The Cube was the team’s first shot at the ultimate computer, an attempt to cram the power of a desktop computer into a much smaller case. Jony saw putting a lot of components into a tower design as lazy: Why give the consumer a big ugly tower just because it’s the easiest option for the engineers and designers? They aimed to make the new machine by combining untested plastic casting with advanced miniaturization. Like many of Apple’s products, it was an exercise in simplification, removing everything that could be removed. It represented a major breakthrough in miniaturization, innovative design thinking and manufacturing.
The Cube was actually a rectangle formed from a single piece of crystal-clear plastic that was translucent at the base, giving the impression that the eight-inch Cube was suspended in air. It had a vertical slot-load DVD drive on the top, which popped up the DVD like a piece of toast. Some compared the Cube to a box of Kleenex. The analogy greatly amused Jony and the designers, and they took to using empty Cubes in the design studio as tissue dispensers.
The Cube used air convection for cooling instead of a noisy fan. Air entered through vents in the bottom and cooled the chips inside, exiting through vents in the top. It operated in virtual silence.
Like the Power Mac G4 tower before it, access was a key consideration. The guts of the G4 Cube were designed to be easily removed for access to internal components; its entire core could be pulled out through the bottom with a beautifully made pop-up handle. To turn the Cube on, there was a touch-sensitive button that appeared to be printed on the surface of the transparent case. It seemed magical, as though the button floated in air, detached from the computer with no visible means of operation. It was an early use of capacitive touch (the technology that would eventually make the iPhone possible). Customers loved it.
The new machine would be configured with a 450 MHz G4 chip, 64 MB memory and 20 GB storage. Priced at $1,799, the basic model included an optical mouse, pro keyboard and Apple-designed Harman Kardon stereo speakers, but no monitor. Also available exclusively on the Apple online store was a higher-spec model G4 Cube with a more powerful processor and additional memory and storage, which went for $2,299.
“The Power Mac G4 Cube was a breakthrough product,” said Satzger. “It contained a lot of interesting new technology and beautiful mechanics. It was really exciting.”
Some customers went crazy for the Cube. The Cube looked “sophisticated and expensive,” said the Ars Technica Web site.23“Holy s**t, they’ve done it again,” said Lee Clow, chief creative officer of TBWA/Chiat/Day.24But the public reaction to the new machines was cooler than Jony and Jobs had hoped.
Consumers viewed the Cube as basically a mid-range Power Mac G4 tower at a higher price. It was $200 more expensive than a comparable G4, and didn’t come with a monitor. The price was a lot higher than anything in the Windows world.
It also suffered from its own Doonesburymoment: The transparent case developed hairline cracks, an issue that got a lot of attention in the press. On some machines, tiny cracks appeared in the clear plastic case, especially around the DVD slot and a pair of screw holes in the top. It was a relatively minor cosmetic flaw, but it drove some customers crazy. “They are the worst kind of cosmetic problem,” wrote the Ars Technica Web site in its review. “Something that is not ‘important’ enough to really fix, but which will grate on those that care deeply about the appearance of their hardware . . . the very same people that are most attracted to a system like the Cube!”25
In September 2000, just a few months after the Cube’s debut, Apple announced sales were slower than expected. It was later revealed that Apple sold a paltry 150,000 units, only one-third of the volume Apple had projected. At the end of 2000, Apple reported earnings that were “substantially below expectations” for the last quarter, with a $600 million revenue shortfall.26It was Apple’s first unprofitable quarter in three years.
For Apple watchers, the news was ominous. Despite a string of hits, Apple was still on shaky ground, battling powerful foes like Microsoft and Dell, which were at the peak of their power. “Frankly, I can’t say I’m surprised by these numbers at all, but they do show a much bleaker picture than what has been depicted in the press,” said Kevin Knox, an industry analyst at the Gartner group. He went further, concluding “They are disastrous.”27
In July 2001, Apple issued a press release saying the Cube had been “put on ice.” It wouldn’t continue to be sold, but it wasn’t officially discontinued either; it was suspended. The release said there was “a small chance” an upgraded model of the computer would be introduced in the future. That never happened and, five years later, the Cube was replaced by the Mac mini, a much cheaper “headless” Mac, which clearly targeted first-time, budget-conscious consumers.
For Jony’s group, the Cube didn’t represent all bad news. Though the machine performed poorly in the marketplace, it had its admirers internally because it represented breakthroughs in manufacturing techniques and miniaturization.
The machine reflected a new mastery of packing desktop components into laptop-sized spaces, which would be crucial in making the dome-shaped iMac and later flat-screen models. Just as important, it pushed Apple into new manufacturing techniques that would benefit later products like the iPod. Satzger explained: “Basically, we did not accept standard molding practice in plastics. We started getting into machining plastic. On the Cube, the screw holes and the vent hole were precision machined.”
Such machining would come to define products like the MacBook and iPad, which are machined out of slabs of aluminum. The Cube was an early foray into machining products on a mass scale. In a wider context, the machining experiments represented a fundamental shift in how products are mass produced.
“For a long time at Apple, the engineering team often told the designers, ‘You can’t do that,’” said Satzger. “But the design team challenged everything—with plastics, metal, every material.”
Even though the Cube didn’t sell well and even became a symbol of form over function, its creation spoke for the growing power and influence within Apple of Jony Ive and his design team.
CHAPTER 7The Design Studio Behind the Iron CurtainWhen Steve came in, he wanted the conversation to be between him and the person he was talking to. . . . [W]e would turn the music up so that his voice would carry directly to one person only. You really couldn’t hear what he was saying.—DOUG SATZGER
On February 9, 2001, after the hubbub of Macworld Expo had died down, the industrial design studio moved from the building on Valley Green Drive (across the road from Apple’s main campus) to a large space inside Apple’s HQ, where it remains today. The new design studio was put on the ground floor of Infinite Loop 2, known internally at Apple as IL2
The move was, in part, symbolic. Bob Brunner had set up the original studio across the street to give it some independence from the rest of the company. Now ID would inhabit space at the heart of Apple, allowing Jobs to work more closely with Jony and his team. It affirmed for all to see the elevated status of design within the company. In Jony’s words, ID was now truly “close to the heartbeat of the company.”1
The move was a big one logistically, too, since the studio had become home to big machinery and prototyping equipment. The new quarters were carefully crafted for Jony’s designers, with every piece of furniture—the tables, the chairs and even the glass—made to order.
A large space, the studio occupies most of the ground floor of IL2. Security is extremely tight, and a wall of large frosted windows across the bottom of the building prevents anyone from getting a peek inside.
Inside, the studio is divided into several different spaces. To the left of the entrance is a well-equipped kitchen with a large table where Jony’s team conducts their biweekly brainstorming sessions. To the right of the studio’s front entrance is a small, rarely used conference room.
Opposite the front entrance is Jony’s office. A glass cube measuring about twelve feet by twelve feet, it’s the only private office in the studio. The front wall and door are made of glass with stainless steel fittings, just like the ones in Apple’s stores. Except for a small shelf system, Jony’s office is bare with plain white walls, featuring no pictures of his family or design awards, just a desk, chair and lamp.
His leather chair is a Supporto chair from the UK office furniture manufacturer Hille. Designed in 1979 by the award-winning designer Fred Scott, the leather and aluminum chair is recognized as a design masterpiece. Jony himself cited it as one of his favorite designs (“the Supporto is a wonderful chair,” Jony told ICONmagazine),2and he selected it for the new Industrial Design Centre in Cupertino, California, and for his designers, all of whom sit at Supporto desks with leather chairs.
Jony’s desk was custom-made by London-based designer Marc Newsom, one of his best friends. The desk is usually bare except for his seventeen-inch MacBook and several colored pencils used for drawing, which are typically arranged neatly on his desk. He doesn’t use an external monitor or other peripheral equipment.
Directly outside Jony’s office are four large wooden project tables that are used to present prototype products to executives. This was where Steve Jobs gravitated when he visited the studio. In fact, the studio setup gave Jobs the idea for the big open tables in the Apple stores. Each table is dedicated to a different project—one for MacBooks, another for the iPad, the iPhone and so on. They are used to display models and prototypes of whatever Jony has to show Jobs and other executives. The models are covered at all times with black cloth.
Next to Jony’s office and the presentation tables is a large CAD room, also fronted by a glass wall. The CAD room is home to about fifteen CAD operators (“surface guys”). If the designers want to see what a CAD model looks like as a real object, they’ll send the file to a CNC milling machine in the machine shop next door.
The machine room, aka “the shop,” is at the far end of the space. The shop is divided internally into three rooms by more glass walls. At the front are three big CNC machines. These big hulking milling machines are capable of crafting anything from metal to RenShape. They have covers that contain scrap materials, making them “clean” machines. Behind them are the “dirty” machines, namely, various cutting and drilling machines that can create a mess. The so-called dirty shop is sealed behind glass. Next to it, on the right, is a finishing room with fine-sanding machines and a big paint-spraying booth about the size of a car.
The shop is used by the design team to make models of upcoming products to quickly validate ideas. “They’d get a CAD file for surfacing; they would create a tool path based on the surfaces, do all the setups and run a part,” said Satzger. As well as modeling the basic shape of a product, the team will make models of details: the corner of a product or its buttons, for example. Often, Jony’s team makes hundreds of models, just like Jony did in college. As the product development process progresses, the design team will outsource model making to an outside specialist firm.
Jony’s office, the presentation tables, the CAD room and shop are all to the right of the front entrance. On the other side, an opening near Jony’s office leads to the area where the designers work. In the large open space, lined by the long wall of frosted windows, the designers work at five large tables, subdivided by low dividers. The space is messy and chaotic, with boxes, parts, samples, bikes and toys everywhere. The atmosphere feels light, fun. “Someone might be skateboarding in there, doing jumps, or Bart Andre and Chris Stringer kicking a soccer ball,” said Satzger
Music is an important part of the design studio’s atmosphere. There are about twenty white speakers in the room, with a pair of thirty-six-inch-high concert subwoofers. “When you walked into this concrete and steel, highly reflective room, the sound was immediately deep and loud,” Satzger remembered. “All kinds of music from around the world is played. It’s really lively. We had so much music on that thing, you could pick anything.”
Jony is a big fan of techno—music that drove Jony’s boss, Jon Rubinstein, to distraction. “They played loud techno-pop in the design studio,” he said. “I like quiet so that I can focus and think properly. But the ID guys liked it.”
“The energy of that room, the noise of the room made me work a lot better,” said Satzger. “I hated sitting back in my little space. . . . [F]or me, the louder the noise the better.”
Steve Jobs liked the music too, and often turned up the music when he visited, but for more than its sonic pleasures. “When Steve came in, he wanted the conversation to be between him and the person he was talking to,” said Satzger. “In all these open spaces, if it’s quiet, it’s really easy to hear what people are talking about. When he came in, we would turn the music up so that his voice would carry directly to one person only. You really couldn’t hear what he was saying.”
The studio seemed to have a visible effect on the intense Jobs. “Steve in the ID space was a different person. He was a lot more relaxed and interactive,” Satzger said. “Steve had moods all the time. There were always things that were changing in how he approached people. But when he came in the ID space, he was always really comfortable.”
Jobs spent a lot of time in the studio, but when he was away, Jony used his absence as an opportunity to get work done for the absent master. “When he went away, we would do 150 to 200 percent more work,” Satzger explained. “It was a good chance to blast stuff out and put new work, new ideas in front of him when he came back.”
The Iron Curtain
Jobs significantly beefed up security when the design studio moved onto the main campus. Because the studio is Apple’s ideas factory, Jobs wanted no leaks. He knew security was sometimes lax on Valley Green, and that visitors were occasionally buzzed in by whoever was around. Jobs was determined that wouldn’t be the case in the new location.
The vast majority of Apple’s employees are barred from the company’s design lab. Even some members of the executive team are forbidden from entering the studio. Scott Forstall, for example, who rose to be head of iOS software, wasn’t allowed to visit. His badge wouldn’t even open the door.
Few outsiders have been inside the studio. Jobs would occasionally bring in his wife. Walter Isaacson was given a tour, but he described only the presentation tables in his biography of Jobs. The only known photograph of the studio was published in Timemagazine in October 2005.3The photo shows Jobs, Jony and three executives at the studio’s wooden project tables, the shop in the background.
