Coming up on a quarter century later, Ive is no longer employed at Apple, having left in 2019 to start his own solo design firm. But according to a review of the newly released Apple Silicon M1 iMac from Wired, Ive was nonetheless involved in Apple’s first iMac redesign since 2012.
Jony Ive’s Involvement in the New iMac
The review is short on the juicy details, but does seem to have been confirmed by Apple. The tantalizing tidbit, highlighted by MacRumors, notes that:
As Wired notes, given that there is a long lead time from original ideation to shipping a product, it’s not unthinkable that Jony Ive was noodling around with iMac redesign concepts back in 2019 or earlier, or that those ideas informed the design of the M1 iMac that wound up shipping.
In his later years at Apple, Ive seems to have focused more on special projects for Apple, such as designing the ambitious Apple Park headquarters, rather than the kind of everyday product design he did for most of his Apple tenure. But going back to the product he helped make his name on, and redesign it, certainly sounds like something that could have gotten his creative juices flowing.
Ive’s Exclusive Projects
Just as intriguing—if not more so—is the suggestion that he may have worked on the iMac redesign since leaving Apple. At the time Ive left Apple to start his firm LoveFrom, it was widely circulated that Apple would continue to be a client of Ive’s.
He may have been looking to put some distance between himself and his ex-employer, but this was never phrased as being an absolute, no-going-back end to his work with Apple. In fact, the press release announcing Ive’s departure quoted Apple CEO Tim Cook as saying:
Maybe this was special enough to count as one of those “exclusive projects?”
