Sir Jony Ive

Quando ho visto per la prima volta questo video da YouTube, il primo commento in alto recitava: “There’s still a truly spirited man at Apple. His name is Jony Ive”. E questo si può dire di Sir Jony from Essex, truly spirited, in una maniera che qualsiasi versione italiana non renderebbe appieno. La sua lezione magistralis parla di Steve ma parla anche della sua filosofia estetica. L’amore per la modellazione delle parti non visibili risale dal padre adottivo di Steve, falegname e meccanico, ai marmi del Partenone di Fidia. La vittoria per la semplicità, la vittoria per la purezza, non è stata solo quella di Steve, ma è, ogni giorno della sua vita, quella di Sir Jony, anche in queste parole, in una maniera che il mondo contemporaneo non conosce, ma che, come dimostra il successo dei prodotti, intuisce. I neoclassici di Cupertino.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnGI76__sSA]

Steve used to say to me (and he used to say this a lot), “Hey Jony, is a dopey idea.” And sometimes they were — really dopey. Sometimes they were truly dreadful. But sometimes they took the air from the room, and they left us both completely silent. Bold, crazy, magnificent ideas. Or quiet, simple ones, which in their subtlety, their detail, they were utterly profound.

And just as Steve loved ideas, and loved making stuff, he treated the process of creativity with a rare and a wonderful reverence. I think he, better than anyone, understood that while ideas ultimately can be so powerful, they begin as fragile, barely formed thoughts, so easily missed, so easily compromised, so easily just squished.

I loved the way that he listened so intently. I loved his perception, his remarkable sensitivity, and his surgically precise opinion. I really believe there was a beauty in how singular, how keen his insight was; even though sometimes it could sting.

As I’m sure many of you know, Steve didn’t confine his sense of excellence to making products. When we travelled together, we would check in, and I’d go up to my room. And I’d leave my bags very neatly by the door. And I wouldn’t unpack. And I would go and sit on the bed. I would go and sit on the bed next to the phone. And I would wait for the inevitable phone call: “Hey Jony, this hotel sucks. Let’s go.”

He used to joke that the lunatics had taken over the asylum, as we shared a giddy excitement spending months and months working on a part of a product that nobody would ever see. Well, not with their eyes. We did it because we really believed it was right because we cared. He believed that there was a gravity, almost a sense of civic responsibility, to care way beyond any sort of functional imperative.

While the work hopefully appeared inevitable, appeared simple and easy, it really cost. It cost us all, didn’t it? But you know what? It cost him most. He cared the most. He worried the most deeplyHe constantly questioned, “Is this good enough? Is this right?”

And despite all his successes, all his achievements, he never presumed, he never assumed that we would get there in the end. When the ideas didn’t come, and when the prototypes failed, it was with with great intent, with faith, that he decided to believe we would eventually make something great.

But the joy of getting there! I loved his enthusiasm, his simple delight (often, I think, mixed with some relief) that, yeah, we got there. We got there in the end and it was good. You can see his smile, can’t you? The celebration of making something great for everybody; enjoying the defeat of cynicism, the rejection of reason, the rejection of being told a hundred times, “You can’t do that”. So his, I think, was a victory for beauty, for purity, and, as he would say, for giving a damn.

He was my closest and my most loyal friend. We worked together for nearly fifteen years — and he still laughed at the way I say “aluminium”.

For the past two weeks, we’ve all been struggling to find ways to say goodbye. This morning I simply want to end by saying, “Thank you, Steve.” Thank you for your remarkable vision, which has united and inspired this extraordinary group of people. For the whole that we have learned from you, and for all that we will continue to learn from each other: Thank you, Steve.

Guidelines

Aggiornamento delle linee guida di questo blog. Dato che è scientificamente provato che la multimedialità, nonché la presenza di link, riducono la concentrazione, danneggiano l'apprendimento di quello che si sta leggendo (e quindi, in definitiva, il piacere), questo blog sarà come è sempre stato – testo, e solo testo – ma ancora più radicalmente e con più convinzione. Se c'è qualcosa che non si conosce, si può cercare su Google dopo aver finito di leggere. E' molto meglio così, trust me. Per tutto questo devo ringraziare, ancora una volta, Nicholas Carr.

Rough Type. Così si chiama il blog di Nicholas Carr, un cavaliere errante che da solo lotta contro l'utopia della tecnologia e delle attività sociali online. E' un duro perché ha la forza della verità, è un conservatore nel senso altissimo della parola. Mi ricordo quando due anni or sono mi imbattei nell'articolo che lo portò alle luci della ribalta (Is Google Making Us Stupid?) e con meraviglia vedevo scritto il mio preciso rapporto con il computer e con internet, che non avevo mai trovato le parole per descrivere.

By putting the means of production into the hands of the masses but withholding from those same masses any ownership over the product of their work, Web 2.0 provides an incredibly efficient mechanism to harvest the economic value of the free labor provided by the very, very many and concentrate it into the hands of the very, very few.

Inutile dire che ho già ordinato il suo prossimo libro: The Shallows: What Is Internet Doing to our Brains.