While the article focuses, perhaps unsurprisingly, on his links to Britain — his design education, how London’s a vibrant city and so on — and runs over the now-familiar details of his career, there are a few choice quotes where he explains a few things about his sensibility.

In particular, he mentions how Apple tries hard to make its customers feel that the products and services have a built-in sense of care. By that he means trying to instill a carefulness and thoughtful philosophy right through the product — and avoid the worry that producing millions of devices would somehow introduce a “godless” quality to the things it makes.

“We try to develop products that seem somehow inevitable. That leave you with the sense that that’s the only possible solution that makes sense.”

“I think subconsciously people are remarkably discerning. I think that they can sense care. I think it’s a wonderful view that care was important – but I think you can make a one-off and not care and you can make a million of something and care. Whether you really care or not is not driven by how many of the products you’re going to make.”

“One of the concerns was that there would somehow be, inherent with mass production and industrialisation, a godlessness and a lack of care.

“We’re keenly aware that when we develop and make something and bring it to market that it really does speak to a set of values. And what preoccupies us is that sense of care, and what our products will not speak to is a schedule, what our products will not speak to is trying to respond to some corporate or competitive agenda. We’re very genuinely designing the best products that we can for people.”

The allusion to “godlessness” may seem odd, but I suspect that he hasn’t turned to religion — and is in fact referring to the soullessness of many designed-by-committee, manufactured-by-the-ton products.

Given how rarely Ive steps into the limelight (even now) (he also spoke to London’s Evening Standard a couple of months ago) it’s worth a read: the rest of the interview is here.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Forecast: Tablet App Sales To Hit $8B by 2015
• Controversy, courtrooms and the cloud in Q1
• Monetizing music in the post-scarcity age

So how can consumer electronics makers avoid merely matching new Apple features or design elements and try to think ahead of the company’s designers? Apple SVP of Industrial Design Jonathan Ive did a rare Q&A with the London Evening Standard about Apple’s iterative design process, how the company dreams up new product ideas, how and when it decides to update devices and why copycat designs often fail:

Q: How does a new product come about at Apple?

A: What I love about the creative process, and this may sound naive, is this idea that one day there is no idea, and no solution, but then the next day there is an idea. Where you see the most dramatic shift is when you transition from an abstract idea to a slightly more material conversation. But when you make a 3D model, however crude, you bring form to a nebulous idea and everything changes — the entire process shifts. It galvanises and brings focus from a broad group of people. It’s a remarkable process.

Q: What are your goals when setting out to build a new product?

A: Our goals are very simple — to design and make better products. If we can’t make something that is better, we won’t do it.

Q: Why has Apple’s competition struggled to do that?

A: Most of our competitors are interested in doing something different, or want to appear new — I think those are completely the wrong goals. A product has to be genuinely better. This requires real discipline, and that’s what drives us — a sincere, genuine appetite to do something that is better.

Head over here to read the rest of the interview.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Forecast: Tablet App Sales To Hit $8B by 2015
• Controversy, courtrooms and the cloud in Q1
• Monetizing music in the post-scarcity age

Designer Antonio De Rosa has really outdone himself this time, with an edge-to-edge capacitive screen on a super-thin all-glass body, surrounded by a lightweight polycarbonate band where the antenna would be on the current iPhone 4S. Since we’re operating in the world of make-believe anyway, De Rosa thew in a 10 megapixel rear shooter and an A6 processor, which, though not yet real, should eventually pack quite the processing punch. The SJ, in case you were wondering, does indeed stand for “Steve Jobs.”

I think this tops any concept designs I’ve seen thus far, even if it is a tad far-fetched (what kind of battery life could a device that thin possibly have?). What do you think of this fictional beauty?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• 2012: Data, spectrum and the race to LTE
• Will cloud computing push the BRIC market to the front?
• Mobile Q2: Smartphone growth surges; iPad’s rule continues

Apple Stores draw crowds

Around the world, Apple Retail storefronts attracted many mourners and countless memorials in the form of flowers, scrawled messages and Post-it Notes. The little squares of paper quickly covered the windows at the Stockton Apple Store in San Francisco. In Boston, at the Apple Store on Boylston Street, fans and admirers gathered and left flowers and photos outside the storefront. According to the Boston Globe, one mourner, Brad Lackey, despite having never owned a single Apple product, called Jobs “[his] generation’s Edison.”

The Apple Store in Ginza, Tokyo, became a makeshift memorial when the news hit the nearby Ceatec conference, which is Japan’s largest consumer electronics show. Fans left flowers outside the store and organized a candlelight vigil there for after dark. The Fifth Avenue store in New York City was nearly covered in fliers featuring the image of Jobs with messages inscribed upon them by mourners. Apple Stores in Brazil, Australia and many other countries around the world were host to similar tributes.

Artists, designers and developers remember

Macs have always been tools of inspiration, so it’s no surprise that the creative community has already paid a lot of tribute to Jobs. Comic artist Randall Munroe at xkcd shared this fitting memorial:

R. Stevens, the creator of Diesel Sweeties, also offered a simple but sweet visual memento:

Mac developers Panic talked about how Jobs has given direction to their lives in a splash page on their site, which I think sums up the feelings of most of us who work in the shadow of Apple. This, in particular strikes a chord:

Apple went from a marginal novelty to rewriting the rules of entire industries, in the blink of an i.

And as Apple grew, we grew.

And as Apple inspired, we were inspired.

Dylan Roscover, an L.A.-based graphic designer, created this beautiful image that fittingly uses font to tell a story about a man who obsessed over exactly those kinds of details.

Last but not least, there’s an image that’s been making the rounds almost as long as the news of Jobs’ death itself. Created by Jonathan Mak Long, a 19-year-old Hong Kong resident and designer, it seems to be acting as a touchstone for what many are feeling. So we’ll leave you with Long’s stunning, stark tribute as we get back to the business of watching and wondering as Apple changes the world.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• Facebook’s IPO filing: ideas and implications
• 12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012

The device that became an industry

The iPhone (and now the iPad) are unique among similar devices in that only they have spawned sprawling industries dedicated solely to their support and supplementation. Sure, people make accessories and software for other smartphones and tablets, but they don’t make them in such volume specifically for what essentially amounts to a single new annual device from a single manufacturer each year.

According to one count, the iPhone has 71,890 active developers, and the iPad has 51,677. That’s an industry of more than 120,000 content producers targeting a platform that sustains itself on just one new product a year from one company, and I’m not even including the various accessory makers that also cater to Apple devices. Payout from Apple to developers to date is $2.5 billion, which is higher than the GDP of some small developing countries.

Talent flocks to and begets greatness

When Jobs took a medical leave in January of this year, still retaining the title of CEO, I wrote about how the company has a deep executive bench with people who are all individual industry leaders in their own right. Erica wrote yesterday about Tim Cook, a figure who has guided Apple through Jobs’ absence in the past, even amid some of the scariest economic turmoil we’ve faced, and still managed to lead the company to multiple record quarters. Michael Grothaus at TUAW has an excellent first-hand account of Tim Cook that says more for his ability to take over as CEO than I ever could.

But even leaving the executives aside, Apple has managed to build a team that includes some of the best and brightest engineers, product managers and marketers the world has ever seen. In a Wired story from 2008 about the invention of the iPhone, we get a glimpse behind the scenes at the dedication of individuals committed to creating a quality product that lives up to the company’s reputation. Apple is the most valuable brand on earth, and the company’s employees respect that as much as Jobs does, and are no less excellent at what they do for his departure.

Products designed for a lifetime

Apple’s products aren’t casually created based on whatever technology happens to be available at the time. You can tell that because the company doesn’t overreach and pack in features like 4G radios and NFC chips just because they happen to exist, the way many Android handsets do. Apple products represent a measured balance of tech and simplicity that caters to how the largest number of buyers are or will actually be using their devices on a daily basis.

Part of achieving that balance is knowing what you’ll need to include next. That’s part of the frustration of being an Apple device buyer, since sometimes we can see what should come next, too — like a camera for the iPod touch — and are disappointed when it doesn’t arrive as early as we expected it to. But Apple is smart about including these things when it needs to, rather than when tech enthusiasts think it should. It’s not a mistake when they arrive, and you can bet Apple engineers are aware of what tech is and will be available before you are; Apple devices are in this way designed with a roadmap for the duration of the life of the product.

Deviations from that roadmap are possible if market conditions or changing expectations call for it, but the existence of such a roadmap means that products coming out of Cupertino won’t disappoint in the near-to-mid future. For more detail about Apple’s process, a May 2007 article by the MIT Technology review illuminates the amazing depth in Apple’s hardware design guidelines, another thing which won’t disappear with Jobs out of the top seat.

Creating a culture, not a company

Steve Jobs won’t yet be leaving the company entirely, and even when he does, his influence won’t. Jobs hasn’t merely built a company during the past decades; he has infused the people he works closely with and those who work under them with a cultural ethos that strives for excellence. If Jobs was the only one at Apple who required perfection and consistent, high-level performance, you’d have a very frustrated guy in a black turtleneck and we’d all still be using Motorola RAZRs.

Apple’s stock prices will shudder at the news of Jobs departure, and countless tech pundits will wring their hands and cry doom, but in the end Apple shares will rally, we’ll get a new iPhone this fall that propels Apple to more record quarters, and we’ll get back to doing what we do best: watching in wonder as Apple continues to change the world.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Millennials in the enterprise, part 1: strategies for supporting the new digital workforce
• Connected Consumer Q2: Digital music meets the cloud; e-book growth explodes
• Mobile Q2: Smartphone growth surges; iPad’s rule continues

The iPod nano wristband accessories Scott Wilson designed shortly after Apple introduced a new model of its smallest-screened iPod have gone from community-funded success to Apple Store shelves. The LunaTik and TikTok watchband kits go on sale in Apple Stores across North America this week.

Wilson, founder of Chicago-based design studio MINIMAL, and one of the driving forces behind the visual style of the redesigned Xbox and Microsoft Kinect, set out to create the LunaTik and TikTok as a project he would have complete control over. To avoid the influence of traditional investors, he turned to crowdsourced community fundraising site Kickstarter. We watched as the TikTok and LunaTik first broke Kickstarter funding records early on in its time on the site, and then later as it capped out at an unprecedented total of nearly $1 million raised through accumulated individual donations.

The wristbands were so well-designed that many early investors in the project actually bought iPod nanos only after securing either wristband as a reward for backing their production. I reviewed the TikTok, and indeed, no other similar accessory I’ve since come across comes close in terms of quality and design.

Wilson was distributing both the LunaTik and the TikTok via the official LunaTik.com website, where they will continue to be sold, but different retail channels have now come calling, including Apple itself. Apple initially wasn’t convinced buyers would be willing to pay for the more expensive $79.95 LunaTik. In fact, Wilson has sold twice as many of the more expensive model according to Co.Design. That’s 20,000 through his site, adding to the initial 21,120 orders made through Kickstarter. Those numbers have convinced Apple that buyers most definitely are interested.

The success of both accessories has also spawned new models recently, including a white version of the TikTok and both a red and black version of the LunaTik. Apple will be selling the LunaTik in silver (the original color) and red for $79.95, and the TikTok in white and black for $39.95.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Connected Consumer Q1: The Over-the-Top vs. Pay TV Battle Heats Up
• Smart Grid Apps: Six Trends That Will Shape Grid Evolution
• Infrastructure Q1: IaaS Comes Down to Earth; Big Data Takes Flight

Choosing the Right Colors

ColorBlender ($1.99). When choosing a color palette for your App, you either have an eye for it or you don’t. For those of us who don’t have it, ColorBlender can help out.  There have been a lot of studies on how humans are affected by different colors, and there are certainly combinations of colors that are hard on the eyes.  The main function of ColorBlender is to create a palette with six harmonious colors that will make looking at your app pleasant, or at least tolerable, for most people.  The only thing this app is missing is a good color picker, but that’s quickly remedied using OS X’s included DigitalColor Meter utility. After choosing a base color in the DigitalColor Meter, ColorBender will help you select a collection of harmonious colors to use throughout your app.

AppControls ($19.99). Once you have a solid color palette picked out, the next step will be to use that palette when creating various controls throughout your app. AppControls will help you create the artifacts necessary to create some great looking controls. You can copy the values of the colors generated in ColorBender, and paste them into the Color Picker of AppControls. Even if you don’t like the limit of six colors that ColorBender generates, you can at least use it to select the two colors that will be used to create a smooth gradient on your controls. All you need to do is the following:

1. Use the DigitalColor Meter to select the color you want to use as your primary color, and hit the Shift+Cmd+H key combination to hold the colors on the screen.
2. Type the color codes into ColorBlender to set your six harmonious colors.
3. Copy the value of the color you want to use directly from ColorBlender’s screen and paste it into AppControls color picker.

Preparing for App Store Submission

LittleIpsum (Free). How many time have you tried to size up how a data entry or large text display field will look by pounding random keys on the keyboard? A tool named LittleIpsum provides a better way. It generates Latin text in varying lengths including words, sentences and paragraphs. The text is then copied to your clipboard, and ready to paste into your app.

Status Barred ($0.99). Occasionally, you may want to pull together a collection of screen shots for the current state of the application, either to update documentation when designing a change in the way the application works or simply to craft your marketing material.  Status Barred is a simple little app that will crop off the carrier status bar from the images you take so that the focus in on your app, and not your carrier.

Icons ($2.99). The final Mac App in this collection of design apps will help in the creation of icons, both for and within the app.  It can also be used to help with the design of any support or marketing web sites that will be created.  Icons could not be easier to use. Start with a 512×512 square image, drop it into the tool, and generate your icons.  You can even round the edges and add that cool glass look.

While these tools individually are no match for Adobe’s creative suite of tools, for the price, they add up to a competitive package. And like the start of a thousand bee stings, it only makes sense that this tightly focused new breed of apps help others create more great task-specific software as the App Store model continues to propagate.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Mobile Q1: All Eyes on Tablets, T-Mobile and AT&T
• A Media Tablet Forecast, 2011 – 2015
• Connected Consumer Q1: The Over-the-Top vs. Pay TV Battle Heats Up

Looking at images of the removed iPad 2 case designs, it’s obvious that manufacturers were indeed in possession of accurate information regarding that device’s design. The speaker and camera both appear right about where they do in the final design, albeit with minor modifications (which may have been tweaked by Apple prior to release). At the time, one of the companies behind the iPad 2 cases claimed to have firsthand info about the upcoming hardware design from Hon Hai Precision Industry (Foxconn in the U.S.), one of Apple’s key manufacturing partners.

If the new case designs are accurate, the iPhone 5 will bear the same physical dimensions as its predecessor. The iPhone 3G and 3GS shared the same external case design, so it’s something that Apple has been historically known to do. Recent rumors have also suggested the design will be similar, albeit with a larger screen made possible by extending it even closer to the iPhone’s edge. That’s still a possibility, since the new case designs leave the front of the iPhone uncovered.

While it’s always best to proceed with caution when it comes to these early rumors, case designs tend to be a fairly reliable source when it comes to the physical design of upcoming products, and this is in keeping with the idea that the iPhone 5 will likely be an evolutionary, rather than a revolutionary update.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

Take a trip with me through the last decade of milestone product releases from our favourite consumer electronics — sorry, our favourite “mobile computing” — company. It’s hard to believe how far we’ve come in such a short time.

A few things to note: I haven’t included every product release on the timeline, just those I felt stood out. I’ve included a little trivia here and there, but this is by no means supposed to be the most fact-filled timeline of Apple events.

Did I miss something obvious that really, definitely, absolutely should be included? Share your suggestions in the comments below and who knows — maybe I’ll add them in later.

Happy New Year everyone, and Happy New Decade — I can’t wait to see what Apple has in store for us next!

Music used in video courtesy of ccMixter user Zapac, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (3.0).

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• How to Market Your iPhone App: A Developer’s Guide
• Mobile App Developer Survey: Profiles, Platforms and Monetization
• App Developers: Are You Ready for HTML5 and Metered Data?

When an app is launched on an iPad, it becomes the iPad, it encompasses the entire device. In the best case, the iPad then fades into the background, and the experience becomes focused entirely on the application. When an app fades into the background as well, the iPad becomes all about content.

River of News gives me a pop-up menu to choose a folder from Google Reader, and that’s all I see of the app. The rest of the experience is all about scrolling through and reading the latest feeds. No overbearing animation, no surprising interfaces: it’s just me and the morning news. River of News’ focus on text reminds me a lot of Instapaper, another favorite iPad app, which also foregrounds content, leaving navigation and menu items couched in pop-ups.

An alternative application design philosophy looks at what the iPad can do and uses its capabilities to push the functionality of applications further. My previous favorite RSS client, Reeder, fell into this category. Reeder re-imagines how to use multi-touch to navigate through stacks of unread feeds. Pinch out to open a stack of feeds, pinch in to close it. More recently, Twitter released their official iPad application, and like Reeder, it pushes the boundaries of what we expect an iPad app to be.

Twitter for iPad uses panels that can slide on top of each other to show links, replies, and information about the user. The panels can be successive, meaning that you can follow links endlessly, and wind up with a long history of panels behind what you can see on-screen. The interface is obviously very well thought out, and well planned. It’s a very different design philosophy from iPad applications like River of News because it focuses on functionality, not simplicity. When I started using the app, I really didn’t like it. However, after committing to using it for a week or so, and discovering how to navigate it, I find it growing on me quite a bit.

With Twitter for iPad, the gestures are swiping left and right, and tapping. When using River of News, the gestures are more limited. You swipe up to scroll, and articles are automatically loaded at the bottom and marked as read at the top. You can swipe left and right to load other folders, but personally I’ve never found a need for it.

You can also tap to select a folder of feeds if you wish, but I normally just wait a second or two for it to automatically load my unread feeds. The level of activity is different with River of News and Instapaper than it is with Reeder and Twitter for iPad. Not necessarily better or worse, though.

When I began researching this article, I wanted to show why taking the simplistic approach was better, and how trying to make an iPad app too functional would cause confusion. The truth, though, is that the app design philosophy that’s best will depend on usage preferences and the type of app you’re making. It also means there’s room for more than one app on each iPad designed to accomplish the same thing.

How do you feel about application functionality versus simplicity on the iPad? Should all applications fade into the background, or should they give you the choice to be what you want them to be? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• How to Market Your iPhone App: A Developer’s Guide
• Report: The In-App Advertising Landscape
• HTML5′s a Game-Changer for Web Apps