Jony Ive will be always be hailed as the designer who helped turn a struggling computer company into the world’s first trillion-dollar business. The departure of Apple’s chief design officer to found a new design company signifies the turn of a page in the history of industrial design. The British-born Ive, knighted in 2012, helped turn Apple into a producer of devices built around innovative design. The company will need to maintain his creative approach, even as it pivots away from relying on iPhones as its primary money-spinner.

Sir Jonathan joined Apple in 1992, shortly before it ran into financial difficulties. Steve Jobs’s return in 1997 helped reverse that descent. The deep friendship and creative partnership between the two was central to Apple’s fusing of form and functionality, software and hardware. Sir Jonathan drew on former Braun chief designer Dieter Rams for his most famous invention, the iPhone. Modernist looks were intimately linked to its main product innovation, the multitouch screen. Apple did not invent the smartphone, but it produced its enduring aesthetic.

The future relationship between Sir Jonathan and Apple remains unclear. Nevertheless, his loss as chief design officer comes at a time of growing uncertainty for the company, which derives two-thirds of its revenues from iPhone sales. Key markets have suffered a slowdown: in China, sales fell by nearly 22 per cent in the last quarter compared to 2018. Users are upgrading more slowly than in the past, criticising high costs and the incremental upgrades between generations. There is also stiff competition from other manufacturers. Over the past decade, Google, Huawei and other technology companies have converged on the minimalist lines Sir Jonathan drew in 2007, offering lower-cost and higher-specification phones.