• Apple CEO Steve Jobs asked Jony Ive not to dwell on his potential actions posthumously.
• Ive shared insights on their close relationship on the “Desert Island Discs” podcast.
• Ive led Apple’s design team, creating iconic products like the iMac and iPhone.

Before he died in 2011, Steve Jobs left iPhone designer Jony Ive with a request.

Ive led Apple’s design team to help create the company’s most iconic products, and he developed a close relationship with its cofounder along the way. During an appearance on BBC’s “Desert Island Discs” podcast, Ive talked about some of his last conversations with Jobs, who had pancreatic cancer.

Jobs had a specific request for after his death: Don’t get hung up on what he would’ve done.

Ive recalled Jobs saying, “When I’m not here, I really don’t want you to be thinking ‘well, what would Steve do?'”

Yet despite the warning, Ive said he still finds himself asking that exact question. He said he thinks of Jobs’ parting wish at each slip-up, and believes Jobs “probably did” want him to wonder what the late Apple CEO would do.

The former chief designer officer sounded choked up while speaking about the 17 missed phone calls he’d received on the day he learned about his best friend’s illness. In the years since his death, Ive said the “absurd anecdotes” alleging Jobs was difficult to work with led to a misunderstanding of Jobs’ resolve to turn his ideas into a reality.

Ive said he and Jobs ate lunch together “every day of the week,” went on family vacations, and had continuous conversations about design.

After Jobs returned to Apple as CEO in 1997, he tasked a young Ive to design a network computer with internet connectivity as the company faced bankruptcy. The “impossible task” resulted in the colorful iMac desktop released in 1999.

Ive led design on the iPhone, iPad, and other products before announcing his departure from Apple in 2019 after 27 years at the company.