Sir Jony Ive’s First Post Apple Hardware Product Is Record Player

Apple’s former legendary designer, Sir Jony Ive, has resurfaced after he designed a record turntable for a British home audio technology supplier called Linn.

LoveFrom, the design firm formed by Sir Jony Ive, collaborated with Linn on a 50th anniversary edition of its Sondek LP12 turntable.

Sir Jony and Apple had severed their last ties to each other in July 2022, when Apple ended its consulting deal with Sir Jony, despite promising to work with him “long into the future.”

Leaving Apple

Sir Jony had for years worked side-by-side with the late Steve Jobs at Apple, and his contribution to Apple’s revival could not be overstated CEO Tim Cook said three years ago.

The British designer was also described by Apple’s Steve Jobs as his spiritual partner at the firm.

Steve Jobs considered Sir Jony as one of his closest friends and once declared that the lead designer and executive “has more operational power than anyone else at Apple except me.”

Sir Jony designed Apple’s breakthrough products – ranging from the 1998 iMac G3 to the 1st-generation iPhone, Apple Watch, and iPad.

However Sir Jony left Apple in late 2019, after he announced his decision to step down and form his own design company, called ‘LoveForm’.

Linn Sondek LP12-50

In a blog post, Linn described how Sir Jony Ive had agreed to be the designer for the 50th anniversary of Linn and the Sondek LP12 turntable, which started with a LinkedIn request (from LoveForm) to the firm in question, which was deleted into a spam folder.

The firm has confirmed that just 250 models of the Linn Sondek LP12-50 will be produced and delivered between August 2023 and March 2024.

And it will be expensive.

Very expensive, with the limited edition turntable available to reserve now for an eye-watering £50,000 (or $60,000).