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I’m not really sure why someone would hire Ive to design a car. I don’t know much about him, but to me he’s mostly known for designing Apple products, not luxury vehicles.

Hiring someone because of their name recognition in a role they aren’t suited for would of course backfire.

(Again, maybe he does have some prior work that means he’s suited for the job and I’m just unaware)

5 comments

Looking at the Ferrari and it's missing that certain look, styling, and tradition Ferrari's have. This design looks like a nice modern electric car, but doesn't have the wow of a Ferrari.

it doesnt even look like nice modern electric car, maybe only by tesla 10 years old design standards, it looks way worse than Xiaomi SU7, Zeekr 001 or Porsche Taycan and let's better not mention cool retro Lancia Delta sorry I mean Hyundai Ioniq 5 or Ioniq 6 or that cute Honda e

if Ferrari wanted to make car which would look interesting for potential Ferrari owners it should have look something like BYD Yangwang U9 or Aion Hyper SSR now those are cool EV sport cars

It's really a nissan leaf with a nicer leather interior.

Exactly. Looking at it, it could be any generic unknown Chinese EV brand.

And a lot of people think he ruined at least some Apple products (too-thin laptops).

> he ruined at least some Apple products

In my small circle of car friends, the new Ferrari is being called the "Magic mouse" of ferraris and posting memes of the car upside down with the cable plugged in at the bottom.

I was hoping for an SF90 meets Nevera when they were talking about it originally :(

But that is entirely unoriginal and derivative, compared to a designer wanting to make a mark.

It's the Nissan Leaf 2026 Pro

https://www.nissanusa.com/vehicles/electric-cars/leaf.html

Wow. The resemblance is uncanny.

> the "Magic mouse" of ferraris

Could be worse. Could be the 1998 iMac mouse of cars. (No way to tell which way it's going.)

I posit that a mouse that needs to be on its back to be charged, thus rendering it completely useless during that time, to be much much much worse than a round mouse with no immediate indication which way is forward...

I heard they didn't want it to be functional while charging because then people would use it plugged in all the time. They wanted it to be clear that it takes a little time to charge, then you use it unplugged. Might make more sense if there were battery level LEDs on the top or something. But it's just a couple reminders and then bang it's dead.

Can’t let people use it the way they want to now can we? They gotta use it the way I want them That’s the kind of attitude that gets you laptops with no ports and keyboards that don’t work.

Well, my Ive-cursed 2016 MacBook Pro had 4 (!) ThunderBolt/USB-C ports, which I kind of miss (though you had to use one of them for charging, you could also charge from either side). It was both thinner and lighter than recent 16" MacBook Pro models (but with ~5 hour battery life.)

It also had a semi-useful touchbar, no actual physical ESC key, a terrible "butterfly" keyboard that was replaced twice, and a large trackpad that had terrible palm rejection until they eventually fixed it.

So mostly not great, but I miss the form factor and those 4 TB/USB-C ports. I dream about having more of them.

The Magic Trackpad is fine and works fine both wired and wireless.

> because then people would use it plugged in all the time.

So people want to use the mouse while plugged in, and Apple designs a product that limits that...

Talk about hubris.

It takes a half hour to get months of charge back, so it’s not a functional problem. I think you wanted to have a wireless mouse with a port in the back so it feels like a wired mouse when you want it to. That would have been cool but I suspect a standard usb cable wouldn’t be rated for being continually contorted and wouldn’t be as pleasant as a wired mouse wire designed for that, so you’d need a special wire and it was just not going to work.

Even if it is half an hour, that's half an hour of /no functionality/ - whether that is acceptable to you is a personal decision, but to claim it's not a functional problem is a lie.

My Sony wireless headphones have a similar issue. They cannot be used (with Bluetooth / ANC) when charging. My ReDragon USB mouse does not have that issue - it has a standard USB-C port on the front edge and I only need to charge it every few weeks, which is far less often than I charge a phone, so insertion cycles is not a concern.

I had some Skullcandy bluetooth headphones I liked, and when the foam started to go, I bought the new model of the same product. The new ones instantly disconnect when charging, so you can't listen with them wired to a charger/power bank. Why???

> That would have been cool but I suspect a standard usb cable wouldn’t be rated for being continually contorted

I doubt that had anything to do with it. I've had multiple Magsafe cables that spend their entire existence in one spot on a desk (even using cable guides to keep them sitting within a few millimeters) do some bizarre "paper lanterning" of the rubber at the connector, and I'm far from the only one.

Let's be absolutely real. The port on the back would have ruined Ive's militance on sleekness and that was the reason it wasn't included. Form over function.

Jony Ive without a Steve Jobs to keep him grounded doesn't work.

From my work experience, you can't give a designer unlimited power because he/she will turn the product into an art project.

Not to mention iOS 7.

And the iPhone 5c which had toy-like colors and was reminiscent of Fisher-Price products. The 5c case with holes made it even worse.

The hiring brand is Ferrari. Its entire business is predicated on a Paris-Hilton-style effect, whereby it is famous for being famous. Tactics like hiring Jony Ive are a common way to keep this virtuous cycle afloat. It's not really about design, it's about PR/hype/reputation/branding.

it's not about the design yet stock plunged 6% for no reason then?

stock has been going down all year, drop was just bump coming back down

markets are volatile, 6% on one ticker is noise

I'm pretty confident that in such a case they just hire the name, and that people doing the actual work will be hired on purpose with the required qualifications.

imo the exterior looks like a cartoon BYD and should be killed with fire.

however while folks are negative on Ive for the car shape, he only designed the interiors not the car body, and the interiors are kinda lovely car interior design:

-no touchscreen (dangerous while driving) -clicky, intuitive tactile switches and buttons -thoughtful use of color (display base color changes based on driving mode)

I mean even just looking at those air conditioning vents (rotate vent to open/close) is classive Ive: intuitive but sophisticated.

I hope more manufacturers copy these new/old patterns on the interiors.

> he only designed the interiors not the car body

TopGear reports otherwise [0]:

> In a genius move, they hired design agency LoveFrom to handle the exterior and interior execution: that’s headed by former Apple chief design officer, Sir Jonathan Ive.

[0] https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/its-finally-here-m...

you are correct, I amend my claim.

the interiors are nice, but overall imo the car is a design failure.

Thanks for sharing this!

Is the giant rectangle in the middle of the dashboard not a touchscreen?

fair point, but it is not a tesla-style “giant iPad”

primary inputs while driving are buttons and knobs

> imo the exterior looks like a cartoon BYD and should be killed with fire.

Honestly, if the car itself was a BYD Luce and cost $50,000, the internet would be in awe and I personally think it would be sick.

But nothing about it screams (or even whispers) half a million dollars and then some.

It looks like an iPhone. They just had to raise the cam^Hboot and lower the front. And the backlights look so original: besides 50 car brands, nobody else has this type of backlights. /s