How iPods are designed

11 Notes

The quiet is so deep you can taste it, like the silence over a graveyard after the first snow of winter. Jony Ive sits in the lotus position before a marble altar holding a single pristine block of virgin aluminium, 1 by 4 by 9. His eyes are closed, his breathing shallow. It has been three weeks since he last moved.

Suddenly he strikes. His hand is a blur, the blade of one palm impacting the cold metal with millimetric precision, just once. The moment stretches. His mouth curves, in one corner, very slightly, into a tiny smile.

With balletic grace pieces of aluminium begin to fall away from the block, one by one by one. In the centre is revealed his latest creation: a top secret new iPod, to be immediately rushed away to Shenzen by warrior monks.

Incidentally the warrior monks dropped the original design for the Camera Connection Kit down a drain on the way to the factory so for several months Ive had to make all of them himself via this method. This is why they were so ludicrously fucking hard to find.