Oh Iphone, How Lovely Are Your Features....

My new favorite movie has got to be "Objectified". 



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fe800C2CU


Directed by Gary Hustwit, and shown in Design 001 this past Thursday, this film answers the big questions about what design is(and isn't) and through interviews and sample shots of design within the planning and producing stages with some of the top designers at some of the top design firms in the world, we get a big picture....from the mundaneness of a toothbrush to the grandeur of Apple, we see that EVERYTHING is by design, nothing by accident, and that it takes an immense amount of thought, ideas, research, planning,  and designing. And then redesigning.  Did I mention redesigning?

Back to the grandeur of Apple.  Back in one of my previous blogs, "Michael Beirut and Design, described in simple terms", I mentioned that one of my favorite ideas of "good" design  (nay, not just good design...f'ing
BRILLIANT design) was my new love, the Apple iPhone 4. 

http://nadjaon.blogspot.com/2010/10/michael-beirut-and-design-described-in.html



After watching Objectified and watching the portion of the movie where Jonathan Ive of Apple describes what brought him to Apple and what they do and why they do it, I am humbled and in awe and am COMPLETELY inspired as a design student.

"A lot of what we are doing is getting design out of the way." -Jonathan Ive, Senior Vice President, Inustrial Design, Apple

I haven't had the chance yet to revisit this movie, particularly this portion, but there is way too much important and relevant information NOT to go back over and over again.  Ives desciribes in detail the excruciating ( he uses the word "obsessive", actually, and laughs a bit maniacally as well) planning that goes into the planning of an Apple product that is SO well designed, you don't even NOTICE it's designed.  Features that are intrinsic to the product, especially on a touch interface product - a product that relies on the consumer constantly touching, interacting and viewing the product-like the latest iPhone, should be such an organic part of the design, that you don't even notice that they're there.

Apps like you've never dreamed of and maps and camera and video and internet and ipod and phone and more more more more more!!!!...

On the technical side, a few examples of why my iPhone is so well designed, as best described by the creators themselves...
http://www.apple.com/iphone/design/

All the breakthrough technology in iPhone 4 is situated between two glossy panels of aluminosilicate glass — the same type of glass used in the windshields of helicopters and high-speed trains. Chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic, the glass is ultradurable and more scratch resistant than ever. It’s also recyclable.

Created from our own alloy, then forged to be five times stronger than standard steel, the CNC-machined band is the mounting point for all the components of iPhone 4. The band provides impressive structural rigidity and allows for its incredibly thin, refined design. It also functions as both iPhone 4 antennas.

While most phones have only one microphone, iPhone 4 has two. The main mic, located on the bottom next to the dock connector, is for phone calls, voice commands, and memos. The second mic, built into the top near the headphone jack, is for FaceTime calls and for making your phone calls better. It works with the main mic to suppress unwanted and distracting background sounds, such as music and loud conversations. This dual-mic noise suppression helps make every conversation a quiet one.

With its large Multi-Touch display and innovative software, iPhone lets you control everything using just your fingers. How does it work? A panel laminated on the glass senses your touch using electrical fields. It can register multiple touches at once to support advanced gestures such as pinch to zoom, two-finger tap, and more. The panel then transmits the information to the Retina display below it.

Every detail has been thought through, not only fron the end-users perspective - the form-, but from the engineers point of view- the materials-.  All while using the most efficient of environmental design construction methods such as using the same sheet of metal for several Unibody products versus one.....Ive wonders: "Can we do the job of several parts with just one?" when producing the product.

I love this guy. I love my phone. Isn't that the point???

Here, a quote from the Apple website itself that reinforces our learned design models from  Lauer, McCloud and IDEO this Quarter:

..."When creating iPhone 4, Apple designers and engineers didn’t start with a clean sheet of paper. They started with three years of experience designing and building the phones that redefined what a phone can do. iPhone 4 is the result of everything they’ve learned so far. And it’s all contained in a beautiful enclosure a mere 9.3 millimeters thin, making iPhone 4 the world’s thinnest smartphone...." apple.com/iphone/design

Ideas and notes and indentification and conceptualization.....mindmaps and fieldresearch and craft and structure and materials....feedback and redesign and finalllly....production!

And then you start all over again. always searching for the Utopian design dream of the perfect product that never really exists because  time and consumer drive is speeding at a pace that design is always striving to go faster than.

Plans for the new iPhone 5 to be released next spring are the proof.

But until then, Oh iPhone, How Lovely are your Features.....