With the launch of the iPhone and its astute marketing Mr. Jobs changed the way we all live and even look - you know the bent neck staring at something in our hands look.
Mr, Cook you have done a great job of steering Apple after Mr. Jobs met his maker but you will agree with me that Apple has not had an iPhone moment since.
The Apple Watch had the potential but missed the mark somewhat without any “must-simply-have” functionality that the smartphone has. And while the design in terms of looks of the Air Pods is great but once again not in the iPhone league in terms of being life-changing or creating product category ab initio.
Given the recent years of drought in breakthrough designs by Apple, it is understandable that Sir Ive, probably one of the world’s greatest product designers, has left Apple to start “LoveFrom” a design boutique that will help him perhaps to rejuvenate and refresh the well of his creativity.
However, it is quite likely that the two of you remain good friends and would collaborate when and if and when the next big idea comes along. Hence this joint brief.
Covid19 will change life in many, many ways. And some of the changes will be driven by whole new categories of products.
The phrases “social distancing” and “testing, testing, testing” would probably be joint “phrases of the year” if the Oxford English Dictionary guys were into phrases. It is quite likely, however, that “masks” will not just be the OED word of not just the year but probably of the decade.
Sir Ive look at how the hundreds of millions of masks out there look? Horrid don’t you agree?
And Mr. Cook can you think of what a waste of potentiality is that for all that the mask covers it just serves one purpose - of being a barrier?
Imagine the mask over the next decade becoming the must-have personal accessory giving the person who wears it both the aura of invincibility while at the same time projecting high sociability. Kapish? I am no designer but imagine two invisible nose plugs combined with a near-transparent mouth covering that magically fits the contours of the face and retracts and deploys with a discreet command to Siri? Imagine!
And the functionalities you could build in? Mama Mia! Not only will the mask act as a barrier but with real-time analysis of breathing patterns and breath analysis that shared with your iPhone giving your Health app fitness and diagnostic capabilities as yet unthought of, I am sure the post-Covid19 FDA will be much more friendly to new kind of “tests” and “diagnostics” than it was before with the ghost of Elizabeth Holmes a distant memory.
This is just a brief to get you hopefully going. My specific ideas on design and functionalities are only illustrative (Do I hear you say illustrative, more likely, of my puny imagination and creative abilities. Ha! Ha!).
One more suggestion before I leave you to your imagination.
“iFace” What do you think? Interesting huh!
PS: I am sure you were already looking at some kind of AR device for the eye which does not look like a spectacle (what else would you expect from that pedantic giant – Google?) but of a form entirely unimagined outside your lab. You could call if iEyes and then, of course, enhance the functionalities of the Air Pod and launch a line of iEars. The trinity of iFace, iEyes, and iEars. Holy cow! Aren’t we on to something? (Can I hear you snigger not just about my puny imagination but rather juvenile branding abilities. Now that would be going too far. Kicking me where it hurts.)
