This article was taken from the July 2011 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
When Jonathan Ive joined Jobs in 1997, two chemical reactions began to take place at Apple. The first was a bidding war of material excellence. Ive knew Jobs was a savant-level aesthete and that he could satisfy his needs with details, materials and emotional ergonomics. Jobs knew Ive would thrive under his Medici-like patronage. They whipped each other into a frenzy of aesthetic bliss that we still sense today. The second is hidden behind Jobs's populist brio. A humble, humanist agenda drives him. It's evident in everything from the "breathing" sleep light to the magnetic power lead; both would have been casualties of the bean counters had not Jobs and Ive realised a simple truth: start with what we love and work back to the technology. Apple products are souvenirs of an ethos, not just "stuff". The products are densely laminated emotional totems. The ultimate irony is they're intensely analogue in their interactive joy.
Other lessons? Start with emotional resonance, then deliver on that promise. Don't ask people what they're going to want -- they don't know.
Richard Seymour is a product designer and cofounder and director of seymourpowell (seymourpowell.com)
More from the Steve Jobs MBA [
Unit 101: Future thinking](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/unit-101) Unit 103: Connect your people [
Unit 104: Master the entire business](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/unit-104)
Unit 105: Build from the bottom up
Unit 106: Interpret, don't impersonate
Unit 107: It's all about design [
Unit 108: Dazzle your audience](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/unit-108) [
Unit 109: Steve Jobs: in his own words](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/unit-109)
Unit 110: Challenge the expectations of others [
Unit 111: Be your own competition](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/unit-111)
Unit 112: Reboot, reboot, reboot [
Unit 113: The big reveal is the best advertising](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/unit-113) [
Unit 114: Stay hungry, stay foolish](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/unit-114)
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
