Author Walter Isaacson on Jobs' innovation Video

Author Walter Isaacson on Jobs' innovation Video Transcript

-Steve Jobs wanted to make sure every product was simple and elegant. The very first Apple brochure in the early 1970s said, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." And so, he was always saying whether it was an iPod or an iPhone, or an iPad, "Can't we get rid of that button?" "Can't we get rid of that step you have to in the interface?" "Can't we make it more intuitive and simpler?" So, there is a Zen like simplicity to all Apple products. It comes from the fact their design end to end. So, they work well the software and the hardware and the content are all designed to work together so you don't get those ridiculously arrow messages, let's say, you know, 404 arrow message, but then Steve Jobs is trying to figure out how to make it simple and elegant. One of the great collaborations of our time has been Jony Ive, the design director, and Steve Jobs, and they go into this room, that's sort of behind big metals doors and guarded by, you know, couple of people on glass boot. So that very few people can get in there and it's the design studio of Jony Ive and it's got that 8 big tables and all the future Apple products are there with different models and what Steve Jobs Loves to do is just walk around this table with Jony Ive, not to be shown with drawings to be talked to. He likes to fondle. He likes to say. So, this is how the new iPod would look. It doesn't feel friendly. It doesn't feel like I could pick it up with 1 hand. Don't you wanna put a little bit of a curve here and they kept going back so that some of you maybe not be able to tell the changes they were making, but just a tiny curve and the way it was shaped just because Steve Jobs want the design to be perfect. If you look at the Sony Corporation, they should have invented the iPod. They had a music division. They had a hardware division. They had personal devices. They were the ones who come up with the Walkman, but all those divisions at Sony just like many corporations were fighting with each other. The hardware division wanted something. The music division was kind of worried about it. Steve Jobs didn't believe in that. He believed in centralizing command at Apple, so that everybody work together for the good of Apple and they want separate division doing consumer devices and desktop hardware. Otherwise, the people who are running the Macintosh might say, well, this iPad, that's gonna hurt hour desktop computer business. That's why, it's an innovative company that keeps coming up with new things because Jobs is very insistent that you don't let one division compete against another.