Jonathan Ive Knighted

Jonathan Ive has been honoured by Queen Elizabeth II as a Knight Commander of British Empire (KBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours List in appriciation for "service to design and enteprise".

Sir Jonathan, whose full name is Jonathan Paul Ive, is currently Apple’s Senior Vice President in Industrial Design: the mastermind behind Apple's favourite designs like iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook, PowerBook...

Jonathan Ive is said to be inspired for designing through his father who had been a Silversmith. After studying Industrial design at Northumbria University, Ive became a co-founder of London design Agency called 'Tangerine'. Like most companies, Apple also sought design tasks from Tangerine. Apple was impressed with Ive's work on a notebook design and invited him to join Apple. In 1992, Jonathan Ive joined Apple. But, it is said that Ive was dissapointed with Apple those days due to certain company issues, until Steve Jobs was regained by Apple in 1997. With Steve Jobs arrival, Jonathan Ive was appointed to his current position. His first assignment was the iMac. iPod was his next worldwide design success. He gained enormous popularity within Apple while his designs make popularity for Apple.

In Steve Jobs' biography written by Walter Isaacson, Mr. Jobs has described Mr. Ive as his "spiritual partner". However, it is also said that Ive was hurt by Mr. Jobs taking credit for innovations by the design teams. Ive had never cashed in on his fame. It is reported that Sir Jonathan currently holds over 400 design patents.

Sir Jonathan is previleged to use 'Sir' as he is a citizen of British-commonwealth, incontrast with noncommonwealth knights such as Bill Gates (who too was honoured with knighthood in 1986).