Presentation-Secrets-Of-Steve-Jobs

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SCENE 8
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Channel Their
Inner Zen
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
—STEVE JOBS, QUOTING LEONARDO DA VINCI
Simplicity is one of the most important concepts in all
Apple designs—from computers, to music players, to
phones, and even to the retail store experience. “As technology
becomes more complex, Apple’s core strength of
knowing how to make very sophisticated technology comprehensible
to mere mortals is in ever greater demand,” 1 Jobs told
a New York Times columnist writing a piece about the iPod in
2003.
Apple’s design guru, Jony Ive, was interviewed for the same
New York Times article and noted that Jobs wanted to keep the
original iPod free of clutter and complexity. What the team
removed from the device was just as important as what they
kept in. ‘’What’s interesting is that out of that simplicity, and
almost that unashamed sense of simplicity, and expressing it,
came a very different product. But difference wasn’t the goal. It’s
actually very easy to create a different thing. What was exciting
is starting to realize that its difference was really a consequence
of this quest to make it a very simple thing,” 2 Ive said. According
to Ive, complexity would have meant the iPod’s demise.
Jobs makes products easy to use by eliminating features and
clutter. This process of simplification translates to the way Jobs
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