Craft at Scale ⇥ vogue.co.uk

Jony Ive, as quoted by Scarlett Kilcooley-O’Halloran, for Vogue:

What we’ve done fairly consistently is try to invest tremendous care in the development of our products. It’s not so much about things being touched personally – there are many ways to craft something. It’s easy to assume that just because you make something in small volumes, not using many tools, that there is integrity and care – that is a false assumption.

This is a fascinating concept: craftsmanship in a mass production environment, the scale of which is unprecedented. It’s one thing to precisely cut grooves in a tiny dial once, or make a single display that’s laminated to a piece of sapphire. It’s also one thing to make a million crappy plastic products. It’s a whole different story to try to execute goldsmith-like craftsmanship millions of times over. That’s something Apple is entirely unparalleled at.