“The best design explicitly acknowledges that you cannot disconnect the form from the material—the material informs the form, It is the polar opposite of working virtually in CAD to create an arbitrary form that you then render as a particular material, annotating a part and saying ‘that’s wood’ and so on. Because when an object’s materials, the materials’ processes and the form are all perfectly aligned, that object has a very real resonance on lots of levels. People recognize that object as authentic and real in a very particular way.”
— Jonathan Ive, SVP of Design at Apple.
Core77 speaks with Jonathan Ive on the design of the iPhone 4
Say what you will about Apple but they may have the best massmarket Design+Engineering+Manufacturing team on the planet. The tolerance on the SIM card enclosure is flat out breathtaking for a mass marketing consumer electronics device.