The tent was critical to making the event as glamorous as a high-end fashion show.īut under Mr. He regarded a rave from Vogue as more important than any tech reviewer’s opinion. He believed the watch’s success hinged on persuading the world that it was a fashionable accessory. It was a microcosm of the challenges beginning to haunt Apple’s top designer. Few could comprehend the logistics of moving trees, much less the staggering cost. “They want $25 million,” a colleague said of the event’s price tag.Īpple marketers at the table were aghast. His extravagant vision wasn’t going over well.
Ive recommended removing two dozen trees and erecting a lavish white tent. To bring cosmopolitan gloss to a suburban landscape of strip malls, Mr. The Apple Watch was slated to be introduced at a local community college auditorium near the company’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters. Ive was pushing for a product reveal more audacious than any in the theatrical company’s history.
Now, he was seated at a conference table with Tim Cook, the company’s chief executive, the two men embodying nearly 40 years of collaboration, with one designing and the other assembling the devices that turned a failing business into the world’s largest company. His love of pure, simple lines had already redrawn the world through such popular products as the iMac, iPod and iPhone. It was 2014, and Apple’s future, more than ever, seemed to hinge on Mr. After two years of development, thousands of engineering hours and countless days agonizing over the suppleness of leather and strength of gold for Apple’s bold new product, the company’s design chief, Jony Ive, was thrust into a high-stakes debate over the most primitive concern: a tent.
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