iPhone 4 Design
Jonathan Ive (via Brandon Walkin):
The amount of care that went into that SIM tray is extraordinary. To achieve this kind of build quality is extraordinarily hard work and requires care across so many teams. It demands incredibly close collaboration with experts in certain areas, material sciences and so on.
The interview, from Core77, includes some nice production photos, and I love the first comment by John Appleseed. Ive’s comments are interesting in that some might say iPhone 4 places too much emphasis on form rather than function. The symmetrical shape has its advantages, and overall I like it, but it doesn’t feel as pleasing or identifiable in the hand. John Gruber:
Both aesthetically and tactilely, the iPhone 4’s glass back is very pleasing. It has a 2001-monolith-like symmetry. But as a heavy iPhone user since day one, I’m finding it slightly disconcerting. I’ve always carried my iPhone the same way: front right pants pocket, with the glass toward my body, so that if my leg hits something or something hits my leg, the back of the iPhone would take the impact, not the glass. Now it’s glass on both sides, and what keeps happening is that I reach into my pocket to take it out, my fingers feel the smooth glass facing out, and I think, “Shit, I pocketed my iPhone wrong last time.”
Gruber also has interesting comments about the new system font, Helvetica Neue.
Like Core77, I’ve wondered why you can’t undock an iPhone one-handed. I liked that with the old Pilot 5000.
