you can cover a lot of ground in your head that you can't if you really are in the world.

Speaker 214:05

Listen, child.

Presenter14:19

But you were also engaging with things. I mean, as you say, this incredibly curious, interested kids, presumably the kind of kid who like to take things apart, I'm guessing.

Sir Jony Ive14:29

Where I would then, I think, dare venture out was with things, not people. And so that there was this one alarm clock. It felt you could there were little windows in the back where you could see all the gears and the springs and the movement.

Sir Jony Ive14:43

It was like there was this little city inside this this white casing. And that one I just had to start to take to pieces. And they're really complicated. And the springs, the way the springs are wound, when they go, you've not got a hope to reassemble.

Presenter15:03

And what I'm thinking about too is watching you tell that story is that you talk with your hands. You still that's such a an important part of how you express yourself, obviously.

Sir Jony Ive15:12

Yeah, I can't imagine not talking about taking a spring to pieces without moving my ass out.

Presenter15:19

Actually doing it. And you were saying when when you were going through the education system yourself, you came up against the prejudices and that was when you started to understand where your dad was coming from. So what did you experience? You know, was it was it in school, someone saying, Oh, well, you're not very good at this. You better go and do some woodwork or something like that?

Sir Jony Ive15:37

I mean, I love reading and I love writing.

Sir Jony Ive15:42

Well I do now, but when I was younger I struggled terribly with both reading and writing and lots of assumptions were made about my intelligence. Perhaps then my interpretation was those assumptions inferred or influenced people's perceptions of my value and in turn that made me not feel great about myself. I think that really informs why well you go and make something in the workshop was because you were unsuccessful in these other academic subjects and rather than being celebrated it was a way to amuse yourself and you know keep you occupied.

Presenter16:23

Hmm.

Presenter16:26

Things have changed so much and you know we thank your dad for that. I mean you must be very proud of his achievements.

Sir Jony Ive16:32

I I am so, so proud of him. I mean, he's um despite not being in the best of health, he still spends um days making things. I mean, he still spends days in the workshop.

Sir Jony Ive16:46

But I I am very conscious of just the in I don't even know where to begin in terms of how I can be here now is largely because of him.

Presenter16:59

And what about your early designs? I think your pet hamster was a beneficiary of of one of your earliest ideas.

Sir Jony Ive17:06

Yeah, I I remember making this ridiculous hamster cage.

Presenter17:10

Why was Hamster cage ridiculous?

Sir Jony Ive17:12

Well, it featured a lot of toilet rolls. I mean, it was just, it was a vast network of tubes and

Speaker 317:18

From a hamster's point of view, that sounds absolutely brilliant.

Sir Jony Ive17:21

Well, maybe it was presumptuous on my part. I made a lot of assumptions about what my hamster was interested in. And wouldn't it be awful if I'd completely got it wrong? Just because he ran fast through those tubes doesn't mean he was necessarily happy.

Presenter17:39

Oh, it's so difficult to understand. The mind of a hamster. That's a whole other show. It's time for some wool music, I think, said Johnny Ive. Disc number three. What are we going to hear next, and why are you taking it to the island?

Sir Jony Ive17:49

This is the theme song from Get Carter by um Roy Budd.

Sir Jony Ive17:54

This has a profound effect on me. The theme tune is when Michael Caine as Carter is traveling on the train from London to Newcastle. I'd bought a Walkman at the beginning of my time at college. It was a sportsman, so it was this bright yellow personal music player. And so this was sat on the train listening to a Roy Budd, imagining I was Michael Caine going up to Newcastle.

Speaker 218:04

Mm.

Presenter18:53

Carter Takes a Train, composed by Roy Budd, from the soundtrack to the film Get Carter.

Presenter18:59

Johnny Ive, as we've heard, in the eighties you studied for an industrial design degree at what was then Newcastle Polytechnic. You spent a lot of time with Plaster back then. What do you recall about the work that you were doing?

Sir Jony Ive19:10

It was a way where you with your hands could start to create form.

Sir Jony Ive19:17

The tutor was somebody called Roy Morris. I I remember two things about him. One, he's

Sir Jony Ive19:23

utterly, utterly consumed that we would learn. It w you know, it was clearly the most important thing in his life. I mean, drove and drove him. And the other thing was he had a terrible allergy to plaster dust.

Sir Jony Ive19:39

And this was before really we would s you know, our understanding of masks really related to sort of hospitals. But Roy would be

Speaker 219:46

Uh

Sir Jony Ive19:49

In the plaster room, which was carnage. There's plaster all over the benches, but the the air is thick with plaster dust. I mean, I know this sounds it sounds slightly slightly corny, but I remember very clearly one being aware of the the enormous cost being in that room was to him.

Sir Jony Ive20:10

And what practice, what habit was necessary to remind you that it was important that you take the work seriously and that you value the work, because if you don't, you know the work's not going to be of value.

Presenter20:19

Ping.

Presenter20:25

And did he get to see your success? Did he get to see what what you went on to do?

Sir Jony Ive20:32

For a few years. Yeah, he the the the the plaster, I think, took a toll.

Presenter20:38

So I think, Johnny, it would have been around this time when you were at the Poly that you came across your first Apple Mac computer. And I know that was a big moment for you. What do you remember about it?

Sir Jony Ive20:49

So the first time was in a bureau in Jesmond where you could go and rent time, you know, you could buy an hour. And I was just typing my thesis on this thing. I wasn't doing any CAD really. But just the joy of being able to type on that and to see a page on the screen and then use a laser printer and also choose the sounds. This was the first computer that let you actually change the alert chimes. And I was shocked that I had a sense of the people.

Speaker 221:01

Bill.

Sir Jony Ive21:23

That made it. They could have been in the room.

Speaker 221:23

But made it.

Sir Jony Ive21:26

And you I really had a sense of what was on their mind and their values and their sort of joy.

Sir Jony Ive21:34

and exuberance in making something that they knew was helpful.

Sir Jony Ive21:40

And reminded me of how important design was.

Presenter21:45

You're obviously a standout student, Johnny, because you won the Royal Society of Arts Student Design Award two years running. And your prize was a travel bursary that you used to travel to the States. So you went to San Francisco for the first time. You got to visit Silicon Valley. What were your impressions of the place when you saw it for the first time?

Sir Jony Ive22:06

There was, I mean this was the first time I'd been on an airplane. I was 21. My wife and I, Heather and I met in high school and we were married at college and we flew to San Francisco and this has been very much our joint adventure. I can't even think of doing anything that I've been up to if she wasn't with me.

Speaker 222:23

Very much.

Sir Jony Ive22:31

And there was something so beautiful about the quality of light, but it was the optimism, this sense of anything was possible, the view of the future being one that wasn't understood by constraint.

Presenter22:51

Let's have some more music, Johnny Ive. Your fourth choice today. What's it going to be?

Sir Jony Ive22:56

This is a song that I recorded. It's of my son. He was five and he'd watched the movie Singing in the Rain. I I I wasn't with him when he had watched it, so I didn't know.

Sir Jony Ive23:07

and he was dancing around the room, singing

Sir Jony Ive23:12

And I actually suddenly remembered and was so pleased with myself that I had an iPhone with me, that I could recall him, with no planning, with no and that's so not me.

Sir Jony Ive23:24

This is unrehearsed off the cuff and it's just it's Harry when he's five singing and dancing.

Speaker 223:30

I'm singing in the wind Just singing in a way

Speaker 223:39

What a glory is feeling.

Speaker 223:44

And how

Speaker 223:46

Happy Again.

Speaker 223:49

Singing in the wade

Sir Jony Ive23:53

La la la la la la la la la la la la La la la

Presenter24:01

Magic. Well, I don't even need to ask why you want to take that to the island with you. It's obvious. Absolutely magical. Singin' in the Rain, composed by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown and performed by Harry Ive. You've two sons.

Speaker 224:01

Bye-bye.

Sir Jony Ive24:04

Yes.

Sir Jony Ive24:14

I do. He has a a twin brother who's Charlie.

Presenter24:18

Charlie and Harry, wonderful. Okay, Johnny. So in the early 90s, Apple invited you to go and work for them in San Francisco, which, as you've described, you'd already fallen in love with. It wasn't a great time for the business back then, though. Co-founder Steve Jobs had been ousted and you said the company was dying. What was happening?

Sir Jony Ive24:36

Well when I arrived, so I I moved over in 92 and I was very aware of the shadow of Steve, his beliefs, his values, his vision, but I guess it was just this equation of the pursuit of other other priorities was becoming louder and clearly becoming more important.

Presenter24:59

Commercial priorities?

Sir Jony Ive25:00

Yeah, essentially it was I think when you struggle then a goal can become just commercial issues. I understand I mean if you're losing lots of money, you'd like to stop losing lots of money. The problem there is it means you focus on money and you're normally losing money because the products aren't right.

Speaker 225:13

Hmm.

Sir Jony Ive25:21

And from 92 to 97, it was a very, very difficult season. One that I am so grateful for, but I still get the shivers sometimes. You know, I would start the day by reading the paper and the headline would always be, or in the copy at the top, The Beleaguered Company Apple. I thought that's our name. You know, we changed it and included the beleaguered.

Speaker 325:26

And

Sir Jony Ive25:46

Yeah.

Presenter25:46

Uh And and what kept you going through that?

Sir Jony Ive25:49

There were some great compelling offers. Every sensible option was that I should probably come back to London and make a decision, make a change like that. But I just felt that Apple

Sir Jony Ive26:03

And the founding principles. I believe that people are important and I have an old school view of design that we're trying to be useful. If if we're not we shouldn't be doing it. My my intuition is a you know incredibly dominant part of how I look at the world and how I think. Um even when I think rationally I pay attention to how I feel.

Presenter26:33

One of your first jobs was redesigning the Newton Message Pad. So that was a small portable device with had a notepad and a calendar and a clock, among other things. But it must have been frustrating at the time because you created this thing and it didn't catch on. It was discontinued.

Sir Jony Ive26:49

There was just a big gap between the promise of the idea and the reality, the pragmatic reality of what it could do, and it just didn't do it. And it's funny, I don't remember being frustrated. I think being so consumed by wanting to learn, I mean, I was fine because I'd learned, which is, I guess, in retrospect, rather selfish. But I think it's also the context is that there's so much bubbling away. It was an atmosphere, not a product. And so.

Sir Jony Ive27:26

One product not working out. That that didn't seem the end of the world.

Presenter27:31

So, Johnny, you hung in there and then in 1997 everything changed. Steve Jobs returned as CEO.

Presenter27:38

We'll talk about his impact on the company later, but first of all I want to hear about his impact on you. What did you think of him the first time you met?

Sir Jony Ive27:48

I I was I mean having

Sir Jony Ive27:51

You know, with intention, wanted to learn about him, initially was enormously intimidated.

Sir Jony Ive27:57

And he came to the design studio.

Sir Jony Ive28:00

And immediately there was a connection that was so powerful and so strong. I mean I'd got into this terrible cycle of having to try and spend a lot of my energy on convincing people about what we should be designing and making. And I'm not very good at that.

Sir Jony Ive28:20

It it it was remarkable that despite m the limitations of my ability to communicate, Steve understood what I thought and how I felt. And

Speaker 328:32

Mm.

Sir Jony Ive28:34

I I I think probably the the overwhelming feeling I had was one of extraordinary gratitude. The heady sense of being understood and feeling relevant, and I was feeling increasingly irrelevant and increasingly useless.

Presenter28:49

Yeah.

Speaker 228:49

Uh

Sir Jony Ive28:56

Up until that point.

Presenter28:57

Well, we'll find out what happened next in a moment, but first I'd love to hear your next track. What have you got for us, Johnny?

Sir Jony Ive29:03

This is by Simple Minds. Don't you forget about me. And I remember listening to this in a slightly self-centered and over-indulgent way when I was leaving England. And it was terribly emotional. I was immigrating. I was leaving this country I loved and defined so much of me. And it was so absurdly pompous to play something that's begging people to not forget about me.

Presenter29:31

But it must mean a lot to you, you know, to come back and work with the design museum, to be part of the fabric of British culture.

Sir Jony Ive29:38

You know, I'm deeply involved with the Royal College of Art. I mean, I have so, so many reasons to be coming back as often as I am.

Presenter29:42

Yeah.

Sir Jony Ive29:47

I it means more than I could possibly say.

Speaker 229:51

Love strange, so we learn the dark

Speaker 229:55

Think of the tender name.

Speaker 229:57

That's when we're working on

Speaker 229:59

Blow change may pull us apart.

Speaker 230:03

Wanna let your heart baby?

Speaker 230:08

Don't you

Sir Jony Ive30:10

Forget about me

Sir Jony Ive30:14

Don't

Presenter30:21

Simple Minds, don't you forget about me. So Johnny Ive, Steve Jobs came back to the business and he was very aware that you needed a hit product to get things back on track. So he asked you to create a network computer that could connect to the Internet. So over to you. How did you set about the task?

Sir Jony Ive30:40

What I remember so clearly was it wasn't four months after we met, it was the very first day.

Presenter30:49

Uh

Sir Jony Ive30:49

And

Presenter30:50

So you're processing all of that. The intimidation is waning, but then...

Sir Jony Ive30:52

Mm-hmm.

Sir Jony Ive30:53

Well, I one great way of I mean, if there's nothing like an impossible task to take your mind off of off of your anxiety. Of course, that it was current and urgent. We were within days of becoming bankrupt, literally days. And so we started work

Sir Jony Ive31:11

From the first day that we met on what became the iMac and

Presenter31:16

How long did you have to develop it?

Sir Jony Ive31:18

In terms of the first establishing a direction, from a design point of view, we did that in the first probably two or three weeks.

Presenter31:29

And what was the what was the aim? What was the ambition?

Sir Jony Ive31:32

It's hard to believe, but in in ninety seven people were still

Sir Jony Ive31:38

struggling to understand the role of the PC, that they were still intimidated. They neither understood its function, certainly what its relevance necessarily was, other than a sophisticated typewriter. And so I think it was because we weren't preoccupied with the technology and we were really driven by trying to make something for people, it was a fabulous project.

Presenter32:04

So tell me about some of your creative decisions then. The translucent blue casing, the colour white, the handle. These were all very different from anything we'd seen before.

Sir Jony Ive32:14

Purpose, the goal of having a handle was, you may understand

Sir Jony Ive32:19

nothing about, you know, the nature of this object, not understand its capability.

Sir Jony Ive32:27

But when you see a handle, it references immediately and unambiguously your hand. And you understand, therefore, something about this object, and you make a connection to it. And so I think that the way the form was developed and the way that we developed the nature of the polymer, that it was slightly translucent and that it was colorful, you could talk about a colour, not gigahertz or hard drive capacity. You know, suddenly the language was way more accessible and egalitarian. But the product looked like it had just arrived or it was going to go somewhere. It felt alive. It didn't feel static. It didn't feel stuck.

Speaker 233:01

Uh

Speaker 333:05

Where

Presenter33:12

So it was a huge hit. Became the fastest selling computer at the time and put Apple back in profits. But obviously, it also deepened your friendship with Steve. The two of you became very close. How much time did you spend together on an average day?

Sir Jony Ive33:25

We would typically have lunch together

Sir Jony Ive33:29

Pretty much every day of the week we became very close. Our families became close. We would go on holiday together. But it was.

Sir Jony Ive33:38

What I cherished was that it became a time of creating.

Sir Jony Ive33:45

and nothing else really mattered. It was not characterized by meetings and presentations, because that was something that I was hopeless at.

Sir Jony Ive33:58

This was being able to spend all my time just designing.

Sir Jony Ive34:03

And it became like a continuous conversation.

Presenter34:08

Steve died in twenty eleven of cancer, he was just fifty six. When did you find out that he was ill?

Sir Jony Ive34:16

Um I I was in Berkeley and um my parents were visiting and um I looked down at my phone and had seventeen, eighteen missed calls and um

Sir Jony Ive34:33

So I f I found out when I got um

Sir Jony Ive34:38

Uh back home then. Yeah.

Presenter34:41

Yeah, really difficult. I could see talking about it is is tough. And and you were with him when he died. It must have been an incredibly difficult time for you, and I know that you still miss those conversations that you had.

Sir Jony Ive34:53

I remember he I mean, he used to say, I really don't want you to when I'm when I'm not here, I really don't want you to be thinking, Well, what would Steve do? And every time I think, I wonder what Steve would do.

Presenter35:04

Wonder

Sir Jony Ive35:07

I think. Ha!

Sir Jony Ive35:08

I'm doing exactly what you didn't want, and actually though, I know that you probably did.

Sir Jony Ive35:15

Um

Presenter35:16

Yeah. It's really interesting to hear about your relationship and that sense of kind of understanding and freedom because often the way Steve Jobs is portrayed or perhaps talked about, you know, he had this reputation for being difficult, you know, for being demanding, impatient, ruthless. Did you experience those aspects of his personality?

Sir Jony Ive35:31

He shared

Sir Jony Ive35:37

This is something I actually feel very strongly about, which is just these absurd anecdotes and stories. I mean, I just deliberately I mean almost for ten years after his his death just couldn't read stuff. And if you have such a pure clear view of creating something new

Sir Jony Ive36:02

If you don't want to just draw a line underneath a sketch and a model, if you are serious about actually wanting to develop and make it, you can't behave in a well, here's an idea, because if that's how you're going to behave, it will remain an idea.

Speaker 236:14

Yeah.

Sir Jony Ive36:19

And so it takes an extraordinary resolve and focus and energy.

Sir Jony Ive36:25

And if you have no understanding of the context and you you report on one sentence of that and you try and understand somebody through that lens, you have misunderstood them completely.

Presenter36:41

Johnny, I think it's time for some more music. Your sixth track today. What are we going to hear?

Sir Jony Ive36:46

It's a soundtrack again, but this is Thomas Newman, this is from Wally, and it's a track called Define Dancing.

Sir Jony Ive36:56

When I listen to this, you almost don't feel that you're obligated or you're constrained by even like the laws of physics. It's so floaty and so almost, I mean, I wish I understood the structure more, but it seems to enjoy the liberty of no structure. I was lucky enough to be able to make some small contributions to the movie, and it's a time I remember of being, you know, I think prolifically creative and productive as a team. This one goes quite deep.

Speaker 237:18

Movie

Presenter37:59

Define Dancing, composed by Thomas Newman from the soundtrack to the film Wally.

Presenter38:05

Johnny, in 2019 you left Apple to set up your own company, Love From, with Mark Newson, an industrial designer. Why was it time to go?

Sir Jony Ive38:15

If there's one thing that's inevitable is that we do go.

Sir Jony Ive38:19

I guess the question is just when?

Sir Jony Ive38:21

It was just the right time. I think as a team, I think we'd finished a lot of the things that we'd been working on for a long time.

Sir Jony Ive38:31

I mean, it was a not a difficult decision, it was a difficult transition. I mean, having been at Apple for nearly thirty years and I feel so much of me was there and so much of there was me. And so it was a difficult transition, but felt like the right decision.

Speaker 238:35

Commit.

Speaker 238:42

Mm-hmm.

Presenter38:49

Do you think if Steve had still been there, you would have taken that decision, you would have left?

Sir Jony Ive38:56

I think I can't imagine not working um I can't imagine being somewhere else and him being somewhere else. To me it's that I I would be working with him now if he was alive, yeah.

Presenter39:10

Johnny, you've designed many products that have changed our lives and changed culture more widely, but probably the most ubiquitous and impactful has been the iPhone. Is it true that you slept on the factory floor during the early days of manufacture?

Sir Jony Ive39:26

The truth is we probably didn't sleep, but um

Presenter39:28

For you were there.

Sir Jony Ive39:29

But we were there. I mean I've lived in the dormitories at the factory for months at a time. I I just have never worked in this way where you you say here is a design and you sort of throw it over the wall and say just make it and you stamp your foot hoping it's going to work out well. I mean it's that's never been the way that that I work and the team work.

Presenter39:52

And during those months, as you were coming up to releasing it, did you have any idea of the the transformative nature of what you'd created?

Sir Jony Ive40:02

I mean, I'd love to say no, but honestly, yes. I.

Sir Jony Ive40:07

I mean, it's the nature of innovation is there will be

Sir Jony Ive40:11

unpredicted consequences. And I celebrate and am encouraged by the very positive contribution, the empowerment, the liberty that it's provided to so many people in so many ways.

Sir Jony Ive40:29

Just because the not so positive consequences I mean, they they weren't intended, but that doesn't matter relative to how I feel responsible.

Sir Jony Ive40:41

and that weighs and is a contributor to decisions that I have made since and decisions that I'm making in the future.

Presenter40:53

And so in your own life, is that something that you were conscious of, to not be online too much, to kind of restrict access to the kids or take some time out yourself?

Sir Jony Ive41:02

Yeah, personally, I mean it's it's something that is both important and difficult. When you can connect to people, that it can be anywhere in your house or while you're traveling, that alone is extremely powerful. And it's very you need a very particular resolve and discipline not to be drawn in and seduced, to be constantly exercising that capability. But we've worked very hard, sort of recognizing just the power of these tools, to use them, I think, responsibly and carefully.

Speaker 241:28

Sizing

Sir Jony Ive41:44

And like everybody, I find that difficult.

Presenter41:48

It's time for some more music, Johnny. Your seventh track today, what are we going to hear and why are you taking this to your island?

Sir Jony Ive41:54

So I was a a very early YouTube fan. This is uh a song called Forty. I don't think it's particularly well known. I love I love this song. It's based on Psalm Forty.

Sir Jony Ive42:06

I definitely associate it with beginnings and endings. I mean this is they used to close I I remember seeing them play live on the War Tour and they would close the set with with this track and Bonneau would leave and then Edge and one by one they would leave until Larry is left by himself on the stage playing.

Sir Jony Ive42:33

and dropping a beat and dropping a beat and then stopping, and the lights went off.

Sir Jony Ive42:38

And to me it's a remarkable end.

Sir Jony Ive42:41

But

Sir Jony Ive42:42

The lyrics I think speak to, I guess speak to beginning.

Speaker 242:47

Rain on the

Sir Jony Ive42:48

Plead for the Lord in time and have a care. Uh

Speaker 242:53

He brought me all the beds.

Sir Jony Ive42:57

Yeah.

Speaker 242:57

From my crave

Speaker 243:00

I love the story.

Speaker 343:01

King sang a new song

Speaker 343:06

I will save your song.

Presenter43:16

U2 and 40. So Johnny, I've you went on to become good friends with U2, having gone to see them live and been a fan in the early days.

Presenter43:25

Is it true that they've played one of your birthday parties?

Sir Jony Ive43:29

They I do you know, I'd never it's complicated, but I'd never had a party before.

Sir Jony Ive43:35

Not really. And I was persuaded to have a fiftieth birthday party. And the whole band came and they played and just to a hundred and twenty people.

Sir Jony Ive43:46

And the the thoughtfulness and kindness was nearly as significant as the music.

Presenter43:53

And why didn't you like parties? And and did that experience change that for you? Have you had a few since?

Sir Jony Ive43:59

Oh no, I'm never going to have another one.

Sir Jony Ive44:02

No, that it was the terror that nobody would come. I don't know. It's just maybe there was some childhood party that was horrendous.

Presenter44:09

A terrible birthday party, buried deep in your subconscious.

Sir Jony Ive44:11

It's subconscious.

Presenter44:12

Oh, well, I mean, how could you top it is the other good reason not to repeat it. Johnny, I've we've talked a lot about your past today, but let's look to the future. AI is the next technological frontier. What projects are you developing in this area?

Sir Jony Ive44:28

Oh, I I would love to tell you. I can't.

Sir Jony Ive44:32

Yeah.

Presenter44:32

I thought I was gonna persuade you.

Speaker 344:32

I was

Sir Jony Ive44:33

But

Sir Jony Ive44:34

I it it's an area, I mean if we if we look back at the work that I've been involved with.

Sir Jony Ive44:41

it wasn't afforded by or driven by technology. There was this capability, but that wasn't the sort of the primary drive. And now is probably the first time in my career

Sir Jony Ive44:54

that I am inspired by capability in a way that I've never been before. I'm also inspired that there are these very healthy discussions of concern. But I I'm I'm unusually

Sir Jony Ive45:12

optimistic. I'm unusually excited about the contribution that we'd be able to make with that technology.

Presenter45:21

And when it comes to concerns, what would you say your biggest one is?

Sir Jony Ive45:25

I think almost certainly the rates of change.

Sir Jony Ive45:28

It's what's talked about least, I think, is just as a function of how fast things are moving, that alone is what concerns me the most. You know, we need time. We need time to understand and react.

Presenter45:44

I've got another adventure for you. Before you think about any of that again, I'm about to cast you away to the island. You're a very curious person, as we've heard. What will trigger curiosity when you're on your desert island, do you think?

Sir Jony Ive45:57

Solitude, I think the fact that I don't have to talk to anyone.

Sir Jony Ive46:02

and that I will be talking to myself and in my head and looking at the ocean, and I won't be constrained by what I can see, because I've got my thinking and my imagination.

Presenter46:16

You're a maker, so does that mean you've got top-notch practical skills to look after yourself and set yourself up for life on the desert island?

Sir Jony Ive46:25

I think I I have a suspicion I do.

Presenter46:28

Well, you'll be knocking up another treehouse before you know it. It'll be going back to your dad's workshop.

Sir Jony Ive46:31

Yeah.

Sir Jony Ive46:32

Yeah.

Presenter46:33

One more disc before we cast you away then, Johnny Ive, your final choice today. What have you gone for?

Sir Jony Ive46:39

This is Debucie's Claire de Lune, played by Claudio Arau.

Sir Jony Ive46:44

This is a piece that I think somehow unites people. I wouldn't trust anybody that isn't moved by its serenity and its calm. And this piece has has turned

Sir Jony Ive47:02

has turned countless late nights into late nights, not early mornings. You know, it's it's brought to a really beautiful, unified ending to so many evenings that I have so many wonderful associations with.

Presenter48:17

De Bussy's Claire Delune, performed by Claudio Raoul.

Presenter48:20

Johnny Ive, I'm going to send you away to the island now. I'm giving you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and of course, one book of your choice. What will it be?

Sir Jony Ive48:30

I I would love P. G. Woodhouse, the complete works of Jeeves Amusta.

Presenter48:36

Are you a a long time fan?

Sir Jony Ive48:38

I I am. I've returned and read and re-read for thirty years. I I I am absolutely besotted with, still shocked by the fact that I laugh. There's just such a I don't know a a generosity and I can't think of a lovelier book to have with me.

Presenter48:59

Oh, it's yours. You can also have a luxury item, of course. What would you like?

Sir Jony Ive49:04

So it depends how strict you're going to be.

Presenter49:06

Okay.

Sir Jony Ive49:06

But

Sir Jony Ive49:08

So I started off wanting a pillow, because I'm a good sleeper.

Speaker 349:10

Yeah.

Sir Jony Ive49:12

And then I thought I could ask for a bed. Now so a bed and a pillow would be um I would really like

Presenter49:19

Oh, yeah, I can get out a full bed for you. I'm just fine. You can have a quilt, you can have whatever comforter of your choice, whatever you like.

Sir Jony Ive49:25

What if you like?

Sir Jony Ive49:26

I think it's more the mattress and then the pillow, a nice down pillow, and it would be lovely to have a cold pillow case.

Presenter49:34

Marvelous, Don. And finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you save from the waves first, if you needed to?

Sir Jony Ive49:44

I think because of the uh

Sir Jony Ive49:46

where it takes me and the connections and it would be forty and in you two.

Presenter49:53

Sir Johnny Ive, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Sir Jony Ive49:57

Thank you ever so much, Lauren.

Presenter50:12

Hello, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Johnny. Pretty sure sleep won't be a problem for him in that lovely new bed. We've cast away lots of designers, including the industrial designer, Sir Kenneth Grange, and Sir Terence Conran. Johnny's friend Bonno is in our archive too. The studio manager for today's programme was Tim Heffer. The assistant producer was Christine Pavlovsky. The production coordinator was Susie Roylance and the producer was Paula McGinley. Next time my guest will be the writer William Boyd. I do hope you'll join us.

Speaker 250:50

From BBC. PC Radio Four Exemplar Series Two.

Speaker 250:56

The return of the award-winning thriller set in the world of audio forensics. Pitch consistent and non-detectable. A phone has been hacked. I got your message. A successful television actor hires Jess and Maya, forensic scientists, to investigate. This doesn't feel right. You think it's hacked? How else do you get a message from a dead woman's phone? The suspicion is that the recording has been doctored.

Sir Jony Ive51:20

I'm telling you, but I did not say those words.

Speaker 251:23

He's not denying it's him, but he's clearly convinced it's been edited. And he's not saying anything about what he thinks is missing from it. You think they'll ask for the exemplar? Absolutely.

Presenter51:32

Exemplar Series 2 Listen on BBC Sounds.