Why Did Jony Ive Call the Computer Industry Cold?

David Senra, reading Leander Kahney, says Jony Ive called the computer industry very inhuman and very cold because of an obsession with product attributes you can measure empirically. Design is how a product works, not only what it looks like and feels like.

On his return, Jobs cut back so his A-team, the company's best designers, engineers, programmers, and marketers, could concentrate on innovative products. Touring Apple's design studio, he was bowled over by the creativity and rigor, and by eye-catching mock-ups the previous regime had been too timid to consider. He and Ive saw eye to eye immediately and were on the same wavelength. Ive suddenly understood why he loved the company. His designs took a deliberate counter position to an industry that had become incredibly conservative. How fast a machine is, how big the hard drive is, and how fast the CD is make a comfortable place to compete, because eight is better than six. The obsession left a tendency to ignore attributes that are difficult to measure or talk about, so the industry missed the more emotive, less tangible ones.

Ive bought an Apple computer, and came to work for Apple, because he had always sensed that Apple had a desire to do more than the bare minimum. The work was not limited to what was functionally and empirically necessary. In early products, he got a sense that care was taken even on details, hard and soft, that people may never discover.