Why Apple’s Ivy Says Competing Products Are ‘Soul Stealing’

Apple’s design chief, Jony Ive, told The New Yorker during The New Yorker TechFest late last week that while he may not be good at crunching numbers, he can tell when an existing product isn’t feeling the love.

According to the news report in CNBC, the executive said he hates most things churned out by competitors and that the design of many products is “soul-destroying.” Although he is an advocate of careful and thoughtful design, Ive is wary of consumers developing addictive-like use habits.

Although Apple is currently the world’s most valuable publicly traded company, Ive said that wasn’t always the case. When he joined in the 1990s, Apple was “losing fabulously large sums of money every quarter” – but at that time, Ive said, making money wasn’t even the primary goal. He also acknowledged that Steve Jobs could be a tough critic and was sometimes hard on Ive, but that Jobs showed him how to focus, reported CNBC.

The interview comes as Apple is gearing up to launch its completely redesigned iPhone X next month. Just as Apple transformed the mobile handset market with the launch of the first iPhone, it is banking on a similar industry-changing phenomenon again with the X.

The new device comes with an expanded OLED screen and a “super retina” display with 2.7 million pixels, the highest resolution in pixel density ever in an iPhone. Its 5.8-inch OLED display boasts a 1 million-to-one contrast ratio. Facial recognition biometrics not only unlocks the phone, but also enables people to access services like Apple Pay and third-party applications, such as mobile banking. The system also reportedly works in light and dark conditions, and cannot be faked out by a picture or realistic mask – not even wearing a hat or putting on glasses will confuse it. Also, it is programmed to learn a customer’s face over time, so it will still work if someone loses weight, grows a beard or (sigh) just gets older and sports a few more wrinkles.