The Apple Beat: A Knighthood for Jonathan Ive and an Apple Event in January

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Apple's key creative sparkplug and Senior VP of Industrial Design recently received the UK's highest honour, a Knighthood from the Queen and he is now Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE).

Considered the creative force behind many of Apple's landmark products and iconic designs, the soft spoken  Ive noted "I am keenly aware that I benefit from a wonderful tradition in the UK of designing and making. I discovered at an early age that all I've ever wanted to do is design,"he said in an interview with BBC.

Ive unveils the unibody design of the MacBook (Credit: James Martin/CNET)

Honours and accolades for his work are nothing new to Ive, many of his designs are on permanent exhibit in various museums. In 2003, he was named designer of the year by the design museum London and awarded the title Royal Designer for Industry by The Royal Society of Arts. 

Often the Yang to Steve Job's Yin, Ive is considered a true innovator in design, use of materials and process and Apple's runaway products such as the iPad, the iPhone, MacBook Air, iMac all have his highly functional yet minimalist design DNA. In his 15 years at Apple, Ive and his team have managed to help create a new identity and a high level of user experience with his designs.

Some can even say Ive and Jobs' insistence on "Thinking Differently" forced the entire industry to evolve from creating insipid beige boxes for desktops and bricks for notebooks and elevated the design, function and appeal of the personal computer. 

I remember right after the original iMac came out how all of a sudden even the dinkiest generic PC boxes had bright frosted plastic accents and these were everywhere. This is similar to all the touch-enabled smartphones that appeared after the original iPhone and ditto for all the MacBook Air clones floating to the surface as Ultrabooks start to gain some popularity. Many of these ideas originated from Ive's imagination.

Late Apple CEO Steve Jobs may have lent his vision and come up with many ideas but it took a rare genius like Ive to laser focus all these ideas into tangible concepts which eventually made it to production and into consumer's lives.

Another Steve Jobs Action Figure Emerges

This is a Steve Jobs Action Figure that bears an uncanny resemblance to the iconic Apple CEO and is slated to go on sale for a whopping $100 in February (unless the company that is making them gets a restraining order).

The action figure from In Icons comes with a pair of black socks, a chair, a backdrop that says “One More Thing” and two apples — one with a bite. iOS devices are apparently not included.

There are certain ethical issues with creating and selling unauthorized likeness of a famous person, in the case of this Steve Jobs figure we can certainly admire the craftsmanship and detail placed into the the product but at the same time wonder whether this will ever make it to production or whether the company behind it will get sued by Apple or Jobs' estate.

As of the time of writing, the inicons.com website was innacessible. Maybe it was getting slammed for pre-orders.

Rumour Mill: An Apple Event in January

Seems like Apple might have an announcement or event later this month. This one is supposed to happen in New York and the buzz is that it will focus on iBooks and publishing.

The word is that Apple Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue will be involved so it is likely related to advertising or publishing.

This could mean some announcement that involves new publishing partnerships, possibly some badly needed innovation in textbook publishing an area that needs a serious revolution in pricing and book distribution. 

It will be difficult to really parse the information until official word from Apple 

TechCrunch now reports the event will be focused on publishing and the iBookstore. 

"According to the source the event will not involve any hardware at and instead will focus on publishing and eBooks (sold through Apple’s iBooks platform) rather than iAds. Attendance also be more publishing industry-oriented than consumer."

Since Apple is no longer part of MacWorld Expo (now rebranded iWorld) it makes sense that they would set up another event to kick off the year. We wonder what else could be in store for Apple in 2012.

Source: Techcrunch.com

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Gadjo Sevilla is a long time Mac user and technician and has been covering Apple's business and products for over 15 years. The Apple Beat is a weekly opinion column focusing on the latest Apple news.