in 1995, while interning at apple, i bought a NeXT cube for $150 at stanford surplus
while designing mac os X with steve, he liked to tell us how the NeXT was better
so i started bringing in my cube to win arguments by showing him that things weren't as good as he remembered
this happened so often that it got to the point where if he walked in and saw the cube in the room, he’d just let it go
still the best $150 i’ve spent
happy 20 years mac os x!
a few fun facts to celebrate 5 years of
#AppleWatch
here’s a photo taken of the team on launch day, that’s me in the centre. (the beard ages me but my wife
@bella_bongiorno
won’t let me leave home without it)
i created the solar watch face as a way for muslims observing ramadan to quickly see the position of the sun and for all to understand the sun's relationship to time.
#RamadanMubarak
here’s a reproduction of my original sketch for the home screen. the shape of the circular icon was driven by the clock that lived in the centre of what i originally called the dock. the crown gave the home screen a dimensionality, allowing you to scrub through layers of the ui.
tonight, i’m taking the stage
@TEDTalks
to share a bit of what we’ve been building
@humane
i’m excited about tomorrow, it’s gonna be different after today
the first batch of ai pins started to leave the factory this past monday. here’s the first pallet loaded onto the trucks. a big moment that's been in the making for quite some time.
this journey, filled with challenges, learning curves, and perseverance, wouldn't have been…
the butterflies in the motion watch face were shot and animated by
@zuckermanstudio
. none were harmed, they had already passed. andrew just gave them life.
here’s the blue 🦋 he lives with us now:
for iphone 1:
the original mac,
blade runner,
2001: a space odyssey,
sony walkman TPS-L2,
braun ET66,
the concorde,
massimo vignale,
henry dreyfuss,
apollo 11,
the beatles,
warp records,
NASA,
polaroid,
arthur c. clarke,
eero saarinen
among others…
my first prototype was built on a 6th gen nano strapped to this band. i had just wrapped up ios5 and took it down to show the ID team what notification centre and siri was – and what it could be in the future. i never got to share it with steve. we lost him right after ios5.
13 years ago today when we announced the iphone - i chose to walk through sf to the launch event at moscone center - wanting to observe and commit the world to memory, as i knew things would never be the same.
the indisputable product of the year was the mask.
no other product category in our lifetime was adopted as quickly, by so many people, in such a short time.
designed and created by everyone, everywhere...
2. Humane’s wearable AI device
Humane revealed a wearable AI device designed to replace smartphones at a recent TED event.
It appears as a tiny black puck that slips into your pocket, takes over your phone, and employs AI to update you on your day.
an inside look at ai pin, as we head to
#CES2024
(sound on)
a ton of technology in a small package. a lot of industry firsts. all beautifully crafted and rigorously tested.
2024 will be the year of ai hardware, and we knew this moment was coming when we started building 5…
10 years can feel like a long time, or like yesterday. for me, & i'm sure for others that learned from steve, today feels like yesterday.
i didn’t have the closest relationship with steve. we didn’t socialize, we didn’t travel. we just had serious conversations & made things.
i‘ve always loved straps that were uncomplicated, the mechanism for the loop watchband was an evolution of velcro speedmaster straps worn by apollo astronauts.
my conceiving and leading the design of iOS7 was the hardest. we designed and implemented the future direction of iOS in under 7 months. we had an impossible time constraint, but it was critical to show the world that a post-steve apple could still be relevant and take risks.
want to hear about these chairs?
in sept 2020,
@imranchaudhri
saw these Bouroullec chairs on craigslist for $250/piece. turns out a local biz school had 4 floors of designer furniture & 3 days to get rid of it all. our office was furnished for a few thousand dollars in 1 day!
digital touch was originally called E.T. for electronic touch. i called it that for its potential as a new form of emotional connection.
the drawing “ink" was inspired by my graffiti days. the ephemera was designed to communicate transmission while making it guilt free.
the great sufi muslim poet rumi once said:
“when you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy”
as a sufi muslim, i practice living from the heart and looking for joy in all that exists.
not often do we see a tech company like
@Humane
come into existence
here's my new video!
i put together everything I could find about this secretive tech startup (that has hired 60 former apple employees)
Beyond the iPhone: what is Humane?
the design team at
@humane
is growing!
i’d love to hear from anyone passionate about building an impactful and exquisite future through industrial, product and interaction design.
DM your story and portfolio*
*privacy respected, creativity encouraged
We are thrilled to announce that Ai Pin will start shipping in March 2024.
All of us here at Humane can’t wait for you to experience your Ai Pin, the world’s first wearable computer powered by Ai. We’re incredibly grateful for the enthusiasm and support, especially from our…
initially, i didn’t realise that the people you create with are just as critical as what you are creating. my deepest & most meaningful work has been done while building some of my deepest & most meaningful relationships. when you focus on these partnerships, you create magic.
"...the heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again. less sure about everything. it freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life”
-steve jobs
it is nice to have company.
ai pin is screen-free, hands-free, and app-free.
the future of computing is less manual and more automatic.
it’s not only faster; it’s set to get even faster and more capable over time.
using it provides a level of presence and freedom unmatched by any other computer.
so many more lessons learned & not forgotten for all of us who had that kind of relationship with him.
10 years on, i still get excited to show him something new.
the student & the teacher. always listening & learning.
still inspired.
still excited.
thank you, still.
🙏🏽
still really pumped about this... shipped a few 1.0's but this one hit different
so... wanna to do something for a few of my twitter friends and family — DM me for a discount code for 17% off anything you want on
(supplies are very limited as our CFO…
the first batch of ai pins started to leave the factory this past monday. here’s the first pallet loaded onto the trucks. a big moment that's been in the making for quite some time.
this journey, filled with challenges, learning curves, and perseverance, wouldn't have been…
beyond thrilled to have ken
@kocienda
join the
@humane
family.
the most meaningful part of being able to build things with great people are the memories you build.
so excited to be building new things and new memories with him again 🙏🏽
Amazing video demonstrating the AI Pin was recently posted on the
@Humane
discord by
@imranchaudhri
. The video speak for itself. Happy thanksgiving! Join the Discord:
here’s a little thing most people don’t know...
the hearts in the imessage send effects, the apple watch, and even digital touch were all designed as “gifts” for
@bella_bongiorno
#HappyValentinesDay
@joshm
i totally get where you're coming from, and i share a lot of your sentiments. it’s much of the why we started humane back in 2018. we were adamant about developing ai hardware driven by a new kind ai operating system that seamlessly integrates with both devices and the cloud. it…
we think very deeply about everything. so honoured to be able to make this film with friends and people that have inspired me to make great things.
watch the film here:
bas & i spent 6 months on scrollbars for aqua, the new Mac OS X. we wanted to communicate more about the content below the fold & explored hundreds of animations, constructions & behaviors. we landed on a simple animating texture which remained until i redesigned them for iphone.
LVMH, Louis Vuitton and Off White are devastated to announce the passing of Virgil Abloh, on Sunday, November 28th, of cancer, which he had been battling privately for several years.
today.
feeling very grateful for health and growth and our unstoppable team
@Humane
and of course for my forever strengthening partnership with
@imranchaudhri
looking forward to what’s ahead.
love finding treasures like this while organising the office.
the original macintonish sales brochure from 1984:
"wouldn't it make sense to teach computers about people, instead of teaching people about computers?"
still such a powerful and important take.
he appreciated debate & didn’t mind being wrong because he too, was learning. always learning. that’s what good teachers do.
i helped him see that helvetica wasn’t really ever going to go away & eventually he let me use it on the iPhone.
he inspired me i to go to india for the first time & spend time there alone like he did when he was younger. i taught him to to incorporate “that’s tight” in a design discourse. he showed me what it meant to care about customers and to push things forward, in the right way.
i leave you with the words of my mentor, who i believe got that too:
“i didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me...”
so great to see so much ❤️ for the watch.
i didn’t work on all of it of course and the pic isn’t the entire team. it’s not possible to name or show all.
interested in seeing some of their names? feel free to explore patents for some things i worked on:
massive thanks to
@guyraz
for having
@bella_bongiorno
and me on the
@howibuiltthis
podcast — so special to open up and delve deeper into our work on a platform we’ve always admired.
if you’d like to give it a listen, our episode is available here:
as a designer, i know that joy is a precondition to inspired work. that the love that goes into creating something will be felt by people that use it.
this has been a part of everything i’ve ever made.
it’s what i will always seek.
because joy is how creativity is set alight.
great design forms its roots in conversation and that dialogue is where design transforms from an idea to reality.
having the right people in the conversation is critical and
@andy_matuschak
was always a pleasure to have in the room.
@sashadem
Legitimate peripheral participation was also key. Especially as a total design noob, it was so valuable to simply be in a room with people like
@imranchaudhri
—not necessarily contributing to a design but merely trying to interpret what he was saying into something implementable.
i didn’t think people would strap the original ipod to their arm & go running. felt it was too bulky; i was wrong.
i thought people would really take to the ipad home button gestures ken kocienda & i developed for iOS 5 as the home button was too loud. we were years too early.
@imranchaudhri
Happy birthday!!
What projects were you most skeptical about through their inception that ended up being successful? And the reverse: any you were convinced would work, but ended up not?
(1) steve carefully chose the le corbusier chair that was used for the event. there was a sea of LC2 armchairs and each was carried out so he could inspect it in the stage lighting. did it have the right coloring? was there wear in the right places? did it have the right sit?
the morning of the iphone keynote freddy anzures and i walked to moscone so we could observe & remember the world before it changed. i haven’t realised the total impact, apple was just the start. i care deeply about how we communicate & connect & it will always be part of my work
looking to learn as much as i could, i started emailing him directly… we started a dialogue and he become one of the best teachers i would ever have.
when it came to compute, he truly was an expert at everything. no one better, & generally, he was always right.
some professors would criticise me by saying i was a better designer than i was a student. i took it as a compliment. i didn’t value what it meant to be a good student (at the time).
i came to apple to learn & for me, school didn’t really kick in until steve came back to apple.
with steve, i listened, very closely — all the time. that’s what a good student does.
in design school, i was a bit of a maverick, eager to get out in the real world. i didn’t follow the rules, i’d break them because that’s how i showed i learned them.
we designed p1 and p2 at the same time. p1 felt like an evolution of ipod & not a new platform so steve asked bas & i to use our multitouch work to develop p2. after myself, greg christie, bas & lemay convinced steve p2 was the future, forstall built the team to build it.
thrilled to share Ai Pin on
@BBCClick
! dive into how we’re redefining wearable tech and AI’s role in our daily lives. watch the full segment with
@bella_bongiorno
and
@shionamc
here: