That's been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.
The problem with the internet start-up craze isn't that too many people are starting companies; it's that too many people aren't sticking with it. That's somewhat understandable, because there are many moments that are filled with despair and agony, when you have to fire people and cancel things and deal with very difficult situations. That's when you find out who you are and what your values are.
Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works. The design of the Mac wasn't what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it was how it worked. To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it's all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don't take the time to do that.
There's nothing that makes my day more than getting an e-mail from some random person in the universe who just bought an iPad over in the UK and tells me the story about how it's the coolest product they've ever brought home in their lives. That's what keeps me going. It's what kept me five years ago [when he was diagnosed with cancer], it's what kept me going 10 years ago when the doors were almost closed. And it's what will keep me going five years from now whatever happens.
So, I want to show you four things. I want to show you the phone app, photos, got a calendar, and SMS messaging. The kind of things you would find on a typical phone, but in a very untypical way. So let's go ahead and take a look. So let's go to our phone first. You see that icon in the lower left-hand corner, the phone? I just push it right here, and boom, I'm in the phone. And I've got five buttons across the bottom: favorites, recents, contacts, keypad and voice mail. I'm in contacts, right now, again. How do I move around my contacts? I just scroll through them. And so, let's say I want to make a call to Jony Ive. I can just push here, and I see Jony Ive's context, with all his information: his three phone numbers, his e-mail, whatever else, his address, whatever else I've got. It's all in one place. And if I want to call Jony, all I do is push his phone number. I'll call his mobile number right now. And now, we are calling Jony here.
Now this is a widescreen movie so I just double-tap and I can see the whole thing here, or I can fill up the screen, whichever I like. And again, I've got on-screen controls here. Isn't this cool? So we can be watching feature-length movies just like this. Alrighty. So that is the iPod. Pretty cool, huh? We've just started. So again, touch your music to scroll through your songs, scroll through your playlists. It's incredible. Widescreen video like you've never seen on a portable device, 160 pixels per inch, gorgeous screen quality, gorgeous album art, and cover flow. It's the best iPod we've ever made. Again, some of the screen shots. It's unbelievable. Here's some album art I just put up, so you can see what it looks like. Just, no matter what you like, it looks pretty doggone gorgeous. And of course, cover flow and video, with on-screen controls.
And if I want to pick somebody, let's say I want to pick the Beatles, I just tap them, and here's the Beatles songs with their albums right here. If I want to play Sgt. Pepper's I just hit Sgt. Pepper's right there, and "A Little Help From My Friends." Look at this gorgeous album artwork here. Of course, I've got a volume control. Now, I've got a little button up in the corner right here, you can see in the upper right-hand corner, I can hit that and flip the album art around. There's all the other songs back here. And I can play "Lovely Rita" if I want to. Flip back around. Very simple. Right, I can set some stars back here just by setting the arrows. That's a five star album. Isn't that cool? Yeah, it's pretty nice.