Photo via Flickr/Simon Q
Photo via Flickr/Simon Q

If you have a few spare minutes to kill today, The New Yorker has a profile on Apple design chief Jonathan Ive out.

Basically, a “lifestyles of the rich and famous in tech land” piece, there’s more name-dropping going on in the first few paragraphs than at a CES afterparty. Rupert Murdoch, Marissa Mayer, Jimmy Iovine, Sean Combs, Bono, J.J. Abrams. Even Chris-freaking-Martin of Coldplay.

Now “one of the two most powerful people in the world’s most valuable company,” according to the story, the piece goes into the history of the 47-year-old senior VP of design for Apple, including his early days at the flailing company before Steve Jobs came back on board, asking Ives in their initial meeting, “Fuck, you’ve not been very effective, have you?”

Of course, we all know what comes next. iMac, Macbook, iPod, iPhone, iPad, World Domination. Etc. The New Yorker gives Ive the whole “Behind the Music” treatment of how he rose to the power position he holds today.

There are some choice moments: In one scene, someone tells Ive that people are lining up outside Apple stores, thinking that new devices are out that day. Ive thinks back to his first line — a King Tut exhibit at the British Museum. Other choice nuggets include the possibility that some of Ive’s suggestions to Abrams on lightsaber design might make it into Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

But, overall, despite the history of development and design, the story really smacks of tech-royalty excess: expensive watches, beautiful clothes, lush landscapes and luxury cars that would make the Great Gatsby look like a pauper. A sign o’ the times of our insatiable consumerism and the latest gadget in this life. And the scenes behind it.

Let us not forget where those little gadgets are manufactured, yes?

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