Face it: looks count. People judge things on appearances. It's a hard fact of life, but once it's accepted, the sky's the limit for those with a flair for style. Would the iMac have been a phenomenon if it had the same feature set but looked like a beige monitor with an enormous butt like the Gateway Astro? Would the iBook be topping the sales charts if it were a squat black box with nothing but straight lines and right angles? Yeah, right. Which means that Apple (and the whole Mac-using community) owes a huge debt to the man who makes its products look the way they do: Jonathan Ive.

Of course, that doesn't mean that we in the Mac-using community actually need to repay our debt to Mr. Ive; we figure Apple's probably paying him plenty. On top of that, his creations rack up so many awards, Ive's probably having a Trophy Wing added on to his house right about now. And last week, the iGuru received yet another award to dress up his place: the Royal Society of Arts bestowed upon him the coveted Medal for Achievement in Design in a London ceremony. (Throw it on the pile, Jon.) A MacWEEK article has more on Mr. Ive's latest prestigious honor.

The really interesting stuff, though, is the list of little details about his creations that Ive shared with the audience. Industrial design isn't just about looks-- it's about substance, too, and Macs have substance oozing out of their ports. For instance, Ive revealed that every iBook has a "tiny spanner set" (that'd be "wrenches" for the uninitiated) hidden in its plastics in case they're needed for an emergency screen replacement. And the new iMac case is actually a lens, whose special shape circulates air better and allowed the removal of the fan. Crazy! It's little touches like that which make Apple's-- and Ive's-- products masterpieces of design. Well, that and the fact that they look about a bazillion times better than anything else out there. Substance is one thing, but style rules the sales figures.