Note: While reading a book whenever I come across something interesting, I highlight it on my Kindle. Later I turn those highlights into a blogpost. It is not a complete summary of the book. These are my notes which I intend to go back to later. Let’s start!

  • “We don’t do focus groups—that is the job of the designer,” said Jony. “It’s unfair to ask people who don’t have a sense of the opportunities of tomorrow from the context of today to design.”

  • Embodied in a program that runs on the company’s internal network, the Apple New Product Process(ANPP) resembled a giant checklist. It detailed exactly what everyone was to do at every stage for every product, with instructions for every department ranging from hardware to software, and on to operations, finance, marketing, even the support teams that troubleshoot and repair the product after it goes to market. “It’s everything from the supply chain to the stores,” said one former executive. “It’s hooked into all the suppliers and the suppliers’ suppliers

  • Another inspiration for the ANPP was the modern engineering management system known as “concurrent engineering,” which permits different departments to work in parallel (unlike the old model, under which projects get passed from one team to another in serial).

  • The ANPP involves every department from the outset, including functions like marketing, whose work will only be seen after the product is launched.

  • Getting rid of the latch was not initially seen as a “wow” factor but part of the team’s relentless drive to make products with fewer and fewer parts—again, a defining characteristic of Jony’s design vision. “Less parts means better tolerancing and better part-to-part relationships,” said one designer. In other words, the product goes together better.

  • As with the marketing of the iPod, Jony’s team also designed the iMac’s packaging. Boxes may seem trivial, but Jony’s team felt that unpacking a product greatly influenced the all-important first impressions. “Steve and I spend a lot of time on the packaging,” Jony said then. “I love the process of unpacking something. You design a ritual of unpacking to make the product feel special. Packaging can be theater, it can create a story.”