Jony Ive on quality

I think it’s really easy for anybody to say “we care about quality” or “quality is job #1”. In fact, I just wrote it twice…it’s very easy to do. But actually executing on quality is extremely difficult as quality takes time and care. And it’s hard to argue for something that takes time when all the other parts of the business can go faster…in many ways quality is an all-or-nothing proposition. Either your company really does mold itself around a quality-first process or it doesn’t.

An recent post by Horace Dediu, The price is right, brings up the age-old question of how Apple does it…how do they consistently produce such high quality products? Dediu’s includes a quote from Jony Ive:

We’re keenly aware that when we develop and make something and bring it to market that it really does speak to a set of values. And what preoccupies us is that sense of care, and what our products will not speak to is a schedule, what our products will not speak to is trying to respond to some corporate or competitive agenda. We’re very genuinely designing the best products that we can for people.