But Apple products are iconic, they consistently change people’s expectation about music reproduction and computing appliances, and they’ve sold incredible numbers of units globally to people in so many walks of life. So this is why I think Ive has surpassed his master.
Just remembered I never followed up on my original post. Unfortunately I’m struggling to put into words what I think about the Ive V Braun debate. I seem to have lost the ability to write a coherent point recently.
Ive makes a nice looking box, but the tech (or at least the specific combinations thereof) inside those boxes has been revolutionary. He’s been employed to package a revolution, and he has done it spectacularly.
I wasn’t there to follow the career of Rams as it happened, but I think – for his time – he played more of a part in the fortunes of Braun than Ive has Apple. After all the contents of Ram’s boxes weren’t particularly revolutionary – they were the same as all the other products out there. But he managed to lift the user experience above that of the competition using clever product design alone.
So I think it was the vision of Rams that gave Braun the edge. He was the man that made Braun the company it was in its heyday. While I think it has been the vision of Steve Jobs that gave Apple its edge.
In their respective machines then, I think Ive has been a smaller cog than Rams was.
Of course Ive is part of a much bigger machine, and is therefore perhaps a bigger cog than Rams ever was.
Does that make sense?
I’m a big fan of both chaps, whatever :o)